Anything But Civil

“Ms. Loan-Wilsey writes with vivid imagery that immediately brings to life the late nineteenth century in this engrossing and thoroughly enjoyable tale. Miss Hattie Davish is a force to be reckoned with, and I’m eagerly awaiting more of her adventures.”

“Fans of historical mysteries should be delighted with this debut.”

“A wonderful read from a welcome addition to the genre. This one shouldn’t be missed—it has it all!”

“
A Lack of Temperance
shows no lack of a fresh setting, spunky amateur detective, fascinating characters, and intriguing mystery. Anna Loan-Wilsey has a real talent for pulling the reader into a past world of both charm and chaos. Heroine Hattie and her typewriter certainly travel well! I can’t wait to read her next adventure.”

“
Eureka Springs is usually a peaceful spa resort, but when Hattie Davish arrives with her typewriter she finds the town in an uproar. Temperance ladies are attacking saloons and her new employer is missing. This is a fast-paced and fascinating read, peopled with feisty females, giving us a glimpse of how far women were actually prepared to go for the cause.”

Books by Anna Loan-Wilsey

A LACK OF TEMPERANCE

 

ANYTHING BUT CIVIL

 

 

 

Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

ANNA LOAN-WILSEY

KENSINGTON BOOKS

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

To my mother,
Joan Suzanne Loan

I’d like to thank Rachel O’Neill at the Galena History Museum for her quick and gracious responses to questions about some very minute details of Galena’s storied past. Steve Repp, historical librarian at the Galena Public Library, helped me navigate the invaluable resources in the Alfred Mueller Historical Collections.

 

I’m grateful for the support of the team at Kensington, including my editor, John Scognamiglio; Barbara Wild, copy editor (who’s as much of a stickler for historical detail as I am); Vida Engstrand, my publicist; and the art duo of Kristine Mills and Judy York for such wonderful covers—I couldn’t be happier.

 

And most of all, I’d like to thank my family, especially my husband Brian, for their votes of confidence, editorial comments, genuine interest, and love.

 

—Marcus Annaeus Lucanus,
A.D.
39–65

“I
s he dead?”

“Yes,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer.

“Damn!”

Sir Arthur paused for a moment from his pacing, lifted his cigar again, and after a long inhale blew several rings of smoke, that floated toward me like dissipating halos. I sat poised with my finger on the brittle, yellow paper waiting for his word.

“Read me the details, Hattie.”

I glanced down to the paragraph detailing the officer’s demise and read, “ ‘The rebels have lately been playing a sharp game in front of a part of our line, near Appomattox. At this point there is a small creek in front of our works, across which they have built a dam, which has threatened to force back our picket line to a dangerous extent. To counteract this, Lieutenant Colonel Regan had devised works which he superintended personally. On visiting a part of the line, a rebel sharpshooter succeeded, after several attempts, in fatally wounding him, the ball entering the right side of the neck.’ ”

“What’s the date on that newspaper?”

“The fifteenth of November 1864,” I said. I made a few notes in my book, checked Lieutenant Colonel Regan from the list, and then returned the newspaper scrapbook to the shelf, lining it carefully up with the others.

“Bloody hell!” Sir Arthur plopped down into the leather sofa and slapped his knee sharply. “I would’ve bet a pint Regan was at Appomattox. No wonder we haven’t been able to track him down. The man’s dead. Well, check him off the list, Hattie. Ah, General Starrett.” The last remark Sir Arthur directed to the elderly gentleman who appeared in the doorway. I rose from my chair as Sir Arthur jumped up to meet the man, shaking his hand vigorously. The old man winced in pain. “Good to finally meet you, General.”

“Is it? Well, I’m glad to be of service.”

Despite the roaring fire and the almost-stifling heat of the room, General Cornelius Starrett was dressed in layers, evident from the bulk beneath the charcoal gray velvet smoking jacket he wore. His eyes, slightly sunken, were bright blue and his skin taut and pale. The only hair on his head was a wreath of dark gray wisps. He stood slightly bent at the waist, leaning on a cane. The general closed the door behind him and motioned for Sir Arthur to return to the comfort of the sofa, which he did, puffing again from his cigar.

Tap, tap, tap.
His cane marked the old man’s slow, methodical shuffle as it connected with the bare wooden floor at the edge of the Persian area rug, centered in the middle of the room. I unconsciously leaned toward him, ready to assist him if he faltered.

“Oh, do sit down, young lady.” His voice, husky and deep, boomed, its vibrant command at odds with the feeble body that housed it. I immediately complied with the general’s order, dropping quickly onto the chair.

“My secretary and I were availing ourselves of your newspaper clippings while we waited,” Sir Arthur said without a hint of apology in his voice.

Both us had been at our wit’s end waiting. Sir Arthur had paced the floor and smoked two cigars. I’d straightened every book on the shelf, read a chapter from three separate intriguing books on gardening I’d come across, and counted to one hundred in French. If this interview, our third attempt, wasn’t pivotal to Sir Arthur’s work, we wouldn’t have waited. And then Sir Arthur had found the scrapbooks of newspaper clippings.

“You don’t mind, do you, old boy?” I winced at Sir Arthur’s familiarity, but the general, either slightly deaf or being diplomatic, appeared not to notice.

“Of course not, of course not, Sir Arthur. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? To pick my brain? Why not my library as well? My wife, Lavinia, put those scrapbooks together. Hope they were useful.”

“I guess you could say so,” Sir Arthur said, reminded of his disappointment in finding Regan had died five months too early.

“You have quite a diverse collection,” I said. “I noticed a number of botanical books. Are you interested in botany, General?”

Sir Arthur frowned at me. I’d done it again. My job was to record the conversation and not divert it with my own questions. Yet I was forgetting this more and more lately.

What’s gotten into me
?

“That’s Fred’s department. So you’ve had time to look around. Am I late for our appointment then?” the general asked, settling himself into an overstuffed leather chair across from Sir Arthur and setting his cane across his lap. “We did say two o’clock, didn’t we? What time is it now?” Instead of looking at the clock on the large marble fireplace mantel, General Starrett looked at me.

“Half past three, sir,” I said.

“Oh, well, nothing could be done.” He kneaded his bony thigh. The skin on his hand was almost transparent. “These legs aren’t worth a damn these days. Pardon my language, young lady.” I fought the urge to smile. Sir Arthur had sworn a dozen times while waiting without giving it a thought.

“Nothing is, the legs, the eyesight, the hearing (
so it was deafness and not diplomacy after all
), nothing. But don’t you worry, Sir Arthur,” the general said, tapping his head with his index finger. “Everything’s all right in here. Now, what is it you want to know?”

He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and retrieved a sterling silver engraved pocket cigar case. He opened the case, chose a cigar, ran the length of the cigar under his nose, and rolled it between his thumb and index finger before closing the case with a snap. He snipped the tip off the cigar.

“Don’t mind, do you, young lady?”

“Of course she doesn’t,” Sir Arthur replied, brandishing his own cigar. “Miss Davish is far too professional to object to a man’s guilty pleasures.” He tipped his head in my direction. “Working for me, she probably doesn’t even smell the smoke anymore. Do you, Hattie?”

“No, of course I don’t mind,” I said, avoiding the question of smoke. I could’ve enlightened them on the nights spent laundering my suits and dresses since starting again in Sir Arthur’s employ. But I enjoyed working for Sir Arthur, and wanting to stay in his employ, I instead glanced at the bison head mounted on the wall above the built-in bookcases across from me. Then, repressing the urge to inquire about the procurement of the bison and distract the old man further, I studied a pair of silver table lighters, both in the shape of a ship’s lantern, one with green-colored glass, the other with red, sitting on the table. The general reached for the one with the red glass.

The general chuckled, lit the cigar, and took a series of quick inhales, then coughed.

“My, my. A woman who doesn’t object to smoking. You’ve found a gem in this one, Sir Arthur. Now if only Adella would agree. My library or not, the girl won’t even enter the room if I’ve been smoking. And the irony is . . .” A laugh gurgled up from his chest and exploded through his nose, followed by a series of deep, dry hacking coughs. He pulled the handkerchief from his breast pocket, one silver star stitched into the corner, and held it tightly to his lips. “Damn, old age! Pardon my language, young lady, but I can’t even have a good laugh anymore without having a fit. Should’ve died on the battlefield.”

“What’s so ironic?” Sir Arthur said.

“That Adella, my granddaughter, objects to my smoking cigars, but has no objection to Frederick making them.” He dabbed the handkerchief at the corners of his lips and frowned, looking at the puzzled expression on our faces. “Oh, never mind,” he said gruffly. “What do you want to know?”

As Sir Arthur explained our presence and need, as he had countless times before, I pushed aside the brown velvet curtain and glanced out at the lengthening shadows, stretching across the leaf-strewn yard, the dusting of snow that had fallen this morning all but a memory.

We may not have a white Christmas after all,
I thought.

The narrow Galena River, once twice as wide and thronging with Mississippi River steamboats, was still and silent, filmed over with a thin sheen of ice, bits of which reflected brightly in the afternoon sun. Somewhere out of sight a horse snorted.

“Now if you’re ready, General,” Sir Arthur said. “We’ll get started.” I let the curtain fall and turned back to the task at hand.

I dipped my pen in ink and marked in longhand at the top of the page:
December 17, 1892, 3:38 p.m., Brigadier General Cornelius Starrett, Union Army of the Cumberland
. I propped my notebook in my lap and prepared to take dictation.

“Eeee!” someone squealed. The chandelier bounced up and down, the glass prisms jingling, as something thumped on the floorboards above us.

“What the devil was that?” Sir Arthur exclaimed as we both stared up at the ceiling.

“Oh, never mind that.” General Starrett chuckled. “It’s just Adella’s children romping around upstairs. Now what were you saying?”

“As I said in my letter,” Sir Arthur began, glancing at the swaying chandelier, “I’m writing a book about the men at Appomattox Court House the day of April ninth, 1865, you, of course, being one. I’ve spent the better part of a month researching those men, only to find by chance that one of the officers on my list wasn’t even there. Before you begin your personal account, General Starrett, would you be able to recall those present?”

“Of course! Does a skunk stink? Seventeen soldiers were in the room,” the general said without hesitation, “us boys from Galena, some of Grant’s men, and of course Lee and his aide. I remember because it was my lucky number. I started out with the Seventeenth Illinois Infantry and married Lavinia on the seventeenth of June.” As General Starrett counted off the names on his fingers, I wrote them down to compare to our list later.

“Of course, men milled about in other parts of the house and in the yard then and over the next day or two; Lee’s man Longstreet was one of them. Chamberlain was in charge for the formal surrender. I don’t remember the others.” “Very good, thank you, General,” Sir Arthur said when I indicated with a nod that I had all the names. He beamed at the old man. We were finally getting the information Sir Arthur needed. “Now in your own words, please describe everything you can from that day.”

The general sat back a little more in his chair, his cigar dangling from his mouth. “Reveille was at 0500 hours,” the general began. “Grant was already up and complaining of a terrible headache—”

And that’s when the brawl erupted.