Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 4)
Read Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 4) Online
Authors: Vincent Zandri
PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI
“Sensational…masterful…brilliant.”
—
New York Post
“My fear level rose with this Zandri novel like it hasn’t done
before. Wondering what the killer had in store for Jude and seeing the ending,
well, this is one book that will be with me for a long time to come!”
—Reviews by Molly
“I very highly recommend this book…It’s a great crime drama
that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists. .
.Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best
seller after another.”
—
Life in Review
“(The Innocent) is a thriller that has depth and substance,
wickedness and compassion.”
—
The Times-Union
(Albany)
“I also sat on the edge of my seat reading about Jude trying to
stay alive when he was thrown into one of those games… Add to that having
to disarm a bomb for good measure!”
—Telly Says
“The action never wanes.”
—
Fort Lauderdale
Sun-Sentinal
“Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting.”
—Harlan Coben,
bestselling author of
Six Years
“Tough, stylish, heartbreaking.”
—Don Winslow,
bestselling author of
Savages
Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse
(A Chase Baker Thriller #4)
Vincent Zandri
Chase Baker and The Lincoln Curse
(A Chase Baker Thriller No. 4)
Copyright © 2015 by Vincent Zandri
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S.
Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a
database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.
The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Bear Media LLC 2015
4 Orchard Grove, Albany, NY 12204
Cover design by Elder Lemon Art
Author Photo by Jessica Painter
The characters and events portrayed in this book are
fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and
not intended by the author.
Published in the United States of America
Table of Contents
“The truth is I have never loved Henry more than I have this
last month. I have wanted to wail with pity over him… He mutters more than
ever of our hours in the box at Ford’s, forcing me to think of them, too.”
—Clara Harris Rathbone speaking of her husband, Henry
Rathbone, on the eve of their murder/suicide, December 23, 1893.
What follows is inspired by true events.
Good Friday, April 14, 1865
Ford’s Theater
Washington, DC
10:19PM
The President has been shot.
Triggered at point-blank range by John Wilkes Booth, a
twenty-six-year-old fanatic Confederate sympathizer and stage actor, the bullet
has managed to crack President Lincoln’s skull open like an egg. More
specifically, the solid lead ball has penetrated the bone behind the left
earlobe and lodged itself just above his right eye, nearly exiting the
forehead. Despite frantic attempts by a physician (whom, it should be noted, is
attending the evening performance of
Our American Cousin
at the
invitation of the White House
)
to remove the bullet with his fingers,
the projectile is lodged too deep inside the brainpan. He does, however, manage
to remove some of the thicker blood clots, a process which is believed to help
protect the President’s circulatory system from collapsing entirely.
When the decision is made to move the President from the box
down the narrow staircase to the lobby, the two Union soldiers and one heavyset
grocer who are chosen for the task, move swiftly. The President’s head is
bleeding a profuse amount of dark red, nearly black arterial blood. Knowing a
bumpy carriage ride back to the White House will finish the President off for
good, the men transport him instead across the street to the three-story
Peterson house. There, the deadweight body is laid out diagonally across a bed
far too small for its long legs, arms, and torso.
By the President’s side is the short, stout, black-haired
Mary Lincoln, who holds his lifeless hand tightly while a team of three
doctor’s attempt in vain to resuscitate him, despite a fading pulse. Seated
beside Mary, embracing her, is one of the two people who occupied the
Presidential Box during the stage performance—the attractive, slightly built
woman’s name is Clara Harris. She and her fiancé, Union Major Henry Rathbone,
were only too happy to attend the play after General Grant and his wife declined.
Near death himself, the tall, mustached Henry Rathbone is
attended to by a fourth doctor who tries to stem the flow of blood that comes
from a bone-deep gash extending from elbow to shoulder. The wound was received
when Rathbone attempted to apprehend Booth after the Southern sympathizer made
the fatal shot with a .44 caliber Derringer. If Henry had been able to make the
jump on the killer just a split second earlier, he might have prevented
Lincoln’s murder. But it was not to be.
As Mary Lincoln wails in agony for God to spare her
husband’s life, she turns to the petite, and far younger, Clara, resting her
sobbing head in the woman’s lap.
“Your dress,” Mary cries, “it’s covered in my husband’s
blood.”
Clara reaches out with her small, almost fragile hand,
touches the blood-soaked fabric. She slowly turns to view her fiancé, who sits
close by in a chair, wrestling both consciousness and an ever growing guilt
over not having prevented the President’s assassination.
“That’s Henry’s blood, too,” Clara whispers, turning back to
the distraught First Lady. “Henry tried to stop the President’s killer. Do you
understand, Mrs. Lincoln?”
Sitting up slowly, Mary gazes upon Henry, locking eyes with
the distressed young man.
“You did your best, Major,” she says, her eyes cold and
distant. “I understand you did…your best.”
Just then, a gasp, and a final breath exhaled.
Mary turns back to her husband, shoots up from her chair.
“He’s dead!” she wails. “My husband is dead!”
Albany Rural Cemetery
Albany, NY
Present Day
It’s true what they say. You can’t go home again. Not as
anything other than a visitor and certainly not for very long. Which is why I
almost never come back to this city of barely one hundred thousand inhabitants.
Home being Albany. A city where nothing much ever happens
and nothing much ever changes. It’s as if Father Time crossed it off his
checklist and passed it by entirely.
But, sometimes you just can’t avoid having to scrape
together the money for a train ticket that will take you along the Hudson River
line north to the place where you grew up and, in the process, experienced all
your firsts—both good and bad. First communion. First ass kicking in the school
yard. First kicking of ass in the school yard. First Pop Warner football game.
First girlfriend. First kiss. First base. First time on second. First Time on
third. First time you slide into home plate, regardless of how sloppy and
awkward the process.
…Thanks, for the memories…
It’s also the place you snatched your first real job. At
least, that’s how it happened in my case when I went to work for the old man at
the ripe old age of twelve. Now that I think about it, my old man wasn’t all
that old at the time. He was maybe ten years younger than I am now when I went
to work excavating and sandhogging for the Tommy Baker Excavating company. It
was a job that had been waiting for me since birth and, in many ways, a job
that I was expected to perform, regardless of the fact that one day becoming a
writer and an explorer, just like Jack London, had become my dream even as a
pre-teen.
But then, according to my old man, dreams were for silly
people. What mattered was the earth you could hold in your hand and scoop up
with a mechanized bucket. The earth was as real as something could possibly
get. Like Dad always said, “From dirt we came and to dirt we will return.”
Digging in the dirt also paid well. Very well, in fact.
Something my dad always tried to impress upon me as my adolescence turned into
young adulthood, and adulthood shifted towards middle age. “Being a writer and
an explorer and even a private detective are all noble occupations indeed,
son,” he said to me not long before he died. “But being noble does not pay the
bills. You should know that by now.”
If only Dad could take a quick look at my less than stellar
bank account these days, he’d force a shovel in my hand and bark, “Now get to
work!”
But, back in the days when I had my whole life ahead of me,
I quickly came to realize that being a digger with Dad’s company didn’t mean I
had to put all of my dreams on hold. In fact, sandhogging afforded me some
significant exploration experience, especially when Dad was hired by some
university or college to excavate archeological sites that took us all the way
around the world to Egypt or Peru or even China. We weren’t by any means the
most important men on an archeological dig. If anything, we were considered—by
the more educated, doctoral treasure hunters—to be a bit of an unwashed and
untamed nuisance.
But let me tell you, there’s no better thrill in the world
than feeling the tooth of a backhoe bucket touching upon a stone sarcophagus. A
gentle, yet powerful, sensation that travels from the ancient stone into the
empty bucket, up the backhoe arm, into the cab, through the controls, and
straight into flesh and bone. Dad knew this feeling all too well, which is why
he chose to work with the schools on their digs in place of more lucrative jobs
like digging foundations for commercial buildings all over the city. Dad was no
stranger to his own noble pursuits now and then, too.
But, despite the golden opportunity of his handing me the
keys to his business one day, I think Dad knew I wouldn’t be able to call
Albany home for too long, even if we did spend considerable time away from it
on our various adventures. The world was a big place, to be sure. My dreams
were even bigger. And Albany was way too small and, well, way too small-minded
for my tastes.
Which is why I took off when I had the chance, venturing off
to lands unknown, supporting myself any way I could. Sure, Dad was disappointed
(and on occasion worried), but I also like to think he was proud of me in his
own way. What father doesn’t want his son to make it on his own, no matter the
difficulties and the dangers? That didn’t prevent him from sending me a much-needed
check now and again. A practice he lovingly maintained even after I turned the
corner on forty.
Now, I’ve come back home for one last meeting with dad.
How is it possible to meet with someone who’s been dead for
almost six years? Dad’s about to be exhumed and reinterred which, in plain
language, means his casket is going to be dug up, opened, and whatever’s left
of his corpse transferred to another, newer casket which will be laid to rest
in a vacant piece of cemetery property located elsewhere. Why? So that the land
his present grave occupies can be utilized for a new town road.
Sorry Pop, but that’s progress for you…
In honor of Dad and the many cash favors he did for me over
the years, I volunteered my services for excavating his grave, which involved
an official application to the cemetery that would require signatures from both
the local Albany Police Department and the Albany Hall of Records. Once my
services were approved, the cemetery allowed me use of their backhoe, which
turns out to be an old, somewhat rusted CAT that probably rolled off the
assembly line while I was doing bong hits in my Providence College dorm room.
After issuing a smile and a nod to both the County Coroner
and the head of cemetery maintenance, who’ve both shown up for the event, I
climb into the cab and sit myself down in a black pleather seat held together
with matching black electrical tape. Turning the seat around so that it faces
the bucket, I place my hands on the controls. The round, heavy-duty plastic
handles attached to the floor-mounted sticks feel like an old friend. So does
the smell of gasoline and oil when I toe tap the gas, sending a burst of power
into the engine.
Maybe you never forget how to ride a bike, but the same can
be said of running a backhoe, especially when you were trained by your old man
back when you were twelve and could barely reach the pedals. As I feel the
vibration of the machine, I send the sharp metal teeth into the green,
grass-covered soil, and scoop out the first full yard of Dad’s own earth,
depositing it off to the side. I continue the process until I feel that
familiar tap of the metal tooth on hard concrete, and I know I’m home. I’m
knocking on the concrete encasement that houses Dad’s casket.
Slipping out of the cab, I instruct the cemetery workers to
apply the chain to the backhoe and the reinforced concrete casement cover.
“Let’s pull my dad out of the ground,” I say. “And be
careful not to wake him.”
Half an hour later, my dad’s surprisingly water damaged casket
is set off to the side of his now open grave and the gravestone that watches
over it. The cemetery keeper is standing by, as is the coroner who must be
present at all exhumations. While the workers have no choice but to use a pry
bar to open a lid sealed shut due to rust, I feel my heart beating in my
throat. I mean, I know my dad’s a dead guy, but why do I feel like I’m the
prodigal son? Why do I feel like once the casket lid opens, my dad’s gonna sit
up straight, look me in the eye, and say, “Chase, it’s about time you grew up,
came home, and took over the excavation business.”
My mouth goes dry. My feet feel like they aren’t planted on
solid ground but, instead, are levitating a foot above the earth. A click
reverberates across the tree-covered, rolling, green cemetery plain. The lid’s
pried open. Then, acting in unison, the two workers lift the heavy cover. For a
brief moment, they lock eyes on the body that’s inside and then, stepping back
and away from the box, shoot me a look indicating that it’s my turn.
I step forward and, with my heart pulsing up against my
sternum, peer into the casket.
