The First Assassin (34 page)

Rook wanted to reach across the room and slug him, but Scott made sure this was not necessary. “Shut up, Locke!” roared the general.

Locke was astonished. Was Scott really taking the side of a runaway slave over his loyal aide? It was a remarkable turn of events.

“Now that you’ve shut up, sit down,” sputtered Scott. “I don’t care what you think about proper decorum. I find this woman’s story credible, and we will act upon the information she has presented to us.”

Locke dropped into his seat, crushed by the general’s words.

“On behalf of myself and my officers, please accept my apologies,” said Scott, looking at Portia. “The best way to make amends is for us to do our duty.”

Scott let the words sink in. Then he began to develop a plan. A group of soldiers would immediately rush to Tabard’s and place Mazorca under surveillance; if he had collaborators, Scott wanted to find them. Springfield would join them, but only after helping several other soldiers establish surveillance around Violet Grenier’s. Rook would oversee all aspects of the operation.

The meeting began to break up when Scott spoke again. “One more thing,” he said. “We should have additional copies of this photograph.” He pointed to a lieutenant and told him to go to Brady’s on the Avenue and order reproductions. “Before we’re done, I suspect that we’re going to have to learn a lot more about this man in the picture. It’s a curious name, Mazorca.”

For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Seward, who had remained quiet through the meeting, spoke. “I may know a man who can help us. Let me make an inquiry.”

“By all means,” said Scott. The gathering broke up. Before Rook walked out the door, however, the general called to him.

“Colonel Rook, let me have a word with you.”

Mazorca checked the room a final time to make sure that he had remembered everything. It was pointless to play against the odds that someone had been in his room while he was away. An intruder was the simplest explanation for the vanished letter. He had not planned on moving out of the boardinghouse, but now he did not have a choice. It was the safest thing to do.

He jammed a few extra items into the trunk alongside the clothes and rifle. He found room for a couple of guidebooks, the tools from Calthrop, and not much else. The books from French and Richstein were too big, and he did not want to carry them—except for his one remaining copy of the Bible. He would not abandon it.

Mazorca closed the curtains, darkening the room. Before he moved away from the window, however, he looked at the scene outside. Several people walked in either direction, going about their business. A figure on the opposite side of H Street drew his notice. He wore a brown frock coat as he ambled east, toward Sixth Street. Unlike the other pedestrians, who seemed to be heading places, he appeared to be out for a stroll.

He would take a few leisurely steps, pause, and look around. Without fail, his eyes would stop on Tabard’s. The man was trying to convey a sense of nonchalance, but Mazorca thought this was just a poor performance. He was, in fact, keeping an eye on the boardinghouse. He wondered how long this had been going on. What had he missed before now? He cursed himself for failing to take better precautions.

At the intersection of Seventh and H Street, Mazorca spotted a handful of soldiers in their blue uniforms. This was an ordinary sight in Washington. Yet he had not seen them in this particular place before, certainly not lingering. The fact that these men did not appear to be doing much apart from staring down H Street in the direction of Tabard’s and the fellow in the brown coat aroused his interest even further.

He opened the door to his room and called down. “Mrs. Tabard? Would you mind coming up here? I have a favor to ask.”

The one-on-one meeting with Scott had kept Rook from departing for Tabard’s as quickly as he would have liked. He supposed it was worth it: the general wanted to apologize for questioning his loyalty over the last few weeks. “It appears that you were right about the threats to the president’s security,” Scott had said. “I should have listened to you.”

Rook appreciated the effort. The general was a prideful man. Apologies did not come easily to him. The two men talked for several minutes, trying to repair the damage to their relationship. Then Rook announced that he must be going: he had an assassin to catch.

Leaving the Winder Building, Rook walked past the White House, east on G Street. On Seventh Street, he turned left. From a block away, he saw blue uniforms bunched together at the corner of H Street. He hustled toward them.

“Move out of the way,” he said as he approached. “You can’t stand together and stare up the street. You’ll be seen.”

The men sauntered away from the corner. Scott had ordered them to begin an observation of Mazorca, but they obviously did not know what they were doing. They were soldiers, not detectives. Rook was inclined to forgive their error, but he wished they had used an ounce of common sense.

“This is no way to conduct surveillance,” said Rook. “We need men who are out of uniform, in places where they won’t be noticed. Have any of you thought about getting behind a window in a building across the street from Tabard’s? More important, where is Mazorca?”

A captain spoke up. “We believe he may be in Tabard’s right now, sir.”

“Why do you believe this?”

“Just a few minutes ago, we spotted someone closing the curtains to the window in his room. Either it was him, or someone else was in there.”

“Did one of you actually walk in front of Tabard’s, in uniform, to see this?”

“We sent a fellow who wasn’t in uniform down the street,” said the captain, whose name was Leach. “Here he comes now.” He pointed to a figure in a brown coat, walking toward them. Rook figured that he must have passed in front of Tabard’s and rounded the block. The colonel did not recognize him.

“Who is he?”

“He files applications at the Patent Office. We knew that we needed someone in street clothes to get a close look at Tabard’s. We didn’t want to walk up there ourselves,” said Leach. He hoped that Rook would congratulate him for having done something clever.

Instead, Rook rolled his eyes. “You recruited him off the street to do this?” He almost could not believe what he was hearing.

“I know him from one of the local militias,” said Leach.

“He’s a Union man, and he’s reliable. His name is Grimsley.”

The militiaman stopped in front of Rook and the others. “Nothing new since the lady left,” he said. “Shall I pass by again?”

“Before anything more happens, I need to know exactly what has occurred since you men arrived here,” said Rook.

Leach said that they had rushed straight from the meeting with Scott and began watching Tabard’s from a block away. They monitored the front as well as the rear, which led to a cramped alleyway. Leach spotted Grimsley on the street and pressed him into service. The clerk had walked in front of the building several times to determine whether anybody was inside. On his first pass, he saw the curtains close in a second-floor window—the one that the officers knew as Mazorca’s. A few minutes later, a woman emerged from the front door. “None of us knew whether to regard Mrs. Tabard as an innocent or to suspect her of working in cahoots with Mazorca,” said Leach. “So we put Lieutenant Hamilton on her tail.” This had happened just a few minutes before Rook’s arrival. Since then, they had continued to watch from a block away and Grimsley had passed by two more times, but none of them had seen any more activity.

To Rook, it was a series of mistakes: standing in plain sight a block away from Tabard’s, sending a novice down the street, and failing to take key positions where they might observe without being observed. At least they had the sense to send somebody in pursuit of Tabard. If she was collaborating with Mazorca, then it was important to keep tabs on her.

And perhaps the officers’ mistakes were minor. If Mazorca was in Tabard’s, it meant that they had pinpointed his location and could apprehend him at any time.

The colonel barked out a series of orders. He placed officers at both ends of H Street but out of sight of Tabard’s. He ordered another man down an alley to obtain backdoor access to a building across the street from Tabard’s. He demanded a dozen soldiers to change out of their uniforms. Grimsley was dismissed. Within minutes, the assembly of bluecoats was broken up, with each man heading in a separate direction but with a common purpose.

For the first time since the inauguration, Rook felt as though he was in full control of presidential security. The release of the C&O men was an aggravating blow. Even so, Rook believed that he had seen the last of them. Justice might not have been done, but order was preserved, and that was more important.

The revelations of the last several hours had validated all of his warnings from the previous six weeks. He was no longer a Cassandra, uttering prophecies that others would ignore. As he stood just a few hundred feet from Tabard’s, thinking about the deadly assassin who lurked inside, it was impossible not to feel vindicated. Even Scott had been finally motivated to abandon his dangerous complacency. This was an outcome Rook barely could have imagined a day ago, when Scott had come close to firing him. Now he stood on the threshold of defeating an ambitious and evil scheme. He knew that much remained undone, but for a fleeting moment he allowed himself to experience a sense of relief.

Mrs. Tabard isn’t out for a casual stroll, thought Lieutenant Hamilton as he followed her south on Sixth Street. She walked quickly, never pausing at a storefront to look inside or stopping to talk to an acquaintance. Although Hamilton was careful to keep a distance, he did not have to deflect suspicious glances sent in his direction or disguise his own activity in any way. He simply got in the woman’s wake and made sure that she stayed within view. All he had to do was keep up with her rapid pace. Tailing her was much easier than he had expected.

When she reached the Avenue a few minutes later, she halted and looked up and down the dusty street. Hamilton held back and watched her reach into a large bag. She pulled out something small. The lieutenant could not see what it was, but he did not have to wonder long. An omnibus pulled up, drawn by horses. She gave a nickel to the driver and climbed aboard for a ride in the direction of Georgetown.

Hamilton’s impulse was to sprint, in order to arrive at the omnibus before it rolled away. But he fought the urge. He had plenty of time, at any rate, as the vehicle paused to let at least a dozen passengers get off and come on.

He was the last person to get on. As he reached into his pocket for loose change, he felt the eyes of the driver fall on him. The man was on a schedule and probably did not want to stay here a moment longer than necessary. Hamilton pulled a handful of coins from his pocket and saw that he did not have a nickel. He had four pennies. He shoved his hand back into his pocket and wiggled his fingers until they found another penny.

The vehicle was crowded, with riders either pressed against each other in their seats or standing shoulder to shoulder. Facing forward, Hamilton could not see Tabard. He figured she was in the rear. Right now, he wanted to avoid gawking. That might give him away.

About a minute into the ride, a wheel slipped into a rut on the Avenue, jolting the entire carriage. As passengers shuffled around, Hamilton craned his neck and allowed himself a brief glance over his shoulder. He still did not see Tabard, but he knew she must be back there. Too many people blocked his view. She was probably in a seat.

As the omnibus crossed Fourteenth Street, Hamilton made a show of looking at Willard’s, on the north side of the street, as if he were admiring its architecture. Instead of concentrating on the hotel, however, he tried to spot Tabard peripherally. He still could not see her. A couple of riders obstructed his view of the other end of the omnibus. A wave of anxiety swept over Hamilton, but it was gone in a flash. He was certain that she was there. How could she be anywhere else? He had seen her climb aboard. She could not possibly have gotten off. Besides, only a ridiculous spendthrift would give up an entire nickel to ride less than a few blocks. People who boarded at Seventh Street usually were traveling all the way to Georgetown. He would spot her soon. He was certain of it.

Half an hour had passed since Rook’s arrival at the intersection of Seventh and H Street, and the colonel was finally becoming satisfied with his surveillance of Tabard’s boardinghouse. Men were positioned at key street corners within several blocks of where he stood, and most of them were now out of uniform. Behind a third-floor window, in a building directly across the street from Tabard’s, three soldiers sat and watched the front of the boardinghouse. In an alleyway behind it, another had assumed the appearance of a drunkard. With a ratty coat covering his body and a half-empty bottle in his hand, he sat against a wall and kept an eye on Tabard’s back door.

Rook was confident that nobody could enter or exit the boardinghouse without at least one of his men knowing it. He was also aware that surveillance could be tedious business—it might take hours of watching the most mundane activity before something happened. Boredom posed the biggest threat. It dulled senses that need to stay sharp, and the problem of sleep always loomed. Long stretches of idleness could lead to napping on the job. Rook had seen it plenty of times in the military with troops posted to the watch.

Because it was daytime rather than evening and the surveillance was young rather than old, Rook knew that he could let some time pass before he worried about these problems. Yet he knew that he might have to confront them eventually. He was already giving orders to prepare second and third shifts of men who could relieve those currently on duty. And at some point, he assumed, Mazorca would make a move. He would not stay caged in Tabard’s forever. For now, however, Rook was content to wait—and remain alert.

He had just dispatched a courier to the Winder Building, to inform Scott of the situation, when Hamilton came dashing in his direction. He was almost out of breath when he stopped in front of Rook.