Anything But Civil (25 page)

“Miss . . . Miss . . . I’m sorry I don’t recall your name,” he said.

“Miss Davish,” I said. I turned slightly toward Walter. “And this is Dr. Walter Grice.” Horace Mott didn’t stand and offer Walter his hand but continued to look over his spectacles at us.

“What can I do for you?” he asked without introducing his dining companions. I knew the man was uncouth.

“May we speak in private, sir?” I said. Mr. Mott looked around the table at his companions and then produced a high-pitched giggle of a laugh. I took a small step back.

“I have no secrets from my good friends here, Miss Davish,” Mott said. “Now what could you tell me that warrants interrupting our luncheon?” My apprehension from a moment ago was gone; now I was angry. How dare he call me rude.

“You’ve been absent from town of late, Mr. Mott,” I said.

“Yes, so? You disturbed us to tell me that?” he said, interrupting me and laughing his strange giggle again. “Besides, how do you know I’ve been out of town?”

“The police have been trying to locate you, sir,” I said. A small sense of triumph surged through me when his smug expression suddenly changed. His companions began mumbling to each other.

“The police? Why are the police looking for me?”

“In regards to Captain Henry Starrett’s death,” Walter said. Mott cast a quick look at Walter and then purposely twisted his shoulders to more directly face me.

“But as you say, Miss Davish, I was out of town when Henry was murdered,” he said, some of his overconfidence emerging again. “So obviously I’ve nothing to tell the police.”

“You could tell them exactly where you were when Henry was killed,” I said.

“When was that?” the man to Horace Mott’s left said. Droplets of consommé, trapped by the man’s heavy gray mustache, sparkled above his lip. It was the first time any of them had spoken directly to me.

“Between six and seven yesterday morning,” Walter said. Mott and his companions all began to speak at once until the man with the gray mustache put his hand up.

“If that’s when Starrett was killed, then Mott is innocent. He was at the mine, signing the final paperwork. We here can all attest to that.” The men all nodded in agreement as a sly smile grew on Horace Mott’s face.

“What mine?” I said, again seeing another likely suspect slip through my fingers.

“The Starrett-McKinney Lead Mine,” the man, whose name I still didn’t know, said.

Starrett-McKinney Lead Mine,
I repeated to myself,
the SMLM on Henry Starrett’s papers.

“I thought all of the lead mines were exhausted years ago,” I said, remembering the old newspaper articles I’d read in General Starrett’s library while researching for Sir Arthur. For good reason the town was named Galena;
galena
meant “lead” and lead, as early as the 1820s, propelled the town’s growth and prosperity. But only fifty years later, the production of lead had dropped drastically and the mines in this region were no longer of national interest.

“Yeah, for the most part, you’re right. Lead’s heyday in Galena is long past. But Starrett wasn’t shy about putting his money on a long shot, was he, Mott?” the man said, jabbing Horace Mott in the ribs with his elbow. Mott flinched. “So me and my crew, we dug and we found it—a small but substantial vein of untapped lead. It’s going to make us all extremely wealthy men.”

“Hear, hear,” one of the company, a man in his mid-thirties, said, raising his glass.

“Too bad Starrett won’t be able to benefit from it,” the third man said. The comment instantly made me reconsider why Henry was murdered. Could it have been not for his supposed treasonous past or his assault on Enoch Jamison but for money, pure and simple?

“Who inherits Starrett’s share of the mine’s earnings?” I asked.

“His daughter, of course,” Mott said.

Adella! Could her affection for her father all be an act? Did she know she was to inherit a great deal of money? Were there olive leaves in her corsage? Were those her footprints in the snow? Did she kill Henry Starrett? She didn’t seem capable of killing a mouse, let alone her own father.

“Did Adella know of the mine?” I asked.

“No one knew of the mine except us and Henry,” Mott said.

“Unless Henry told someone else,” I said. Mott shrugged.

“It’s possible,” he said. “Though when I told the general and Mr. and Mrs. Reynard, they seemed genuinely surprised.” I was startled by the news.

“Excuse me? The Reynards and General Starrett know? Wh-h-hen?” I asked, stammering in my surprise.

When had Mott been at General Starrett’s house? Why didn’t the police or I know that he was in town again? What else didn’t I know?

Mott smirked but didn’t answer my question. I changed tactics. “So what is your role in all of this, Mr. Mott?”

Before Mott could answer, the man with the heavy gray mustache, who seemed to be their leader, answered for him. “Mott is Starrett’s land agent and acts as the go-between for us and Starrett.”

“So you were also working on the captain’s behalf when you made an offer on Enoch Jamison’s house?” I said. Mott nodded.

“Like the man said, Henry liked putting his money on long shots.” Mott explained that Henry was interested in buying Enoch Jamison’s home and hoped the man, after being harassed, would be willing to sell cheap.

“So he formed a mob and terrorized the man and his mother merely to frighten him into selling his house?” I said. Mott shrugged again. I wondered if Enoch Jamison knew what Henry was trying to do. If so, was it a reason to kill him? But if so, how could Jamison do it when he was supposedly in Chicago at the time? It was a question I couldn’t get around.

“Is the mine what you were discussing the day we met, Mr. Mott?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“And when you called him away from the dinner party?”

“Then, too. I was there to collect the final payment.”

A sudden thought occurred to me. “And where did you meet?”

“Why does that even matter?” he said, reaching for his wine. “I think I’m done being interrogated, Miss Davish.”

“Please answer the lady’s question, Mr. Mott,” Walter said. “Or you’ll be answering to the police.” Walter probably had no idea what I was getting at but trusted that I was on to something. Mott’s eye darted to Walter’s stern face; then he dabbed his lips with his napkin. He sighed expansively.

“We met in the general’s library,” he said. “Are you satisfied?”

“And Captain Starrett got the money from the safe?” I said.

“Are you dense? Of course,” Mott said snidely. “Where else would you keep that amount of money, under your mattress?” I ignored Mott’s sarcasm, for I was right. Henry had been the one to steal from his father’s safe, after he’d left the dinner party but before he was feeling the effects of the food poisoning.

“That money was stolen, Mr. Mott,” I said. “The general suspects one of the house staff, but your name was also mentioned.” I didn’t illuminate for him the fact that it was me who cast suspicion his way.

“I didn’t steal anything!” Mott said, squealing in desperation. He looked to his companions, who were staring at him again. “Henry gave me the money, Carter. You remember, we didn’t even need it in the end. We uncovered the lead and I gave it all back to him.”

“Too bad Starrett’s not around to verify that, Mott,” Mr. Carter, the man with the heavy mustache, said, eyeing Mott suspiciously. “I’m starting to wonder about our arrangement, Mott. If I didn’t know exactly where you were yesterday morning, I’d be suspicious of you too.” Mott’s eyes widened, his spectacles falling to the tip of his nose.

“I didn’t do anything,” he whined. He grabbed Mr. Carter by the arm. “I swear I gave it all back.”

“Did you give it back to him at Turner Hall?” I asked. I’d been enjoying seeing the man’s distress, but I couldn’t let it go on.

“Yes, yes,” Mott said, nodding his head furiously. He turned to me with hope in his eyes. “Yes, at the Christmas thing. That’s when I gave it all back.”

“Hattie?” Walter whispered.

“Mr. Mott is telling the truth, gentlemen,” I said. “After Henry Starrett’s death, General Starrett discovered that all of the stolen money had been returned.”

“Good to hear we can trust you after all, Mott.” Mr. Carter tipped his head. “My apologies.” Instead of appreciating my aid, Mott glared at me, pushing his spectacles slightly higher on his nose.

“You’ve taken up enough of our time, Miss Davish, Dr. Grice,” Mott said. “Please leave now and let us enjoy our meal.”

“With pleasure, Mr. Mott,” I said. “Mr. Carter, gentlemen, good day, sirs.” Walter and I returned to our table.

“Hattie, are you ill?” Walter said, leaning over trying to take my hand. We’d sat in silence and I’d eaten little of our cheese and dessert course since confronting Mott. I knew Walter would be taking my pulse next.

“No, why do you ask?”

“You haven’t touched your sponge cake.” I laughed despite myself. Walter knew that I never let a cake go uneaten. I took a bite. It was delicious. “That’s more like it. I hope you didn’t let that little man distress you.”

“No,” I said, not wanting to admit to Walter how much Mott’s demeanor had angered me. “No, I was thinking about what I know and don’t know about Henry Starrett’s murder. If Enoch Jamison didn’t do it, could John Baines have beaten Henry? If Frederick Reynard wasn’t there, could his wife have pulled the trigger? What is the likelihood that two unrelated people committed this crime? And if one person beat and shot Henry, who was it? Not Mott, not the general, not Oscar Killian.” I didn’t want to believe what I was starting to conclude. Walter looked at me with concern on his face.

“Sir Arthur didn’t do it, Hattie,” he said, reading my mind. “We’ll simply have to do what Sir Arthur said, ‘delve deeper.’ ” I nodded and trusted Walter was right. I pushed the dessert plate away, several bites of cake left uneaten, and fought the tears I could feel welling up in my eyes. But what if he was wrong?

“A
ny luck finding what you were looking for?” General Starrett took another puff from his pipe. I’d spent the afternoon combing through every possible source in the general’s extensive library: war history books, newspapers, G.A.R. meeting records, biographies, and autobiographies, trying to piece together his son’s war record. I’d noticed that the general was still favoring his pipe and wondered how he would like Frederick’s commemorative cigars.

“No, not yet,” I said, skimming through one of the scrapbooks Lavinia Starrett had compiled. The general had preferred staying in the library with me over sitting in the parlor with his dead son. Occasionally he would interrupt me with a comment on a particular article that caught his interest, often one that had no bearing on my search. But for the majority of the time we sat reading in companionable silence. At one point he’d been quiet for so long that I looked up to find him fast asleep in his chair.

“Your son had an unusual experience during the war, didn’t he, sir?”

“Unusual? What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve noticed in doing research that once you can figure out what regiment a soldier belongs to, you can trace what the soldier did more easily by what the regiment did. But as a ship’s captain, Henry didn’t belong to a single regiment. He had numerous missions involving many regiments, both army and navy.”

“Ah, I see. Yes, I think
tedious
and
boring
are more appropriate words than
unusual.
”

“Because he wasn’t on the ground fighting battles?”

“Because his main task was to transport goods and people. No glory in it. Don’t get me wrong, what he did was vital, but you don’t win medals for picking up guns and soldiers in one port and dropping them off at another.”

“Papa, are you smoking again?” Adella said, entering the room. I glanced up from my work and tried not to stare at her. Could she be capable of killing her own father? “Hello, Miss Davish,” she said sadly.

“Hello, Mrs. Reynard.”

“My only child has been murdered,” the general said with more vehemence than I’d expect from him. “Have a heart, girl, and leave me alone with my pipe.” Adella burst into tears and collapsed into the nearest chair. “Oh, now, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“He was
my
only father,” Adella sobbed. “And now he’s gone.”

I was ill at ease being witness to this intimate scene. I set the scrapbook I was looking at down and stood. “If you will excuse me, I’ll leave you to your privacy.” I walked toward the door, but as I passed, Adella unexpectedly grabbed my hand.

“Please, Miss Davish,” she said, “don’t go.” I looked to the general for direction. He merely shook his head slowly back and forth.

“Can I do something for you, Mrs. Reynard?” I asked.

“Yes, tell me about my father.”

“Ma’am?” I said, confused. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know your father. I’d only met him last week.”

“I know,” she said, letting my hand go with a sigh. “I also know that they’ve arrested Sir Arthur for his murder and that you’re trying to prove his innocence.” She looked up into my eyes. “Frederick told me about your conversation this morning.”

“But I’m not clear how that relates to your request,” I said, still confused.

“I want you to tell me why someone would kill him,” she said. I was afraid she’d say that. She wanted to know about Henry’s secrets, his weaknesses, his unsavory behavior. And she wanted me to be the one to tell her. “Please sit down.” Instead of sitting at the table as I had been, I sat in a chair across from her.

“I’m afraid I haven’t learned much, Mrs. Reynard,” I said.

“Is that the truth, Miss Davish, or do you think I can’t cope with the truth?” she said.

“Well, my girl,” the general said, “the truth can be hurtful and ugly. What if it mars the memories of your father? Would you still want to know? I’m not even sure if
I
want to know.” Adella began to cry again.

“Tell me this, Miss Davish,” the general said, “and swear on your integrity that you will tell me the honest truth.”

“Yes?” I said.

“Do you think Sir Arthur did it?”

I hesitated, knowing everything, my career, my status, my honor, depended on my answer.

“No, I cannot believe that Sir Arthur is a murderer, sir,” I said honestly. “But I’m beginning to doubt my ability to find a more plausible suspect.” The general nodded and took a long puff from his pipe.

“I don’t think he did it either,” he said finally. I was relieved to hear that. “That’s why I gave you permission to look through my library. Too bad you aren’t having any luck.”

“You truly think the murderer is still at large, Papa?” Adella said, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

“Yes, I do. Furthermore, I think we must do all we can to help Miss Davish here find the real culprit.”

Adella looked over at the table piled with books and papers as if noticing them for the first time. “What are you looking for, Miss Davish?”

“I think the reason for your father’s death may lie in the past, possibly from his time during the war.” The general squinted at me. I hadn’t explained the exact details of my research, hoping to avoid having to tell him about the accusations against his son. “Specifically I’m trying to determine if he ever had an official duty in the Deep South.”

“You mentioned that before,” the general said. “I told you I didn’t know of any such duty.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “But remember the tintype of Captain Starrett’s steamboat that was taken in the Deep South? I promised to show it to you?”

“Yes, that’s right. You had a picture of his boat, the
Lavinia.
And I remember you said it had something to do with plants.” I explained about the palmetto’s limited range again.

“So you see, that plant only grows in a few places.”

“Yes, yes, that’s right. Did you bring the photograph with you?” the general asked.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “But I couldn’t.”

“What does any of this have to do with his murder?” Adella asked.

“I would’ve thought nothing except that photograph was recently stolen from me.”

“Oh,” Adella gasped.

“Stolen? What the Sam Hill is going on here!” the general exclaimed.

“I don’t know. That’s why I thought that if I could trace Captain Starrett’s movements throughout the war, I might be able to find an overlap with something we already know.”

“Like his wartime relationship with Rachel Baines,” Adella said quietly. She obviously hadn’t forgotten the conversation we’d both overheard between Henry and Rachel at the Christmas entertainment.

“Yes, like that,” I said.

“What relationship?” General Starrett asked. Adella ignored him.

“Would his letters help?” she said. I almost fell out of my chair.

“His letters?” I said, trying to stay composed. When Sir Arthur and I searched the dead man’s room, we found business memoranda, the burnt letter, and Rachel Baines’s brooch but no wartime correspondence. Who knew what it might reveal? I might prove Sir Arthur innocent, after all.

“My father wrote my mother every day of the war. Sometimes twice a day.”

“We all did, write every day, that is. It helped with the tedium of waiting for the next battle to begin. Well, go get them, girl,” General Starrett said with almost as much enthusiasm as I felt. “I had no idea such letters still existed,” he said after Adella left the room. “It will be almost like having him back again.”

Adella wasn’t long. When she returned, she hugged a black wooden box against her chest. “I used to read them when Father was away and imagine what he was doing at that exact moment. That’s how I started reading travel journey books.” She hesitated a moment before handing the box over to me. The initials
AKS
were engraved with ivory inlay on top. “They’re all I have left of him,” she said.

I took the box with all the reverence it deserved. I sat down, opened the box, and pulled out the first stack of letters, tied with a navy blue ribbon. I began reading their contents as quickly as I could, one letter after another, partly out of my eagerness to find something of value, partly out of fear that Mrs. Reynard would change her mind and take the letters back.

Adella hovered over me and then leaned in. “They aren’t comprehensive,” she whispered. I snapped my head up to look at her. “Mrs. Baines isn’t mentioned.” I nodded my understanding and went back to my reading.

“You can whisper all you want, Adella,” the general said. “But my hearing is excellent. Now what is this about Mrs. Baines?”

I could vaguely hear Mrs. Reynard explain what she knew to her grandfather while I read Henry’s letters. Details about his time acting as a captain of a hospital ship confirmed Rachel Baines’s story without mentioning her. Other letters described how he’d spent most of the war doing as the general said, conveying troops and goods from one part of the Union to another. With a letter still in hand, I dragged my notebook across the table, flipped to a blank page, and began a catalog of Henry’s missions: St. Louis to Cairo, Cairo to Cincinnati, Mound City to Fort Anderson, et cetera.

When I had finished skimming all the letters, I’d confirmed that Henry had only one official mission to the regions where the switch cane and palmetto both grew. Henry had been to Vicksburg. But if the mission was official, what was it about the photograph of Henry’s boat that made someone want to steal it? I read the full letter addressed to his wife, Sarah, dated Christmas Eve, 1862.

Something struck me as vaguely familiar. I read it a second and then a third time. The Twenty-Ninth Missouri Infantry regiment! I’d almost missed it. Could that be what Priscilla Triggs knew that she wasn’t telling anyone? I had to speak with Sir Arthur immediately.

“Miss Davish, you’re as pale as yesterday’s gardenias,” Adella said. “Are you all right?”

After writing down the name of the regiment that Henry had transported to Vicksburg, I handed Adella back the letter box. My hand was shaking.

“Thank you, Mrs. Reynard. Thank you, General Starrett, sir,” I said. “You’ve both been extremely helpful.” I said, gathering up my notes. I threw my coat on, not bothering with my gloves.

“You’ve found something, haven’t you?” General Starrett said.

“I believe so, sir. Yes.” Before either could ask me another question, I stuffed my hat on my head and ran out the door.

 

“He’s your guest, sir,” I said. “What would you have me do?”

After leaving General Starrett and Adella Reynard gaping at my abrupt departure, I’d headed straight for the nearest telegraph office. I wired a request to Sir Arthur’s friend in the War Department. When I marked it “Urgent,” I laughed out loud, to the befuddlement of the telegraph operator. Hank, the operator in the Arcadia Hotel in Eureka Springs, would’ve understood. Then I ran, literally, to the jailhouse. I was overwhelmed with what I’d learned and the only way that I could release the pent-up energy and calm my nerves was to run. Once or twice I slipped on an icy patch on the sidewalk, but I’d kept my balance on both occasions and, despite the ache in my ribs, kept going. I told Sir Arthur everything I’d learned from Henry’s letters.

“I’m sorry I haven’t had time to type it up properly, sir,” I said, “but I thought it more important that I speak to you immediately, to see how you would have me proceed.” Sir Arthur stroked his chin.

“You wired Rogers at the War Department?”

I nodded. “Before I came here,” I said. “I’m hoping for a prompt response.”

“Then we should wait for the response.” I wasn’t sure I’d be able to wait. It would mean Sir Arthur would languish that much longer in this cell. It would mean I’d have to keep this secret for hours, maybe days. I was already feeling anxious. What if I saw the object of my inquiry at Sir Arthur’s house? How was I going to pretend that everything was as it was before?

“Should I continue asking questions?” I asked.

“No, suspend everything you’re doing on my behalf until you get the telegram. We’ll know where to go from there.”

“Sir, what if I only spoke to Mrs. Triggs?” I said.

I’d been eager to speak to Priscilla after lunch and the confrontation with Mott. But when Walter accompanied me back to Sir Arthur’s house to check on her, he discovered she’d taken another, unprescribed dose of the chloral hydrate. Walter had been both furious and deeply concerned. Some people have died from overdoses of this medicine. Despite Lieutenant Triggs’s assurances he would make sure she didn’t take any more, Walter insisted on staying by her bedside until she woke. Knowing she was in good hands, I’d left Walter and the Triggses and gone to General Starrett’s house.

“Dr. Grice implied that she might know something of importance.” I was convinced more than ever that she knew something. Something she didn’t want to face. Why else would she prefer to spend the day in a drug-induced stupor? “And we’re on friendly terms. If she’ll talk to anyone, she’ll talk to me.”

“No, Hattie,” Sir Arthur said, “leave Priscilla out of this.”

I wanted to shout, “Even if she knows something or saw something that could exonerate you?” But I knew better than to question Sir Arthur. Instead, I sighed and said, “Yes, sir.”