The First Assassin (39 page)

FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1861

When Mazorca opened his eyes, the dawn sky overhead was turning to a clear blue. The clouds from the previous night had disappeared almost completely, thanks to a cool breeze that must have pushed them away. It promised to be a very nice day—bright, brisk, and full of possibility.

Pain ripped through Mazorca’s body as he sat up. He had known it would happen: sleeping on a hard granite surface, without a pillow or a blanket, had guaranteed the aching result. It diminished as he stretched and yawned. He stood and looked down at the city from his bird’s-eye vantage point.

The night might have brought much worse than temporary discomfort. After leaving the crumpled body of the chaplain, Mazorca had walked swiftly along the canal, hiking up the collar of the coat and pulling down the brim of the hat—anything to hide his disfigured ear. There was no way he could remain in Murder Bay. It was probably dangerous to go anywhere in the city.

He briefly considered going back to the Fowler house but decided against it. They had found him at Tabard’s, and they might find him there. Unsure of his destination and driven by an overwhelming desire simply to get away, Mazorca had set off to the east.

At Seventh Street, the canal came within half a block of Pennsylvania Avenue. The lights from Brown’s Hotel and the National Hotel were exactly what Mazorca wanted to avoid. They were like those lighthouses Lincoln had described in their brief meeting—a warning for navigators to stay away. To his right, a small bridge crossed the canal. It led to the Mall and away from the buildings and people of downtown. Mazorca took it, and in a moment he found himself in a large open space of grass, shrubs, and pathways. In front of him loomed a structure that looked like a castle from the days of knights. This was the Smithsonian Institution, a red building that appeared out of its rightful place and time. One of its windows glowed. Someone was inside, poring over the museum’s collections. Was there one person or several? Mazorca watched the window for several minutes. But he never received an answer. Given all that had happened, he was in no mood to take a chance.

The Mall itself was empty. As he passed the Smithsonian and continued to the west, Mazorca wondered about curling up beneath a row of bushes. But this would make little sense—if he was going to sleep outside, he would be better off leaving the city entirely. Although the Mall was deserted at night, it might very easily attract people in the morning.

Ahead, the moonlight fell upon the pale masonry of the Washington Monument—a big block of stone that was supposed to rise upward in tribute to America’s first president. Mazorca knew from guidebooks that it was meant to reach a towering height of 555 feet, but work had halted several years earlier. The monument now stood at about 156 feet. To begin building such an edifice and not finish it struck Mazorca as worse than not having started it in the first place—its incompleteness seemed to dishonor the figure it hoped to glorify. Yet he began to wonder if it represented an opportunity.

The monument stood in the center of a spit of land that stretched into the Potomac River at the point where a small inlet channeled water into the city’s canal. It was one of Washington’s chief landmarks, but Mazorca had not given it much thought previously. He approached its base at the summit of a slight incline. When he arrived at the site, he walked around the four sides of its exterior, pulling his fingers along the cold stone. He confirmed that there was only one door, in the center of the eastern wall. He assumed it would be locked and was surprised to see it give way when he pulled on the handle.

The interior was dark. Mazorca’s eyes were already well adjusted to the night, but he waited for a few minutes as they strained to give him a slightly better view. Right in front of him, a set of stairs began their ascent. When he had a good fix on their location, he closed the door. Pitch-blackness enveloped him. He took a few tentative steps in the direction of the stairs, tapping gently with his shoe as he got closer. He found the first step and felt for the wall on his right. Touching it, he began a cautious climb.

It was slow going. He hit a landing and turned. Then he hit another landing and turned again. He kept his right hand on the wall and his left hand in front of him to protect his head from low-hanging objects. In the passageway, it was impossible to see anything.

Eventually, however, Mazorca detected a faint radiance. He first saw it as he turned on a landing. It grew brighter as he continued upward, though it was never more than dim. After hiking a bit further, he saw its source: the staircase was open to the sky.

Mazorca clambered onto the top of the monument. He was on a square plateau, its edges perhaps fifty feet in length. Several blocks of stone were scattered about its surface. At a point near the center, a pole rose. A flag hung from it, showing signs of life from a wind whose blowing Mazorca had not noticed on the ground. He remembered having seen the banner fly during the daytime. It appeared as though nobody checked on it with any regularity.

From two sides of the monument, Mazorca saw almost nothing except moonlight glistening on the waters of the Potomac. On the other two sides, he saw the lights of the city. Somewhere down there, people were searching for him. He was exhausted and needed to shut his eyes. He gathered a couple of empty canvas bags and rolled them into something that resembled a pillow. Then he curled himself on the roof of the monument and fell asleep almost immediately.

Hours later, the sun woke him as it peeked above the half-finished dome of the Capitol, about a mile to the east. Above him, the flag flapped in the breeze. When he stood up, Mazorca surveyed Washington from his unique vantage point. Near the base of the monument, pigs and cattle roamed freely. To the south and the west, he saw the Long Bridge spanning the Potomac, the docks of Georgetown, and the Naval Observatory. To the north sat the city, or most of it.

He watched several groups of soldiers make their way to the Capitol. Mazorca figured that these were members of the New York regiment, reporting for duty at their new lodgings. More than a few would be drowsy or hungover, having spent their first night in Washington pursuing revelry rather than rest. Mazorca had seen more than a few of them in Murder Bay. No matter how sleepy or miserable they felt, however, they were now the toast of the city. He envisioned people from all over Washington heading to the Capitol to greet them.

The monument offered an excellent view of the White House. Mazorca counted second-floor windows until he found the one that he had seen from the other side, in the president’s office, just a few days earlier. He wondered whether Lincoln was in there right now. He wished that he could just walk through the front door as he already had done and end his mission with a quick pull of the trigger. The impulse was powerful, but Mazorca resisted it. His mission called for patience and cunning, not haste and desperation. His general plan remained a sound one. He would just have to improvise the specifics.

Mazorca pulled the photograph from his coat pocket and examined it in the daylight. It remained what it had been the night before—good enough for purposes of recognition. He crushed it into a ball and tossed it off the side of the monument. When it disappeared from sight, he picked up his hat and coat and started down the steps. He carried his book in his left hand.

Every lead had gone cold, with a single exception. Standing in front of the house at 398 Sixteenth Street, Rook knew that he needed to confront Violet Grenier. The distribution of Mazorca’s photograph had not produced anything useful. A handful of people claimed to have seen him at various times and places, but none could say where he was now or where he might go. The only report of significance was Zack Hoadly’s, but it had merely permitted Rook to track Mazorca’s movement up to a certain point. And then the trail had vanished once again.

Overnight, the body of Charles Calthrop, the bookbinder, had turned up—a soldier found it floating in the canal, where it apparently had been dumped a few days earlier. The corpse was swollen and starting to rot, and it had been difficult to identify, but a city policeman recalled hearing that Calthrop had failed to make an expected delivery. They went to the bookbinder’s home and found the bloody scene.

There was no evidence that Mazorca had anything to do with it. Yet Rook had no doubt that he was the killer. It was the simplest explanation: the two men had been in recent contact, there had been some friction between them, and since then Mazorca had been revealed as an efficient and professional murderer. Rook was determined to stop him before he had a chance to strike at the president—and right now, his only hope lay with a woman who had quietly been his nemesis.

Grenier had been placed under an official, sanctioned watch ever since Rook presented Mazorca’s photograph to Scott. It was the kind of observation Rook had wanted for days: a team of men holding various positions on Sixteenth Street, in Lafayette Park, and in an alley behind the house. The only difference was that they now made no effort to conceal themselves. The operation was closer to a house arrest than surveillance.

“The lights were on until an hour or two before dawn,” said Corporal Clark, who had kept watch through the night from a bench in Lafayette Park. “She was definitely up and about—I kept seeing movement near the windows. She’s still inside right now.”

“Is she awake?” asked Rook.

“Hard to say. The lights did go out before sunrise—maybe three or four hours ago.”

“I’d like you to come to the door with me.” Rook looked at Clark’s belt, where the corporal had a pistol holstered. “Is that loaded?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I don’t know what to expect.”

Rook checked the chamber of his own pistol. It was loaded too.

At the front door, Rook grasped a metal knocker and banged it hard. He wondered what kind of reception he would receive. Would Grenier’s servant answer and say her mistress was ill and could not see anybody? Or would Grenier receive him with a chilly formality? Rook even thought about the possibility of forcing his way through the door. It was thick and would not easily budge. Perhaps with Clark’s assistance, however, he could get it open.

He reached to try the knocker a second time when he heard movement on the other side. A deadbolt unfastened and the door swung open.

Violet Grenier peered out. She wore a bright red robe and smiled warmly.

“Oh, Colonel,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Outside the president’s office, John Hay scribbled furiously at his desk. He wanted to finish a short letter to one of his former professors at Brown before the next interruption, which was bound to arrive at any moment. Suddenly, he sensed that he was not alone. He stopped writing and turned his head. The tall figure of Abraham Lincoln loomed over him.

“Pardon my snooping, Mr. Hay.”

“No worries, sir.”

Lincoln was supposed to be reading his own mail—Hay had put a stack of letters on his desk earlier in the morning. Perhaps the president was just stretching his long legs.

“I’m restless in here—if I don’t get out soon, the whole day will slip by, and I will have missed it.”

“Sir?”

“I’m going to take a walk, Mr. Hay. You may join me if you like.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” Hay opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a picture of Mazorca. He held it up.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten. I’m just not going to let anybody keep me caged in this house. It is good for the people to see their president.”

“You’re taking a risk. Aren’t you concerned about what this man wants to do?”

“If I am killed, I can die but once—but to live in constant dread of death is to die over and over again.”

Lincoln chuckled and then continued. “Besides, there probably isn’t a safer place in Washington than where I would like to go.”

“Please come in,” said Grenier. She gestured for Rook to enter the house.

The colonel turned around and looked at Clark. “Stay here, on the porch,” he said. Then he went through the door. Grenier closed it behind him.

“Take a seat, Charles,” said Grenier as they entered the parlor. “May I call you that?”

Rook was struck by her beauty. He told himself to resist it. “I’ll stand, thank you. And let’s keep things formal, Mrs. Grenier.”

“As you wish. I’m just glad you’re here. You don’t know how worried I’ve been.”

“That’s odd, because you’ve been the source of many worries, Mrs. Grenier.”

“Then it will be such a relief for you to know the truth, because we are past the very worst,” she said. “I must retrieve something. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

Grenier left the room. Rook heard her climb the stairs. He considered stopping her, thinking that perhaps it was not wise to let her out of his sight. Yet she had not been in his sight until just now, and the house was surrounded by Clark and the other soldiers. She could not get away.

He took the opportunity to examine the room. He had seen Grenier’s home from the outside many times, and he had always wondered what the interior looked like. He imagined Locke sitting here, telling Grenier about conversations with General Scott and meetings with the senior military staff. He thought of Davis and Stephens coming by to discuss plans for sabotaging the Capitol. He knew Mazorca had been here as well.

The bust of Stephen Douglas caught his eye. It sat on a table beside one of the parlor’s red walls. Rook had not given Douglas much thought since seeing him at the inauguration. In a corner near the table, Rook noticed two boxes sitting on the floor. They were open on top, with wads of crumpled newspaper stuffed inside. A vase peeked through one of them. It appeared as though Grenier was packing. Rook reached into a box and pulled out a ball of newspaper. He smoothed it, revealing the front page of Wednesday’s edition of the
National Intelligencer
.

“I’m leaving,” said Grenier.

Rook had not heard her return. He crushed the newspaper again and dropped it into the box.