John Miller - The First Assassin

They uncovered Joe’s corpse. Its skin had assumed an ugly gray pallor. The stench was strong. Tate took a step back.

“Search the clothes.”

Tate was puzzled. “What am I looking for?”

“Just do it!”

The overseer knelt beside the corpse and began patting it. He stuck his hand in the pant pockets. From one he removed the crumbled remains of a biscuit. In another he found a small slingshot and several round stones. He placed these beside the body.

“Take them off.”

“Sir?”

“The clothes. Remove them from his body. I want them thoroughly searched.”

Tate did not move right away. He considered this a strange request. “It would help to know what you’re looking for,” he said.

“I know what I am looking for, and I will recognize it when I see it. That is all you need to know.”

Tate began to take off the clothes, piece by piece. The shirt was the hardest to remove, having become crusty with dried blood. The whole experience was humiliating. Tate not only resented having to perform this indecent chore. He also resented having to do it where a number of slaves could see him. This is a story that will spread fast, he thought. He worried about what this desecration would do to his reputation around the farm. Certainly it would not make things any easier for him.

When Joe’s naked body lay exposed before Bennett and it was clear that no more searching could be done, Tate looked up at his boss. “Will that be all, sir?”

“Damn it, Tate. He does not have what I want. You should have followed Portia.”

Bennett stormed up the steps to the manor. The door slammed shut behind him with a loud bang.

Nobody had moved from the scene. Tate took command. He ordered a slave to lead all but one of the horses to the stables. He told two others to dress Joe again, wrap him up, and put him on the back of the remaining horse. He sent a final slave to fetch a few shovels. When the body bag was in place and the shovels in everybody’s hands, Tate took the reins of the horse and began to walk to the slave cemetery. This was on the edge of Bennett’s property near the road. It was a fairly large section of land, having been in use for several generations. The graves were unmarked.

The most direct route from the manor required Tate to walk by the slave quarters. As he approached them, a crowd began to gather. They whispered among themselves. Before anybody called out to ask what had happened, Sally appeared on the scene. When she saw Tate, she dropped the pot she had been holding. It cracked when it hit the ground. Soup sprayed everywhere. She ran toward Tate. “Oh Lord, don’t let it be true,” she screamed. “Please don’t let it be true.”

But it was true. Joe had come home, and he would never leave again.

The cat startled Violet Grenier when it jumped onto her desk. She rubbed the black-and-white animal behind its ears, listening to it purr. “That’s a good boy, Calhoun,” she said, in a baby-talk voice. The cat was named after John Calhoun, the South Carolina politician who had served as a vice president, a cabinet officer, and a senator. He had died a decade earlier and since then had achieved an iconic status among Southern partisans. When the cat made an appearance at one of her parties, Grenier loved to tell her guests its name. She especially enjoyed teasing Northerners who stroked its fur. “See how easy it is to please him?” she would say. “That’s what I like about cats. They demand so little-just a bit of freedom.”

At the thought of this barbed comment, Grenier smiled and leaned back in her chair. She felt a cramp in her back and realized that she had been sitting for too long. It was time to take a break. She set down her pen and rose from the seat where she had composed letters for much of the afternoon. The most important of these letters had been the most difficult to write. She had saved it for last because she was unsure of what to say.

The adventure of the previous night, when she had followed the soldiers and their prisoners to the Treasury Department, had left her confused. One plot was now foiled. This was no loss. Yet she wondered exactly how it had been defeated. How much of the conspiracy was compromised? Would the prisoners talk to their captors? How much would they say? Would her acquaintance in New York become exposed? Would she find herself implicated?

If they mentioned visiting her, she could expect to face difficult questions. She could deny knowing them, or at least deny knowing their plans. The fact that she was a woman could prove advantageous-the chivalry of her interrogators might coax them into believing her professions of total innocence. She could confess to holding the Southern sympathies for which she was already well known. “But no lady in my position would associate herself with the schemes of ruffians,” she said grandly, as if practicing for the occasion. Calhoun looked up at her and meowed. “I’m glad you approve,” she said. She stroked his neck.

Her wiles might help, but Grenier appreciated that perhaps she was falling into some danger. What were her choices? Leaving Washington was an option, though one she did not want to take. She was needed here. A man could put on a uniform and fight in a battle. Grenier knew that wars were not always won by strength of arms. Generals needed reliable information almost as much as their troops needed ammunition-and Grenier understood that she was in a unique position to provide information about federal activity that perhaps nobody else could obtain. Men were willing to die defending the rights of the South. Grenier was determined to help them win in any way she could. This cause was bigger than any man-or any woman.

A Bible rested on her desk, propped open to Matthew. It helped her compose her letter to New York: “A stranger recently told me that ‘Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction,’” she had written. “Success, however, is a strait gate-and the one he had hoped to pass through is now shut.” She thought perhaps it said enough without saying too much. It would mean little to anyone but its recipient, and to him it would convey an important piece of news. How he used this information would be his own concern. For her part, Grenier felt that he at least deserved to possess it.

She tucked the letter into an envelope and sealed it. Her thoughts turned to Mazorca, as they had done so many times since the day before. She had given herself to him freely-something she had not done with a man in quite a while. Her trysts always involved some kind of transaction, as she sought to extract a fact or obtain a favor. Mazorca was different. She had wanted nothing from him but the pleasure of his company, and she indeed had found it pleasurable.

Mazorca had not said anything about a second visit. There may not be a reason for one, she realized-or at least not a professional reason. They had not spoken directly about why he was in Washington. Yet she knew what task lay before him and understood the importance of discretion. He needed to keep a low profile. Still, he had given her his address at Tabard’s, for use in an emergency. Or was it an invitation?

Grenier gazed out her window. Her eyes settled on a man standing at the corner across the street, in front of St. John’s Church. He seemed to be doing nothing in particular, as if he were waiting on a friend. A loiterer was not remarkable, especially with Lafayette Park nearby. Yet something about him looked familiar. Had she seen him before? She thought that perhaps she had spotted him several hours earlier. That big mustache was hard to miss. Mustaches were fashionable these days. Only the oldest men, impervious to the latest trends, seemed able to shirk them. Mazorca, too-that was one of the things she liked about him. Yet the whiskers of the man outside her window achieved an astonishing thickness.