Jeffery Deaver - The Twelfth Card

“Could be,” Rhyme said. “Did Tucker ever get written up?”

“Nothing in the file here about it. You might wanta check with the prison.”

Rhyme got the name of the warden of the facility where Tucker had worked and then said, “Thanks, Captain.”

“Nothing to it. Y’all have a good day.”

A few minutes later Rhyme was on the line with Warden J. T. Beauchamp of the Northern Texas Maximum Security Correction Facility in Amarillo. Rhyme identified himself and said he was working with the NYPD. “Now, Warden -”

“J. T., if you please, sir.”

“All right, J. T.” Rhyme explained the situation to him.

“Charlie Tucker? Sure, the guard who was killed. Lynching, or whatever. I wasn’t here then. Tucker retired just before I moved from Houston. I’ll pull his file. Put you on hold.” A moment later the warden returned. “I’ve got it right here. Nope, no formal complaints against him, ’cepting from one prisoner. He said Charlie was ridin’ him pretty hard. When Charlie didn’t stop they got into a little scuffle ’bout it.”

“That could be our man,” Rhyme pointed out.

“’Cepting the prisoner was executed a week later. And Charlie didn’t get hisself killed for another year.”

“But maybe Tucker hassled another prisoner, who hired somebody to even the score.”

“Possible. Only hiring a pro for that? Little sophisticated for our lot down here.”

Rhyme tended to agree. “Well, maybe the perp was a prisoner himself. He went after Tucker as soon as he got out, then set up the murder to look like some ritual killing. Could you ask some of your guards or other employees? We’d be looking for a white male, forties, medium build, light brown hair. Probably doing time for a violent felony. And probably released or escaped – ”

“No escapes, not from here,” the warden added.

“Okay then, released not long before Tucker was killed. That’s about all we know. Oh, and he has a knowledge of guns and’s a good shot.”

“That won’t help. This’s Texas.” A chuckle.

Rhyme continued, “We have a computer composite of his face. We’ll email a copy to you. Could you have somebody compare it to the pictures of releasees around that time?”

“Yes, sir, I’ll have my gal do it. She’s got a pretty good eye. But may take a while. We’ve had ourselves a lotta inmates go through here.” He gave them his email address and they hung up.

Just as the call was disconnected, Geneva, Bell and Pulaski arrived.

Bell explained about the accomplice’s escape at the school. He added a few details about him, though, and told them that somebody was going to canvass the students and teachers and dig up a security tape if there was one.

“I didn’t get to take my last test,” Geneva said angrily, as if this were Rhyme’s fault. This girl could definitely get on your nerves. Still, he said patiently, “I have some news you might be interested in. Your ancestor survived his swim in the Hudson.”

“He did?” Her face brightened and she eagerly read the printout of the 1868 magazine article. Then she frowned. “They make him sound pretty bad. Like he’d planned it all along. He wasn’t that way. I know it.” She looked up. “And we still don’t know what happened to him if he was ever released.”

“We’re still searching for information. I hope we can find out more.”

The tech’s computer chimed and he looked it over. “Maybe something here. Email from a professor at Amherst who runs an African-American history website. She’s one of the people I emailed about Charles Singleton.”

“Read it.”

“It’s from Frederick Douglass’s diary.”

“Who was he again?” Pulaski asked. “Sorry, I probably should know. Got a street named after him and all.”

Geneva said, “Former slave. The abolitionist and civil rights leader of the nineteenth century. Writer, lecturer.”

The rookie was blushing. “Like I say, should’ve known.”

Cooper leaned forward and read from the screen, “‘May third, 1866. Another evening at Gallows Heights -’”

“Ah,” Rhyme interrupted, “our mysterious neighborhood.” The word “gallows” again reminded him of The Hanged Man tarot card, the placid figure swinging by his leg from a scaffold. He glanced at the card, then turned his attention back to Cooper.

“‘…discussing our vital endeavor, the Fourteenth Amendment. Several members of the Colored community in New York and myself met with, inter alia , the Honorable Governor Fenton and members of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, including Senators Harris, Grimes and Fessenden, and Congressmen Stevens and Washburne and the Democrat, Andrew T. Rogers, who proved far less partisan than we had feared.

“‘Governor Fenton began with a moving invocation, whereupon we began to present to the members of the committee our opinions on the various draft versions of the Amendment, which we did at length. (Mr. Charles Singleton was particularly articulate in his view that the amendment should incorporate a requirement of universal suffrage for all citizens, Negroes and Caucasians, women as well as men, which the members of the committee took under advisement.) Lengthy debates lasted well into the night.’”

Geneva leaned over his shoulder and read. “‘Particularly articulate,’” she whispered out loud. “And he wanted voting for women.”

“Here’s another entry,” Cooper said.

“‘June twenty-fifth, 1867. I am troubled by the slow progress. The Fourteenth Amendment was presented to the states for ratification one year ago, and with expediency twenty-two blessed the measure with their approval. Only six more are required, but we are meeting with stubborn resistance.

“‘Willard Fish, Charles Singleton and Elijah Walker are traveling throughout those states as yet uncommitted and doing what they can to implore legislators therein to vote in favor of the amendment. But at every turn they are faced with ignorance in perceiving the wisdom of this law – and personal disdain and threats and anger. To have sacrificed so much, and yet not achieve our goal… Is our prevailing in the War to be hollow, merely a Pyrrhic victory? I pray the cause of our people does not wither in this, our most important effort.’” Cooper looked up from the screen. “That’s it.”

Geneva said, “So Charles was working with Douglass and the others on the Fourteenth Amendment. They were friends, sounds like.”

Or were they? Rhyme wondered. Was the newspaper article right? Had he worked his way into the circle to learn what he could about the Freedmen’s Trust and rob it?

Although, for Lincoln Rhyme, truth was the only goal in any forensic investigation, he harbored a rare sentimental hope that Charles Singleton had not committed the crime.

He stared at the evidence board, seeing far more question marks than answers.

“Geneva, can you call your aunt? See if she’s found any more letters or anything else about Charles?”

The girl called the woman with whom Aunt Lilly was living. There was no answer but she left a message for one of them to call back at Rhyme’s. She then placed another call. Her eyes brightened. “Mom! Are you home?”

Thank God, Rhyme thought. Her parents were back at last.

But a frown crossed the girl’s face a moment later. “No…What happened?…When?”

A delay of some sort, Rhyme deduced. Geneva gave her mother an update, reassured them she was safe and being looked out for by the police. She handed the phone to Bell, who spoke to her mother at some length about the situation. He then gave the phone back and Geneva said good-bye to her and to her father. She reluctantly hung up.

Bell said, “They’re stuck in London. The flight was canceled, and they couldn’t get anything else today. They’re on the earliest plane out tomorrow – it goes to Boston and they’ll catch the next flight here.”