Chapter 23
Employing a new level of caution, Fraser spent much of the day watching the Arnold farm from a grove about 200 yards downwind of it. The white-haired gentleman, wearing a battered hat, moved stiffly through his chores in a fenced yard. He finished them by the time the sun was in Fraser’s eyes, about midafternoon. Small of stature, with a yellow-white beard that drifted well down his shirt, Sam Arnold had an elfin quality that belied his involvement in the crime of the century. His only company was a half-dozen dogs and a like number of cats. They seemed to regard Arnold as a peer.
The old man settled in a rocking chair on the front porch, a book in his hand and a jug next to him on the floor. One cat sat in his lap and another on the arm of his chair. The dogs arranged themselves at varying distances, rising to investigate the few passersby with unhurried curiosity and occasional woofs. No one stopped, and Arnold hailed no one.
Fraser slipped down to the road and walked to the village store three miles away. The storeowner led him to the back, where he produced a gallon jug of apple liquor. On his way back to the Arnold farm, the pink sunset streaked the sky. Fraser tried the liquor. It burned, then warmed, then began to dizzy. He should have bought something to eat. His plan for approaching Arnold was close to no plan at all. Perhaps the liquor would produce one.
The gate latch taxed him. It looked like a simple wire looped over the fence post, but a mechanism held it shut. It didn’t spring free when Fraser lifted the lever. He took a step back. He looked at it. The gate hung at an angle. Fraser wedged his foot under the gate and lifted it, then freed the lever. The gate swung open. His sense of pride was way out of proportion to the accomplishment.
Some of the dogs greeted him, sniffing and circling. A brown mutt of medium size thrust her snout into his private parts. Fraser waited. She snorted and moved aside.
“Evening,” Fraser called up to the porch. Arnold regarded him with a level gaze, then took a swallow from his jug and set it back down. Fraser walked slowly toward him. “Mind some company? I’m new around here.” He stopped at the porch steps.
The old man seemed to lack the need to blink. “Anyone drinking Hansen’s liquor is new around here.”
Fraser grinned affably. “A mite rough, but it gets the job done.”
“You weren’t invited.” It wasn’t a question.
“No, sir, that’s right. Just—”
“Dogs watched you in those trees all day. So you’re either a thief or someone wants to pester me about John Wilkes Booth.” Tilting his head slightly, Arnold added, “You look soft for thieving.”
Pointing to the step to the porch, Fraser said, “Mind if I set down?”
“Some, but go ahead. You’re welcome to waste your evening. I don’t talk about the past.”
Fraser took a swallow from his jug. The brown dog came back and settled near him. Arnold’s gaze returned to his book. Fraser took another swallow and started describing his investigation. He realized he was scrambling things and started over, beginning with Mr. Bingham on his deathbed. Arnold looked up sharply at the sound of Bingham’s name.
“Tell me that man’s still dead. I read that he died.”
“Yes, sir. He’s dead.”
Arnold shook his head. “That was the best news I’d had in many a year. That man ruined my life. Why, he presented nothing but lies in that trial. Once a lie is on the pages of history, you can’t erase it. When I heard he’d passed, the world felt cleaner.”
“He was my friend.”
“He was my enemy. I was no part of any scheme to kill anyone. I told Booth the kidnapping idea was crazy. I was a hundred miles away when it happened. I wasn’t there.”
Fraser used his jug to stifle his response. It would do no good to remind this old man that he spent months smuggling weapons for Booth, planning Lincoln’s abduction, and actually laid in ambush for the president. Or to mention the letter Arnold wrote to Booth two weeks before the assassination, the one where he urged Booth to consult with “R——d,” linking the Confederacy and Booth. Arnold knew all that, and an argument wasn’t going to help anything.
A new dog, a big bluetick with a solemn visage, limped up to the gate. Fraser went to let him in. The hound whimpered slightly and licked a front paw, looking sad. Fraser bent down to look him over. A nail on a front paw was torn, an angry-looking splinter wedged in his pad.
“Probably running after something, not looking where he was going,” Arnold said, hovering over Fraser’s shoulder. “Old Jasper, he’s game, but not the smartest.”
“I’m a doctor. Mind if I take a hand?”
“Go ahead. Seems he trusts you.” Arnold produced tweezers and scissors, which Fraser heated to avoid infection. Arnold held the dog while he worked. The paw spurted blood when the splinter came out, but Fraser got it stopped and wrapped it tight in a bandage that wouldn’t last more than sixty minutes. When he was done, Jasper lay down and started chewing off the dressing.
Arnold offered Fraser some supper, boiled eggs and dark bread. They sipped liquor and talked dogs until Arnold rose to turn in. He said Fraser could sleep in the barn. In the night, Jasper and two of the cats joined him.
Arnold was at his chores before Fraser awoke, somewhat the worse for the liquor. He decided he had to try two subjects with Arnold. He would start with the connections between Booth and the Confederacy. Arnold’s letter to Booth was too important not to ask about. Also, he would ask about Michael O’Laughlen, another conspirator from Baltimore who was an old friend of Booth’s. Arnold and O’Laughlen had lived together for weeks in early 1865, preparing to kidnap Lincoln. Unlike Arnold, O’Laughlen was in Washington City on the night before the assassination. That night he attended a party at Secretary of War Stanton’s house, a party that included General Grant. Next day, the day of the assassination, O’Laughlen was with Booth close to Ford’s Theatre. Yet, O’Laughlen seemed to play no role in the attacks that night and then took his secrets to the grave, dying of fever in prison. Maybe Arnold knew those secrets.
When Fraser entered the house, the old man was setting out a bachelor’s breakfast of cold biscuits and coffee. They ate in silence.
“Mr. Arnold,” Fraser started, “I don’t want to bother you about Booth and most of what went on with all that.”
“No need to talk about it. I’ve written down everything that matters. Left a full record. When I’m called before the Lord’s tribunal, which is the only place where I still might receive justice, my account will be released. It has been my sad misfortune to draw a black destiny, but I am not resentful. It is all God’s will.”
“I’m sure it will be many years before the world will have a chance to read that document.”
“Doc, I don’t tell myself those lies, so you don’t need to either. I’m about played out, reaching my three score and ten. Lucky to get this far.”
“Sir, a couple of small things.” Arnold regarded Fraser without expression. “That letter that you wrote to Booth, before the night at Ford’s Theatre—”
“Won’t talk about that letter, Doc. I wrote to stop a madman from doing something crazy. Nothing more to it.” Arnold spoke with little inflection, but he was talking.
“But the reference to Richmond—what did it mean?”
“It meant I was telling him anything I could to stop him. I couldn’t believe any sensible person would approve his scheme. But Booth, he was part sorcerer, part serpent. He could talk the birds out of the trees, but no one ever talked him out of anything.”
“But why Richmond? Had he been talking to men in Richmond, with the Confederacy?
“If he did, I knew nothing about it. I was writing whatever came into my head.”
Although Arnold’s tone remained even, his eye had a defiant look that discouraged further inquiry. This was the point on which Arnold was most vulnerable. Those two letters separated by blanks—not even an actual word, just “R——d”—had earned him four years of prison misery. It had been foolish to think Arnold would suddenly unburden himself of all guilty knowledge. Arnold stood to leave the room.
“The other thing,” Fraser said quickly, “was Michael O’Laughlen.”
“Yes, Mike. He was a gay companion.”
“You must have gotten to know him pretty well when you lived together.”
“The way men know each other when they’re young, their blood’s high, and their thinking’s cloudy. We saw one vast sea of pleasure before us, and we swam in it happily.”
“And you were together at the prison, down at Fort Jefferson.”
“That place wore him out. Mike wasn’t as strong as he seemed.”
“Here’s what I’m wondering. Mike comes back to Washington City just before that night, the night at Ford’s Theatre, and he’s seeing Booth, but he doesn’t seem to do anything for Booth that night. If he wasn’t going to be part of what they were doing, why did he go to Washington?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“I know, Mr. Arnold. But I wondered if maybe Mike said anything about it, while you were in prison, maybe when he got the fever. You and Dr. Mudd were right there with him, you’d known him from before, it just seemed he might talk about it. Like a regret that he came back to Washington at all.”
“He did regret that. He regretted that, for sure.”
Arnold stopped talking and looked down at the rough wooden table in the kitchen. Fraser watched the old man. Small emotions flitted across his face like swallows at dusk, disappearing as quickly as they arrived. His eyes looked to grow heavy.
“Mr. Arnold?” The old man looked up at Fraser. “Was Mike supposed to attack Stanton that night, or General Grant? I can’t figure out any other reason for him to be there.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“I know, sir. But did he say anything like that?”
“Nope, never said that.”
“What did he say?”
Arnold gripped the back of a chair. “Mike said it was lucky General Grant left town that day, lucky for both of them. But it didn’t turn out that lucky for Mike.”
“That’s what he said?”
“Half crazy with fever when he said it, but yes, sir, that’s what he said.”
“So that means he was supposed to kill Grant, but then had nothing to do when Grant left Washington that afternoon, right?” Arnold didn’t answer. “What do you think?”
“I think you’d better leave.”