William Wood was amused.
He knew that he should have been inspired, probably, by the priest’s dedication and will. He certainly knew that he should have found it spiritually uplifting, yet another demonstration of the mighty hold the Catholic faith held on its flock. But he had little regard for the priest, his ancient European rituals, and his devotion to a prisoner and a conspirator.
He was simply amused.
“And why, Father Walter, do you feel the need for yet another visit with Mrs. Surratt? Surely she has had her fill of you by now and can find her own way to her Maker.”
“I remind you, Mr. Wood, that Mrs. Surratt has yet to be found guilty of any crime that would recommend the notion that she’ll be visiting with her Maker in the near future. A trial still awaits her,” said Father Walter. “I also retain an inexhaustible interest in Mrs. Surratt as a member of my church and a woman desirous of spiritual guidance. Despite your observations to the contrary, I believe her need for my presence has yet to be fully tapped, Mr. Wood.”
Wood wondered whether he should press the priest any further. He enjoyed toying with him and found his presence annoying, but he had more urgent matters at hand, including helping Stanton and the others prepare the case against the conspirators. Summer was upon them and the Old Capitol was musty, its walls already licked by the heat that made him loathe the District. His office began to strangle him once the heat set in, and the more he thought about that prospect, the more he felt that it was already upon him; he got up from his desk and opened the room’s only window. Two small stacks of books were piled by the window, and a Colt, a box of bullets, and a Bowie knife sat atop them.
“You realize, of course, that you’re greatly inconveniencing me,” Wood said, turning his attention back to Father Walter. “Mr. McFadden has been moved with the conspirators to the Old Arsenal Penitentiary.”
Wood paused, allowing the revelation to gain traction.
Father Walter simply returned Wood’s stare.
“I said that they’ve been transferred to the Old Arsenal. It has only been a day and very few people are aware of this, even in the government. Yet you don’t look surprised.”
“I am surprised.”
“But I will say it again: you don’t look surprised.”
“I am surprised to hear this,” Father Walter said. “But I am more saddened than surprised. You have remitted these people to an even crueler detention.”
“Tut now, Father. Tut tut. They are criminals, each and every one of them. Treated with discipline, citizens respond with discipline. Treated with kindness, citizens respond with treason.”
Wood searched the priest’s face again, satisfying himself that sadness was in fact residing there and that he was mistaken to be suspicious of anything else about Father Walter’s response. He turned his attention to the nun seated next to the priest, scanning her up and down, then up and down again. The District can become a furnace and yet these people cloak themselves in thick black cloth, he thought; even the women are sheathed in blankets as if a frost were coming.
“This is the first time that you will be visiting Mrs. Surratt with someone else in tow,” Wood said, gesturing toward the nun. “I suppose that she, too, is saddened by the conspirators’ incarceration.”
“I believe Mrs. Surratt may be more comfortable sharing some of her concerns and fears with another woman, so I have burdened Sister Grace with my request that she join me on my visit with my parishioner.”
“Ever been in a prison before, Sister?”
“No, I haven’t, never,” the nun responded, her face barely peeking out from within the wimple that covered her cheeks and neck. The stiff white brim of her coif, snug beneath the bandeau covering her head, cast a small shadow across her eyes. Black crepe also hung down around her face, dropping in folds around her shoulders and chest, before it became lost in the darker and heavier folds of her habit.
“Well then, Sister Grace, are you certain that you’re prepared for a visit to the Old Arsenal? It may be one of the most unforgiving hellholes you will ever see.”
“I trust that the good Lord will watch over me.”
“Of course you do, dear. Of course you do.”
She was rather fine-looking, Wood thought. She had beautiful, translucent blue eyes and full lips. Why, if he weren’t a guardian of the law he might just take her right here on his desk. Yep, take her on his desk and teach her the meaning of salvation.
Wood yanked two pieces of paper from his desk drawer and dipped the nib of his quill into the umbrella-shaped ink well by his right hand. He dated both sheets and noted that their bearers had his authorization to visit the Old Arsenal that afternoon to interview Mary Surratt. He dipped his quill again, signed both sheets, and then waved his hand over them to help the ink dry.
“You are both lucky that I am in a magnanimous mood today,” Wood said. “I don’t think I shall permit any visits with the conspirators after this. I think I have already given them more liberties than they deserve.”
“I have come to understand that you have them in hoods, with their heads completely covered except for a small opening for their mouths,” the nun replied. “Surely there is little more you could do to strip away their dignity than that.”
Wood’s hand stopped moving over the sheets of paper, and Father Walter turned in his seat to look directly at the nun. Wood laid the quill down on the desk and folded his hands together in front of himself. His eyes rose and locked on the nun’s.
“In fact, there is quite a bit more I can do to disrupt their sense of themselves, and I feel absolutely no remorse or moral confusion about any of it,” Wood said. “These people killed President Lincoln. They are murderers. They don’t deserve dignity.”
Sister Grace looked away from Wood and let escape a breath she had been holding in her chest. She turned back to him, avoiding his eyes.
“I understand your position. Forgive my insolence, Mr. Wood,” the nun said, bowing her head and blessing herself with a brief sweep of her hand across her face and shoulders.
Wood resumed fanning the pages in front of him and then slid the two sheets of paper across his desk to Father Walter. Clearing his throat, he called in the guard standing watch outside his door.
“Show both of these people downstairs to the courtyard and have them escorted to the Old Arsenal as soon as a military transport can be arranged. They have my authorization to visit the penitentiary and are carrying permissions from me to that effect.”
The nun and the priest took the sheets of paper and began to leave Wood’s office. He stopped them as they reached the door.
“Father Walter.”
“Yes?”
The priest turned around.
“You left your rosary on my desk, Father.”
The priest stepped forward and took the rosary, rolling it into his hand and sliding it into the sleeve of his cassock.
“God bless,” Wood said as the tired old priest and the little harpy he’d dragged in with him finally departed. “Yes, that’s right. God bless. God bless and go rot.”
ABOUT AN HOUR after leaving Wood’s office in the Old Capitol, Father Walter was in the back of a carriage with Sister Grace, accompanied by a cavalry officer on horseback who rode along behind them as they made their way to the Old Arsenal. Surrounded by soldiers, the priest had said little to the nun outside the Old Capitol; alone with her in the carriage, he struggled to contain himself.
“How did you take it upon yourself to decide that the time was right and proper for you to be a critic of Mr. Wood’s treatment of the prisoners?” he asked her. “Particularly when we were already going to be beholden to him for the documents he provided certifying our eligibility to enter the Old Arsenal?”
“I apologize, Father. It was insubordinate and rash of me—I just found the man’s certitude to be impossible to countenance. There was also something so horrifying about his comportment. And to think that the war secretary puts such stock in a man like that.”
“Your behavior put us both in danger.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Remember, please, you are playing a role, Mrs. McFadden. That means that you aren’t entitled to be yourself.”
“I don’t know that I’ve been myself at all for the past weeks.”
GENERAL HARTRANFT AND a pair of soldiers escorted Father Walter and Fiona into the Old Arsenal’s main cellblock, a yawning, three-story warehouse of dense masonry that was empty except for four tiers of narrow, seven-foot-high cells that spanned one of its walls. Iron walkways, accessed by stairwells on either end, ran the length of the three upper tiers. Each cell had an iron door topped with a lattice of metal that allowed a modicum of light and air to creep inside. Although the cellblock could hold eighty prisoners, its only occupants were the eight conspirators about to be tried for assassinating the president and a man the penitentiary’s stewards knew to be a disgraced police detective and honeyfuggler with a pronounced limp who had conspired against the government in a separate and unctuous affair.
“We have another cellblock here that can hold sixty-four women, Sister Grace, but we elected to keep Mrs. Surratt with the men because there is ample room at the inn,” said Hartranft. “But I refused to put her in one of those hoods the men are forced to wear, and she is also free from leg irons and handcuffs. Perhaps those are small concessions, but we are trying to respect her womanhood.”
“Father Walter and I are eager to meet with her, General, and your considerations for our parishioner will not be forgotten.”
“One of my men will escort both of you to her cell, then. My understanding is that you have an hour to visit with Mrs. Surratt. I will return and see you out when your time has expired.”
“General, if any of the other prisoners wish to visit with us as well, are we free to minister to them?” Father Walter asked.
“Indeed you are, Father, but you will still only have an hour here.”
Fiona fell into line behind Father Walter as the guards brought them upstairs to the second tier of cells. The first cell they passed was empty; a rat scurried past their feet as they drew near the second.
“The bitch ain’t in this one, folks,” said a voice from inside the cell. “You just keep movin’ along now.”
“Who is held in here?” Father Walter asked one of the guards.
“It’s Lewis Powell, and I don’t think he cares a jot for whatever generosity you’re bringing here today, Father. He’s the one who sliced open the secretary of state’s face, and he’s the damnedest one among them.”
“Damned for all time and proud of it. Damned for being a cutter,” Powell said, his thick frame filling the metal screen at the top of his cell door as he pressed into it. His mouth was visible through a single opening at the bottom of the white canvas hood enveloping his head. “Mmm-hmmm, I say, mmm-hmmm. I can almost smell it. I know we have a fine specimen of femininity in our midst today.”
As they continued moving along, Powell pushed up against the weight of the shackles on his wrists, curled his fingers through the screen on the door, and stuck his tongue through one of the gaps as he licked the bars.
“Get the sister inside my cell to save my mortal soul,” he said, cackling. “Get her in here and I will make her mine.”
The next cell was empty, in keeping with Hartranft’s orders that the prisoners had to have gaps between their cells to prevent them from communicating with one another. The guard stopped at the fourth cell and raised a key to the door.
“She’s in here,” he said.
The door offered a low, heavy grunt as it swung back on its hinges, and the block of light that fell into the cell illuminated the legs and feet of its occupant, who was seated on a wooden plank that also served as her bed.
Mary Surratt didn’t speak or stand up as Father Walter and Fiona entered the cell.
“May we visit alone with Mrs. Surratt, please?” the priest asked the guard. “Her spiritual needs are a private matter.”
“I’ll need to lock you in with her, then, Father.”
The guard slammed the door shut again, leaving the cramped cell almost completely dark save for the patchwork that came through the top of the door and drew a faint checkerboard on the far wall. There wasn’t enough room in the cell for the three of them to move, and neither the priest nor the nun could see Mrs. Surratt’s face. But they could hear the soft whimpering spilling out of her in breathy arcs.
“Mary, I’ve brought someone special to see you today.”
“I am going to die in here, Father Walter. I swear, all that I can be certain of anymore is that I am to die in here.”
“Your family and I are working night and day to compel President Johnson to consider the charges against you and to free you. I am putting my faith in the Lord that you shall soon be free of your tormentors.”
“My family can’t do a thing to help me, not a thing,” Mary said. “And the one who might be able to come to my aid—my own son, my Johnny, my flesh and blood—has abandoned me.”
“I think Sister Grace here might be able to lighten your burden. I have brought her with me so that you may have a woman to confide in.”
Mary began whimpering again, rocking back and forth on the plank until it squeaked in protest. Her whimpers gave way to a soft cry, and when the priest stepped over and put his hand on her shoulder, she took his other hand and kissed the back of it.
“Thank you for your many and varied kindnesses, Father Walter,” she said, sliding off the plank and kneeling in front of him, her face still obscured in the darkness.
She and her priest prayed together for several minutes, and when they were done, Father Walter bent down and whispered into her ear.
“I’ll come back soon,” he said to her as he stood back up and called to the guard, asking for an escort to see if other prisoners sought spiritual counsel. The guard consented to leaving the door to Mrs. Surratt’s cell open so that she and the nun would have more light, but insisted on another guard standing watch at the end of the walkway.
“May I sit next to you?” Fiona asked.
“Father Walter has told me why you are here,” Mary said, sliding down to one end of the plank and into the light, revealing her face to Fiona for the first time.
Mary was sturdy and plain, her brown hair parted in the middle and swept into a simple bun. Her warm gray eyes floated above crescent-shaped pouches darkened by a lack of sleep, and she had the stubby, chafed fingers and thick nails of a woman who had worked with her hands her entire life. She was not a beautiful woman, but she was not of the Amazonian sort, as the papers would have had it. She was, like Mrs. Lincoln, thrown off kilter by the disappointments in her life.
Mary bent toward Fiona and whispered into her ear. “Father Walter said you are a confidante of the president’s widow.”
“An acquaintance, not a confidante.”
“I must tell you that I hated her husband and I have no joy in my heart for the niggers,” Mary said. “But never in the world, even if it was the last word I have ever to utter, was I part of a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln. Never.”
Fiona drew away from her for a moment and then leaned back toward her.
“What of my son?”
“Has he any complicity in this?”
“He was John Wilkes Booth’s partner in many things, but he never spoke to me of murder.”
“What did he speak of?”
“My son is an enthusiast. He is enamored of many things—except for his mother.”
She balled her hands into fists and dug them into her eyes, her back convulsing as she sobbed. The guard came down the walkway and peered in for several moments before leaving the women alone again.
“To have birthed a son, to have raised him and fed him and dutifully brought him into the embrace of the Church, only to have him abandon me,” she said, trying to bring her voice down as she continued to sob. “I do not know Mrs. Lincoln, but I do know that gossip in the District had it that she, too, shares the curse of an ungrateful and spiteful son. And I am imprisoned here in his stead, I tell you. I barely knew Mr. Booth, but my son consorted with him regularly. Yet he is not to be brought into this manhunt rather than me?”
She drew a carte de visite of a slender, pale young man from inside her blouse and began to tear it in half.
“Wait!” Fiona said. “Is this your son?”
“It is, Sister Grace. He is a demon to me now.”
She threw the image to the floor. Soldiers had begun drilling in the courtyard outside, and the sounds of their boots hitting the ground in unison wafted into the cellblock.
“What were your son’s enthusiasms?” Fiona asked.
Mary pushed the tears off her cheeks.
“He loved Dixie, for certain. And the Church. And Elmira.”
“Elmira?”
“Elmira, New York. There is a Union prison camp there where Confederate soldiers are held. He was there frequently, plotting to free the soldiers. I have told the authorities this. I and many other sympathizers gave him money to support his activities there. I have told this to Mr. Stanton’s investigators as well.”
“Did he live in Elmira?”
“No, he did not. He stayed in Manhattan whenever he went up there.”
“With whom did he stay?”
“A benefactor. Someone of ample means.”
“Do you recall his name?”
“John never spoke his name to me.”
“How is it that you came to know of a wealthy benefactor, then?”
“On two occasions, deep into his drink, he said his friend in New York could book him free passage on the trains anytime he wanted to go to Elmira. He also said this man was a colossus who was going to change the world.”
“That is all that he ever said about him?”
“He referred to him as Maestro.”
THE GUARD AND Father Walter found Mrs. Surratt on her bed, doubled over and sobbing again, when they returned to the cell. Fiona was next to Mary, rubbing her back.
“Sister Grace, we have little time, I am afraid. Only fifteen minutes or so,” the priest said. “There is a prisoner on the block above us whom I think we need to encourage to pray with us. None of the others here say they have the need.”
Fiona got up from the bed and scooped the carte de visite from beneath her foot, slipping it inside her habit.
Father Walter put his hand on Mary’s head, telling her he would try to return the next day, and Fiona patted her on the shoulder, following the priest out of the cell. As the guard turned the key and the bolt slid back into its place, Mary stopped crying and rushed to her side of the door.
“Sister Grace, wait,” she shouted.
“Yes, Mrs. Surratt?”
“You must never, ever have children. They will betray you.”
“She’s losing her mind now, ain’t she?” he said as they neared the stairway. “Thinking nuns are going to have babies.”
“Imagine,” Fiona said softly.
THE GUARD STOPPED at a cell in the middle of the third tier and rapped on the door.
“The priest is back for a visit, McFadden,” he said. “Last chance.”
“I’ll keep watch over my soul myself,” Temple replied through the bars. “On your way. I’ll be fine.”
“But you can’t do it by yourself, Diogenes,” Fiona said.
“What?” the guard asked.
The planks on Temple’s bed creaked as he stood up inside the cell. He cleared his throat and shuffled. He cleared his throat again, trying to find his voice and struggling to keep his excitement at bay.
“It sounds like you don’t just have a priest out there.”
“No, there’s a nun, too,” the guard said.
Temple shuffled closer to the door, pausing for a moment. The chain on his handcuffs clanked and he caught his breath. My angel. My guardian angel.
“Right, perhaps I do need a hand in prayer,” he said. “Show them in.”
“You sit down on your bed until I have this door open.”
Temple shuffled back and the guard turned the key. Fiona entered the cell and Father Walter stepped in behind her, filling the space between her and the guard. Fiona slipped her hand inside her sleeve and withdrew the metal tube Alexander had gotten from Pinkerton and dropped it into the top of Temple’s boot.
Temple held her eyes with his as she straightened up and smoothed her skirts.
Like a windstorm
Punishing the oak trees
Love shakes my heart
“My guests, I have to inform you that your hour has run its course,” Hartranft shouted up from below.
The general had returned, accompanied by two guards. Mary Surratt began wailing at the sound of his voice, her cries echoing into the corners of the ceiling that spread across the top of the cellblock.
“Goddammit, bag her head, too,” Powell screamed from his cell. “Bag her fuckin’ head and shut her up.”
Father Walter came out of Temple’s cell, and Fiona held her husband’s eyes for a moment longer before leaving as well.
“I haven’t had a chance to pray with this one yet,” the priest shouted down to Hartranft.
“One blessing,” the general responded.
Father Walter stepped forward and traced a cross on Temple’s forehead.
“For your sins, the Lord forgives you,” the priest said. “For the challenges that lie ahead, the Lord supports with his strength and wisdom.”
Father Walter backed out of the cell again. As the guard forced the iron door shut, Fiona faced Temple through the narrow opening as it shrank, still holding his eyes with her own. Before the door closed, she brought her hand up over her heart. The chains on Temple’s handcuffs clanked again as he pressed both of his hands against his chest in response.
Hartranft ordered two cavalry officers to escort Father Walter and Sister Grace’s carriage from the Old Arsenal to St. Patrick’s, and they set out from the penitentiary just as the sun began to set.