Final Resting Place Read online

  FINAL RESTING PLACE

  A LINCOLN AND SPEED MYSTERY

  Jonathan F. Putnam

  To my parents, Bob and Rosemary Putnam

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This manuscript benefited greatly from detailed and insightful notes from my sister Lara Putnam, my college roommate Joshua F. Thorpe, and my writing partners Michael Bergmann and Christin Brecher. I am grateful that all four of these treasured early readers have continued to consider my drafts and give me their invaluable thoughts long after most people would have considered the obligations of friendship satisfied.

  I conducted substantial original and on-site historical research as part of the development of this story. I want to acknowledge in particular the assistance of the staffs of the Lincoln Presidential Museum, Old State Capitol Historic Site, and Lincoln–Herndon Law Offices State Historic Site, all in Springfield, Illinois, as well as Diane Young of the Farmington Historic Home site in Louisville. Jana Meyer and Jim Holmberg at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville helped me locate original correspondence between Joshua Speed and other members of the Speed family. Dr. Thomas Gest at Texas Tech University and Dr. Dennis C. Dirkmaat at Mercyhurst University educated me about body decomposition for the autopsy scene (any errors are assuredly my own). This book was principally written at the august London Library, founded by Thomas Carlyle in 1841, whose research librarians and other staff provided invaluable assistance.

  My editor and publisher, Matt Martz of Crooked Lane Books, provided fantastic support for my project as well as editorial guidance that strengthened the manuscript at every level. I am grateful as well to the rest of the outstanding staff at Crooked Lane, including Sarah Poppe and Jenny Chen. My incomparable agent, Scott Miller, remains an unerring guiding light.

  My writing has been greatly aided by the support of family and friends too numerous to list by name. I’ll mention here only Shannon Campbell, Joel and Carla Campbell, Steven Everson, Andrew M. Genser, Donna Gest, Marc Goldman, Julie Greenbaum, Atif Khawaja, Laura Kupillas, Laura Lavan, Alice Leader, Brett Olson, Joel Schneider, Mark Stein, David Thorpe, Alina Tugend, Carolyn Waters, and Caroline Werner.

  This book is dedicated to my parents, Bob and Rosemary Putnam, who taught me the value of hard work and determination. Throughout their lives they have set an exemplary standard for their family and their communities. They are wonderfully loving parents and grandparents. And they have supported my writing career beyond measure, from editorial input to tireless help on the publicity front. Thank you, Mom and Dad.

  Finally, I am incredibly grateful for the love of my family. My three sons, Gray, Noah, and Gideon Putnam, continue to be supportive and enthusiastic about my writing career. And nothing would have been possible without my wife, Christin Putnam. She is the first and last reader of every word I write and an endless source of love, encouragement, good cheer, and plot points. I am blessed to have her as my partner and my divine muse.

  PROLOGUE

  The funeral service for my sister Ann took place at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Louisville. I sat between my parents—my mother convulsed in tears, my aging father staring straight ahead, unblinking—and half-listened to the words of comfort pronounced by the Rev. Dr. Humphrey. Nothing he said could lessen the pain of seeing Ann’s small casket, wreathed by spring flowers, resting at the base of the pulpit.

  Ann’s birth had been a surprise gift for my father’s 60th birthday. She had entered the world a decade after my parents’ next-youngest child, and along with my nine other siblings I had doted on her from the moment she drew her first breath. So, when word reached us in Springfield, Illinois, where my sister Martha and I were living on the frontier, that Ann had contracted the dreaded smallpox from a playmate, we had leapt aboard the first eastbound stagecoach. Alas, by the time we’d reached Louisville, Ann breathed no more.

  My elder brother James ascended the pulpit and thanked the Reverend Doctor for his fine Christian words. With our father’s declining health, James now spoke for the Speed family. He gazed out on the congregation, packed with representatives of the other great families of Louisville, and took a deep breath.

  “We are grieved,” began James, “that the pattering of Ann’s little feet has been stilled, that the music of her lisping tongue has been forever hushed. It is midnight for our blackened souls. Yet in time that midnight shall give way to the somber twilight that precedes the coming dawn. In time, we shall realize Ann is not gone but gone before, and that we may see her again one day, if we live our lives according to her example and His dictates.”

  A cry of grief rang out and I turned to look at the assemblage of a dozen of our house slaves, all dressed in mourning black, standing against the back wall of the sanctuary and listening intently to James’s words. Martha and I had obtained special permission from the Rev. Dr. Humphrey allowing the Negro bondsmen to enter his church for the occasion. The wail had escaped from an old woman with long gray hair named Phillis, a midwife who’d helped birth Ann. Phillis’s face was newly covered by the ugly scars of the pox, with which she’d been burdened during her tireless efforts to nurse Ann back to life.

  “As I look out at this gathering,” continued my brother, “I am reminded of the central role of family in our lives. As children grow … as parents age”—here, James could not help but glance at our father before continuing—“the bonds of family may weaken to the point where we become tempted to behold our own blood as indifferently as we behold the stranger. But the bonds of family are stronger than that, stronger than any earthly event, stronger even than death. The bonds of family may fray but, the Almighty willing, they shall never break.”

  Martha and I stayed at Farmington, our family’s estate, for six weeks after Ann’s funeral. I had time for several long conversations with my father, Judge Speed, conversations that reminded me of the great man he’d once been but, sadly, no longer was. Our time back home also reminded me of why I had been eager to leave and seek my own fortune by running a general store on the frontier. When the period of full mourning passed and half-mourning arrived, Martha and I agreed it was time to return to our new lives.

  Martha wore a black traveling cloak over her unadorned gray dress for the long carriage ride back to Springfield. I had carefully wrapped a black crepe weeper around the hatband of my straw hat. And though custom dictated that I need not display my mourning on my sleeve for the death of a young sibling, such deaths being all too common, I had assured my family I’d wear a black armband for six more months.

  “It’s not fair, Joshua,” said Martha after we had ridden for several hours, staring out silently at the thickly forested countryside. Martha was barely eighteen, six years my junior and the next-youngest Speed child to Ann. The death of our sister had affected her deeply.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “She was so sweet, so innocent. Only eight years of age … Why would God take her from us?”

  I raised my hands, palms facing the skies, and let them fall helplessly to my lap. Even now, what was there to say?

  The ride back to Springfield lasted only six days, but it spanned a lifetime. Martha and I told and retold our favorite stories about Ann, and we cried until it seemed we were out of tears. Gradually, the tears gave way to laughter. Ann would never be far from our hearts, but as we neared home, both of us felt ready to resume something like our normal lives again. Our effervescent little sister would have wanted it that way.

  Eventually we reached the vast prairie, awash with newly blooming flowers and freshly sprouted grasses, that surrounded Springfield. That evening we stopped at the Shelbyville crossroads. There were few other persons about at the inn, and Martha and I had the bed to ourselves. At least, we did until I found sleep.r />
  Ann came to visit me that night—a tangible, achingly real vision of her. She was wearing her pea-green silk, with a garland of yellow and white flowers encircling her forehead. If possible, she was even more beautiful in death than she had been in life. She reached her small arms around my neck in an embrace and I smelled the honeysuckle in her hair.

  “Come chase me, Joshua,” she giggled.

  And so, I raced her through the fields of Farmington, weaving around sage-green stalks of hemp that reached to my shoulders and up and down grassy meadows until we collapsed together on the steep banks of the small, clear stream that cut through our plantation.

  I was awoken by a noise from the hallway. I could still feel Ann’s soft touch as I stirred and could still hear the music of her tongue. As I opened my eyes, I saw her rising from the bed and waving good-bye.

  “Ann! Don’t leave!” I shouted, but it was to no avail.

  Beside me in bed Martha startled into wakefulness, a strange, bewildered look on her face. I felt Martha’s cool hand resting next to my warm skin.

  “You dreamt of her, too?” said Martha. “Ann was in the schoolhouse, in her yellow silk, and I was helping her learn her letters.” She swallowed. “I suppose I never shall again.”

  I smiled a bittersweet smile. “In the next world, perhaps. For this one, we’ll have to rely upon one another.”

  CHAPTER 1

  The good citizens of Springfield had been waiting a long time for Old Man Evans to cross the great river to the next world, and in April, the week after Martha and I returned to town, he finally did. Evans had managed to outlive all of his nearby kin. Accordingly, there was no one around to take offense at the collective enthusiasm that accompanied his passing.

  Many men pronounced themselves glad that they would no longer encounter Evans in one of Springfield’s many grog shops, lest the old man say something in his drunken state that might provoke a brawl or, worse yet, a duel. Meanwhile, the townswomen breathed a sigh of relief that they no longer had to instruct their daughters to make a wide detour around Evans on the muddy streets, so as to avoid his lecherous tongue and leering eyes.

  But without question the persons who welcomed Evans’s death with the greatest excitement were the real estate speculators, a group that counted nearly all of the professional and political men in town among its number. Evans had been one of the original settlers of Springfield, and he owned the last vacant plot of land bordering the town square. With the state capital due to move to town next year—even now, the outlines of the grand new capitol building were starting to rise in the center of the square—Evans’s prime property harbored untold riches.

  Evans’s land was auctioned off on the first Sunday in June at the old market house. I had secret hopes that I might emerge as the winning bidder. Other men in town had far greater experience with speculation, but I had what I thought might prove a decisive advantage: for the past year I had shared lodgings with the lawyer for Evans’s estate, the man who would conduct the auction. His name was Abraham Lincoln.

  “You realize I can’t show favoritism towards you,” Lincoln said as we dressed in our bedroom on the morning of the auction. Our chambers consisted of a narrow, second-floor room with two double beds perched atop my general store.

  “Of course.”

  “The net proceeds from the sale are going to this Olson fellow, the second cousin I located in Boston. I’m duty-bound to get him the best price I can.”

  “I understand.” I adjusted my tie in front of the looking glass nailed to the wall by the door. “But perhaps the final bids will prove even, and you’ll go with the bidder whose credit you can trust.”

  Lincoln took his turn in front of the glass and settled his tall, black stovepipe hat on top of his head. The combined height of the man and his costume nearly scraped the low ceiling. He frowned at his reflection. “Perhaps,” he said. “There’s one way to find out. Let’s be off.”

  The old market house was a two-story wooden building, topped by a square cupola, which stood on the edge of town. The ground floor consisted of a large, open hall, measuring some forty feet by eighty, interrupted only by thick, upright logs that acted as support columns. In normal times, it hosted farmers looking to sell produce, eggs, and firewood, as well as widows trafficking in gossip. When we arrived, it was overflowing with men and women, speculators and spectators. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday best and chattering with excitement.

  Lincoln went up to the auctioneer stand that had been erected on the stage at one end of the room. Meanwhile, I spied the soft, oval face and light brown hair of my sister Martha, waiting beside one of the columns.

  “You said it would be crowded,” said Martha when I reached her and we exchanged kisses. “But I had no idea there’d be this much interest. There must be three hundred people here.”

  “It’s by far the most attractive lot left anywhere near the square,” I replied. “Everyone wants it.”

  Lincoln shouted for order and gradually the excited roar of the crowd died away. “When I was writing out his will,” began Lincoln in a reedy voice that nonetheless carried throughout the hall, “I told Evans there was more appreciation for him in town than he realized. If only he could have seen this multitude.”

  “If he truly wanted to be popular, he should have died years ago,” a man in the audience called out. Laughter and shouts of approval bounced around the great hall.

  “Very true,” said Lincoln, his lantern jaw lighting up with a crooked smile. “The lot in question is on Sixth Street, the east side of the square, between the apothecary and Smithson’s dry goods. Mr. Enos”—Lincoln gestured to a sallow-faced man near the front of the room who was smoking a corncob pipe—“has been over the property twice with his compass and chain, and he assures me his survey can be relied upon. The title is clear.

  “I’ve previously published in both the Journal and the Democrat the commercial terms the estate requires. One-third of the purchase price must be paid today in specie—gold or silver coin. I will accept notes written out and signed by men of good reputation for an additional one-third. And finally, the estate will accept one-third on credit, payable in twelve months.

  “I’ll start the bidding at twenty dollars. Do I hear twenty for the Evans plot?”

  A vast forest of hands shot up. Lincoln inspected them and his eyes fixed on me. “By chance I saw Joshua Speed first,” he said. An appreciative laugh spread through the crowd; everyone knew there was no chance about it. “Speed has it at twenty dollars. Do I hear thirty?”

  It was to prove my only bid. In quick succession Lincoln heard thirty, forty, fifty, and every number up to five hundred. The number of active bidders dwindled from virtually the entire room to a dozen men, to seven, and then to three.

  Each bid generated cheers from the crowd, but as the bidding rose higher and higher, the cheers turned to gasps. I heard a man next to me say that the previous town record for a lot this size was four hundred and twenty-five dollars, and when one of the remaining bidders shouted out “six fifty,” the man gaped and shook his head with wonder.

  After a half-hour of bidding, only two contestants remained. I knew them both well. One was the Democratic lawyer and politician Stephen Douglas. Word circulated through the room that Douglas was bidding on behalf of an unnamed benefactor, who in turn was sponsoring a new preacher and intended to build a church on the lot. My sister had taken to rooting for Douglas, and every time he uttered a new number in his distinctive baritone rumble, she gave an excited “Hooray!”

  The other bidder was the apothecary Henry Owens, a jovial fellow with a carefully trimmed beard and eyeglasses perched on the end of his nose. He was a prosperous man but hardly wealthy, and his continued presence in the bidding produced a great deal of whispered supposition that leapt around the room like wildfire. Eventually a rough consensus formed on the idea that Owens was bidding on behalf of a syndicate of some sort, but whether this was true and who comprised the moneyed aspect o
f the group continued to be fervently debated.

  Prodded by Lincoln, Douglas and Owens went back and forth, higher and higher. Men in the audience turned to their neighbors and placed side wagers on which bidder would ultimately prevail and at what price. Seven fifty. Eight hundred. Eight fifty! The crowd was in a frenzy of delirium. At the sound of “eight seventy” from Owens’s mouth, a cheer arose so loud that I feared the roof of the market house might fall down on top of us.

  Near Lincoln on the stage was a broad-shouldered fellow with muttonchop whiskers and a head full of loose blond curls. He was watching the proceedings with a smile that seemed to grow wider in direct proportion to the latest bid—and for good reason. The man was Joseph Early, the registrar of the Springfield land office. He would have to formally record the transaction, and by federal statute he was entitled to pocket six percent of the purchase price for every land sale registered. It was already an excellent day for Early, and it was only getting better.

  “The bid is eight hundred and seventy dollars,” repeated Lincoln. “Your response, Mr. Douglas?”

  The whole crowd turned to Douglas. Many stood on tiptoe to try to get a view of the man. Douglas had arrived from the East several years ago, and he had been in a hurry to make a name for himself ever since. Unlike the apothecary, Douglas’s participation in the final bidding surprised no one.

  Douglas considered. The room was suddenly dead silent with anticipation. I could hear my sister’s breathing. There was a muffled jingle, as if Douglas was sorting through his coin purse. “We bid,” he began, as the crowd sucked in its collective breath, “eight hundred and eighty-one dollars and—” A scream of excitement drowned out his words, but I managed to catch “five cents.”

  “Hooray! Hooray!” cried my sister, throwing her arms around my neck. “He did it! Stephen won!”

  I was no friend to Douglas, nor he to me. I pried my sister’s arms off. “Not yet, he didn’t. Let’s see what Owens does.”