What the Dead Leave Behind Page 2

  She was not naturally a secretive person, nor one given to fanciful delusions. Her father had trained her to see life as realistically as intelligence and a tender heart could bear.

  But there was something about Victoria that was deeply disturbing, even frightening.

  Two more weeks. Then she’d be safe.

  * * *

  With his desktop clear for a change, Conkling ate the last two apples in the bowl of fruit that was normally replenished every morning by the very competent secretary he’d occasionally caught in the act of eating chocolates at his desk. Sure enough, there was a half-full box of cherry cordials in one of Josiah’s drawers. Roscoe scribbled an IOU, dropped it into the now-empty container of candy, and gave himself a mental reminder to replace what he’d eaten.

  Conkling was an anomaly among his peers. Far more athletic than most men in their late fifties, he rarely drank alcohol to excess and did not smoke. He sported a full, bushy beard and decked himself out in bright waistcoats and cravats that never allowed his six-foot-three-inch frame to blend into a crowd. People who disliked him called him a peacock and names so foully descriptive they were unprintable.

  Roscoe’s chief vice was women, the lovely creatures. Every one of New York’s seven newspapers had scrupulously dissected his long and scandalous liaison with Kate Chase. Her father had been Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; she had married the governor of Rhode Island. Politics and illicit love always made good copy.

  As much as Roscoe enjoyed reading about himself, it was the possibility of a dangerous or even fatal encounter with a husband that added that certain je ne sais quoi to every affair. He thrived on risk; every new adventure made the blood run faster through his veins. The taste of the chocolate cherry cordials on his tongue the day of the blizzard was nearly as sensuous as the first encounter with a new woman.

  It was getting darker. Still midafternoon, but definitely darker. And there seemed to be something wrong with the gas lamps that usually lit up Broadway like a string of yellow pearls. The wind blew steadily between the buildings, and the snow never stopped falling. He’d thought to wait out the storm, confident it couldn’t continue so violently for more than a few hours, but there hadn’t been any letup. He’d sent the MacKenzie trust papers down to the Linwood office on the floor below hours ago. It wouldn’t surprise him if young Charles had already taken them to Prudence. Maybe it was time to think about leaving. While he still could.

  “Mr. Conkling. I thought I saw your light on. Almost everyone who managed to make it in today has already left.” Charles Linwood stood in the doorway, bundled against the weather in thick coat, muffler, and tall top hat. One hand held a pair of gloves, the other a heavy briefcase. “My father talked me out of trying to take the MacKenzie trust papers to Prudence until tomorrow when all of this will have blown through. I’m sure he was right, though I wish I’d been able to get a message to her. It’s too late now. The snow doesn’t seem to be lessening, so I’m leaving. What about you?”

  “I’ll keep you company if you’re going toward Union Square.”

  “I am, and I’m hoping to find a hansom cab somewhere along Broadway.”

  “I haven’t seen any kind of vehicle in the last few hours. Not a cab or a carriage in sight.”

  “It wasn’t too bad early this morning. I’m sure some of the sidewalks have been shoveled by now.”

  “The snow’s still coming down too heavily to be able to see very much.” Conkling turned from the window.

  “If the drifts are too high, we can always stop at one of the hotels along the way.”

  “I hope Prudence didn’t try to go out today.”

  “She’s much too sensible for that.” Charles Linwood smiled as he said it. He was immensely fond of Prudence MacKenzie, and looking forward to their marriage. They’d always gotten along so well as friends that it was inconceivable they wouldn’t grow even closer as husband and wife.

  Conkling reached for his coat. “Losing her father was a terrible blow. The Judge was a good friend; he sent Jay Gould along to me, and Mr. Edison. They were among my first clients when I came back to the city. I miss Thomas MacKenzie like a brother.”

  “He and my father practiced summation speeches on one another when they were just starting out. My deepest regret is that I won’t have the honor of knowing the Judge as a father-in-law, but I’m sure Prudence and I will want to welcome you often as a guest in our home.”

  “And I’ll be more than happy to come. Has Mrs. MacKenzie begun to move her things out yet?”

  “She says she plans to be gone by the time we get back from Saratoga Springs.”

  “Not France or Italy?”

  “Perhaps next year. Prudence is still very fragile. I asked where she would most like to spend our honeymoon, and she chose Saratoga. The Judge took her to the Grand Union Hotel every summer for years.”

  “And so that’s where you’ll also be staying?”

  “I don’t think she’d be content anywhere else.”

  “I wish you both great happiness, Charles.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “When you get back, when you have time, we should sit down together. The Judge was meticulous in seeing to his affairs, but there are sealed envelopes he gave me that are not to be opened until after the marriage has taken place.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “No reason why you should. I haven’t said anything to Prudence, either. My instructions were to see to them within the first month after the wedding. The Judge smiled when he handed them to me, so I don’t suppose there’s anything much to be concerned about. It may just be his way of ensuring that you both receive whatever fatherly advice he wanted to give you.”

  “The will was a bit unusual.” Charles Linwood hesitated. Until he became Prudence’s husband, he was too much the gentleman to feel entirely comfortable discussing the fortune bequeathed to her by her father.

  “In the normal way of things, it might have been expected that the family home would go to the widow, at least for the remainder of her lifetime,” Conkling agreed. “But Mrs. MacKenzie has only lived there for the two years of her marriage to the Judge. She doesn’t have the ties to it that Prudence does. Thomas was the soul of discretion. It was no secret to him that his daughter didn’t have the same warm feelings for Victoria that he did. He provided very well for his widow, just not perhaps exactly in the way she might have been expecting.”

  And that, Roscoe Conkling’s headshake seemed to say, was his last word on the subject. For the moment, at least. Until after Saratoga. After the wedding. After this damned blizzard that looked like it was capable of blowing them over as soon as they stepped out of the building.

  People likened these streets to canyons; they funneled wind and rain and now snow down narrow walled passages that increased velocity and turned harmless raindrops and snowflakes into missiles that stung the skin and made the eyes water.

  “Are you ready?” Conkling asked.

  “As I’ll ever be,” laughed Charles.

  Even before they managed to make it onto the sidewalk, both men realized it was going to be worse than either of them had imagined.

  CHAPTER 2

  As Conkling and Linwood pushed open the doors of the United Bank Building, the force of the wind threw them back into the vestibule. Conkling thought he would have been slammed against the marble floor if Linwood had not grabbed his arm and held on to him as the two men struggled to regain their footing. Snow swirled into the lobby, making the expensive Italian marble as slippery and dangerous as the icy street outside.

  “I’m not sure we’re going to make it up Broadway after all,” Linwood said, one gloved hand holding on to the handle of the door that had almost flattened him. “We might be better off spending the night here, Mr. Conkling.”

  From behind them came a shout, then the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. “I thought I heard voices. I stopped by your office because
I knew you’d come in today, Mr. Conkling, but you’d already left.” William Sulzer, whose office was down the hall from Conkling’s, had been in such a hurry that he’d left his coat unbuttoned and carried his wool scarf in his hand. “I hoped I’d catch up with you.”

  “It’s very bad out there, William.” Charles took a few cautious steps across the slick wet marble floor.

  “Nonsense,” scoffed Conkling. “We may have some difficulty making our way along the sidewalk, but once we get around the corner we’ll find a hansom cab. We’re going toward Union Square, William.”

  “Perfect. I’ll join you, if I may.”

  It was on the tip of Linwood’s tongue to tell both of his fellow lawyers they were as mad as the Hatter in the Alice story Prudence loved to quote to him. She’d told him more than once there was a model for every one of Mr. Carroll’s odd characters in their own immediate social circle. He certainly felt as though the blizzard raging outside had frozen them in Alice’s upside-down world. No place to go and no way to get there.

  Conkling and Sulzer peered out the doors, bickering amiably about whether they should walk to the corner of Wall Street and Broadway in search of a hansom, or strike out through the drifts in the direction of Union Square and keep going until a cab came along. New York City was famous for its sturdy horses; you saw them all the time in winter, nostrils steaming clouds of vapor as they slogged along under the protection of heavy canvas or plaid wool blankets. The snow might be too thick at the moment to be able to make them out, but there would definitely be horse-drawn hansoms out there somewhere.

  “Charles, are you with us?”

  “William, I’m not sure we should attempt this. It’s getting darker and colder by the minute.”

  Roscoe Conkling flashed a challenging smile at the much younger men. “Two miles to Union Square, gentlemen. Forty-five minutes more or less. An easy late-afternoon stroll.” He could already imagine captivating an audience with the tale of how he’d conquered the elements when lesser men had surrendered. He pushed open the heavy outer door and disappeared through a curtain of white.

  “We can’t lose sight of him.” William Sulzer slammed his way out into the snow. “Mr. Conkling, we’re coming. Stand still until we get to you,” he shouted.

  If he caught a catarrh from the wind whipping around his head, Charles knew that Prudence would have words to say about being careless with his health this close to the wedding. But if he didn’t follow Conkling and Sulzer into the storm, he’d never live it down. The story would be told and laughed over in every law office in the city. On the whole, he’d rather take his chances with Prudence. “I’m coming,” he yelled over the wind that bellowed as loudly as one of the new steam-engined trains rushing through the city.

  The three men trudged off together toward Trinity Church, though they could barely make out its impressive gothic revival bulk. The tall cross-topped spire that usually dominated the skyline had disappeared. They saw nothing but blinding whiteness, heard nothing but the howl of the blizzard roaring down the city’s canyons. By the time they reached their first destination, where Wall Street met Broadway, they knew there would be no long line of hansom cabs lined up waiting for passengers, patient horses munching contentedly in their nosebags.

  Snowdrifts had piled up against the massive arched doors of Trinity Church; in places the wind scoured the sidewalk almost clean, only to dump impenetrable snow mountains higher than the top of a tall man’s head farther on. Broadway stretched before them in glorious emptiness. Landmarks were unrecognizable; utility poles had toppled into and across the street like a bizarre forest of branchless young pines in a tangle of snapping, buzzing wires.

  Roscoe Conkling led the way, his tall, athletic body moving like an upright white polar bear along the ice floes of Broadway. His luxuriant beard froze stiff on his chest; icicles glittered, melted under his breath, dripped, and reformed almost immediately. Snowflakes hung from his eyebrows, piled up on his eyelashes, clung to his hat and the fabric of his coat. He should have been as frozen as the landscape around him, but he wasn’t; the energy it took to keep moving generated a heat that defied nature. Charles Linwood and William Sulzer, struggling along behind and occasionally beside him, told themselves it was their duty to see the older man to warmth and safety, to continue on as long as he did. They had to match Conkling step for step.

  They almost didn’t believe their eyes when a hansom cab pulled up beside them, the horse stomping its great hooves as billows of steam surged from its nostrils. The driver had swaddled himself hat to boots in blankets so all they saw of his face was a pair of dark eyes peering down at them.

  “How much to the New York Club at Madison Square?” shouted Conkling.

  The driver of the hansom cab looked at the three swells as if calculating the price of their fur-collared coats and beaver hats, gazed for a few moments at the empty stretch of Broadway that lay ahead, turned to peer behind through the snow as if searching for another vehicle. “Fifty bucks,” he growled. “Take it or leave it.”

  Sulzer was already reaching for the carriage door when Conkling raised his cane and brought it down so hard against the wheel of the cab that they could all hear the crack of split wood. By the time he’d finished cursing the man for his thievery and the bastardy of his lineage, the driver had whipped up his horse and disappeared into heavy whirls of falling snow.

  Linwood stood thunderstruck and speechless. Not a one of the three of them couldn’t have afforded the exorbitant demand; highway robbery though it be, they could have been out of the icy wind and on their way up Broadway in relative comfort and security. Conkling must think he was invulnerable, some sort of physical marvel who could triumph over the worst challenges of God and nature.

  “Mr. Conkling, I think we’d do well to turn in at Astor House,” Sulzer said. “It’s not much farther. I know we can make it that far. I’m not sure we’d be wise to try to continue on to Madison or Union Square.” His breath froze into vapor as he spoke. “I realize that’s what we set out to do, but an army in the field that doesn’t take note of its battleground and revise its plans accordingly is an army that’s condemned itself to losing the fight.”

  Conkling hadn’t donned a uniform during the war, but as a member of Congress, he’d been more than familiar with the successes and failures of its campaigns. All Sulzer got for his clever attempt at rationalizing retreat was a stare and a noise that might have been a clearing of Conkling’s throat or another outburst of muttered imprecations.

  Everything was losing color now as the sky continued to darken. What little light remained reflected palely back from the whiteness beneath their feet. The world around them turned black and white and gray on every side, with only here and there the pale yellow glow of a gas lamp that had somehow, miraculously, remained lit.

  Conkling stepped off the curb into the street, pushing his way out into the middle of what had been a busy thoroughfare twenty-four hours ago. The wind blew harder out there, but without the changeability and violent gusts that came from hurling itself through the New York canyons. It was a good strategy, though there was nothing to break a man’s fall or support his weight when he needed to rest. When he looked behind him, he saw Linwood propping up the more slender Sulzer, as though the younger man no longer had the strength to battle the force of the wind on his own. Sulzer’s coat bore thick patches of snow and hung crookedly from his shoulders. How many times had he fallen and gotten up again?

  Off in the distance could be glimpsed the lights of Astor House, six stories tall, once the most famous hotel in the city, now eclipsed by half a dozen other temples of luxury, including the Fifth Avenue Hotel on Madison Square. There were bound to be other refugees from the blizzard gathered in its dining rooms, bars, and celebrated rotunda, probably most of the staff of the New York Herald covering the storm of the century from the newspaper’s offices a few steps away. The three of them might be alone on Broadway at the moment, but they wouldn’t be alone for long
. Comradeship, warmth, and whiskey beckoned to them. Every labored footfall brought them closer.

  He couldn’t reach his pocket watch, but Charles Linwood thought they must have been walking for at least an hour, several times what it would have taken to cover the seven or eight blocks from their offices to the Astor House on a sunny day. He’d done it last week in less than ten or fifteen minutes.

  “I’m going to stop,” William Sulzer declared. “I don’t think I can go any farther.” His breath was coming in short, wheezy gulps of air that sounded like a faulty bellows failing to blow a dying fire into life again. His walk had become a stagger; he’d lost his briefcase in one of the drifts into which he’d stumbled, and he clung to Linwood’s arm as if it were the only thing holding him up. “You’d both do well to do the same. I’d rather spend the night in a chair in the Astor House bar or lobby than be found frozen stiff and stubborn in the street tomorrow morning.”

  They had reached the Astor House’s entrance, warm yellow gaslight streaming out onto the sidewalk between Greek Doric columns. A cluster of the hotel’s uniformed staff stood just inside the doors, and beyond them stretched a sea of men who had reached their offices that morning but were now stranded. Strains of music poured out as one of the porters cracked open a door to welcome them in. Gusts of laughter, the clink of bottles against glasses, the heavy smoke of dozens of cigars. The famously stiff and proper Astor House wore for this Monday night only the relaxed and welcoming joviality of a neighborhood saloon.

  “Mr. Conkling?”

  “I don’t blame you, William. I don’t blame you at all. I absolve you of responsibility for my safety. When reporters for the New York newspapers ask how it could be that a man of fifty-eight full years of life could best a stripling only halfway through his twenties, I trust you’ll tell the unvarnished truth. The man of the hour was Roscoe Conkling.” The ex-senator could almost see the headline of the story that would ensure his place as the talk and the toast of New York City.