What the Dead Leave Behind Read online

  “I was in court Tuesday,” Roscoe said. “It never occurred to me that Charles had not gotten through safely. I thought he’d stopped at Grace Church. I looked back and saw him wave at me; he was gesturing toward the church. I could just make out the steeple.”

  “The funeral will be next Wednesday,” Victoria said.

  “I shall be there,” promised Roscoe. He watched closely as Prudence sat without moving, eyes downcast, fingers still and white against the black silk of her dress. Laudanum, he thought, that damn Worthington has given her more laudanum. “I wonder if I might have a few moments alone with Prudence.”

  Victoria pursed her lips and made an odd clicking sound deep in her throat. She let you know without saying a word when she heartily disapproved of what you’d done or asked her to do.

  “I’ll order tea,” she said, getting gracefully to her feet. “And perhaps my brother will join us.”

  By which she informed Roscoe that he was not the only man in the house, though he could not for the life of him remember how Mrs. MacKenzie’s brother spent his days. Couldn’t even remember the fellow’s name, for that matter.

  “Prudence, I need to talk to you,” he said as soon as the parlor door clicked shut. “Charles’s death changes things. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “He won’t be here to marry me.” She sounded as though she were reciting a lesson learned at school.

  Odd way to put it, Roscoe thought. He reached for Prudence’s hands, held them more tightly than before, gave them a little shake as if she were asleep and he wanted to wake her up.

  Her eyes flashed briefly in comprehension before they fell again to her lap. The muscles of her face slackened and drooped.

  My God, he thought angrily, the damn quack has her doped to the gills. “Prudence,” he said forcefully, willing her to listen to him, to answer his questions. “When was the last time you took the laudanum?”

  “I can’t remember. Victoria knows.”

  “How many drops does your stepmother give you at a time?”

  “Four or five, I think. Perhaps ten. You should ask Dr. Worthington.”

  “You can be sure of that. Prudence, you need to listen to me and remember what I say. Can you do that? Will you?”

  No answer, but the long white fingers twitched. She had heard him.

  “I don’t want you to take any more laudanum. I don’t want you to drink anything at all that Mrs. MacKenzie prepares for you. I’ll speak to her, but she may not listen to me. Can you remember that you’re not to swallow anything you’re handed, anything that seems to have been fixed only for you? Can you remember that?”

  “Why, Mr. Conkling?”

  He thought he saw the Prudence who had sat devouring the law at her father’s feet trying valiantly to swim up from the laudanum depths where sounds were hard to discern and sights were hazy. “Why, Mr. Conkling?” she asked again.

  Perhaps if I give her something or someone to fight against. The Judge had never been more alive than when he had a cause to champion or a despairing client to defend. “We have work to do, Prudence. You and I have important work to do. Together. But you can’t do it if you allow your senses to be dulled by laudanum.

  “No matter what Dr. Worthington told you, no matter that half the girls and women you know keep a brown bottle on their bedside tables, laudanum is not your friend. It’s your enemy, Prudence. It weakens you. You know how your father felt about weak men; he despised them. This is something you’ll have to do alone, my dear child, without help from anyone else. Come to my office after the funeral. Come alone. Don’t tell Victoria where you’re going. Will you remember what I’ve said?”

  “Yes, I’ll remember.” The pupils of her eyes were pinpoints of black nearly lost in a sea of gray. “I’m very tired, Mr. Conkling, and I know about laudanum. Dr. Worthington gave it to me when my father died. I stopped taking it for a while. Now Charles.” She wanted to tell him that she couldn’t remember pouring that first spoonful after Charles’s death had been confirmed, but laudanum confused everything. She thought she recalled Victoria’s cold blue eyes staring into her own, the touch of Victoria’s hand as she guided the silver teaspoon toward Prudence’s lips. Her stepmother had murmured something soothing, and then had come the blessed oblivion of sleep. Laudanum could make it possible never to feel pain, to live life in a dream.

  If she had been a man, Conkling would have said she’d been at the brandy a little unwisely. Her speech was slurred; she seemed to be making a great effort just to stay awake and follow what he was saying.

  “I am so very sorry, Prudence. Did you love him very much?” Keep her talking, keep her struggling to make sense of what had happened.

  “Not so very much. But Charles was always kind, always thoughtful. I can’t remember a time when we didn’t know one another.”

  “You were going to live here together,” he said, standing and bringing Prudence also to her feet. He walked her to the tall windows that looked out onto Fifth Avenue. When she nodded her head, he pulled back the heavy crimson drapes, flooding the room with bright spring sunshine. Horse-drawn sleighs skimmed their way along the still-snow-packed street, messenger boys had donned skates, crews of laborers were creating mountains of white with every scoop of their shovels. New Yorkers smiled and laughed as they linked arms and made sliding progress toward home or work or recreation; they’d survived, the city had survived. Life was worth living again.

  “If I open the window, you’ll be able to hear the sleigh bells,” he said.

  “I wish you wouldn’t, Mr. Conkling.” Victoria MacKenzie gave orders under the guise of suggestion, but the whip in her voice was unmistakable. She’d opened the parlor door without making a sound.

  A man’s voice echoed her remark. “I’m afraid I have to agree with my sister. I’ve just come from that delightful scene you’re looking at, and I’m quite chilled, thank you very much.”

  “You remember my brother, Donald, Mr. Conkling? I believe you met here once before, but that was some time ago. Business, I think. You had stopped by to bring the Judge some papers.”

  “I’m sure a gentleman as well-known as Mr. Conkling can’t be expected to remember the name of every man whose hand he’s shaken, Victoria. Donald Morley, at your service, sir.”

  “Of course, Mr. Morley. I do remember you. Quite well, actually.”

  There was no way to avoid the outthrust hand, but Victoria’s brother was right about one thing. Roscoe Conkling had shaken so many hands in the course of his political life that one more scarcely made a difference. He detected a heartiness about Morley’s grip that screamed falsity.

  “Donald, will you close the drapes again, please. I think the light may give Prudence a headache. Come, my dear, sit down beside me. Colleen will bring tea in a few minutes.” Victoria steered her stepdaughter away from Conkling’s side and across the intricate pattern of a crimson Turkish carpet to an upholstered sofa in the style of Louis XV, all fluid lines, gilded wood, and delicately curved legs. It served to remind the two men that these ladies perched like blackbirds on its cushions were to be treated with delicacy and care. They appeared just as lovely, just as fragile as the furniture on which they sat.

  “Victoria tells me that Mr. Linwood’s funeral is to be on Wednesday.” Morley waited for Conkling to be seated before ensconcing himself comfortably in one of the armchairs that flanked the fireplace. “I’m sure most of the snow will be gone by then. It’s already begun to melt in many places.”

  “I saw merchants piling wood in the drifts in front of their stores and then lighting fires to melt the snow so customers can get from the roadway to the sidewalk.” Conkling said. “Some of the streets look like they have rivers running down them.”

  “I’m curious, sir, if you don’t mind my asking. We read the interview you gave the Herald on Wednesday. Have you suffered no ill effects from your ordeal?” Morley took a pipe from his jacket pocket, glanced at his sister, then abruptly put it away. “I’m sure I
would have come down with the pneumonia or worse.”

  Conkling looked at his deceased friend’s heavyset brother-in-law as if taking his measure. Donald Morley was younger than Roscoe Conkling by a good twenty years or so and at least half a head shorter, but he carried the hard, round, protuberant belly of a man overly fond of the pleasures of the table. The pattern of broken red threads across his cheeks and nose branded him a heavy drinker.

  “I box nearly every day, Mr. Morley. I neither drink much alcohol nor indulge in tobacco. In fact, I think I can boast that I am fitter than most men of my age and profession. Lawyering can be as injurious to the health as lack of gainful employment or sloth.”

  Courtroom expert that he was, Roscoe waited for Morley to bluster and overtalk himself. But he didn’t. He reacted not one whit to what was clearly as close to an insult as Conkling would allow himself in front of the ladies. Mrs. MacKenzie’s brother smiled with no real warmth, then clasped his hands together in anticipation as the parlor maid carried in a heavily laden tray.

  “Lemon or milk, Mr. Conkling?” asked Victoria.

  * * *

  “I’m not taking any calls this morning,” Conkling told his secretary.

  “None at all, sir?”

  “None. Sign for anything that gets delivered and otherwise make excuses for me.”

  “Are you all right, Mr. Conkling?” Josiah Gregory had been with his employer during the last bad days in Washington, D.C., and throughout the painful process of sifting through the accumulated books, papers, and memorabilia of a political lifetime. He’d stood by him loyally during the Kate Chase scandal, when one or another newspaper excoriated him every day for weeks on end. He’d spent long idle months cataloging Roscoe’s letters and speeches, and then done his best to make the first rented law office on Nassau Street reflect the ex-senator’s importance. In all that time he hadn’t seen him look as pale and weary as he did today. It must be the effects of the blizzard.

  “Of course I’m all right, Josiah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You almost died Monday night, sir. You were out in the wind and the snow for more than three hours, up to your neck in the drifts in Union Park and then again in Madison Park. Mr. Linwood did succumb, and so did a good many others, from what I’ve read in the papers.”

  “But I didn’t die, and I’m not going to die. Not right now, and not for years to come. I’ve made up my mind about death; I’m not ready for it.” Conkling could feel drops of perspiration on his forehead. The damn office was always too hot. The outside temperature had gone back to something close to what was normal for mid-March, and the snow was melting. It was time to open windows, not keep them closed like some pestilential sickroom.

  “I’ll bring you coffee, sir.”

  “Bring the pot. I’ll serve myself as I work.”

  Josiah made fresh coffee, set out cup and saucer, found an unopened box of English digestive biscuits. When he carried the tray into the inner office, he lingered for as long as he could, doing aimless bits of rearranging and straightening. Finally, when there was nothing else to fuss over, he closed the door behind him and sat down heavily at his desk, determined to puzzle out what his employer was up to now.

  He’d left Mr. Conkling staring at a stack of letter paper piled neatly before him, the lid off his inkwell, pen in hand. Either he couldn’t think of how to begin whatever it was he intended to write, or he’d dozed off sitting up. Which was patently ridiculous because Roscoe Conkling had more energy than any two men put together. Something was wrong, something was finally wrong with the legendarily healthy and athletic former senator. Except for coming down with some sort of lung congestion from fighting through the blizzard like one of those Eskimo natives up there in Seward’s Ice Box, Josiah Gregory had no idea what it could be.

  * * *

  Conkling was two thirds of the way through his written account of the Great Blizzard and his trek through the storm-ravaged city when he heard the front door of his office suite open, then close. Tumblers turned and clicked in the lock. He’d forgotten that Josiah only worked until noon on Saturdays. Funny, he’d never asked him what he did on his Saturday afternoons off. Did he go walking in Central Park or duck into one of the vaudeville palaces in the theater district?

  Vulgar comedy somehow didn’t seem to suit Josiah’s rigid personality. Conkling tried to imagine him at one of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, something like the one he’d seen three years ago at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. What was the name of it? Something odd that started with an M. That actress Geraldine Ulmar played a heroine with a ridiculous name. Yum-Yum. That was it. The Mikado.

  Mental stimulation was every bit as important as physical training. Conkling believed that as strongly as he believed in the Constitution, so while he shadowboxed around his office to work the stiffness out of his muscles from sitting too long at his desk, he cataloged the list of women he had known. In the Biblical sense. Other than his wife, of course. In order, he challenged himself, leaving no one out, all while humming what he could remember of the music that was the best part of The Mikado.

  He refused to pay attention to the sweat coursing down his face, ignored the sudden sharp twinges in his head, the pain hammering in his right ear. He lifted his arms up even though they felt like sticks of heavy firewood nailed to his shoulders. Dance on the balls of your feet. Keep the heels up. Jab. Jab again. Right, left, right, left again with a hook to it. In the end, ten minutes was all he could manage.

  Coffee. He gulped down the dregs of Josiah’s thick brew, reminding himself that the remedy for illness was hard work. He’d pulled out of weak spells before, but not by giving up and crawling away into a bed to be hovered over by some ugly nurse.

  He sat down at his desk again, reached for his pen. Reminded himself why he’d decided to make detailed notes of that terrible walk up Broadway when the newspapers had already interviewed him and printed the story. His story. He hadn’t mentioned Linwood or Sulzer to the reporter. He’d told the Roscoe Conkling story because that was what people wanted to read about. He was a celebrity; he’d been written about enough in the past to know what sold papers.

  But two nights ago he’d awakened in a cold sweat from a nightmare that stayed with him all that day. Conkling had known fear before, but nothing like the heart-pounding terror that had repeated itself last night. Twice now, something or someone had invaded his sleep to bring him a message. He was as convinced of that as he was certain that consulting one of New York’s many mediums was a remedy of last resort. He’d scoffed publicly at the claims of spiritualists who maintained that nightmares were the efforts of the dead to communicate with the living. The newspapers would have a field day with him if he were discovered at a séance or a reading. Which he would be. Anyone who thought he could conceal any titillating tidbit of his life’s story from the press was a fool.

  He didn’t need an intermediary to the spirit world. If a damned spirit was so intent on dragging him through the blizzard again to get in touch with him, have at it!

  He’d reached the point in his narrative where he’d started across Union Square. This was where twice now dreaming had turned into nightmare. Why? What was there about this moment that was so different from the hours of cold struggle that had preceded it? Wide awake from the coffee and the shadowboxing, Conkling willed himself back into the events of five days ago, concentrating as hard on what needed to be accurately remembered as on any speech he’d ever prepared for a jury.

  Every gut instinct he trusted as a lawyer told him he was walking toward an unsuspected crime that demanded to be solved, approaching a place where motive and opportunity waited teasingly just beyond his waking reach. Hence the nightmares.

  In his mind’s eye he saw Charles Linwood struggling along behind him. Sulzer had remained at Astor House. Or had he? Conkling’s pen scratched furiously across the paper. He was positive now. Just before he entered Union Square he’d turned around and seen someone else fighting through the drifts behind Linw
ood; he’d barely been able to make out a dark outline through the falling snow, but he was convinced it was there.

  Had Sulzer had second thoughts, left Astor House, tried to catch up, then given in to fatigue and fear a second time? Had he experienced a soldier’s guilt because he’d gone after Linwood but hadn’t been able to save him? Decided not to mention that abortive attempt that ended in ignominious retreat? Chosen to save his reputation by pretending it never happened? Assumed no one at Astor House would have remarked his temporary absence? And where was Sulzer now? He was sure he hadn’t been back to his office just down the hall since the blizzard. Victoria said Sulzer had come to call on them, but Conkling had been too concerned over Prudence to pay much attention to whatever else she had told him.

  Of course there was always the possibility that the man battling his way along Broadway behind Charles had been someone else. Not Sulzer at all. No, that didn’t make sense. Where had he come from? Where had he gone to? Why hadn’t he rushed to tell his tale and see his name in print the way hundreds of his fellow New Yorkers had done?

  Scratching away on his thick letter paper, Conkling wrote what he knew to be true and what he had observed. Nothing more, nothing less. If necessary, he could always go back and add to what he was recording today. He reread the notes he’d made about Linwood and Sulzer. That same lawyer’s gut instinct he’d trusted all his life told him that this was where the heart of the mystery lay. But what was it?

  He really didn’t feel well at all. It was only one o’clock, but he’d finished writing. He’d done the best he could. Not a full day’s work, but if a secretary could work half a day on Saturday, why not the man who paid his salary? He’d walk up Broadway again, all the way to the New York Club, retrace the route he’d taken on Monday evening. Why not? The exercise would strengthen his legs, the spring air was chilly but eminently breathable, and from what he’d observed, hansom cab drivers were still trying to extort highly inflated fares from their passengers. No, he’d definitely walk.