By the summer of 1866, the political climate was stultifying as Johnson and Congress continued to battle over the shape of the post-war government. Such intense, hate-filled language only deepened the dark mood in Washington City among its working citizens, including Louis Weichmann. He had immediately returned to his job as a War Department clerk after testifying against Mrs. Surratt and the other conspirators. Rarely a day went by without some rude accusation that his words had killed an innocent widow. Faceless members of the crowd pushed and shoved him along busy streets. Weichmann received letters containing death threats, which, though he tried to laugh off, made his natural affectations of nervousness even worse.
Walking to his boardinghouse from the War Department one day, he saw standing on the building stoop a woman who lived in an adjoining room. She waved at him. Assuming it to be a friendly greeting, Weichmann waved back.
“No! No! Run!” she screamed pointing to the other side of the street.
He turned to see a man, wearing a large hat that shaded his face, aim a revolver at him. Just as he crossed the threshold of the building, Weichmann heard a bang. Looking at the doorframe, he noticed a bullet hole.
“They almost got you that time, Mr. Weichmann,” the neighbor lady said.
“This is driving me mad,” he whispered.
“Get out, get out while you can.” Her voice was firm. “Go to your family. Family has to take you in during times like this.”
The next day Weichmann left his desk at the War Department and walked upstairs to Secretary Stanton’s office. He rapped lightly at the door but did not wait for an invitation to enter.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Stanton looked up with a scowl. “Well, come in and shut the door before anybody sees you.”
He did as ordered and sat nervously on the edge of a wooden chair in front of Stanton’s desk. “You’ve got to get me another job, out of town. Someone shot at me last evening.”
“I can’t do anything right now. All the job openings I have are still in this building.” He paused, and then wagged a thick short finger in the young man’s face. “Don’t be so nervous. That’s been your problem all along. You’re too nervous.”
“If I’m shot at again, I’m going to the newspapers. I’ll tell them you personally put a noose around my neck and threatened to hang me if I didn’t say Mrs. Surratt told me things. Things about the plot. I knew she never had a part in it, but you made me lie. Get me a job in Philadelphia. My father and mother live there. I could live with them.” He thought a moment then shook his head. “No, everyone knows I’m from Philadelphia. They’ll just follow me up there.” He put his head in his hands. “God, I’m so scared I can’t think straight.”
“Do you have any place to go for just a month or so until I can find a good job for you?” Stanton spoke in soft, conspiratorial tones. “Customs office. They always have clerk openings up and down the coast. Even out West.” He leaned over the desk. “And the customs office pays a good wage. Maybe the money will make you braver.”
Weichmann looked up to see a cynical smile on Stanton’s thin lips. “My brother is a priest. He recently took a post in Anderson, Indiana, a small town in the middle of cornfields. No one would suspect me living there.”
Stanton leaned back. “Then go visit the virtuous Father Weichmann for a while. It will be good for your soul.”
And for his first week in Anderson, Weichmann indeed felt a burden lift from his shoulders. He made countless visits to the confessional where his brother leant a sympathetic ear. Most townspeople acted as though they did not even make the connection between their beloved padre Weichmann and the man in the nation’s capital who testified about a woman involved with the recent unpleasantness. Then on Sunday night of the second week, all that changed.
As he lay in bed in the spare room of the parsonage, Weichmann heard a voice from outside the open window.
“Run for your life!”
His eyes opened wide, and he looked around. It was a moonless night so he had trouble defining shadows in the inky blackness. A slight breeze blew the curtains. He rose from his bed and went to the window, pausing a moment before sticking his head out. Just as he studied the yard’s gloom, a rock struck the pane above his head. Shards of glass pricked the back of his neck.
“Run!” the disembodied voice repeated.
All reason escaped his mind as he rolled out of the window onto the ground, not remembering that all he wore were ill-fitting long johns. Another rock hit the small of his back.
“Run!”
Looking around him wildly, Weichmann could not decide which way to go. To the left was downtown Anderson, completely deserted by that hour of night. Straight ahead of him was the town’s livery stable, probably locked up. To the right were the countryside and a farmer’s full field of cornstalks. Another stone flew at him. This time it hit his arm, causing him to wince in pain.
“I said run!” The voice became angrier.
His lips trembling in fear, Weichmann ran toward the cornfield, hoping to find some measure of protection among the stalks. No matter how fast he ran, the voice seemed to stay close, now laughing maniacally. Taking an abrupt left into the cornfield, Weichmann hoped he had eluded his pursuer. He slowed to catch his breath. As soon as he did, he felt a body throwing itself against his back, knocking him to the ground.
A hand grabbed locks of his curly hair and repeatedly slammed his face into the loosened soil of the field. All he could do was wait to be strangled, to feel his neck snap from a twist administered by strong hands or to feel a knife plunge beneath his ribcage.
“You deserve to die,” the voice whispered into his ear. Many people deserve to die for what they did to Mrs. Surratt.”
Weichmann felt spittle on his cheek as the man spoke. The voice sounded familiar. If his wits had not left him, surely he could identify it. Its tone had a certain melodious quality. Shuddering as the name came to him, Weichmann could not believe that a dead man was back from the grave and lying on top of him hissing threats.
“I should kill you tonight, you craven, lily-livered coward. How should I accomplish the good deed? Perhaps I should twist your head until your neck snaps. Or push your face down into the ground, forcing you to inhale dirt until you choke to death. I have a knife. I could slit your throat from ear to ear. No, I think I shall save that execution for a person far more evil than you. I know. I could impale you on a spiked wooden pole, and let the good citizens of Anderson find you in the morning, hanging among the cornstalks like a human scarecrow.”
Weichmann began to cry. “Please, please, don’t kill me. They made me lie about Mrs. Surratt. They were going to hang me right then and there if I didn’t agree to lie.”
“Who were they?” the voice demanded.
“Stanton. Secretary Stanton.”
“I’m not surprised.” The man lessened the pressure on Weichmann’s back, allowing him to breathe more easily. “I don’t think I’ll kill you now after all. Watch the newspapers for mysterious deaths of some famous people. Do you know who James Lane and Preston King are?” He slapped the back of Weichmann’s head. “Answer me!”
“Uh, uh, they’re congressmen, aren’t they?” he mumbled.
“Something like that. But now they are nothing at all. They are dead. So will Lafayette Baker be dead.”
“Him? He scares me. He’s mean.”
“Well, you won’t have to be scared of him very much longer. He’s going to die eventually.” He paused to lean down to Weichmann’s ear again. “And Edwin Stanton.”
“Good.” His voice was small and scared. “I hate him too.”
“Don’t think you have nothing to worry about. I have merely postponed your execution. One day, perhaps when you are an old man and no one really cares whether you live or die, I will return to put you out of your misery. Or maybe not.” He slapped Weichmann in the head again. “Can you count to one hundred?” He paused, but there was no response. “Can you count to a hundred?”
“Yes. Yes, sir.”
“Do it. Then you may go back to your bed. Pleasant dreams.”
Weichmann did not want to take any chances so he counted slowly—very slowly—to two hundred. When he finished, he carefully stood to look around the cornfield. Gingerly he stepped into the narrow lane leading into Anderson. No one was there.

Over long months Davy gained Griffith’s confidence. First time a hunter set up a temporary stand in the Christiansburg town square Davy accompanied his boss to buy pelts. Davy, eager to show off his knowledge, pointed out flaws in the hides.
“This one here must have gotten into a fight with a ‘coon hound. He jest barely got away, by the look of those scabs.”
“Those scabs ain’t nothin’,” the hunter said. “They come off once you put ‘em in solution.”
Griffith smiled and moved on. Davy picked up an otter skin and sniffed. His nose crinkled. “I don’t think this one was very healthy. His piss don’t smell right.”
“Boy,” the hunter said with a contemptuous grunt, “you got a bundle to learn about pelts.”
Holding the skin up to the sunlight, Griffith blew on its nape and shook his head, saying, “Sheen isn’t quite right.”
“What difference does it make?” the hunter groused. “You’re gonna shave that off anyways.”
“Hmm.” Griffith put the otter down and paid for a couple of raccoon pelts. Walking away, he patted the boy’s back. “Very good, Master Davy.”
After that Griffith introduced him to the intricacies of shaving pelts and shaping crowns with steam. Harriet hugged Davy each time he mastered a new skill.
“I’m so proud of you, Davy,” she said.
He craved her compliments, as a sponge soaking up all the water it could, especially when she discreetly included a little squeeze of his hand.
“Father, I have to go to the store to see if your new shipment of mercurous nitrate has arrived,” Harriet said and opened the door to leave, winking at Davy.
A few minutes later the boy cleared his throat. “My mouth’s dreadful dry.” Walking to their oaken bucket he scraped the gourd ladle against the side of the half-full vessel. “Dry as a bone. I better go fill it up at the well.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Griffith said with a small smile. “Well, don’t dally too long.”
Running out the door, Davy dropped the bucket by the side of the well and headed to the woods behind the hat maker’s cabin. Harriet peeked from behind a large mulberry bush, giggling, as he arrived with a toothy grin on his face.
“What took you so long?” she asked coquettishly.
“I got out as fast as I could.” He leaned against a cottonwood and looked off and smiled. His heart raced, and his mind was light with happiness.
“So.” She sighed as she walked over to him. “Master Davy, what are your plans today?”
“Same as every day,” he replied with a smile. “Kiss you three times without gittin’ caught.” Looking around to see if anyone was coming, Davy planted a light kiss on Harriet’s lips. “That’s one.”
Harriet ran away to hide behind a nearby oak and looked around at him. “And not another one until this afternoon.”
He stood straight and scampered toward the tree. “I’ll kiss you again now if I take a mind to.”
Both of them chuckled as they scuttled from pine to poplar until Davy ensnared her against an old, substantial elm. With tender affection, he bore his chest down against her as he planted his hands on the tree trunk on each side of her blushing face. Harriet touched his cheeks with her fingertips.
“My, you have the reddest cheeks I think I’ve ever seen on a man.” She smiled with mischief in her eyes. “I do say, my cheeks aren’t as red as yours.”
“That’s a fact,” he said with half-seriousness. “Girls all up and down the Shenandoah Valley have commented on how impressive my red cheeks are.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, slapping his shoulder, “you scamp! How dare you say such a thing in front of me?”
Davy ran from her further into the woods. “You’re a brutish girl, for sure, and I’m gittin’ away from you right now!”
“Brutish!” She chased after him. “I’ll show you how brutish I can be!”
They ran through around the undergrowth until Davy tripped over an exposed gnarled tree root on purpose, falling on his back. Harriet stumbled over his feet, landing squarely on his chest. She tickled his ribs, and he squirmed as though he did not appreciate it. After they giggled a moment, she kissed his lips and bounced to her feet.
“And that’s your second kiss.”
“I swear it ain’t.” He jumped up and went to her. “You kissed me. That don’t count.”
“If you say so, Master Davy.” Her eyelids fluttered.
“I think I want my second kiss now,” he said, leaning in.
“No.” She pulled away, this time with serious determination. “We’ve taken too long as it is. Father will notice.” Harriet scurried out of the woods and down the path to the general store.
Smiling, Davy watched her disappear down the road. He then went to the well, picked up the bucket, filled it and returned to the hatter’s cabin.
“Master Davy!” Griffith barked as the boy placed the bucket by their fireplace. “Why are you so sloppy in your shaving?”
He walked to the workbench. “What, sir?”
Pushing the fox hide under the boy’s nose, the hatter chided him, “You sliced the hide when you shaved it. See that? Now it’s useless!”
“Sir,” he replied softly, “it’s an old scar. This fox probably got into a bad scrape when it was a kid. I didn’t see it until I shaved the pelt.”
“Ruined!” Griffith threw it against the wall. “All that money wasted!”
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry, sir.”
Davy watched the hatter’s eyes twitch as he withdrew into himself and singled out another pelt to agonize over. He returned to the hearth to stoke the fire. Silence descended over the room until Harriet entered and stopped abruptly when she sensed the dense mood.
“Is anything wrong?”
Her father ignored her as his shoulders hunched, but Davy looked up and smiled. “Why, no, everythin’s fine.”

***

Many years later, when David sat with his family around the dinner table, silence overwhelmed the room, and the mood was dense. The only sound was the scraping of knives on trenchers and drinking from wooden tankards. David noticed that Elizabeth’s eyes twinkled in the fireplace glow. She looked as though she were about to burst, he thought, concealing her happy secret.
“Children,” she said, folding her hands in her lap, “I have somethin’ to tell you. Mister Crockett—your father—he told me this afternoon he was stayin’ here with us. The lease on his farm is up and so he’s livin’ here from now on.”
“Really?” A smiled flickered across Sissy’s face. “Forever?”
“Nothin’s forever, Sissy.” Matilda frowned.
“Is it true?” Sissy looked at him. “Is what ma said is true? You’re goin’ to stay here forever?”
“Yes, Sissy,” he said, looking down, “forever.”
“See, Matilda.” Her head snapped toward her sister. “You don’t know everythin’.”
“I know men,” Matilda replied. “And I know forever has a different meanin’ for men.”
“I know men, too,” Sissy said.
“Not as well as I do.”
“Vulgar little tramp.”
“I’m a red-blooded woman,” Matilda retorted, “not somethin’ with cold water in her veins.”
“You don’t have blood, Matilda, jest toilet water, cheap, vulgar toilet water.”
“Girls! Stop this!” Elizabeth’s voice lowered in anger. “I won’t let you spoil this moment for me!”
“You don’t think I’m vulgar, do you, Mama?”
“You’ll grow out of it, dear.” Elizabeth paused to smile. “No, Matilda, you ain’t vulgar at all. You’re jest full of life, like your pa. That’s why I love you. And Sissy’s quiet and lovin’, like her grandma Crockett. That’s why I love her.”
“Matilda’s right, you know,” Robert said as he stuffed spoon bread into his mouth and continued talking. “I don’t give ‘im a month before he lights out again.”
“That’s not true,” his mother replied. She looked earnestly at David.
“No, Elizabeth, it’s not true.” He looked around their table and into the faces of his children. “Like I always say. Be always sure you’re right and then go ahead. I’m sure I’m right and I’m goin’ ahead and stayin’ here.”
Robert stared at his father for an eternity with his jaw set solemnly in disbelief.
“I’m goin’ to sit outside for a while,” David mumbled as he left the room.
Instead of sitting down on the porch he went to the barn where he saddled his horse and rode into town. Stepping into the tavern he spotted Abner and William. He got a tankard of ale at the bar and joined them.
“What are you doin’ out this late?” Abner asked.
“Aww,” David said, pausing to take a swig, “the whole durn family is mad at me. I don’t know why. I even said I ain’t goin’ to Texas. They don’t believe me. The youngin’s, they jest won’t give me a chance.”
“Robert don’t know how good he has it,” William said. “At least he got a father.”
“I don’t know why you don’t go ahead and do what Sam Houston said,” Abner said. “You got my mouth all set for a taste of Texas, but I don’t know if I want to go if you don’t.”
“Well,” David said, lifting his chin, “I gave my word to the family.”
“You shouldn’t care what Robert thinks,” William said. “He don’t give a hoot about you.”
When the group broke up, David rode home, deciding his word to the family had never been worth much, and they all knew it. His buddies knew him. They knew what his soul needed. If only his family knew him that well. Arriving at the cabin he saw all the lamps were out. Elizabeth would understand, he decided. The children would never understand.
Struggling off his horse, David tried not to stagger too much on his way back to the house. His lean frame slipped between the covers of the bed, and just as he was about to drift off to sleep, Elizabeth’s hand patted his shoulder.
“After you left I told the children to be kind to you,” she whispered. “I said you’re givin’ up more than they’d ever know.” She gave him a slight hug. “And you be kind to them.”

***

Dave’s heart sank when Miriam explained how she knew as soon as she saw the yellowed Bible with a cracked leather cover that it was a historic document. When she opened to its family page and saw David Crockett’s signature she had no doubt it was authentic.
“He rambled on about how he was all alone in the world,” Miriam said. “He said his mother died when he was twelve.”
“I was twelve when she died,” Dave told her. “Allan was twenty-two.”
“He said he had a younger brother who died of some mysterious disease at age seven. Just as his mother came into the room, he said your eyes lit up, you whispered, ‘Jesus!’ and died.” Miriam smiled. “Tears came into his eyes as he described how he comforted his mother as she sobbed at your funeral.”
“How did he say my other brother die?”
“Let’s see. His name was Vince, right? It’s funny how I remember. Allan could have been a successful actor, the way he said things made an impression so I remember all this. Anyway, he said Vince was crushed when the car he was working on slipped from the jack and fell on him.”
“And my father?”
“He said he died of a massive heart attack while loading his soft drink truck on a hot July afternoon. Tears welled up again as he described how his father gave up his life to provide a future for his child.” She shook her head. “I knew he was lying, but he seemed so sincere in his lies I could not help but like him.”
Dave nodded and smiled.
“I knew he was bound and determined to sell that Bible—he said it was to pay for his college tuition,” Miriam continued. “He was only a semester away from a bachelor’s degree. I knew he wasn’t a semester away from graduation, but he needed money badly for something.”
“Just to live,” Dave said. “He had a hard time keeping a job.”
Frowning, Miriam looked out the front window. “I didn’t pay him what it was worth. He didn’t seem to mind.”
“It doesn’t make any difference.”
“I was hoping a family member would come in and I’ll sell it back for what I paid. Honestly.”
“I know.”
“Then this lady came in,” she continued. “Just a few weeks ago. I couldn’t believe how her eyes lit up when she saw the Crockett signature. She was a dear thing. There’s a legend in her mother’s family about a sixteen-year-old Davy Crockett bestowing his first puppy love kiss upon one of their great grandmothers.”
“So she bought the Bible?”
“I set a high price on it hoping to discourage her. She said she didn’t care what the price was. She simply had to have that Bible. I am, after all, in business to buy and sell books. Besides, she looked respectable, and I knew she’d give the Bible a good home.”
“Did you get her address?” When Miriam hesitated, Dave added, “I really need to get in contact with her.”
“I suppose I could call her and ask if she would talk to you.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Dave watched her go to her office, flip through a card file and punch a number into the phone. Her face brightened.
“Hello, Sarah Beth?” Miriam turned away and lowered her voice. In a minute she looked back, smiled and extended the receiver. She wants to say hello.”

Harold’s fitful night’s sleep was interrupted by a telephone call from one of the attendants at the hospital.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Lippincott, three patients are unaccounted for,” the attendant said, trying to control his anxiety.
“What?”
“At three a.m. bed check we noticed John Ross and those two brothers, Mike and Randy, were missing. We’ve already contacted police,” he continued. “I hope that was okay, considering their case histories.”
“Of course. You did the right thing.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you, but I thought you ought to know.”
“Yes. You did the right thing.” Harold stopped to rub his eyes. “What time is it now?”
“Four.”
“I’ll be in about seven.”
As Harold hung up the receiver, Stephanie rolled over.
“What was that, honey?”
“Three patients escaped.” He sat up and rubbed his chest.
“You’re not going in now, are you?”
“No. I’ll go in about seven.” He got out of bed and headed for his bathroom. “But I can’t get back to sleep.”
“You’re not postponing our trip to New York, are you?” She sat up. “Your father’s funeral is in three days.”
Harold came back into the room and began doing sit ups.
“Stephanie, I can’t leave while those three are loose.”
“Why not? They’re just patients, aren’t they?”
“Two of them killed an elderly woman, and the other stabbed his father.” He stopped his sit ups and panted.
“We’re talking about your father.” Stephanie scooted to the end of their bed. “I know these men may be dangerous, but the police are prepared to handle that. There’s not much you can do.”
“But I’m the head of the hospital. I’m responsible. The police will need information, and I’m the one to give it to them.”
“But nothing. Your father is being buried. This happens only once. You have only one father.”
Harold began doing pushups.
“Will you stop that while I’m talking to you?”
He continued his exercise.
“Harold, did you hate your father?”
He stopped. He did hate his father, but psychiatrists were supposed to be above feelings like hate, adoration and insecurity. Harold did not want Stephanie to know he had weaknesses like ordinary men.
“You met him in June.” Harold rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “He was not kind to you. He was never kind to me.”
“What happened between you two?”
“What happened between us?” He sat up. “My father didn’t need an excuse to be a boor.”
“Sometimes you just have to accept people for who they are,” Stephanie said, choosing her words with care. “He couldn’t help the way he acted. That’s why it didn’t bother me when he snubbed me. It was the only way he knew how to act.” She shrugged. “But he was still your father.”
“Are you trying to analyze me now?”
“I’m not trying.” She smiled and went to the floor. “I am analyzing you.”
“You didn’t even know the meaning of the word until I taught it do you.”
She straddled him, put her arms around his sweaty shoulders and kissed him.
“And you didn’t know the meaning of this before I taught it to you.” She pushed her bottom into his crotch, kissing him with passion.
After a few moments they separated.
“You’re a better teacher than I am,” he murmured.
“So are you forgetting this business about staying here?”
“I can’t.” He shook his head.
“Then I’ll call the funeral home and delay the services until we can get there.”
“About that. You don’t have to go.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t have to meet the rest of my family and dad’s friends.”
“You need remedial courses on this.” She repeated her movements and kisses. “You won’t pass if I let you out of my sight.”
“You win, teacher.” He kissed and then smiled.
They rolled on the floor and made love, helping Harold to forget how he hated his father and how he was so embarrassed by his hatred. Maybe Stephanie would still love him if she knew he was just human. As she giggled and rolled over on top of him, he decided she already knew and did not care. Later they showered together, dressed, went to the kitchen and put on coffee.
“You do know it’s all right,” she said.
“What’s all right?”
“Hating your father.”
“Do you hate anyone?”
“Sometimes I hate you.” She sipped her coffee. “You can be an arrogant jerk, you know.”
“Oh.”
“You really need to work on that.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to be right all the time. You don’t have to be strong all the time. It’s okay to ask someone for help.”
“And who would that be?”
“Jerk.”
Gray morning light seeped through the curtains.
“It’s time you got ready for work, doctor.”
He went to her and kissed her.
“You don’t mind I need you so much?”
“No.” She smiled. “You shouldn’t mind needing me so much.”
Harold went into their bedroom and dressed in his three-piece suit which he felt gave him a look of authority. Stephanie turned him around for her approval and after lingering over straightening his tie sent Harold out the door and watched him walk to his Mercedes and drive away. Harold considered what she had said, that sometimes she hated him, and hoped she was only joking. He didn’t want to lose another wife. He arrived at the hospital, went through the gate and parked in his designated spot. When he reached his office, he saw Detective Mack Howard waiting by his door. After brief introductions, the detective sat and pulled out his notepad and began asking questions.
“So, Doc, who exactly were these guys?”
Harold stood by his window and saw George coming to work. When he sensed the attendant was looking up at his office window and smirking at him, Harold stepped away.
“Doc?”
“I’m sorry.” He tried to focus on the detective. “What was that?”
“Who were these guys?” Mack repeated. “Some hospital attendants told my boys they could be dangerous.”
“I don’t think so.” He sat down and fiddled with their three folders. “The boys are only dangerous when they’d had beer to drink.”
“There’s a lot of beer out there in the world.”
“I know what I’m talking about, Detective Howard,” Harold said, even though images of the blood spot on his finger and his father’s leer clouded his mind.
***
Sunlight had yet to peep through their hotel window as Bob and Jill held each other in bed and exchanged intimate kisses. A television was on, but they ignored it.
“Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat say patrols from both countries will work together in the Sinai Peninsula,” a reporter said.
“Thank you for telling me about your mother,” Jill whispered. “I know it must have been difficult for you.”
“I never told anyone that before.”
“And it seems the Bahamas has dodged a bullet this time with Hurricane David which caused massive damage and killed more than a thousand people in the Dominican Republic and surrounding islands,” the voice from the television said. The storm is now dissipating.”
“I don’t know why I thought you wouldn’t love me if you knew.”
She kissed him on the cheek.
“I love you even more for telling me.” Hugging him she sighed. “It means you trust me completely.” They slid back into their bed and hugged each other.
“And in news from the United States, three mental patients escaped from North Carolina State Mental Hospital in Morganton last night.”
“What was that?” Bob sat up.
“What was what?”
“The leader of the escapees has been identified as John Ross, a native American of Cherokee descent who was committed for stabbing his father,” the reporter said. “Ross, according to sources, believes himself to be Moses.”
Jill sighed and reached for the telephone and handed it to Bob who took it without any hesitation.
“Thanks.”
“I always heard reporters made lousy husbands, but I didn’t think it started on their honeymoon.”
“Lousy?” Bob frowned.
“Don’t take it personally.” She kissed his forehead and got out of bed to dress.
They checked out of the hotel and went to the airport. As their plane took off, Jill looked out the window at fading views of the Bahamas.
“Don’t worry.” Bob squeezed her hand. “We’ll go back.”
“I know.” She smiled and leaned back. “It’s just that…” She bit her lip and smiled again. “Never mind.”
Back at their Knoxville apartment he called his station and talked to Betty.
“I saw the news this morning about John Ross’s escape and came back. I’m on my way right now to Morganton to see Dr. Lippincott. ”
“From your honeymoon?” she said in disbelief. “You are a good newsman. But a lousy husband.”
“Lousy?”
“See, I told you,” Jill said, tickling his ribs.
“Put your wife on the phone, or did you leave her there?”
“No, she’s here.” He held out the receiver. “Betty wants to talk to you.”
She took the phone and winked at Bob.
“Hi, Betty.”
“You poor thing. Even I wouldn’t leave my honeymoon for a story.”
“Oh, he’s kinda cute. I forgive him.”
“Since he’s out chasing down a hot story, why don’t you come by and let me treat you to lunch. It’s the least I can do since you thought you were going to be sipping mai-tais on the beach.”
“Thanks. I’ll be there at noon.”
Bob gathered his gear together and kissed her cheek.
“Say bye to Betty for me.”
“Tell him I said you’re too good for him,” Betty said loud enough for Bob to hear, causing him to laugh.
“I agree,” Bob said, leaning into the phone.
***
Detective Mack Howard closed his notepad and stood.
“That just about gets it. We can handle it from here.
“Thank you for your help.” Harold followed him to the door.
“Sure. These things happen all the time.”
When he was alone, Harold began to talk to himself.
“Sure they happen all the time. It could happen to anyone.” He sat at his desk and looked again at John’s folder, trying to see if there was anything in it that could have warned him. Pediatric head trauma caused many problems, but something else had to be a factor, but he did not know what. John had a loving, warm family. His father was not too bright but was a decent man, and John’s mother was practically perfect, a martyr, a saint. He closed the file. “This is foolish. Second guessing never helps anything.” The intercom rang, bringing Harold out of his thoughts. He punched the button. “Yes?”
“I was finally able to reach the Rosses,” his secretary explained. “Seems they’ve been out all morning.”
“Thank you. Put them through.” Harold composed his thoughts as their call was transferred. Soon an old man’s voice crackled over the receiver.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Ross,” Harold spoke with kindness, “this is Dr. Lippincott, from the state mental hospital. I have some information about your son.”
“We know. We heard it on the radio.”
In the background, Harold heard Mrs. Ross yelling.
“Will you shut up?” Mr. Ross bellowed. “I can’t hear the doc.”
“Then it’s true? He ran away?” he heard her say.
“Yep,” Mr. Ross replied.
“This is all your fault!” she screamed. “I wish Johnny had killed you! Then they would have put him in prison, and he couldn’t escape!”
“And I wish he had died!” John’s father yelled. “He’s been nothing but trouble since he got hit in the head!”
“Mr. Ross?” Harold asked, not believing the outburst he overheard.
“And you told him that!” she continued her tirade. “Johnny told me you said you wish he was dead! I wish you were dead!”
“Mr. Ross, please calm down,” Harold said, trying to soothe him. “There’s no reason to be this upset. I’m sure authorities will find him soon.”
“What do you know?” Mr. Ross yelled out. “You’re nothing but a stupid doctor!”
“This has to be a strain on you,” Harold continued. “Keeping all these feelings contained all these years…”
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Ross said, after grabbing the receiver.
“I mean you and Mr. Ross, keeping all your emotions packed in all these years…”
“My husband hasn’t packed nothing away,” she said with spite. “He was always telling Johnny he was stupid and he wished he was dead. I was the one who had to defend the poor boy against him. My husband was the stupid one!”
“Oh.” Harold was speechless.
“If you hadn’t filled him with all that Yo He Wa nonsense he could have fit in this world,” he heard Mr. Ross yell.
“It isn’t nonsense!” she yelled back. “It’s our heritage. You’d know that if you weren’t so stupid!”
“Please, Mrs. Ross,” Harold said. “All this screaming won’t help.”
“Don’t tell us what to do!” Her voice became even more intense. “You white people are always telling us what to do!” She paused to take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Dr. Lippincott,” she resumed, choosing her words with care. “I usually don’t fly off the handle like that.”
“You fly off the handle like that all the time,” her husband bellowed in the background.
“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” Harold said, choosing to ignore their conflict.
“When Johnny was a little boy,” she said, “he read all about the Trail of Tears—you know, how the government made Cherokee walk all the way to Oklahoma—and he’d come to me with tears in his eyes and say, ‘Ma, those people are going to pay.’ Well, sir, I’m afraid that’s just what he’s out to do, make somebody pay.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ross.”
“Dr. Lippincott?” she asked with a sweet tenderness that Harold had always heard in her voice before today. “You’re not going to tell anyone about this, you know, how you caught my husband and me in a little spat?”
“Oh. No.”
“Folks here in town don’t know we sometimes talk to each other like that,” she continued. “Like you said, we’ve had a lot of feelings cooped up.”
“You never cooped up anything,” he heard Mr. Ross say in resentment.
“Of course,” Harold said, trying to be comforting. “I understand.”
“Good.”
“We’re contacting law enforcement officials in Cherokee to have them watch your home, in case John might appear.”
“I’m not afraid of my son,” she said with determination.
After he hung up, Harold’s heart beat faster as he realized he had found the missing piece of John Ross’s puzzling psychosis. What he thought had been a warm supportive family had actually been a battleground with sudden eruptions of name calling and accusations. Being in the middle of his parents’ tantrums had built the foundation of John’s mental illness. And Harold had overlooked it; making sloppy observations about the Ross family’s superficial tranquility. Maybe his wife was right. Maybe Harold needed to go to his father’s funeral and bury burdens his father had placed on him. He reached for his telephone to call his wife to make arrangements for them to fly to New York at once. He had three numbers dialed when his secretary came over the intercom.
“Dr. Lippincott, Bob Meade of the Knoxville television station is here to see you.”
Harold paused, then hung up the phone and sighed.
“Send him in.”

Dr. Van Helsing, carrying his valise, emerged from the upstairs bedroom.
“Miss Mina, I’ve been thinking it over and sometimes I am a pompous blowhard and have a quick temper and ….” His voice trailed off as he looked down into the entry hall to find it empty. “Hmph. I’m talking to myself again. Well, good. I didn’t want to apologize anyway.”
Claustrophobia came through the double doors, creeping and cringing as though she were trying to sneak out unobserved. After she carefully shut the doors she looked up to see Van Helsing on the balcony.
“Hello, herr doctor.
“Oh, hello, bimbo. Do you know where Miss Mina and Mr. Harker are?”
Giggles erupted from behind the game room door. Claustrophobia smiled nervously.
“Jonathan is preoccupied at the moment, and I don’t know where the young lady is.”
“Too bad. I must look for her myself.” He began to descend the staircase.
Claustrophobia rushed over to stop him on the bottom step. “Please. I must speak to you.”
“I’m in a hurry,” Van Helsing retorted with his usual German terseness. “Make it fast, bimbo.”
“Please don’t call me that.” Tears welled in her eyes—her dead, vacant eyes.
For the first time in many years, the professor actually felt regret for his rigid no-nonsense comportment. “Very well.” He even allowed himself to become a wee bit delicate. “Claustrophobia.”
“Thank you very much.” If she had any blood to rush to her cheeks, Claustrophobia would have blushed. “Oh dear. Now that I have you here, face to face, I’m having a difficult time coming up with the right words to describe my feelings.”
“Try. Hard. Quickly.”
Her ample bosom rose and fell at an alarming frequency. “I just love it when you’re brusque.”
“It comes naturally.” He shrugged immodestly.
“I know. It did with ‘him’ also.”
“May I venture a guess that ‘him’ is Sigmund Freud?”
“Ja.”
Van Helsing strutted closer to her, thinking thoughts he had not thought in a long time. “Then may I venture another guess that what you have difficulty saying is that you’ve got the hots for this old German doctor, eh?”
“Ja.”
“You flatter me.” He tried unsuccessfully to hide his pleasure. “No one’s wanted to get into my pants for years.”
“I’m so embarrassed.” Claustrophobia went to the sofa and collapsed.
Van Helsing, without any hesitation, sat next to her, crossed his legs and pulled out a notepad and pencil to begin taking notes. “There, there, my little streudle, no need for embarrassment. I think it’s sweet. If you don’t mind telling, how old are you? I mean, how old were you when you died?”
“Nineteen. It was just last year.”
Taking a deep breath, he put his pad and pencil away, and gently lifted her legs into his lap. “Nineteen years old. And since she’s dead, I couldn’t legally be tried for contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” he muttered. “Suddenly I feel like a dirty old man.”
Claustrophobia sat up and flung herself into his arms. “Please hold me.”
“You got it.”
They embraced tightly, their hands running rampant over each other’s bodies. She opened her mouth as though to engage in a little tongue wrestling when she exposed her sharp canines and attempted to take a nip out of his neck. Van Helsing jumped to his feet and quickly hopped to stand behind the sofa, placing as much space as possible between him and Claustrophobia.
“Oh, drat,” she whined, “I didn’t mean to do that.”
His heart melted again, and the doctor found himself rushing to her side to comfort her. “I know.”
“You believe me?” she asked with pitiful hope.
“For some strange reason, yes.”
Raucous laughter from the game room broke the intimate moment. Claustrophobia walked to the double doors, her jaw hardening. “Susie Belle’s so loud and vulgar. I hate her.”
“She’s an American. What can you expect?”
The nubile vampire turned to look at the old man, her cute little double chin quivering in mental anguish. “She and Salacia are always saying I’m too plump. Do you think I’m plump?”
“Yes!” Van Helsing exploded in orgasmic ecstasy.
“What?”
He rushed to her again. “I love plump under aged girls!”
“Oh. Thank you.” A smile flickered across her full though pale lips. “But I still hate Susie Belle for saying I am plump. And when I’m around her I can’t help but act like her and Salacia. She was just as bad.” She paused to look into the professor’s eyes. “I’m glad you killed her.”
“I didn’t kill her. She was already dead.”
“Well, whatever you did to her, I’m glad you did it.”
“Thank you.” The hardened old doctor felt his heart dissolve into a pool of gelatinous sentimentality. If truth be told, the last serious love of his life was a girl who ultimately dumped him for his erstwhile rival in the psychological arts, Sigmund Freud. She eventually married the Austrian and bore him several children, a fact that did not go not unnoticed in Van Helsing’s deepest consciousness. In fact, the doctor had a secret he would never reveal, forever locked in his mind and the registration files of the University of Dusseldorf. After being rejected by his love, Van Helsing dropped out of school for a year to pursue a career in grossvater tanz, a traditional German folk dance performed at weddings. He decided to go back to his academic studies after being soaked with steins of beer poured on him by a particularly unfriendly wedding party in Bavaria. A nearby barmaid rescued him from the embarrassing situation. Ever since then Van Helsing eschewed affairs of the heart except for a lingering affection for barmaids.
“And I really didn’t want to take Jonathan’s trousers away from him,” Claustrophobia continued, inching closer to the professor. “Funny, I don’t even find him all that attractive. After all, what does he have that you don’t? Just silky wavy hair, a strong jaw, sinewy muscles—“
“And who needs all that?” He wanted to end this conversation because it reminded him that in Sigmund Freud’s youth he was considered quite a handsome hunk.
“But you have a brain, a beautiful, sexy, strong brain.” She ran her fingers through Van Helsing’s gray, thinning hair.
“Yes, I know.” He started having those feelings again and he liked it.
Again she bared her fangs and tried to rip into his throat, causing the romantic moment to evaporate.
“I’m sorry, but you have such tempting blood vessels bulging from your neck.”
He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her saliva from his skin. “You must watch your impulses, my little lieberkase.”
“It’s all ‘his’ fault, you know.” Claustrophobia turned spiteful.
“Count Dracula.” Van Helsing prided himself on deciphering insinuations.
“Ja. I was a happy barmaid going to my weekly—“
“Barmaid, did you say?” His heart began to race again.
“Ja. Why?”
“Nothing, my little weinerschnitzel.”
“Anyway, I was happy going to see Dr. Freud once a week trying to get over my fear of enclosed places when ‘he’ came into my bar one night.”
“Dracula.” He restrained his urge to pull out a pen and pad.
“Ja. I knew something was wrong when he said he didn’t drink…beer. There’s something wrong with a man who doesn’t drink beer. You drink beer, don’t you?”
“It’s mother’s milk to me.” He smiled with great sympathy.
“Good,” Claustrophobia said with a smile, causing her dimples to impishly appear in her cheeks. “Then when I left work that night he accosted me in the alley, and my life hasn’t been the same since.”
“My poor little dumpling.”
She took him by the hand and led him to the sofa. “And now I must spend my days cooped up in that wretched coffin. I can’t stand being closed in like that. And I can’t drink beer anymore, only…” She could not make herself say the word blood. “Oh, take me fast, before I get the urge to bite you again!”
Claustrophobia leapt into his arms, toppling him down on the sofa where they kissed passionately. After a few minutes of rolling about, she tried to bite Van Helsing’s neck again. He flew from the sofa to a safe distance from her.
“You almost got me that time, my sweet sauerbraten!”
Flinging herself back onto the sofa, she put one arm over her eyes. “Oh, it’s no use! We’ll never be able to—to…what is that word meaning to complete a love affair?”
“Consumate.”
“Oh good. You knew it. You’re so smart.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Is there no hope for me? Must I go through eternity terrorized by that coffin by day and frustrated in love by night?”
Van Helsing went to his valise and opened it. “Yes, my little black forest cake, there is hope.”
“I knew you would help me.”
“Unfortunately.” He took the stake out, quickly stepped to Claustrophobia and plunged it into her heart.
She sat up abruptly, her eyes wide open. “Thank you, my love.” Her body collapsed back on the sofa.
Van Helsing slowly walked to the front door, opened it and returned to the sofa where he lifted Claustrophobia by her arms and began to drag her outside.
“Me and my rotten luck. An under aged barmaid eager to get into my pants, and I have to drive a stake into her breast. And what a breast! And now I have to dig another grave. Ugh. I’m getting too old for this vampire hunting business.”

Raucous laughter emanated from the Executive Mansion’s kitchen in the basement one February,1866, evening. Lafayette Baker told President Johnson some of his tales of breaking up spy rings during the war years. In particular, Baker embellished the details of how he tracked down and arrested Belle Starr, the notorious female spy. He claimed her charms held nothing for him for he was a good family man.
“So you have children?” Johnson asked amiably.
“Oh. No, sir,” Baker replied, a bit taken off guard. “My wife Jennie and I were never blessed with children. But I consider myself a family man because I am married and as such I—Jennie and I—are our own family.”
“And where does she live?” Johnson’s smile fixed and his gaze dogged.
“In Philadelphia. I was a mechanic there, before the war.” Baker heard footsteps and looked behind the president to see the butler and his wife the cook pass by the kitchen door and glance in. He realized they knew what he actually was and what he was capable of. Yet he still had to carry on. “She’s been my saint through all these years of separation.”
For some reason, Johnson preferred to have relaxed conversations in the kitchen where the walls were rough hewn and the corners covered in cobwebs. Since the first of 1866, his kitchen friend had been Baker. In the months following the assassination, Baker had been more accessible to late night talks than others in Johnson’s immediate circle of intimates had.
Baker’s official job title had always been chief of the Secret Service, an agency which rooted out counterfeiters. Unofficially he handled unpleasant tasks assigned by Secretary of War Stanton. His latest job was to ingratiate himself to the new president so he might more easily observe Johnson’s imperfections. The ultimate goal was to gather such irrefutable evidence that Congress would have no choice but to impeach and remove the president from office as soon as possible. The ruse only intensified Baker’s hatred for Stanton.
“Do you know why I like you, Lafe?” Johnson asked, staring into his eyes.
“No, sir. Why?” He clinched his jaw and hoped he would find the correct reaction to what the president was about to say to him.
“Because you’re a real man. You know what it’s like to grow up snot poor. You got up and out of it. Made something out of yourself. Went out West. Did the tough work nobody else had the belly for.”
Baker’s eyes went down. “Some of it I’m none too proud of.”
“Oh, hell, pride never does nothing for nobody. I’ll be damned if I’m proud of anything I did in my life. But I’m proud to have you as the head of the Secret Service.”
Baker looked up and smiled. “I’ll drink to that.” Pulling a flask from his inside jacket pocket, he extended it to the president. “Let’s share a toast to getting things done. It’s the best whisky from your home state of Tennessee.” He could not continue to look at Johnson. One of the supreme tasks given him by Stanton was to lure the president back into his old drunken habits, a sure way to make impeachment efforts successful.
“Eliza is in the house now, along with our daughter and her husband and their children. They would skin me alive if they smelled liquor on my breath.” He smiled grimly and stood. “In fact, she’ll be expecting me upstairs in a while.” He extended his hand to Baker. “Come again when you have the time. You don’t know how much these talks help to relax me.”
After Johnson left the kitchen, he walked up the stairs, his heavy boots crunching loudly on the straw mats on the steps. Baker took a moment to compose himself before going outside through the kitchen door, turning his coat collar up to protect himself from the bitter winds of February. Returning to his room at the National Hotel, he slowly took off his boots, sprawled across the bed, opened the flask and took a couple of gulps.
He tried to think back to a time when he decided that money was more important than morality, honesty and loyalty. Baker knew. It was after he rose in the ranks of the military, each new position gave him more power. It seemed so easy as he explained to officials they had two choices: submit to the public disgrace of being charged with corrupt practices or pay Baker to hide their sins in the far reaches of insignificant filing cabinets. Then in 1862, Stanton approached him with his hare-brained scheme to kidnap Lincoln and hold him captive in the Executive Mansion. Baker saw this ultimate act of immorality easy to commit.
He masterminded the abduction of Abraham Lincoln and manipulated simple-minded rebels to carry out the president’s assassination. He personally murdered the man and woman who pretended to be the Lincolns and finally drove the innocent young soldier who guarded the president and the first lady to commit suicide. Those atrocious sins disgusted Baker and awoke what was left of his soul. Now Stanton coerced him into a new round of deception and murder, and Baker’s newly resurrected humanity said, “No”. Baker had to find a way to escape the grasp of Stanton. He was sick and tired of it.
Washington City entered a new chapter of turmoil as Baker planned his personal emancipation. President Johnson began to set his own course of reconstruction which neither followed the wishes of the late Mr. Lincoln nor the dictates of the Radical Republicans in Congress. Recently the President publicly grumbled about the extension and expansion of powers of the Freedman’s Bureau, which not only provided welfare relief for freed slaves but also to white refugees, now homeless after the ravages of war. Johnson told confidantes that in his opinion that the bill was unconstitutional and, now a year after the war had ended, not needed. Somehow those private thoughts made their way into the local newspapers.
Stanton summoned Baker to his office in the morning and berated him on his lack of action. Each time the war secretary slammed his fist on the desk, Baker cringed.
“What’s wrong with you? Why haven’t you forced him back into the liquor bottle? What’s going on in his mind? What other shocking steps will he take? Which bill will he dare veto next?”
“He won’t take another drink of liquor as long as his wife is in residence at the Executive Mansion.”
“That should be easily solved. The woman is an invalid. No one would be surprised by her sudden death.”
Baker glared at Stanton, but only a whisper came out of his mouth. “I am not killing another woman under your orders. It must stop. All this has got to stop.”
Stanton sat back in his chair. “Of all the men in Washington City, you are the last one I would suspect of turning coward.” He sighed deeply. “Get into his office. Make notes of the documents on his desk. That should not disturb your sensibilities too greatly.”
That evening Baker dropped by the Executive Mansion, catching President Johnson as he left the private family dining room on the main floor. Everyone entering into the hall—Johnson, his wife Eliza, their daughter Martha and her husband David Patterson—were laughing. Johnson pushed his wife’s wheelchair. He smiled and walked toward Baker with an extended hand.
“Mr. Baker, so good to see you. You’ve met my family, I believe. Not only is my son-in-law the new senator from Tennessee, he’s the only man in this blasted place I trust to carry my wife up to our private quarters. She suffers from consumption. But she’s a fighter. She’s not giving up.”
Patterson lifted the First Lady and gracefully led the way up the staircase.
“At some point I’m afraid Eliza will have to return to our home in Greeneville. This big city living is not good for her health, it seems; but my daughter Martha will act as hostess when the time comes. Please join us upstairs.”
Baker smiled and nodded as they began up the staircase. Johnson leaned into him to whisper.
“Wait for me in my office. I have some documents to show you. It doesn’t look good for Stanton.”
“Yes, sir.”
On the second floor, the Johnson family turned toward the bedroom.
“We must get Eliza into her bed before she sprains my poor son-in-law’s back.” He smiled at Baker and motioned to his office at the end of the hall. “Go ahead. I shall join you momentarily.”
Baker found himself alone in the president’s office. First, he looked back down the hall to make sure no staff members were lingering before he returned to Johnson’s desk, which was a jumbled mess of papers. On top was what he was expecting from Johnson’s comments—an investigation into the private affairs of Edwin Masters Stanton, Secretary of War. Pushing the report aside, Baker dug deeper into the stack where he found another report—alternatives to the Freedman’s Bureau, achieving dissolution with minimum political impact.
Taking a small notebook from his inner coat pocket, he began scribbling notes from the report. This would be information Stanton and his Radical Republican friends in Congress would want to see.
When the door creaked open, Baker twitched and looked up to see the president glowering at him. This was not the first time he had been caught in the act of spying. The Confederates had walked in on him often during his War years in Richmond where he posed as a photographer. A ready smile flashed across his face.
“I found that report you told me about, the one exposing Stanton’s background. I was just making a few notes so I might help in furthering your investigation.”
Johnson walked to him with his right hand extended. “Oh really. May I see what information impressed you so much?”
“It’s nothing, actually.” Baker’s voice weakened.
“Nevertheless, I want to see it.” The president paused and added in a growl, “I said, hand it over.”
Baker knew he had been sloppy. He should have moved more quickly. He should have brought a second notebook, to make non-incriminating notes, which he could hand over in a situation like this, keeping the real notations hidden. Was he truly now unpracticed in the art of espionage? Or did he subconsciously allow himself to be caught in such a compromising situation, creating an excuse to extract himself from this ongoing political nightmare?
The President grabbed the notebook and began reading. First his eyebrows went up and then he pursed his lips before returning his gaze to Baker.
“I don’t see anything in here about Mr. Stanton.”
“Well, you see, I have devised a special code for my private purposes—“
“Interesting. You chose the words Freedman’s Bureau as code for Edwin Stanton?” He walked over to the stove, opened the iron door and threw the notebook into the flames. “I am not a smart man, Mr. Baker. Not anywhere as smart as my predecessor but remember this one fact. He is dead, and I am still alive. After years of living in poverty in the mountains of Tennessee, I have developed a keen sense of smelling bullshit. I could have you thrown in prison, tried and executed for treason, but to maintain a façade of unity for the citizens of these United States I will simply say your services are no longer needed. Now get the hell out of here.”
Baker left without saying a word and returned to his hotel room where he slept more soundly than he had in years. His termination had lifted the awesome burden of being an evil embodiment of political expediency. Private Adam Christy’s pale, ghostly face smeared with blood no longer haunted his dreams. On the train ride the next morning, back to his home in Philadelphia where his wife Jennie patiently waited for him, Baker realized he was not completely free, even now.
To ensure his future safety he knew he had to write his own version of the Lincoln assassination, as he was sure everyone else involved would eventually do. He decided to make the main subject of the book his part in the creation of the Secret Service, a topic of interest but not provocative. By the end of the manuscript, Baker planned to reveal that John Wilkes Booth had kept a journal from the time of the assassination to his own supposed death. The book would claim that Baker immediately handed the notebook over to Secretary of War Stanton intact. Now there were eighteen pages missing. Baker knew there were eighteen pages missing because he was there when Stanton tore them out.

Stanton paced his office in the War Department building, glancing at his watch. It was now almost two o’clock. The executions were to take place between eleven a.m. and two p.m., and he had not heard a report yet from anyone. Once these people were dead, he told himself, any possible direct link between him and the conspiracy was gone. Except for Baker, but he could not implicate Stanton without sending himself to the gallows. Baker had many unpleasant characteristics, but stupidity was not one of them. A knock at the door startled Stanton, causing him to jump.
“Come in.”
Rep. King and Sen. Lane entered, wearing broad grins.
“The assassins are dead,” King announced.
“The nation can now be at rest,” Lane added with a satisfied sigh.
“Yes, the national nightmare is over.” Stanton’s nightmare was over. “Gentlemen, please have a seat.” He settled down behind his desk.
King and Lane lounged back in two wing-backed chairs opposite him. The three of them shared a nervous giggle before Stanton furrowed his brow, took off his pebble glasses, pulled out a handkerchief and cleaned them.
“We mustn’t take too much pleasure in this. Others might not appreciate our reaction. Of course, it is perfectly natural to be contented with the outcome, but this is still a time of mourning for our fellow citizens. Yet I cannot help but be relieved the executions occurred without complications.”
“Oh, but there were complications.” King leaned forward. “But I took care of it.”
“I took care of it too, King,” Lane added impatiently. “It was the two of us.”
Stanton clasped his hands in front of his mouth. “Exactly what was the nature of this complication?”
“Ward Hill Lamon, of all people, stormed into the prison yard, claiming to have a letter of reprieve from President Johnson. He even had conscripted some private to clear the way to the platform. The insolent little pup actually assaulted my chin with the butt of his rifle.” King fell back against the upholstered chair. “I—um, we—stood our ground and prevented him from advancing.”
“A letter? Did he actually have a letter?”
“Here it is.” King took the envelope from an inside pocket.
“May I see it?” Stanton tried to control his emotions.
“Of course.” King handed it over.
Stanton quickly took the letter from the envelope and read it. He knew Johnson’s handwriting well enough by now to realize this was real.
“Obviously a forgery.” Stanton slowly tore the letter, turning it and tearing again until all that remained was a handful of confetti.
“Our sentiments exactly,” King replied with a smile.
“We didn’t think no damn thing. We knew they had to hang no matter what the president thought.” Lane crossed his arms across his thin chest. “I thought Lamon had more sense than to get involved in this. It’s none of his business. Is he still marshal of the District of Columbia?”
“Yes, well….” Stanton opened his hand over the wastebasket to allow the paper to fall away. “Don’t worry about Mr. Lamon. I shall make sure he doesn’t waste his time on such inconsequential matters. I think it’s time for the government to retire Mr. Lamon from his duties of district marshal. He should return home to Illinois to write his memoirs which I shall make certain will never be published.”
“The Surratt girl was hysterical, and he must have been caught up in the moment,” King said in a magnanimous tone. “Why they would fake a reprieve is beyond me.”
“You haven’t mentioned this to the president, have you?” Stanton’s angel bow lips turned up into a tight smile.
“No, of course not.” Lane stood and brushed his pant legs, as though to dismiss the entire incident. “Why should we want to waste his time? Besides he’s probably drunk and might believe it himself.” He forced a laugh.
“Very well said, Mr. Lane.” King joined in on the laughter. After concluding his joviality, he cleared his throat. “I understand the position for Port of New York customs collector is currently vacant.”
“Dammit, King, the bodies are still warm, and you’re asking for a payoff already?” Lane raised an eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t be so harsh on Mr. King.” Stanton plastered his lips with a tight smile. “He has done a great service for his country, and great service deserves a great reward.”
“Thank you, Mr. Secretary.” Lane snorted as he tossed a critical glance toward King.
“Of course, much more is expected of you before your reward,” Stanton added.
“What?” Lane replied, trying not to demonstrate his apprehension.
“I have reservations about President Johnson. After all, who had the most to gain from the assassination of Mr. Lincoln? His own vice-president, naturally.”
“Are you sure about that, Stanton.” Lane was clearly taken aback. “He has a drinking problem, granted, but I can’t believe—“
“Which is grounded in your natural naiveté,” King interrupted in sanctimonious tones.
“That is why it is important for you to assume the duties of chief of staff for the president.” Stanton’s voice rose above the acrimony. “You must keep an eye on the accursed politician from Tennessee.”
“And how much does that position pay?” King’s tone was more subdued.
Lane emitted out a great guffaw. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to your grand schemes of patriotic fervor.”
“I take great offense at your insinuation, Mr. Lane.” King, his round face turning red, turn to Stanton for support. “I’m sure the Secretary is offended as well.
Stanton said nothing. This job is not complete. All could still be lost. I must get rid of Johnson too.
***
Lamon accompanied Anna Surratt to the family’s boarding house and sat with her in the parlor until he sensed she was calming down. He then made his way back to the Executive Mansion to break the bad news to President Johnson. When he entered the foyer this time, Massey stiffened slightly and silently led him directly to the president’s office. As he opened the door, Lamon saw Johnson sitting at his desk, his head in his hands. Immediately he looked up and stood.
“Where’s Mrs. Surratt? You didn’t leave her alone at her boarding house, did you? I was thinking about that. The crowd might become unruly—“
“Mr. President, Mrs. Surratt is dead.”
“What?” He grimaced. “Were we too late?”
“No, Rep. King and Sen. Lane—they blocked us. We never got close enough to Gen. Hartranft for him to even hear us.”
“King and Lane? What the hell were they doing there?” Johnson collapsed back into his chair. “I can imagine. Stanton must have gotten to them.”
“They took the letter of reprieve from me. Stanton probably has it by now.”
“Which means it no longer exists.” Johnson slammed his fist on the desk.
“What can we do now, sir?” Lamon rarely found himself in a position where he had to ask for guidance, but at this particular moment, he was baffled.
“Do? We can’t do a damned thing. It’s my word against his. All I have is what you have told me.” He waved in Lamon’s direction. “I know you’re telling me the truth but we don’t have anything to back it up.”
“Then Stanton wins?” He could not believe those words were coming from his lips.
“Hell no. Stanton won’t win. It might take the rest of our lives, but we’re bringing that bastard to justice.”
***
King’s tenure as the Executive Mansion’s chief of staff did not last long. Even he, who was a master of political intrigue, was uncomfortable in his duties of spying on the president. For all of his remonstrations over Johnson’s character and competence in front of Stanton, his long acquaintanceship with the new president led King to doubt his loyalty to Lincoln’s visions for a new America. King’s inner conflict came to a boiling point in late July when Radical Republicans in Washington encouraged black men in New Orleans to demonstrate in the street over the exclusion of black suffrage in the new Louisiana constitution brought about by Reconstruction. Both sides looked to President Johnson for guidance and leadership, and when none was forthcoming blacks massed in the center of town. When all calmed down, two hundred men, mostly black, had been killed.
By then, the entire nation knew and blamed President Johnson again for being incompetent. In a rage, Johnson stood in the hallway outside his Executive Mansion office, screaming for his Chief of Staff Preston King. “King! Get your fat ass in here right damn now!”
When King entered the office, Johnson waved a newspaper in his face.
“Did you know about this?” he demanded, pointing out the large headline about the New Orleans riot.
King gulped and looked wide-eyed at the president. Presently he took out a handkerchief to wipe his sweating brow.
“For once tell the truth, you worthless dog!”
“We decided—I decided—it would be in your best interests not to know about the situation. You see, no one side in this issue was clearly in the right, and we—I—wanted to spare you from any more unjustified criticism of your administration.”
Johnson, his face still crimson from anger, strode over to King, staring into his eyes, his nose almost touching his chief of staff’s nose. “And just the hell is this ‘we’ you keep referring to?”
King took a step back, but Johnson stepped forward to remain in his face. “I am fortunate to have a private circle of friends from whom I take counsel.”
“Who the hell is in this circle of friends of yours?”
“Well, it’s hard to say.” King paused to clear his throat. “Sometimes this person, sometimes another.”
Johnson thrust his rough hands around King’s fat-encrusted neck. “Give me a name or by God I’ll kill you!”
“Stanton,” he squeaked out. “Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, sir. I thought he was one of your closest advisors so—“
“That’s a lie! You know damn well I hate that bastard!” Johnson let go of King’s neck, walked back to his desk, sat and reached for some paper and a pen. “I think you have lost all value you might have had to this administration. I am writing your letter of resignation, and you damned well sign it.”
The pause in Johnson’s assault on his person gave King to organize his thoughts. “Whatever you may think is best but what shall I do with my time, sir, if I am not in service to the nation I love?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass, King.”
“Perhaps you should, sir. You don’t fully understand the impact of newspapers in this great land of ours. They tend to lend credence to any story that is told to them by a former government employee.”
Johnson stopped his writing and looked up. “What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean, sir, that I can tell the newspapers that I told you about this situation developing in New Orleans right after I became your chief of staff. I have my sources in Louisiana who keep me apprised of the racial situation there.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Can you prove it’s a lie, sir? I think not. Any more than I can prove what I may say in an interview is the truth. Newspapers are only obligated to prove that you or I actually made a statement, not that the statement in itself is true.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“I understand there’s an opening in the Port Authority of New York City for customs collector. It’s a very busy job, making intricate import/export decisions would render me unavailable for any newspaper interviews.”
Johnson wadded up the resignation letter and threw it at King. “Write your own damned resignation then get the hell to New York City. That slum pit deserves you.”
Within a few weeks King settled into his job as customs collector for the Port of New York, began his official duties and indulged in the shadowy practices of bribery, which proved most profitable. He found an elegant brownstone across the East River in Brooklyn, and took an invigorating ferry ride to the Manhattan side where his office sat in the middle of the bustling harbor district. He enjoyed the brisk spray of salt water in his face which he told his acquaintances was responsible for his clear sinus cavities which led, as everyone knows, to clear thinking.
On one particularly chilly evening in November of 1865 King continued his practice of standing rail side while other ferry customers huddled inside the large passenger cabin heated by a coal-burning stove. He congratulated himself on his clever rise to his current position when he almost lost his balance because someone bumped into him. King turned sharply to see a young man, obviously still a teen-ager as he was hunched over and avoided eye contact, a prevalent trait among young men of the era. He wore a wool cap pulled down over his eyes and a long gray scarf, which circled his neck several times.
“Don’t you know who I am?” King asked indignantly.
The boy bowed and stepped back revealing a slight limp. “Yes sir, of course, sir. You are the highly regarded customs collector for the Port of New York, former congressman and for a brief time chief of staff for President Johnson. You be the honorable Preston King, sir.”
“If you know that much about me, you know you must not show the impertinence of intruding upon my physical person.”
“Oh yes, sir, of course sir.”
King narrowed his eyes. “This is not the land of your birth, I detect from your accent.”
“Ireland, sir. Ten years here in America, sir.”
“That explains the lack of respect.”
“None intended, sir.”
“Then go inside. Don’t bother me.”
“They tossed me out, sir. They said I wreaked of something most foul, sir. Of course, says I, this be Friday and bath night is not until tomorrow.”
King’s nose crinkled. “Then take a seat on the bench over there, and take your stench with you.”
“Yes, sir. Forgive me, sir.” The Irish lad limped over to the bench, which was in the shadows.
King shook his shoulders, as though trying to remove the inconvenience of the last few moments, and then returned his concentration on the waves breaking against the ship’s hull, spraying his face with salt water.
“Make way! Make way!” a whisper came from the darkness. “A reprieve from the President!”
King turned abruptly to stare at the young man on the bench. “What did you say?”
“Me, sir? Nothing, sir.”
“Then who was speaking? What was being said was in extremely poor taste.”
“I didn’t hear a thing, sir. Maybe you heard someone from inside the cabin, sir.”
“Hmph. Perhaps.”
King returned his gaze to the darkness covering the East River, and he began to anticipate the arrival of the ferry at the dock on the far side. He had hardly taken a second breath when he felt a rope around his neck tightening quickly, ruthlessly.
“We’ll see how you like having your neck in a noose.”
The voice was not that of the Irish lad but that of some other man, intent on murder.
“What? Who are you?” King rasped, trying to pull the rope from his neck with his thick fingers.
“I’m the man who slammed the butt of my rifle into your chin last summer. I’m the man you thought died in a Virginia barn. I’m the man who’s going to kill you to avenge the death of Mary Surratt.”
“What? What? You fool! You can’t strangle me on public transportation! The other passengers will see my body! You’ll never get away with it!”
“You’re absolutely right. But I’m not going to strangle you. You’re going to drown.” The man held a sizable bag of bullets in from of King’s face. “This bag is tied to the other end of the rope which is around your neck. The newspapers will say you committed suicide.”
“What? Why? Who are you?” King asked frantically.
“I am the avenging angel.” With that statement, the man pushed King over the railing.
King had no time to scream as his face hurtled toward the dark waters of the East River.
***
Stanton spent many restless nights through the fall months worrying about what President Johnson knew about the conspiracy, who told him and how long he would wait before he did something about it. While the secretary of war did not have a specific plan to move against Johnson, he realized he had to lay groundwork, gain support among the serious critics of the president in Congress. Time was on his side, however. Congress was not in session, and the Republicans toured the country, rallying support for their own strict Reconstruction policies. Embers of hatred for the Tennessee usurper burned, and all Stanton had to do was wait until the right moment to fan them into full impeachment flame.
Late one evening in December of 1865, Stanton awaited the arrival of several Republicans at his home on K Street. His wife Ellen had conveniently retired for the night. A few minutes before midnight six congressional representatives sat uneasily in Stanton’s parlor gloomily lit by oil lanterns.
“What the hell is this all about, Stanton?” Thaddeus Stevens bellowed. He slumped in a deeply tufted leather upholstered chair situated near the Franklin stove in the middle of the wall opposite the door. “I’m too damned old to be called out in the middle of the night by some fool government bureaucrat. It’s too damned cold.”
Stanton had meant to save that seat for himself, knowing that whoever held that position held the attention of everyone in the room. Other congressmen, as they entered, instinctively knew to take other seats. When Stevens arrived, however, he headed directly for that chair and sat imperiously, holding his well-worn cane in front of him. Knowing full well he needed Stevens’ skills of intimidation to implement the political destruction of Andrew Johnson, Stanton smiled with the innocence of a trained roué on the prowl.
“You know very well how I admire your devotion to our Constitution and your stern patriotism—“
“Oh, hell, Stanton, get on with it,” Stevens growled.
“It’s the President, sir.”
“That damned bastard, bigot, drunk!”
“And every word you uttered is undebatable, but they can hardly be used as legal points in the impeachment of the President,” Stanton replied in a smooth, understated voice.
“Impeachment?” Benjamin Wade leaned forward, every wrinkle on his sixty-five year-old face illuminated in the lamplight. “Do you think impeachment is a possibility?”
Stanton restrained the smile trying to emerge on his lips. He was aware that Wade had been working the cloakrooms of the senate vigorously though delicately, trying to position himself to be named presiding officer of the Senate of the 40th Congress which was to convene in 1867. That title would ensure that he would be the President’s successor in the event of his removal from office since Johnson had no Vice-President. Quite an improvement in social standing for a man who began his life digging the ditches of the Erie Canal, Stanton contemplated.
“Quite right, Mr. Wade. Not only possible but indeed our obligation. Rumors persist about the man’s habits of lurking about the taverns of Washington City, late into the night, drinking and who knows what other practices of debauchery.”
“Well, that is just not right,” Charles Sumner agreed in an overly righteous tone. “A humane and civilized society cannot tolerate such behavior from its chief executive.”
“Exactly so, Mr. Sumner.” Stanton knew he would have a strong advocate in the Massachusetts representative whom he suspected never quite forgave Southerners for one of their ilk nearly beating him to death with a cane on the floor of Congress. Sumner often spoke magnanimously of treating the defeated Confederates with dignity and compassion but his actions always spoke otherwise.
“While Congress was adjourned,” Stanton began softly but became more enraged as he continued, “the Tennessee President acted on his own and without due authorization to proclaim Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, South Carolina, and Arkansas back in the Union. Hundreds of Negro friends of the Republic slaughtered on the streets of New Orleans. My God! Shall there be no justice administered at all?”
“No! No!” the men responded, as though they were attending an evangelical tent revival meeting.
“And worst of all….” Stanton paused because he knew introducing this accusation into the discussion might cause repercussions. He added an exasperated sigh. “Such rumors do not bother me. I am used to all manner of verbal abuse, but my delicate wife Ellen was particularly devastated at whispers about town that I actually had some role in President Lincoln’s assassination.”
“Why I have heard no such thing!” Lorenzo Thomas blurted out. “If I ever hear anyone under my command repeat this slander I shall have him court-martialed!”
“That’s very kind of you to say.” Stanton nodded approvingly. Lorenzo Thomas was a West Point graduate and had proved himself proficient in insinuating himself up the chain of command. Stanton was sure Thomas would be pleased to become assistant secretary of war as a compensation for defending the secretary’s honor.
“If anyone outside the ring of convicted conspirators exists, it would be the man to benefit the most from the president’s death, Andrew Johnson himself!” Rep. George Boutwell of Massachusetts looked around the room, nodding at the other men, as though trying to garner support for his statement.
“Do you really think so?” Stanton raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. Boutwell was the youngest man in the room so therefore not as trained in the art of guile as the others.
“Of course!” He lifted his chin. “I know my forthrightness might imperil my political career but I don’t care. My heart’s deepest desire is to serve my country as a member of the President’s cabinet, but I would rather leave that ambition unrequited than to let any man—president or not—go unpunished for crimes against the nation.”
“Well said, my friend.” John Bingham, slightly older than Boutwell, had been a Pennsylvania congressman until he was appointed a judge-advocate by the attorney general. He was a prosecutor in the conspiracy trial, and if he were re-elected to the House in the upcoming mid-term elections, could bring expertise to the impeachment charges against Johnson. “We must move on this quickly.”
Stevens rapped his cane on the floor. “Patience, my young friends. First we must create a law that a stubborn jackass like Johnson would be bound by personal honor to violate. Then we shall have him. No charges based on mythical conspiratorial assumptions but charges rooted in actual law.”

Dr. Harold Lippincott drummed his fingers on his desk as he tried to listen with courtesy to an old woman who sat across from him pleading for her boyfriend’s son to be readmitted to the state mental hospital. His mind was on his own father, lingering from the effects of a stroke.
“I’m afraid he’s going to take a shotgun and blow Grady’s head off while he’s sleeping or he’s going to wander off to that Atlanta again. And who knows what will happen to him there.” She leaned in and whispered, “That place is like a magnet for every kind of scum of the earth there is, you know. There’s just something peculiar in that boy’s eyes. It’s always been there, ever since he was little. It ain’t normal. Ain’t you noticed it, doc?”
“I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Tulip…”
“That’s Twolips,” she said. “My husband, God rest his soul, was part Indian. I don’t remember which tribe, but I ain’t ashamed of it. It’s better than marrying some hippie. He was a hard-working and good-hearted man, and so is Grady. He don’t deserve this aggravation.”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Twolips. I appreciate our concern, but Mr. Hargraves’ son, Reginald, could not be held longer than three months without recommendation of his attending physician.”
“Who was fool enough to let him out?”
“Well,” he said, rubbing his hand over his shaved head, “I was his attending physician.”
“What kind of a doctor are you that you can’t see that young man…”
“That young man is fifty years old.”
“Exactly. He’s fifty years old and can’t hold a job. Has to stay home with his seventy-year-old daddy. That ain’t normal. I ain’t got no fancy college degree, but I got enough common sense to know that ain’t normal.”
“There are certain legal criteria…”
“If he ends up killing Grady or himself, it’ll be the same as if you done it yourself.”
Harold looked through the file.
“Mr. Hargraves—Reginald—thinks you believe his father will marry you if he—Reginald—were permanently committed.”
Mrs. Twolips’ mouth pinched shut.
“It’s my opinion that Reginald doesn’t belong at home with his father but could learn to be self-supporting in a halfway house.”
“He’d run off. He’s done it before.”
“We’ve all done things that we won’t do in the future.”
“I ain’t going to talk no more to no doctor who ain’t got no sense.” She stood and stalked to the door. “And I’m not out to get Reggie put away so I can marry Grady.”
“I didn’t say that. Reginald did.”
“Just remember,” Mrs. Twolips said as she stopped at the door and looked back at Harold, “It’s on your head.” She slammed the door behind her.
Harold put his head in his hands, tried not to think of when he’d heard those sentiments before, but he could not resist memories of that night in his father’s home when he announced he wanted to become a psychiatrist. Even now Harold could feel the sting of the shard of broken crystal in his finger. He could see the red-black drop of blood appear on his skin. He could sense the burning sensation on the back of his neck as his father looked down on him, contemptuous of his abilities and his dreams.
The telephone rang to bring him back to the present. Sighing, he picked up the receiver.
“Yes?”
“Darling?”
He smiled when he heard the voice of his wife, a perfect antidote for memories of his father. She was about ten years younger than he, beautiful and completely devoted. Whenever he doubted himself, Harold could always count on her to bring him out of it.
“What is it, Stephanie?”
“The doctor at your father’s hospital just called.” She paused. “Your father died last night.”
Again he was thrown back on the floor of the Long Island mansion looking up at his father’s cold blue eyes.
“Harold? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Yet he wondered why he felt neither grief nor any remorse for not feeling grief. At that moment all he felt was a strange numbness.
“At first I thought I’d wait to tell you when you came home, but then I thought you’d want to know now.”
He smiled, as he often did to hide his deeper moods from her, even though she could not see the smile through the receiver. Was he becoming a bit irrational?
“Don’t worry about it. See you tonight.”
As he hung up, he thought about going home to his wife. Harold visualized her kisses and hugs to comfort him over the death of his aged father, not knowing that the old man’s death meant nothing to him. No, that’s not right, he corrected himself. It was sort of a release, freeing Harold at last from his feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy.
It was those feelings that ended his first marriage to the girl in the mansion next door. Dorothy was within a year of his age and almost his height. She was, in the words of Harold’s father, his equal in every way. In some aspects, she was Harold’s superior, his father added. Dorothy was a professor of medieval studies at Harvard University, while he had a private psychiatric practice in Boston, listening to problems of bored society matrons.
Then, one day, Dorothy announced she was bored with Harold and had accepted a position with the Sorbonne for the next fall. The logical step would be for them to separate legally since he could not speak French, and, therefore, could not open a practice in Paris. As a coincidence, Harold discovered, a fellow Harvard professor, an expert in the Romance languages, also accepted a position at the Sorbonne for that fall. A lanky, debonair man, he had a full head of silver hair and was a head taller than Dorothy.
When Harold called Dorothy one evening in Paris, the lanky, silver-haired master of Romance languages answered. He decided to change the status of their legal separation to divorce. Soon after that, he closed his office and accepted the position of head psychiatrist at North Carolina State Mental Hospital in Morganton, where he had hoped to find meaning in life by helping those with more problems than boredom.
In his first year in North Carolina, he met a beautiful young woman who owned a boutique of Appalachian folk art. Stephanie was generous, witty, an incisive art critic and comforting. His father’s indifference towards her when he visited in June only made Harold love her more. Awakened from his thoughts by a knock at the door he looked up and said come in. George entered and scratched his chin.
“Doc? You got a minute?”
“Sure, what do you want?”
He stopped halfway across the room.
“The guy’s here with a new television for the day room.”
“Good. All the patients have done nothing but complain about no television.”
“Even that crazy John Ross?”
“Please, George, don’t use the word crazy.”
“Even that John Ross?”
“Of course he wouldn’t complain. He broke it.”
“If he’s crazy enough to break it, he’s crazy enough to complain that it’s broken.”
“Not at all.” Harold sighed, wishing he could convince George not to use the word crazy, an old-fashioned expression with no relevance in today’s society. Mentally ill was a more appropriate term.
“You should give him more pills.”
“I don’t discuss patients’ files with the staff.” Harold straightened himself in a snit.
“Yeah,” George said, raising an eyebrow, “I’m just the guy who cleans toilets, but if it was up to me, I’d give him more pills.”
Once more Harold heard Mrs. Twolips’ reprimand and saw his father’s reproving blue eyes. Now even the man who cleaned toilets cast doubt on his judgment.
“Doc?”
Jumping a little as he came out of his thoughts, Harold composed himself to stare at George.
“That’s not up to you.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Doc.” George’s mouth fell open, and he took a step back. “I was just—well, I guess I better get back to work. It’s about time for me to clock out.”
“Yes, you may leave.”
“By the way,” he said after taking a few steps away, Ross is getting pretty thick with those two brothers, Mike and Randy.”
“Yes, I know.” Harold looked down and pretended to be busy reading Reginald Hargraves’ file.
“Those boys are pretty squirrelly. Ross is pretty squirrelly.”
“Of course they’re squirrelly.” He closed the file with finality and gave George a resolute, toothy grin. “That’s why they’re here.”
George nodded and left the room. Harold put the Hargraves file aside and punched his intercom.
“Please bring me the folder on John Ross.”
While waiting, Harold looked at his calendar to see how he could take a few days off to go to the funeral in New York. A thought flickered across his mind to tell Stephanie he was too busy to go to the funeral, except he could imagine her response, “You should always have time for your own father.” She had wonderful, thoughtful, caring parents and could never understand how he hated his father. It would be easy to mourn someone who was tolerant, thoughtful and caring. None of those adjectives fit his father.
The nurse brought in the file and left. Flipping through it, Harold wondered if George might have had some insight to John Ross that he, a degreed gentleman from one of New York’s finer homes, had not discovered. These anxiety attacks and feelings of inadequacy had been a frequent part of his life, and today, of all days he should feel release and experience full empowerment of his manhood. Instead, he felt like a little boy looking to his glowering, all-knowing, all-judgmental father for approval and direction and receiving neither. He touched the intercom.
“Please leave a note for the night staff on the medication for John Ross.”
“Yes, doctor.” There was a pause, and he heard the nurse turn from the intercom and speak. “Good night, George.”
Harold heard the attendant’s gruff old voice say. “Hope they can run this place without me tonight.”
The nurse laughed.
“Yes, sir,” she said into the intercom. “I’ve a note pad ready. What’s your message?”
So that old fool thought he was in charge of this place. George was not going to instruct him on how to handle his patients.
“Nothing, nurse.”
“Nothing, sir?”
“Yes. I changed my mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
He sat back. Even the nurse believed he did not know what he was doing. Shaking his head, Harold stood and went to the window. He needed to get hold of himself. He sounded irrational; he needed to trust his own judgment. Looking out, Harold glimpsed John walking on the grounds with Mike and Randy. The boys laughed. Mike punched Randy and Randy punched him back. John in a comic way tried to break up the pretend scuffle. Harold scrutinized John’s face. Even he laughed. His eyes actually lit with an emotion other than hopelessness.
“I can’t be wrong,” Harold said.