Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape. Baker saves Booth’s life at Garrett’s farm. Booth sneaks away to Richmond, where he tricks a widow into caring for him. Lincoln’s friend Lamon accompanies the funeral train and seeks clues.
When the door opened, Lamon heard a baby’s cry and a woman’s high-pitched voice call out, “For God’s sake, Jesse, you’re scaring my little boy! Shut up!”
Lamon decided the better part of valor would be to climb the steps back to street level. He began to walk back and forth when Louisa did not reappear with Zook. To pass the time he thought of his wife Sally back in Illinois. He knew how she felt neglected as he spent most of the last five years protecting the president. And to what end, he chided himself, because he could not even save his friend from death. He turned when he heard the door open. He assessed the man Louisa guided up the steps. Zook was short and dumpy, a vacant fearful emanated from his eyes. He nodded as Mrs. Whitman whispered assurances in his ear, his lips mouthing incoherent responses.
“And this is our friend, Mr. Ward Lamon,” Louisa said soothingly.
“We know many of the same people from Washington City, Mr. Zook.” He took his cue from Louisa and softened his voice, which was usually loud and grating. “Miss Dorothea Dix sends her best wishes.”
“She scared me at first, but then she was nice. Cordie, she said Miss Dix was scary at first but once you got to know her well, she wasn’t scary at all.” He paused only the briefest of moments before asking, “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to buy a nice apple from the man down the street,” Louisa replied.
Zook stopped abruptly. “I don’t like that man. I can tell he doesn’t like me. He doesn’t like Mr. Walt either. I don’t want an apple. Can we get some peanuts instead? I like peanuts. The peanut man is up the street, far away from the apple man.”
“If that is what you wish.” Louisa guided him by the elbow.
“I was a good friend of the President, Abraham Lincoln.” Lamon took his place on the other side of Mrs. Whitman and looked into the sky. “I think the rain has gone away. That’s good. I didn’t think it would ever stop.”
“Oh, rain always stops,” Zook said. “The rain is all right if you are inside looking out a window. But I don’t like walking in it. It makes you wet.”
“Yes, it does.” Lamon paused, and they walked almost a full block before continuing. “I knew another one of your friends.”
“Did you know my sister Cordie? She’s dead now.”
“I knew Private Adam Christy.”
“He’s dead too.” Zook looked up, brightening. “There’s the peanut man. I hope the peanuts are freshly roasted. I like my peanuts warm.”
“Are you sure? I thought he went home to Ohio.” Lamon’s voice was a whisper.
“No, he’s dead. I saw his body in the wagon.” He looked at Louisa. “Do you have money for the peanuts? I don’t have any money. I spent all my money yesterday on apples.”
“Of course, Gabby,” Louisa said, pulling out her change purse from a pocket in the folds of her dark blue dress. “I always have money.”
“What wagon, Mr. Zook?” Lamon asked.
“The mean man’s wagon.”
“What mean man?” Lamon felt his pulse racing.
“The mean man who….” Zook’s voice trailed off as he took the bag of peanuts from the vendor. “It’s warm. That’s good. I like my peanuts warm.”
“The mean man who did what, Mr. Zook?” Lamon pressed.
Zook shook his head. “No, I can’t say. He came for the butler, then he came for the president and his wife, then he came for the private. He might come for me. Mrs. Whitman, can I go home now? I want to eat my peanuts.”
“Of course, Gabby.” Louisa looked at Lamon and smiled. “He answered all your questions, didn’t he, Mr. Lamon?”
“Just one more. What did the mean man look like?”
Zook backed away as his hand fumbled in the bag to pull out a peanut. “He was short like me, but he was mean. He had red hair, just like the private, but the private is dead now. I got to go home now.”
As Zook scurried back down Portland Avenue, Louisa told Lamon, “A terribly sweet little old man, but quite insane. And I should know insanity. Most of members of my family are insane. Some days I feel quite insane myself.”
“He’s not insane,” Lamon replied. “I believe every word he says. One day you may have to help me to convince him to tell his story to the President of the United States.”
Lamon reflected on Louisa’s response to his statement over the next few days as the funeral train visited Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland and Columbus. She had said not a word, but a wry smile danced across her lips. She must have decided I was insane too, Lamon thought. Maybe Louisa was right. After all, she prided herself on detecting insanity in others. The rest of the journey through Indianapolis, Chicago and Springfield was a blur. Lamon had hoped the extended period of bereavement would bring a measure of peace to his own troubled mind, but it was not to be. At each stop as he looked upon the mourners and wondered how they would react if they knew Lincoln had be a prisoner in the basement of the Executive Mansion for more than two years. He stared into the faces, speculating that perhaps family members of the man forced to impersonate the president were among them. And what of the woman who took on the role of Mary Lincoln? Conceivably her relatives stood on the route, mourning the president but not knowing they should be mourning their own dear kin.