The Willard (30 page)

“Catherine, when these events happen I only know there is a tear in the fabric of history. I don’t know what the tear is and I’m looking for it just as you are. That’s why you didn’t see me yesterday. I had a hunch it might have something to do with the carriage ride and I had gone in search of clues. We kept missing each other all day. But when the tear has been “repaired” I get another message letting me know what it was and how it was fixed. That’s what I’ve come to tell you. Please, Catherine, come and sit down,” he requested.

She sat on the bed beside him again and waited for him to speak.

“Your task here was to make sure the Lincoln assassination happened exactly as it truly did in 1865 and you have done that. You assumed, and I confess I did as well, that meant you were to make sure events lined up to assure the president was shot. Ironically, that part of the event was still intact. But you did repair the tear in the fabric in the theatre tonight. In fact, you did so by so tenderly caring for the fabric,” he said.

She looked at him, confusion apparent on her face. “I don’t understand,” she said.

He continued speaking in a soothing and comforting voice.

“Before the performance you went to the state box and while you were there you carefully smoothed the fabric of the flag that had been fashioned into a swag across the front. You also straightened the portrait of George Washington and tended the folds in the flag. When you were doing this you inadvertently pulled some extra fabric behind the portrait. It wasn’t much and wasn’t noticeable to anyone looking at the flag, but it was enough to cause Booth’s boot to get tangled and turn his theatrical leap to the stage into a leg-breaking fall.”

She was still staring at him without comprehension.

“Don’t you see Catherine? That was the tear. Without your interference, the flag bunting would have been smooth and Booth would have achieved his daring leap unscathed. It was his boot that ultimately gave him away. Think back to your history. Because of the broken leg, Booth sought care from Dr. Samuel Mudd during his escape. Eventually the boot, with his name inside for all to see, was discovered by authorities and led them to Booth and helped unravel the conspiracy. If he had not snagged his foot on the fabric and broken the leg he might have gotten away with murder and possibly built support for his goal of restarting the war. Your actions made sure he wasn’t able to make a clean break of it, so to speak.”

Catherine was in disbelief and started firing off questions in what seemed to be an attempt to continue to pin the blame on her own actions. At every turn, Chase was able to reassure her that her role had been much different than she thought. She was beginning to cry again, but this time the tears were of a different type. “Are you saying you’re absolutely sure I’m not responsible for the president’s death?” she asked hopefully.

“No, my dear. You most certainly are not. You are, however, responsible for the broken leg that led to the discovery of the assassin.”

Catherine was finally crying with full force, but the relief in her eyes was palpable. She and Chase talked for another hour going over all the facts he knew about the situation. They stopped briefly while he had the lady’s maid come and help her get cleaned up and into a comfortable lounging dress and robe. He returned a few minutes later with a tray of food and more tea. She was in much higher spirits.

“Mr. Chase, I’m sorry I took my anger out on you. I was so torn about what I thought I had caused. I’m still not sure how I feel about my decision to try and influence Mrs. Grant,
but I’m so relieved to know that wasn’t the deciding factor,” she told him.

“Ms. Parker, (they were back to formalities again it seemed), these things are never easy. And you cannot blame yourself for doing what you thought you had to do in an impossible situation. We are only human after all,” he reassured her.

“Are you, Mr. Chase? Are you only human?”

“Indeed, Ms. Parker. I won’t trouble you with the specifics of my strange existence, but I assure you, I am only human. Now, you must be famished and I’ve brought you some of the chef’s most delightful creations. Do sit and have something to eat,” he urged.

“Thank you for bringing this. It looks delicious, but what I need more than anything right now is some rest. I think I’ll relax for a little while and then I’ll find you and you can tell me what happens next. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired. I’m utterly exhausted,” she responded.

“Of course, Ms. Parker.” Chase reached for the door, but turned to face Catherine once more. “It has been a pleasure getting to know you. You are an extraordinary woman with a bright future ahead of you,” he said with genuine emotion.

“Thank you, Mr. Chase. I do, of course, hope that future involves motor vehicles and the Internet. I’ll see you in a couple of hours and you can tell me where I might find 2016.”

“Sleep well, Ms. Parker.” He closed the door.

Catherine put the chain on the door and laid her robe across the chair. She crawled between the cotton sheets and snuggled her weary head into the feather pillow. Two nights without sleep and the spectacular events she had experienced had drained all her energy. Her last thought before falling asleep was of Laura Keene.

I hope you’re okay. I’ll find you tomorrow and make sure
.

And with her friend’s wellbeing considered, Catherine fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

C
HAPTER 72

TOM KELLY

1962

When Ethan returned from delivering the latest message to the White House, Tom was nowhere to be found. It was almost dinner time and the sun was hanging low in the sky. Ethan waited outside the door of Tom’s suite for a few minutes and then went to find Edward Chase. The concierge knew where Tom was, but didn’t think he should share the information with Ethan in case the boy felt obligated to tell others.

At that same time, Tom was getting out of a taxi at National Airport. Chase had arranged a flight for him and he had just minutes to make it before the plane left the gate. An hour later, he felt the wheels touch down and he sprinted down the jetway as soon as the plane door was opened. After another cab ride he stood on the sidewalk and pushed a button to gain entrance to an apartment building two blocks from the vaunted university. He pushed the buttons for residents on the third floor and below so he wouldn’t alert those on the upper floors. Someone buzzed him inside and he took the elevator to the fifth floor. When he arrived at apartment 512, he gave three short knocks, paused, and gave four more short knocks in a distinctive pattern. There was no answer. He made a second attempt and when he still got no answer he put his shoulder into the door with all the force he had in him until it broke open.

The professor’s apartment was just as he had imagined it would be. There were books everywhere. They were on shelves and tables and in stacks on the floor. A lingering smell of pipe smoke hung in the air along with the musty smell of the books. Everything was neat and orderly except for a hastily arranged pile of discarded papers on a table by the radiator. To anyone else the letters and numbers on them could have been anything or nothing at all. To Tom they were proof that he was in the right place. He was standing in the private home of Professor Anatoly Volkov. Only he wasn’t in New Haven, Connecticut. He was on 115
^th
street in New York City, just blocks from Columbia University. A trash can on the floor held remnants of burned papers and Tom was sure Volkov would have burned the rest if he hadn’t left in a hurry. Where was the professor? Better yet,
who
was the professor? To Tom he had been friend, but now he feared that all along he had actually been foe.

Tom had stood in this room before, two years ago. At the time he was meeting with an informant who was passing along information Tom would need while traveling in the Soviet Union posing as an Argentinian citizen. The man he had met was definitely not the same person he’d been speaking with on the telephone, not the man who called himself Volkov. His contact had told him this was his sister’s apartment that he used when he needed to have in-person meetings in the city. He said her husband was an administrator at Columbia and that she taught literature in a public high school. Now that Tom thought back on it he realized it should have seemed strange that a person in a covert organization would offer so much tangential information about his own family. At the time it didn’t strike him strangely because Tom was just a writer looking for a story he could make a movie about. He thought they were being honest with him—that they understood he was one of the good guys.

How incredibly stupid I was. I thought this nice Russian spy was making small talk with me when he was really hiding his trail. And I bought every word
.

Everything had clicked when Ethan pulled the four messages from the table and put them aside in a group. Tom noticed something about the typeface of those four. There was something wrong with the letter “H.” Part of the upper left of the letter was missing and it looked sort of like a straight-backed chair against a right-hand wall. When he met with his contact, who had called himself Minsky, the written information he had been given had this identical problem with the letter. It had bugged Tom when he came across it on page after page so he had started drawing in the missing section whenever he saw one. In all the correspondence he had ever seen from Back Channel the deformed “H” had never reappeared, until today.

Tom searched through closets until he found a loose board in the floor of the one in the hallway. He opened it and found two teletype machines. One was clearly newer and in better condition than the other. However, he realized quickly that particular machine had a space bar problem; it was jammed and couldn’t be used. That must have been the primary machine. The older machine had not been maintained well and he wasn’t sure it would even work. Tom stuck the corner of a sheet of paper into the machine and typed an “H.” It was missing the upper left section just like he thought it would.

Whoever was sending those messages was doing it with this machine, from this apartment. The knot that had been growing in his stomach since Ethan pulled the four messages was getting bigger and bigger. In his gut he knew who the sender was. But how did he know Tom was on to him and where had he gone?

Tom heard footsteps in the hallway and knew the neighbors would have called the police by now having heard him break down the door. He slipped out the kitchen window and
went down the fire escape. Before he left, he took the only possible clue he could find anywhere. It was a university identification card for Dr. Hamish McAdams, Department Chairman, Literature and Letters.

When he hit the street he ducked through the rear alley and headed for the building that housed the English department. He hoped Dr. McAdams was working late because he was the only link Tom had to the elusive Anatoly Volkov.

C
HAPTER 73

CALVIN WALKER

1963

Southeast Washington D.C.—the evening of the March on Washington, from the police blotter:

Henry Dockins, aka Fish, was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds in an apartment believed to be the headquarters of a radical group known as Nyeupe Kifo (
white death
in Swahili) that planned to disrupt the events of the day at the Lincoln Memorial. The attempt was thwarted by police
.

When Fish left them at the event to save his own skin he signed his death warrant. They were brothers-in-arms. Foot soldiers for a cause. Warriors for freedom. They were willing to die for the cause. Their leader may not have been willing but, in the end, he died for it anyway.

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HAPTER 74

OLIVIA FORDHAM

1913

Olivia pushed and shoved her way through the crowd to the scene of the accident. When she got there she was pleased to see it was not nearly as bad as she’d feared. In fact, the float was still limping along to its place in front of the Treasury Building and the carriage driver had managed to back the horses out of the way. There was no sign of Victoria on top of the float and Olivia looked around frantically for her.

They didn’t see her, but she saw them. Victoria was standing on the sidewalk supported by James. She was brushing off her dress, but seemed to be none the worse for wear. He was beside himself asking over and over if she was alright.

Olivia reached them just as she heard Victoria answer his question.

“Yes, James. I’m okay! Despite the fact that you have nearly run me over twice now!” The two young people laughed as their terrified granddaughter looked on.

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HAPTER 75

CATHERINE PARKER

2016

Catherine woke slowly, her sleep resisting the pull toward consciousness. She stretched and rubbed her eyes before sitting up in bed. She looked across the room and saw her blue interview suit hanging where she had placed it before her nap the day she arrived. She saw the flat-screen TV and the modern phone by the bed. A glance out the window showed her the Washington Monument was at its full height and surrounded by American flags, not grazing cows.