Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante (27 page)

One of the guards brought in a kerosene lantern. The flame wavered and cast long shadows that climbed up the walls and hovered near the ceiling like the outlines of dancing angels and devils. “That's not for you to say,” the warden called back to the lawyer. “Or for me. Or for any of us. The jury has made its decision. The Commonwealth of Virginia has made its decision. And we're here to see that it's carried out.”

More lanterns were brought in, their golden light flickering, tossing surreal shadows. “No,” Cotton's lawyer insisted, “no—you had your chance. Now it's for the courts to decide. The
courts,
not us. Continuing this farce of an execution is a direct violation of Wendell Cotton's protections under the Eighth Amendment. We must delay—until Virginia can assure proper administration of this electric chair.”

“We must stop this execution!” Tom cried. “It's the will of God!” He turned and spotted Mother Cotton. The two locked eyes in the dim light and nodded.

“It's the will of God,” Mother Cotton called out.

The crowd took up the chant: “It's the will of God!”

Prentiss made a wordless, animal sound of rage and dove after Andi, ignoring the stream of icy water that doused him. Andi dropped the wires and ducked away from his hands. As he spun, his coat flared out and touched the edge of the glowing wire. An arc of blue-white electricity sparked from the generator and to his body.

There was a
crack,
and then Prentiss's body dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Praise Jesus!” Mother Cotton cried in the execution chamber, struggling to rise. Tom ran to her in the colored section to help her stand, then kept a protective arm around her. “Praise Jesus!”

“Amen,” he answered.

The warden went to Wendell and ripped off the hood. The boy was still alive, although barely conscious. “Get him out of this damn thing,” he called to the guards. The four men who had strapped Wendell Cotton in now worked at the same leather restraints to save him.

The men carried Wendell up the same long hallway, but this time toward the infirmary and life.

Andi and Maggie watched in horror as Prentiss's body fell to the floor with a loud splash. “Oh, my God—” Andi leaned against the wall, unable to stand. “I think he's
dead
.”

Maggie assessed the situation—the generator, the growing pools of water, the dead body. “We've got to get out of here. Come on.” She started climbing up the stairs, then realized Andi wasn't following. The young woman stood as if frozen, unable to tear her gaze away from Prentiss's body, trying to comprehend what had happened.

“Andi, come on!” Maggie cried. She didn't move. Maggie grabbed Andi's hand and pulled.
“Andi!”
Together, they ran up the stairs.

Tom gave Maggie and Andi a sharp look as they returned to the execution chamber. “Now, don't tell me you were clutching your pearls and fainting away like a Southern belle and Miss Martin brought you the smelling salts.”

“What happened while we were gone?” Maggie asked.

“They tried to execute Wendell, but he lived through it,” Tom said. “The chair short-circuited, or something. Then they tried again, but the generator couldn't create enough power. Wendell's safe, for now, at least. Maybe now the Governor will do the right thing—give him a real trial. Or let him serve in the military.”

Andi shook her head. “I don't trust them as far as I could throw them. They could try to execute him again as soon as the rain stops and they fix the generator.”

“No,” Tom responded. “The lawyer's brought up all sorts of Eighth Amendment issues that will keep them busy for months if not years.”

“So, at least he has more time.” Maggie's body drooped with relief.

Andi's face relaxed for the first time since Maggie had met her. “And maybe now he has a prayer for justice.”

Hours later, Tom pulled up to the Mayflower Hotel. It was dark, and the streets were slick with rain.

Maggie felt so much—relief that Wendell was still alive and might have a chance at escaping the death penalty. Fear at how close to death she and Andi had come. Disgust at a madman intent on poisoning the country with scandal. And an almost unbearable grief as she contemplated humans and the pain they inflicted on each other.

“A man died tonight,” Tom said. Maggie had told him about Prentiss.

“Yes, and another man lived,” Maggie replied. She felt a deep and terrible exhaustion, from all the horrors of war. She was wet and cold, and yet her forehead felt as if it were burning. And when she swallowed, she could feel a tickle in the back of her throat.
I don't have time to be sick,
she thought.

“I don't know how I'll ever sleep,” Tom said. “Not after all that.”

“I know.” Maggie put her arms around him. “So, don't. After—Well, I just don't want to be alone, either.”

“All right then,” he murmured, returning her embrace. “I'll come up.”

When they reached Maggie's room, she used her key to open the door and then flipped on the light switch.

There was a man sitting in the wing chair. His coat was slung over the back of it, his fedora on the table next to it. And he had a gun in one hand trained at Maggie's heart.

“Miss Hope—and Mr. O'Brian. I assume I'm not interrupting anything? We have business to discuss.”

Edmund Hope had prepared.

This time he'd driven to Chatswell Hall, and in the trunk of his car were all the materials he knew he'd need. It had taken him three trips from his parking spot in the woods, hidden by darkness and shrubbery, to get everything to the Hall itself, but he'd done it.

Now, it was time.

He put an eye to the chink in the blackout curtains. There she was—Clara—drinking and laughing with two men. There she was—kissing one. And then the other. Taking off her gown.

He lit a match. It burned red in the darkness. “Good-bye, darling,” he whispered. He lit the fuse and hurled the first of the Molotov cocktails through the window.

Glass shattered. Lit bomb after lit bomb rained into the drawing room. Clara, Kemp, and von Bayer scrambled to their feet, shocked and stunned as the velvet drapes burst into flames.

“We've got to get out of here!” Clara shouted, pulling up her gown's straps. “Now!”

The trio made it to the front hall and had begun to pound on the doors when they heard the crash of more breaking glass and the eruption of ancient fabric into flame.

Clara struggled to open the thick double doors. “Oh, God!” she cried. The three went on pounding, screaming for help.

Upstairs in the M Room, Arthur and Owen were listening. “Damn! What the hell happened?”

“Sounded like an explosion!”

“They're still in the drawing room!”

Arthur ran to the window, pulled aside the blackout curtains, and looked out. Flames danced from the drawing room windows. He could just make out a dark figure against the fire. “We're under attack! Call down to the guardhouse! We've got to get the prisoners to safety!”

“Oh, please—” Owen said, also going to the window. A match flared in the darkness, and more flames ignited, outlining the figure of a man splashing a canister of what looked to be gasoline everywhere. “
We've
got to get to safety.”

The two young men scrambled down the narrow servants' stairs and bumped into Naumann, who was making his way up.

“Thank goodness you two are all right!” he exclaimed. “Come on!”

“The prisoners—” Arthur gasped.

Naumann nodded. “We'll go out through the kitchen, then circle round to get them. Hurry!”

They made it from the drawing room to the front hall, the acrid smell of smoke filling the air.

Kemp and von Bayer were trying to pry open the thick doors, but the handles on the outside were chained together and locked. Even if they could break through the bolt, the links would never give.

A lit Molotov cocktail crashed through the glass of one of the hall's mullioned windows. Instantly, flames licked up the elaborate curtains. “Fuck!” Clara snarled, her eyes darting.

Then the door caught on fire. The trio ran desperately to the wide hallway, but it seemed as if every window was now swallowed in growing flames. “The windows are barred anyway,” Clara said, trying to think. “We must get to the servants' quarters.”

“That's locked and barred, too!” von Bayer panted, his eyes watering from the thickening fumes.

“Oh, for God's sake, we have to try!” Clara said. The two generals looked lost in fear and smoke. “Good Lord, look at you two—it's no wonder we're losing the war! Come on!”

Outside, Arthur, Owen, and Naumann reached the front doors of Chatswell hall only to see them awash in flame. “There's no way for them to get out,” Arthur groaned.

“Well, it
is
a prison,” replied Owen. “Are we really going to worry about a bunch of Nazis burning to death? I say we get the listening equipment out while we still have time.”

“They're in our custody—we can't let them die,” Naumann insisted. “No matter how odious we may personally find them.”

Owen took in the chaos, mouth agape. “Jesus, it's like the bloody Blitz all over again.”

Arthur was thinking. “Who would have done this? Surely not any of our people—they know we've been getting good information out of these idiots—”

Naumann began to shout through the broken windows, “Oi! Oi!” He tried to get closer but was pushed back by a wall of heat.

“That's not going to help,” Owen called over the roar of the flames. Sirens sounded in the distance.

“Look!” Arthur said to Owen.

In the garish light, a figure was running away from the burning building. As the two younger men gave chase, Edmund, still holding one of his homemade bombs, stumbled. The bomb ignited, setting him on fire. Bright flames danced around his silhouette.

Edmund screamed. The unholy sound echoed off the walls and beams of Chatswell. Arthur and Owen tackled him, rolling the blazing man in the grass until the flames were extinguished.

“We need to get him to hospital,” Arthur told Owen, over the injured man's screams. “Help me carry him.”

Inside the house, Clara and her cohorts were having no luck with the servants' door, which was dead-bolted from the other side. Shadows cast by the fire danced up the vaulted ceiling. Suddenly Clara turned, then ran up the grand staircase.

“Where are you going?” Kemp shouted, breathless from his exertions. He and von Bayer began to follow, even as sirens wailed from the drive.

Clara didn't answer, her heels clicking on the marble chessboard floor.

“The windows…are barred—” von Bayer panted.

Clara didn't stop. “The original part of this house predates the sixteen hundreds,” she gasped.

“So?”

“England was newly Protestant then,” she panted. Reaching her room, she slammed her palm into one of the wooden wall panels. The oak gave way, swinging with an agonizing creak.

“This was here all the time and you never told us?” Kemp said, eyes wide.

“You're going to complain about that
now
?” she hissed.

The three entered a dusty brick room with no windows and a low ceiling.

“What's this?” asked von Bayer, peering into the darkness.

“It's a priest hole,” Clara said. “It's where the damn Catholics used to hide their damn priests during Protestant Elizabeth's reign.” Her hands pressed at the other walls, hoping to feel something give. “Sometimes they were attached to the servants' quarters, so that a visiting priest could make a quick getaway.”

The two men began pressing on the walls as well.

“Of course sometimes,” Clara continued, panting, “the family was arrested, so the priest was never found and eventually died of suffocation or thirst.”

“And this is your grand plan?” Kemp snapped.

Clara glared. “Do you have a better idea, General Kemp?”

“Yes. I'm going downstairs. I'll take my chances with the firemen with the axes and the hoses, thank you.”

Von Bayer nodded. “I agree. I'm not going to roast to death in an Elizabethan priests oven.”

“But this is our only chance of escape!
Real
escape. If we go back down, they'll just take us right back into custody again!”

Kemp was already on his way out. “Custody wasn't so bad,” he called over his shoulder. Von Bayer followed.

“Fine,” Clara said. “But don't give me away, boys?” She managed a seductive smile even as the house burned down around her.

While von Bayer shook his head, Kemp put a hand to his heart. “We lost you in the smoke and confusion,” he told her. “I give you my word as a Prussian and a gentleman.”

And then Clara was alone, in the dark.

“Shut the door.” Frank Cole gestured with his gun. His different-colored eyes glittered in the shadows. “Where's the letter?”

Don't panic—remember your training.
“Wait,” Maggie urged. “Which letter?”

“The letter Prentiss forged. The one he said Blanche gave to him ‘just in case.' ”

“I burned it,” Maggie said. “At Mrs. Tao's restaurant. It's long gone.”

Cole relaxed visibly, then stood and stuck his gun in the back waist of his trousers.

“But what about the
first
letter?” Maggie asked. “The one that Prentiss left in Blanche's apartment? We never found that one.”

“No,” Cole said. “No, you wouldn't have. You didn't miss anything, either. As you probably guessed, Miss Hope, I disposed of that one.”

“Prentiss was forging them,” Tom said. “He could have any number of copies—”

“I took care of that, too. His townhouse has been, shall we say, thoroughly cleaned.”

“Oh, my God,” Maggie exclaimed as the heat came on and the radiator pipes began to bang. “We're all on the same side here.”

“Sorry about the gun,” Cole told them. “Had to make sure you both gave up the letter without incident.”

“I was never going to use it,” Tom said. “I didn't believe it. Never did.”

Cole appraised him. “I know. But it's my business to take care of those things.”

Maggie nodded. She knew men like Frank Cole. She'd worked with them before. “We won't hear from Prentiss again.”

“My sources tell me that Byrd Prentiss died in a freak electrical accident at Thomas Jefferson Prison. I don't suppose you had anything to do with that, Miss Hope?”

Tom gave Maggie a sharp look. “Did you?”

“I wish I could claim credit, really,” Maggie said. “But it was, as they say, ‘an act of God.' ”

Cole nodded. “How did you know about the note in Blanche's apartment?”

“The First Lady and I went by on the evening of the twenty-second—we found the body and called the police. Before I left, I took the blank notepad. I did a pencil rubbing to reveal the note.”

“And what happened to that copy?”

“I burned it. In Mrs. Roosevelt's fireplace.”

“Good,” he said, reaching for his fedora.

Maggie blinked. “It was Prentiss who tried to attack Andi and me outside of the Music Box,” she said to Cole. “He confessed to it. But you were there, too, weren't you? You've been following me, haven't you?”

“Yes, I was there, as well,” Cole answered. “Watching from a parked car. The President asked me to keep you safe.” He gave a grim smile. “And I would have intervened. But you seemed able to handle yourself.”

Maggie thought about all the times she'd kept watch for the shadow in the fedora, how frightened she'd been. “I do wish you'd introduced yourself, Mr. Cole.”

He walked past her to the door. “In most cases it's best the client doesn't know. Happy New Year, Miss Hope, Mr. O'Brian.” He let himself out.

Maggie bolted and chained the door behind him.

Without words, she walked over to the bed and took off her shoes. Then she climbed in.

“Well, that was—” Tom began.

“Yes.” Maggie tried to say good night, but fell asleep before she could form the words.

“Maggie—”

She heard a voice, far away, through swirling fog and smoke and rushing water. She stirred, realizing she was still wearing her clothes from the night before. She opened her eyes. Tom was there, sitting on the edge of her bed. “Good morning,” he said, switching on the bedside lamp.

She clapped her hands over her eyes against the light and groaned. “You'll get used to it,” he promised.

“We—” she began.

“Didn't do anything. Besides sleep,” he finished, reading her thoughts.

“What time is it?”

“Early,” he said, tying the laces of his oxfords. “Almost six.”

Maggie groaned again, then yawned and stretched. Going to the window, she pulled aside the chintz curtains and dealt with the blackout shade. The storm had passed. The street below was still wet from the previous night's rain, and dead leaves blown down by the wind littered the street. The sky was cloudy, but slivers of pale blue were visible and the bare branches of the trees danced in a gentle breeze.

“It's a beautiful day,” she said, her breath catching in her throat.
And life goes on.

Tom switched off the lamp; they didn't need it anymore. “I have to get to work.”

They were suddenly shy around each other. “Me, too,” Maggie said. She put a hand to her hair. “I mean, I need to change. And then get to the White House—”

“Yes,” he said. “Well. Um, I'll—see you later?”

“I think so. Er, yes—definitely.”

When Maggie reached the map room in the White House, she unpinned her hat and took off her gloves. Her hair was freshly washed and twisted into a bun; she was wearing a wool suit and a crisp white blouse. She felt like a different person than the woman who'd battled Byrd Prentiss only the night before. Prentiss was dead. Wendell was still alive. And the First Lady's name was still unblemished. The British-U.S. alliance would continue, unimpeded by scandal.

David and Mr. Churchill were still in Canada, with the P.M. giving a press conference at Government House in Ottawa. As Mr. Fields brought her a slice of buttered toast, a soft-boiled egg in a cup, and a pot of lukewarm coffee on a tray, Maggie listened to the exchange over the wireless, watching squirrels scamper across the damp lawn.

“Do you think Singapore can hold on?”
one of the Canadian journalists asked.

“I do,”
the P.M. replied.

“Have you received any offers of peace from the Axis powers?”

Maggie could only imagine the expression on the P.M.'s face.
“We have had none at all,”
he answered,
“but then I really think they must be hard-pressed for materials of all kinds, and would not want to waste the paper and ink
.
”

“How long will it take to achieve victory?”

“As I said in the States, if we manage it well,”
the Prime Minister retorted,
“it will take only half as long as if we manage it badly.”