The Shut Mouth Society (15 page)

“
Wow. I’ve never heard of him or his family.” Evarts stole a look at her, but she was buried in her notes. “Are you saying you’re one of the Baldwins?”

“
Yes. I just didn’t know the extent of the family.” She looked up from her notes. “How did you meet Douglass?”

“
At a police benefit. He came over and introduced himself. We had a good conversation and discovered that we shared a passion for backgammon and Macallan’s.”

“
He probably hated both,” she said.

“
What?”

“
Had he lived in Santa Barbara long?”

“
No. Just moved there. What are you getting at?”

“
I think he moved there to get close to you. Just like he seemed to hover over my career.”

“
Douglass and I were friends.”

“
I’m sure, but I suspect he engineered the friendship.” She turned in her seat to face him. “The Evarts are one wing of this family.”

“
Bullshit.”

“
You were given this manuscript and then sent to me. That seems far too unlikely for a coincidence.”

Now Evarts felt confused and a bit scared. “We’re related?”

His face must have betrayed his feelings, because she laughed with joy for the first time since he had returned to the house. “Don’t worry. As best I can figure we’re cousins, six or seven times removed.”

“
Thank god.” Now he felt embarrassed. She had given him no reason to be concerned about being related to her. “I, uh—”

“
Yeah, me too.”

Now he laughed in relief. After they traded smiles, she said, “Want to hear more?”

He gave her a fresh look. “Just a sec: Are you a member of the Shut Mouth Society?”

“
No. Never heard of it before this. Are you?”

“
No.” Evarts shook his head to emphasize his denial. “Nor do I believe my parents are. They’re so nonpolitical I have to harangue them to vote.”

“
No one in my family has mentioned it either, but I’m not sure they don’t know about it. I always sensed there was something overly secretive about the way we handled our affairs.”

“
Can you talk to them?”

“
You’re kidding? I can’t wait to talk to them. I may even ask you to apply your police interrogation skills.” She laughed. “Nonviolent, of course.”

“
Where do they live?”

“
New York. Upper West Side.”

“
Can’t call them.” Evarts thought. “We’ll stop on the way to Boston. See them in person. By the way, did you have a chance to make a list of nineteenth-century law books?

“
Yes. I narrowed the list to about twenty prime candidates.”

“
Great. Now all we need is a library that has old law books. Maybe in New York.”

“
That’s not a problem. I’m a member of the Boston Athenaeum, the oldest private library in the country.”

“
Maybe that’s not a good idea. If you’re a member, they might watch it.”

“
The Athenaeum is private and elitist. They don’t give information to nonmembers. My father bought me a lifetime associate card in prep school, so I pay no dues.” She hesitated. “I bet it’s safe. I haven’t been back in nearly ten years.”

“
I’ll think about it. What else did you learn about this family?”

“
Lots. Listen to these names: Susan B. Anthony, William Jennings Bryan, Henry Stimson, Archibald Cox, and Sherman Adams.”

“
I’ve heard of them.”

“
The family helped found the American Bar Association, the ACLU, the Counsel of Foreign Relations, the Smithsonian, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Brookings Institute. Members were heavily involved in the Warren Commission, the Manhattan Project, and both Yale and Harvard. Do you remember Douglass said the family was instrumental in the Civil War?”

“
He actually said they had a hand in fomenting the Civil War and to a large extent prosecuted that conflict.”

“
You’ve got a good memory.”

“
Detectives are trained to listen.”

“
A man who listens. That may be unique.”

Evarts smiled. “Perhaps, but remember, we’re always trying to trip people up, so be careful.”

“
I will. Anyway, you’ve probably already guessed General William Tecumseh Sherman, but did you know his brother held the Senate seat from Ohio and wrote the Sherman Antitrust Act?”

“
I hadn’t even thought as far as General Sherman.”

She flipped back to her notebook. “General Thomas Ewing and General Charles Ewing both married into the family. Major Hoyt Sherman served as paymaster for the Union army. General Nelson Appleton Miles won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Roger Sherman Greene commanded the ‘colored regiment’ and Dorothea Lynde Dix served as superintendent of nurses for the Union army. She later became a social activist for women’s issues. Key generals, highly regarded politicians, head of nurses, control of the army payroll—this family covered all the bases.”

“
You’re saying all those people were related?”

“
Either a direct line from Roger Sherman, or they married one of the women. But there’s more. Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s first secretary of war, was also a family member, as well as William Maxwell Evarts.”

“
That’s the first Evarts.” He took his eyes off the road a second to look at her. “Who was he?”

“
Lincoln’s envoy to Great Britain during the war. A critical post because Lincoln’s top foreign policy imperative was to deny recognition of the South by world powers and to withhold European aid from the Confederate States. Actually, there were Evarts all over; William was just the most prominent. He even defended President Johnson during his impeachment hearings.”

“
Johnson? He wasn’t impeached.”

“
Wrong century. Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor. In fact, this family was involved in the most dramatic trials in our history. William Jennings Bryan prosecuted the Scopes Monkey Trial. Archibald Cox, the Nixon impeachment. Roger Sherman Baldwin defended the Amistad captives.”

“
I thought that was John Adams.”

“
Movies. Adams didn’t get involved until the case reached the Supreme Court. Actually, Matthew McConaughey played Roger Baldwin.”

“
Did you know he was a relative?”

“
Yeah, I knew that. Part of my family lore.”

“
We just left California,” Evarts said.

She looked up from her notebook and said, “Are we safe then?”

“
I’ll feel better when we reach New Mexico. California and Arizona police cooperate a lot.”

“
How long?”

“
Five or six hours. I know a back way that avoids Interstate 10, so we should be okay.”

“
You want me to drive?”

“
You done with your notes?”

“
With the facts, yes, but not with my conjectures.”

Evarts pulled into a rest stop. After they had relieved themselves and switched drivers, Evarts said, “Tell me your conjectures.”

“
Roger Sherman had fifteen children. It seems all the prominent family members came from the daughters, not the sons.”

“
What do you make of that?”

“
You said you never heard of Roger Sherman, but have you heard of the Great Compromise? Sometimes called the Connecticut Compromise.”

“
If I remember my high school civics, that was the compromise at the Constitutional Convention that gave equal representation to the states in the Senate.”

“
Correct, but it was actually far more complicated. The end result enshrined slavery in the Constitution and gave the South the mechanism to protect their peculiar institution. That compromise led directly to the Civil War. The biggest prewar political battle involved the extension of slavery into the territories. During the eighteen-fifties, the slaveholding states had overturned the delicate compromises of the last seventy-some years and would at some point control the Senate if slavery were legal in states admitted in the future.”

She gave him a look to see if she still held his interest. Evarts gave her a nod to go on. “Roger Sherman engineered that compromise. It violated his morals and ethics, but he knew that without accommodating slavery, a single nation wouldn’t emerge from that convention. It was a compromise he was forced to make. I think it bothered him, and he conveyed his misgivings to his daughters. Whether with him or without him, the women probably made a pact to erase this stain on the family. When you look at the abolitionist movement, the daughters’, their spouses’, and their children’s fingerprints are all over the place. I think the key to the Shut Mouth Society is through the women.”

“
Except … something doesn’t make sense. The Shut Mouth Society murdered my friend and probably your former fiancé. Everything you’ve relayed shows idealistic motivations. How do you account for that?”

“
I don’t. I told you I was confused and scared. But do you still think Douglass threw us together by accident?”

“
No way. Nor was it an accident that he sidled up to me at that benefit. He even gave me a clue the other night. He told me to investigate my family genealogy. Obviously we have been watched and recruited. But for what? And why now?”

“
What do you mean?”

“
The Shut Mouth Society kept their secrets for a hundred and fifty years. Possibly longer. Something has changed the landscape and pulled us into a maelstrom.”

“
But what? There’s nothing on the news.”

“
That’s what we’ve got to figure out. That’s the key to this mystery.”

Chapter 15

When they reached the outskirts of Denver, Evarts took the west exit onto Interstate 70.

“
Where are we going?” Baldwin asked.

“
To get a car.”

“
In the mountains?”

“
Copper Mountain to be exact.”

“
The ski resort? Why there?”

“
Out-of-state skiers store SUVs in the subterranean parking under their condos. A stolen car won’t be missed until next ski season.”

“
You’re going to steal a car? A cop?”

“
Borrow. I’ll return it when we finish this business … which better be before snow falls in the Rockies.” He turned from the road and smiled. “I’ll leave an envelope in the glove box with cash for the miles.”

“
How much?”

“
I think the IRS allows forty-eight-and-a-half cents a mile.”

“
Four thousand miles will cost you nearly two thousand dollars.” She smiled and her voice was teasing. “Pretty expensive for a civil servant.”

He duplicated her tone. “I was hoping you’d pick up half.”

“
Deal. Let’s go a few more miles up the road to Vail and steal something fun to drive. Same rate.”

Evarts laughed. “Do you ski?”

“
I go to Vail twice a season. Yourself?”

“
I’d rather ski than do anything except surf. I own a threadbare condo at Copper Mountain with three other cops in the department. I usually get up there three times a season. Sometimes more.”

“
Then we should make a ski date. I’ll race you down the hill.”

“
I’ll win, but not on style. Never had a lesson.”

“
When I was a child, my parents took me to Vail several times a year, but they always left me with an instructor.” She laughed. “I’ve probably had a year’s worth of lessons.”

“
Expensive at Vail. Copper Mountain’s down the hill and down the food chain. We’ll get our car there, and it will be a three- or four-year-old Ford or Chevy. Something common and nondescript.”

“
What other sports do you like?”

“
Tennis.”

“
Singles or doubles?”

“
Singles.”

“
So … surfing, skiing, and singles tennis. Not much into team sports, are you?”

“
I never thought of it that way, but I guess you’re right. I didn’t play sports in high school because they would’ve kept me away from the beach.” He considered what she had said. “As I think about it, I guess I do prefer individual sports.” Evarts threw her a smile to show he was kidding. “I go to the gym regularly. Does that count as a team sport? Lots of people.”

“
Hardly. What’s regularly?”

“
Two, three times a week.”

“
I go most every day. Even on days when I play tennis.”

“
Singles or doubles?”

“
Doubles. Faculty league. I like the social aspects.”

Evarts drove a few minutes before asking, “Are we getting to know each other or just making idle conversation?”

“
Good question. I’ve been stuck in this car with you for two days. That’s more time than I’ve spent talking to a man in … well, maybe in my entire life.”