The Spy on the Tennessee Walker (19 page)
Read The Spy on the Tennessee Walker Online
Authors: Linda Lee Peterson
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1864
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1864
Tomorrow, they will come for me. I am not afraid of prison, but I am afraid that I will not see the man I love again in this lifetime. This is what frightens me, that I have endangered the living creatures who mean the most to me. Eli has been most heroic, considering that I know his so-called friends are making cruel sport of him. He brought me dinner last night, since those self-important fools have confined me to home arrest until I am remanded to jail. Afterward, he told me he stopped at Old Greeley's tavern for refreshment. This morning, he brought me flowers and reported on his misadventures at Greeley's. He said the entire crowded, noisy room grew silent as a church when he walked in. I want to write down what he told me, every bitter word, so that if I ever leave prison, I will think more deeply about what consequences my behavior can have on others.
“Vic, you would have laughed. That buffoon Charlie Carter stood up and put his pistol on the table, and he said, “We won't drink with a man who can't keep his woman away from the negro.”
I buried my head in my hands. “I am so sorry, Eli. I never
meant to bring such misery on you.”
Eli snorted. “Misery? You think I care what that fool declares?”
“What did you say?”
“I said, âI wasn't planning to drink with any of the likes of you anyway. I prefer the company of my true friends. And with that, I pulled out a chair and sat down, and I said, âJust in case there are true friends in this room, I have chairs enough for three of you at this table. If you join me, I am buying. We will be toasting the woman I love. All I can say is that any portion of my wife's affections is worth more than all the charms of a dozen lesser women.'”
I raised an eyebrow. “You did not really say that?”
“I did, indeed. I wanted to squash that blowhard Charlie Carter like the despicable bug that he is. Threatening me with a weapon!”
“Well,” I said, “he wasn't exactly threatening you, if he laid his gun on the table.”
Eli laughed. “How quickly you get over your repentance, dear Vic.”
“Don't leave me in suspense,” I countered. “Did anyone come over to your table?”
“Why, yes. John Graves, sitting right next to Charlie. He stood up, told Charlie not to be such a horse's ass, walked over to my table, and sat down and said, âI'm not dumb enough to keep company with Charlie Cartwright, and I'm sure as hell not dumb enough to turn down a free drink.' “
“Anyone else?”
“John's three-legged dog followed him over to the table. You know that flea-bitten old hunting dog he keeps? The one who got his leg caught in that coyote trap?”
I laughed. “That is one fine posse you gathered for yourself, Mr. Mays.”
“I am glad, Mrs. Mays, that you approve of the company I keep.”
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1865
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1865
When I came back from the prison hospital this afternoon, Eli was waiting for me with a grand bouquet of purple and white lilacs tied with satin ribbon.
“I have news, Mrs. Mays,” he said. “The war is over, and you have been pardoned.” I could not hear what he said; it made no sense to me. I began to sway, and just before I fainted, Eli dropped the bouquet and caught me in his arms.
When I came to, I was on the rough cot in my small bedroom. Eli was sitting on a low stool next to me. I had “graduated” to trusty-dom, as had all the nurses in the prison hospital, so I no longer lived behind bars. But for more than a year, I had known nothing but the prison hospital, the vegetable garden I helped cultivate, and occasional visits from Eli, my brother, Jeremiah, his wife, Elizabeth, and Gabriel's sister, Sarah.
Sarah and I had become friends. At first we were tied mostly by our sorrow, united in our grief over Gabriel's death. But as we grew to know and like each other in deeper ways, her friendship meant more and more to me.
Eli leaned over the bed. “Are you thirsty?” I nodded.
He brought me a cup of cool water and helped me sit up.
“Where are the lilacs?” I asked.
“Right next to you.” I turned and saw them in a large jug on the floor, and I was wrapped in their beauty and fragrance.
I held out my hand. He took it in his and brought it to his lips.
“Thank you, Eli,” I said. “Can I really leave? Stand up and walk out of here?”
“You can. After all, you are no longer a bigamist, since Gabriel isâ¦gone. You have been pardoned as thanks for your service to the injured and to the Union.
“And not that you care a whit about this,” he added, “but the charges of miscegenation against you have been removed.”
I sat up and tidied my hair. “You are right. I do not care a whit about those ridiculous and immoral charges. Telling people who they can and cannot love.”
Eli laughed. “I believe that what you mean, Mrs. Mays, is that you do not care a whit about what anyone says you can or cannot do about
anything
.”
I smiled. “You are so correct, Mr. Mays.”
And with that, my first husband escorted me to one of the finest hotels in Washington, DC. I had a bath, we had dinner, and I began to think about the next chapter of my life. I would divorce Eli, of course. Ours had been a marriage of convenience, although to my surprise, I had found some passion and great affection in our relationship.
Eli would protest, but I would ask him for a divorce. He deserved to be married to someone who loved him above all others.
I found it hard to believe that I would find love ever again. Gabriel was everything to me. But I am an optimist. I know that love is essential to human beings, and I wanted to believe that it would come my way again.
Our terrible war ended on April 9. It was spring, and there were lilacs, and I was free. Jeremiah and Elizabeth were expecting their first child. There was, despite so much loss and grief, some spring sense that there might be, as the Bible says, “joy in the morning.” Lilacs are a good start. With time, we will be our United States again, I hope and believe. I want to be ready when that joy comes around again.
OAKLAND
I was mulching the front beds, smeared with dirt and more than a little sweaty, when Calvin and Andrea pulled up to the curb.
Andrea was in half-prep: Levis, cuff-linked linen shirt, and a cashmere sweater; Calvin in full prep, from the Burberry cap on his head to the penny loafers on his feet. More to the point, they were both clean â everything I was not.
They surveyed me with suspicion. “It's called gardening,” I said. “A person gets dirty.” Calvin and Andrea were shacking up in a pristine condo many stories above where dirt lives.
“I'd give you a hug,” said Calvin, “but yuck. No thanks.”
“Come on in. I'm ready to take a shower, and you guys can have coffee and some very nice brownies Michael made.”
“We brought you a present,” said Andrea, “but you can't have it until you're clean. Really.”
Michael roused himself from football to put on the coffee and entertain our visitors while I hosed off.
“Okay,” I said. “Pony up the present. I'm practically
pristine.”
“Remember those three photos you showed me a few weeks ago?” asked Calvin. “The ones of Victoria and her three husbands? There was something very interesting about the way the photo in the woods was posed, the one with Gabriel and Victoria. It wasâ¦well, nowadays, we'd say it was art directed. So I went to a couple of online photo archives and turned up a whole bunch of Civil Warâera photos. Mathew Brady was the famous dude who photographed the Civil War. You've probably seen lots of his photos in the Ken Burns documentary. But there were other photographers as well, and one of them had this very distinctive style, and something in it reminded me of Gabriel and Victoria's wedding picture.”
“Enough talk,” said Andrea. “Show them the book.”
Calvin pulled a hardbound book out of his portfolio case and put it on the table. “Apple books,” said Calvin. “Instant miracles. I use the same approach, I'm just moreâ¦you know.⦔
“Full of yourself,” said Andrea.
“Talented is what I was going to say.”
“You're killing me,” I said. “Open the book!”
Victoria and Gabriel's wedding shot opened the book â Calvin had clearly done some restoration and enhancement, and the photograph glowed.
“It's beautiful,” I said.
“Wait, there's more.” He turned the next page, and there was a balloon basket with three people on board, and the balloon was just starting to rise into the sky. I recognized two of the three people â Victoria (in disguise) and Gabriel.
“I can't believe this photograph even exists,” I said.
“We don't know the name of this photographer â all the attributions for his shots say âunknown artist' â but apparently he was very interested in science and newfangled things. And there are so many photos of Gabriel that I think the two of them must have been friends or worked together or something.” Calvin turned the page, and there was Gabriel at the telegraph office, up in the balloon again, operating the telegraph, and helping to tie down the balloon at the end of a flight. On the last page, Gabriel held his horn.
“Victoria would love this,” I said. “I know that's a crazy thing to say, but it's not just that she would have loved seeing these photos after Gabriel was killed. It's that she could share Gabriel with the rest of us.”
Michael said, “Man, this is the coolest gift ever. I am going to opt out of the whole gift-giving sweepstakes for the rest of my life.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe you are a genius, Calvin.”
“I'm thinking,” he said, “that it's possible these photos might have a little more appeal than your whack-job Civil Warâera primitive contraceptive shots, with a little sheepskin on the side.”
“How do we package the story?” asked Andrea. “Besides the fact that they're photos of people Maggie wished she'd known in personâ¦.”
“Unknown artist capturing nineteenth-century innovation and technology,” Calvin retorted.
“And you like that better than my womb veil?”
He did. We talked Hoyt into a photo essay, and when it came out in
Small Town
, one of the chichi photography galleries in Hayes Valley decided to mount a show
of the images. Mr. Lofter was thrilled when we invited him to the opening. I'm not sure how wild he was about the photographs, but he enjoyed the free wine and tapas. “The gallery's paying for the refreshments, right?” he asked. We'll turn him into a culture vulture yet.
Meanwhile, Calvin's on a roll. Now he's scouring more databases to find images of Victoria. I'm glad he's looking, but I already have the one I love. It's the daguerreotype Beau and Phoebe sent me all those months ago, of Victoria on Courage, ready for whatever came her way â in love and war and love, again.
MAGGIE, SIX MONTHS LATER
MAGGIE, SIX MONTHS LATER
Calvin and Andrea invited us to dinner last night. They're both good cooks, they live in a soothingly child- and dog-free place, and they spend money on good wine. Who could say no?
As we sat down, Calvin remained standing. He put his hands on Andrea's shoulders. He cleared his throat. “We have some news.”
“You're getting married,” I blurted. “It's about time.”
Now Andrea cleared her throat, audibly. “We already did,” she said. “About a year ago.”
“Congratulations,” said Michael. “That's wonderful! He turned to me and said pointedly, “It's just terrific, isn't it, Maggie?”
My eyes welled with tears. “I wanted to dance at your wedding,” I blubbered. “I wanted to throw you one of those awful showers and play stupid games.” I gathered myself, stood, swiping at my nose, and hugged them both.
Andrea started to laugh. “I'm sorry, I knew you'd be mad. We just wanted to get married quietly without having all that awful big-white-wedding folderol. So we decided to be just like Eli and Victoria and marched ourselves over to City Hall and got married by a justice
of the peace.”
“Okay,” I said. “I may forgive you, but I get to throw you a party.”
Calvin said, “For the record, I love a big white wedding.” He held up his hand. “Ignore that opening.”
“You can certainly throw a party for us,” said Andrea. “And meanwhile, you're going to have to traipse to Connecticut, because my mother is throwing a party as well.” She paused. “But maybe you want to plan a different kind of party.”
“Anything you want,” I said. “I don't really like those stupid shower games anyway.”
Michael snorted. “You do, too. You're so competitive that even when you're the hostess you have to win everything.”
Calvin brought in a bottle of champagne and poured all of us full glasses, and then put a splash in Andrea's flute.
I looked at Andrea and I looked at the glass. “I'm throwing a baby shower, aren't I?”
Calvin and Andrea both got the giggles, and everyone started talking all at once. “I knew you'd figure it out,” she said.
Baby Storch-Bright was born twenty-four hours after what was, I must admit, a spectacular baby shower. He weighed in at a robust eight pounds, beautiful in every aspect. His mom and dad named him Gabriel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This story is entirely fictitious, but it was inspired by two real-life heroes: my mother, Vauneta Cardwell Winthrop, and her older sister, Virginia Cardwell McDuff. They were both captains in the Army Nurse Corps during and immediately after World War II, and they both served in the European theater. They grew up on a family farm in Mississippi during the Depression, and when they were both young (ages ten and twelve), their mother died. My mom and Aunt Ginny helped raise the four younger siblings and then put their younger sister through college. They didn't have the same kind of adventures that Victoria did, but they had plenty of their own.
They were both beauties, inside and out. Aunt Ginny had a compelling low-pitched Tallulah Bankhead voice and was a great success in community theater. On a family trip, she showed up in a backless green-silk evening gown, and let's just say my stylish younger sister and I were no match for Aunt Ginny's razzle-dazzle. My mother, Vauneta, equally beautiful, captivated her patients. One of our family treasures is a dramatic pencil sketch of our mom sitting on an unnamed beach. She had taken a group of recovering patients there, and one, especially smitten, had turned his ardor into art. Another had carved a jewelry box for her and lined it with soft red cloth, and today, that box sits on my dresser. My father worshipped her, and even in her late
seventies â after forty-plus years of a storybook marriage â he would sigh and fret that someone might take her away from him. In a sense, my parents' marriage inspired this book. I've always been interested in unlikely couples. My mother was a Southern Baptist farmer's daughter from Lambert, Mississippi. My father, five years her junior, was the son of a Romanian Orthodox Jew and was raised in Providence, Rhode Island. Love is crazy, isn't it? And sometimes the crazy works out.
They are all gone now â my father, who introduced me to Dashiell Hammett's mysteries, my beautiful mother, Aunt Ginny, and her husband, Mac, along with all the other Cardwell siblings.
I do have to give a shout-out to my late Uncle Ed, the youngest Cardwell sib and, like his fictional counterpoint, Beau, the family genealogist. Uncle Ed was an example of the complexity of the South. He attended the University of Mississippi; a few years later, as a member of the National Guard, he was back on campus to protect James Meredith and the other African-American students gutsy enough to start integrating Ole Miss.
And for those of you fortunate enough to have enjoyed Southern cuisine, you should know that Uncle Ed's widow, our Aunt Florice, is a consummate hostess with an abundant pantry, great skills, and a generous heart. I was channeling Florice when I created Phoebe.
Thanks have to go out to the Spy Museum in Washington, DC. Its exhibition on women spies, particularly in the Civil War, set me on this journey. Of course, women spies have shown up in virtually every American era since the Revolutionary War. However, the Civil War generated a remarkable collection of women who
were spies for the Union and the Confederacy. The audacity of these women is remarkable, given that they plied their trade in times when it took very little to bring ruin to a woman's name.
Many thanks to my cousins, particularly Janie Cardwell, Diane McDuff Johnson, and Anne Cole Billings, all of whom helped me navigate Oxford's history, charms, traditions, and food. My cousin Diane is a wonderful discovery partner, whether roaming around Faulkner's Rowan Oaks or filling me in on the latest news about the cousins. Anne's lovely daughter, Mimi, is now at Ole Miss, so the circle continues unbroken.
My support posse remains steadfast. Excellent readers and writers cheered me on: Ann Appert, Kathy Bowles, Betsy Brown and Lulu Brown, Caity Burrows, Fred D'Orazio and Evan Young, Margret Elson, Scott Hafner and Bill Glenn, Kathy Halland, Maria Hjelm, Wendy Lichtman, Karen Mulvaney, Phyllis Peacock, Ben and Kate Peterson, Michele Siegfried, and the late Steve Tollefson, who even in the hereafter still hopes I'll write â or at least read â an epic Norwegian saga. My high school bestie, Emily Stevens, is always thinking of new readers who
must
meet Maggie. And I confess to my other high school pal, Richard Wells, that when I write I am trying hard not to disappoint him. And though his career has been in television, those of us who admire him know that he is the real deal in writing. I have been blessed by knowing one of the world's most elegant curators of good reading, Delwin Rimbey. Special thanks to Nancy Buck and Laurene Mullen, who not only read but also made suggestions so useful that I expect them to send me an invoice any day now. Gratitude
to Sydney Kapchan, who connected me with Larry Bruiser, who introduced me to Louisa May Alcott's first-person accounts of nursing in the Union Hospital at Georgetown. And kudos to my Stanford pals, who are legion and loyal: the Grillos, the Hothans, the Heywoods, Paula Fitzgerald and Chris Nielsen, Judy Heller, Lisa Lapin, Edie Barry, Carol Sisk, Duncan Beardsley, and many more.
Fellow mystery writers have been generous: Bob Dugoni, Jonnie Jacobs, Jon Jefferson, Susan Shea, Sheldon Siegel, Jackie Winspear, and Naomi Hirahara in particular. Plus, Naomi introduced me to two people whose DNA influences every cool mystery gathering known to humankind: Toby and Bill Gottfried.
It's a lucky girl who benefits from the loyalty of two book clubs. The first is my San Francisco Bay Area group: Johanna Clark, Janis Medina, Pam Miller, and Ellen Zucker; the second is my beloved Portland gang: Susan Aldrich, Peggy Almon, Karen Halloran, Joni Hartmann, Susan Hartnett, Laurene Mullen, Nanwei Su, Sandra Tetzloff, and Joyce Wilson. Always and forever, I'm indebted to my friend and designer extraordinaire, Jacqueline Jones (
www.jacquelinejonesdesign
), who generously supports Maggie's misadventures in every way, including the
www.lindaleepeterson.com
website. And I'm grateful to my business partner, David Skolnick, who made me get serious about mystery writing by sending me to the Book Passage mystery writers' conference years ago.
This book would not have happened without the encouragement, enthusiasm, and, when needed, bullying of Tom Clarke. When I was maundering on about how
on earth I could pick up the pace and actually complete the book in about a year, Tom came up with a brutal â but very effective â solution. “Two chapters every two weeks,” he said. “Send them to me.” He had structured a wickedly successful set of threats so that I did, in fact, meet almost all my deadlines. Tom and his (much kinder) wife, Pat, kept me on track. I can't thank you both enough!
Lucky stars aligned many years ago when Amy Rennert agreed to be my agent. Her savvy, enthusiasm, and advocacy are something to behold, plus there's the extra bonus of volunteer counsel from Louise Kollenbaum, who knows what does or doesn't make a cover work.
My friends at Prospect Park Books are champions: responsive, creative, helpful at every stage, and just plain fun to be with. Thank you Colleen Dunn Bates and Patty O'Sullivan for everything. And a great big thanks to Caitlin Ek, who knows her way around bookstores.
Here's the criteria for being in our family: You've got to like books, theater, music, and movies; you've got to be able to cook (or at least be an appreciative eater); and you've got to run a mutual support operation. I am eternally grateful to my Peterson, Borden, and Sable in-laws for reading â and forgiving â Maggie. I am grateful to the small but mighty Winthrop clan, comprising my brother, Larry, sister-in-law, Pat, and my sister, Laurie. They are all fine readers and writers and even finer wielders of pom-poms â from Phoenix to Geneva, they cheer for Maggie and me. Thanks aren't enough.
My husband, Ken, says he often pictures our house, all three stories of it, being filled with words created by
the three resident writers, circling up the stairs, dancing, searching for a fellow adjective or adverb. I guess they must float up, up into the air and escape out into the Portland sky, whether it's bright blue or leaden gray. I am so happy to be surrounded by great readers (Ken and our daughter-in-law, Kate) and writers (Ken, Kate, and, most of all, our son, Ben). Grandson Will, age nine, is so comfortable with our
lingua franca
that, at age seven, he cheerfully dispossessed his father of the microphone at a wedding to deliver an elegant and charming toast to the bride.
Of course, all this bibliophilia was launched by my parents. One of our favorite photographs of them was taken on the US Army hospital ship
Charles A. Stafford
at the end of the war. Both had some off-duty time, and a friend photographed them lounging on a blanket, nestled close to each other on what appeared to be a very hard, unforgiving deck. Both were grinning and just looking up from â what else? â their books.
Finally, writing about the Civil War is not for the faint of heart. The world is full of Civil War experts, amateur and professional, and only a fool would attempt to write about the era without being a serious scholar. In that equation, I am the fool, not the serious scholar. But I have tried to remain faithful to what we know of the times, the battles, and the unexpected heroes and heroines.