A gilded lady, p.27
A Gilded Lady, page 27
“I need to warn you that Nathaniel plans to tell John Wilkie about your return,” she said as she clipped the suspenders to the back of his trousers. “He seemed a little miffed that unauthorized investigations were being carried out and the Secret Service didn’t know about them.”
“Rule-follower,” Luke grumbled.
“He’s very straitlaced,” she defended. “I rather like that about him.”
Nathaniel’s famously upright comportment might not mesh well with her daredevil brother, but she couldn’t worry about that today. Luke was champing at the bit to get to Philip’s office.
“I can’t believe Philip is at the center of this whole mess,” she said as she helped Luke into a jacket. “For the past year I’ve sat in his office to cry and bemoan your fate, and he never breathed a word.”
“That’s because he’s a spy, and a good one, at that.”
“I wish you’d quit defending him. I’d like to hog-tie him for all the grief he’s caused me.”
“How about we hog-tie Captain Holland instead? He’s the one who caused all the trouble.”
Never had truer words been spoken. This entire experience had been a lesson in humility. While she imagined herself a sophisticated woman with exceptional insight and access throughout Washington, she’d been duped not only by Captain Holland but by Philip the Meek as well.
“Hello, Philip,” she said with a tight smile as she waltzed into his cramped office an hour later.
He had the grace to look abashed, but only for a moment before greeting Luke with a back-pounding hug.
“Be careful not to break his ribs,” she pointed out. “He’s frail as a toothpick, thanks to you.”
Philip ignored her as he cleared a stack of books from a chair and gestured for Luke to sit. “Tell me what you know,” he prompted, his genial face settling into a mask of concentration.
“Captain Holland is at the bottom of everything,” Luke said. “The main rebel leader in Cuba is a man named Mateo Ferraz. He thought I was just a rich American coming down to dabble in a little smuggling and revolutionary mischief. I smuggled his rum and cigars but never made much progress in winning his trust. Anyway, when I was arrested, Mateo’s name was among the rebels in my list of contacts, so he was rounded up too. We were all housed in the same Cuban jail.”
Understanding began to dawn, and Luke met her gaze with a nod. “That was why I didn’t want to be transferred to an American prison. By staying close to Mateo, I knew I could eventually win his trust and figure out who was funding the insurgency from Washington. It took a while.”
It turned out that some of Mateo’s cousins had moved to America decades earlier, and one of them married into Captain Holland’s family. Mateo first met Captain Holland during a family holiday in Puerto Rico.
“They go fishing together every December,” Luke continued. “I guess it was enough for Holland to have a sense of Mateo’s political leanings. When Holland needed a man to keep the insurgency alive, he turned to Mateo.”
Caroline still didn’t understand. “Why would prolonging the war benefit Captain Holland?”
Luke was ready with an answer. “Holland signs off on the contracts for armaments and warfare, but not reconstruction. My guess is that he’s been skimming from that budget for a long time, and when the military budget skyrocketed, he was like a pig at the trough. He didn’t want it to end. When peace had been achieved, money for the war evaporated. He wanted to keep it stoked.”
It made Caroline feel nauseated. Captain Holland lived his cozy life in Washington while ordinary soldiers bled and died in Cuba.
“Mateo and I were in separate cells, but we were let out in the yard for around an hour each day,” Luke continued. “He saw me sweating and suffering along with all the other rebels who’d been arrested, and that’s what eventually won his trust. He told me of his connection to a high-ranking American officer and wondered if it could help us get out of jail. I said it might, but only if he gave me the name. He eventually told me it was Captain Holland. He eventually told me a lot of things, which is how I knew about plans to blow up that road to Havana. Now we can arrest Holland and haul him into a court of law for sabotaging the war effort. He’s been funding the rebels with money and ammunition for two solid years.”
Philip shook his head. “Everything you’ve told me is hearsay, not even enough to get a search warrant. Captain Holland is one of the navy’s highest officers. He’s got powerful friends, and he outranks me.”
“He doesn’t outrank President Roosevelt,” Caroline said.
“We’re leaving the president out of this,” Philip said. “It doesn’t look good for him to have been dabbling in this, and we can do it without him. All we need to do is trick Holland into action, and it shouldn’t be hard.”
The plan Philip outlined was breathtakingly simple. They could manufacture a fraudulent telegram from Mateo to Captain Holland, claiming Mateo had escaped from prison, along with an offer to continue the rebellion. To raise the stakes, the telegram would report that Luke Delacroix was an American spy investigating military embezzlement, and he’d escaped the prison on the same night. It would force Holland into action. All they had to do was carefully monitor Captain Holland after receiving that telegram to see what he would do.
Luke’s smile was devilish. “I want to be in on the stakeout. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than hauling that man’s carcass into court.”
“Whoever is involved in the stakeout needs to blend in,” Philip said. “That means your hair has got to go.”
An expression of amused dismay crossed Luke’s face. “I like looking like a reprobate.”
“You don’t look like a reprobate, you look like a skeleton with hair,” Philip said. “Eat a decent meal, sit in the sun, and get a haircut. Then I’d be prepared to send you on—”
A knock on the door cut off their conversation. Luke shot out of his chair and pressed his back against the wall beside the door. No one knew he’d returned to Washington, and it was best to keep it that way. Philip crossed to the door and opened it. Caroline recognized Freddie Alden, one of the Secret Service agents who guarded the White House.
“You have been summoned to the Treasury Department,” Freddie said to Philip. Then he moved farther into the room and closed the door, revealing Luke hiding behind it. “You too.”
Luke gave his Cheshire cat’s smile. “Who wants to see us at Treasury?”
“John Wilkie. Chief of the Secret Service. He’s long suspected someone was running their own investigations out of this office.”
Luke swiveled an accusatory glance at her. “Is this Romeo’s doing?”
“I told you he planned to tell Wilkie. And I’m afraid he operates very much by the book. The only details I gave him were that you suspected corruption in the military and were working for the very best of people. And, Philip, I was being generous by characterizing you that way.”
Philip looked annoyed. “I’ve always suspected the Secret Service was spying on me.”
Caroline shifted in her seat. Over the past year, while she had been praying for Luke, she’d never thought any further than getting him safely back home. Now she was forced to confront the uncomfortable prospect that her daredevil brother and the straitlaced Nathaniel might have difficulty seeing eye to eye.
She was about to find out.
Caroline entered Wilkie’s office with Luke and Philip twenty minutes later. Nathaniel stood in the corner, dressed in one of his plain black suits. His expression was all business, but when he saw her, he gave her one of those closed-mouthed smiles that always made her weak in the knees, especially since this time it reached all the way to his eyes.
“Have a seat,” Wilkie said as he gestured to a cluster of chairs facing his desk. They all sat except for Nathaniel, who remained watching from his position leaning against the far wall.
“I’d like to hear about this investigation into military corruption,” Wilkie began in a silky voice.
Philip fidgeted in his chair, reverting to his Philip the Meek persona. “I don’t know what you’re talking about or why I’m here. My old college roommate is back in town, and we were just touching base.”
Nathaniel wasn’t buying it. “You’re engaged in undercover operations at the behest of the vice president, who had no authority to authorize such actions. It’s a travesty, and probably illegal.”
Philip immediately shifted tacks. He’d been caught and flashed a roguish smile. “It actually wasn’t technically illegal,” he said. “There is no law against asking an old friend to go to Cuba to sniff out suspected criminal activity.”
Luke gave an angelic smile. “And as a private citizen, I was happy to do my civic duty.”
“It sounds like the two of you ran off to start your own private crusade,” Wilkie said dryly. “We can save the legal niceties for later, but I need to know what you suspect about the military. I’ve got teams of investigators who can carry this out with both secrecy and benefit of the law.”
Mercifully, it looked as if Philip and Luke were willing to cooperate. The Secret Service was nowhere within the military chain of command, meaning they could be a neutral party to carry out the investigation. Caroline held her breath as Luke relayed what he’d learned while imprisoned alongside Mateo. He laid out the facts with confidence, but a hint of teasing mockery lay beneath the surface the entire time, keeping her on edge. Luke loved needling authority.
When he outlined the plan to use a fake telegram from Mateo to dupe Holland into action, Nathaniel flatly rejected it.
“That’s entrapment,” he said. “I won’t condone an investigation based on a lie.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “I forgot my smelling salts, so go stand in the hall if this is making you feel faint. I say we cut straight to the chase. It’s Saturday. Holland’s office at the War Department is empty. We can break in and have a look around.”
Again, Nathaniel shook his head. “If you want inside his office, you need a search warrant and probable cause. We need to do everything aboveboard.”
“And how does one do an undercover operation in an aboveboard manner?” Luke asked tightly.
Caroline bit her lip as all her misgivings started playing out before her. Nathaniel had gone back to his rigid formality, while Luke was hurling darts at the man she loved.
Even with all their bickering, within an hour, Wilkie and Philip devised a plan that was both legal and clever enough to provoke a guilty man into revealing his hand. Despite Nathaniel’s earlier rejection, Wilkie affirmed that using a fake telegram from Mateo was perfectly lawful. If Holland took the bait and sprang into action, the government would have probable cause for a search warrant.
“There’s another man we need to catch,” Luke said. “Holland never personally delivered the funds to Mateo. There’s a go-between in Key West, and I don’t know the identity of that man. All I know is that Holland wires money to Key West, then the go-between sails it to Cuba. We need to figure out who that man is.”
“Once we arrest Holland, we’ll be able to search his house and find the third man,” Wilkie said. “First we arrest the mastermind, then we go after his minions. It will take some time for me to arrange the fake telegram originating from Cuba, so let’s do the stakeout of Holland’s house tomorrow.”
Philip nodded. “The moment he is arrested, we’ll need to start tracking down that unknown link in Key West. If news of Holland’s arrest makes the newspapers, that third man is likely to make a run for it. I want this entire operation wrapped up in a week.”
It made sense to Caroline, but a hint of tension passed between Nathaniel and Wilkie. There was a time when she wouldn’t have even noticed it, but she’d become highly attuned to Nathaniel’s emotions and noticed his slight stiffening as he sent a tiny shake of his head to Wilkie.
Wilkie nodded in return, then shifted his attention back to Philip. “I’ll be assigning another agent to assist with the case. Agent Trask is needed elsewhere.”
“Who?” Philip demanded. “And why? I don’t want news of this operation going any further than the people in this room.”
“I’m sending Trask to Milwaukee on assignment. He leaves by the end of the week.”
“What?” Caroline shrieked. She stood, gaping at Nathaniel in dismay. This felt like a slap in the face.
Nathaniel held up his hands to pacify her. “Caroline, I didn’t want to tell you this way.”
The strength drained from her, and she sank onto her chair, staring at Nathaniel in confusion. “Tell me what?” she said weakly.
“The Kestrel Gang is back in action. Their counterfeit bills have been spotted in Milwaukee, and I need to get up there quickly to track them down.”
Her mind did the calculations. It would take a few days to get to Milwaukee, and then a couple weeks to investigate. He could be back before Thanksgiving. That wouldn’t be too horrible, would it? But it still hurt that he would leave Washington after everything they’d been through together. After all they had before them.
“We’ll miss the reception at the Smithsonian,” she said inanely.
“Yes.”
Couldn’t he at least sound a little regretful? He had no obligation to seek her permission to go on an assignment, but she wished he had found a way to tell her.
Nathaniel must have sensed her pique, for he continued to justify his need to leave. “The Kestrel Gang is the most damaging group of counterfeiters in the past decade. They’ve brought chaos to the money supply and show no sign of slowing down. I spent eleven months in St. Louis tracking them down and was so close to cracking the case. No one knows their patterns as well as me. I’ve got to go.”
He kept talking, but all she heard was “eleven months.” Eleven months. That meant he could spend almost an entire year in Milwaukee! But why should that surprise her? When she met him he had just come off a five-month assignment in Boston working on the counterfeit stamp operation. The nature of his job would always keep him on the move, for counterfeiters could spring up anywhere in the nation. How foolish she had been to believe she and Nathaniel could court like ordinary people.
She beat back the impending panic and forced a dignified expression onto her face. “Is this going to be an eleven-month assignment like you had in St. Louis? Or will you be back next weekend to escort me to the Smithsonian, like you promised?”
At least he had the grace to look sorry. “I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. “Tracking down counterfeiters is a complicated operation. It usually takes weeks or months. But, Caroline, this is too important for me to ignore.”
Something inside her snapped. “You will always have duties too important to ignore! Your entire life has been dedicated to serving other people, and you ought to get a medal for it.” She turned her ire on Wilkie. “Give this man a medal. He’s moved all over the country at your behest and has nothing to show for it. No wife, no home, certainly not a day free of responsibilities or a shred of fun. He ought to at least get a medal.”
Luke clamped a hand on her arm, then leaned over to whisper in her ear. “Stop it. Don’t lose your temper in public, and don’t say anything you might regret later.” He released her arm and slid back into his seat.
It was good advice. Luke smoothly covered her loss of composure by returning to their discussion about the plan to take down Captain Holland. Philip was insistent that no other agents be brought into the case. If Nathaniel couldn’t help, Philip wanted to work alone with Luke.
“That won’t work,” Wilkie said. “We need men monitoring Holland’s home, his office in the War Department, and the local telegraph office. You need to become accustomed to the idea that you can’t continue to run that little spy operation out of a basement map library.”
“There’s nothing ‘little’ about my spy operation,” Philip said. “I earned the trust of Theodore Roosevelt and have been doing good work on his behalf for years.”
“That’s all over now,” Nathaniel said. “Roosevelt is president, and he doesn’t get his own private army or investigative service.”
Caroline’s gaze trailed out the window as the men argued about legalities and lines of reporting. She ought to care, but she didn’t, for her heart felt crushed. Nathaniel had already reverted to his law-and-order demeanor by spotting flaws, pouncing on technicalities, and strategizing solutions.
At least he wasn’t staring vacantly into space anymore. He was coming back. The man she loved was emerging from the shell of despondency and engaging in the world again. He’d fallen off a horse and gotten kicked in the face, but he was saddling up again, and it ought to be a relief.
It was a relief. This was the man she’d fallen in love with! How could she resent the fact that he was back, even if it meant that, on his list of priorities, she would fall somewhere below the Milwaukee assignment and the Holland takedown and possibly even a fine lobster dinner. Her mouth twitched at the memory. How long ago that first night on the train seemed.
Some things would never change. There would always be crime and corruption in the world, and Nathaniel would always put it first. He wasn’t wrong to do so, but it still hurt. How foolish she had been to think that her life would magically be different after September 15th. It wasn’t Nathaniel who was going to change. It would have to be her.
Could she do it? Could she tolerate life with a man who never knew where he would be assigned next month or next year? It would take a special kind of person to thrive in that sort of life, and in truth, she didn’t know if that person was her.
Thirty-Five
Nathaniel began the next morning in the attic of the Treasury Department, gathering up his old files documenting the Kestrel Gang and preparing them for shipment to Milwaukee. He wanted it done this morning, because this afternoon he had been assigned to surveil Captain Holland’s house with Luke Delacroix. He wouldn’t leave for Milwaukee until the end of the week, so he’d been assigned to the Holland investigation for these final few days.
