The brown-brick row house was three stories tall. It was not a mansion, but it was large-Fowler was clearly a man of some means. Several large windows lined its front. It did not appear as though anybody was inside. Mazorca, of course, would have wanted it that way.
The colonel had assembled two dozen men. They quickly took position around the building. A handful went around to the rear. Several others positioned themselves on N Street, where they would make sure Mazorca could not leave through one of the windows. The rest marched with Rook to the front door.
Rook gave the knob a cursory twist, but it held tight. He gestured to a burly private. The man raised an ax and slammed it into the lock. Two more hits and the door cracked open. Anybody inside the house would now be on alert. Rook rushed in with his troops. They fanned through the building, charging up the stairs and racing in and out of rooms. They swiftly reached the conclusion Rook had feared: the house was empty.
Had Zack led them to the wrong house? Rook did not think so. The boy had been certain about the location.
Starting on the ground floor, Rook walked through the entire house, searching for clues. He did not find anything of special interest until he entered a bedroom on the third floor. Clothes littered the bed. Several drawers rested near the headboard, turned upside down. They had been removed from a dresser along the wall.
A closet door was shut. Rook approached and pulled it open. On the floor he saw it: the dress and the ball of bloody clothes. The boy had in fact seen Mazorca and had led Rook to the right house. Once again, however, he was too late. Mazorca was gone.
SEVENTEEN
FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1861
When Mazorca opened his eyes, the dawn sky overhead was turning to a clear blue. The clouds from the previous night had disappeared almost completely, thanks to a cool breeze that must have pushed them away. It promised to be a very nice day-bright, brisk, and full of possibility.
Pain ripped through Mazorca’s body as he sat up. He had known it would happen: sleeping on a hard granite surface, without a pillow or a blanket, had guaranteed the aching result. It diminished as he stretched and yawned. He stood and looked down at the city from his bird’s-eye vantage point.
The night might have brought much worse than temporary discomfort. After leaving the crumpled body of the chaplain, Mazorca had walked swiftly along the canal, hiking up the collar of the coat and pulling down the brim of the hat-anything to hide his disfigured ear. There was no way he could remain in Murder Bay. It was probably dangerous to go anywhere in the city.
He briefly considered going back to the Fowler house but decided against it. They had found him at Tabard’s, and they might find him there. Unsure of his destination and driven by an overwhelming desire simply to get away, Mazorca had set off to the east.
At Seventh Street, the canal came within half a block of Pennsylvania Avenue. The lights from Brown’s Hotel and the National Hotel were exactly what Mazorca wanted to avoid. They were like those lighthouses Lincoln had described in their brief meeting-a warning for navigators to stay away. To his right, a small bridge crossed the canal. It led to the Mall and away from the buildings and people of downtown. Mazorca took it, and in a moment he found himself in a large open space of grass, shrubs, and pathways. In front of him loomed a structure that looked like a castle from the days of knights. This was the Smithsonian Institution, a red building that appeared out of its rightful place and time. One of its windows glowed. Someone was inside, poring over the museum’s collections. Was there one person or several? Mazorca watched the window for several minutes. But he never received an answer. Given all that had happened, he was in no mood to take a chance.
The Mall itself was empty. As he passed the Smithsonian and continued to the west, Mazorca wondered about curling up beneath a row of bushes. But this would make little sense-if he was going to sleep outside, he would be better off leaving the city entirely. Although the Mall was deserted at night, it might very easily attract people in the morning.
Ahead, the moonlight fell upon the pale masonry of the Washington Monument-a big block of stone that was supposed to rise upward in tribute to America’s first president. Mazorca knew from guidebooks that it was meant to reach a towering height of 555 feet, but work had halted several years earlier. The monument now stood at about 156 feet. To begin building such an edifice and not finish it struck Mazorca as worse than not having started it in the first place-its incompleteness seemed to dishonor the figure it hoped to glorify. Yet he began to wonder if it represented an opportunity.
The monument stood in the center of a spit of land that stretched into the Potomac River at the point where a small inlet channeled water into the city’s canal. It was one of Washington’s chief landmarks, but Mazorca had not given it much thought previously. He approached its base at the summit of a slight incline. When he arrived at the site, he walked around the four sides of its exterior, pulling his fingers along the cold stone. He confirmed that there was only one door, in the center of the eastern wall. He assumed it would be locked and was surprised to see it give way when he pulled on the handle.
The interior was dark. Mazorca’s eyes were already well adjusted to the night, but he waited for a few minutes as they strained to give him a slightly better view. Right in front of him, a set of stairs began their ascent. When he had a good fix on their location, he closed the door. Pitch-blackness enveloped him. He took a few tentative steps in the direction of the stairs, tapping gently with his shoe as he got closer. He found the first step and felt for the wall on his right. Touching it, he began a cautious climb.
It was slow going. He hit a landing and turned. Then he hit another landing and turned again. He kept his right hand on the wall and his left hand in front of him to protect his head from low-hanging objects. In the passageway, it was impossible to see anything.
Eventually, however, Mazorca detected a faint radiance. He first saw it as he turned on a landing. It grew brighter as he continued upward, though it was never more than dim. After hiking a bit further, he saw its source: the staircase was open to the sky.
Mazorca clambered onto the top of the monument. He was on a square plateau, its edges perhaps fifty feet in length. Several blocks of stone were scattered about its surface. At a point near the center, a pole rose. A flag hung from it, showing signs of life from a wind whose blowing Mazorca had not noticed on the ground. He remembered having seen the banner fly during the daytime. It appeared as though nobody checked on it with any regularity.
From two sides of the monument, Mazorca saw almost nothing except moonlight glistening on the waters of the Potomac. On the other two sides, he saw the lights of the city. Somewhere down there, people were searching for him. He was exhausted and needed to shut his eyes. He gathered a couple of empty canvas bags and rolled them into something that resembled a pillow. Then he curled himself on the roof of the monument and fell asleep almost immediately.
Hours later, the sun woke him as it peeked above the half-finished dome of the Capitol, about a mile to the east. Above him, the flag flapped in the breeze. When he stood up, Mazorca surveyed Washington from his unique vantage point. Near the base of the monument, pigs and cattle roamed freely. To the south and the west, he saw the Long Bridge spanning the Potomac, the docks of Georgetown, and the Naval Observatory. To the north sat the city, or most of it.
He watched several groups of soldiers make their way to the Capitol. Mazorca figured that these were members of the New York regiment, reporting for duty at their new lodgings. More than a few would be drowsy or hungover, having spent their first night in Washington pursuing revelry rather than rest. Mazorca had seen more than a few of them in Murder Bay. No matter how sleepy or miserable they felt, however, they were now the toast of the city. He envisioned people from all over Washington heading to the Capitol to greet them.