The Twelfth Card

“Title?”

“Sort of like a sergeant at arms. Boss Tweed was the Grand Sachem, the big chief. Our boy” – a nod toward the bones and skull Sachs had found in the cistern – “was the Winskinskie, the doorkeeper.”

“Tammany Hall…” Rhyme nodded as he considered this, letting his mind wander back in time, past this case, into the smoky sepia world of nineteenth-century New York. “And Tweed hung out in Potters’ Field. So he and the Tammany Hall machine were probably behind setting Charles up.”

He ordered Cooper to add the recent findings to the chart. He then spent some moments looking over the information. He nodded. “Fascinating.”

Sellitto shrugged. “The case is over with, Linc. The hitmen, excuse me, hit people’ve been collared. The terrorist is dead. Why’s something that happened a hundred years ago so fascinating?”

“Nearly a hundred and forty years, Lon. Let’s be accurate.” He was frowning as he stared intently at the evidence chart, the maps – and the placid face of the Hanged Man. “And the answer to your question is: You know how much I hate loose ends.”

“Yeah, but what’s loose?”

“What’s the one thing we’ve forgotten all about in the heat of battle, if we may tread through a minefield of clichés again, Lon?”

“I give,” Sellitto grunted.

“Charles Singleton’s secret. Even if it doesn’t have anything to do with constitutional law or terrorists, I, at least, am dying to know what it was. I think we should find out.”

VAN BOMBING SCENE

· Van registered to Bani al-Dahab (see profile).

· Delivered food to Middle Eastern restaurants and carts.

· Letter taking responsibility for jewelry exchange bombing recovered. Paper matches earlier documents.

· Components of explosive device recovered: residue of Tovex, wires, battery, radio receiver detonator, portions of container, UPS box.

THOMPSON BOYD’S RESIDENCE AND PRIMARY SAFE HOUSE

· More falafel and yogurt, orange paint trace, as before.

· Cash (fee for job?) $100,000 in new bills. Untraceable. Probably withdrawn in small amounts over time.

· Weapons (guns, billy club, rope) traced to prior crime scenes.

· Acid and cyanide traced to prior crime scenes, no links to manufacturers.

· No cell phone found. Other telephone records not helpful.

· Tools traced to prior crime scenes.

· Letter revealing that G. Settle was targeted because she was a witness to jewelry heist in the pla

· Sent to Parker Kincaid in Washington, D.C., for document examination.

· Writer’s first language most likely Arabic.

· Improvised explosive device, as part of booby trap. Fingerprints are those of convicted bomb maker Jon Earle Wilson.

· Located. En route to Rhyme’s for interviewing.

POTTERS’ FIELD SCENE (1868)

· Tavern in Gallows Heights – located in the Eighties on the upper West Side, mixed neighborhood in the 1860s.

· Potters’ Field was possible hangout for Boss Tweed and other corrupt New York politicians.

· Charles came here July 15, 1868.

· Burned down following explosion, presumably just after Charles’s visit. To hide his secret?

· Body in basement, man presumably killed by Charles Singleton.

· Shot in forehead by.36 Navy Colt loaded with.39-caliber ball (type of weapon Charles Singleton owned).

· Gold coins.

· Man was armed with Derringer.

· No identification.

· Had ring with name “Winskinskie” on it.

· Means “doorman” or “gatekeeper” in Delaware Indian language.

· Currently searching other meanings.

· Was title of official in Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall political machine.

PROFILE OF UNSUB 109

· Determined to be Thompson G. Boyd, former executions control officer, from Amarillo, TX.

· Presently in custody.

PROFILE OF PERSON HIRING UNSUB 109

· Bani al-Dahab, Saudi national, in country illegally after visa expired.

· Deceased.

· Search of apartment revealed no other terrorist co

· Currently investigating his employers for possible terrorist links.

PROFILE OF UNSUB 109’S ACCOMPLICE

· Determined not to be man originally described, but Alina Frazier, presently in custody.

· Search of apartment revealed weapons and money, nothing else relevant to case.

PROFILE OF CHARLES SINGLETON

· Former slave, ancestor of G. Settle. Married, one son. Given orchard in New York state by master. Worked as teacher, as well. Instrumental in early civil rights movement.

· Charles allegedly committed theft in 1868, the subject of the article in stolen microfiche.

· Reportedly had a secret that could bear on case. Worried that tragedy would result if his secret was revealed.

· Attended meetings in Gallows Heights neighborhood of New York.

· Involved in some risky activities?

· Worked with Frederick Douglass and others in getting the 14th Amendment to the Constitution ratified.

· The crime, as reported in the Coloreds’ Weekly Illustrated:

· Charles arrested by Det. William Simms for stealing large sum from Freedmen’s Trust in NY. Broke into the trust’s safe, witnesses saw him leave shortly after. His tools were found nearby. Most money was recovered. He was sentenced to five years in prison. No information about him after sentencing. Believed to have used his co

Charles’s correspondence:

· Letter 1, to wife: Re: Draft Riots in 1863, great anti-black sentiment throughout NY state, lynchings, arson. Risk to property owned by blacks.

· Letter 2, to wife: Charles at Battle of Appomattox at end of Civil War.

· Letter 3, to wife: Involved in civil rights movement. Threatened for this work. Troubled by his secret.

· Letter 4, to wife: Went to Potters’ Field with his gun for “justice.” Results were disastrous. The truth is now hidden in Potters’ Field. His secret was what caused all this heartache.

V . The Freedman’s Secret

Friday, October 12, to Friday, October 26

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The fifty-four-year-old white man in a Brooks Brothers suit sat in one of his two Manhattan offices, engaging in an intense debate with himself.

Yes or no?

The question was important, literally a matter of life and death.

Trim, solidly built William Ashberry, Jr., sat back in a creaking chair and looked over the horizon of New Jersey. This office was not as elegant or stylish as the one in lower Manhattan but it was his favorite. The twenty-by-thirty-foot room was in the historic Sanford Mansion on the Upper West Side, owned by the bank of which he was a senior officer.

He pondered: Yes? No?

Ashberry was a financier and entrepreneur of the old school, meaning, for instance, he’d ignored the eagle of the Internet when it soared into the heavens, and hadn’t lost a night’s sleep when it turned on its masters, except to superficially console clients who hadn’t listened to his advice. This refusal to be wooed by fad, combined with solid investing in blue chip companies and, especially, New York City real estate, had made both himself and Sanford Bank and Trust a huge amount of money.

Old school, sure, but only to a point. Oh, he had the lifestyle afforded by a million-plus a