Page 16 of The Girl from Greenwich Street

I had taken my passage for this day, and anticipated the pleasure of dining with you on Saturday. But—but—these buts—how they mar all the fine theories of life! But our friend Thomas Morris has entreated in such terms that I would devote this day and night to certain subjects of the utmost moment to him, that I could not, without the appearance of unkindness, refuse. . . . But, again, more buts. But after I had consented to give him a day, I sent to take passage for tomorrow and lo! the stage is taken by the sheriff to transport criminals to the state prison. I should not be much gratified with this kind of association on the road, and thus I apprehend my journey will be (must be) postponed until Friday, and my engagement to dine with you until Monday.

—Aaron Burr to his daughter, Theodosia, March 5, 1800

New York City

March 11, 1800

Aaron Burr sat in a ramshackle office on Water Street and contemplated murder.

It was Shakespeare, if Aaron recalled correctly, who had blithely urged, “Let’s kill all the lawyers.”

That seemed a bit extreme. Aaron would happily limit the carnage to one General Alexander Hamilton, who, not content with wasting his own time, was intent on wasting Aaron’s as well.

After an exceedingly tedious journey, delayed by one annoyance after another, Aaron had returned home in happy anticipation of a joyful welcome from his Theodosia and instead had discovered Theodosia gone to visit her half brother John Bartow Prevost, leaving an empty house which Hamilton had attempted to fill with a barrage of agitated correspondence, all demanding Aaron’s immediate presence for news of great moment.

This news appeared to have something to do with the sexual habits of the residents of the boardinghouse on Greenwich Street, a topic which Aaron viewed as entirely insufficient for dragging him down to Hamilton’s office on Water Street when he had far more urgent matters to attend to, including, but not limited to, Theodosia’s disregard of his intentions, the conduct of the coming elections, and the state of his coffers.

Aaron’s creditors were showing an unsettling tendency to desire the return of their money.

Thomas Morris—he had been terribly apologetic about it, but he had suffered reversals of his own. Morris’s reversals, Aaron was quite sure, were nothing compared to the amount Aaron had lost through the ill-fated Holland Land Company. The thought of the hundred thousand acres he’d had to default on made him feel sick. Theodosia was still angry at him for dragging his stepson John Bartow into bankruptcy.

There were few people for whose good opinion Aaron cared, but Theodosia was one. Perhaps the only one.

John Bartow would recoup his fortunes—they would all recoup their fortunes—as soon as these elections were won. Power, patronage, emoluments. What were a few trifling debts to those?

And it was all his, provided this prancing nuisance in front of him could be kept sufficiently distracted. Aaron had no doubt that if he faced any threat to his ambitions at all, it was from Hamilton. He could only be grateful that Hamilton’s obvious talents were counterbalanced by his poor sense.

For example, expending his energies hunting down rumors about the amorous peccadilloes of Quakers.

Aaron broke into Hamilton’s monologue. “Can one truly identify a voice heard through the wall—under such circumstances?”

“The walls are mere lathe and plaster. And it wasn’t just the once. The neighbor said he heard it as many as fourteen times, in the time of the sickness—from the middle of September until Mrs. Ring returned in October.”

“If this is the case,”

Aaron asked skeptically, “why did he not come forward before?”

“He didn’t want to make trouble for the Rings.”

Hamilton was so excited that he didn’t even bother to enhance his words with his usual flowery decoration. “You know how these small tradesmen are. They keep to themselves. He said Catherine Ring is a nice woman and doesn’t deserve the shame. And he thought it ended when Catherine Ring came home from the country.”

Brockholst was sprawled on a chair far too small for his large frame; it looked in imminent danger of reverting to the bare slats from which it had been formed. “Are you saying that the Quaker killed her? Doesn’t their creed forbid violence?”

“The doors of hell—and the halls of our prisons—would gape empty if men abided by the strictures of their creeds,”

Hamilton countered. “Is not a Quaker yet a man?”

“If you prick him, does he not bleed?”

murmured Aaron. “Never mind. Go on.”

Hamilton needed no encouragement. “When Elma Sands first disappeared, Elias Ring insisted she had killed herself in a love fit and engaged a local waterman to drag the area around Rhinelander’s battery. It wasn’t until her body was found in the Manhattan Well”—there was a pause as the hated name was uttered—“that he began to level accusations at Levi Weeks and do so most vehemently.”

Thank goodness for the Manhattan Company. Without it, Aaron would be even now in debtor’s prison. “Your point being?”

“Why change his tune so abruptly? Why unless he feared the girl’s body would show signs of violence—that he himself had inflicted?”

Hamilton didn’t wait for Aaron to respond; it might interfere with his enjoyment of his own voice. “We know Elias Ring returned to the boardinghouse before Elma departed that night—two boarders have remarked on it—but we have only his wife’s word that he remained there. He might easily have slipped away at the same time as Elma or a little after.”

“Mere speculation.”

Even as he said it, Aaron had to admit that there was something in the story Hamilton was telling. He just wasn’t sure he wanted there to be something in it. His instructions from Ezra Weeks had been clear; the case, simple. “What proof have we other than the word of this neighbor?”

“The neighbor’s name is Watkins, Joseph Watkins, a very accomplished ironmonger. He makes an excellent coffee biggin,”

Hamilton added.

Aaron failed to see the relevance of that statement. “Did he tell anyone else of what he heard?”

“He did. He told one man. Richard Croucher.”

Hamilton pronounced the name as though it was meant to signify something to them.

Aaron raised a brow, pretending he had any idea who Hamilton was talking about.

“The lodger.”

Brockholst frowned. He might claim to be giving the case little attention, but Aaron knew Brockholst of old; he always did all the assigned reading, and then read the gloss and the commentaries to boot. Brockholst had time for such things. Brockholst didn’t have lists of voters to compile before the coming elections; he had Aaron to do that for him. He had only to ride Aaron’s efforts to victory. “He claimed he caught Levi Weeks in flagrante delicto with Elma Sands.”

“Precisely.”

Hamilton jabbed a finger in the air. “He is the only one who claims to have seen Levi Weeks engaged in carnal relations with Elma Sands.”

“There is nothing to preclude both of these being true,”

said Aaron drily. “She might have been distributing her favors broadly. She was a bastard. They are notoriously prone to hot blood.”

Hamilton didn’t even hear him. He was too busy extolling his own brilliance. “Think of it. Who has more reason to do away with Elma Sands? The young man who felt for her nothing but affection or the married man with four children who could see his entire existence rendered as nothing if she reveals their affair to his wife?”

“This could work to our cause,”

said Brockholst thoughtfully. “Even if the Quaker didn’t kill her, this will raise doubt in the minds of the jury. This Watkins. He’s prepared to testify?”

“As is his wife, a most respectable matron. And there’s more.”

“A confession, perhaps?”

Aaron asked sourly. Hamilton was meant to be off chasing wild geese, not catching and bringing them home dressed and stuffed for supper. It didn’t at all suit Aaron’s purposes to have Hamilton the savior of Levi Weeks, the man who single-handedly flushed out the true killer of Elma Sands.

“Near enough,”

said Hamilton seriously. “Before we were called to defend Weeks—”

Aaron gave a dry cough. Once again, Hamilton rewrote history to suit his own fancies.

“Before we were called to defend Weeks, a campaign was already being waged against him, designed to impress the conviction of his guilt so firmly in the minds of the public that no amount of evidence would be sufficient to remove it. We were told that he was engaged to Elma Sands; we were told that he left with her to be married that night; we were told all this as incontrovertible truth. Whence did these so-called truths spring? This was a tale carefully crafted, deliberately told, not the random meanderings of idle speculation.”

Hamilton drew himself to his full height, undoubtedly to avoid the pain of sitting. Hamilton’s chairs were a thing of penance. “Not only can we prove that the true killer of Elma Sands was Elias Ring; we can also provide evidence that Levi Weeks, far from being a killer, was the victim of a concerted campaign of slander and misdirection, persecuted by cunningly contrived rumors.”

“Slander hardly equates to murder,”

Aaron pointed out.

“Who has the motive to prove another’s guilt but the man who bears that guilt himself? Rumor may have a thousand tongues, but the source of these stories has only one.”

Hamilton’s face had the flush others might acquire from the enjoyment of a fine wine. “I spoke to all the other tradesmen in the area. None of them saw anything of Elma that night, or of Levi Weeks, but they all say Mr. Croucher has haunted their establishments, spreading slanderous stories about Levi Weeks. I believe that when Watkins told Croucher of his suspicions of Elias Ring’s improper behavior with Elma, Croucher saw for himself a business opportunity. His silence and collusion in exchange for . . .”

“Money, one presumes.”

Brockholst was sitting up straighter in his chair, clearly intrigued.

“This is all speculation,”

said Aaron flatly. “All airy nothing.”

“Until we prove it. Mrs. Forrest said something very curious. Wait. Let me find it.”

Hamilton turned out his pockets, providing an edifying assortment of scraps of odd paper scribbled on both sides. The one he was looking for appeared to be scrawled on the sort of brown paper usually reserved for wrapping parcels. “The Forrests keep a grocery establishment next to the Ring house. According to Mrs. Forrest, Croucher was in her shop with Elias Ring and told her that he’d passed by the well that very night—but not at the right moment. He repeated, several times, what a pity it was that he hadn’t happened by at the right moment, because he might have saved her.”

“By Jupiter,”

said Brockholst.

“And Minerva and her all-seeing owl,”

said Hamilton smugly. “You see it too, don’t you? I believe he did go by the well that night. I believe Richard Croucher saw Elias Ring murder Elma Sands.”

If this was so—if Croucher would reveal as much on the stand—Hamilton would be unendurable.

It might not be true. Hamilton always spoke as though his conclusions were the only conclusions and all other possibilities delusions. But if it was . . . then there must be some way yet to reclaim this for Aaron’s own benefit.

They had only a month until the elections.

“What was this Mr. Croucher doing out there in the middle of nowhere after dark that he witnessed Miss Sands by the well?”

“He says”—Hamilton consulted another much-abused scrap of paper—“that he attended a birthday party at the home of a Mrs. Ann Ashmore—or possibly a Mrs. Ann Brown—and his way home led him through Lispenard’s Meadow.”

This caught Brockholst’s attention. “You spoke to him?”

“Naturally. He tried to sell me stockings for Eliza.”

Brockholst’s brows drew together. “Never mind the stockings. You didn’t mention your suspicions, I trust.”

“No.”

Hamilton much preferred giving instructions to receiving them; Aaron could tell he was offended by Brockholst’s abrupt tone.

“Does Colden know anything of this—of Elma Sands’s relations with Elias Ring?”

Hamilton hadn’t expected his news to be received in this way. “Not that I know of. Watkins said he hadn’t told anyone else. As for Mrs. Forrest—I don’t believe Colden spoke with her either. That’s not to say he won’t.”

“He won’t. He has the bit between his teeth about Levi abducting a girl in a sleigh. Ha!”

Brockholst looked expectantly at his colleagues. “The bit between his teeth? Never mind. The important thing is that Colden remain in ignorance. If we can surprise him at trial . . .”

“Isn’t the important thing that we bring the murderer of Elma Sands to justice?”

declared Hamilton grandly.

What he meant, Aaron knew, was that he was picturing himself revealing the murderer, to the accolades of an adoring public.

“That,”

said Aaron, “is Cadwallader Colden’s affair. However—one could make inquiries. Discreetly.”

“Very discreetly,”

warned Brockholst.

“I was going to speak to Ann Ashmore—or Brown,”

said Hamilton. “To determine whether Mr. Croucher might have left at such a time that he would have passed by the well at the crucial moment.”

Aaron exchanged a look with Brockholst. For once, they were largely in agreement. If Hamilton was correct in this, they would have to ensure he not take the credit for it—or apprise Mr. Colden of this new theory of the case.

“Allow me,”

Aaron said. “I believe I know the house—and it can be done in such a way as to leave Mr. Colden entirely in ignorance.”