jeriendhal | Fic: Dead Presidents

This is a continuation of my previous story bit, It Doesn't Make You French, Either

Even thought we were well out of our jurisdiction, I held up my badge anyway to the receptionist manning the front desk of Lincoln House. “Detective Michael Blakely, Non-Human Crimes Division, CMPD, ma’am.” I nodded in Tim’s direction. “This is my partner, Detective Timothy Smalls. We have an appointment.”

The receptionist looked up at Timothy. Most people do, given he was seven feet tall, built like steroid abusing lumberjack, and had a thick blond beard and long hair drawn into a ponytail that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Molly Hatchet album cover. Instead of his usual t-shirt and jeans he was wearing his best suit and tie, the same as I was. It made him look like a gorilla trying to fit in at a funeral home, which was almost right.

The middle-aged receptionist wore a black skirt, white blouse, a black jacket and a string tie. She glanced over at me, checked her computer terminal, then nodded. “Mrs. Jackson is expecting you. She’ll be out in a moment to escort you. You can have a seat in the meantime.”

I glanced at the Victorian era wing chairs that sat in a circle around a low circular table in the reception room. The walls were painted white, with white painted molding that seemed to echo the columns of the Lincoln Memorial a thousand miles away in Washington , DC. On one wall was full length portrait of President Lincoln, on the other one of his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. There were blue-checked gingham curtains in the bay windows that looked out onto the front gardens, a weirdly homey touch that seemed out of place with the atmosphere of the house. Maybe the occupant had insisted. Neither of us sat.

A moment later the door leading into the house opened, and a young African American woman in her early thirties entered. Like the receptionist she was dressed in the same black suit and string tie, her hair plaited into neat cornrows, dark purple beads weighting down the tips. She held her hand out to me. “Detective Blakely? Detective Smalls? I’m Dr. Rebecca Jackson, Lincoln House’s assistant administrator. I’ll be your escort today.”

“Thank you, Dr. Jackson,” I said, taking her hand and shaking. Her grip was firm but not tight, dry not sweating. The first impression I got was of someone who had nothing to hide. “I appreciate you making the time to see us.”

“Not my choice, sir. He insisted speaking to you directly. Please, come with me.”

She slipped a keycard hanging from the lanyard around her neck through a security reader, then pressed her thumb down to have it scanned. The door latches snapped back and she led us inside to the inner foyer. The air was noticeably cooler than the front reception area, as was the atmosphere, with two plainclothes Secret Service men manning a metal/chemical detector. “Please remove any weapons you’re carrying along with any other metal or sharp objects. Everything will be kept here under the guards’ protection until your interview is over.”

Tim and I did as we were told, without so much as a murmur of protest. The Secret Service guys had a look in their eyes that advised against it. They had failed in protecting the man behind the inner door exactly once, and had sworn a solemn oath of “Never again.” Or at least that’s how it usually went in the documentaries I watched on the Discovery Channel.

“What should we expect when we see him, Dr. Jackson?” I asked.

“To be perfectly honest, I’d keep my expectations low, Detective. He’s an old man. His voice box is worn out, as has his ear drums and his eyes. So he’s deaf, mute and nearly blind. When you enter he will remain seated at his desk, to save wear on his joints. Do not offer your hand to him, any skin contact places his somatic integrity at risk.”

“How are we supposed to talk to him then?” Tim demanded.

“You direct your attention to him. Just ask your questions and they’ll be displayed on a large screen behind him to read. He’ll reply by typing his answers on a keyboard.” She smiled slightly. “Just pretend I’m not there.”

“I’d prefer to interview him alone, Dr. Jackson,” I told her.

“Absolutely not. No one that isn’t on Lincoln House’s staff is permitted to be with him unmonitored,” she said. “Please keep in mind that your interview with him has been permitted as a courtesy. One which can be withdrawn if we think you’re upsetting him.”

I waved down Tim, who looked like he was about to say something. “All right then. Take us in please.”

Jackson nodded and keyed open the door to the President’s office, gesturing us inside.

When the recently dead had begun to rise in the beginning of the 19th Century, the usual panic over an impending end of the world had given way to the realization that it was more of a social problem than actual Armageddon. The walking dead weren’t violent, just mindless and damned inconvenient as they stumbled around. They were also, as near as anyone could tell, soulless as well. Which made things a lot easier when living folks figured out that the best thing to do with their dear and not-quite departed was to behead them as soon as they passed on to prevent any awkward moments during funerals. Most ambulances nowadays kept a hydraulic guillotine handy for emergency calls, though a hefty ax did the job just as well.

Of course as with everything in the world there were exceptions. Sometimes the souls of the dead clung to their bodies, even past the point where the body couldn’t possibly be alive. These walking and talking dead usually weren’t exactly what they were in life, maintaining their intelligence but not control of their memory, like an Alzheimer’s patient trying desperately to hold onto their conscious thoughts.

And then there was Abraham Lincoln.

When Lincoln had been fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth, his wife Mary Todd, who wasn’t exactly mentally stable to start with after the early death of her mother and loss of four of her own children at very young ages, went completely around the bend. She refused to allow her husband to be beheaded after his heart stopped. Much to everyone’s surprise, when the late president rose up, he politely agreed with his wife and cracked a joke with the astonished physicians that he’d just been too cussed stubborn to go to Heaven just yet, when there was so much to do to reconstruct the Union. It had taken two more terms until he was satisfied with the job, and finally retired here to Lincoln House to act as a sort of living memory of the Civil War and the 19th century in general.

When we entered his office, I could see my breath forming in front of me as the chill from the refrigeration units kept things down so the President’s two hundred year old body would not rot. I tried not to let it run up my spine as I stared at the man... once a man... before me, lit only by the light of the large plasma screens mounted on the wall behind him and above the door we had entered.

Two hundred years of gravity had distorted his facial features more than a bit, but it was still recognizably Abraham Lincoln sitting behind the broad antique desk, a seventy-two inch plasma screen mounted on the wall behind and above him. His hair looked natural, but that only made it seem all the more artificial to me, because his beard was long gone. His skin was a colorless grey, long since drained of blood, and it had pulled back slightly from his mouth, making his teeth prominent. His eyes were hooded under his large brows, staring right at me unblinking, his mind long since lost the now unnecessary habit along with breathing. His large hands lay flat and still on the desktop, resting on a modern computer keyboard. If he'd reacted at all when we entered I hadn't spotted it.

“Mister President, this is Detectives Blakely and Smalls from the Columbia Maryland Police Department. You remember me telling you about their request of course,” Dr. Jackson said. “Detective Blakely, Detective Smalls, allow me to introduce you to President Lincoln.”

I murmured something that might have been “Hello, sir,” matched be an equally inaudible greeting from Tim. The damned stare was getting to me, even though I perfectly well knew there wasn't anything to be afraid of. He was just one of the walking dead. Sitting dead, rather. Behind us, Dr. Jackson typed in our greetings into her Blackberry, which displayed them on foot high type on the plasma screen behind us.

Lincoln's eyes glanced up at the screen, then down to his keyboard. Laboriously, he began typing with two fingers. Glancing at the keyboard briefly, I could see someone had coated his fingertips with some kind of liquid bandage to protect them. On the screen behind him, his words were displayed.

GOOD MORNING, DETECTIVES. WELCOME TO MY HOME.

“Thank you, Mr. President. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a few questions about one of Lincoln House's employees, a man named Craig Longstreet. Do you recall him?”

Lincoln sat frozen for several moments after Dr. Jackson finished typing in my words onto the rear display. Then he began typing again.

CRAIG WORKED HERE FOR FIFTEEN YEARS. HE WAS PART OF MY ADVISORY COMMITTEE.

“Are you aware that he was murdered last week in Columbia?”

Pause. THE CITY OR THE COUNTRY?

For a moment, I wondered if he was making a joke. Certainly nothing like a smile crossed his face. Were those muscles even working any more? “The city sir, over in the state of Maryland.”

HIS LOSS IS A GREAT TRAGEDY. MARYLAND ALWAYS HAS BEEN A TROUBLED STATE.

It was my turn to pause at that one. Tim saved me by saying softly, “Maryland was pro-Union during the Civil War, but only barely. It was a slave state up until 1864. They had to garrison an artillery unit in Baltimore to stop the riots every time a Union troop train went through and stayed segregated up until the 60's.”

“They never taught me that in high school,” I muttered back. An annoyed cough behind us reminded me that we were still on the former president's dime. “Yes, sir. I was told that it was his job keeping you informed about the non-human political movements.”

THAT'S RIGHT. I HAVE A VESTED INTEREST IN THE RIGHTS OF THE OTHER THAN LIVING AS YOU CAN IMAGINE. That had to be a joke, but still no smile crossed his face.

I started rubbing my jaw nervously. Lincoln's reactions, or lack of same rather, were starting to bother me. He was as slack jawed as any of the walking dead, but this was supposed to be the man who's body had held onto his soul after having his head nearly shot off. Who had served four terms as president. Who's speeches in the 1960's and 70's had propped up Johnson's civil rights legislation and insured that Nixon resigned instead of fighting it out. He was the Republican Party's kingmaker. You didn't cross him, as Bush Jr. had found out early in his campaign bid, taking a hit from Lincoln's editorials in the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal over his lack of intellectual curiosity and empathy that the would be candidate never recovered from. Maybe the next four years of Al Gore hadn't exactly been pretty, but no one had ever accused the man of being a “Texas oilman by way of Harvard, who never met a book he wasn't willing to put down.”

What I was facing now, wasn't the same man. Couldn't be. Hell, the version of him that I had once seen down at the Hall of Presidents in Disney World looked more lively.

Tim was staring at me, wondering why I wasn't asking any more questions. I cleared my throat and continued. “Mr. President, did Craig Longstreet ever give any indication to you that he was sympathetic to anti-vampire extremists?”

NO.

“Were you aware of the fact that he had conducted an affair with Stacey Givens, of the Lunar Transformatives Rights group?

NO.

“Do you know of anyone who might have harbored a grudge against Mr. Longstreet?”

He paused a bit longer than before, then finally keyed in, HE WAS AN ADVOCATE OF THE OTHER LIVING. THAT MADE HIM THE TARGET OF ALL MANNER OF FOOLS.

I nodded. “That aside, do you know of anyone personally who might have wanted him dead?”

NO DETECTIVE.

I had run of questions, except for one last one, which came out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Are you real?”

I glanced behind me when I heard Dr. Jackson's typing stop. She gotten as far as “Are y--” before she'd realized what I was asking. Detective Blakely, you're out of line,” she hissed.

“Finish typing the question,” I said to her. “I want to hear what he has to say. Assuming that's really him, not just a big animatronic puppet being controlled down in the basement through a wireless connection.”

“That is Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States of America, standing right in front of you, Detective Blakely. If you can't wrap your mind around that then you may leave.”

“I've only got your word on that. Forgive me if I request for further identification, given the fact that he's giving testimony in a murder investigation.”

“Detective, if you have any doubts that's...” she cut herself off abruptly as both her and Tim's jaws dropped. I turned around just in time to see Lincoln, palm pressed flat on his desk, lever himself slowly to a standing position. As we stood there gaping he walked slowly, carefully around the desk. He was a mountain of a man. No, a redwood tree, tall and eternal. And he was walking up to me, joints popping as he held out a hand to me while Jackson whispered desperately into her cellphone, “He's moving! Yeah, you heard me right, he's moving on his own.”

I'm not a short guy by any means, but I felt like a child when his cold hand wrapped around mine and shook it gravely. His skin was cool and papery to the touch, reminding me of my grandfather's before the cancer had finally took him. Bits of old skin cracked around Lincoln's lips as he smiled as me, a dry rattle running through his throat as he deliberately drew in a breath and said in a soft whisper, “I'm real, son.”

“I- I- I'm sorry, sir. It was just...” I sputtered. Tim later said it was the only time he'd ever seen me at a loss for words. When I pointed out he hadn't said anything at all, he shut up about it.

“It's all right. Sometimes it's best...” he drew in another breath. “...if the world doesn't know what you're still...” Another breath, “...capable of.” He released my hand. I kinda left it hanging there for a bit while my brain rebooted.

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

“Find young Craig's killer... Let justice be done.”

“We will, sir,” I said.

“Thank you.” He turned and sat down again at his desk and typed, GOOD DAY GENTLEMEN.

We took the hint and fled, led by a shaking Dr. Jackson. When we were in the security vestibule, I asked her. “How often does he get up and speak like that nowadays?”

“He doesn't walk at all unassisted. I didn't even think he could speak or hear anymore!”

“Guess he was keeping that to himself,” I said. “Thank you for arranging the interview, Dr. Jackson.”

“Your welcome,” she said faintly, then escorted us out of the house and scurried back inside to find out what else her icon was going to do without notifying her or the rest of the staff.

“So what now?” Tim asked as we headed across the parking lot to our rental. “The interview was a bust. We didn't learn anything we didn't know before.”

“Just one thing,” I corrected. “We know that Lincoln, as old as he is, still keeps a few secrets to himself.”

“Makes ya wonder what everyone else is hiding,” he said.

“Yeah.”