The Impersonator (Leah Randall/Jessie Carr Novels)

by Miley, Mary

  Fog had not yet drawn its curtain over the city as we drove through the privileged neighborhood of Pacific Heights. Its streets were lined with mansions built to outdo their predecessors on Nob Hill in size and luxury. I gaped at the exuberant architecture, the widow’s walks, turrets, bulging bay windows, French chateaux, columned porticos, and fanciful Victorian gingerbread, some of which I recognized from Oliver’s picture books.

  “Here we are, miss,” said the driver as he stopped the car. He carried my valise to the door and waited for the maid to fetch my fare.

  My grandmother Beckett’s modest house reminded me that it was the Carr side of Jessie’s family that had been blessed with money, not the Becketts. A plain, older Victorian home squashed between overweening upstarts, my grandmother’s house sat back from the curb, a proud survivor of the horrendous San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and a remnant of a less ostentatious era. I remembered Oliver saying that the old lady was all that stood between it and the wrecking ball.

  As Oliver had instructed, I called her Grandmother. She was as he had described, cold and inscrutable. I didn’t mind a bit. The very idea of having a grandmother intrigued me. I thought she was fascinating.

  She gave me a searching look before presenting her cheek to kiss. It was dry and powdery and smelled of lavender. Her white hair wound in a bun on the back of her head. She looked me over slowly and silently. Her face was like a plaster death mask. I could read nothing from it. Had I passed her inspection?

  “Do come into the parlor, Jessie. Ruth will take your things upstairs.”

  “Will I have the usual room?” I asked, eager to prove myself.

  She looked puzzled. “Which room is that?”

  “The blue room in the back. Where I used to stay when I came with Mother and Father.”

  “Oh, did you? Yes, that’s right … the blue room … No, dear, Oliver is in that room. You may have the guest room on the third floor. Your young legs will manage the stairs. Ruth, take Jessie’s things up and then ask Delia to bring tea into the parlor. Be sure she includes some of those scones that Oliver likes.”

  “Is there any of Delia’s queen’s cake? It was always my favorite!”

  “Don’t try so hard, Jessie. I would not mistake my own granddaughter, even after seven years. We believe you. Ah, here’s Oliver.”

  At last! I desperately needed some time alone with Oliver to tell him about the hotel fire, but Grandmother showed no sign of leaving us alone, even for a minute. We had a touching reunion where he exclaimed over the lovely young lady I had grown into, and I remarked how the years hadn’t changed him at all. We retired to the parlor where I blinked in surprise to see several of the photos I had studied only last week displayed on tables draped with Irish lace. There were so many framed photographs, I understood how Oliver had managed to borrow some of them without his mother noticing. I vowed to examine them all carefully as soon as I had some time to myself. I wanted to learn everything I could about Jessie, and the simplest way seemed to be through her photographs.

  Warmed by a cheerful fire, I covered up my impatience with a calm outward manner. We spoke of the weather and the approaching elections. Coolidge had received the Republican nomination for president last month. The Democrats had chosen an obscure West Virginian. “No one I have talked to has heard anything about John Davis,” said Oliver, who expressed his assurance that President Coolidge would win a second term. “You will be twenty-one by the time of the November election,” he added. “I trust your first ballot will be cast for a Republican?”

  I said I hadn’t given it much thought. “Politics is not a game vaudeville plays. Performers are constantly on the move, and without a permanent legal residence, they can’t register to vote.”

  “Now that you have a permanent home, you’ll want to break that tradition,” Oliver said. “Decent people need to cast their ballots, or the democratic process will be overwhelmed by the self-serving votes of the ignorant rabble.”

  I assured him that I would vote as he did himself, putting the welfare of the country before personal, selfish interests. His eyes narrowed in warning.

  Grandmother made clear her disapproval of female suffrage, granted only four years ago. It was not ladylike to vote, and she would not demean herself by pushing into an election hall crowd to cast a ballot for some man she hadn’t even been introduced to socially. Oddly enough, she encouraged me to do that very thing. “Voting is for young people who have a stake in the future.”

  It seemed like hours passed before Grandmother retired for her afternoon nap. Finally, I could tell Oliver about events in Sacramento!

  “How did it go?” he asked as soon as his mother was out of earshot.

  “I killed ’em,” I said smugly.

  “Don’t get overconfident. Tomorrow I’m going to suggest that Mother go with you to Dexter and stay a week with Victoria and the children. I think she’ll agree if I accompany her, and I’ll allow myself to be persuaded after a little arm-twisting. With the trustees’ backing, and Mother’s and mine, you’ll walk into that house with a presumption of legitimacy.”

  “There’s been … Something’s been worrying me. I was staying at the Grande Hotel.” Quickly, I filled him in on the room search, Brown Fedora, and the Grande Hotel fire. Even unflappable Oliver raised his eyebrows at that last bit.

  “And you think all this was the work of the same man?”

  “I don’t know what to think. Who else but the trustees would have had my room searched? That made sense, and we expected it. But the shadow? Maybe he wasn’t tailing me to see where I was going; maybe he was trying to find a quiet alley where he could knock me in the head.”

  “Maybe he was trying to protect you.”

  “From what?” Oliver turned up his hands in the universal gesture that meant, Who knows? “So maybe this fella burned down the Grande Hotel. What I can’t figure out is why Mr. Wade or one of the trustees would want Jessie dead. And no one else knew where I was staying, so it had to be one of them. You didn’t know, did you?”

  He shook his head. “Severinus Wade has played this close to the chest.”

  “No one else knew.”

  “Au contraire, my dear. All the trustees might have known, not to mention anyone who worked in Wade’s office. Let me think.”

  He stared into the fireplace for several minutes until I grew impatient and interrupted the silence. “I asked myself, why would the trustees want to kill Jessie? If they thought I was an imposter, they would have called the police. But no, they believed me. They were delighted I’d come home.”

  “They damn well should have been. They’ve made fat fees for the past seven years managing Carr Industries, and when Jessie inherits, they’ll be able to continue their service. The Carr brothers were certain to terminate them and run the company themselves, but you couldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “A woman can’t run a big company,” he said sneeringly.

  “What if one of the trustees has been skimming funds and needs to cover up his crime?”

  “By killing Jessie? Hardly. The truth is, all of the trustees are probably helping themselves to extras. So what? You aren’t equipped to expose them. They aren’t worried about you.”

  He considered the circumstances a while longer, then pronounced his conclusion. “The fire was a coincidence. A lucky break for me—you might have been killed if you hadn’t checked out. The newspaper said it started in the kitchen, a logical place. There was no mention of arson. The man following you was probably the same one who searched your room, by order of Severinus Wade, as a precaution. Could even have been a Pinkerton. You said yourself that they were going to hire Pinkertons to investigate. But they know you’ve come here, and they know you’re going to Oregon, so if they want to shadow you, it won’t be hard. We’ll watch for it, but I don’t think it will be a problem.”

  A coincidence. That was the only logical explanation.

  11

  As vaudeville li
ngo would have it, I had killed ’em at a one-night stand in Sacramento and jumped to San Francisco where I played to a small and easily satisfied audience. Coming off rave reviews, I jumped to Portland, a tougher venue but one where, if opening reviews were positive, I could look forward to an engagement of as many weeks as I cared to perform. From there I envisioned long holidays in Italy, southern France, Greece, or wherever the climate was endlessly sunny, the food fresh and plentiful, and the people welcoming. This dream, nurtured by the travel books Oliver had given me to study, kept me focused on perfecting my role.

  I had twice in my life played Portland, Salem, and Eugene, a trio of Oregon cities that adored vaudeville. That made it easy for Jessie’s story to hinge on having joined a vaudeville act in Portland instead of returning home after her runaway adventure. I had some hazy recall of Portland’s rivers and bridges and a large mountain hovering nearby, and some pretty clear memories of the theaters we’d played, should anyone ask.

  Never mind that I had spent so much of my life on trains that I sleep better sitting up than lying down, our trip north to Oregon brought a surprise. Grandmother, Oliver, and I rode the six hundred miles from San Francisco to Portland in two first-class compartments that came with berths and a lanky Negro porter whose only job was to think up ways to make our journey more comfortable.

  Dusk had arrived by the time we reached Portland, but low-hanging clouds made it seem more like night. It took two taxis to ferry the three of us and our luggage from the station to the opulent Hotel Benson in the heart of the city. As we approached the intersection of Broadway and Oak, our driver turned to Oliver. “Looks like some parked cars are blocking the main entrance, sir. I can pull up beside them or half a block ahead, whatever you like.”

  Oliver peered out the window. “There isn’t much traffic this time of day,” he said. “Just get as close as you can to the awning, boy, so my mother doesn’t have too far to walk.”

  The driver double-parked in front of the main entrance and our second taxi followed suit. No sooner had we alighted than a bellhop scurried out to take charge of our luggage. A doorman swung wide the front door for Grandmother who made her way slowly toward the sidewalk on Oliver’s arm. It was pretty quiet for downtown. On the opposite side of the street, a couple strolled hand in hand and a man walked his dog. Gaslights glowed in the evening gloom and two motorcars drove past, giving us a wide berth.

  The hotel building was boxy and tall—at least a dozen stories—and I craned my neck to make out the striking roofline as I stood beside the taxi, waiting for the drivers to unload all our belongings. A motorcar started up in the block behind me, its engine getting louder as it came closer, but my attention was on a lively party that had just spilled out of an unmarked speakeasy across the way. All at once, several of that group were shouting and pointing to a car bearing down on us. And there in the street beside the double-parked taxi in the midst of our luggage, I stood … directly in its path.

  “Watch out!” called the bellhop as he leaped to the safety of the sidewalk. I dove between two of the parked vehicles a split second before the speeding car roared past, coming so close that I felt its bumper slap the hem of my skirt. So close I could see the driver’s squint eyes and big nose over the steering wheel. Never slowing, he rounded the corner with an earsplitting squeal of tires on pavement, scattering our luggage, smacking sloppily into the opposite curb, and scraping against a gaslight. Had the driver of an oncoming vehicle not slammed its brakes and honked, there would have been a serious collision as well.

  One of the taxi drivers swore. “You all right, lady? I never seen such crazy driving in all my born days.”

  “That fella must’ve been drunk,” agreed the other. “He was all over the road.”

  Oliver rushed to my side. I tried to assure everyone that I was fine, but I had to take several deep breaths to steady my racing pulse. “I’m not hurt. And it was partly our fault. We shouldn’t have been unloading here in the middle of the street.”

  “We don’t let cars park here at the entrance,” said the bellman. “I don’t know who let ’em park here. That’s what caused the trouble. I’m going to call the police to come give ’em what for. And a ticket.”

  The three men scrambled to collect our bags, battered but not broken, while Oliver guided me toward the lobby. “Maybe the Prohibitionists are right after all,” I said to him, only half joking. “I hope that idiot gets home before he kills someone.”

  I looked around for Grandmother. She hadn’t moved from her spot at the hotel entrance where she had had a front-row view of the mishap, and she was staring, unblinking, not at me but at the corner where the drunk had disappeared from view. Then she gave me a long, measured look. I knew what she was thinking. Before she could speak, Oliver gently took her arm, breaking her concentration. The three of us crossed the threshold together.

  As Oliver paused to speak to the desk clerk, Grandmother drew me aside.

  “You could have been killed,” she said in a low voice.

  I nodded. “Accidents happen.”

  “Accidents can be made to happen.”

  “I wondered the same thing,” I admitted. “But only for a moment. No one knew when we were arriving, or even which hotel we would choose. And no one could predict that our taxi would unload in the street, or that I would stand near it. It was an accident.”

  Accident. Coincidence. The words taunted me. If Mr. Wade had spoken of our trip to others in his office, news might have leaked. It was no secret that I was traveling to Oregon and there were only so many train possibilities. But the rest? Staging that drama with all the cars would be no easy task. Was someone trying to kill Jessie? Or scare her away? Was it because they thought I was Jessie, or because they thought I wasn’t Jessie? I reassured myself that at the first sign of real danger, I would skip town, change my name, and return to the safety of vaudeville. I could always find something there. If there were any more coincidences in Dexter, I’d cancel the charade and do a flit. But I’d give it a couple more days.

  “It was just an accident,” I reassured Grandmother. She didn’t look convinced.

  Still, I would be glad to reach the Carr estate in Dexter where I would be safe.

  Years of living in cheap hotels and boardinghouses had not prepared me for the luxurious Benson, a veritable palace built by Simon Benson, lumber baron and friend of Jessie’s father. Oliver had procured for us the Presidential Suite—no president had ever darkened its door but it was ready and waiting should one stroll by. Remembering my fondness for champagne, he arranged for the chef to send up a meal of sautéed salmon on delicately herbed rice at our arrival, along with a chilled bottle of bubbly. What a life!

  “The story goes,” said Oliver, gesturing toward the polished paneled walls and massive columns that stood in the lobby like tree trunks in an enchanted woodland, “that this rare figured walnut came all the way from the czar’s forests in Russia, and when the bill arrived, it was so immense that Benson fainted when he saw it.” If he was trying to take my mind off the close call, he did not succeed.

  “Will I faint, like Simon Benson did, when I see our bill?” I asked idly after we had settled into our suite and Grandmother was out of earshot. I had speculated that Oliver was up to his usual mooching ways with some friend at the hotel. Silly me. The rise in Oliver’s standard of living had already begun.

  “Don’t bother your pretty head about expenses, my dear. This is how the heiress to the Carr fortune is expected to travel. Must travel, in point of fact. I don’t concern myself with mundane matters of money; I simply forward the bills to Severinus Wade.”

  Somehow, I had imagined that Carr cash would not start flowing until I reached the magic age of twenty-one. But no, Oliver had turned on the spigot and money was gushing like water from a broken main. This heiress gig was nice work.

  Unless it got you killed.

  12

  The next morning, after an extravagant breakfast, Grandmother, Oliver, and I left
to catch the train for the short trip west—seventy-five miles or so—to Dexter, a small town on a small bay tucked behind a spit of land that formed a natural harbor all but invisible to passing boats. The town had prospered for decades, first from gold mining and salmon fishing, then lumbering. It was the last business that brought Jessie’s parents for a visit during the early years of their marriage. Lawrence Carr loved the hunting and fishing and his wife found the cool summer climate delightful and the town quaint, so on a whim, they ordered a summer cottage built overlooking the ocean on one of the highest points of land on the west coast of America. They lived long enough to visit it once.

  My heart beat faster in anticipation. My mind’s eye conjured up a tender family scene—Aunt Victoria, Henry, Ross, and the twins, Caroline and Valerie, gathered on the platform to greet me as we arrived at the Dexter station. I’d rehearsed my little speech, a longer version of the one I’d given the trustees in Sacramento, along with a heartfelt apology for the worries I’d caused and a promise to make it up to them. I would acknowledge their doubts and encourage their questions so I could prove myself quickly. I expected a trick or two, something along the order of the fake grandmother, and braced mentally for the challenge. With luck, I’d be a genuine member of the family by the end of the evening.

  We disembarked that afternoon onto a wooden platform at Dexter’s train station. Our porter deposited the bags in the shade of the eaves, and we joined them there just as a thin bald man ambled over and introduced himself. His name was Clyde. I had no idea if I should know Clyde or not. Oliver had not mentioned him in the lecture on servants, so I waited with bated breath for a cue from Clyde himself.

  “Welcome home, Miss Carr,” he said unhelpfully, lifting his hat to Grandmother and me.