The Impersonator (Leah Randall/Jessie Carr Novels)

by Miley, Mary

  I remembered Jessie’s last letter to Grandmother. Was there another reason Henry might have wanted Jessie out of the way? What was Henry’s secret? What hold did Jessie have over him? Something serious enough to make him kill her? And Ross. He had tried to lock her in the basement once—but surely that was just a childish act of intimidation. Wasn’t it?

  I cast back to our first encounter and replayed that scene through my head. That pasty pallor. The ready-to-run stance. Henry had been terrified that Jessie really had returned. I was certain of it, then and now. If he or his father had caused Jessie’s death, he’d have known I was an impostor, yet, at least initially, he had showed doubt. Days later, at the dinner table with David, he’d said, “I know you’re not Jessie.” At the time, I hadn’t given his choice of words much thought, but looking back, the significance of the verb crashed over my head like thunder. Not “I think you’re not Jessie,” but “I know.”

  All at once, I knew what had happened.

  Henry hadn’t physically killed Jessie, he had locked her in the warehouse closet and left her to die. When I showed up seven years later claiming to be Jessie, he had to face the real possibility that Jessie had somehow escaped and run off. That day I met him, he was expecting me to rat on him and was ready to hightail it out of Oregon the moment I accused him of attempted murder. When I didn’t accuse him of anything, he was pretty sure I was an impostor. So he went back to the scene of the crime to check whether Jessie’s body was still in the warehouse. It was. So now he knew I wasn’t Jessie, as he said to me at dinner that night. By setting the building on fire, he made sure Jessie’s remains would be found. As soon as the body was identified, I would be exposed. He’d be rid of me. He and his siblings would reclaim the Carr fortune.

  That was the worst part, that they would get Jessie’s inheritance. They would win. She would have hated that. And I hated it too, more for her sake than for mine.

  Word of the body spread faster than the fire, reaching Cliff House before Ross and I returned with our supplies.

  “It’s horrifying,” proclaimed Aunt Victoria as we carried our paint cans up to the ballroom. “Simply horrifying. Soon we’ll all be murdered in our beds! A nice town like Dexter and two murders in two weeks!”

  The ever-practical Ross pointed out that the murders were separated by many years. “The woman in the warehouse was probably killed before we ever moved to Dexter, Mother.” I refrained from adding anything about the strangled Chinese girl. No need to add to my aunt’s anxieties.

  Henry was absent from the dinner table that night, which meant we could skip the speechifying. Aunt Victoria, who had kept all news of the body in the warehouse away from the twins, kept up an inane prattle designed, I was sure, to divert our thoughts. I was toying with my food when she resurrected the shopping trip to Portland. Caroline’s cold had mended, she said brightly, and the original plan was back on schedule. It made my flight simpler.

  “We’ll catch the first train tomorrow morning. Jessie can drive us to the station and leave the runabout there overnight, can’t you, dear?”

  “We’ll all go,” said Oliver. “Mother and I have outstayed our welcome”—he held his hands up to ward off the vehement protestations that they were welcome at Cliff House until Doomsday—“and we can catch the train to San Francisco the next day.”

  As long as I was leaving, it didn’t matter who was coming with me as far as Portland. Once I got there, I’d say I was going to stay an extra day and then disappear.

  I spent my last night at Cliff House wishing I didn’t have to leave. The worst of it was, I’d let Jessie down. Like everyone else in her life.

  28

  The next morning Aunt Victoria put her foot wrong and slid down three steps in the cellar, spraining her ankle. Dr. Milner hurried over, wrapped it in stiff bandages, and gave her aspirin for the pain and swelling.

  “No trips for you, Mrs. Carr,” he pronounced.

  “I’m terribly sorry, girls,” she said sadly. “Our shopping trip seems cursed! The doctor says I must sit with my foot raised for several days to rest this sprain. How silly of me to be so careless. We’ll go next week, I promise!”

  But the twins, in a now-or-never frame of mind, whined that it wasn’t really for them, it was for poor Jessie who was growing weak from lack of exercise, and if she didn’t go shopping for a riding habit and a tennis costume soon, she would have to take to her bed.

  “Why don’t Mother and I supervise the girls?” asked Oliver. “We’ll ride into Portland tomorrow morning as planned and stay the night with the young ladies at the Benson. The next day, Mother and I can leave for San Francisco and the girls can return home.”

  “Yes, yes!” The twins were ecstatic. Aunt Victoria graciously consented, and the trip was back on.

  I walked Doc Milner to his sedan so I could snatch a private moment.

  “Any developments in the death of the Indian girl?” I began.

  “Nope.”

  I could hear Ross telling me, “No one will care.”

  “Do they know who she was yet?”

  “Some girl off the reservation. Killamook, someone said. Strangled, and her head cracked by a club or something.”

  As if she were stunned first and then throttled. I winced. “Have they found her killer?”

  He shook his head. “And they never will. It was probably a lover’s quarrel turned ugly. Or tribal vengeance. The Killamooks hate the Umpquas or the Chinooks, or maybe it’s the Chinooks who hate the Killamooks. I can’t keep track of such folderol.”

  “I heard about the body they found yesterday,” I said to him.

  “You and everyone else in town. A shame good news doesn’t travel as fast.”

  “I suppose it will be a long while before the coroner rules on the cause of death. Any idea who she is?”

  “No one from these parts, that’s for sure,” he said. “Unless I’m badly mistaken, however, the girl’s death was caused by strangulation. Her neck was broken, which doesn’t happen in strangulation unless the violence is extreme. As for who she was, no one can name any young woman with dark hair who’s gone missing in the past few years.”

  “Dark hair?” I blurted, my heart in my throat. Dear God, it wasn’t Jessie after all! It couldn’t have been Jessie, not with dark hair! Only my grip on the stair rail kept me from melting to the ground.

  A great wave of relief washed over me when I realized what this meant. I was safe. I could stay. I was still Jessie.

  “Yes, dark brown. Why the surprise?”

  “I—well. I heard different, that’s all.” I was flabbergasted almost beyond speech. “And … and someone said you put her death at five or ten years ago.”

  “That was my first thought when I saw the remains, judging from the state of decomposition. Now I think her death took place in late September of 1919.”

  “How on earth did you arrive at that?”

  “For one thing, the color and weight of the fabrics did not suggest spring or summer, and there was no coat, which would have suggested winter, so that leaves autumn. But before you admire my Sherlock Holmes powers of observation, let me confess that when the remains were taken up later that day, there was a scrap of a Portland newspaper in her handbag dated September 17, 1919. Makes me wonder if she wasn’t from Portland.”

  “Was there anything strange about her hair?”

  “Not that I noticed,” said the doctor, “but I did not conduct an examination. Her hair was in disarray.” His bushy eyebrows met in disapproval. “You sound like the sheriff with all these questions.”

  Before I had to respond there came a shout from the front steps. “Hey, Doc!” It was Ross. “Hilda just telephoned to tell you Mrs. Beazley’s baby has started to come and to meet them at the house.”

  “Damnation,” he muttered. “Six weeks early … and Dexter with no incubator. I was hoping she—never mind. Now you keep your aunt off her feet or that ankle will never mend.”

  My explanation for Je
ssie’s death was so much horse manure. The flaws in my theory had been right in front of me all along. For one, why would Henry have waited so long to check the warehouse? Why not do it before I had even arrived at Cliff House, instead of attempting to expose me with tricks and delaying for a couple of weeks? And the warehouse girl had been strangled, so there could have been no uncertainty about her death that would have drawn Henry back to check. No, Henry hadn’t killed Jessie. I didn’t like him, but that didn’t mean he’d killed anyone.

  And why was I so certain Jessie was dead? Could she not be waiting until her twenty-first birthday to return home? What made me think she’d come to Dexter at all? The Smith and Wade office in Sacramento made more sense. Perhaps she was there now, and they were getting ready to spring the trap on her impersonator.

  29

  On Friday morning as we were making ready to leave for Portland, Grandmother had a sudden change of heart. She would stay at Cliff House a while longer. She was having a lovely visit and saw no reason to cut it short. She would remain until Jessie’s birthday, then she and I could ride the train south together when I returned to Sacramento and the trustees.

  No one was more surprised at this turnabout than I. Grandmother had spent her days at the fringe of activity, saying little, dozing often, arranging a vase of flowers now and then, and attracting no attention—but she was an acerbic old woman, and she was keeping an eye on Henry and Ross for me after I told her about the two menacing incidents on the bluff. I was delighted that she would stay. She was my only ally, the only person who genuinely cared about me, and I felt safer with her watching my back. Uncle Oliver, on the other hand, needed to leave. His past visits to Cliff House had never lasted so long, and he feared deviation from the pattern could bring unwanted speculation. Besides, an old friend was sailing into San Francisco soon and Oliver wanted to be on the dock to greet him.

  So Oliver, the twins, and I climbed aboard the early train to Portland, and before the clock’s hands pointed north, we had deposited our valises in a commodious suite at the Benson Hotel, with Oliver in a bachelor’s room down the hall. Like puppies pulling at a leash, the twins were wild to reach the stores and the Friday Surprise.

  “I’ll meet you girls in the dining room at eight,” Oliver said to me. “Do try not to deplete the entire Carr fortune in one afternoon.” Oliver was becoming quite possessive of the Carr fortune. For the hundredth time, I wondered how he planned to get his hands on it without attracting any notice. I could hardly write him a big check without arousing questions.

  This week’s Friday Surprise involved silverware, men’s hats, and ice cream, only one of which interested my young cousins, but the electricity generated by the sale crackled in the air along Sixth Street before we had even reached the entrance. Our plan was to look over all the finer retailers on Friday and return to buy on Saturday, however, Friday evening found us still at Meier & Frank’s.

  “This is awful,” wailed Caroline at the dinner table, attacking her beef Wellington as if it had caused the time to fly. “The last train leaves at two o’clock tomorrow. We won’t have enough time for Eastern Outfitting or Roberts Brothers or that little dress shop or anything!”

  “Why don’t we stay another night?” I asked, masking my own eagerness to extend the trip. Coming home Sunday afternoon would mean another day in the stores, but my real interest lay across town. The Portland theater district was calling my name.

  I’d been seized with an attack of homesickness the moment we arrived in the city. The inescapable pull of vaudeville was growing by the minute, and I knew how the ancient Greek sailors felt when they passed the Sirens, hearing their bewitching songs and leaping off their ships. It would be prudent for me to keep in mind their fate—death on the rocks. But in my entire life I had never been parted one day from vaudeville, and today marked the sixth week of our separation. I missed it, suddenly and with a sharp desperation that made my stomach ache and turned the food in my mouth to sand. The sound of the audience settling into their seats, the smell of flop sweat and greasepaint on players in the wings, the sense of anticipation that makes the pulse race with excitement as one’s act is announced—I wanted it all and I wanted it now. I needed it now. Intense longing for that heart-thumping moment when the curtain rises, the music bursts out of the pit, and the heat of the spotlight meets the skin made my breath come faster, and I twitched with impatience to get to the hotel’s front desk for a copy of Variety to see who was in town this week. But I could not do any of this with Oliver clinging to us like a Spanish duenna to her maidens, so my chief goal became his departure tomorrow. If he knew I was planning a visit to the theater, he’d lock me in my room.

  “I’ll telephone your mother,” I said, “and persuade her to let you stay another day.” If she wouldn’t agree, I’d bundle the girls onto the train and stay the extra day myself.

  “Oh, yes, Jessie, you can convince her! I know you can!” said Caroline. “She likes you.”

  “Whatever her response,” I said, “you needn’t delay your trip south, Uncle Oliver.”

  He dabbed his lips on the napkin and gave me a needle-sharp look. “It would not be inconvenient for me to stay another night, my dear. Propriety and all.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’ve been taking care of myself for seven years now, and I think I can manage one more night in a luxurious hotel … with two mature cousins for company,” I added for their benefit. “We’ll see what Aunt Victoria says.”

  Aunt Victoria needed little persuasion, especially when I let it be understood, without precisely saying so, that Oliver would remain close at hand. “I’m sure you’re a more competent chaperone than I could be, Jessie,” she said. “And the stores are all so convenient to the hotel, I don’t worry about you straying into undesirable parts of town.”

  When we retired to our suite to plan Saturday’s assault on Portland’s retail houses, I tucked a folded copy of Variety under my arm.

  The next morning we bade farewell to Uncle Oliver at the train station and then hopped the streetcar for Tenth and Washington—Eastern Outfitting’s five floors of clothing and household goods. By early afternoon we had returned to Meier & Frank’s to be fitted for riding habits. Mine was a soft fawn color that made me almost look forward to an outing on Lady’s back, theirs in darker shades carefully chosen to look different from one another. I found a ready-made tennis costume—pleated bloomers, very stylish—and proper shoes to go with it, several day frocks with the new-fashion drop waist, five becoming hats, some ritzy evening wear, a couple of cashmere sweaters, several scarves, and six pairs of shoes, some with ankle straps and comfortable low heels, and art silk stockings to wear with them. I topped it off with a crystal bottle of jasmine perfume that smelled good enough to eat. On instructions from Aunt Victoria, who had pointed out that the girls’ wrists were protruding from their winter coats, we bought new ones all around as the twins sighed over the latest shawl collars and wrap-over fasteners.

  We rode the elevator to the sixth-floor music section where I chose a number of records I thought would prove useful in the days ahead, and to the luggage department where the staff insisted that a Hermès was the only leather valise worthy of Miss Carr’s wardrobe. At every step of the way, syrupy salesladies swarmed like honeybees to ripe pears, measuring our waists, recommending flattering colors, producing ropes of matching beads, suggesting smart hats and gloves, offering their honest opinions—and charging it all to the bottomless pit known as the Carr account. Alterations would be performed by Chinese tailors sewing into the wee hours, then everything would be brushed, ironed, boxed, wrapped, and delivered to the train station in the morning. I never knew shopping could be so much like a magic act.

  “What do you think, shall we have an early dinner and go to the eight o’clock show?”

  “You mean vaudeville?” Caroline asked incredulously.

  “The Egyptian Theater is pulling at me like a magnet,” I said recklessly. “I checked Variety to
see who was on the bill and I know a couple of the acts playing there this week.” That was an understatement. One of my oldest friends was onstage this week—Benny Kubelsky.

  The twins exchanged a silent, wide-eyed message. “We’ve never seen a vaudeville show,” said Valerie, hesitating a little.

  I wasn’t aware there was anyone over the age of six who hadn’t seen a vaudeville show, but these girls had been wrapped in cotton wool for their entire lives, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Well then, the Egyptian is the place to start. It’s brand spanking new. I haven’t been there myself, but I’ve heard it’s a spectacle. Are you game, or shall I go alone?”

  “We’ll go!”

  “Good. Then keep hold of one of your new frocks and we’ll dress up for the occasion—your first time in a theater and my first time to pay for ducats. We’ll get box seats, seventy-five cents each, the best in the house. No dime gallery for the Carr girls!” I said gaily, trying to reassure the niggling voice inside my head warning me that a vaudeville theater was the last place I should venture at this stage of the game.

  30

  The Union Street Egyptian Theater hadn’t been built when the Little Darlings last played Portland in ’22. Back then we’d been booked at the Nob Hill, and when I was much younger, I’d performed at one or two of the Foster Road theaters, but the Egyptian outshone everything else Portland had to offer. Freshly painted with lotus-flower motifs, slathered with decorative pyramids and colorful urns, it was one of many such theaters built during the King Tut craze that had seized the country ever since archaeologists had stumbled upon the boy pharaoh’s tomb. Egyptian architecture, Egyptian furniture, Egyptian wallpaper, Egyptian jewelry, even Egyptian-looking eyes made up with dark mascara and plucked brows … anything Egyptian was all the rage.