Alias Mrs Jones

by Kate McLachlan

  I had been to Minthorn’s before, but not for the soda fountain. A long counter, with syrup pumps and canisters of carbonation, was built beside the back wall. Behind it stood a young man wearing a collar and a red and white striped vest surrounded by shiny glasses and bowls. A row of tall stools stood in front of the counter, but they were all empty. Adelaide did not lead me there, though, but to a small table nearby with two dainty chairs. We sat, and the man came around the counter and approached us.

  “Hello Dr. Keating,” he said. “It’s good to see you here. I was beginning to think I ought to close up shop and head into Spokane myself, it’s been so slow.”

  “Hello Vernon. Will you bring us two glasses of Coca-Cola please?”

  He scurried off and returned a moment later with two clear glasses filled with the brown liquid. Paper straws popped out the top and bubbles raced up the inside of the glass. I took a sip and winced as the bubbles stung my throat. I sat back.

  At that, as if to keep the distance between us narrow, Adelaide leaned forward, crossed her arms on the table, and said, “So you might as well have confided in me after all. The whole town knows your secret now, and it’s not so bad, is it?” I could not gage her mood. She smiled but did not seem happy. “Tell me, Mrs. Jones, is there a Mr. Jones out there looking for you?”

  “No. I am a widow.”

  “Oh, I know that’s the story being told, but you and I both know you didn’t injure your arm from a fall on the train.” Her look was pointed. “To tell the truth, I find it hard to believe that you assumed Miss Chumley’s identity solely because you wanted a teaching position. You’re not the first wife to run away from an abusive husband to start a new life under an alias. You’re not even the first such woman in Hillyard. My dear, I wish you would tell me the truth.”

  I lowered my head and bit my lip. Her kindness made me blink. I wanted to trust her, and she had guessed so much of my story already, but she hadn’t guessed the last part, the worst part. I couldn’t let her. It would be better to let her think she had guessed it all.

  “I’m ashamed,” I whispered.

  She reached over and put her hand on mine. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. Some men are simply born cruel. You wouldn’t believe the number of wives and children I’ve had to patch up in my job.”

  I turned my hand in hers and looked up.

  She smiled again, and this time it reached her eyes. “I’d rather not call you Mrs. Jones, and I can’t call you Mabel anymore. What is your given name? Please don’t say Mary Bennett.”

  “My name is Eleanor,” I said, “but I’ve always been called Nell.”

  “Nell. I like it. It suits you better than Mabel. So, Nell, what did Marshal Mitchell want with you that had you looking so frightened?”

  I made a face and tried not to look as frightened as a really was. “It’s about Mr. Stanfield. I told the marshal how I met Mr. Stanfield on the train, but I was Miss Chumley then. I told him I boarded in Minot, North Dakota. He’ll ask me again, and I can’t tell him the truth. What if he tells my h-husband? What if he sends me back?”

  Adelaide frowned. “I can talk to him for you, if you like. I’ll explain the injuries you had when you arrived.”

  “No! Please, Adelaide, don’t tell. I truly don’t want him to know. I’ll figure something out.”

  She squeezed my fingers. “I won’t tell.” She put her lips to the straw, drew up a mouthful of Coca Cola, and squinted a smile at me. “And I won’t let him send you back, Nell.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I WENT INTO Spokane the next day after school. The trolley was crowded, but it was not as busy as it had been the day before. Most of the men stood grasping poles to keep their balance and a few stood on the outside platform and smoked, which left seats enough for the women and children. I sat beside a window near the front. The conductor moved up the center row of the trolley collecting fares, and I handed him my nickel. Moments later the trolley lurched forward, and I watched through the window as Hillyard slid out of view. It didn’t take long. Aside from the railroad yards, there wasn’t much more to Hillyard than I had already seen.

  We trundled through fields of prairie grass and small stands of scruffy pine trees, occasionally passing farmhouses along the way. As we drew closer to the city, the farmhouses gave way to clusters of houses on shiny new streets and several lots marked with string and surveyors’ posts. The city was growing. We rounded a curve, headed down a hill, and crossed over a tall wooden trestle. I peered down at a turbulent river that surged into a frothing waterfall, and then we were in the city.

  Spokane was small by New York standards, but it was larger than any city I’d been in since St. Paul. Sturdy brick buildings of five, six, and seven stories lined the main streets, which were busy with trolleys coming in from every direction, competing with buggies, bicycles, pedestrians, and even a few automobiles. There was nothing old. Nearly the entire city had been built in the last twenty years.

  Since marrying Robert, my clothing had been made of fine material and sewn by the best seamstresses, but the colors and styles were refined to the point of invisibility and not, I might add, of my own choosing. I had always longed for a bit a dash in my dress, like the shop girls who walked about New York laughing and flirting when they got off work.

  I located the Crescent Department Store and found the styles I’d always wanted. I fingered stripes and solids and plaids, fringes and ruffles and ribbons, and finally decided on a skirt of blue and green plaid with a thread of purple running through it. A matching ribbon for my neck and a pleated white shirtwaist completed the outfit. It would not be appropriate for teaching, but I loved it too much not to buy it. For school, I purchased a plain blue skirt with a severe blue necktie to match. My few purchases only made me want more, and I moved on to other departments. Soon I had new boots, perfume, and a small art square rug for my sitting room.

  Most glorious of all, I bought a hat. Not just any hat, but a hat of white silk, black net, and velvet with a deep blue silk velvet bow over the brim. Intricate silk roses held the bow in place, and to top it off were two giant ostrich plumes in deep blue to match the bow. At $5.95, it was the most expensive hat in the store, but I had to have it. I wore it out of the store.

  By the time I returned to the trolley stop, it had grown dark and cold, and the flood of passengers to and from Hillyard had diminished to a trickle. I had more packages than I could easily carry, especially with my bad arm. I stacked them one on top of the other, with the weight carried on my left arm, and used my right to help balance them. The hat box I carried over my fingers by its satin strings.

  A trolley was supposed to leave Spokane for Hillyard every fifteen minutes, but I must have just missed one. I stood for some time, with the packages growing heavier and my arm dipping lower, and I had just decided I regretted purchasing the rug, when the trolley rounded the corner and stopped.

  The conductor was not the same man who’d taken my nickel on the way into town, but I still recognized him. He was the rough man who’d scared me away from the trolley during the strike, but he didn’t seem to recognize me.

  “Good evening, miss,” he said. He lifted the bulk of my packages from my arms and set them on a sideways seat right behind the motorman. “Sit here, miss. It’s the best seat in the car.” He favored me with a bold stare, a grin, and a waggle of thick eyebrows. He was covered in freckles and seemed far less frightening than he had during the strike.

  “Oh?” I settled myself in the seat. Aside from facing the aisle, it seemed much the same as any other seat.

  “Yes, indeed.” He kicked the wooden casing below my seat. “There’s an electric heater under the seat. Feel it?”

  I placed my hand on the seat and felt warmth. I noticed then that the heat had seeped through the layers of my skirt and petticoats to reach my bottom. I looked up and saw he watched me with a smart grin. He knew what I was feeling and even where I was feeling it. Good heavens, if this was the sort of behav
ior ostrich feathers attracted, no wonder those shop girls were sometimes called fast.

  Before I could decide whether to be insulted or flattered, he moved away to collect fares. There were plenty of seats on this trip, so men joined the ladies riding inside, away from the cold. Just before the time set for departure, a swarthy man with a black mustache and whiskery cheeks boarded and sat in the sideways seat opposite me. He didn’t look at me, but sat forward, his elbows on his knees, and watched the conductor make his way back to the front.

  The conductor saw the dark man and stopped short. “Ferraro,” he said, disgust in his voice. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Watch your language, O’Leary,” the man said. “There’s a lady present.”

  O’Leary barely glanced my way and said, “Sorry, ma’am,” before turning again to the dark man. “I ought to throw you right off this train.”

  “Strike’s over,” Ferraro said. His voice was as calm as O’Leary’s was agitated. “My nickel’s as good as anyone else’s.”

  “No it ain’t,” O’Leary said. “Not when you earned it taking food from babies’ mouths. Ma’am, this guinea’s a da—a dratted scab. You know what that is? He took our jobs during the strike. He made forty cents an hour when we were striking for a raise to twenty-eight.”

  “I got babies too,” Ferraro said.

  O’Leary signaled the motorman to go, his complexion florid. I looked down at my lap. It was too dark to see anything out the window, and I couldn’t look at anything inside the trolley without either first looking at Mr. Ferraro, who sat directly across from me, or pointedly not looking at him, which was just as awkward. I pretended to be invisible.

  “The marshal was looking for you, you know,” O’Leary said.

  “I don’t know nothing about it.”

  “I never said what it was about,” O’Leary said.

  “A guy was killed,” Ferraro said. “They always suspect me. Besides, I heard a couple of kids on the trolley talking about it a couple nights after he was shot. They said the marshal thought it was a trolley striker who did it, or a scab. I knew he’d come after me.”

  I peeked up. Ferraro was frowning, his black eyebrows a thick slash over his eyes.

  “What are you coming back for then?” O’Leary asked.

  “I told you,” Ferraro said. “I got babies.”

  “In Hillyard?”

  “Not for long. Did they find the killer?”

  “Nope.”

  “Damn,” Ferraro said, seeming to forget the lady’s presence. “I thought they would’ve by now.” He tugged an end of his mustache into his mouth and gnawed on it.

  O’Leary moved off to the back of the car.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “What children were you talking about? On the trolley that night?”

  Ferraro spit his mustache out of his mouth. “I don’t know who they were, ma’am. It was a boy and a girl.”

  “On Sunday night?”

  “Yes ma’am. It was late, the last trolley of the night.” He thought a moment and added, “They had a travel bag with them.”

  It must have been Fannie and Will. They disappeared on Sunday night, and there couldn’t have been two runaway couples from Hillyard that night. “Do you have any idea where they were going?” I asked.

  “They were in a hurry so they wouldn’t miss their train. They were the only passengers that night, so I couldn’t help overhearing. There’s only one train that time of night, and it goes to Seattle.”

  The trolley reached Hillyard and ran down Diamond Street. Sitting where I was, I had the opposite view from what I’d had leaving town. I recognized the lights of Dr. Keating’s house as we passed. A single light burned beside the front door, but the entire third floor was lit up. It was Friday evening. Was Adelaide having another salon? I felt a stab of envy at not being invited, but of course my presence the week before was only because of Grace’s blunder. I wasn’t the sort of woman Adelaide invited to her salons. I wondered if Caroline was there, lounging on the divan with Adelaide.

  The trolley reached the depot and stopped. Mr. Ferraro slinked off into the dark. Mr. O’Leary helped load my packages back into my arms, and I started the dark walk home. My arms ached by the time I reached it. I put away my new clothes, placed the little rug by the door and the perfume on my table. It had seemed such a lot when I was carrying it, but the rooms still seemed bare and cold despite the heat of the steam radiators.

  I tried on my hat and looked at myself again in the mirror. I looked quite dashing, I thought. I wondered what Adelaide would think of it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  SATURDAY DAWNED SUNNY and bright. I dressed in my new plaid skirt and pinned my lovely ostrich feather hat securely atop my head. I donned my old gray coat, spared a thought for a lovely black wool I’d seen at The Crescent, and ventured out.

  A breeze blew, cool but not cold, just enough to make my ostrich feathers waft. I felt jaunty as I walked the few blocks to the Dunns’ house. I had no intention of talking to the marshal, but I could certainly tell the Dunns what I’d learned about Fannie’s destination. I marched up their wide porch steps and rapped on the door. Mrs. Elsey opened it.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Elsey. Is Mr. Dunn about?”

  “No, he’s down at the office. He works on Saturday mornings.”

  “Oh. Is Mrs. Dunn at home then?”

  “Nope. She went into town. Didn’t you hear? The trolley strike’s over.”

  “Yes, I heard. I went in yesterday.”

  “Got a new hat, it looks like.” She smirked. “Got a new name now, too, I hear.”

  “Oh. Yes.” Some of my jauntiness fell away.

  “Don’t you worry about it, Mrs. Jones,” she said. “What’s a name, anyhow? You’re a good teacher, I hear, and a nice lady. Do you want to step in for a cup of Postum? It’s too cold to stand out here in the wind.”

  “Why yes, thank you.” I followed her to the kitchen. The kettle was already on, and it didn’t take long for her to prepare the coffee flavored drinks. She placed some fancy Fig Newton rolls on a plate and we settled in.

  “Have they heard anything from Fannie?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of,” she said. “Of course I don’t live in, you know. I wouldn’t know if they got news in the evening.”

  “Do they have any idea where they went?”

  “They’re thinking St. Paul maybe. She has relatives back there, at least. The boy she ran off with won’t have relatives of any use. I think her folks are more upset with who she ran off with than that she ran off at all. They wouldn’t take it so hard if he’d been from the right side of the tracks.”

  “His family is poor?”

  “As dirt.”

  “Where do you think they got the money to run away then?”

  “Fannie took it from her daddy’s drawer, I heard,” Mrs. Elsey said. “She’d been acting real funny for a couple of days.”

  Guy had said much the same thing. “What do you mean, funny?”

  “Crying at dinner, wouldn’t talk, that sort of thing. Girls that age always act strange, though. I got a couple myself. They’re fine now, but when they were fifteen, I thought I’d have to kill one of them, or both.”

  I nibbled my fig roll. Fannie must have been planning her elopement for a while, though it seemed strange she didn’t mention it that first night. She had no difficulty sharing everything else. “How long have you worked for the Dunns, Mrs. Elsey?”

  “Ever since they built this house. I started the same day they moved in. Let’s see now, Guy was barely walking, so I guess it’s been ten or eleven years.”

  “So you were here when Mrs. Hennessey came with her girls?”

  “Oh, you know about that? Yes. Poor thing. She was beat up bad, worse than you.”

  I was stunned, but she continued speaking, matter of fact.

  “She was in bed the whole first week she was here. I took care of the little girls until she was well again.”

&
nbsp; “How long was that?”

  “A couple of weeks. Then Mr. Dunn set her up with the candy store.”

  “Mr. Dunn set her up? What do you mean?”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly how it worked. It was a loan, I think.”

  “They must have been very good friends.”

  Mrs. Elsey looked doubtful. “Well, I don’t know about that. They didn’t seem too happy to see her when she showed up. Of course, they didn’t know she was coming.”

  “But they’re friends now?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, no. Matter of fact, I don’t think they see much of each other at all.” She seemed surprised to realize it. “‘Course she married that Hennessey man after only a few months, and he’s not exactly the sort Mr. and Mrs. Dunn invite to dinner.”

  “No, I guess not.” I had no doubt of it, though I had still never even met the man.

  I finished my Postum, thanked Mrs. Elsey, and left.

  It was still before noon. Mr. Dunn must be at work at his office, but I didn’t know where that was. I should have asked Mrs. Elsey, but I didn’t like to go back, and besides, I had a general idea. He worked for the railroad, I assumed, so I would look there.

  There were many large impressive buildings in the yards of the Great Pacific Railroad, but the offices weren’t among them. I passed the huge brick and steel buildings and made my way to a low, narrow wooden building with a plain black and white sign that said OFFICE. I knocked on the door, but received no answer, so I opened it and stepped inside.

  Four men stood hunched over a desk. None of them was Mr. Dunn and none of them looked up at my entrance. I stepped closer to see what they were looking at.

  It was a telephone, just removed from its wooden packing crate. One of the men repeatedly opened and closed the little oak door on the front of the machine, enjoying the snick! it made when it latched. Another man lifted the receiver from its hook and pretended to have a connection.

  “Hello? This the White House? Let me talk to Mr. Roosevelt. I got a few things I’d like to say to him.”