The Impersonator (36 page)

I could see a figure walk from one end of the boat to the other, pick something up, and walk back. If I could see him, could he see me? I made myself smaller and waited for the boat to disappear behind another rock sentinel so I could hide behind the bushes. I considered walking south to the lower headlands nearer the third cave to get a better look, but the terrain there was exposed and treeless—I would stand out like a soloist on an empty stage.

It was midday. Low tide came at two. Would the third cave be dry at low tide, or would there be enough water in it to get a sailboat inside? And why would a sailboat go inside a cave to unload cargo a few hours before high tide? As soon as I saw Henry’s boat returning to harbor, I was going to climb down the path to the beach and find out.

“What are you doing?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. So much for my instincts about being watched. I had been so intent on Henry’s boat that I’d ignored everything else.

“Val! You scared the daylights out of me!” I stalled for time, trying to think of an innocent reason to be sitting here spying on her brother. Meanwhile, there she stood beside me, big as life, in full view of the occupants of the boat.

“I was just enjoying the view and watching that pretty sailboat go by.”

“That’s Henry’s boat.” She stepped forward and waved both arms vigorously, trying to catch someone’s attention. I saw two figures on board now, then a third and fourth. My heart sank.

“Is it, indeed? What a coincidence! It’s a lovely boat, isn’t it?”

“I’m glad they got out today. He was mad that they didn’t get to sail Thursday or Friday because the sea was too rough, even for him.”

I had to assume they had a spyglass and could identify us. It was time to walk conspicuously away as if we had just strolled along the headlands for a breath of fresh air and were returning to the house.

“Mother’s looking for you.”

“Is she? Well, let’s go back. You were marvelous last night, by the way. That dance routine killed ’em…”

Aunt Victoria met me in the library, a ledger book open on the table. Because I was leaving for some months, she felt duty bound to review the household expenditures with me to make sure I approved of everything.

“That really isn’t necessary, Aunt. I think you do a fine job managing the house and consider myself blessed to have you living here.”

Nothing would do but to examine the last seven years of expenditures—the garage and shed additions, the tennis court, the garden, all the servants and what each was paid, the regular maintenance on the house, food bills, clothing for all five of the family and servants’ uniforms, donations to church and charity, and tuition for the boys. She had not purchased new draperies but the ones in the parlor were looking faded … did I think she should? I thought I’d scream with frustration.

“Whatever you think best, Aunt, I have complete confidence in your judgment.”

Fidgeting did me no good. Aunt Victoria was relentless in her review. When I edged toward the door, she restrained me with her hand on my arm. The trustees had paid for the boys’ tuition at Stanford, but she did not want me to think they had also funded their living expenses away from home. Rather, she had taken that money from a small sum she had inherited from her father. I wanted to shout, “I don’t care! I don’t care! I’ve got to go back and check on Henry’s boat!”

At last I escaped the library only to be caught by Rainy, who had been hovering at the door. “Excuse me, miss, but I should be starting the packing. Did you want to give some instructions?”

I most certainly did. I would need to travel light and wanted to choose from among my more practical outfits. But at the moment, I was desperate to return to my lookout point, afraid I would miss seeing Henry’s boat on its way back to Dexter Bay.

“We’ll pack together this evening, Rainy. I’m off for a walk now.” And I left her, no doubt wondering what on earth was so important about a walk.

I reached the cliff moments before Henry’s sailboat came into view. Pushed north by the wind and farther out at sea than it had been on its southerly voyage, the sleek vessel clipped along prettily. Calculating approximately how long it had taken for the boat to sail the distance south, I figured Henry would not arrive back in Dexter Bay for a good two hours. The coast was clear for a visit to the third cave.

I was not so idiotic as to go alone. I didn’t know what I would find, if anything, and there was always the chance that someone from the boat had remained behind in the cave. I ran back to the house where I found Caro slumped in an overstuffed chair, scowling at the pages of a fashion magazine.

“Do you know what I’ve wanted to do ever since I arrived?” I asked her.

“What?”

“Explore the caves. Would you like to come with me?”

“Oh, we’ve done that. So have you.”

“Well, that’s true, I went inside the closer ones, but I want to hike over the rocks to that far cave and take a look at it.”

“It looks like the others. They’re boring. There’s nothing inside but slime.”

“It’s low tide, and there probably will be a lot of agates on the beach after yesterday’s storm.”

“Oh, all right. Why not? There’s nothing else to do around this stupid place.”

49

The moment her foot touched the beach Caro exclaimed, “Oh, phooey! We forgot to bring a bucket! And I’m not climbing all the way back up there to get one!”

“Never mind,” I said. “My handkerchief is large enough to knot the corners and make a pouch.”

The pace I set was rather fast for rock hunting, but Caroline was sulking and didn’t notice. “Are you still planning to do your routine for David Murray when he comes this afternoon?” I asked, trying to find a happy subject.

“I guess.” She kicked at a piece of driftwood.

“Who was that nice-looking young man I saw you dancing with so many times last night?”

She reddened. “Oh, nobody.”

“Well, Mr. Nobody looked quite taken with you.”

“He’s not. He’s sweet on Sophie. All I heard was ‘Sophie, Sophie, Sophie,’ until I thought I’d throw up.”

So that was it. For effect I reached for a purple agate and dropped it in my handkerchief. “Hmm. How old is he?”

“Eighteen.”

“Just wait a bit. When I was your age there was a boy of eighteen who swore his undying devotion and a week later fell madly in love with the youngest singer in a sister act he met the day before. Boys that age are as changeable as hemlines.”

“But he goes to high school with Sophie and sees her every day. I hate studying with Mrs. Applewhite! I’ll never meet anybody cooped up here!”

Privately I agreed but didn’t see any sense in saying so. We walked a while, passing the first cave, then the second.

“I hate it here! Oh, it hasn’t been so bad this past month, with Ross and Henry home and you coming back, and the show and the party and the shopping trip, but now you are all leaving! You’re leaving tomorrow. Ross is leaving as soon as his thesis is accepted. Henry won’t be home again after he wins the election. Rainy season starts soon and the most exciting thing to happen in this stupid place will be church on Sunday. It will be so boring, I’ll go screwy!”

“I didn’t realize you were so unhappy.”

“Why would you? You have an exciting life. You ran away to vaudeville, and now you’re getting away again and going to Europe and we’re stuck here like … like criminals in prison. If it weren’t for our visit to you in Europe, I’d jump off that cliff! When do you think that will be? Christmas?”

Lying to people I care for has always been hard. I should have tried harder. I should have just said, “You’re coming in January,” and been done with the topic, but a foolish surge of conscience caused me to hedge. “Well … I don’t know really … I’m not entirely sure where I’m going or when, so it will be difficult to plan…”

“You’re going to London and France and Italy. That’s what you said. You said we could come too.”

“Yes, I know. I know I said that, and I meant, well, it will be winter when I arrive and not too pleasant in those countries, so, well, I’ll probably go someplace like Greece or Spain first, for the winter, I mean, and then, once I have a place to stay, I’ll write and we can see what the circumstances are—”

She pulled up and glared at me through narrowed eyes. “You’re lying. You don’t want us to visit you at all.”

“That’s not true.” It was exactly true, or at least it used to be, but by tomorrow she and the whole family would learn the extent of my deception, and a missed trip to Europe would be low on their list of concerns.

Caroline would not be calmed. She was already worked up about Mr. Nobody and this topped her off. She started to cry. “It isn’t fair! You’re leaving and we’re staying and I hate it here!” And she threw down her agates, turned, and ran back toward the path.

“Caro! Wait! That’s not true!” I took three steps after her, then stopped. I didn’t have time to chase after her, nurse her back to good humor, and still explore the far cave before Henry got back.
Don’t go there alone!
said a voice in my head. I knew that. There might be someone there, left behind in the cave. But there might also be the one bit of evidence I needed to make my case against Henry stick.

By my reckoning, I had at least an hour and a half, almost certainly more, and if I hurried, that would be plenty of time to climb the rocks and take a quick peek in the far cave.

I took off running along the strand. Its width was narrowing; the tide had turned. Was it my imagination that the noise of the waves sounded louder? Even at low tide a person couldn’t get around the outcropping without getting wet up to the waist, so I scrambled over the boulders, ignoring the scrapes on my legs and hands as I struggled to maintain my balance. When I finally jumped down to the cove on the other side, I twisted my ankle. Without pausing to rub the pain, I pushed on.

I knew I had plenty of time but I was nervous nonetheless. Being caught alone by Henry would be fatal. I tried to calm myself with the fact that it had taken him at least two hours to sail the distance from Dexter Bay south to the caves. He couldn’t be back before five o’clock and it wasn’t yet four.
Don’t go there alone!
I have enough time, I replied. And it was my last chance.

The far cave was different from the other two, taller and narrower, with permanent access to the sea. I crept up to its mouth and peeked around the corner, listening for anything unnatural, looking for any movement. After a period of silence, I picked up a rock, threw it far into the cave. No reaction. I rounded the corner and went inside.

It looked like Nature had built herself one of those pointed-arch cathedrals I had seen in Oliver’s travel books and decorated its wet walls with frescoes of colored algae, red and white barnacles, and starfish. A narrow ledge, smooth from centuries of erosion and slippery with strands of green slime, skirted the north side of the cave all the way to the back. A few feet below, the rising sea churned like boiling water, even on a relatively calm day like today. The waves broke against the cave’s mouth and sloshed noisily inside, each one bringing the water level closer to covering my walkway. I had arrived just in time. It wouldn’t be long before the ledge was submerged. I wondered whether high tide regularly filled the cave, and one glance at the barnacles stuck high on the walls answered the question.

I had expected to see something. Boxes perhaps, or rope or a gangplank. Some sort of residue that would tell me Henry’s boat had been here and unloaded its cargo. But there was nothing. The cave was completely empty.

Had his boat actually entered the cave? Would it even fit? Right now, its mast would probably scrape the ceiling, but there could have been room for a sailboat at low tide when the water was several feet below this. It could have motored inside and tied up on any of the jagged rocks that spiked the ledge. It could have unloaded those liquor boxes right here. Another boat could have followed it in and loaded up. But I hadn’t seen any other boats. And because the cave was not visible from the promontory by the house, I hadn’t actually seen Henry’s boat here, only headed in this direction.

Why had I been so certain that the smuggling occurred in this cave? I had placed too much stock in the dreams about Jessie. Henry’s boat hadn’t been here. He had probably sailed farther south to drop off the Canadian hooch, perhaps to a tiny harbor that no one knew. Water dripped on me from the ceiling. I wiped my face on my sleeve.

A loud noise behind me spun me around and sent my heart into my throat. A shower of rocks the size of my head had fallen from the ceiling and tumbled down the slope of the ledge until they plopped into the water. Was this the day it all collapsed? Chiding myself for overwrought nerves, I continued.

In less than a minute, I had picked my way to the back of the cave. It seemed lighter back here, and I thought my eyes had become accustomed to the dark until I looked up and saw a streak of dark blue sky some thirty feet above me.

With that, I understood everything.

To my left a long-ago avalanche created when the earth split apart now filled part of the fissure with a rockslide that sloped halfway up toward the light. I could see at a glance that the liquor had not gone that way—no one could climb up that rock pile carrying boxes, even if it did put them closer to the opening. No, the smugglers had come here, to the back of the cave where I was standing, and hoisted the boxes straight up through the crevice to a waiting truck.

Mystery solved. I’d already mailed my letters, but I would find the time to send another round with this added information. Henry was finished now.

I felt his eyes on me before I saw him. I knew who it was before I spun around, even though it defied all logic. It should have been impossible for anyone to get here that quickly. Ahead of me at the mouth of the cave, backlit by the daylight, stood a familiar silhouette brandishing a club in one hand.

50

“Don’t be stupid, Henry,” I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral to disguise the terror that seized me. Like all bullies, Henry’s pleasure came from tormenting weaker beings, and instinct told me the slightest whiff of fear from me would excite him beyond control. “Caroline knows where I am.”