The Impersonator (8 page)

A coincidence. That was the only logical explanation.

11

As vaudeville lingo 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.

“Clyde, is it?” Sir Oliver rode to my rescue. “Have we met? I have visited a number of times but am sorry I don’t remember you, my good man. I’m Oliver Beckett, Miss Carr’s uncle.”

“No, sir, Mr. Beckett. We’ve not met. I’ve been driving for Mrs. Carr for a few years now, but I didn’t live in Dexter when Young Miss was here. The flivver’s over there,” he said with a jerk of his head toward a spanking clean Ford sedan. “It’ll hold you folks fine but I’ll have to come back for the luggage.”

I had little chance to take stock of Dexter other than to notice that the main street was planked and the others were dirt. Soon we had left the city limits, and were heading south on a narrow macadam road that led through a woodland of tall firs and spruce trees. The air was cool and clean. I filled my lungs with the citrus-and-spice fragrance of the forest that grew almost to the edge of the pavement, like dark green walls lining a long passageway. For a moment the trees cleared on my side and I was startled to see how high we had climbed. I glimpsed Dexter far below, looking like a child’s toy village smothered with spun glass. Then the evergreen curtain closed and it was gone.

We turned a bend in the road and nearly ran down two children.

I yelled “Stop!” at the same moment that Clyde smashed his foot on the brake, yanked the brake lever, and skidded to the right, missing the boys by inches. With a mild oath, he threw open his door as they descended upon us, eyes wide with fear, gesturing frantically and yelling.

Both youngsters shouted at the same time, their words tangling together so that nothing could be understood. They pointed toward the woods with their fishing poles … something about a woman. A dead woman.

“There! Over there! In there!” The boy, no older than ten, with a runny nose and grimy face, gestured but would not leave the road to show us.

We couldn’t see anything from the road. Clyde and I climbed out of the car. He hesitated a moment at the edge of the pavement before stepping into the tall grass. “Stay here,” he ordered.

I followed.

It took all of five steps to find her.

“Maybe she’s not…” I offered hopefully.

But she was.

If she had been wearing red or yellow, someone would have seen her from the road before now, but her faded clothing was brown and the grass was knee high. Her body was crumpled like one of Marchetti’s Marionettes, carelessly cast into the wings after the show was over. Dark braids did not obscure her face, which was so black with dried blood that her own mother would not have recognized her. Stage blood, I noted, was a lot redder than the real thing. The woman’s neck bent at an impossible angle and flies swarmed on the blood. My first thought was that she had been walking with the boys, been hit by a car, and thrown into the woods by the force of the impact.

“Holy Mary Mother of God,” said Clyde.

I felt sick and turned away, nearly colliding with Grandmother. Oliver was not far behind. “Don’t look,” I said, but it was too late.

“Two days. Maybe three,” she said in her matter-of-fact way.

I knew what she meant. “How do you know?”

“There were corpses everywhere after the quake in aught six, and we knew exactly how long they’d been there.”

My eyes returned reluctantly to the gruesome sight. This time I noticed the strings of small shell beads around her broken neck. White, yellow, and blue. And something else. “Look, Grandmother. Her hair.” One of her plaits was neatly finished with beads tied to the ends. The other, shorter plait had none. The beaded tip had been cut off.

“Get in the car, boys,” I ordered. “Clyde, where is the nearest police station?”

Oliver got into the front while Grandmother and I squeezed together to make room for the boys in the back. Within seconds, Clyde had turned the car around on that narrow road and was heading downhill, back to the planked main street of Dexter. I took a few deep breaths and Grandmother surprised me by squeezing my hand.

“You’re not going to be sick, are you?” she asked me quietly.

“No. But I admit I’m shocked. I haven’t seen a lot of dead people in my life. Certainly not murdered ones.”