A Deceptive Homecoming

by Anna Loan-Wilsey

  “Hey! You on the floor. What are you doing down here?” a woman said. All I could see was her outline against the light. “You need to get back to your own ward.”

  She thinks I’m a patient!

  Without a moment of hesitation, I clambered to my feet and dashed by the nurse in the doorway. Carrying a metal tray covered with glass tubes filled with blue tablets, a tin cup, and a pitcher of water, she could do nothing to stop me but yell. I climbed the steps before me in twos and sprinted down a familiar hallway, skidding to a halt on the highly polished floor, just as another patient covered with a white sheet was carried by me on a stretcher. This time I dropped my eyes and focused on anything: the dark smudge that marred the tip of my shoe, the rent in the trim of my skirt, my racing heartbeat, anything but the passing body.

  Once the orderlies and the body were gone, I picked up my skirts and ran. I ran, as fast as I never had, past patients lounging in doorways or playing checkers in an alcove, past startled nurses who shouted words of disapproval at my back, past one matronly lady in a wide-brimmed hat waiting patiently in a high-backed chair in the lobby. I ignored all of their scowls and stares, stopping to catch my breath only after I’d shoved open the front doors and could fill my lungs with fresh air. As I stood on the path panting, looking back at the building that had for a short time entombed me, I thought of what had brought me here in the first place.

  Dr. Hillman and his secrets be damned! I thought, vowing never to step foot in that wicked place again.

  I was still shaking when I stepped into the hushed peace of the Cathedral of St. Joseph. Needing a place of sanctuary, I’d thought of returning to Mount Mora, but that sacred place had been tainted by the specter of the man in Frank Hayward’s coffin. Kneeling at my father’s grave, I wouldn’t be able to set aside all the questions that still remained about Frank Hayward and Levi Yardley. Nor would I be able to forget the terrors I’d just witnessed and my fear that Father once suffered a similar fate. Thus I went back to the cathedral, despite being slightly disheveled and dirty, hoping to find the peace and tranquility I craved. And I found it. I stared up at the ceiling, painted blue with gold stars, and breathed in the incense, still burning in a side chapel. I closed my eyes as rays of sun streamed through the ten-foot-tall glass windows and warmed my face. I cleared my mind of everything—Ginny’s rebuke, the troubles at Mrs. Chaplin’s, Frank Hayward’s mysterious whereabouts, Dr. Hillman’s lies, and Levi Yardley’s fate. I knelt and prayed, feeling the panic, the fear and loathing that I felt lost in the tunnels under the asylum slip away.

  I slipped back into the pew when a fellow parishioner sat down a few rows in front of me. I glanced at the marble statue of St. Joseph with the infant Jesus in his arms, and stared at the flickering candles at its base. It reminded me of the shadows in the asylum tunnels.

  I didn’t get dizzy or nauseous, I suddenly realized. During the terrifying encounter with the chained patients, I’d felt panic, fear, and loathing. I’d imagined never finding my way out and facing a fate similar to that of the poor, pathetic human beings who had been reduced to little more than rabid animals. But I hadn’t once felt the floor tilt or the room spin. I hadn’t once needed to prop myself up against the wall or hold on to the rail of a bed.

  Could learning about my father’s true fate have affected me so deeply, so quickly? I’d been able to face the instrument case in Dr. Hillman’s drawer. What else would I be able to face? As I pondered this new idea, I looked about me at the others in the church. Two elderly gray-haired women occupied the second pew as they prayed on their knees, shoulders touching. Another old woman, dressed all in black, knelt in front of the statue of Mary, clutching her rosary. A young man, with a thick mustache and a scowl on his face, sat with his arms wrapped around him, in a pew across the aisle and toward the back. With his hat in his lap, he simply glared at the altar. And then I saw Malinda Gilbert. She was coming out of the confessional, biting her nails. I immediately dropped my eyes and stared at my hands. When I looked up again, she was gone.

  Had she seen me? I wondered. I hoped not. If she had, I wanted in no way for her to guess what my first thought was when I saw her. To my shame, I wondered what she had to confess.

  Think of your own sins, Hattie, I heard my mother’s voice say. As a child I had often voiced my curiosity after seeing someone I knew exit the confessional box. She properly scolded me for my ill-placed inquisitiveness. I’d apologize, hoping it would save me from the consequences, fifteen “Ave Maria” prayers, but it never did. Now, as then, I walked over and opened the confessional door.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a month since my last confession.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “This came for you, Miss Davish.”

  Mr. Putney handed me an envelope and then retrieved a large, heavy packet wrapped in brown paper and string. He chuckled a bit. I was struck again how much he reminded me of my grandfather. “I think we’re getting into quite the habit here.”

  After changing my soiled dress and crumpled hat in my room, I had a light meal in the dining room. I hadn’t eaten anything since before Mass this morning. I was passing the desk when he called my name.

  “Yes, it does seem that there’s something for me every time I return.” The clerk nodded, smiled, and giving up any pretense of a lack of curiosity, leaned over the desk a bit. I opened the envelope first.

  “He’s persistent,” I said. “I’ll give him that.”

  “Another invitation from Mr. Boone?”

  I nodded. “Some men can’t seem to take no for an answer.”

  “You could say yes?” Mr. Putney shrugged when I frowned at him. “It would stop him from sending you invitations.” He had a point.

  “I’ll think about it. Now what do you suppose is in here?” I examined the brown package and noticed there was no postmark or stamp on it. It couldn’t be from Sir Arthur then. But whom was it from? “Was this hand-delivered?”

  “They both were. Do you think it’s from Mr. Boone too?” I looked up at Mr. Putney. I’d never thought of that.

  “There’s one way to find out.” I ripped it open.

  “A ledger?” the clerk said, eyeing the tall brown book. “I’m guessing it’s not from Mr. Boone then. Something for your work, I suppose?” I barely heard him as I flipped open the ledger and found a note inside the cover. I read it quickly.

  Dear Miss Davish,

  Per Mrs. Yardley’s request, we’re sending you this ledger found with the body of her late husband, Mr. Levi Yardley. She insisted that you were the one to place it in the hands of its proper owner. If you’re in need of assistance, I am your servant, Officer Daniel Quick.

  “No, Mr. Putney, this is possible evidence of a crime.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” I said, absentmindedly, for my mind was swirling with the implications of both the ledger and the note.

  The police must’ve exhumed the casket as Mrs. Yardley requested and had confirmed without a doubt that it was Levi Yardley and not Frank Hayward in the coffin.

  Poor Bertha, I thought. At least now she knows the truth.

  But how? Mrs. Yardley couldn’t simply say, “That’s my husband.” Normally that would be all that was necessary, but hadn’t Asa Upchurch and Ginny also identified the same body as Frank Hayward? Did the police have other ways of knowing for certain that it was Levi Yardley? I’d once read a story in the newspaper several years ago about how the famed Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne in France had used anthropometrics, tooth patterns, and bones to identify a body found in a river four months after the man’s death. Had the St. Joseph medical examiner used similar techniques? Either way, I’d been right. Levi Yardley had been the man buried in Frank Hayward’s place. But that also meant that Ginny and Asa Upchurch were wrong. But how? How does one misidentify one’s own father? And then I imagined my father in his casket: his head shaved, his body gaunt, his eyes and cheeks sunken. If I hadn’t known better, I might not have recognize
d him either.

  Poor Ginny, I thought even as I contemplated what discovering the fate of Levi Yardley meant. What’s happened to Frank Hayward? And what does this ledger have to do with his disappearance?

  “You’re involved with the police, aren’t you?” Mr. Putney’s question pulled me out of my thoughts.

  “No, not really.”

  “But you do know who this ledger belongs to?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And you think it’s a clue to a crime?”

  I nodded as I skimmed through the pages of the ledger again. It was definitely the missing ledger from Mrs. Chaplin’s school. Someone had hoped to bury it with Frank Hayward, or at least who they thought was Frank Hayward. But that would mean Mr. Hayward himself couldn’t have stolen it, or if he had been involved, he had had an accomplice. Whoever stole the accounting ledger brought it to the funeral. Ginny? I thought. No, we were at odds, but I couldn’t believe it of my friend. She’d never be involved in something like this. Mrs. Chaplin? No, she seemed genuinely shocked to find the ledger missing. The more I considered the gathering, the more I realized almost anyone could’ve hidden the ledger in the dead man’s coffin.

  I pulled out my notebook, set it on the desk beneath Mr. Putney’s curious eye, and began to jot down every name of the staff and students from Mrs. Chaplin’s in attendance at the funeral.

  1. Ginny

  2. President & Mrs. Upchurch

  3. Mrs. Chaplin

  4. Miss Woodruff

  5. Miss Clary

  6. Miss Gilbert

  Miss Gilbert. I stopped writing when I got to her name. She went to confession today. I blushed again at my sacrilegious curiosity. But . . . could she have done it? But why? Why would anyone want this ledger to disappear forever?

  I flipped through it again and immediately realized that the first few pages were written in a different hand than the remaining pages.

  Why hadn’t I seen this before? I thought.

  Two different handwriting styles meant two different people made entries into the ledger. But why? Frank Hayward had been the bookkeeper. Who else would’ve made these entries? Ginny, perhaps, helping her father for some reason? I glanced at the second set of handwriting. I knew Ginny’s handwriting from the many years of letters I’d received from her, but I didn’t recognize this handwriting at all. I began to examine the tables of numbers, dates, and lists of inventory more carefully. Nothing struck me as being out of the ordinary until I reached entries made in the second hand.

  Wait a minute, I thought, making a quick calculation in my head. Something’s wrong.

  “Speaking of crimes,” Mr. Putney said, disrupting my train of thought, “have you seen today’s headline?”

  “What?” I said, trying to regain my focus. Something was wrong with this book. I needed a little more time to examine the figures in detail.

  “The headline in tonight’s paper.” The desk clerk held up a copy of the Herald. It read:

  One man murdered, another man missing.

  Dead man buried in another man’s coffin.

  I snatched the paper from him and read the first lines of the story.

  Today Coroner Whittington caused the coffin of Mr. Frank Hayward, of St. Joseph, previously buried in Oakland Cemetery on August 25, to be exhumed due to suspicions of mistaken identification. Chief Broder of the city police confirms that the coffin contains the body of Mr. Levi Yardley, newly arrived from Omaha, and not that of Mr. Hayward. An autopsy was conducted and police uncovered no evidence that Mr. Yardley was trampled by a horse as originally supposed. The wounds the dead man suffered from were the result of some other form of trauma. Police will not comment on actual cause of death but are continuing their investigation into the suspected murder of Mr. Yardley and the whereabouts of Frank Hayward. According to police, Frank Hayward is their prime suspect.

  “Oh no!”

  “What is it?” Mr. Putney asked, confused.

  “Keep this in the hotel safe for me, would you please, Mr. Putney?” I snatched up the ledger and handed it to him. He took it with trembling hands.

  “Of course.” He hugged the ledger tight against his chest. He leaned forward as far as he could over the desk. He lifted his spectacles and squinted hard at me. “Are you caught up in this police business in some way, Miss Davish? Are you in trouble?”

  “You have no idea, Mr. Putney.” Then without another moment’s hesitation, I turned my back on the wide-eyed clerk and headed straight out the door.

  “I’m sorry, miss, but Officer Quick has gone home for the day. Can I help you? Is there something you would like to report?”

  I’d headed straight for the police station after leaving the hotel, but I hadn’t given any thought to the fact that it was late evening. Of course he wouldn’t be there.

  “No, actually, I came to inquire about the murder of Levi Yardley.”

  “Oh? Do you have information about the death, miss?” The policeman, a lanky fellow with stubble on his chin, began shuffling papers around on the desk.

  “Actually, it was my information that led the police to exhume Frank Hayward’s coffin. But I’d no idea Mr. Yardley had been murdered. We’d all been told that he’d been trampled by a horse.”

  “Ah, here it is.” He snatched up a piece of paper. “Are you Miss Davish?”

  “Yes, I am.” I was slightly startled he knew my name.

  “Officer Quick left this note notifying me that you might stop by.” It was one thing that the policeman knew my name; I’d given evidence after all. But how would Officer Quick know I’d be back?

  “What else does your note say?”

  “That you might want to know more details about the case.” Again, how would he know that?

  “He’s right. I do. What can you tell me?” The policeman studied the paper in his hands.

  “Says here to tell you that we’re still investigating, but we can confirm that the disfigurement to Mr. Yardley’s face wasn’t caused by a horse. The body is still being examined, but we suspect Mr. Yardley didn’t die a natural death.”

  “Is that all you can tell me?”

  “What more do you want to know?”

  “The newspaper said that you suspect Frank Hayward of the murder. Is that true?”

  “It’s not technically a murder yet. As Quick says, we’re still investigating. I wouldn’t believe everything you read in the paper.”

  “I’d like to help with the investigation.” The policeman opened his mouth but before he could object, I added, “Frank Hayward is the father of a dear friend. We now know that he’s missing. He too could be dead or at least in danger.”

  “Miss Davish.” The policeman tried to interrupt me.

  “And I have experience in these things.” I inwardly cringed even as I said it. I never imagined I’d use my past encounters with murder as justification to help investigate another one. “And I could—”

  “Yes, Miss Davish, I know.” He successfully startled me into silence.

  “You know what?”

  “That’s also on this note from Quick.” The policeman waved the sheet of paper in the air. “Says here you’ve been involved in murder investigations in both Arkansas and Illinois.” Officer Quick had obviously checked up on me. That’s how he guessed I’d be back making inquiries. I now had a record of doing such things. But he’d missed my involvement in the murder in Rhode Island.

  No need to enlighten him, I thought.

  “So?”

  “So the answer is no thank you. Officer Quick and his team are more than capable of conducting this investigation. This isn’t some small town in the Ozarks, Miss Davish. We’ve been solving murders in St. Joe for decades. I watched as the convicted murderers hung over there by the old Patee House Hotel. We even lent a hand in the investigation into the killing of Jesse James.” He chuckled under his breath before continuing.

  “Now that was something! Sheriff Timberlake himself identified the body. He could verify Jesse�
�s known wounds, having known Jesse from the war. Police Commissioner Craig came up from Kansas City. But what a surprise it was! We didn’t even know Jesse was in St. Joe. One minute I was enjoying a quiet cup of coffee at the station and the next I was helping to contain the crowds that swarmed the house as word got out.”

  “But—” I said, but he hadn’t finished his tale.

  “And can you believe that lots of folks didn’t believe us? Thought he’d faked his death or something. It had happened before. First time folks thought he died was in seventy-nine. I’ll never forget the editorial that compared Jesse James to a cat with nine lives, saying he’d been dead many times before, only to be resurrected as often. But I was there. This time, there was no doubt. Photographs were taken, in front of witnesses, including me, a full coroner’s inquest was conducted, and no less than three doctors performed the autopsy confirming the dead man was indeed Jesse James.”

  “One of the doctors was Dr. George Catlett, superintendent at the Lunatic Asylum.”

  “Yeah, how’d you know that?”

  I shook my head, regretting having mentioned it. My father had been at the asylum the same day. “Long story.”

  “Well, anyway, all this is to say we’ll contact you if we need to ask you any further questions, but otherwise, we’ll do fine by ourselves. It’s our job after all. From what I hear, you’re a top-notch secretary.”

  “I do my best.” I tried not to sound disappointed, but I was.

  “Thank you for your help and interest, miss, but if that’s everything, these reports won’t file themselves.” The officer indicated the tall stack of papers on his desk.