The Impersonator (Leah Randall/Jessie Carr Novels)

by Miley, Mary

  Everything depended on my hunch being confirmed.

  Excusing myself, I made my way to the house telephone and pulled the pocket doors closed behind me. I reached the operator and asked to be connected to the dean’s office at Stanford University in California. Then I hung up and waited for her to call back, my hand on the receiver, hoping I could snatch it up before the ringing alerted the family to an incoming call.

  A half hour passed. It felt like a week, but I never moved my hand.

  At last the harsh ring came, but as fast as I reacted, it was not fast enough to silence the entire ring.

  “I have your party now,” intoned the operator, putting me through to someone called a bursar, someone who had something to do with money. The dean’s office had closed, but these people would surely have records as to which students had paid tuition, what they had paid and when, records that would indicate the duration of Henry’s stay at Stanford. Luckily, the bursar himself was out and an eager underling asked how he could help.

  “This is Mrs. Carr,” I said, using my lower, older voice, “mother of Ross and Henry Carr, both Stanford students. I’m calling from Oregon, so speak up, young man. We’ve experienced a mix-up today. A letter came that mistook one son’s record for the other’s. Might you check your records to see if the dates of attendance for each are correct?”

  I drummed my fingers impatiently while the clerk searched for the relevant files.

  “Now, for my son Ross, the record should show him attending for three years to earn his bachelor’s degree, and another year for his master’s, correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am. From September 1920 through June 1923, B.A., and the past year, September 1923 through June 1924, on the course work for an M.A.”

  “And my other son, Henry Carr?”

  “Yes, his file is here too. It shows attendance for one year, September 1917 through June 1918, and—oh.”

  “Yes, just one year, and then there was the unpleasantness,” I ad-libbed. “What does your record say about that?”

  “Well, Mrs. Carr. It isn’t specific, just that he was asked to leave.”

  “Of course I know all about that. I just want to know what the record states. The exact wording.”

  “Well, these are never very specific. Most of the time the dean’s note says ‘for conduct.’ That’s all that is written here, so you needn’t worry about details getting out.”

  For conduct. Conduct unbecoming a gentleman? Like cheating at cards, consorting with loose women, drunken brawling?

  “Thank you for your help, young man.”

  Triumph surged through my veins as I set the receiver into its cradle. I had him now!

  “Nosy little thing, aren’t you?”

  I spun around, my heart in my throat. Henry had eased open one of the doors without my noticing and entered the room while my back was turned. He must have heard the brief ring and guessed what I was doing. How much had he heard?

  Judging from his twisted face, enough.

  My heart thundered, but I hid my alarm. I took a deep breath and told myself I wasn’t afraid of Henry Carr. He was dangerous, yes, almost certainly a murderer, but not here, not with the whole family across the hall getting ready to sit down to dinner. I was safe for the time being. I gulped some air and answered with a calm I did not feel.

  “I prefer to call it curiosity.”

  Whiskey glass in hand, he closed the door behind him and leaned unsteadily against it. He was drunk or teetering close to it.

  “The sort of curiosity that killed the cat? You should learn to keep your damned nose out of other people’s business.”

  “I generally do, except when I find that other people’s business involves me.”

  “Think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”

  Time to go on the attack. “You were thrown out of Stanford after one year. What was it, Henry? Cheating at cards? You’re not a very accomplished cheater; I noticed it the first time we sat at the same card table. Or was it for fighting? I know you like to beat up women, but I didn’t think you fought with men. They’re so much more likely to hit back. I figure you found it more profitable to lie about your expulsion; that way you could still collect the money meant for tuition. Too bad Ross had to attend the same university or you could have kept up the swindle another year or two.”

  “You little bitch. You’re as bad as she was.”

  “That’s right, Henry, you know I’m not Jessie. How do you know that, Henry?” I taunted. If I could make him angry enough, drunk as he was, he might spill the evidence I needed.

  “I got rid of Jessie once, and it looks like I’ll have to get rid of her again.”

  “You killed Jessie.”

  He slurped his whiskey and wagged a finger at me. “Did I? You have no idea how much I hated her.”

  “And you tried to poison me with Ross’s pills.”

  “That was soooo stupid of me. I panicked when you mentioned leaving the country. A good thing it wasn’t fatal. What if the doctor had suspected it was something other than a bad oyster? Blame would have fallen on me or Ross. I won’t be that stupid again. No, your death has to be an accident: a fall from a horse, a tumble off the cliff, a drowning at sea … Although I would take great pleasure in resolving this personally, it isn’t wise. I have friends who do that sort of work for me. A shame, though, to miss the fun.”

  “I’ll go to the police.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. What you think you know and what you can prove are very different things. The police wouldn’t believe your accusations—even making them would send you to jail faster than I could press charges. No, you can’t go to the police for the same reason I can’t go to the police. They wouldn’t believe me either—you’re remarkably convincing. You’ve fooled everyone. You would have fooled me too if I hadn’t known what really happened to Jessie.”

  He took a couple of unsteady steps in my direction before remembering where he was. I could read his thoughts as well as if they’d been printed on cue cards. He couldn’t hurt me while I was in this house. He would have to wait.

  “Almost funny, isn’t it?” he continued unevenly. “But I have a way out, and you don’t, so I can bide my time. You’ll have an accident when I’m well out of the way, and the Carr money will come back to me, where it damn well belongs. My father was cheated out of his share of the inheritance, you know. Cheated. There is one thing I’d really like to know though. How did you do it?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  “Well, I have my ideas—as you do, no doubt. It had to be that goddamn governess who fed you all the family details. She knew way too much and figured out the rest. She tried to blackmail me—you were in on that, weren’t you? No one does that to Henry Carr and gets away with it. But she met with a little accident of her own on the dangerous streets of San Francisco. It was her own fault. Thought she was so smart. Like you. And greedy too, aren’t you? She wanted to squeeze me for some of my money. You want it all.”

  So Henry had hired someone to run down Miss Lavinia! With a flash of clarity, I understood the rest.

  “That car outside the Benson Hotel,” I said. “That was no drunk driver; that was your doing!”

  “I was here all that day, dear cousin.” He smirked. “Ask anyone.”

  “And the hotel fire. Your man started that.”

  He just chuckled and took another slurp of whiskey.

  The door opened unexpectedly, causing us both to jump. Val peered in. “Oh, there you are. Mother said tell you dinner is served.”

  “Thanks, Val,” I said. “We’re coming.” She headed toward the dining room as I made to walk past Henry. His breath reeked of whiskey as he said softly, “Enjoy the good life while you can. Keep looking over your shoulder because when you least expect it—” He ran his finger across his throat and snickered.

  43

  It was a bad night for sleeping anyway, what with the storm rattling the windows and howling through the trees. I dozed
in fits and starts, listening to the surf crash against the cliff and dreaming of Jessie whenever I slipped into sleep. It was the same dream I’d had before, only more vivid now that I knew for certain she was dead. Then I was with her and our feet were wet, and she was trying to tell me something. I tried hard but could never understand her words. I could feel the urgency, though, in my pounding heart. I woke up in a sweat, clutching my Italian beads. Jessie’s beads that I wore all the time, even to bed.

  When I had taken on this role, I’d adopted more than Jessie’s name. I’d taken her family, her money, her past, and her future. I became Jessie Carr. And I owed her something for all that. I owed her the truth. Now that I knew the identity of her killer, I owed her justice, whatever the cost to myself.

  But how was I going to repay the debt? Henry would not obligingly repeat his confession in front of a judge, and I had no evidence, no body, and no hope of convincing the authorities that this man had somehow arranged the death of his cousin, their governess, and probably several women who were involved in his smuggling scheme. Nothing I could do would resurrect a single one, but I owed it to them to prevent him from killing again. He hadn’t stopped with Jessie; he had started with her. I was to be his next victim, but not his last. He enjoyed killing. He was good at it and even better at getting away with it. And there was no reason for him to stop.

  For a fleeting moment, I wondered if telling Oliver about any of this would help me. What would be his reaction to learning that his niece was murdered by her cousin? If the truth about Jessie’s death emerged, he’d lose his chance at her fortune. He had never cared a fig about Jessie, and I knew darn well his greed would overcome any scruples he might have. He’d make me continue with the charade, regardless of the risk to myself. No, Oliver was no ally.

  I wasn’t afraid for myself at this precise moment. Henry was powerless as long as I was at Cliff House, and he had admitted as much. The danger would begin when I left in two days. Death could then come from any direction. I would have to look at every person with suspicion—every waiter, every train conductor, every street vendor—wondering if they were in the pay of Henry Carr. I would have to consider every car a weapon, every meal poisoned, every hotel room a firetrap. I would start by hiring my own Pinkerton bodyguards, although I was not so naïve as to think them immune from Henry’s influence either.

  It seemed almost funny that I had once figured I could just slip away if things got rough.

  I lay awake until the clock chimed six, until I had fashioned a plan that I thought might work.

  44

  There wasn’t time to post a letter. I drove to the Western Union office near the docks and paid fifty cents to send Benny a telegram.

  “Same request. Palo Alto. Desperately important. Love from your second-best girl.”

  It wasn’t cost that made me economize with words, it was concern about the damage a gossipy operator could do. Sure, I know they are sworn to be discreet, but I couldn’t take the risk. Dexter was a small town, and Henry had lots of friends.

  Jack Benny had been on his way to Salem the day after I saw him at the Egyptian, and after that, to San Francisco for a longer run at Pantages Theatre. I hoped he would understand my plea. I hoped it reached him promptly. I hoped he could help me fast. It was a lot to ask. The trip from San Francisco to Palo Alto was long, maybe forty miles, and would consume most of a day. I’d make it up to him somehow.

  The rain stopped, but gray skies smothered the bay and strong winds blustered inland from the ocean. My flivver was parked near the first pier, and as I returned to it, I caught sight of the boy from the hardware store crouching at the edge of the water, assembling something in his fishing box. The boy who had rushed to give us the news of the body in the burned warehouse … what was his name? Seeing him gave me an idea.

  “Hello. You’re an early bird. William, isn’t it?”

  He looked up and pushed back his cap to see my face.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I’m Miss Carr. We met some weeks ago in your father’s store. That your boat?” I pointed to an old wooden boat tied up to the dock beside us, straining at its rope. Someone had painted it a gay blue and yellow and outfitted it with a tiny mast and sail. If it had been any smaller, it would have been a toy.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you take it out much?”

  “Every chance I get.”

  “What do you catch?”

  “This time of year, chinook mostly.”

  “Good eating?”

  “I sell most of ’em. I’m saving for a bigger boat.”

  “Do you go outside the bay?”

  “Not allowed to. The fishing’s usually best in the bay, near the mouth of the river.” Where the sailing was best went unsaid.

  “It looks pretty rough out there. You’re not going fishing today, are you?”

  “Ma won’t let me.”

  “I guess you have to be pretty skilled to sail these waters, even on a calm day. The Graveyard of the Pacific and so forth. You must know the coast pretty well, though. Are there any other small bays or harbors along this stretch?”

  “Nary a one. Leastways none that I know of. Just cliffs and rocks.”

  To our left near the canneries, the choppy water bumped the fleet of weatherworn fishing boats against their piers. Out in Dexter Bay a number of fine yachts strained at their buoys, all of them stretched eastward, aligned by the wind and currents. Dexter Bay’s marina was popular with the wealthy Portland sailing crowd, located as it was a short train ride from the metropolitan area. One of these boats belonged to Henry, who had sloshed down enough Seagram’s last night to keep him in bed at Cliff House till noon. I pointed to the closest yacht. “That’s a pretty boat there.”

  “That’s Mr. Sam Walker’s. It’s new this year.”

  “You must know a lot about boats. Which is the nicest?”

  “Mr. Henry Carr’s Herreshoff. Over there.”

  I followed his finger to a sleek craft tied to a buoy about a hundred yards out. “What a lovely boat! My cousin Henry doesn’t fish, does he? I don’t remember anything of his on the dinner table recently.”

  “Naw, he just sails with friends, up north.”

  “Dexter friends?”

  “Big shots from Portland or Salem.”

  “North to Canada? Picking up hooch, I expect.”

  “Who doesn’t?” His shrug said it all. Everyone winked at the law.

  “There sure are a lot of bottles at Cliff House,” I said with a confidential laugh. “You know, I heard that a few years back, bootleggers were bold enough to unload their cargo right here in town.”

  “Pa told me about that. Said the cops scared ’em off.” Honest police? I wondered. The cynic in me thought it more likely they demanded too high a cut and drove off the “importers.” Was it Henry?

  “I guess my cousin Henry is a pretty fair sailor.”

  It was like turning on an electric light bulb. “He’s the best! A real daredevil. I was fishing off the rocks south of here, by your place near the caves, when I seen him come through those giant rocks under power, weaving in and out, then when he was hardly clear of ’em, he hoisted the sails and cut power. He knows where every last reef is. No one else but him would risk that, but he’s not afraid of anything.”

  Ah, hero worship. What a waste. “Golly, I’m sorry I missed seeing that. Was it last week?”

  He shook his head. “Couple weeks ago.” I remembered. Henry said he had gone sailing with friends for several days up to Puget Sound. The green chalk delivery must have come in then.

  “I sure am sorry to see this storm. Henry promised to take me for a ride today. He just came in yesterday—but you know that—and I’ve never had the chance to see his new boat.” I heaved a sighed of profound disappointment as I cast the bait. “And I’m leaving Oregon the day after tomorrow.”

  “Leaving for good?” he asked with the astonishment of a native who couldn’t imagine why anyone would eve
r want to go anywhere else.

  “Leaving on a long trip abroad. I probably won’t get back to Oregon for a while.” I gave it my most dramatic sigh.

  “Well, I could run you out there, quick like, for a close-up look.”

  “Oh, what a wonderful idea! Would you?”

  He dropped into the little vessel and reached up a hand to help me down. I crouched in the damp bottom on top of a coil of rope, and gave up trying to keep my skirt dry. Behind me, William hoisted a tiny sail and shot over to Henry’s yacht in seconds.

  I had never been in a boat of any kind in my life, and I found the brief ride exhilarating. Young William steered closer to the yacht, within a few feet of the boarding ladder. Standing, he pushed the sail to the side, and the little boat came gently to a stop against the larger vessel. Then he grabbed hold of the ladder and secured his boat with a piece of rope. “Up you go. I’ll wait here. Mr. Henry might not want me on his boat without asking.”

  “I’ll just have a peek.”

  The cabin was locked, and it took only a moment to walk around the deck. Shipshape must be how sailors described boats like Henry’s—neat and clean, the deck freshly painted, every bit of rope and rigging in its place. I peered in each window and saw what I expected to see: hundreds of liquor boxes, neatly stacked, waiting for distribution.

  Turning him in to the Dexter cops would be a joke. The corrupt police force would only warn Henry to move his boat before making a show of searching for it, and I would lose my one chance to learn how he made his deliveries.

  I scrambled back into William’s dinghy. “Wow, that’s a beauty!”

  William didn’t reply. His eyes scanned the deserted docks and the road leading to them. His frown told me he was having second thoughts about his impulsive offer. What would Henry Carr have to say when he learned someone had boarded his boat without express permission?

  “You know, William, I was just thinking … Henry wanted to show his boat to me himself, and maybe he’ll be disappointed if he knows I already saw it. If the weather clears tomorrow, he might even be able to take me for that sail after all. I think it would be best if we didn’t mention this to him. It could be our little secret. Then if he shows me around the boat, I can act like it was the first time, and he’ll be so proud and pleased.”