Girl in Disguise

by Greer Macallister

  When the breakthrough came, it took all I had not to reveal my shock.

  “Oh, Mrs. Wofford,” she said.

  “Kate.”

  “Of course, Kate. You know I’ve been so lonely for female companionship.”

  “I do know it! I’m so glad we found each other.”

  She reached out to squeeze my hand, and I smiled.

  “There’s nothing like the comfort of a bosom friend. However—”

  “Oh!” I said, uncertain where the conversation might lead. “Am I failing in that regard? Please do tell me if there’s another way I can be a better friend to you.”

  She made an odd face and sighed. “It’s certainly nothing of yours I need, my dear. Female companionship is a great joy to me. But there’s another type of companionship I’m also quite eager for, and as of yet, I’ve not found it in this city.”

  Still unsure of her message, I said, “I’m sure this city has a great many things.”

  “But does it have the satisfaction only a man can provide?”

  I couldn’t suppress my reaction. “Cath!”

  She laughed, peals of laughter rippling through the air like bells upon bells. “I do believe I’ve shocked you.”

  “You have!” I knew she trusted me, but to speak so openly about such things, especially as a married woman whose husband was known to be absent, was utter madness. No matter who I seemed to be, shock was apt.

  She said, “We must claim what we want, Kate. Do you hide your desires and thoughts?”

  I had to answer carefully. “We all hide something.”

  “Not me,” she said with a laugh. “And I’m all the happier for it.”

  Running my fingertip along the table and recognizing my luck at last, I said, “I do believe I know a man who can provide…what you’re looking for. He’ll just be passing through the city, but I imagine—I suppose—well, a man staying only a short while in Philadelphia would suit your purposes, wouldn’t he?”

  She beamed and clutched my hand. “I knew I could trust you.”

  “Completely.”

  I sent my missive from the telegraph office on a Monday. On Wednesday, my answer came in the person of Graham DeForest, looking more handsome than ever, bearing tidings from home and the name Graham Kelley.

  Both professionally and personally, I was overjoyed. I had asked for him to be assigned, of course, but there was no guarantee Pinkerton wouldn’t send someone else. There was no one more suited to the task than DeForest. It would only be a matter of time.

  I met him in his boardinghouse and not mine, just to be safe. His was far from Society Hill. After pleasantries, he stretched like a cat and said, “So help me get my bearings. You didn’t say much.”

  “I hate to bankrupt the client with long telegrams.”

  “I’m needed, you said. For what?”

  “To be a very good friend to Mrs. Maroney.”

  “Aren’t you already that?”

  “Not in the way she seeks,” I said and explained.

  He nodded, following perfectly. He didn’t seem nearly as shocked as I’d been, but he knew more of the world, I supposed. “Her husband isn’t dead yet, but she’s already acting the merry widow.”

  “She’ll be merrier with you as her very good friend.”

  “I understand. You’ll introduce us, yes? Have you primed the pump?”

  “I told her she’d adore you. And she will.”

  He put up his feet. “So I get into her good graces, take her around the town.”

  “Yes.”

  “All the while, you’ll be the angel on her shoulder.”

  “Devil, more like.”

  “Both, as the situation warrants. You can urge her to trust me, to run away with me. If she’s going to do that, she’ll need money. If she has any idea at all where her husband’s stolen money is, she’ll retrieve it in an instant. We’ll have our evidence and be done.”

  It sounded more mercenary in his words than it had inside my mind. I couldn’t deny the other outcome of a successful plan. “And her heart will be broken.”

  “Kate,” he said, setting his feet on the floor and taking a more serious tone. “Do you think I revel in that? I don’t. But the money is stolen. It’s not her husband’s, and it’s not hers. Our client demands its return. That’s what I’m here to do, whatever it takes.”

  “Whatever it takes? You’ll do absolutely anything?”

  “Of course.”

  I wanted to be perfectly clear, and for once—inspired, perhaps, by Cath herself—I spoke the truth flat out. “You’ll seduce her?”

  “If it’s required.”

  “But how could you even…” I began.

  He eyed me suspiciously, pulling himself back a little bit into his chair as I trailed off. We sat in silence for a tense moment.

  I didn’t need to tell him, but I wanted to. I couldn’t be myself with anyone else, certainly not with Cath, but I could with him. His secret was between us, and I knew it, but he didn’t. The time had come to strike it.

  All in a rush, I said, “Look, DeForest, I know about you.”

  His demeanor remained cool. “Ha ha. If you’re trying to get me to confess something, it won’t work. We’re both better operatives than that, aren’t we?”

  “I wasn’t trying to find it out, I swear. I was just practicing my surveillance skills. But…”

  “Kate,” he said, more serious, his dark brows as low as I’d ever seen them. “Enough. It’s not funny. I’ve come a long way to help out.”

  I said, “I saw you once. The bar off LaSalle. With the blond man.” I named the address and saw recognition dawn on his face.

  In that moment, the man I knew dropped away. The sleek, jovial face became instantly pale, almost haunted. In his eyes, I saw true fear. He made sense to me then. He wore the mask of a ladies’ man to conceal what kind of man he truly was. He’d had a fellow feeling for me from the beginning because he knew, so perfectly, what it was to be different from everyone else.

  “Oh God,” he said and reached for me with both hands. He pinned my arms to the table, his hands on my wrists, clutching tightly. “I can’t—you can’t tell anyone. How much do you want? Anything, you can have it. Anything.”

  “DeForest,” I said. “No.”

  “Please.”

  “You’re my friend,” I told him. I had to tug on my hands twice, the second time with some force, to get him to release me. “I won’t betray you. You’ve been too good to me, whatever else you are.”

  A smile tried to work its way onto his face, but the fear didn’t leave his eyes. In some way, I couldn’t possibly fathom him, his unnatural interests, his decision to be like he was. But the undertow of his terror I understood.

  I said, “So you understand why I asked about what you plan to do with Cath.”

  He said grimly, “I plan to do what the work requires.”

  “Good, then.”

  The introduction went as well as I’d hoped, and the two of them got on like a house on fire.

  That very first evening, the three of us dined in an ale house off Second Street, near the water. DeForest made a sly joke about the salubrious effects of oysters. Cath giggled merrily, putting her hand on his arm. I pretended I didn’t understand, because it didn’t feel right either to laugh along with them or to act shocked by their instant intimacy. They would do what they would do. I could encourage or discourage it, whichever I thought made it more likely for Cath to desert her husband and turn over everything she knew about the stolen money to us.

  I sat there a divided woman, both that night and the week of nights that followed, whether I was with the two of them or alone with Cath. As she swooned in raptures about her good friend Mr. Kelley’s attentions, the operative in me gloated. We’d soon have what we needed; everything was going acco
rding to plan. But another part of me cringed and shrank away. I wanted to warn her not to get too attached, and on occasion, I did. The woman I was pretending to be would have done the same. It was safe. I could say, Now don’t forget you’re a married woman to the eyes of the world. I could say, I know love overwhelms all reason. I could not say, The man you love will never love you, will never love a woman at all, doesn’t have any esteem for you, is tricking you every minute of every day, and so am I. Run, run, run.

  But who wouldn’t love DeForest? His careful attention, his suave manner, his devastating grin. She stood no chance.

  I told myself we could only catch her doing wrong if she did wrong. If she were truly innocent, there was no evidence we could manufacture that would entrap her. That was how I slept that night and many others. The guilty were the ones who ensnared themselves, imprisoned themselves, surrendered themselves. We were only collecting on a debt.

  • • •

  After a week, I went to visit her one morning, and I could tell immediately from the pink in her cheeks that a corner had been turned. Cath and I had breakfast together at the boardinghouse table, and she couldn’t stay still, poking the legs of the table with her toes, tapping her fingers merrily on the saucer under her teacup. She only made idle chitchat while we ate, but I knew far more was to come and proposed we go out for a walk together. It was raining, but she readily agreed.

  We raised our umbrellas and stood close together, keeping the rain off our shoulders and giving us some small measure of privacy. We were barely even off the porch, but she wasted no time in clutching my hand and whispering her news.

  “He wants me to run away with him.”

  “A scandal!” I said. “Delicious! Will you?”

  “I want to. Oh, how I want to.”

  “You two do seem to…get on.”

  “We do!” She laughed in delight, but her face quickly grew serious. “But oh, I don’t know. Nathan is counting on me…”

  It was the first time she’d ever used his name with me. I chose my words carefully. They needed to pertain to the story she’d told me as well as the story that was true. “Nathan abandoned you.”

  “Yes and no. He told me he depends on me. I’m the only one who can save him.”

  I steered us toward the park. The rain made a soothing sort of patter on our umbrellas over our heads. “A lot of men say things like that. Doesn’t make them true. What do you have to save him from anyway?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  I pretended to pout. “Oh, but you tell me everything!”

  “I want to. It’s only that—well, I haven’t been completely honest.”

  “I’m sure you had good reason. And you can, you know. Be honest.”

  “You may judge me.”

  “Would you judge me,” I asked, taking a confessional tone, “knowing I was once married to a gambler? A man with no control, no restraint, who lost all our money time and again?”

  “Of course not. That’s not your fault.”

  “We never know the men we marry,” I intoned, “until well after we’ve married them. And by then, it’s too late.”

  She nodded fiercely. “It’s so.”

  “So if this—Nathan, was it?—has done wrong by you, I say you owe him precious little.”

  “But he hasn’t deserted me. Not exactly.”

  I sensed her starting to push back, falling into the position of defending her husband against me, even though I was only echoing the worst of what she herself had thought and said. I needed to change tactics. I took her hand and paused.

  “I suppose you’re right. Married for better or for worse, isn’t that what they say? Though it’s been far more of the worse lately.”

  She clutched her umbrella a bit more tightly. “It has.”

  “But if he’s kept his promises to you—well, has he kept them?”

  “He’s tried.” She looked unsure.

  “In that spirit, I guess you need to keep your promise to him. Forgoing any chance of your own happiness, of course. It’ll be hard to break that to poor Mr. Kelley. He really is such a fine man. So…appealing.”

  “He is, isn’t he?”

  “And he certainly seems to dote on little Violet.”

  “He does.”

  My words felt like weapons, but there was no going back. I stabbed and twisted. “She deserves to be happy too, I think. I don’t know how that can happen if this husband of yours leaves you high and dry. Unless you have the reserves to run away and start a new life somewhere.”

  I saw the light go on in her head. The choice of words had been right. She gazed out at the rainy park, the tension in her face relaxing, melting away. “I might be able to find reserves like that.”

  “I don’t just mean strength. I know you’re strong. I also mean money. Do you need that kind of help from me? I’ll do my best.”

  A smile came over her face. “No, dear, sweet one. I have money.”

  “Whyever aren’t you using it now, then?” I exclaimed. “Cath, you could be so much happier! Either use a little to make your life better or a lot to start a new life outright! Whatever you do, if you have the chance at freedom, I’d take it. I wish I had such a chance.”

  “Oh, my dear Kate, I wish you did too,” she said, and then I knew I had her.

  She made her plans and her choice. Her paramour Mr. Kelley gave her the time and date to meet at the station, claiming he had bought train tickets for all three of them. Disguised, I tailed her. She swept into the bank on Market and out again, and it took no time at all for me to discover the alias she’d used there. Immediately after, I reported the wrongdoing to the local authorities, as Pinkerton had advised me. After that, our part was done.

  Cath would be intercepted on her way to the station. That way, neither I nor DeForest had to break the news of our deception to her, though our feelings were not the reason for the procedure. It was simply better practice never to reveal a cover identity unless it was absolutely necessary. DeForest might have occasion to become Mr. Kelley again, or I might find myself in Philadelphia in the future as Mrs. Wofford. Hidden things had value, if we could keep them that way.

  The logical part of me thought our betrayal of Cath Maroney no more remarkable than any other case, but there was a growing cloud on my soul that had nothing to do with logic. She had been my friend—or as close as I could get to one, given the deceit on both sides. And I knew her feelings for the mythical Mr. Kelley were as true as they could be. She’d fallen in love with the man, even if he wasn’t the man she thought, and I’d fed that fire. She’d trusted us, and we were her downfall.

  We’d even used her little daughter against her. Was there any forgiving that?

  I left Philadelphia the day after the arrest, and the ride home to Chicago was long and lonely. Procedure dictated that DeForest and I take separate trains, and truth be told, I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to discuss it with him. I was still reeling from what I knew he’d done.

  The boss had told us many times that he did not expect his operatives, male or female, to perform amoral acts of intimacy with our targets. But regardless of what he expected, I realized at last, these things happened. A woman like Cath Maroney would hardly run away with a man who merely pressed his lips gently against the back of her outstretched hand. She had appetites, and I had no doubt he’d done what was necessary to sate them. I knew she was a criminal, and I didn’t admire that, but I did admire how she’d known what she wanted and pursued it without qualms, without hesitation.

  I had appetites too but no one to sate them for me, and I lived like a sacred sister. I hadn’t even attempted a romance in years. Who would I pursue, or who would pursue me? Everyone I met was either a colleague or a suspect. It wasn’t that my fellow agents weren’t fine examples of men, some of them very much so—I caught myself more often than I liked notic
ing a gentle hand, a firm jaw, the muscles of a strong back I might like to feel under my fingertips—but entangling myself with one would allow the others to discount me. They’d say they’d always known I was hunting a husband, not justice. I wouldn’t take the risk.

  After two and a half years in the same boardinghouse, I still didn’t know the name of a single person who lived there other than the landlady, Mrs. Morris, nor did I know even her Christian name. The only man who’d been in my bedroom since Charlie’s death was Tim Bellamy, the night Sarah Harrington died. I grinned to myself, thinking how he would react if I told him of the honor, how he would bristle and bluster. I could still picture the outline of his rigid back as he stood, facing away from me, eyes on the door.

  There were days that I loved my life, and I couldn’t imagine anything that suited me better than the work of a Pinkerton operative. I would not have traded it. But riding the train back to Chicago, free of artifice for the moment, with no one to deceive or impress, I realized how lonely I was.

  I stared out the window at the empty dark. The invisible countryside sped by me. I told myself to stop fixating on such things. After all, I doubted the other operatives thought of themselves this way. I couldn’t imagine someone like Jack Mortenson, grim and resolute, letting even a trace of remorse for the things he’d done cloud his mind. But I was not Jack Mortenson, nor was I meant to be.

  I wondered, not for the first time, whether my experience as an investigator had changed me or whether this was the woman I truly was. All my life, I’d done what my parents told me to do, up to and including my disastrous marriage. I’d thought myself a good girl then, quiet and dutiful, always ready to obey. Perhaps I was disguised even from myself.

  The woman I’d become since Pinkerton hired me—excited by subterfuge, capable of any and all lies, slipping into and out of identities like dresses—was she the real me?