The Ladies of Garrison Gardens

by Louise Shaffer

  “I told you not to compare—”

  “I don't give a damn what you told me. He was selfish and—”

  “You shut up!”

  “He didn't care about either of us.”

  “He did! He would have cared if he could have, if he hadn't been seduced—”

  “You don't really believe that.”

  “My mother knew about it. She knew he had a child. That's the way I remember her, crying over another woman.”

  “I'm sorry about that, but—”

  “She was dying, for God's sake! And your mother—that whore—”

  Anger quick and hot started inside her. “Don't say that again.” Oddly, her voice was calm.

  “What do you call a woman who takes up with a man whose wife is dying?”

  “What do you call a man who takes up with another woman when his wife is dying?”

  “You can defend her all you want. The happiest day I had in months was when I—” she broke off. And Iva Claire knew.

  “You read my letters.” The anger was bubbling up now. She pushed it back. “You knew my mother was dying. I was begging for money for her, and you sent my letters back without even answering them.”

  “I wanted her to know the free lunch was over.”

  “Mama never got a free lunch. Your dear daddy was just taking the easy way out.”

  “And your mother took the money. I believe that's called a whore.”

  “Sounds as if he had his share of them.”

  Iva Claire never saw the hand that came at her, but she heard it hit her cheek and felt the sharp pain. She felt the anger rushing to the surface and, under it, the anguish. It was all going to come out, and her tired mind couldn't stop it.

  Leave! said the voice in her head.

  She pushed her way past the table and chair and started for the door. But Myrtis grabbed her arm and whirled her around. She was yelling something, but Iva Claire couldn't hear it. She felt herself yank her arm away, and then she felt herself pull back her arm to hit.

  Mama's temper! the voice warned. But it was too late. Everything inside exploded. She wanted to smash bones and make blood spurt. She felt her hand connect with flesh with a force driven by pure rage.

  Myrtis stumbled backward. Then she fell. She went down hard, too fast to break her fall with her arm, although she tried. It was too fast for Iva Claire to reach out—too fast to understand what had happened. At first.

  She must have been off balance. I couldn't have hit her that hard.

  But I wanted to hurt her.

  Just for a second. One little second. When she sits up, I'll tell her I'm sorry. I'll get out of her house and never bother her again.

  But Myrtis didn't move. When she'd fallen, the side of her head struck the raised corner of the brick hearth that jutted out from the fireplace.

  I wanted to hurt her.

  Don't think about that!

  There was blood on the hearth where Myrtis's head had hit it. Most of it had seeped into the porous brick, but a little pool was collecting on the hardwood floor. Myrtis's face was white—the same white Mama's had been after she died.

  I wanted to hurt her.

  Don't think.

  Iva Claire moved closer. Yesterday she hadn't known Myrtis Benedict existed, and now . . .

  I wanted her to die.

  Don't think.

  She knew there was no need to call for help. She knew by the white face and the stillness she'd seen just a few days before. But even though she knew it was hopeless, she had to try. She picked up Myrtis's hand and held the wrist, feeling for the little beat in the vein that would say everything was all right, that the unthinkable hadn't happened. There was no pulse. She tried the other hand. She held on for a long time, to make sure.

  She walked out of the room. She crossed the hall, went through the front door, and carefully closed it behind her. Then she started to run. She ran under the canopy of trees to Mill Street. She ran past the houses and the dark little town square and the railroad station. She didn't stop until she found Tassie sitting on the porch of the hotel, waiting for her.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  TASSIE WAS THE ONE who said they shouldn't walk through town together, because they'd be too conspicuous. So they took separate routes from the hotel back to the big house on the hill. Tassie was the one who said they should hurry because maybe Iva Claire had made a mistake, maybe Myrtis was still alive. Only Tassie called her your sister, which was the first time Iva Claire had thought about her like that.

  Iva Claire got to the house before Tassie, and as she stood on the porch waiting, she let herself hope she'd been mistaken. But when Tassie showed up and they went inside to the parlor, they both knew that Iva Claire had been right.

  “You've got to get away from here,” Tassie said. “I know it was an accident, but you're a stranger, and that girl lying on the floor was important in this place. Nobody will want to hear your side. Nobody will care. All they're gonna know is what you did to one of their own.”

  Hearing it called an accident made it easier. It stopped being something dark and evil. It was almost possible to forget the rage that had caused it. Now there were problems to be solved, decisions to be made. She had to think about saving herself. But she knew running wasn't the answer.

  “There's a maid who works here,” she told Tassie. “If she comes back in the morning and sees the—what happened, she'll call the police. We can't even get a train out of here until ten o'clock tomorrow.”

  “We'll leave right now. We'll walk.”

  “Without knowing where we're going? They'll catch us before we get to the next town. Besides, all anyone around here has to do is take one look at my face, and—” She stopped. The words she'd just said seemed to bounce around the walls of the little parlor. She turned to Tassie to see if she had heard them, but Tassie looked blank.

  “If they look at my face, they'll think they see her,” Iva Claire said softly. And this time Tassie understood.

  If they had been civilians, maybe it would never have occurred to either of them. But they'd lived in a world of flimflam and illusion. The world's tallest man was really a guy on stilts. They had listened to dear kind Benny laugh about scamming marks as the Great Otto. They had pretended to be sisters. They both knew what you could get away with.

  Tassie shivered. “Oh, my God, you want to pull a switch,” she whispered.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  NOW THEIR ROLES were reversed. Iva Claire was the one who was in charge. Tassie was good at practical things, but the con Iva Claire was about to pull off—or try to—was beyond her.

  “My God, Iva Claire, are you sure you look enough like her?” Tassie asked.

  That was the question. They were standing in the parlor, as far away from the hearth as they could get. Now Iva Claire moved closer. Behind her, she heard Tassie whisper, “Sweet Jesus!” but she kept on moving to the body—the body that had been a person, breathing and full of life, but now was just a thing on the floor. She fought an impulse to run and made herself look down. She could feel the room starting to spin around her, but she made it stay steady; she had decisions to make. She circled the body, mentally checking its size against her own. Close enough, she decided. She moved in to get a better look at the face, and the room threatened to spin again. Again, she stopped it. But she had to know what she was getting into, and the face was the key. She studied it carefully. The eyes were closed, but she remembered they were blue although the shade was a little off. The bone structure was enough like hers, and the crucial nose and chin were perfect. She turned her attention to the now bloodless lips. The mouth was the problem. But was it an insurmountable one? Could she work against it? She turned back to Tassie.

  “I can do it,” she said, “but I need a distraction prop.”

  A magician they'd once worked with had an act that involved shooting a guy on one side of the stage and having him seem to reappear on the other side. After the “shooting,” the “victim” st
arted “bleeding” through his white jacket. The shocked crowd was so mesmerized by the fake blood they never saw a second man get into position across the stage. The magician called the blood a distraction prop. He had dozens of them, and it had fascinated Iva Claire to see the way they always worked.

  “You need a distraction prop?” Tassie's voice, shrill with fear, dragged Iva Claire back to reality. “Like what? What could possibly distract people enough so they'll believe you're Myrtis Benedict?”

  I don't know, but I'll come up with something. I'm smart. And she was every bit as ruthless as Mama had been. She'd known that when she stole the gold dog collar and then conned Big Hannah. “I can carry it off,” she said.

  “How? You don't know anything about her! It'll be like trying to play a part when you don't know the lines!”

  “I'll have to wing it. I look enough like her. And you've always said what a good mimic I am.”

  “That was onstage. This is for real!”

  “It won't be any different from doing the act.”

  “We did the act for twenty minutes,” Tassie said desperately. “This won't end, Iva Claire. This will be the rest of your life!”

  “I can do it.” I can do anything. I can steal, I can lie, I can even kill.

  Don't think about that.

  It was Iva Claire who remembered the family cemetery. It was Iva Claire who found the keys to the cemetery hanging on a nail in the gardener's shed. With Tassie shuddering behind her, it was Iva Claire who found the sheets in the linen closet and wrapped the body Tassie couldn't touch. She did help Iva Claire carry it out of the house, but she was so shaky Iva Claire was afraid she wouldn't make it to the cemetery. Tassie watched while Iva Claire fitted the big ornate iron key into the door of the first of the three mausoleums. Together, they put the body inside and locked the door. On the way back to the house, Tassie stumbled into the undergrowth and threw up. Iva Claire practically had to carry her.

  “How can you be so calm?” Tassie whispered, when they were back inside.

  Because I am my mother's daughter. But then, with hard terrible clarity, she realized she was far worse than Mama had ever been. Mama was weak. I'm strong. I will get what I want. She felt something cold creep inside her bones, and she shuddered. I'll make up for this, she told herself. I'll make up for what I've done.

  She got a bowl of water and some soap from the kitchen so they could scrub the blood from the hearth and the floor, but Tassie couldn't go near it. So Iva Claire worked alone for several minutes, until the water in the bowl was pink and the stains had faded. No amount of scrubbing would remove them from the hearth completely, but the brick was old and discolored, so they weren't noticeable unless someone was looking for them. And who would do that?

  She rinsed the bowl in the kitchen sink and put it and the soap back where she'd found them. When she reentered the parlor, Tassie had stopped looking sick.

  “Tassie, you have to pay attention. Tomorrow—later this morning, it's after midnight now—you'll go back to Atlanta,” she said.

  “You want me to leave you alone?”

  “Myrtis Benedict doesn't have a friend named Tassie.

  Tassie shrank back in her chair. “I see.”

  “You'll take the first train . . . no, you can't do that. If something goes wrong—”

  “What do you mean, if something goes wrong?”

  “If there's something I've forgotten, if someone figures out what happened, you're a stranger in town and they'll suspect you too.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “Someone at the hotel might remember you. You'll have to have a reason for being in Beneville.”

  “Iva Claire, let's just run!”

  “No, listen to me. This is a mill town. You came here because you heard there were jobs. You've never done this kind of work before, but you're desperate. Ask them at the hotel where you should go to put your name in. If they actually try you out at the mill, do whatever they ask you to do so badly that they wouldn't dream of hiring you. But I don't think you'll get that far. Then take the train to Atlanta. Check into the Georgian Palace Hotel.”

  “That ritzy place you told me about?”

  “It's the only hotel I know there. I don't want to take the chance that I won't be able to find you.”

  “But it'll cost—”

  “I've got money. I found her purse in the kitchen.”

  “Oh.” Tassie rubbed her arm nervously.

  “You wait for me at the hotel. It shouldn't be long. I'll get out as soon as I can.”

  Tassie nodded. She was rubbing both arms now.

  “I can't leave if there's some reason she should be here, someone she's supposed to see or something she has to do. And I need to find out whatever I can about her.”

  Tassie was clawing at her arms now, digging at them with her fingernails.

  “For God's sake, stop that!” Iva Claire snapped.

  To her amazement, Tassie started to laugh, a loud hysterical laugh that made her double over in her chair and gasp for breath.

  “Tassie, you can't fall apart on me. I need—”

  But Tassie thrust out her arm. Big red blotches were starting up where she'd been clawing herself. “It's poison ivy!” she managed to get out. “It probably happened out there, when we . . . when I fell. If I don't put some calamine on it quick, I'll blow up like a balloon.”

  They found some in the medicine chest in the bathroom upstairs. Tassie smeared the thick pink stuff over her arms until the rash was completely covered.

  The hunt for the calamine had delayed the inevitable for a little while longer, but now they had to face it.

  “It's after three,” Iva Claire said to Tassie. “You should get back to the hotel. Can you still get in?”

  Tassie nodded. “The man at the desk left at eleven, but he told me they always leave a key on the top of the door in case guests come in late.”

  They walked in silence to the front door. Iva Claire opened it. But Tassie didn't go.

  “Iva Claire, it was an accident. Maybe you could try to explain . . . and you wouldn't have to do this.”

  “I'll see you in Atlanta, Tassie,” she said.

  For a moment she thought Tassie was going to argue. But sweet, loyal Tassie was one of the weak ones.

  “Be careful,” Tassie said. Then she ran across the porch and disappeared into the darkness.

  Iva Claire went back inside, locked the door behind her, took a deep breath, and got ready to start her new life.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  SHE DIDN'T KNOW how much time she had. Did the maid come every morning? Was she there for breakfast? When was breakfast? Did the maid cook it? There had to be a certain way things were done in this place. Or did there? Myrtis had only been back home from England for two weeks, she'd said. It took time to establish a routine. Still, she'd seemed like the type who would be sure her likes and dislikes were well known to the servants.

  I'll have to have some kind of cover story ready, Iva Claire thought, in case I do something unusual.

  She'd been handed some incredible pieces of luck, both good and bad. Myrtis hadn't spent much time in Beneville since childhood, so there wouldn't be a lot of old friends wondering why she'd suddenly developed an uncharacteristic taste for coffee, or raspberries, or polka dots. More important, no boyfriend would pop up to notice she'd started kissing differently. That was good. Not so good was the fact that Myrtis had been planning to sell the house and return to England permanently, and now she'd be changing her mind, which would have to be explained. There must be someone in England who should be informed that Myrtis would be staying on this side of the Atlantic. And some steamship line should be told that her tickets were to be canceled. But who? And which steamship line?

  Iva Claire knew she had to get out of Beneville. She had to go someplace where the Benedicts weren't as well known as they were in their hometown. Perhaps Atlanta. Myrtis Benedict was used to living in London, so a big city would be a logical place for
her to pick. Since Randall Benedict had always stayed in a hotel in Atlanta, it was a safe bet that he didn't have a home there, and Iva Claire assumed he wouldn't have a lot of friends in the city who knew his daughter well. If he did, she'd move somewhere else until she'd fully established herself as Myrtis. Then, when certain details like Myrtis's height and weight and the fullness of her mouth had gotten blurred in people's minds, she might come back to Beneville every once in a while, just to keep up appearances.

  But the real danger was now, while she was still in town trying to cover her tracks. This was the time when she could give herself away. She felt herself getting cold. What would happen to her if they found out what she'd done? What happened to you when you killed your own sister? Cold as she was, she was starting to sweat. She made herself move, pacing in a circle, anything to keep the blood flowing. You are not going to give yourself away. You are going to pull this off. You've got to.

  Moving around helped. Her mind cleared and the panic stopped. She decided to do a fast sweep through the house, starting with the ground floor, looking for clues about Myrtis and her life. In the kitchen she found a grocery list with Sally scrawled across the top. That had to be the maid's name. She hoped. She noticed the kitchen door leading to the outside was unlocked and locked it. The dining room was useless, as was the living room. In a little sitting room off the back porch she found a sewing basket with the initials M.B. worked into the straw. Did Myrtis repair her own hems and mend her stockings? Did she do embroidery? Did it matter? Iva Claire pocketed a pair of scissors she'd need later for cutting her hair and hurried on. The rooms on the first floor and the long hallway were full of old furniture—probably family heirlooms that were loaded with history she should know but didn't. She'd have to find a way to learn about them.

  She got her first break in the library. On a pedestal near the window was a thick book, very old and bound in leather. A Bible, with a family tree.