A Deceptive Homecoming (24 page)

“O
h no.” I groaned under my breath when I arrived back at the hotel. First the arrest of Asa Upchurch and Dr. Hillman, and now this.

“Well, there's my girl!” Nate Boone jumped up from the cushioned bench lining the lobby wall.

I was exhausted and I wanted nothing more than to go to my room, consult the train timetables for my departure, and then write Walter and Sir Arthur telling them when to expect me. But despite successfully uncovering the embezzler at school, the truth behind the “incidents,” and revealing Levi Yardley's killer, I felt disgruntled. I still didn't know what had happened to Frank Hayward. How I could leave without knowing Mr. Hayward's fate? I hated loose ends.

And here's another one,
I thought.

I took a deep breath. “I'm not your girl, Nate.” His smile revealed he hadn't noticed the exhaustion in my voice.

“You were once, though, right, Hat?” Hearing him use the nickname immediately brought me back to the days when I would've been delighted by the sight of this man. Not anymore.

“Why are you here, Nate?”

“To take you to dinner, what else? I've sent you invitations every day, but they obviously never reached you.” With this comment he glared at Mr. Putney, who was attempting to appear preoccupied at the registration desk. “So I thought I'd invite you in person.” He flourished his black derby about. “Where do you want to go? I've never tried the Silver Moon. I hear they do an excellent Welsh rabbit, or there's the Parisian on Francis. It can't compare with what I've dined on in Paris, but I'm sure we can find something tasty.”

“I did get your invitations, Nate. I simply didn't want to go to dinner.” His face twitched in surprise, an oddly familiar expression.

How swiftly the years melt away,
I thought. Could it have been eleven years since I'd last seen him?

“Why ever not?”

I shook my head in disbelief. “How can you even wonder? We didn't part on particularly good terms, you know.”

“But, Hattie, that was years ago. I think it's wonderful how well we've both done with our lives. What's the harm in chatting about old times and toasting to the new?”

Same old Nate: charming, cheerful, optimistic, and oblivious.

“It's been a long day, Nate.”

“I'll cheer you up. We can dine right here; you don't have to exert yourself a bit. I won't even complain when the roast chicken is tough.” He beamed at me and put out his arm. “Come on, Hat, take my arm and let's go. I'm starving.” I was too tired to say no.

He led me into the dining room, and on the presumption that I was too tired, ordered for the both of us. Did he think I'd forgotten that he'd always ordered for the two of us? Even when we were young he'd pick out the flavor of stick candy we'd get at his father's grocery store after school. As we waited for our food, he chattered on and on: about where he'd traveled, who he'd met, which palace he'd played, while touring with Sousa's band. After dinner arrived, between popping bites of roast chicken, fried potatoes, and boiled parsnips into his mouth, he gossiped about a suspected affair between one of the vocalists and a clarinet player. He blathered on about how important he was to Sousa and how he'd become assistant conductor last year, while I sat there pushing the food about my plate. After the day I'd had, I wasn't in the least bit hungry. And what a day I'd had! Let alone the adventures and misadventures I'd had since we'd last met. But Nate was too caught up in his own storytelling to ask me anything.

Oh, how I miss you, Walter,
I thought. How I longed to see the compassion in his eyes, to feel the warmth of his embrace, to hear him ask, in all sincerity, how I was. From the moment I'd met him, he'd displayed nothing but kindness, interest, and concern for me. He'd always valued my opinions, my feelings, and my affection. Without a word between us, I knew he loved me. And as easy as it was to breathe, I loved him. So why had I agreed to dine with Nate Boone?

Another loose end,
I thought, watching the animation in Nate's face as he told of a particular concert they'd given at the World's Fair. As with my father, I'd never gotten a proper good-bye, a proper reason for his departure from my life. I'd been in love with him once. He and I had grown up together. We knew each other like no one else. And now all I could do was politely pick at my peach cobbler, nod my head, and wish the dinner would be over.

“And then do you know what he said?”

“I'm sorry, Nate,” I said, setting my napkin on the table. “I'm exhausted. Thank you for dinner, but I'm going to retire to my room now.” I pushed back my chair and stood. Instead of standing like any gentleman would, he sat gaping up at me.

“Well, heck, Hat. You haven't even finished your cobbler. You love cobbler.” And I'd thought he hadn't remembered anything. I smiled at him for the first time.

“It was nice to see you, Nate. I'm happy that you're doing well. Good night.” As I turned to leave, I heard the sudden scraping of his chair as he leaped to his feet. Before I could take another step, he grabbed my arm.

“You still haven't forgiven me, have you?”

“Forgiven you for what?” For breaking our engagement so you could pursue your career, for breaking your promise to me to be by my side at my father's funeral, or for breaking my heart? I thought. But I said none of this. It was a long time ago and I was ready to put it all behind me. Confronting Dr. Hillman had allowed me to do that. “Good-bye, Nate.”

“Please don't leave like this.” He released my arm, slipping his hand into mine. “I'm sorry I broke your heart,” he whispered. “I'm sorry about your father. Truly I am.”

“Thank you for saying that.” I fought back tears when I saw the remorse that I'd heard in his voice reflected in his eyes.

“You were my girl once, Hat. I've never forgotten that.”

“I know. And you'll always have a place in my heart.”

“I should've been there for you. I should have never let you go.” I merely nodded, not trusting myself to speak. “Good-bye, Hattie,” Nate said as he released my hand.

“Good-bye.”

And even as I made my way back to the lobby and up the stairs, I could hear him singing, “St. Joe girls won't you come out tonight, won't you come out tonight, won't you come out tonight.” For the first time in over a decade, I could think of Nate Boone and smile. But the moment I closed the door behind me, my thoughts weren't of Nate Boone or Asa Upchurch or Dr. Cyrus Hillman. I rushed to the desk, plopped down, pulled out a piece of stationery, and began writing:

“Miss Davish?” I looked up from my breakfast to see Miss Woodruff standing a few feet from the doorway. She was no longer wearing black. “I didn't know you were staying here?”

I'd spent the two days since Asa Upchurch's and Dr. Hillman's arrests quietly: finishing my research on General Thompson for Sir Arthur, detailing the events of that day in a letter to Bertha Yardley now back in Omaha, going to Mass at the cathedral, and preparing for my departure. I bought my train ticket at the depot yesterday; I was packed and ready to leave. All that was left was a tea engagement at Mrs. Chaplin's home this afternoon.

“Yes. Will you join me?” I said, stabbing a piece of pancake on my fork. The waiter had gushed that they were the same local Aunt Jemima pancakes that were being showcased at the World's Fair. That's not why I'd ordered them. Pancakes were one of Walter's favorite foods and merely eating one made me feel one step closer to seeing him again.

“Thank you, I will.” Miss Woodruff took the chair opposite and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Will you be heading back soon, now that you've helped Mrs. Chaplin uncover the culprits behind all the troubles at the school?”

“Yes, I'm taking the first train in the morning. My employer is expecting me.”

“What about . . . ?” She shook her head but didn't finish her thought. She didn't need to. What about the disappearance of Frank Hayward is what she was going to say. I'd struggled with that too. I wanted to help Ginny discover her father's whereabouts. Wasn't that why I'd come home in the first place, to help Ginny with the loss of her father? But I'd failed. I wasn't any closer to uncovering his fate this morning than I was the moment I realized he wasn't in the casket.

“Good morning, Mollie.” A decidedly plump girl, around sixteen, with a quick smile and mischievous eyes, lumbered over to our table.

“Good morning, Mary. Mary, this is Miss Davish, a former pupil of the school. Miss Davish, this is my cousin, Miss Mary Wells.” Without being invited, the girl plopped down and thrust her hand across the table at me. I took it and she shook it vigorously.

“So thrilled to meet you, Miss Davish,” Mary Wells said. “You'll have to tell me all about working for Mrs. Mayhew and the dead bodies you found.”

“Mary!” Miss Woodruff's face flushed red from embarrassment.

“What?” Miss Wells said, obviously confused. “Isn't she the one you told me about?”

“I'm sorry, Miss Davish, my cousin arrived last night from Kansas. She lives on a farm, outside Blue Rapids,” Miss Woodruff said, as if that explained her cousin's indelicate manners.

But it still gave you time to tell her about me,
I thought. I still didn't know if I should be mortified or flattered.

“My rooms are too small to accommodate visitors so she's staying here,” Miss Woodruff explained. “I promised to take her to the Jesse James House this morning. That's why I'm here.”

“Yes, I don't think there's been a single person in the past twelve years who hasn't associated Jesse James and his band of desperadoes with St. Joseph,” Miss Wells said. “I've wanted to come for years. And then Mollie invited me and Mother said I could visit.”

“Mary's a real Jesse James enthusiast and wanted it to be the first thing she did. Of course, I've been there at least a dozen times since everyone from out of town always wants to visit. I dare say it's the one thing worth paying admission to in town.”

“Come with us,” Miss Wells said. She was brash, but her enthusiasm was infectious.

“I'm sure Miss Davish has other plans, Mary. Besides, I'm sure she's probably been there more than a dozen times. She lived here when it happened too.”

“Actually Miss Woodruff, I've never been.”

“Really?” Miss Wells and Miss Woodruff said simultaneously.

Miss Wells stared at me, her mouth agape. “You lived here then and you've never been?”

“Everyone's been to the Jesse James House,” Miss Woodruff said, surprised.

“Not me,” I said, counting out coins to pay the bill. “But as a matter of fact, I'd planned to go today; I promised a friend I'd bring him back a souvenir from the house. I'd love to join you.” Miss Wells clapped her hands in excitement. We rose from the table and headed toward the lobby.

“Oh, good. We'll make it a real outing. And you can tell me all about the body you found in the trunk on the way,” Miss Wells said.

Mr. Putney's eyes widened as we passed the desk, obviously having overheard the comment.

“Mary!” Miss Woodruff exclaimed.

“What?” her cousin said, pinning on her wide-brimmed fancy braided navy blue straw. “What did I say now?”

This is going to be an interesting outing,
I thought, as Miss Wells plodded past me, her hat flopping about as she headed out the door. I had no idea just how interesting.

“I
can't believe I'm really going to the house where Bob Ford killed Jesse James!” Miss Wells clapped her hands like a child as we climbed the hill.

“You never did say how you managed to avoid coming here before, Miss Davish,” Miss Woodruff asked. “I thought everyone in St. Joseph had visited at least once. I know my brother, who was fifteen, came that very day. It was quite exciting if you remember and everyone wanted to know if it was true. Had Jesse James really been living in St. Joseph? Was he really lying dead in a house on Lafayette Street?”

“It must've been thrilling,” Miss Wells said. “I wish I'd been here then. But then again Mother wouldn't have let me go anyway; I was a small child at the time. At least I get to see it now, though, right?”

“My mother wouldn't let me go to the house either,” Miss Woodruff said, “but she, my brother, and I went to Siden-faden's Funeral Parlor and joined the long procession past the body.”

“You never told me you actually saw his body, Mollie,” Miss Wells said. “Ooooh, am I jealous.”

“Tell her there's nothing to be jealous of, Miss Davish. Miss Davish? Is something wrong?” Miss Woodruff said, when I hadn't answered her question or shared in the women's enthusiasm.

Why did I agree to come here?
I wondered as I watched the unremarkable single-story frame house loom larger as we approached. I'm doing this for Walter, I told myself. He wanted a souvenir.

“Miss Davish?” Miss Woodruff touched my arm slightly, breaking my reverie. “There's something wrong, isn't there?”

I sighed. “Yes and no.” I tried to sound less distressed than I was feeling. “This house reminds me of my father's death.” Miss Wells gasped.

“Was your father shot in the back of the head too?”

“Mary!” Miss Woodruff chided.

“Oh, he was an outlaw then,” Miss Wells concluded.

“Mary! Of course Mr. Davish wasn't an outlaw. How could you say such a thing?”

“Miss Davish said the house reminded her of her father's death. What else was I to think?”

“I don't know, but certainly not such outlandish things as that.”

“You're right, Miss Woodruff. It's nothing like that,” I said, forcing myself to smile. Miss Wells's leap to such a bizarre conclusion made me feel silly for brooding. “My father died on the same day. That's all. Somehow I always connected the two deaths. It's silly really. My father had absolutely no connection to Jesse James except the day he died. But that's why I've never been to the house before.”

“I avoid the classroom where Frank taught bookkeeping at school,” Miss Woodruff said. “I guess we all do silly things to avoid the pain and the reminder of a person lost to us.” She pulled out her handkerchief and used it to cover her scar.

“This is supposed to be an adventure,” Miss Wells pleaded, “not a bore. Just think, the same house where the notorious outlaw was shot dead by a member of his own gang. It's thrilling to be here!”

“You're right, Mary.” Miss Woodruff stuffed her handkerchief back in her bag. “Besides, he might still be out there somewhere, right, Miss Davish?”

“Who, Jesse James?” Miss Wells asked. “I have heard rumors he's not really dead.”

“No, Mary, I meant Frank Hayward.”

“Who's Frank Hayward?” Miss Woodruff and I looked at each other, waiting for the other to answer.

Finally, Miss Woodruff said, “Someone who used to work at the school. We hope he'll come back soon.”

“I do hope so,” I said, wishing I had a more definitive answer for her.

“Well, then,” Miss Wells said as she linked one arm in mine and the other in her cousin's, “let's go.”

She led us through the gate and toward the front door, to the right of which a sign read:

J
ESSE
J
AMES
H
OUSE—
A
DMISSION
15
CENTS
.

“Get out your money, girls.” She dropped her hold on us and fished through her purse for the necessary nickels. “Let the fun begin.”

Miss Woodruff and I both laughed as we retrieved our coins for a ticket. Entering the home of a dead man, especially one as notorious as Jesse James, solely to spy the hole in the wall made by the bullet after it passed through his head or to see the floorboards still stained with his blood, was ghoulish. Yet I couldn't help but enjoy Miss Wells's enthusiasm.

At least I won't find the dead man himself,
I thought, as I paid my fare and followed my companions into the outlaw's home.

We walked through what would've been the kitchen to the front parlor where the shooting had occurred. The room was completely empty—no furniture, rug, or curtains; most of everything, Miss Wells explained to us, had been auctioned off years ago.

“Don't you remember it, Miss Davish?” Miss Wells said. “It was in the paper. You could've bought anything from a skillet to a chamber pot to the breakfast table. Then you really would've had a souvenir.” I didn't remember; my grief had been too deep at the time.

The walls too had been stripped of most of their wallpaper. In its place were names, hundreds of them; men and women who had signed the bare plaster to record their visit. Miss Wells pulled out a pencil and scribbled her name in a blank spot. She held it out to her cousin.

“Your turn.” Instead of taking the pencil, Miss Woodruff traced her finger on a nearby section that was black with signatures. She pointed to a name.

“I've already signed. See?”

Miss Wells clapped her hands when she spied Mollie Woodruff's name on the wall. “What fun! I hope to come back someday and see that my name's still here. Miss Davish?” She held the pencil out to me.

“No, thank you,” I said, trying to hide my distaste for vandalism, even in an outlaw's house.

“Very well.” Miss Wells put away her pencil and then proceeded to a section of wallpaper that was still partially intact and stripped a large piece off. She ripped the piece into threes and held two of the pieces out to Miss Woodruff and me. It had a gold background with lines of black through it that might once have been outlines of flowers. I hesitated.

“You did promise someone a souvenir, didn't you?”

“But the wallpaper?” Miss Woodruff said, slowly taking the offered paper.

“Would you rather have a piece of the floorboards still stained with Jesse James's blood?” Miss Wells walked over to a darkened indentation on the floor. She obviously wouldn't be the first to collect her souvenir from the wooden planks. She knelt down next to it, examining the boards. “If I had a penknife, it would be simple, but I'm not sure if I can pull a piece up. Maybe I could get a sliver . . .”

“No, Mary, stop,” Miss Woodruff said, mortified that her cousin was trying to dig into the floor with a key. She pulled her cousin up, with great effort, from the floor. “The wallpaper will do fine.” Her cousin shrugged.

“Or better yet,” Miss Wells said, staring at the bullet hole in the wall. She stopped beneath it, stood on her toes, and reached up toward it. The tips of her stubby fingers barely reached.

“Mary! It's a bullet hole,” Miss Woodruff said. “Isn't it sacrilegious or something to tamper with it?”

“Only if the police were still investigating the crime,” I said. “But I wouldn't recommend it. It will further damage the plaster.”

“Yes, it will further damage the plaster, Mary,” Miss Woodruff repeated. “Besides, it doesn't even look much like a bullet hole, does it? I hadn't expected it to be that big.”

“It wouldn't have been,” I said. “But as you know, hundreds, maybe even thousands, of others have come before us over the years. I'm guessing Mary wasn't the first to want a part of the wall.”

“Miss Davish is right,” Miss Wells said, pulling several yellowed newspaper clippings from her bag. She riffled through them until she found the one she wanted. “See here. They have a picture of the original hole and it was much smaller.”

She held it out before her. Miss Woodruff and I looked at the newspaper article over her shoulder. It was an article from
The Manhattan Enterprise
dated April 4, 1882, the day after the shooting. It contained two photographs, one of Jesse James dead in a semi-upright coffin and one of the bullet hole in the wall, which was a great deal smaller.

“Where did you get this?” Miss Woodruff asked.

“I clipped it out of the paper that day and kept it with others as keepsakes. I brought them along knowing I was coming here. If you look closely, you can see the bullet hole in his head.” Miss Wells moved the paper closer to Miss Woodruff's face. That lady promptly turned pale and looked away. “See, Miss Davish,” Miss Wells said. “Some people don't think it was him, that he's still alive, but look, the dead man looks exactly like the live one.”

She riffled through the clippings again and this time pulled out one containing a photograph of Jesse James posing for a portrait with other men. “See.” Miss Wells held the pictures, the portrait with Jesse James alive and the other of him in his casket, next to each other. “Of course, he's much younger here. It was supposedly taken during the early days of the James-Younger gang, but still I don't know how anyone could think this wasn't him.”

“Wishful thinking, perhaps,” Miss Woodruff said flippantly, though not willing to look at the photographs.

Not noting the sarcastic tone of her cousin's voice, Miss Wells said, “Maybe. It is thrilling to think that he might still be alive. What do you think, Miss Davish? Is this really him?”

I looked at the comparison photographs, not to confirm that the outlaw was indeed dead (Hadn't the night policeman confirmed it?) but because something caught my eye in the portrait picture. Agrimony. The flowers on the backdrop behind the men looked like agrimony.

Like the misplaced flowers at Frank Hayward's funeral,
I thought.

I studied the portrait, wishing I'd brought my hand lens with me but couldn't determine from the yellowing gray photograph if I was right. But then I saw something that made the identity of the flowers irrelevant.

“Oh my God.”

“It's ghoulish, I know,” Miss Wells said, mistaking my exclamation for revulsion. “But that's part of the fun, isn't it?”

“I'm sorry, I have to go,” I said, heading toward the exit.

“What is it, Miss Davish? Are you all right? Shall we go with you?”

I turned to look at Miss Woodruff. I inwardly cringed at the concern on her face. She didn't deserve to have her heart broken again. But if she knew what I was about to do . . . I couldn't let myself think anymore. I had to go.

“I'm sorry,” was all I could muster to say as I ran from the room. “I'm truly sorry.”

“Well, that's strange,” I heard Mary Wells say behind me. “Did you see the look on her face? I thought she'd swoon right here. I know the dead man's picture is ghastly, but you'd think after finding so many dead bodies, she'd be less squeamish than that.”

If she only knew,
I thought as I raced out of the house and down the hill.
If she only knew.