The Impersonator (19 page)

“Oh, my, well, you must do whatever you think best, Jessie dear, of course, but Ross’s concerns are not misplaced. No indeed. Driving is very dangerous, especially for ladies.” She cast a fond glance at her youngest son.

“I’ll be careful, Aunt.”

The cheerful day, clear, sunny, and warmer than the previous few, made me feel adventurous. After taking the precaution of telling Grandmother where I was going, I set off for the beach to visit the caves, eager to see where Jessie and Buster had played out their pirate fantasies.

At the top of the bluff, I faced into a mild sea breeze. The hat brim shaded the sun from my eyes as I scanned the coast for miles north and south, then a distant bark turned my attention to the beach where I saw I would not be alone. Someone was moving slowly along the strand, picking his way around the piles of tree litter, stooping now and then, and putting something into a shiny tin pail. The distance was too great to identify the person’s face, but his conical straw hat was clue enough. Leaving my sweater on a large rock, I set off through the thicket.

The path to the beach did not make a difficult descent, and five minutes later, my shoes crunched the pebbles that the Pacific currents had deposited on Carr property thousands of years before it was Carr property.

“Hello, Chen!” I called loudly over the sound of the waves.

King bounded over to greet me, stopping to bark at a dead jellyfish. I caught up with Chen and peered into his bucket. He nodded but did not smile.

“Oh, agates. I thought you were collecting seashells for the garden.”

“No, agates and jasper. After rough weather, the beaches around here are full of them.” As if to prove his point, he stooped and picked up a dark green stone with red flecks in it.

“Ooh, that’s beautiful. They’re shiny when they’re wet, aren’t they?”

“They show up better too.”

“Is this one?” Chen peered at my find and nodded. I dropped it in his pail. “What are you collecting them for? To put in the garden?”

He didn’t answer for so long, I wondered if he had not heard me. All at once, a sick sense of horror drenched me. Jessie had collected agates on the beach. Jessie would never have asked,
Is this one?
I had just ruined the entire scheme. No wonder Chen was silent; he was reflecting on Jessie’s odd reaction. He would repeat his doubts to the family. I was sunk.

Finally Chen spoke. It was not the question I expected. It was not a question at all. “These are not for the garden. But I don’t take time away from my work to search. I work longer to make up for the time.”

My knees almost buckled with relief. How had I forgotten? Chen hadn’t worked here when Jessie lived at Cliff House. Chen hadn’t known Jessie or her interest in agates. The lengthy silence hadn’t indicated Chen’s suspicion, it had been Chen’s concern about his new employer’s opinion. Now I just had to hope Chen didn’t say anything to anyone about my ignorance about agates. And why would he? The Carrs didn’t fraternize with the help.

“I beg your pardon, Chen,” I said, grateful for the reprieve. “I didn’t intend to pry, and I certainly wasn’t suggesting anything about your work. I only came down here to visit the caves.” I pointed to the two gaping holes a short distance ahead of us and noticed as I did so that a third one was barely visible farther south in the cove beyond an outcropping of jagged boulders where the cliffs were not as high. While the first two caves were readily accessible, reaching the third would require climbing a rough patch of rock or swimming around it. Above us, dark-feathered birds dipped and called out with raucous voices, plunging into the water for fish, then flying up to their nests in the cliff. I wondered whether there were babies in the nests this time of year. Birds were like gardens—subjects I knew nothing about. I leaned over to pick up a lovely agate with green and purple bands, dropped it in Chen’s pail, and started to move away toward the largest cave.

“Those caves are dangerous,” he said, reeling me back to his side with his words.

I looked around. Modest waves slapped the shore. The sun shone, the air was crisp and clear, shorebirds skittered across the pebbles, and King sniffed at some menacing driftwood. A more tranquil scene would be hard to imagine. “I’m sure during a storm the waves get violent, but now it seems quite peaceful.”

Chen walked a while with his brow furrowed, considering, I think, how to answer without contradicting.

“Storms, yes. They can be violent. The last storm brought waves as high as that.” He indicated an outcropping and a twisted bush clinging to the edge of it about halfway up the cliff. I could see the marks. I was about to say I had no idea the waves could get that high when he added, “Other times, the spray comes as high as the top.”

I craned my neck to see the top and tried to imagine an ocean swell that could reach that height. The idea was more than a little frightening.

“Now it is low tide. But twice a day, high tide brings the sea to the cliff edge, and there is no place to walk. Then the water rushes into the caves through the openings. Anything inside will be dashed against the rocks and washed away.”

“But it’s safe for the moment.”

“Safe enough. But even on fine days like this, the water can be very strong. Don’t think of bathing here. People can wade in up to their ankles and be knocked down by a strong wave, then dragged out to sea by the currents.”

No doubt he was exaggerating to make his point. “Well, these waves look tame as a trained bear,” I said.

“Even a trained bear can turn on its master.”

“I’m just going to have a quick look inside.” I left him at the water’s edge. Nothing was going to dissuade me from a visit to the caves. It was time to understand what it was that caused Jessie to spend long hours on the beach and in these caves. I felt drawn to them because of her connection—and my dream. Going inside might provide me with some sort of clue to her character or her disappearance … an absurd notion, really, since Chen had just told me they were completely washed out at every high tide.

As I reached its mouth, the loose pebbles underfoot gave way to rough rock and slime. My thin soles fared poorly on the jagged floor. The cavern itself was larger inside than its narrow mouth suggested, about the size of a theater stage, and as high, with starfish decorating its walls and crevices. I called to myself and my own voice answered in the emptiness. I picked my way about halfway in until I could see the back wall, then turned back into the sun. No clues there.

The cave next door was so small there was no need to enter it. Its wide mouth funneled down to a rock room no bigger than my bedroom. I wondered what Jessie had found so interesting about empty caves.

I turned to see the third cave some distance to the south. Scrambling over the rocky outcrop would ruin my shoes, and considering how little of interest there was in the first two, my curiosity flagged.

By now Chen had turned and was retracing his steps along the wet strand, his head down and his walk measured. I caught up with him. Without speaking, I matched his pace and fastened my eyes to the beach. “Here’s a beaut,” I said after a while, crouching to sift through the stones with my fingers. “They are so pretty, they could be jewelry.”

“That is what they will become. I collect these for an old man. He polishes agates and jasper until they sparkle like gemstones. It takes a very long time in a rock tumbler, but they become brilliant. Then he makes beads and necklaces and other jewelry from them. It is the only work he can do. His poor health lost him his cannery job, and this work allows him to feed himself and his grandson.”

“Is he a relative of yours?”

“Not the way you mean it. But in a foreign country, all Chinese are related.”

“Vaudeville works the same way. Doesn’t the boy have parents?”

“His father is in prison. His mother, the old man’s daughter, was murdered. Without the jewelry making, they would be beggars.”

“How horrible for a child to have a father who killed his mother!”

“No, no, excuse me. I am not clear. The father was sent to prison some months before his wife’s death. She did not come home one night. The next day, her body was found on the wharf. She had been strangled.”

“Did the police catch the murderer?”

He gave me a pitying look. “A Chinese girl out at night is presumed to be a lady of the evening. And her husband was a known criminal. There was no investigation.”

“When did this happen?” I asked, thinking of Lizzette’s death last week. “That Indian girl … she was strangled too.”

“This was several years ago, in the fall of 1918.”

“So there’s probably no connection. Still … no doubt the police will investigate now, after a second killing.”

Chen’s snort told me his opinion on the likelihood of that.

I pulled up suddenly, as if my mind had tripped over something. “You know what, Chen? I really love these agates. I might like to buy some of those beads. Would you know how I could do that?”

“I will ask the old man and bring you some if he agrees.”

Leaving him to finish his search, I started up the path with King at my heels, absorbed by thoughts of the violent deaths of the Indian woman and the Chinese woman. Could there be any connection between the two unsolved murders, coming as they did six years apart? Both young, both strangled. Both foreign looking, with dark hair. One with the tip of a braid cut off, like a trophy. What about the other?

The climb was steep, like ascending a staircase where each step was a different height, and King bounded ahead when I paused to catch my breath. At irregular intervals, gnarled branches provided handholds as I climbed. Finally, my heart pounding hard and my head down to watch each step, I reached the top.

When I lifted my eyes, I was staring at a pair of highly polished black boots, so close to my nose I could see my reflection in their shine.

I froze. To my right, the path dropped away to the stones far below. Instinctively, my left hand tightened its grip on an exposed root.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Miss Fraud,” taunted Henry. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous to play around cliffs?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Henry Carr was the last person I wanted to see towering above me next to a sheer drop onto sharp rocks. He was supposed to have been out sailing. Unable to speak, unable to move, unable to breathe, I could only lock eyes with the man who would inherit a fortune at my death.

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t survive a fall from this height.” He took a step closer and reached down to me, his mouth open and his breath coming in shallow, rapid pulses. I could see the hatred in his eyes and something else—the triumph of the hunter who has cornered his prey. He was going to pull my hand off the root and drop me over the side. And he was going to enjoy doing it.

Beside him danced King, wagging his tail happily, oblivious to the “accident” that was about to occur.

I found my voice. “Chen is right behind me,” I lied, praying it would come true. “Chen!” I shouted, unable to keep the hysterical note from my voice.

Miraculously, Chen’s reply came from around the corner, a few feet away. “Yes, miss?”

Henry straightened at once. His face tightened and went blank.

My knees nearly gave way with relief, and I gulped a ragged breath of air. “Henry is here to greet us.”

Chen appeared behind me and Henry stepped back from the edge. “There you are, Chen,” he said sternly. “That last storm eroded some of the ground here and it’s become quite dangerous. Miss Jessie almost fell over the edge. See that you get some iron rods and chain and make the path safe again.”

25

Clyde judged $350 a fair price for a Ford runabout, so I contacted Smith and Wade and they consented to advance the money, something I took as a sign that all was quiet on the investigation front. Before you could say Jack Robinson, two boys delivered my new car from Colvin’s in McMinnville. And none too soon. Being stuck in one place—and such a remote place at that—was starting to turn me screwy.

Aunt Victoria and Grandmother asked for a ride in the new vehicle, Uncle Oliver had to take it for a spin, and even Ross deigned to give it a glance. Poor Caroline was confined to bed with a cold—the Portland shopping trip had to be postponed—and I tried to lessen Valerie’s disappointment by letting her drive around and around the house, practicing shifting gears until she nearly ran the tank dry.

“I need to drive into town for more fuel,” I announced. “Maybe I’ll see if I can give Chen a ride home, as long as I’m going that way.”

“Always so thoughtful.” Aunt Victoria smiled. “Just like your mother. Tell them at the station to put the gasoline on our tab.”

Chen was wrapping green tomatoes in newspaper in the backyard. I offered him a ride home.

“You’ll be risking your life with a new driver,” I said, clutching my handbag, “but if you would be so kind as to show me where the old man lives, I’d like to buy some of his jewelry.”

He gave me a measured look, then nodded and wiped his hands on a rag.

I think Chen knew what I had in mind. Ever since he told me about the Chinese girl’s murder, I hadn’t been able to get the similarities of the two deaths out of my thoughts. Two young women strangled in one small town—an unlikely coincidence, surely. October 1918 and August 1924—six years apart. Would anyone but me wonder about a connection between the two? Was that what had happened to Jessie? Could there have been three young women murdered, starting with Jessie in August of 1917? Had she really run away, or was her body out there somewhere, waiting to be found?

Mr. Tang’s home was no more than a hovel among rows of hovels clustered near the cannery. Chen left me to wait in the runabout at the end of the filth-clogged alley, saying he would bring the old Chinaman and his wares to me. In moments he returned with a stooped, gray-haired man carrying a frayed carpetbag. He spoke no English, but bowed to me as I stepped out of the car, then squatted on the ground to spread his wares on a piece of newspaper. Several passersby eyed our impromptu marketplace.

The beads were lovely. He had a couple dozen strands, shiny black, red and green, and multicolored mixtures. I fingered them one by one as I planned my questions in my mind.