The Ladies of Garrison Gardens (26 page)

Chapter Fifty-five

N
OW 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” started “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

S
HE 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.

A horrible thought occurred to her: What if her father had had other children? From the way Myrtis talked, Iva Claire had assumed she was an only child, but what if she wasn't? With a trembling hand, she quickly turned the pages, skipping generations of Benedicts, until she reached the last entry. She breathed a sigh of relief. Myrtis hadn't had any brothers or sisters.

Except for me.

Upstairs there were five bedrooms, and the bathroom she'd already seen. She went through the bedrooms quickly, making note of things she'd have to go back and look at later: a fan that had been framed, a little music box that looked like it was handpainted, some old photographs. There was a child's picture that looked eerily like one of Iva Claire's old publicity stills. It had to be Myrtis. There were four more of Myrtis as an adult. As soon as she could, without making the maid suspicious, Iva Claire told herself she'd have to get rid of those. In the largest bedroom there was a canopy bed with big swirling
B
s carved all over it.

Four of the bedrooms were not in use. She'd saved the front room—the one where she'd seen the light in the window—for last. The door was open. She paused for a second at the threshold and looked in. The lamp was still on, the way Myrtis had left it when she went downstairs to answer Iva Claire's knock at the front door.

Don't think about that.

Iva Claire drew a deep breath and went into the room. It was a mess. Clothes were stacked in piles; there was an open trunk on the bench at the foot of the bed. Myrtis had been packing. But what day was she leaving? What time? What was the name of her ship?

There was a desk in one corner. Iva Claire raced through the drawers looking for something—a calendar, an address on a scrap of paper, or please, please, a ticket that might indicate a time, a date, and a ship's name. She found stacks of old letters, postcards, and some stationery. But nothing to shed light on Myrtis's return trip to England.

She mustn't keep looking. A little china clock on the desk said it was four-thirty. It was time to make herself look like Myrtis Benedict—as much as she could.

She'd told Tassie she could wing it. But winging it meant risk, and she'd always been the kid who checked out each theater to make sure there were no surprises.

Just one nice safe distraction prop. That's all I need.

Nagging at the back of her mind was the thought that there was one, and it was right here in this house. But she couldn't slow down enough to think of it. The best she could come up with was dying her hair. She was going to have to change the color, because her shade of brown was noticeably darker than Myrtis's had been. Matching Myrtis's hair color would be impossible, so she'd do something totally different. Later in the day, as soon as she could get to the pharmacy to buy some peroxide, Myrtis Benedict was going to surprise everyone by becoming a platinum blonde. It would be a radical change from her ladylike light brown, and Iva Claire knew she'd have to find some way to explain it. A girl of Myrtis's class would probably think bottle blondes were cheap and brassy. Iva Claire was hoping the startling change would distract people from noticing that her eyes didn't look as deep-set as they had, or that her lips were a little too full. She would have preferred a better distraction prop but this was the best she could think of. Until she could get her hands on some peroxide, she'd wear a scarf or the big leghorn hat she'd seen hanging near the back door, or she'd wash her hair and wrap it in a towel.

The slight difference in height could be handled by wearing flat shoes. If there weren't any in Myrtis's closet, or if Myrtis's shoes didn't fit, she'd use the ones she had on until she could find better ones. But what she was really going to rely on to bridge the gap between herself and Myrtis was wardrobe and makeup.

She'd do it all with confidence; that was the first rule to any good performance, and she'd get away with it. Because she had to.
Still, it would be better with a distraction prop.

Don't think about that.

There was a lipstick in Myrtis's purse and face powder on her vanity. It was a pity she hadn't worn more makeup, but at least the lipstick was dark. Iva Claire could make her mouth look thinner by putting on the lipstick inside the lip line. The dark color would show up nicely. But how far inside the lip line should she go?

She ran to get one of the photos of Myrtis so she could work from the original.

Still, I wish I had a distraction prop.

She went into the bathroom to cut her hair, the first step in her transformation. She took the scissors out of her pocket and looked into the mirror. And for the first time that night, she screamed.

She forced herself to look back in the mirror again. The side of her face where Myrtis had struck her had started to swell, and there was a large red bruise on her cheek. Sometime after Tassie left, she'd been aware that her cheek had started to throb, but she'd been so busy with other things she hadn't let herself focus on it.

I killed her and she left her mark on me. My face is blowing up and
. . .
Oh, my God!
Suddenly the nagging at the back of her mind clicked in. Tassie had said she'd blow up like a balloon from poison ivy. And then they had covered her arms. . . .

Iva Claire found the calamine lotion and slathered it over her face. She cut her hair without worrying about matching Myrtis's fashionable shingle and bundled it up under a scarf so the difference in color wouldn't show. If anyone asked, she'd say she was keeping it out of the way so it wouldn't irritate the terrible case of poison ivy she had. She looked at herself in the mirror. It didn't matter how blue her eyes were now, or how deep-set. It didn't matter how full or thin her lips were. All she—or anyone else—could see was the thick pink mask that covered her face. It was a perfect distraction prop.