A Deceptive Homecoming (22 page)

“M
rs. Upchurch?”

President Upchurch's wife was sitting at her husband's desk, bent over the open ledger before her, chewing on the end of a pencil. She'd removed her gloves and had no less than four gold rings on her fingers—two with diamonds, one with a large emerald, and one etched wedding band. She looked up startled at the sound of her name.

“Hello, Miss Davish. What brings you here?”

I wanted to tell her that I'd come to question her husband about embezzling money from the school, but here she was at ease at his desk going over the accounts. I'd never once suspected Mrs. Upchurch of the crime, until now.

I didn't know what to say except, “What are you doing?”

“Oh, this?” She indicated the ledger with a tap of her pencil. “Asa has been so distracted since Frank Hayward's death that I've been helping him do his bookkeeping. I briefly worked for Price, Waterhouse & Co., you know.” She smiled. “That's where I met Asa.”

“Really? I didn't know that.”

She was more than capable of forging the figures I'd seen in the ledger found in Frank Hayward's coffin. So too then was her husband. But if she was the embezzler, wouldn't she try to deny her involvement?

“How long have you been helping your husband, Mrs. Upchurch?” I walked toward her, leaned on the desk, and glanced down at the ledger. She frowned and flipped the ledger closed. She was too fast. I couldn't tell if her handwriting matched or not.

“Only since . . .”

“Who are you talking to, Emily?” I straightened up and stepped away from the desk as Mr. Upchurch entered his office. “Ah, Miss Davish. How's our celebrity secretary today?”

“I'm fine, thank you,” I said, still uncomfortable with the label of “celebrity.”

“Recovered from the incident the other night, I hope?”

“Yes.” I wasn't about to tell him how my neck and shoulders still ached or that I'd contemplated resorting to taking a patent medicine from the druggist to manage my headaches.

“Is there something I can help you with?” He walked behind his wife and placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Actually, I was asking your wife how long she's been doing the school's bookkeeping.” I glanced back and forth between the couple for signs of guilt. With a quick glance up into her husband's face, Mrs. Upchurch's countenance was cloudy with questions. Mr. Upchurch's gaze was placid and clear.

“Since the funeral,” Mr. Upchurch said. “As you know, Frank Hayward was our bookkeeper.” He smiled as he gazed into her upturned face. “I don't know what I'd do without her. You organized the lake party as well, didn't you, dear?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Upchurch said, looking back at me. “It's a joy to be useful again.”

“I wish we could offer you coffee and chat, but we're terribly busy. So, if that's all, Miss Davish—” His wife interrupted him.

“Asa, I'm surprised at you. Of course we can offer Miss Davish a cup of coffee.” She stood up, forcing her husband to step to the side. She walked over to the door and poked her head out. “Would you mind bringing in a pot of coffee, Miss Clary?” The secretary's assent was muted through the door.

Mrs. Upchurch closed the door and went to her husband's side. She took his arm. “In fact, I was about to tell Miss Davish how wonderful you are.”

“Really, Emily? I don't think that's necessary.”

“Of course, it is. You're always the first one to praise others. Now it's your turn.” Mr. Upchurch's cheeks reddened.

“Such as?”

“Such as the bookkeeping,” she said.

“Emily, that's enough now. Miss Davish doesn't want to hear about the boring work that goes into running the school. She has much more excitement to fill her days.”

“No, you're quite wrong, Mr. Upchurch. I admire anyone who can run such an institution as Mrs. Chaplin's school. I'd enjoy learning how you do it.”

“Well, did you know, Miss Davish, that this husband of mine has not only been doing his own demanding job, but as a friend to a colleague had taken over the task of bookkeeping from Mr. Hayward? But with Mr. Hayward's death and all the strange incidences occurring in the school, it became too much. He needed to focus on those things. I'm glad he's allowed me to help.” She squeezed his arm and gazed lovingly toward her husband. If his wife knew that she'd just implicated her husband in a crime, she wouldn't be smiling at him right now.

“You're mistaken, Emily,” Mr. Upchurch said, “I never did the bookkeeping.”

“But I thought you did after Frank Hayward started teaching full-time?”

“No, no, I offered to help, but Mr. Hayward insisted he could do both.”

“But you were aware that a ledger had gone missing?” I said.

“No, I wasn't,” Mr. Upchurch said. “Though I'm not surprised, what with everything else that's been going on around here. How did you come to know this before I did?”

“Because the police gave it to me.”

“The police? But I thought,” Mr. Upchurch said, furrowing his brow. “Where did the police find it?”

“They discovered it when they exhumed Frank Hayward's casket,” I said.

“Oh, how grisly,” Mrs. Upchurch said. “Why would anyone want to put a ledger in a casket?”

“To bury the evidence,” I said.

“Evidence of what?” Mrs. Upchurch asked.

“Evidence that Frank Hayward had been stealing from this school, my dear,” Upchurch said to his wife. “I didn't want to believe the rumors but—”

“Frank Hayward didn't steal anything,” I said. “There were two different handwritings in the ledger found in Frank Hayward's coffin.”

“Really? How remarkable,” President Upchurch said.

“May I see the ledger you were just working on, Mrs. Upchurch?”

“I'm surprised at you, Miss Davish. Surely you're not accusing my wife of embezzling from this school?” I didn't reply.

“Please, Mrs. Upchurch,” I said, pointing to the ledger on the desk.

She nervously glanced at her husband, who nodded before she picked up the ledger and handed it to me. I flipped it open and scanned the entire book before looking back up. Mrs. Upchurch was biting her lip, deepening her dimples. There was only her hand throughout the book. And it didn't match.

“Thank you, Mrs. Upchurch. I just had to be sure.”

“I could've told you my wife had nothing to do with it,” he said. “Now, if that's all, Miss Davish, I think we've discussed this unpleasantness enough for one day. But be sure to let us know if you do discover the culprit.” I nodded.

As I rose, a piece of paper dropped to the floor. As I bent to pick it up, Mr. Upchurch scrabbled around the desk and tried to intercept me.

“I've got that,” he said. I reached it first. It had several notes about an upcoming staff meeting scribbled hastily on it. I handed it out to him. “Can't lose this,” he said, snatching the paper from my hand. But not before I caught a glimpse of the handwriting.

“Your handwriting, I presume, Mr. Upchurch?”

“Of course, it is,” his wife said. “Asa? What's going on?” The handwriting matched that in the accounting ledger.

“Did you put the ledger on Frank Hayward's desk, hoping to incriminate him, President Upchurch?” I said.

“I don't know what you're talking about. As I said, I didn't even know a ledger was missing.”

“Did you kill Levi Yardley?”

“Who? What? No, I don't even know who that is.”

“He's the man that you mistook for Frank Hayward. I showed you a picture of him. He wasn't trampled by a horse. The police suspect Mr. Yardley was murdered.”

“Murdered? What? I didn't kill anyone. What makes you say that?”

“You were the one who found the body, Mr. Upchurch.”

“Asa would never hurt anyone.” Mr. Upchurch took his wife's hands in his.

“I swear to you, Emily, I didn't kill anyone. I truly thought the dead man was Frank Hayward. If I was wrong, it was a horrible but honest mistake.”

“But you did embezzle from the school,” I said. It wasn't a question.

“No, of course not.”

“With Frank Hayward dead, no one would be the wiser, would they, Mr. Upchurch?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

This time his wife didn't defend him. “Asa, you didn't?”

Without waiting for another hollow denial I walked over and opened the door. I nearly jumped to see Miss Clary standing immediately in the doorway holding a silver tray with a coffeepot and three cups. “Miss Clary?”

“Yes?” Her face was pale, except two red spots on her cheeks.

How much had she heard?
I wondered.

“Would you please call the police? Ask for Officer Quick if he's available.” She nodded as all color drained from her cheeks. “And then notify Mrs. Chaplin that she's needed at the school, immediately.” She nodded, set the tray down on the top of a bookshelf inside the door, and returned to her desk. I waited to see her pick up the telephone.

“Miss Davish, what's all this about?” Mr. Upchurch said when I closed the door and locked it.

“Now we wait for the police.”

“But I haven't done anything wrong!”

“Oh, Asa!” Mrs. Upchurch cried as she threw herself into his arms. “How could you do it? Stealing from Mrs. Chaplin, after everything she's done for us?” As he comforted his wife, he glared at me.

I avoided his gaze by looking out the window. A butcher in a long white apron, stained with the blood of his trade, leaned in the shadow of his shop doorway across the street. He ran his hand through his hair.

At least Miss Gilbert got what she wanted,
I thought, feeling less than satisfied. I still didn't know who killed Levi Yardley or what had become of Frank Hayward. And now there was only one place left I knew to find those answers.

I hope you don't live up to your name, Quick,
I thought, none too eager to go back to the asylum.

“I
'm sorry, Miss Davish, but Dr. Hillman is busy with his patients and is unavailable to speak with you right now.”

After the police arrived and arrested Asa Upchurch for embezzlement, I'd waited for Mrs. Chaplin. I hadn't waited long. I'd explained everything to her, about Miss Woodruff, Asa Upchurch, and Miss Gilbert. She was astonished at the turn of events but most grateful that I'd uncovered the culprits. After promising to have tea with her before I left town, and before my courage failed me, I'd hailed a cab and headed back to the asylum.

I took a deep breath, uncertain what to say next. I had to see Dr. Hillman.

“You could make an appointment,” the nurse suggested.

“Very well,” I said. “If that's what it will take.” She consulted a small notebook she'd pulled from a drawer.

“Would tomorrow at two o'clock p.m. be satisfactory?”

Tomorrow?
I thought. Could I wait that long? Did I have a choice?

“Yes, that would be fine.” She jotted my name next to the time in the book and looked up again.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss Davish?”

“Yes, there is.” I suddenly had an idea. “Mrs. Yardley, as you can appreciate, was unable to join me today as she's overseeing the reburial of her husband. But she requested that I visit the room where her husband stayed. His last days were spent here and she wants to be reassured he was well-attended and comfortable.”

“Oh, I can assure you, Mr. Yardley was treated with all the care and concern we give to all of our patients.”

“But you will let me see for myself? I can then report back to Mrs. Yardley and ease her mind.”

“It's highly irregular, but it's the least I can do for poor Mrs. Yardley. Please follow me.” Not wanting to repeat my misadventure of my last visit, I stayed immediately behind the nurse the entire trip through the hall, up two flights of stairs, down another hall that ended at a set of double doors. I peered into several rooms as we passed. With two to four beds per room, the rooms were impeccably clean and tidy and surprisingly often contained small personal mementos. Most patients I saw lay peacefully in bed sleeping or rocking in a chair, reading a book. After my previous experiences, with my father and then with those unfortunate souls in the tunnel, it was heartening to know that many patients were well-treated.

However, as we neared Mr. Yardley's room, I increasingly found patients restrained, some wearing what the nurse called “camisoles,” a heavy cotton shirtwaist with corset-like lacing that restrained the person's arms around their torso, some wearing “mitts” that restrained their hands, while several others were confined to human-sized crates on the floor. The nurse, noticing my repulsion, explained that patients in this area were more violent or easily agitated.

“We restrain them for their own good,” she explained. “Otherwise they would harm themselves.”

I glanced into an open door. The room contained two large bathtubs; a patient's head was barely visible above the canvas that covered one of the tubs. When I asked, the nurse explained the patient was receiving ice-bath treatments. I remembered my experience with a bath treatment, in Eureka Springs, Arkansas; Walter had prescribed it for my sleeplessness. There the waters were healing, soothing, and warm. I shuddered to think what an ice bath would do to my state of mind, let alone my body. I gratefully passed by as the nurse led me to a set of double doors at the end of the hall. She pushed the door and allowed me to enter first. The hall continued past four sets of patients' rooms on either side with an open examination room at the end. I expected to feel dizzy or nauseous at the sight of the surgical instruments laid out on the table nearest the examination table, but it never came.

It's truly gone,
I thought.

I could hear my father's voice saying, “We're not quitters, you and me.” Had learning the truth behind my father's death freed me of the panic and dizzy spells? I didn't know. But I took a deep breath in appreciation all the same. I followed the nurse to the third door on the left. It was sparse and simple with bare white walls, three whitewashed wrought-iron beds, three gray enamel chamber pots, a high-backed chair, and a bare linoleum floor. All three beds were empty.

“That was Mr. Yardley's bed,” the nurse said, pointing to the bed on the far right, against the wall. How could she have thought this would bring Mrs. Yardley comfort? I could find little to recommend how he was treated except for his basic necessities.

“I noticed as we walked here that all of the asylum's rooms were full of patients and yet this room has three empty beds? Why is that?”

“This area houses the patients that are assigned to the progressive treatment program.”

Wasn't that the same phrase that I'd seen in the notes about my father? Didn't that mean my father had been assigned to the same program as Levi Yardley? How long has this program been running? What did “progressive treatment” mean?

The nurse was still talking. “The two patients that shared this room with Mr. Yardley have died recently and we haven't yet assigned new patients to the program. I'm certain if you came here again tomorrow, the room would be full again.”

I pictured the bodies I'd seen on two separate occasions being taken out on a stretcher. Could they have been Mr. Yardley's roommates? Or do patients die every day here and it's merely a coincidence? I was never one to believe in such coincidences.

“How did the other patients die?” The nurse shook her head.

“I'm not at liberty to discuss that with you, Miss Davish. I do hope you understand.”

“Yes, of course. Could you tell me about the program you mentioned?”

“Oh, yes. It's a new, experimental program that we hope will treat many types of diseases of the mind. Some patients are given a mixture of drugs and shock treatments, while others receive shock treatments and placebos. Mr. Yardley was a new member of the program. He was one of the lucky patients given the actual healing drugs.”

“Which drugs?”

“I'm not at liberty to say.”

“And these other patients?” I pointed to the empty beds.

“Yes, all the patients receiving the drugs were housed together, as are the patients receiving the placebos.” I glanced across the hallway. The door to the room directly across was open and all three men lay peacefully sleeping in their beds. The lucky ones get the drugs? I wondered.

“And who's in charge of this program?”

“Dr. Hillman. I thought you knew that? Isn't that why you wished to speak to him?”

It is now,
I thought. To the nurse, I said, “Do you have a telephone that I may use?” I knew someone else who'd also want to speak with him.

 

“Officer Quick,” I said into the receiver, “Miss Davish calling.”

“Yes, Miss Davish, how can I help you?”

I still was unnerved by listening to a disembodied voice talk to me through the wire attached to the wood I held next to my ear. Without seeing his face, I had no idea if he was giving me his full attention or whether he was simply humoring me.

“Have you received the results of Mr. Yardley's autopsy?” There was a pause from the other side of the telephone. Whether it was a mechanical hesitation or a human one I couldn't tell.

“Yes, we have. Why would you want to know that, Miss Davish?”

“Did you find any unusual medicines or chemicals in Mr. Yardley's body?” I asked, ignoring his question. This time there was no hesitation.

It wasn't a mechanical error then,
I thought.

“Yes, we did. But how did you know that?” His voice had lowered in pitch and came out in clipped phrases. I didn't need to see his face to know what he was thinking.

“I'm at the Lunatic Asylum, Officer Quick,” I said, again ignoring his question. “You need to drive out here immediately.”

“Why, Miss Davish? What's going on?”

“I believe I've discovered who killed Levi Yardley.”

A buzzing noise filled the receiver. I jerked it away from my ear, but not before I heard a distant voice exclaim, “Don't move. I'll be right there!”

 

Not wanting to spend any more time than necessary in the asylum, I waited for the policeman outside. At first I stood by the steps watching the patients lounge in the sun or dig in the flowerbeds. And then a patient, a young woman with plump cheeks and unkempt curly blond hair, invited me to sit with her on the porch. I'd no intention of rocking as I'd seen many of the patients do, but her hopeful countenance tempered my revulsion and I joined her. After exchanging names, we sat in companionable silence. She rocked in her chair, her eyes closed and her lips curled in a small smile of contentment while I pulled out my notebook and compiled a list of reasons to back up my suspicions of Levi Yardley's killer. When that was done, I tried following my companion's lead: leaning back, closing my eyes, and marking time with the cadenced creak of the wood. But it was no use.

How can they do this?
I thought, jerking up and sitting on the edge of the chair.

I took a deep breath of the fresh air, a benefit of being this far from the city, but that didn't help either. Finally I heard the horses and crunch of carriage wheels approaching. I leaped to my feet when I saw Officer Quick at the reins. With a glance at my companion, who had fallen asleep, I stepped swiftly off the porch to meet the approaching wagon.

“So you know who killed Levi Yardley?” Officer Quick asked, alighting from his patrol wagon and looking up at the imposing asylum building.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then who is it?”

“Dr. Hillman.”

“And why do you say that?” I glanced down at my list.

I ripped the sheet of paper from my notebook and handed it to the policeman. He read through it quickly.

“Most of this is circumstantial, Miss Davish; but if you're right about the drugs we found in the victim's body being connected to the experiment, we might be on to something. He may not have killed the man, but he certainly has some answering to do. Let's go talk to Dr. Hillman, shall we?”

I was thrilled that he didn't even hesitate to include me in his investigation. I'd been worried that once he arrived he'd insist I leave it all to him. But instead, he offered me his arm.

“Would it also be possible to search the asylum for Frank Hayward?” I asked.

“That's a good point. Yes, I'll make sure we make every effort to rule out the possibility he's here,” Officer Quick said as he escorted me back through the front door.

“As I told Miss Davish, Dr. Hillman is with a patient,” the nurse explained to Officer Quick when he inquired after the doctor. The policeman dropped his arm and I pulled my hand away. He took a step closer to the nurse.

“Unlike Miss Davish, I'm not asking to see Dr. Hillman.” He had an edge to his voice I hadn't heard before. “I insist. Now take me to Dr. Hillman or I'll find him myself.” The nurse glanced at me with wide eyes and grew pale. I sympathized with her. Like me on many occasions, she was performing the duties of her job, nothing more and nothing less. She didn't deserve to be placed in this position.
This is your fault, Dr. Hillman,
I thought.

“Nurse?” Officer Quick said when she hesitated.

“You won't get into trouble,” I said, guessing her concern. “You're complying with the police's request. That's all.”

“I won't lose my job?” The nurse looked first at me and then at the policeman.

“I'll see to it personally that nothing you do to assist me will affect your position here.” She still seemed hesitant but finally nodded.

“Then follow me.”

She led us to Dr. Hillman's office, but again it was unoccupied. She found a cabinet and retrieved a key. Then she led us down a series of stairs and through a tunnel door and I suddenly recognized where we were going. This was where I'd followed Dr. Hillman the day I got lost in the tunnels. I grew anxious, remembering the feeling of being trapped, as if I too were chained to the tunnel wall. I almost grabbed Officer Quick's arm in an attempt not to get separated but stopped myself in time. Instead I focused on keeping the nurse no more than three paces ahead of me as we turned this way and that through the tunnels.

I can see how I got lost,
I thought.

Eventually after several turns, we stopped at a plain gray door. The nurse unlocked the door and knocked. The policeman didn't wait for an answer. He pushed past the nurse and opened the door. I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to see what was behind the door. I imagined all kinds of horrors—sharp, shiny metal instruments, metal bowls filled with dark blood, patients strapped to tables as the doctor drilled holes in their heads—but the small room was almost empty. All that was inside the well-lit, whitewashed windowless room was a wooden armchair and a small side table covered with a few glass bottles partially full of liquid. A man sat in the chair, one arm bare up to his shoulder, as Dr. Hillman leaned over him. The doctor looked up with a start. He held a large syringe in his left hand. For all my bravado since I'd learned my father's fate, it took everything I had not to collapse in a heap on the floor. Luckily I was still near the door and grabbed the doorjamb for support as the room spun out of control in front of me.