Girl in Disguise Page 3

  He also looked downright cheerful. As did Pinkerton. For the first time in a very long time, I had a feeling that everything was, at last, going to be all right.

  Which lasted only until Pinkerton spoke.

  “Mrs. Warne! I’m afraid you’ve gone and missed your chance,” said Pinkerton, sounding not at all regretful. “The good Mr. Bellamy here has succeeded already at your task.”

  “Has he?” I asked frostily.

  “Found every penny of Heck Venable’s stash. With a right smart plan too,” Pinkerton said. “Plenty of drink and a well-timed pickpocketing.”

  “Right smart,” I agreed. “And did he tell you whose plan it was?”

  Now, Bellamy’s eyes came up. I could see him calculating, trying to figure out whether he could get away with it. He read my face, and I read his. I saw the moment he surrendered.

  “I hadn’t gotten to that part of the story yet,” Bellamy said.

  “Faith, there’s more?” Pinkerton asked.

  “There’s more,” I said. “Let’s continue this conversation in your office, please, Boss.”

  Pinkerton looked a bit startled at my forwardness and looked to Bellamy, who nodded with reluctance.

  Upstairs, I told the tale from my point of view, giving him the full story of how the evening unfolded, leaving nothing out. I didn’t try to minimize Bellamy’s role, but I didn’t defer to him. I deserved credit, and I took it in full.

  As I spoke, Pinkerton listened, his face betraying nothing. I might have been a genius or a chowderhead. I resisted the urge to embellish just to get a rise out of him; the tale was too important.

  When I’d concluded at last, he asked, “And is that how it was, Tim?”

  “More or less.” I could see the tension in the other man’s jaw. “I was going to tell you. She helped.”

  “Helped?” I squeaked. I took a moment to collect myself and spoke more calmly. “The way I see it, it was my plan entirely.”

  “However you see it,” Bellamy responded, “you would have failed without me.”

  “And you without me.”

  Pinkerton laughed—a booming, sonorous laugh that bounced off the walls of his office—and slapped his hand against the desk. Relief flooded my body like a drug.

  “I don’t believe it!” he said. “What a team. I didn’t plan to have you try it the same night, but it could hardly have turned out better. Money found, case solved. We’ve earned our fee from First Eagle. That spells success to me. And I’ve a promise to deliver on.”

  Pinkerton thrust his workingman’s hand in my direction. Gladly, I shook it.

  “Welcome to my agency, Mrs. Warne,” he said.

  I was grinning from ear to ear. Tim Bellamy wasn’t.

  Chapter Four

  Real Stories Are Short

  After my first success—no less sweet for being shared—I began my training as an operative. Pinkerton undertook my education directly. We met in his office, the two of us, day after day. He impressed upon me the importance of writing down everything we could find about a criminal and getting a photograph if at all possible to help in identification. He told me stories, so many stories, of near misses with thieves and vagabonds, demonstrating that there was often only a hairbreadth between success and failure. Some days, I felt honored that he would devote so much time to my training personally; other days, I felt he was so uncertain of me, so worried that I was incompetent, that he didn’t trust me to make a single move by myself. If I failed, he’d look a fool, and he didn’t strike me as a man who tolerated foolishness.

  Some days, he would leave me alone in the room with a stack of case files and the single instruction, “Read.” From hours of this, I learned the kind of work that we were doing: hunting bank robbers and exposing counterfeiters, yes, but also interviewing domestics accused of stealing from their owners, gathering evidence for court cases, and once an operative even stood guard at a slaughterhouse after the owner had received an anonymous threat. I felt bad for the man who had drawn that duty. His name was Taylor, and his handwriting was the worst of all the operatives’. Bellamy’s case notes were written in a cramped but clear style. Pinkerton’s notes, where they were present, fell into one of two types: a fluid hand that appeared hastily written, the ink so light on the page some letters were skipped; and a neater, textbook hand, which I assumed to be that of a secretary.

  The case files were labeled by client, and it wasn’t until I had read a dozen cases in a row labeled Illinois Central Railroad that I realized they must be our biggest client by far. There were ten more cases with the same label right behind them, with a range of crimes and conspiracies we had helped investigate or foil. Robberies and petty thefts, injuries and trespasses, on the trains and in the yards. DeForest and Paretsky were most often assigned to these, but at one time or another, it seemed every operative must have served. I made a note in my mind that, no doubt, my turn would come as well. Then I flipped to the next case file, labeled Illinois Southern Bank, to read about something new.

  I learned the names of fellow operatives from these files, but Pinkerton only introduced me to the men themselves on the rare occasion, clearly always by chance. There was never an organized introduction to the full roster of detectives. One day, I asked why.

  “We don’t have roll call here,” said Pinkerton, clearly suppressing a chuckle at my expense. “We don’t have meetings. Most of us work alone and cooperate when we need to. Besides, some of these men are deep in with their targets, who think them to be criminals—wouldn’t do to have them spotted leaving the private dick’s building, would it?”

  “No,” I agreed. “But how will I know other agents when I see them?” I didn’t need to specify that I didn’t want a repeat of my awkward introduction to Tim Bellamy. Nearly a month into my employment, I hadn’t seen him again, and I imagined that pleased both of us.

  “Good question. There’s a sign.” He rose from his chair and took the long walk around the desk to my side, then perched on the desk’s edge. He laid his hand on his thigh, palm up. After a moment, he pinched his thumb and forefinger together in a quick motion, then released them and turned the hand palm down. He had me practice until I could do the same, seated or standing, even while carrying on a conversation. It had to look meaningless.

  “Now,” he said, “the next thing you need to learn.”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  “How to lie.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Like anything else: practice. So. Lie to me.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Tell me where you come from. Tell me what you ate for supper on Wednesday. Tell me the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. I just want to see you try.”

  I folded my hands in my lap, deliberating. His suggestion of the worst thing that had ever happened to me got caught in my mental engine, and I almost opened my mouth to tell him about the child, but I stopped myself. He wanted a lie, I’d give him a lie.

  “For my tenth birthday, my mother bought me the most beautiful dress,” I said, letting my hand linger on my neck as if remembering a feeling. “It was lilac satin, trimmed with ribbons and lace, and it had a full skirt that swirled when I spun around. I thought it made me look like a princess. I wore it day and night for a week. When she finally made me take it off, I cried.”

  “What happened to it?” he asked.

  “It got too small,” I said, “so I gave it to a cousin.”

  Pinkerton eyed me skeptically. His gaze was penetrating even on an average day, so when he gave you his full attention, it was remarkable. Like two lamps shining straight on you through a pitch-black night. I could feel it in my blood.

  “Not a good lie,” he said. “Too many words. Real stories are short. Try again.”

  “When I was ten years old, my mother taught me to read, so w
hen I bothered her, she could hand me a book and be done with me.”

  The skeptical glare again. “You’re leaving something out.”

  “Yes,” I said. “She also did it because a handsome young man had offered to teach me. He played Brutus to my father’s Julius Caesar at a theater in Atlanta on a three-month engagement. She didn’t want him anywhere near me, so she was compelled to take over the lessons herself.”

  “And she told you her reasons?”

  “No. But I understood.”

  “You were a child.”

  I shrugged and met his gaze. “Nonetheless.”

  “Technicalities,” he said. “You’re trying to trick me with minor details. That’s not the kind of skill you need to develop.”

  The child was on my mind again, as was Paul. But Pinkerton never would have believed that story, true though it was. I fought the memories down, wrestling with them, packing them away again. “Then tell me what you want to hear,” I said.

  “Tell me how Charlie died.”

  Of course he remembered the name. What did the man ever forget?

  “Misadventure,” I said.

  “I’m sure that’s true enough,” he said. “But tell me more. The truth or a lie, as you choose.”

  I stood from my chair then, intending to walk about the room. Nothing was riding on this lie, I told myself. Yet I was so tense, I nearly quivered.

  Pinkerton grabbed me by the shoulders. “Sit down,” he said.

  I did, instantly. My heart was galloping. He hadn’t been rough with me, but others had, and my body reacted in reflex. This too I would have to train away.

  “When a criminal asks you a question, you can’t go for a stroll. You need to be able to look someone full in the face and speak a convincing fiction. So tell me, Mrs. Warne. What happened to your husband?”

  “He gambled the wrong money with the wrong man,” I said bluntly. “The money was someone else’s, his cheating was clumsy, and the man was armed. A schoolboy in short pants could have foreseen the outcome.”

  Pinkerton looked at me for a long moment and said, “I believe you, Mrs. Warne.”

  “As you should,” I said. “It’s the truth.”

  “I know,” he said. “Now. When did he die?”

  “Six months ago,” I said. “The nineteenth of March.”

  This too was the truth, and Pinkerton nodded that he accepted it as such. “Did you see his dead body?”

  “I did.”

  “Was it your first?”

  “It was,” I said, “but as a detective, I expect it will not be my last.”

  “And how did it strike you? Seeing a loved one—at least, someone you’d known so well—with his light gone out?”

  I considered my words carefully. The truth wasn’t the only option, but it was the easiest. Pinkerton was right. I needed practice.

  “What I saw was no longer him. He was gone. The shell he left behind bore him some resemblance, but there was no mistaking what had changed.”

  “Did you cry?”

  “Not then.”

  “When?”

  “Later,” I said. “When I was alone.”

  “How many times?”

  “Once.”

  “There it is,” he said, folding his arms. “There’s the lie.”

  “Based on what?”

  “On women,” said Pinkerton. “Emotional creatures. Even you, Mrs. Warne”—here, he held up a finger, pointed straight at my face—“and I can tell you’re about to protest that you’re no ordinary woman. In some ways, you are unusual. That does not make you immune.”

  “And yet,” I said, holding his gaze without flinching. “I cried once when he died. That’s true.” I had cried many times after that, but it was never about Charlie, only the mess he’d left me in.

  Pinkerton still looked skeptical.

  I went on, “You remember I told you I’d never wanted to marry him in the first place.”

  “So why did you?”

  “My parents insisted.” I leaned back in the chair, trying to appear casual, as if none of this bothered me. In my mind, I replaced the real scene with a civil one, a nest of snakes with a simpler story. “They wanted me married off, and he was a charming young man. They thought he had money. He didn’t. Or, rather, sometimes he did, but he lost it again.”

  Pinkerton turned the full force of his attention on me once more.

  “Is that all?” he asked. “That can’t be all.”

  “They wanted me married. Charlie was willing to marry me.”

  “No,” he said. He shifted his weight but did not rise. “That story doesn’t make sense.”

  “Everything I said was true.”

  “Still and all. You’re leaving something out.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “Is that a lie?”

  “Omission and commission alike, Mrs. Warne.”

  I was about to protest that the game of truth or lie didn’t allow for the possibility of something in the middle, but before the words got out, the office door opened.

  Two men entered. The shorter one was a fashion plate: his frock coat and trousers were clearly expensive, with a smart blue cravat knotted at the neck, and his black mustache was carefully waxed. The second man was of average height, painfully thin, with the palest skin I’d ever seen and close-cropped white-blond hair. He resembled nothing so much as a dead man, halfway between a skeleton and a ghost.

  “Boss!” said the fashion plate to Pinkerton, who welcomed him with a smile.

  “Mrs. Warne,” said Pinkerton, “it’s your lucky day. You get to meet two more colleagues. This is Graham DeForest. One of the more experienced operatives here and certainly the most amicable.”

  “At your service,” said the shorter man with a broad smile, bowing low over my hand. Up close, he was devastatingly handsome, possibly the best-looking man I’d ever seen, with a strong scent of cedar cologne. His warm brown eyes caught my gaze and held it.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” I replied.

  “And this is Jack Mortenson. Been with us just a couple of months but sharp as a tack and then some.”

  The ghost inclined his head to me but didn’t speak. I wondered if he could.

  DeForest said, “Well, I for one certainly approve of your new hire, Boss. It’s delightful to have such a lovely ornament in the office.”

  I chose my reply carefully. “I hope as we work together you find me more than ornamental.”

  “I have no doubt of it, ma’am,” he said. “Didn’t mean to offend.” He seemed sincere enough; I heard no sign of irony.

  Mortenson spoke up. His voice was higher than I expected, reedy and thin, with a faint drawl I couldn’t quite place right away. Tennessee, perhaps, or Arkansas. “Boss, we’ve got a report for you.”

  “Report away.”

  “Information not for…listening ears.”

  Pinkerton, still perched on the desk edge, looked back and forth between my face and Mortenson’s. He didn’t consider long before saying, “Mrs. Warne, if you wouldn’t mind. We’ll start again tomorrow.”

  “Of course, Boss,” I said and refused to let the insult show on my face. “Good day to you, gentlemen.”

  “I’ll live in hope of seeing you soon, Mrs. Warne,” DeForest called out as I left.

  I marked him down in my mental ledger as a ladies’ man, one to be wary of. Even if I were in the mood for romance, I’d be a fool to entangle myself with a fellow operative. Pinkerton had said nothing on the subject, but he didn’t need to. I had to choose my time and place to be a woman.

  The door closed behind me, and I wondered who’d closed it.

  But as I went to set foot on the first step down to the street, I paused. They’d begun talking again already, clearly not waiting to be sure I’d gone. The door was thick enough to m
uffle their words but not to mask them completely. Curious, I slid back over to the door without lifting my feet and set my ear firmly against the wood, cupping my hands to block out any other sounds.

  “…happy to help her in any way needed,” DeForest was saying.

  “Thank you for that kind offer,” said Pinkerton, sounding amused. “I suspected you’d be eager.”

  “She’ll need a lot of help, that’s for sure. Will a girl be any use at all?” asked Mortenson’s high-pitched whisper.

  Pinkerton said, “Absolutely.”

  “How do we even know?” asked Mortenson. “She helped Bellamy with Heck Venable, but you haven’t assigned her to a case since, have you?”

  Before then, I wasn’t sure I was the subject under discussion; now, there could be no doubt.

  “She’s in training,” said Pinkerton.

  “Is that what she’s in?”

  My fingers tensed, wanting to become fists, but I forced them back into the shape I needed.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Forget I said anything,” Mortenson said after a pause.

  “No, explain yourself, sir.” Pinkerton’s brogue became a growl.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” DeForest said with what sounded like forced cheer. “We have an important report to make, so let’s make it, eh?”

  “All right. Get on with it,” said Pinkerton, and I heard the sharp echo of his shoes against the wood as he strode to the far side of the desk and the groan and squeak as he lowered himself into the chair.

  “The gap-toothed bastard said he was chasing runaway slaves, but there’s no way Nestor isn’t a free man. Been living in Chicago three years now. So we’ve started gathering the evidence…”

  I didn’t stay to listen to the rest. I descended the stairs gingerly, placing each foot as near to the wall as possible, toe first and then heel, to avoid making noise. I was an operative now. Listening at doors was part and parcel of the work. Still, I regretted listening at this one.