A Deceptive Homecoming by Anna Loan-Wilsey Page A

finished her tale. She looked about her again and continued as she took in the buildings surrounding us. “When I came home, Levi was gone. He’s been anxious lately, you see, and I worry about him.”
    â€œHave you checked at the hospitals?” She nodded. “Then what brought you here?”
    â€œSomeone at Ensworth Hospital said that a man fitting my husband’s description was rumored to have been found dead here several days ago.” I tried to keep the shock from my face. Frank Hayward? Could he have had a wife no one knew about? Could he have had a false identity? Had Ginny suspected?
    â€œThere’s nothing here now, I know, but I was hoping someone saw something or could tell me something that might help me find Levi.” And then she pulled a photograph out of her leather shopping bag. “This is him, my husband, Levi Yardley, taken many years ago.” She held it up for me to see. I gasped but couldn’t bring myself to say a word.
    I knew it!
    â€œWhat is it?” she said. “Do you know something about my husband? Please, please tell me if you do?”
    I took the photograph from the woman’s hand and looked at it more closely. Even without the aid of my monocular, I could see the uncanny resemblance. For with the exception of a bulbous nose and the scar missing from his eyebrow, Levi Yardley was the very image of Frank Hayward.
    I wasn’t going crazy after all, I thought.
    But what should I say to this poor soul? For despite being vindicated for my suspicions, I still didn’t know if I was right. I didn’t know which man was dead or which man was actually buried in Frank Hayward’s grave or which man recently escaped from the Lunatic Asylum. Could it all be the same man? Could the bulbous nose be a disguise? Was Frank Hayward really Levi Yardley and vice versa? I’d come across men who had false identities before. Or was it a mere coincidence that the two men resembled each other? I didn’t believe in such coincidences. Something was definitely suspicious here. But what? Could one have been mistaken for the other? Could Levi Yardley have been the missing patient from the State Lunatic Asylum and mistakenly buried in Frank Hayward’s place? If so, where was Frank Hayward? I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, envisioning myself cheering on who I’d thought was an escapee from the asylum. Could that actually have been Frank Hayward? Or Levi Yardley? I didn’t want to believe Frank Hayward was capable of killing Levi in order to fake his own death. But it was possible. Or was it the other way around? If so, why? At least one of them had been admitted to the asylum, after all. My head hurt puzzling it out.
    â€œPlease, if you know something,” Mrs. Levi Yardley pleaded, grabbing ahold of my arm.
    â€œI don’t know much, Mrs. Yardley, but I can tell you all I suspect. Is there somewhere we can talk? It’s a little complicated.”
    How little I knew what an understatement that would turn out to be.
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    â€œThen we must go to the asylum and determine if it was my husband who escaped!” Mrs. Yardley insisted after I explained my suspicions to her. We’d found a small restaurant a few blocks away. I ordered a plate of beef, fried potatoes, cabbage, and apple pudding. I was starving. We both ordered coffee.
    We? I had no intention of going to that place ever again. I told her as much.
    â€œPlease, Miss Davish. I must know what’s become of Levi.”
    â€œI understand, Mrs. Yardley. If our places were reversed, I’d have to know as well. But he’s your husband. Why must I go?”
    â€œI can’t go alone.” She shook her head violently. “I had a friend that struggled a bit after the birth of her fifth child and they sent her to the state asylum. I never saw her again.”
    â€œWhat does that have to do with me going with you?”
    â€œWhat if they won’t