Shaken Spirits (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 13): Historical Mystery

by Alice Duncan

  “That’s no reason to…to…to…do that sort of thing!”

  “No,” said Sam. “It isn’t. If you should notice any strangers in the neighborhood, please let one of us know.”

  “I certainly will,” said Mrs. K.

  “I’m going home again this afternoon,” said Eric, “but I’ll keep a watch out when I’m here.”

  “Thank you,” said Sam.

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

  Mrs. Killebrew’s brow wrinkled. “You know, Daisy, I did see something a little odd this morning.”

  I was all ears. “You did?”

  “I didn’t think much about it at the time, but it strikes me as strange now. I saw a young man carrying a paint bucket and a brush up the street, headed toward Colorado.”

  “What did he look like?” Sam wanted to know. He retrieved a pocket notebook and pencil from his pocket and poised the latter over the former.

  “I didn’t see him well. He wore a cloth cap and overalls, and he was carrying what looked like a paint bucket and a paint brush. He was on your side of the street, and you know how all those pepper trees hide people from view.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Did you notice the color of his hair or clothing or anything like that?” asked Sam.

  “I…I think he had dark hair, and I think…Well, I’m not sure. He wore overalls, and I took him for a workman. A house painter or someone like that.” She shook her head. “I wish I’d paid more attention, but you know, one doesn’t stare at every passing stranger, even if they do appear…well, somewhat out of place, you know?”

  “Will you give me a call if you see this fellow again?” I asked.

  “Most certainly. I’ll be happy to. I do hope you catch whoever’s doing these awful things before anything worse happens to you, Daisy dear.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Killebrew. And thank you for inviting us to see your wonderful home. I just love it, and I think Sam and I would be very happy here.”

  Sam nodded. “I do, too.”

  “That makes three of us,” said Eric, smiling and rubbing his hands together. He really was pleasant fellow.

  Sam said, “Let me get Daisy safely tucked in across the street, and then I’ll come back over and sign the papers. Is that all right with you?”

  “I’m so happy you and Daisy want the house, Mr. Rotondo!” said Mrs. Killebrew. “I always imagined Daisy living here with her husband, only I didn’t imagine her husband would be you!”

  As soon as she spoke her sentence, she blushed to the roots of her beautiful white hair and lifted her hand to her mouth, as if to stuff the words back into it.

  We didn’t mind. Both Sam and I laughed. After a shocked second or two, Eric joined us.

  And we’d still get to eat Aunt Vi’s meals! I tell you, life was good.

  For the most part. There was still the teensy matter of someone wanting me dead.

  Ten

  Thus it was that a home for Sam and Daisy Rotondo, should the two ever marry and share a last name, was secured during the second week in January, 1925. I felt kind of like floating, but I could still barely walk.

  By the time Thursday during my second week of captivity came around, I decided I might as well attend choir practice. My left arm remained strapped to my body, but I could probably get Lucille Zollinger to carry my hymnal and choir book for me. Or, heck, I could just sit with Sam in the sanctuary and listen to what the choir was going to sing for the next couple of weeks, although that seemed kind of like cheating.

  You know, this is petty, but the main reason I wanted to go to choir practices was so I could show off my dandy new cane. I know, I know. But we all have our little—and sometimes not so little—vanities.

  Vi fixed a wonderful meal for us, as usual, on Thursday evening. Because I was still unable to use my left arm, I attempted to help Ma with the dishes, but she did most of the work. Sam put all the pots and pans in their proper places—I directed this operation, since he didn’t have first-hand knowledge of where our pots and pans resided.

  After everything had been cleared up and we were in the living room, Pa said, “Want to play cards, Sam?”

  Pa, Sam and Billy had loved playing gin rummy together. I felt ratty squelching my father’s fun plans for the evening, but I did it anyway.

  “Pa, would you mind if Sam took me to choir practice tonight? I haven’t been since the New Year’s Eve service, and that’s been more than two weeks.”

  Sam and Pa glanced at each other. Sam lifted an eyebrow at my father.

  “I mean, if you don’t mind, Sam,” I said in a rush, belatedly realizing he might have thoughts on the matter.

  “It’s all right with me, Daisy,” said Pa. “As long as Sam doesn’t mind. After all, you’re making him work on an evening off.” He said it with a grin, but his words made me feel guilty.

  Turning to Sam, I said, “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t even think about asking you before I offered your services for my pleasure. I’m not very nice sometimes, huh?”

  “Oh, you’re all right,” said Sam, grinning in his turn. “I’d enjoy listening to the music, although I don’t know how you’re going to participate.”

  After taking short survey of my bodily parts, I said, “Yeah. I don’t know, either. But I can…Well, I guess I can’t very well hold my hymnal in one hand, huh?” Feeling defeated, I said, “Never mind. Next week will be fine, and I’ll probably be able to use both arms by then.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll take you,” said Sam, rising from the sofa where he’d been sitting and holding my hand—which I thought was sweet of him. Holding my hand, I mean. Sam didn’t generally relish overt displays of affection. He’d been displaying more of them since New Year’s Day, however. “I like listening to the music. We can sit together and just enjoy it.”

  “Mr. Hostetter will probably try to persuade you to join the choir, you know,” I reminded him. Sam possessed a truly spectacular bass voice, which he’d used to great effect when our church hosted a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. Sam had played Go-To, a noble lord of Titipu, the fictitious Japanese town in which the play takes place. I’d reluctantly agreed to play the role of Katisha, a horrible woman who was mean as a snake. Not that snakes are commonly mean. From everything I’ve ever read about them, snakes were docile unless provoked. Kind of like me (that’s supposed to be a joke). Anyway, I discovered I loved playing nasty old Katisha. In my daily life and in my spiritualist-medium career, I’m always nice to people. It was fun being mean to people and not getting scolded for it.

  “Yeah, I know,” said Sam with a small smile. “I might just surprise the both of you one of these days and actually join the choir.”

  “Sam!” I cried, overjoyed. “Will you? Really?”

  “Don’t celebrate yet. My working hours are always iffy, and I’m not ready to join the choir yet, but I actually do like to sing.”

  “And you have such a splendid voice!” I trilled, ecstatic, although I’m not sure why. “Mr. Hostetter would absolutely love it if you’d join the choir. You’d be the star of the bass section!” Mr. Floy Hostetter had been the choir director of the First Methodist-Episcopal Church, which we Gumms and this Majesty attended, for ever since I could remember.

  “Don’t tell the other basses that,” Sam advised wryly. “But yeah, I’ll be happy to go to choir practice with you, sweetie.”

  “You’d probably better drink a spoonful of that morphine syrup before you go,” said Pa.

  That took the wind out of my sails. Not that they’d been flying very high to begin with. “Oh.” I took a brief inventory of my injuries and sighed. “Yes, I suppose I’d better.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” said Pa.

  He was a good as his word, and he came back into the living room with not only the medicine bottle and a spoon, but with a peppermint drop for me to suck after I’d swallowed the nasty stuff. “Thought you might need this, too,” he said, grinning.

  “Y
ou’re so thoughtful, Pa.”

  “Yes, you are, Joe.”

  “Gotta take care of my girl,” said Pa, and he administered the evil-tasting concoction. Then he stuck the peppermint drop in my mouth, and I commenced sucking on it.

  After sucking for a second or two, I said, “Let me get my coat and hat, Sam, and I’ll be with you…” I had been going to say “in a sec,” but that would have been a lie. “I’ll be with you as soon as I can be.”

  Both Sam and Pa laughed. Ma, who had been reading A Passage to India, by a British gent named Mr. E.M. Forster, glanced up and looked as if she were confused. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Sam’s taking me to choir practice,” I told her.

  “Oh. How nice,” said she, and went back to reading.

  I’d read A Passage to India a month or so before getting hit by that wretched car, and I’d kind of liked it. It wasn’t a detective novel, which is my preferred reading material, but it had been interesting as it was set in India and all that. What I mainly learned from reading the book was that the class system in India is more clearly defined and openly accepted than the class system in the United States of America, which isn’t supposed to have one. But we do. Not that I’m saying a class system is necessarily a bad thing; I’m just saying it might be worthwhile to be realistic about life in the good old US of A once in a while. Oh, never mind.

  So I got my hat and coat and Sam helped me on with same. He buttoned the top button of my coat over my left arm, since my left arm couldn’t go in the coat sleeve. This injury thing was becoming more and more bothersome as the days passed.

  However, I anticipated having a good time at choir practice, and I wasn’t disappointed. In the beginning, at least. The first person who noticed when Sam and I limped into the sanctuary—we didn’t go through the choir room, since I wasn’t there to sing—was Lucille Zollinger. Sam and I were heading to the first row of pews when I heard a shriek. Shrieking was uncommon in church, and this one gave me quite a start.

  “Daisy!”

  After nearly fainting from fright—guess I was a little nervous in those days—I sort of fell onto the hard pew and glanced up to see Lucy barreling down the chancel steps and running over to me.

  “Oh, Daisy, how are you?” She reached out to hug me, but I fended her off with my cane. I hadn’t until that moment realized how useful canes could be, even when you didn’t need them for walking.

  “I appreciate you wanting to hug me, Lucy, but I’m a little too banged up for that.”

  “Oh, I know!” She sat beside me and reached for my hand. Since it was my right hand, I allowed this. “I’m so sorry! I heard someone hit you on purpose! How terrible for you!”

  “It wasn’t any fun,” I admitted.

  She turned to Sam. “But how nice of you to bring Daisy to see us, Detective Rotondo. We were wondering when Daisy would be re-joining us.”

  “It probably won’t be for another couple of weeks,” said Sam in his stoical policeman’s voice. “She still has a lot of healing to do.”

  “I should say so!”

  By this time, everyone else who’d showed up for choir practice had begun tramping down the chancel steps and over to me. Mr. Hostetter led the bunch, smiling as if he were so pleased, he could hardly stand it.

  “Mrs. Majesty! We’ve missed you terribly! I do hope you’ll be able to come back to us soon.”

  Naturally, his words made me feel guilty. “I’ll be back as soon as I can be. Promise,” I said to him, smiling and shaking his hand, which he’d held out. I think that’s kind of a breach of etiquette—isn’t the woman supposed to hold her hand out to the man first? Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.

  “She has a good deal of healing to do first,” Sam told Mr. Hostetter in his most detectival tone. Mr. Hostetter backed up a step. I was impressed with my fiancé. Mr. Hostetter was used to running things and giving orders; he wasn’t accustomed to taking them.

  “It’s wonderful to see you, Daisy,” said Mrs. Fleming, our organist. “We need you back as soon as you can come, so you and Lucy can sing more duets.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Fleming. I need to write about a thousand thank-you notes before I show my face anywhere else, I fear.”

  “Don’t worry about thank-you notes!” said Lucy. “For heaven’s sake, it looks as if you can’t even use one of your arms!”

  “I can’t. My left shoulder was dislocated. I kind of wobble when I walk. But Sam gave me this beautiful cane!” I said, lifting and brandishing same. The sanctuary filled with ooohs and aaahs for a second or two.

  Lucy, clutching her clasped hands to her meager bosom, said, “Oh, my! Is that a dachshund head on the handle?”

  “Yes.” I gave Sam a loving look. He’d commenced scowling at nothing in particular. “Sam had it made especially for me.”

  “How charming.” Lucy said, and she sniffled. Even had to lift a finger to her eye to dab away a tear.

  “Where in the world did you find a dachshund’s-head cane?” Mrs. Fleming wanted to know.

  Since Sam was busy scrutinizing the sanctuary and didn’t seem inclined to respond, I did it for him. “I don’t know where he got the cane part, but he had Arnold’s Jewelers craft the dachshund’s head.”

  “It’s delightful,” said Mrs. Fleming. “And so perfect for you.”

  I think that was meant as a compliment.

  “Very nice,” said Mr. Hostetter, daring to inch closer to us.

  Sam continued glowering hither and yon, studying the sanctuary as if he suspected ex-Kaiser Wilhelm of hiding out in one of the pews. I’d have kicked him if I’d been in full possession of all my bodily parts. There was no reason for him to have gone all policemanly at church, of all places! The Voodoo juju I always wore steamed up a little. Probably because Sam was being such a pill.

  If I hadn’t turned my head at that moment in order to give Sam the stink-eye, the knife would have sliced clean through my throat from front to back. Instead, it hit with a sharp crack into the back of the pew and stuck there, quivering.

  Eleven

  Everyone except Sam screamed. I believe even the men screamed. Well, and I didn’t scream, either, but that’s because I was in a state of stunned shock. I flattened my right hand over my warm juju, which lay near my heart—and that pounded like a drum in a downtown Los Angeles speakeasy.

  Sam leaped out of his seat and ran as if the devil pursued him to the door from which the knife must have been thrown. That door led to a small side yard in our church that wasn’t used for much except maybe sipping lemonade on warm days after Sunday services, but it was pretty and was home to lots of rosebushes, none of which flowered on this chilly January evening.

  I don’t think Sam considered his wounded thigh as he tore out the door and into the side yard. He didn’t even bother picking up his cane!

  Confusion reigned for several seconds. I wanted to jump up and rush to see what Sam was doing outside, but I was unable to jump up or rush anywhere at all just then.

  “Good Lord!” Mr. Hostetter said at last. He reached for the knife.

  “Don’t touch it!” I screeched at him. His hand flew away from the knife as if I’d slapped it.

  Heart thundering and nerves a-tingle, I said, “It might have fingerprints on it. Don’t put yours on it, too, or we may never know who’s trying to kill me.”

  “Fingerprints? Fingerprints! In our church? Kill you!” Mr. Hostetter exclaimed, as if the mere notion of fingerprints and people being killed in church was sacrilegious. Huh. A couple of years ago, two people had dropped dead—one of them via murder—during two separate communion services. I didn’t appreciate Mr. Hostetter’s attitude.

  “Good heavens!”

  “Mercy sakes!”

  “My land!”

  I can’t remember all the expressions people spouted during the aftermath of this latest attempt to put an end to my short life, but those are an example. Somebody—I can’t remember who it was—fainted.

  An
d then, as if life weren’t awful enough, Miss Betsy Powell, who must have entered the sanctuary right before whoever it was threw the knife at me, started screaming. I swear to God, that woman had the loudest, most piercing scream I’ve ever heard in my life. I wanted to jump up and holler at her but, as mentioned above, I couldn’t jump. Heck, I could barely move.

  However, I could sort of stand up and, with the help of my charming new cane, and limp to the side door. I heard, over the din inside the sanctuary, a disturbance going on outside.

  “Who the devil are you!” I heard Sam holler.

  “God damned son of a bitch!” a rusty masculine voice hollered back, shocking me. I expect the words shocked the rest of the church-goers, too, although I didn’t bother to look. Betsy Powell continued to scream, and I wished somebody would slap her across the face. I’d wanted to do that several times in past years. The rusty voice continued, “Leave go that sumbitch, dammit! He’s mine!”

  “He’s not yours,” growled Sam. The voices were coming closer to the door from which he’d exited. “He’s my nephew, and he just threw a knife at my fiancé.”

  “Well, dammit, I got a dodger on ’im! He’s mine! The money’s mine, anyways.”

  “Come in here. Let’s get this sorted out.”

  “Is that there a church?” Rusty Voice sounded as if he’d rather not enter a church. “Shit.”

  “Yes, it is. Get in here.”

  “Dammit! I claim the bounty on that curly wolf!”

  I’m not sure about anyone else, but my own eyes felt as if they were about as wide as they’d ever been. Curly wolf? What in the world was a curly wolf, and what did one have to do with Sam’s nephew and that cursed knife?

  “Goodness sakes, what’s going on out there?” Lucy Zollinger asked. Considerably taller than I, she had one hand on my shoulder, another on the door jamb, and she peered out into the darkness, squinting. Of course, she wasn’t wearing her cheaters, so I don’t know how much she’d have been able to see, even if a light was on out there.

  “I’m not sure,” said I.