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

by Alice Duncan

Crumb. I’d hoped he’d found the would-be murderer and shot him dead. “Oh?”

  “Yes. Come on in and sit down, and I’ll tell you. You, too, Joe,” Sam said to Pa.

  “Thanks, Sam,” said Pa.

  So we all sat in the living room; Sam, Spike and me on the sofa, and Pa in one of our two pretty wing chairs.

  “Frank spilled the beans,” said Sam, smiling hugely.

  “What beans did he spill?” I asked, thinking Sam’s words were all well and good, but what did they mean?

  “Bruce Petrie hired him to knife you.”

  “Bruce Petrie?” said Pa.

  “Bruce Petrie,” Sam confirmed.

  “The fiend!” I cried.

  “Yeah. They’re both fiends. But the most interesting bit of news popped up when I interviewed Bruce Petrie.”

  “Oh?” This, from Pa.

  “Yes. Do you remember the woman who shot me?”

  “Eloise Frances Petrie Gaulding. I’ll never forget that name as long as I live.” I shuddered. That had been a truly horrifying time. I thought for sure Sam would bleed to death before help came.

  “I won’t, either,” said Sam. “But she’s the one.”

  “The one what? Or who?”

  “The one who’s behind the attacks on you.”

  “You mean she wants me dead?”

  “According to Bruce, she’s never forgiven you for spoiling the profitable endeavor she, her nephew, and Leo Bannister were engaged in. She also hates me, but figures it would hurt me more if she kills you before she kills me.”

  Outraged, I blurted out, “That so-called profitable endeavor was kidnapping children to act as sex slaves for disgusting men!”

  “True, but it made a lot of money for the ringleaders.”

  “Those poor children,” said Pa, who had been revolted and horrified when told about the market for children financed by depraved men. I think it was hard for my father to understand there were people that evil in the world. And not merely in the world, but in Pasadena. I understood his reaction, because mine had been the same.

  “Those people are…” I couldn’t think of bad-enough words to describe them, actually.

  “Depraved perverts and rapists,” Sam supplied.

  “Yes. And evil,” I added.

  “Pure evil,” said Pa.

  “Is Mrs. Gaulding in prison now?” I asked.

  “She’s been out on bond for several months. Her trial is coming up soon. This will get her locked up with no bail, I suspect. Officers are on their way to her house right this minute.”

  “Do you mean I won’t have to remain a prisoner in my own home any longer?”

  “You’re going to remain a prisoner until we’re sure we’ve got all the bad guys locked up,” said Sam. “Don’t push your luck, Daisy. We need to be sure there aren’t any more of Mrs. Gaulding’s hirelings running around before you go anywhere by yourself.”

  “Right. You stay put, Daisy,” said Pa. “Don’t take any chances until Sam is sure the danger is over.”

  “I know you’re right,” I said, although I didn’t much want to. Well, except that I did want to stay alive. I wasn’t going to be stupid and wander off by myself unless and until I knew all the Petrie vermin and all the Petries’ venomous employees, friends and sidekicks were locked up tight and couldn’t get out.

  Sam left to go back to the office soon after delivering his news. I was excited and almost happy for the first time since that blasted Cole Sportster had smashed me against that poor pepper tree on New Year’s Day.

  Speaking of that motorcar, I couldn’t help but wonder if Mr. Bernard Randford was as innocent of evil-doing as everyone wanted to believe him to be. Miss Betsy Powell had the worst taste in men of any woman I’d ever met in my life. She’d already been madly in love with two perfectly ghastly men, one of whom had tried to kill me with a syringe full of insulin. The other one was the founder of the Underhill Chemical Company, and he was a total rotter, although I don’t know if he actively did any harm to anyone except Miss Powell and his own wife and children. Well, and a whole lot of his employees. Fortunately for everyone, Miss Powell’s at-that-time current love had murdered him. During a communion service at our church, as I believe I’ve already mentioned.

  You know, when I’m living my life from day to day, it feels pretty boring, but when I write it down, it almost has an element of excitement to it. Strange, that.

  Anyhow, I got bored after Mrs. Rattle fixed lunch for Pa and me, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. What I wanted to do was go for a walk with Pa and Spike. I didn’t think my arms were well enough to hold Spike’s leash, but I could walk along side them and at least get out of doors for a few minutes. It wasn’t terribly cold that late-January day.

  I decided to step outside and stand on the back deck for a few minutes. That couldn’t hurt, could it? I’d stay near my bedroom door and take Spike with me. He’d bark or growl if anyone with bad intentions lurked anywhere within sniffing range. Spike was, after all, a mighty hunting dog. According to Mrs. Bissel, the woman who’d given him to me in return for ridding her basement of a ghost, dachshunds had been bred to hunt badgers. Badgers were ferocious beasts, so Spike was a tough cookie. Or he would be if the occasion called for it…At least I was pretty sure he would be.

  Maybe Pa would join us. That idea made me feel better about my adventure.

  Adventure.

  Standing on the back deck.

  My life was pitiful. Nertz.

  “Pa!” I called after I’d decided on my daring plan.

  “Yes, sweetie?” Pa had been chatting with Mrs. Rattle in the kitchen.

  “Would you be willing to join Spike and me on the back deck for a few minutes? Just so I can get out of the house for a little bit? I promise I won’t go anywhere. I only want to breathe fresh air for a second or two.”

  Pa and Mrs. Rattle turned to look at me. Both frowned.

  After a moment of strained silence, Pa said, “Sam wants you to stay in the house until he has all the bad guys rounded up and in jail, Daisy.”

  “I know that, but…Just a minute on the back deck? With you and Spike? Would that be so bad?”

  “Detective Rotondo would probably think so,” said Mrs. Rattle, sounding matter-of-fact and practical.

  Bother.

  Another several seconds of silence bloated with fear and uncertainty passed. Pa finally got up from the kitchen table and said, “I’ll look around before you take a single step outside, young lady.”

  “Thanks, Pa. Do you really think I’m being…I don’t know. Silly? Rebellious? I don’t mean to be.”

  “I think you’re going stir-crazy,” said Mrs. Rattle with a sweet smile. “Trapped in the house for so long.”

  “Right,” said Pa. “Especially now that you’re starting to feel better. At first, you couldn’t do anything but lie in bed or on the couch, but now that you’re healing, you’re getting antsy.”

  “I think you’re both right.” I didn’t mind admitting it since it was true.

  “I’ll check first,” said Pa, heading to my bedroom, which was right off the kitchen.

  That room would be great for Vi, but Billy and I had taken it because by the time Billy came home from the war, he couldn’t climb stairs. Therefore, although there were two nice rooms upstairs, Vi used them, and I had the room off the kitchen. Now, since Sam and I aimed to be married soon, we’d probably just keep things the way they were. After that, Vi might decide to move downstairs.

  I heard the back door open. Spike sped to join Pa. He loved sniffing in the back yard. Every now and then he’d scare up an opossum or Samson, the Wilsons’ cat, but there wasn’t a whole lot of wildlife extant in Pasadena. Maybe a lizard or a spider here and there.

  “Looks all right to me,” Pa called after he’d scanned the yard and the surroundings. We’d planted several trees and bushes back there along with a bunch of rose bushes in a special bed reserved just for them. I loved to garden when I could, always we
aring gloves to protect my spiritualist-medium’s silky hands.

  I heaved a gratified sigh and walked through my room to the back door. Spike was already outside and had descended the short flight of stairs from the deck to the yard, where he was sniffing happily. I swear, that dog did everything happily. Wish I could do that. As I approached the back door, I felt something warm against my chest and stopped in my tracks.

  Was that my Voodoo juju heating up?

  Sam’s juju, made for him by the same Voodoo mambo who’d made mine—Mrs. Jackson, whose beignets the family had recently devoured—had become so hot every time he was near a murderer, he’d had to take it off.

  Nonsense. I was a phony spiritualist-medium and, while I wore the Voodoo juju Mrs. Jackson had made for me because I appreciated her for having made it, I didn’t believe in any of that stuff. Therefore, I ignored my juju and boldly walked the rest of the way to the door. Pa stood outside, his hands on the deck railing, surveying things. Spike continued to roam in the yard until he suddenly stood stock still, lifted his long nose into the air, and then took off like a bat out of a hot place toward the hibiscus bushes in back of the rose bed.

  A loud noise made me jump.

  Pa hollered, “Daisy! Get inside!”

  Another noise—good grief, those were gunshots!—turned me around like a top, and I all but fell into my bedroom.

  I heard a scream.

  “God damned sumbitch!” roared Lou Prophet.

  Whimpers sounded as if they came from the hibiscus bushes. I didn’t know what to do, but I had definitely lost my taste for standing on the back deck. Kneeling hurt my still-tender muscles, but I knelt in front of my back window and peered through the glass. There were Pa and Lou Prophet, Pa running, Prophet hobbling as fast as he could, in the direction of the hibiscus bushes. Prophet carried the longest gun I’d ever seen in my entire life—not that I’d seen very many guns—next to his body as he thudded across the grass, making holes where his stump landed.

  Well…That would prevent mushrooms from forming fairy circles in the springtime. The holes, I mean. I doubt Mr. Prophet knew that, or would have cared had I told him. And why was my mind running around in circles?

  Lord, Lord, Lord, what did this mean? Did someone just try to kill me? Again? I couldn’t take much more of this!

  I watched as the two men approached the rose bed. Pa’d just pruned the rose bushes, because that’s what we folks in Pasadena did in January. I hadn’t been able to help him with the chore this year. Prophet held his gun out horizontally in front of my father to stop him. I couldn’t hear what he told Pa, but Pa stayed where he was as Prophet slowly limped through the rose bushes and reached down to grab something lying between a couple of hibiscus bushes. I loved those bushes. One of them had pink blossoms and one had yellow blossoms, only not in January. In January, everything looked dead.

  With a jerk, Prophet pulled a body out of the bushes. Waving to my father, Prophet beckoned him forward. Pa joined Prophet and the prone man. Was he dead? Did I care?

  Not a whole lot, no, although I’d like to know who he was and who’d hired him.

  As Pa stood beside the man who, I noticed, bled copiously from a thigh wound not unlike the one Sam had sustained months earlier, Prophet went a little farther into the hibiscus trees, bent over, and picked up a gun. The gun he picked us was short; I guess it was a revolver or a pistol, unlike the weapon Prophet carried, which was…well, long. A rifle? If I could ever leave the house again, I told myself I was going to go to the library and look up the makes and models of firearms.

  Then it occurred to me I probably should be doing something more useful than kneeling before my window, so I pushed myself to my feet—which hurt again, dad gum it—and went to the telephone on the kitchen wall. When I picked up the receiver, I heard Mrs. Longnecker, who lived down the street from us, screaming into the receiver on her end of the wire.

  “I don’t know!” she shrieked. She shrieked almost as well as Mrs. Pinkerton; I suspect she practiced on her husband, a mild-mannered little fellow who liked to putter in his yard. “All I know is that I heard two gunshots! I don’t know what kind of gun they came from!”

  A voice proceeding from, I deduced, the police station asked her if she knew what she’d heard were really gunshots, and could they possibly have been firecrackers?

  “Firecrackers? No! No one in this neighborhood is stupid enough to shoot off firecrackers in January! Get over here! I don’t know which house they came from, but I suspect it was the Gumms’ place. If there’s any trouble in the neighborhood, it’ll be at their house!”

  I cleared my throat. Mrs. Longnecker screamed again. Guess I’d startled her.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Longnecker, but you’re correct. Two gunshots issued from our back yard a few minutes ago.”

  “Daisy Gumm Majesty, what in the world is going on at your house? First you get hit by a car, and now someone’s shooting at you?”

  Clearly, Mrs. Longnecker disapproved. Well, so did I. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Longnecker, but none of this is my fault.”

  “Humph,” said she. I heard her receiver clunk into the telephone cradle at her house.

  I cleared my throat again. “Officer?”

  “Yes?” Whoever he was, he sounded peeved. Too bad. “Who is this?”

  “This is Mrs. Majesty. Will you please connect me with Detective Rotondo?”

  “Hold on a minute. Did you say there was a shooting at your house?”

  “Not a shooting, no—” I remembered the body Pa and Mr. Prophet had hauled from the hibiscus bushes. “I mean, yes, there was a shooting. Oh, please connect me with Detective Rotondo! He’ll know what to do!” I’d begun to sound rather shrill.

  “Excuse me, dear.” Mrs. Rattle gently took the receiver from my hand and spoke into it. “Officer, this is Mrs. Rattle, Stephen Doan’s mother. There’s been a shooting at Detective Rotondo’s fiancée’s house, and we need a couple of officers. Perhaps an ambulance.” She gave our address.

  Because I no longer held the telephone, I don’t have a clue what the policeman on the other end of the wire said to her, but she said, “Yes. That’s right. Two officers and an ambulance, please. And please notify Detective Rotondo as soon as possible. Yes.” Another moment of quiet, and then she said, “Yes. Thank you. And be sure to alert Detective Rotondo.” She hung the receiver on the hook.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Rattle. I didn’t know your son’s name was Stephen.”

  “Yes, dear.” Mrs. Rattle had the sweetest smile. “He was named after his grandfather, my father, who was a wonderful man.”

  “How nice.”

  All of a sudden I felt as though I was going to collapse. I grabbed a kitchen chair and pretty much fell onto it. Then I commenced shaking.

  “There, there, dear.” Mrs. Rattle put her hands on my shoulders and gently massaged them for a couple of seconds. “I know this is terribly unsettling for you. But it will be cleared up soon. I know it will be. Detective Rotondo is the finest man on the force, except for my Stephen, and he’ll fix it all up. Just you wait and see.”

  Guess I’d have to, wouldn’t I?

  Twenty-Two

  Once I stopped shaking, Mrs. Rattle began heating a saucepan full of milk on the stove top. “I’ll just make us all some hot cocoa. That will be good for your nerves. And your father’s.”

  “And Mr. Prophet’s.”

  “Oh. Yes. He was responsible for the second gunshot, I imagine. Right?” She sounded so calm and self-assured, so…well, everything I wasn’t just then.

  “Yes. He was.”

  “Good thing, too.” She shook her head as she stirred sugar and cocoa powder into the saucepan. Mrs. Rattle was very good at her job, and I appreciated her immensely just then.

  I heard thudding on the back steps and then a thump, as if perhaps my father and Mr. Prophet had yanked a body up the stairs and deposited it on the deck. I aimed to hose off the deck as soon as I possibly could so as not to leave a
bloodstain thereon. Maybe, once I got myself all healed again, I’d paint the damned thing, too.

  Oh, dear. I’m sorry about that word. My predicament and Lou Prophet seemed to be telling on me more than I wanted to admit.

  Pa walked into the kitchen from my bedroom. “You all right, sweetheart?” he asked, coming over and giving me a hug as I huddled in my chair.

  “Yes. Thank you, Pa. Um…Do you know what happened? I mean, I think someone shot at me, and then Mr. Prophet shot whoever it was who did it. Is that correct?”

  “Correct,” said Pa. “Don’t know who the shooter is yet. But I have to get a sheet and some tape or rope or something like that. Lou shot him in the thigh—”

  “Just like Sam,” I said in a tinny, tiny voice.

  “Um…Yes, I suppose so. But I’d better get some gauze or tape to wrap around the leg above the wound, or the man might bleed to death.”

  “I want him to bleed to death,” I said, thereby appalling myself.

  Pa only chuckled. “I don’t blame you, but we probably should at least try to keep him alive until he can tell us who hired him or if he was operating on his own.”

  “Oh. Yes. I forgot about that. Good idea.”

  So Pa, who plainly wasn’t in a rush, went to get a sheet—I guess he aimed to roll the bleeding man onto the sheet in order to help protect the deck’s finish—and something with which to bind the man’s leg.

  Lou Prophet called, “Knock, knock,” from the back door. “Joe?”

  “He went to get some bandages,” Mrs. Rattle said.

  “Don’t need ’em,” said Prophet. “I tied his leg with my ketch rope. But we’d best get a sheet or something under him, or he’ll ruin that nice porch y’all got out here.”

  His ketch rope?

  I’d ask later. And, if he told me what it was, I’d add it to my old-west dictionary.

  “Just get sheets, Pa!” I called to my father. “Mr. Prophet bound the leg with his…Um, he bound the leg.”

  “Ah, good.” Pa walked into the kitchen carrying one of our oldest sheets; one with holes in it. He must have dug hard to find it. I suspect he’d retrieved it from the pile of old linen and clothes we aimed to donate to the Salvation Army. I was glad. Didn’t want to waste a good sheet on a man who’d just made an attempt on my life.