by Jane Tesh
She looked at me as if I’d asked what will you do with the Holy Grail? “Put it in a place of honor, of course. Treasure it. Hand it down to my children and tell them the story of how it was found, how Aunt Marge and Aunt Marie fought so bitterly in life but were transformed by the healing power of the light of eternity.”
I did not have an answer for this.
“Okay, Sylvie,” Jerry called from the parlor. “Show time.”
I followed Sylvie as she hurried to the parlor. She sat down at the table where a fat candle glowed. Jerry took her hand. “I’m not sure what kind of response we’ll get, Sylvie. It’s a little harder in the daytime, you know.”
She nodded. “I’m just so grateful you’re willing to do this.”
Did Jerry look just the teensiest bit guilty at her blinding faith in his non-existent ability to speak to the dead? I hoped so.
“Okay, here we go.”
He closed his eyes and went through his usual array of noises. Sylvie watched him anxiously. Then he jerked in his chair and began to speak in a higher voice.
“What is it, my child?”
Sylvie had to take a breath. “Is it Aunt Marge or Aunt Marie?”
“Aunt Marge.”
“It’s about the watch, Aunt Marge. Aunt Flossie and I still haven’t been able to find it. We’ve looked behind every door we could find. We even looked on the porch Uncle Ray closed off. I was hoping you could give me a better idea where it is. We don’t have enough information.”
Jerry hummed tunelessly for a few minutes and then said, “Is the watch that important to you, Sylvie?”
She looked taken aback. “Yes, it is. It’s very important.”
“Wouldn’t something else do, say, a fond memory of your Aunt Marge?”
“But I don’t have any fond memories of you, or of Aunt Marie. You were always fighting. The watch would be a symbol of your newfound friendship in heaven.”
Jerry gulped. I couldn’t tell if this was part of his act or his realization he was losing his grip on the situation. “But we are very happy in heaven, dear. Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes, but something I could hold and pass along to my children would be so much better. And you did promise.”
Another gulp. “I’ll see what I can do. I—I must leave you now. The light. I must return to the light.” Jerry gave a realistic gasp and came out of his so-called trance. “Did one of them come through? What did she say?”
Sylvie looked pleased. “She’s going to see what she can do. Thank you, Jerry.”
She started to get out her wallet. “No, that’s okay,” he said. “You can pay me later.”
“Thanks.”
After she’d gone, I looked at him. “Nice try.”
He gave me a wry grin. “That’s what happens when you try to reach the spirits in the morning.”
“You might be more helpful at Tori’s.”
***
When Tori met us at the door of the chateau and saw Jerry, she took a step back and wrapped her thin arms tightly around herself.
I wasn’t sure what had alarmed her. “Tori, this is my husband, Jerry.”
Jerry kept his distance and smiled. “Mrs. Satterfield, I’m Jerry Fairweather. Mac’s brought me along for the heavy lifting.”
I don’t know if it was his calm voice or his smile or the joke about heavy lifting, but Tori relaxed slightly. Her voice faltered. “Welcome to my home.”
He stayed where he was, still smiling. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never been in a castle before.”
“It’s not exactly a castle.”
“Mac tells me you’ve created some beautiful scrapbooks.”
She brightened. “Did she tell you I once danced the part of Clara in The Nutcracker?”
“I can certainly see that, Mrs. Satterfield.”
“Please call me Tori.” She hesitated another minute. “Come in.”
Once she no longer perceived him as a threat, it didn’t take long for Tori to respond to Jerry’s lively manner. He listened patiently as she explained each clipping on the pages of her latest scrapbook, made admiring comments, and occasionally gave me a wide-eyed glance as if to say, can you believe this?
Tori finally came to the end of the book. “And what do you do, Jerry?”
“I work at Georgia’s Books. Sometimes I do magic tricks.”
“Do you really?”
“Sure. Watch this.” He took a quarter out of his pocket and made it disappear.
Tori was delighted. “How do you do that?”
“It’s not hard. It just takes a lot of practice. I could teach you.”
“I’d like that.”
“But you have to tell me one thing.”
“All right,” she said.
“Why is your castle named after a groundhog?”
She made a face. “Elijah Fenton thought ‘marmot’ was the French word for ‘marvelous,’ and no one had the courage to correct him.”
I thought “Marmot” was an appropriate name for someone who basically lived in a burrow.
“Mac, you ought to create a coat of arms for the castle: two rodents rampant on a field of gold.”
To my amazement, Tori gave a little giggle. “I suppose I could,” I said.
Tori’s gaze strayed back to the piles of paper. “Madeline, have you and Jerry been to the ballet lately?”
“I’ve been several times, but Jerry prefers the opera.”
She looked impressed. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been to a real opera. I’ve seen some on TV.” She glanced at the piles of trimmings on the table. I could almost see her mind formulating a new collection. “Do you have anything you could spare for my book? A program or a ticket stub? Anything?”
“I might have a few things,” Jerry said. “I’ll see what I can find.”
She clasped her fragile hands together. “That would be wonderful. Now, let’s go find the answer to that riddle.”
We started in the long hall that led from Tori’s hideout to the dining room. Jerry looked up at the frowning face in the first portrait.
“Who’s this?”
“Elijah’s sister, Eulalie Fenton.”
“She looks fierce.”
“She was.”
“And this guy?”
“Ellis Fenton, Nathan’s father.”
“Equally grim.” Jerry lifted the picture from its hook and turned it around. Nothing. We moved on to the next relative.
“Oh, this is nice,” Jerry said. “He’s got a little dog.”
“That’s Elijah’s grandfather, Hobarth, with Ticky.”
“Ticky? Was he full of ticks?”
Tori laughed. “No, no. I think he was ticklish.”
There was nothing behind Hobarth and Ticky. There was nothing behind second cousin Elizabeth or great-aunt Aubergine. As we searched, Tori became more animated.
We worked our way down one side of the hall and then took a break.
Tori dusted her hands. “Well, this is discouraging, but as you can see, there’s lots more.”
I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven. “I’ve got to meet someone, Tori. Can we come back later?”
“Yes, of course. You may come back any time.”
“How about tomorrow morning?”
“I look forward to it.” She showed us to the door, gave a little wave, and hurried back to her nest.
Jerry shook his head. “Man, that’s pathetic. We’ve got to get her out of there.”
“Only if she wants to, Jerry. I think she’s borderline agoraphobic.”
“All that newspaper and dust. It’s like being in a tomb. I need a drink.”
“Coke and a cheeseburger at Deely’s?”
“That oughta do it.”
***
We got to Deely’s well before the lunch crowd and found a booth next to the front windows.
“I can be on the lookout for our junior reporter,” I said.
After ordering, Jerry said, “If you want to know about
Elijah Fenton, you can always ask The Geezer Club. They probably knew him.”
“The Geezer Club” was Jerry’s name for the three elderly men who met every morning at a corner table of the restaurant to eat ham biscuits, drink coffee, and sound off on everything that didn’t suit them about Celosia and the world at large. They were still at their favorite spot. The men looked identical in their overalls and baseball caps, but I knew one man was Horace Stanley, one of Nell’s great-uncles.
I strolled up to them. “Good morning, gentlemen.”
Mister Stanley tipped his baseball cap. One man gave me a nod. The other brushed crumbs off the front of his shirt.
“Mornin,’ Mrs. Fairweather,” Horace said. He was a distinguished looking man with a large moustache. “This here’s Frank Odum and R.W. Jessup. Ya’ll know Madeline, don’t you, fellas?”
I shook hands with Frank and R.W. Frank was thin and bony, while R.W. reminded me of a potato, his small features gathered in the center of his face. “Nice to meet you. Did any of you know Elijah Fenton?”
Frank laughed, and R.W. shook his head. “What you want to know about that ornery old cuss for?”
“I’m working on a case for his nephew, Nathan.”
Horace nodded. “Nice boy. Not like the rest of ’em.”
“Not like Elijah, that’s for dang sure,” Frank said. “Thought he was better than anybody else, all on account of him having some rich relative in France.”
R.W. took a sip of his coffee. “Always thought that was a lie.”
“Putting on airs, building that big old pile of rocks he called a castle, saying he was descended from French nobility. Who’d wanna be French, that’s what I want to know.”
“They make good mustard,” Horace said, and the other two men looked at him askance.
“Mustard?” Frank said. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“French’s mustard.”
“Are you trying to make a joke?”
I got the conversation back on track.
“So Elijah was upset when his nephew Aaron married a local girl?”
Frank continued the story. “Lord, yes. See, Elijah never married.”
“Too ornery,” R.W. said.
“So he thought of Nathan and Aaron as his sons. He’d picked out some rich gal from somewhere up in Virginia.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t order one from France,” Horace said, which earned him another look from his cronies.
“Who’s telling this?” Frank said.
“Go on, go on. Pardon me.”
“But Aaron had already taken up with the Dewey girl. Never heard such a fuss. And nothing wrong with the Deweys. A nice family. That girl of theirs was right good looking, too, so I don’t know why Elijah was so dead set against her. He thought he was somewhat of a ladies man. Never could see it, myself, but he squired quite a few women around. None of ’em would have him, though, even with all his fortune.”
“Wasn’t he sweet on that Lever woman, the one what just died?” R.W. asked.
Horace laughed. “Now that would’ve been a pair! I think she told him what he could do with his money. Probably the only one to stand up to the old cuss, except for Aaron.”
“Elijah wanted to date Amelia Lever?” I asked.
“Yup. He was pretty wild when he was in his twenties, and she wasn’t bad looking at nineteen. But like I said, she didn’t want anything to do with him.”
I took a few minutes to absorb that little nugget of information.
“Least the Dewey girl got the castle,” R.W. said.
“Yeah. You hear that whirring noise?”
I listened, puzzled, until Frank’s thin face wrinkled with laughter.
“That’s old Elijah’s spinning in his grave.”
Nathan had told me Elijah left enough money for Tori to live in the chateau. “Did something happen to change how Elijah felt about Tori?”
“Yeah, I think there at the end, he didn’t like the way Aaron treated her.”
When I returned to my booth, Jerry was grinning.
“What?” I said.
“You should have seen their faces when you walked away.” Jerry widened his eyes and let his mouth hang open in what I’m sure he thought was a comical depiction of male lust.
“Ha, ha.”
“Nudging each other, tongues flapping.”
“Shut up.”
He poured more ketchup on his fries. “You made their day. Find out anything?”
“Pretty much what I already knew. Elijah didn’t have any children, so he took a lot of interest in his nephews’ lives. He’d picked out a wife for Aaron and got a little miffed when Aaron married Tori. Oh, and the fellas say he tried to date Amelia Lever.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“A match made in heaven.”
“Tried to date her. She turned him down.”
“And he was such a catch.”
“Horace and company think Aaron was an abusive husband, though.”
“No wonder Tori jumped when she saw me. Oh, check this out. That might be Valerie Banner.”
A small young woman with a large bag slung over one shoulder walked across the street. She came into Deely’s, took a quick look around, and went right to our booth, her bright blue eyes sparkling.
“Mrs. Fairweather, hello! I’m Valerie Banner.”
“Madeline, please.” We shook hands, and I introduced Jerry, who stood to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Banner.”
“Call me Valerie,” she said. “I’ll just slide in and sit next to you.” She arranged herself and her large bag next to Jerry. She looked very young, her long black hair pulled back with a head band, and she was dressed all in black: black jeans, tee shirt, jean jacket, and boots. “Jerry, are you related to Des?”
“My older brother.”
“Small world! He and my Uncle Jake are really good friends.”
Jerry snapped his fingers. “Jake Banner. I knew I’d heard that name before.”
“Only your brother doesn’t have a lot of time to run around with Jake these days, does he? Isn’t he on some world tour?”
“He’s in China with the Parkland Symphony right now. I think it’s a two week tour.”
“I know he’s loving every minute.” She dug in her bag and brought out a digital camera. “But I don’t want to waste your time, Madeline. Let me get a quick photo.”
“Here?”
“Sure. The light’s good. You look amazing, by the way.”
“Thanks. You said you knew what I looked like. I’m curious about that.”
She took a few pictures, examined the results, and nodded. “Jake told me.”
Oh, great. No doubt her uncle knew me from pageants. But what she said next surprised me.
“Jake’s into all sorts of paranormal things, so he knew all about Mantis Man.”
Mantis Man, Celosia’s Bigfoot.
She raised the camera. “Let me get just a few more. When you caught the woman who killed that movie director, Jake was all over that story because he thought you’d discovered the real Mantis Man.”
Several people had dressed up as the Mantis, including one of Jerry’s friends. “It was a hoax, Valerie.”
She grinned. “Don’t tell Jake that. He still believes it’s out there. Anyway, he was really interested in what went on here, and that’s how I know you.”
I looked at Jerry, who just smiled. Valerie had yet to mention anything about my pageant past. She wasn’t going for the beauty queen angle. She knew me from a case, a murder I had solved.
“Okay, I got some good shots.” She put the camera back in her bag and took out a small tape recorder. “So tell me everything about your art.”
Looking at Valerie Banner, I wouldn’t have believed she was a competent reporter, but she was genuinely interested in what I had to say and asked insightful questions about me and my hopes for a career in art.
Then she asked, “So how difficult
is it for a woman starting a detective agency in a small town?”
“I wanted to get away from the larger agencies in Parkland and really work on a more personal basis with people. I wanted to find things that they had lost, put lives back together. The fact that a murder occurred during my first visit was just fate. And I had the opportunity and the good fortune to solve that murder.”
“But your first love is art?”
“Yes, I’ve always wanted to be an artist.”
“And should your art career take off, do you plan to continue your investigations?”
“Yes,” I said. “I can always make time for the things that are important to me.”
She grinned. “I hear what you’re saying. And believe me I know what it’s like to have to prove yourself over and over. People look at me and think I’m working for my high school newspaper.” She turned off the recorder and stuffed it and the camera back into her bag. “Okay, that should do it. Thanks so much.”
“Thank you.”
“And Jerry, thanks for the update on Des. I’ll tell Jake. He’ll want to go to China and start looking for dragons.”
“Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Jerry asked me after Valerie had gone. “I did not hear the ‘P’ word one time.”
“I know,” I said. “You’d think by now I’d stop judging people on too little information.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was ready to dismiss Valerie because she looked like a punk rock teenager. She’s really quite a good reporter. You heard her say she knows what it’s like to have to prove yourself over and over. I’ve had to do that practically all my life, and here I was, not willing to give her a chance.”
“But you did, and I’ll bet she’s going to write a dynamite story.”
I reached across the table to take his hand. “Thanks. I never would’ve entered that art show. I never would’ve had the opportunity for all this good publicity. This is one time I’m glad you’re so sneaky.”
“Wait till you see what I come up with next.”
I must have really looked alarmed because he laughed and said, “Just kidding.”
***
I took Jerry to the bookstore and headed back to Celosia Elementary. Rachel’s art classes were a little more subdued and limited their questions to topics about art. Rachel explained she told them they would be graded on their behavior. I showed them how to shade drawings of fruit for a more three dimensional look and illustrated ways to add perspective. Then they set about drawing a still life of fruit and toys Rachel had placed on a table in front of the room. As I walked around offering praise and suggestions, I couldn’t help but think how much easier my life would’ve been if my mother had encouraged my artistic efforts instead of insisting I parade around on stage in a frilly and obscenely expensive dress, smiling stiffly and turning just so. My life might have been different, but if I’d had a successful art career, would circumstances have led me to Celosia and my own detective agency?
