by Alice Duncan
Spirits Unearthed
Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery Series
Book Twelve
by
Alice Duncan
Recipe Included:
Aunt Vi's Swedish Smothered Chicken
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ISBN: 978-1-947833-39-5
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Table of Contents
Cover
Foreword
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Aunt Vi's Swedish Smothered Chicken
Meet the Author
Foreword
Now you can experience the smells and flavors of Aunt Vi's kitchen, just like Daisy! We were fortunate enough to convince Aunt Vi to share one of her mouth-watering recipes. When you finish the story, page ahead for Aunt Vi's Swedish Smothered Chicken which is not to be missed. Enjoy!
ePublishing Works
Dedication
Thanks to Stephanie Cowans for giving me the idea for this book. Thanks to my niece, Sara Krafft, because she actually is magic. And, as always, thanks to Lynne Welch, Sue Krekeler and Julia Anderson for being such great beta readers. They're always full of ideas, and I do so appreciate them, especially now that my brain's gone dry!
Chapter 1
"This is stupid," said Sam Rotondo as he limped through Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California.
Monday, two weeks before Christmas in 1924, and the weather had turned frigid. That is to say, it was darned cold for Pasadena, California, where the weather seldom, if ever, gets truly frigid. It must have been in the low forties. That might account for the reason Sam Rotondo, my fiancé, was in such a foul mood. Or maybe the cold weather made his wounded leg hurt. I don't know. All I know is that he didn't want to do what I wanted him to do.
To give him the benefit of the doubt, I must say that walking to my late husband's grave was a struggle for him. He still had to rely heavily on his cane, given to him by Dr. Benjamin after Sam was shot in the thigh by an evil woman. As it had rained recently, the cane kept getting stuck in the moist soil and Sam kept having to yank it out.
Spike, my late husband's brilliant dachshund, frolicked around Sam and me. I'm still not sure if dogs were allowed in the cemetery, but nobody kicked us out, so what the heck.
"It's not stupid," I told Sam. "It'll make me feel better."
"It's stupid whether it makes you feel better or not," Sam grumped.
"Oh, stop it. You enjoy complaining, don't you?"
"No. I don't enjoy complaining. Ow!"
He had inadvertently stepped into a hole with his left leg, the one that had been shot, and I guess he wrenched it pretty badly.
"Watch where you're going, Sam," I said. Not awfully sympathetic of me, I know.
"Cripes. This is stupid."
"You've said that before."
Spike at least was enjoying himself. He ran this way and that way and generally tore around, as happy as a hound ever was. He had a nice big yard at home to snoop and sniff in, but it was nowhere near as large as the cemetery.
"That's because it is," snarled Sam.
"Pooh." I walked over to him and took his arm. "Really, Sam. I appreciate you for doing this. You're a sweetheart."
Sam said, "Huh." He said that a lot.
"I love you, Sam."
"Then why are you torturing me?"
"I don't mean to torture you. Lean on me, okay?"
"No need. I can use my cane."
"Thank you, sweetie."
"Huh."
Told you so.
But we made it to Billy's grave eventually. I stood beside it, looking down and wishing Billy was still alive. On the other hand, then I'd have two men in my life, and one was almost more than I could handle. Poor Billy had suffered terribly after the Great War. He'd been gassed and shot and had been in constant pain until he'd finally taken matters into his own hands and drunk an overdose of morphine syrup. I understood his reason, but I'd suffered mightily after his death. It's hard to lose a person you've known and loved all your life, even when you knew it was bound to happen eventually.
Sam had suffered, too. His late wife, Margaret, was buried not far from Billy. They had moved to Pasadena in hopes the warm, dry Pasadena air would help relieve Margaret's tuberculosis. It hadn't. But he'd been a policeman in New York City, and he'd had to wait until a position with the Pasadena Police Department had opened up. He'd grabbed it with both hands as soon as he could, but he still felt guilty about not getting Margaret out of New York earlier than he'd been able to. But, as I'd told him many times, nothing can cure tuberculosis, and he'd done his very best for the wife he'd loved with all his heart, just as I'd loved my Billy.
For the record, I felt guilty about Billy, too. I'd sometimes been short-tempered with him when he was grumpy. But he'd been grumpy because he'd hated being crippled and having mustard-damaged lungs.
In other words, life is never fair. To anyone.
My aim that day was to tell both Billy and Margaret that Sam and I were engaged to be married, and we hoped we had their blessing.
So technically, Sam was correct. This trip was stupid.
Heck, I made my living—a darned good living—as a spiritualist-medium to the wealthy ladies of Pasadena who had more money than brain-power. If I actually could talk to dead people, I'd have asked for Billy's blessing regarding Sam and me a long time ago. I remained relatively undaunted, however, because it seemed somehow important to me to say the words to Billy, even if his soul had long since departed this earth. And I wanted Sam to say the words to Margaret, too. He probably wouldn't, so I'd have to say them for him, Sam not being one to ask for people's blessings on a regular basis. Well, I wasn't eithe
r, but this trip to the cemetery just felt right.
Still staring at Billy's beautifully carved headstone—it said "Sacred to the memory of William Anthony Majesty. Beloved husband of Daisy. July 12, 1897-June 10, 1922. Rest now as you could not in life. The Good Die First"—I said softly, "Billy, you got your wish. You asked Sam to take care of me after you were gone, and he's going to do just that—"
Sam said, "Huh," interrupting me.
"Anyway," I continued. "We're not just marrying because you asked him to take care of me. I know it sounds impossible, but Sam and I have come to love each other."
The reason Billy would have found this fact unbelievable is that Sam and I had begun our relationship a few years prior, mercilessly antagonistic to each other. It had taken time and exposure to show us the other's lovable side. Time, exposure and, almost certainly, Spike.
I continued, "I hope Sam and I have your blessing for our union. We don't know when the ceremony will take place, because Sam got shot in the thigh by another a dreadful woman named Petrie—not all the Petries are ghastly, but a lot of them are—and is still recovering, but we'll get married one of these days."
Spike rushed up to Sam and me, a man's shoe clutched in his teeth, his tail wagging deliriously.
"What the—?" said Sam, glancing down at Spike.
Distracted from my purpose, I too, peered at my dog. "Where in the world did you find that, Spike?"
Because he was a dog, Spike didn't answer. Rather, he dropped the shoe at our feet, smiling up at us. Don't tell me dogs can't smile, because they can. In actual fact, he looked quite pleased with himself.
"Where'd you get hold of a shoe, Spike?" Because I knew Sam's leg hurt, I was the one who bent and picked up the shoe. It was quite heavy, for a shoe.
I squealed when I saw the reason for its unusual weight. The stupid shoe held a foot! I dropped it and clutched Sam's arm.
"What the—?" said Sam once more, startled and staggering a bit.
"Sam! That shoe has a foot in it!"
"What?"
"It's got a foot in it!" Because I figured I should, I bent and picked up the shoe again, tentatively, by one of its laces. It smelled awful. "See?" I said, thrusting the shoe and foot at Sam.
He recoiled. "Where the hell did you find a foot in a shoe, Spike?"
Once more Spike didn't answer for the reason stated above. I noticed dried blood on the ankle part of the foot and grimaced. "Sam, could Spike have dug up a grave? Good Lord, the managers of the cemetery will kill us if he did."
"Don't be silly," said Sam, as gracious as ever. "He couldn't dig up a grave. Even if he could, he'd have found a coffin, not a foot in a shoe."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense."
"This isn't right," said Sam, master of the obvious.
"We'd better see if we can find the rest of the body, if there is one," I said tentatively. I didn't want to look for loose bodies in the cemetery.
"Oh, there is one," said Sam, sounding even grouchier than he'd sounded before. "You make a habit of stumbling over bodies. I should have figured you'd find one in a graveyard."
"I don't either!" I cried, miffed. "Anyway, the graveyard is full of bodies."
"Not fresh, falling-apart ones."
"It doesn't smell awfully fresh to me," I muttered. The shoe was truly disgusting. It stank and it was covered in dirt. I stared down at my dog, who still looked up at us, happy as a clam. And how anyone knows clams are happy is beyond me.
"You know what I mean," growled Sam.
"Yes, I do." I gazed at him. "So do we need to search for the rest of the body? Or should we telephone the Altadena Police Department?"
"There is no such thing as an Altadena Police Department. The community of Altadena has a Los Angeles County Marshal's Office, which I think is housed in Pasadena, to investigate crimes committed in Altadena. But I don't know their telephone number. I guess we can dial the operator, but we'd better find the rest of the body first."
"Do you think this was the result of a crime?" I asked, gazing at the icky foot.
"Well, now, I just don't know. Maybe somebody cut off his foot and tossed it into the cemetery. Just for a lark, you know?"
"There's no need to be sarcastic, Sam Rotondo."
"Huh."
"We can call the county marshal from our house, can't we?" I asked tentatively.
"Where the heck else would we call from?" asked Sam as if my question had been as stupid as our reason for visiting the cemetery that day.
He was wrong, and I told him so. "Listen to me, Sam Rotondo, you might want to tell the county marshal that Billy's dog was digging up bodies in the Mountain View Cemetery, but I sure don't!"
"Hmm. I guess you've got a point."
"Darned right I do."
With a look that told me he considered me, if not insane, then as close to it as made no difference, Sam said, "We're going to have to come up with some story as to how we found a fresh foot in the cemetery."
"Oh, dear."
"Right."
"Well, we can say we... stumbled across it." Darn! I wish I hadn't said stumbled across, since Sam had accused me more than once of stumbling over bodies.
"Guess we'll have to. Damn it, now I have to walk around in this soft grass some more, and my leg is killing me."
"Why don't you sit on..." I looked around. Aha. "Sit on that bench," I said, pointing. "Spike and I will search the place."
Appearing doubtful, Sam said, "I don't know. I'm not sure I trust you."
I threw my arms out. "What in the world can I do in a cemetery? All I'm looking for is a body, for heaven's sake! There has to be a body somewhere close by. Otherwise, Spike couldn't have found its foot." Ew. That sounded terrible.
Wrapping his scarf over his chin and nose—sewn by my own two hands out of a pretty flannel plaid material I'd found at Maxime's Fabrics—Sam sat with a grunt on the bench I'd mentioned. "All right. But don't take too long."
"I guess we'll have to take as long as necessary. The rest of the body might not be nearby, you know," I pointed out.
"Nuts. If you don't come back in five minutes, I'll holler for you. I don't trust you. Or Spike."
Spike wagged at Sam, as if Sam had just praised him to the skies.
"Darn you, Sam Rotondo! And Spike's on your side."
Sam said, "Huh. Smart dog."
"Fiddlesticks." But Spike and I turned around. Although I didn't much want to, I again picked up the grisly shoe. I showed it to Spike, and said, "Spike, find it."
Spike looked up at me oddly. Technically, "Find it" wasn't one of the commands he'd learned at the Pasanita Obedience Club for Dogs, to which I'd taken him a couple of years prior to this incident. However, Spike had come in first in his class, was smart as the proverbial whip, and I guess he deduced from my voice and posture—and, perhaps, the stinky shoe—that I wanted him to find the rest of the body from which the shod foot had come. Therefore, he turned and began trotting off. I trotted after him through the slushy grass.
Good thing I'd worn my comfy old walking shoes, because they were going to be soaked by the time I got home that day.
Chapter 2
Fortunately—or unfortunately. To this day, I'm not entirely sure—Spike led me to a marshy puddle of mud not far from Billy's grave, but tucked away in a corner of the cemetery. It looked to me as though the latest rains had created the mud, and that the site had originally been pretty thoroughly smoothed over.
Because of the recent downpours, however, the loose soil had washed away somewhat, leaving parts of a man's leg exposed. I knew it was a man because of the soaking-wet tweed trousers covering the leg. The foot belonging to the leg was gone. Spike wagged like mad. I suppressed a gag of nausea.
"Good boy, Spike," said I. Then I spun on my heel and almost raced back to Sam. Spike, who seemed to want to stay at the mud puddle and snoop some more, finally came when I ordered him to. He was such a good dog! Nobody else ever obeyed my commands.
"Sam!" I shrieked
.
Startled, Sam leapt from the bench to his feet, staggered a bit, and uttered a loud, "Damn!"
I winced and said, "I'm so sorry, Sam. I didn't mean to hurt your leg."
"Yeah, yeah. I know." He glowered down at me. Sam was a tall man, and when he loomed like that, I felt particularly small. "What the heck did you scream for?"
"I didn't scream," I said, probably inaccurately. "But we found the body. It looks as if someone had buried it in the ground, but the recent rains unearthed some of it." I glanced once more at the foot-filled shoe.
"Hmm. I'd better take a look." He grabbed his cane and limped after Spike and me as we walked back to the body. Spike positively raced to the site, probably hoping for more goodies to show us. I called him back and made him heel. He didn't want to, but he heeled. I absolutely adored that dog.
Sam planted his fists on his hips, his cane sticking out behind him, and gazed down upon the muddy body. I could tell he wasn't pleased. "Cripes. Can you tell who it is? If you know, I mean."
"No." I shook my head. "I... I guess we'll have to uncover more of it before anyone can tell who it is. Was. Unless it's a stranger to these parts." It occurred to me that I probably shouldn't use the pronoun "it" in reference to a most-likely-murdered human being, but I wasn't sure what else to call it. Him. Whoever.
Sam said, "Cripes," again. "How are we supposed to do that?"
"Um... I'm not sure. I expect Spike would love to dig some more, but that would only make him dirty and disturb more of the... corpse. I guess."
Still staring at the mud-caked remains, Sam said, "Well, can you find a fallen branch or something? Maybe I can dig around and we can see more of the body. It's possible a vagrant died and someone planted him here, although I don't know why anyone would do that."
