Forgotten Spirits

by Barbara Deese

  “Vincent?” Robin suggested. “Vladimir? Like Vlad the Impaler.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that was it,” Cate said dryly. “Foxy was married to the guy who inspired Count Dracula.”

  “Vishnu? Uncle Vanya?”

  “Stop it.” This was all part of the banter they’d perfected in their long friendship.

  “I think she made a pretty clean break after she and Voldemort broke up.”

  “Stop it!” Cate said again, but she was laughing. “Whoever she was with, I think she got out of Dodge when they broke up, and never looked back.”

  “She still keeps in touch with that one friend from their dancing days. You know the one she went to see in Portland last year?”

  Cate remembered seeing a handful of pictures from the trip Foxy and Bill Harley took together, when they’d spent time with Foxy’s friend Tina in Oregon. “Tina.”

  “Right. She didn’t move with any of her friends from Vegas. Instead she came back to Minnesota. I wonder why if she hated her upbringing so much. She hardly ever talks about family.”

  “No, not so much. There’s just her mom in a nursing home, and her brother, Matt,” Cate said. “If I didn’t have company coming, I would’ve taken her up on her invitation in a heartbeat.”

  “To all go to Matt’s resort?”

  “Uh huh. Ever since she brought it up, I’ve been picturing us all at this peaceful log cabin in the woods with no one around but the book club and Foxy’s brother.” Instead, Cate would be stuck with a houseful of relatives, some of whom were meeting each other for the first time.

  “I know. I’m still tempted. Do you think she’s going up there anyway?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Robin pulled them back to their previous conjecture. “Why do you suppose Foxy didn’t move back to her hometown? I don’t get the impression she wanted to be close to her mother. Am I nuts to think she might be running away from something . . . or someone.”

  Well, that’s something to consider, Cate thought.

  * * *

  In her comfy bungalow in Portland, Tina Wilbert lowered the living room blinds and checked the locks on both doors. Her usual Zen-like calm had vanished with Wylie’s call. She paced from one room to another and wished she hadn’t given up drinking. She closed her eyes and tried to remember Sierra Brady when she was alive—beautiful, dark-haired and vibrant, a bit of a risk-taker.

  Opening the closet in the spare bedroom, she rummaged through an assortment of plastic boxes until she found the one containing show bills and photos from the old days. An inch down, she found the photo used in one of the casino’s slick advertisements. Foxy and Tina, as the two shortest dancers in the troupe, stood on either end of the dance line. Sierra, with her regal height and bearing, posed front and center. Her long, dark tresses were wrapped up inside an elaborate gold headdress. They’d all hated the weight of those headpieces. That particular one, she remembered, was nearly eighteen pounds.

  How things have changed, thought Tina, running fingers through her hair, which she still wore in a blonde bob. They’d all stayed fit, she, Sierra, and Foxy, and took care with their appearance, but that spark, that dazzle factor, was gone. They’d used it all up on stage, given it away to one roomful of strangers after another, saving none for themselves.

  The six of them had been close once—three showgirls, a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead, and the guys in their lives—Tina and Big Al, Sierra and Wylie, Foxy and Vinnie. Now two of the six were dead. And of the three couples, not one had stayed together. It had taken only a few months for them all to come apart.

  When Foxy left Vinnie, she’d hung up her dancing shoes and moved to Colorado. For a while Vinnie quit gambling and cleaned up his act. He’d tried his hand booking talent at some of the smaller lounges downtown, but that lasted a matter of months. After all, Las Vegas was no place for a recovering gambler to . . . well . . . recover.

  After her boyfriend, Big Al, dropped off the planet, Tina had moved to the northwest coast. Sierra was a little younger than Foxy and Tina, but she’d been the first to retire from dancing. By then, she had a baby to think about. Sierra and Wylie had always been off again-on again anyway, and at some point, the off again had become permanent.

  The three former showgirls had been in touch sporadically, and sometimes with difficulty, over the seventeen years since then. Oddly, none of them had married, or in Foxy’s case, remarried. And although Sierra had had various boyfriends, she’d never been serious about anyone other than Wylie, but theirs was an unsustainable love-hate relationship.

  As if it had happened yesterday, Tina recalled the night of Wylie’s birthday celebration. They’d driven at breakneck speed to the apartment Tina and Al shared. They’d slammed the door behind them, in full-blown paranoia after having witnessed someone being gunned down on the street. Wylie, looking like a deer in headlights, remembered he was clutching the cooler. He unzipped it then, and his mouth fell open.

  They hadn’t even counted all the hundred-dollar bills when Foxy had said, “If we keep it, it’s going to come back and haunt us all. Nobody loses that kind of money and just forgets about it.”

  Tina had agreed, but Sierra had been quick to argue, “Well, nobody finds that kind of money and lets it go, either.” They talked for what seemed like hours, but Sierra wouldn’t budge, and by throwing her vote in with the men, who’d all three voted to keep the money and divvy it up, Sierra had cast the die for all of them.

  Now it looked like Foxy had been right. Tina’s gut told her Sierra, like Big Al, had finally been done in by that fateful night so long ago.

  She looked at the glossy photo once more before returning it to the box, which she wedged back into the closet. Back in her living room, she sat in her rattan rocker and watched rain battering down on the back windows. She loved three of the four seasons in Portland, but this weather put her in a siege mentality. When she’d left the desert for the Northwest, her new state’s wholesome reputation and amazing gardens had looked like paradise to her. The greenery didn’t happen without a whole lot of rain, though, and when it rained and rained like this, she wished she’d spent a winter here before making the decision to buy a house.

  She sighed. Tucking her hands under her arms to keep warm, she murmured, “Poor Sierra!”

  Chapter 3

  Robin Bentley enjoyed the early morning hours when she was up before Brad. A golden band appeared under the eastern sky’s pink glow. The black-and-white world gradually took on color. As she watched, the new snow changed from gray to indigo to lavender.

  Sitting at the kitchen counter, she sipped her coffee and opened her laptop. She looked again, as she had for the past week, at the photos their older daughter, Cass, had posted on her Facebook page. Cass was in love. Again. The dust had barely settled from her last breakup, when she’d gotten involved with this new guy, and after only five months together, she was on her way to spend Christmas with him and his family in the Denver area.

  Cass was beaming in the photos, taken only last week. Sitting on a picnic table in the Cascade National Park with her boyfriend, she looked as happy as Robin had ever seen her. He, on the other hand, looked smug and aloof. Wind-tousled hair obscured her face in some of the photos, while his remained perfect. His expression looked practiced and insincere.

  When Brad got on her about making too much of the group of photos, Robin had said, “I’m a photographer, and I can tell a hell of a lot from a photo.” Finally, they both conceded the other had a point and let it drop. Maybe, as Brad suggested, Robin was just mourning the fact their girls would soon be on their own, not just away at college, one on either coast, but perhaps moving far away for good, and having families that would keep them too occupied to visit often. It was hard to think last year might have been their last Christmas together as a family, and she hadn’t even known it.

&nb
sp; Their younger daughter, Maya, wouldn’t be home until the day before Christmas Eve. Having been sidelined by a persistent case of pneumonia during mid-terms, she’d stayed at her off-campus house, shared with five other students, to finish up a paper and work on the essay part of her application for a summer internship in Chicago.

  Both her daughters accused her of “lurking” on the Internet, but she saw nothing wrong with clicking on their Facebook pages. Maya’s profile picture was a goofy one of her bare feet, dirty soles facing the camera. Cass had updated hers to one of the picnic bench photos. She was no longer Cass, but half of a couple, Robin thought, with a pang. Maybe checking out the new boyfriend’s page was lurking, but she did it anyway, and saw that his photo was of him alone.

  She refilled her coffee and decided to quit obsessing over her daughter’s relationship, and tackle a task she’d been putting off for too long. Her publisher wanted her to update her bio to be used in promoting upcoming book events. Most people assumed the photography or the writing that went into her books was the hard part, but for Robin, it was writing her bio that actually proved most difficult.

  She typed a few words, searched her online thesaurus for their synonyms and typed those too before deleting everything. All she needed was to come up with some new, succinct yet tantalizing phrases about her life. The problem was, what people found interesting about her were the things she wanted to keep private.

  The exception was her membership in the No Ordinary Women book club. Although the five women had come together for the sole purpose of discussing books, deep friendships had developed over the years. And then two and a half years ago, they’d found themselves up to their bifocals in a real live murder mystery and had fallen too readily into the role of amateur detectives. They’d gotten rather good at it, too—if good meant stumbling upon murders and darned near getting themselves killed in the process of tracking down clues.

  “Robin Bentley is a smart and sensible woman who routinely makes stupid and irresponsible choices and still manages to stay alive,” Robin typed. She read her words and her smile slipped away. She clicked the keys again, adding the words, “So far.”

  As she highlighted the words to delete them, she heard the ping indicating she had a new e-mail. “If you’re up, would you mind giving me a call?” the message said.

  Robin was certain Foxy’s polite request hid something more serious. She and Cate had once joked that if Foxy’s house were on fire, she’d dial 9-1-1 and say, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m having a little fire problem here. Do you suppose you could send someone over—I mean, if it isn’t too much trouble?” Whatever Foxy had on her mind, it must have to do with what Cate told her last night.

  True to type, as soon as Foxy answered the phone, she began by apologizing to Robin for taking her away from her husband.

  “Don’t be silly.” Did people think she and Brad spent their days gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, or clutched in passionate embrace? “Brad was at the hospital last night with an older mom who miscarried twins at three months. He’s still asleep,” she explained.

  “Oh.” There was a long pause before she said, “I was wondering if you want me to come over early.” Her voice was tight with anxiety. “You know, to help get things ready.”

  Robin looked at the time on her computer. Almost eight thirty. “Is everything okay?” Even though she said she was fine, Robin didn’t believe it for a minute. She told Foxy to come any time after eleven.

  After hanging up and closing her computer, she refilled her coffee cup and looked over her To Do list, a thorough action plan for the book club’s Christmas lunch. She’d already queued up four hours of music and arranged cookies on a silver platter. The plum pudding was covered in muslin, ready to be steamed again. She crossed those off and looked at the remaining items, all requiring attention closer to lunchtime.

  * * *

  Cate slept later than usual. Her waking dream made her skin prickle. Foxy had been twirling in the snow, her hair flying around her like a copper halo. She spun faster and faster until the snow formed a snow globe around her. Suddenly, Foxy stopped twirling and stared directly at Cate. Her mouth formed the word Help, but no sound escaped her glass prison.

  Cate flung her legs over the side of the bed, trying to squelch the sensation of dread. By the time she was up and dressed, it was almost ten o’clock. Erik’s breakfast dishes were in the sink. She recognized the sound of the snow blower, and looked out the front window to see Erik pushing it down the driveway, taking the heavy snow in narrow swaths to avoid clogging the machine. The white plume thrown into the air coated his stocking cap and frosted his eyebrows. His icy cheeks were bright red.

  It was still more than an hour before she was supposed to pick up Foxy for the lunch. She wanted to talk to Foxy, but hesitated. Erik would call her a mother hen and tell her to respect Foxy’s privacy. Maybe, she reasoned, Bill Harley had slept over and they weren’t taking any calls. Cate grinned at the euphemism. In those early years of marriage, she and Robin had often said to each other, “I won’t be taking calls.” Still, she picked up the phone. There was a text message from Foxy, saying she’d left early so she could give Robin a hand.

  “Good,” Cate said out loud. At least Foxy wasn’t alone.

  * * *

  Their book this month was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Robin had pored over cookbooks and searched online for just the right menu items to go along with the theme. When she finished wrapping the pastry puff around bite-sized chunks of beef tenderloin, she stuck the tray in the freezer.

  She and Brad had spent days on Christmas decorations, and the place looked festive. She’d wrapped gifts and tucked them under the tree. Last year the cats had circled incessantly, round and around under the tree, tails erect, knocking most of the needles off the expensive, “freshly cut” fir. Then they’d climbed partway up to knock off more needles and a few ornaments and to chew the arm off a Christmas elf. That’s when Brad threatened to find a tree made of barbed wire. They decided instead to invest in a good artificial tree.

  Foxy arrived exactly at eleven. She didn’t give any hint she wanted to talk about anything. “It’s so beautiful,” she said, looking over the Christmas decorations. “I don’t even bother putting up a tree anymore.”

  A brief, sad memory came to Robin, of the Christmas she’d spent on the lam with her father. She was ten. They were sitting in the dinette of a rented house. A few wrapped gifts lay around an aluminum tabletop tree atop a gray Formica-and-chrome table. Her father’s smile was tentative as she unwrapped six Nancy Drew books, some knee socks and a pretty blue sweater that matched her eyes. She wanted to make her father’s smile look less sad. She handed him the last gift, a cylinder of rolled paper tied up in a ribbon. It was a painting she’d done herself. He unrolled it and saw their broken family, magically reunited in watercolor—mother, father and small girl with yellow hair. And then he turned his face to the wall until his shoulders stopped shaking.

  A familiar constriction of her throat made her push the memory aside. “Let’s see what’s left to do,” she said.

  Foxy followed her into the kitchen. As they worked together, Foxy got around to telling her what was on her mind. A friend of hers had died, a showgirl named Sierra. Robin couldn’t recall Foxy ever talking about her.

  Wrapping her in a hug, Robin said how awful it was. Remembering what Cate had told her last night about the phone calls and the man watching her house from the street below, Robin said, “Are you afraid to be alone, I mean after news like that?”

  “No,” Foxy said too quickly, giving her a funny, sidewise glance. She removed water glasses from the cupboard and set them on the table. “I’m a big girl. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I sent Bill home last night so I could work through my thoughts about Sierra on my own, but then I woke up way too early and had all this time o
n my hands. That’s all.”

  Robin wasn’t buying her friend’s almost flippant response, and wasn’t sure how to proceed. Foxy had a pattern of opening a window into her feelings and then closing it. She handed Foxy a box of sherry glasses to set out.

  A loud, high beep came from the living room and a gray blur of cat flew past the doorway. Foxy squeaked and dropped one of the etched glasses. It shattered on the tile floor.

  Robin raced into the living room and made the sound stop.

  “What was that?” Foxy said from several feet away. Her eyes were huge.

  “Sorry.” Robin ran a hand across her forehead as she walked with Foxy back into the kitchen. “I put a motion detector on the Christmas tree.” She reached into the utility closet for a broom. “It’s in the cats’ DNA to climb trees, artificial or not.”

  Foxy sighed. “Why do you think I don’t put up a tree anymore?”

  Robin explained Brad had placed a miniature motion detector near the bottom of the tree that emitted an annoying series of beeps when one of the cats put so much as one paw on a branch.

  Foxy shook her head. When she tilted the dustpan into the kitchen garbage can, she winced at the tinkling of broken glass. “I’m so sorry! I suppose these are priceless antiques.”

  “Not at all.”

  Foxy leaned against the counter and crossed her slender ankles in front of her, ready to say something, when the beeper went off again. Two gray blurs streaked past them and up the stairs.

  Robin snorted. Back in the living room, they found only one ornament on the floor, a little mouse made of felt, not much different from the catnip mice Robin bought for her furry companions. “Enough of that nonsense,” she said, turning off the detector.