Fine Spirits [Spirits 02]

by Alice Duncan

  I also tried to keep from becoming too set on the Marianne idea. After all, I had no proof it was she living down there. It would be a capital error to become so enthralled with the Marianne idea that I failed to consider other options. This basement-haunting problem might still prove to be nothing. Or a skunk. Or an escapee from an insane asylum. Or a criminal.

  In fact, the only thing I was sure of was that no spirit or ghost inhabited Mrs. Bissel's basement because such things didn't exist. That struck me as kind of funny, although not funny enough to laugh about.

  With a sigh, I left the bedroom, closed the door, inspected the other room, found the same nothing that had been there the day before, and went over to the two women huddled together at the foot of the staircase. As I did so, I tried to think of something worthwhile to do to resolve the situation. No luck.

  “Did you discover anything, Daisy?” Mrs. Bissel had her hands clasped in a tight, white-knuckled knot at her waist.

  “I sure hope so,” said Mrs. Cummings, who patted Mrs. Bissel on the shoulder in a comforting gesture. The two women treated each other as friends, rather than as mistress and servant. I approved of this egalitarian state of affairs. Not that anyone cares what I thought.

  “I'm not sure,” I said in my most mystical spiritualist voice. “Would you mind going upstairs and leaving me here alone for a few minutes?”

  Mrs. Cummings's eyes darned near popped out of her head. “No!”

  Mrs. Bissel gasped. “Oh, but Daisy, it's not safe! Please don't stay down here by yourself. Anything might happen.”

  True. Even I wasn't altogether happy about the prospect of being left alone in her basement. But I knew darned well that if her so-called spirit was Marianne Wagner, I'd never be able to roust her out unless I was by myself down there. Alone, I might be able to persuade her to come out of hiding. The idea of returning her to her parents didn't appeal to me much, but heck, she couldn't live in a basement for the rest of her life, could she?

  I said, “Please. I am accustomed to dealing with the spirits. They can be extremely elusive.” And if that wasn't true, I didn't know what was. In actual fact, they were so elusive, I'd never encountered one in my life.

  “Well . . .” Mrs. Bissel was still doubtful.

  Mrs. Cummings, on the other hand, had no doubts at all. “I think you're crazy, Daisy Majesty.”

  I offered the two women one of my best, gently gracious smiles. “Recall, please, that I'm familiar with the ways of the Other Side. The spirits won't appear unless they feel comfortable. They don't care to have strangers around them.”

  “You're more of a stranger than we are,” Mrs. Cummings pointed out, darn her.

  “Perhaps in this case, but in the overall scheme of things, I deal with spirits every day.” I attempted to look modestly competent. Try it sometime. It's not easy, especially when you want to holler at an unbeliever.

  Mrs. Bissel and Mrs. Cummings gazed at each other for a few seconds. Then Mrs. Cummings shrugged. Mrs. Bissel let out a huge breath, as if she'd been waiting for approval from her housekeeper. “Yes. I see what you mean, Daisy. We'll just wait at the top of the staircase. Please call out if you need help, dear.”

  “I will.”

  Boy, I could just imagine that scenario. Everybody in the entire household was afraid to go down to the basement even when nothing was wrong. I visualized how they'd panic if the spirit (or ghost) decided to do something horrid to my personal self. They'd probably rush around until they found Henry and send him down and by that time, I'd be dead.

  I told myself not to think about such a possibility.

  Once I was sure Mrs. Bissel and Mrs. Cummings were out of the way and the door was shut, I inspected it to see if I could lock it from within. I couldn't. After contemplating the situation for a moment or two, I decided it might be better this way. If, say, a mountain lion should happen to leap out at me from a ceiling rafter, at least I wouldn't have to fight to unlock the door to the kitchen--if I managed to get that far.

  Not exactly a comforting thought, even though it was slightly better than death by spiritual possession. I'd much prefer Marianne Wagner to a mountain lion or a crazed ghost.

  Descending the basement staircase once more, I pondered how to begin inducing a reluctant and assuredly scared-to-death runaway girl to show herself. No serviceable thoughts struck me, so I opted to start with her name.

  “Marianne? Marianne Wagner? Are you here?” I pitched my voice to its most comforting, mediumistic tone.

  Nothing. Not even a rustle of skirts or an indrawn breath.

  I tried again. “Marianne, if you're hiding down here, please show yourself. I only want to help you.” Because I'd met her father and disliked him, I decided it wouldn't hurt to add, “I won't tell your father.” My conscience told me I'd just lied to the girl, but I told my conscience to shut up and be still.

  Nothing.

  “Marianne? Marianne, are you here?”

  More nothing.

  “If you're afraid to show yourself, please don't be. I won't hurt you.”

  Yet more nothing.

  I elaborated, feeling increasingly stupid, “Nobody will hurt you.”

  Nobody answered, either. Bother. Either it wasn't Marianne, or she wasn't there, or she was too frightened to let her presence be known, even to me, who was relatively harmless.

  On the few times I'd seen Marianne, she'd struck me as a girl who was afraid of her own shadow. If she'd somehow drummed up enough courage to flee her home, she might have exhausted her modest stock of gumption. I could envision her in my mind's eye, huddled somewhere--say on a rafter or behind the furnace--terrified, shaking with apprehension, too appalled by her own mutinous behavior to reveal herself to me.

  I stayed down there for another ten minutes or so, trying every persuasive word I could think of to lure the basement-dweller out of her (or his; I still didn't know if it was Marianne) lair. The result of my persuasion was a whole lot more of absolutely nothing.

  Darn it, how could I earn a puppy if the person in the basement wouldn't cooperate with me and come out of hiding? Feeling a good deal less than sure of myself, I gave up for the day.

  We Gumms are tenacious cusses, however, and I determined to keep trying. If I went down there alone for several days running and talked to Marianne, I might manage to crack her resistance. Or she might just up and get sick of me. Marianne couldn't possibly be as stubborn as I was, mainly because she'd never done anything the least little bit outré before in her life, and I earned my living at it.

  Of course, if it wasn't Marianne, whoever it was might get sick of me, too, and heave a knife at me, but I'd take the chance. I was agile. I could probably dart out of the way of a knife, providing I saw it coming and the one throwing it was kind of slow.

  Darn it, I was scaring myself.

  With a sigh, I walked up the stairs to the kitchen. All of Mrs. Bissel's household staff had huddled together at the door, and every one of them appeared apprehensive when I shoved the door open and stepped into the room. When they saw me, they let out a collective gasp.

  Then Mrs. Bissel took a step forward. “Well? What happened, Daisy? Did it speak to you?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing happened today, I'm afraid. But I'm not giving up. I'll try again tomorrow if it's all right with you, Mrs. Bissel. I did sense something down there, and I'll need to meditate upon it.” I added the last sentence because I didn't want her to give up first.

  “Of course!” she cried. “I know you can do it, Daisy.”

  That's more than I knew. Nevertheless, when we chatted over peanut-butter cookies and tea, I made arrangements with Mrs. Bissel to exchange my services, providing they proved successful, for the little male puppy to whom I'd taken such a shine.

  I felt moderately better that afternoon than I had in the morning. As Henry motored me home, I noted with approval that the rain had stopped, the sun had come out, and even though the weather was still as cold as a witch's heart, my mood ha
d lifted. Tomorrow I planned to bring a rodent trap to Mrs. Bissel's house. We had one in our basement on Marengo, and it couldn't hurt to set it up. I wasn't sure how I'd sneak it past Mrs. Bissel and into her basement, but I was going to catch whatever was down there or my name wasn't Daisy Gumm. I mean Daisy Majesty.

  Chapter Six

  I have to admit that my mind took to wandering that night at choir practice as we in the alto section were learning our part. The choir director, Mr. Floy Hostetter, became exasperated with me.

  If it came to that, I was exasperated with myself. After promising myself that I wouldn't, I'd managed to conclude positively that it was Marianne Wagner in Mrs. Bissel's basement. My brain didn't seem to have room in it for consideration of another possibility.

  Was this my renowned spiritualistic instinct rearing its precognitive head? No. It was because I'd managed to fix on Marianne and was worrying the poor girl in my mind, as if she were a bone and I was one of Mrs. Bissel's bull-headed dachshunds.

  “Mrs. Majesty,” Mr. Hostetter said, sounding grim. “Where are you this evening?”

  “What?” I jumped a little in my chair and felt guilty. “I'm sorry, Mr. Hostetter.”

  “Hmmm,” he said. I knew he wanted to yell at me, but wouldn't, because we were in church. Thank heaven for that. “You failed to come in on the chorus. I fear the other altos follow your lead, so if you do the same thing on Sunday, we're going to sound ludicrously thin.”

  “I'm really sorry. My mind's wandering this evening, I'm afraid.”

  “I should appreciate it if you would please call it back to the here and now. We have only another half-hour to whip this hymn into shape.”

  Mr. Hostetter was not sarcastic as a rule, so I knew he was genuinely peeved with me, and I regretted it. “Yes,” I said. “I'll do that.” And I tried. Unfortunately, the hymn, “I Want a Principle Within,” was one I'd always considered mind-numbingly boring, and Mrs. Bissel's basement-dwelling fugitive kept calling to me.

  Her fictitious spirit or ghost had to be Marianne Wagner, I told myself. One would have to account for far too many coincidences for it to be anyone else. Sam Rotondo had once told me he didn't believe in coincidences, and I'd told him to tell that to Charles Dickens, but now I found myself thinking the same thing.

  Even if it wasn't Marianne, I told myself, it had to be a human being down there. Skunks and mountain lions didn't eat Franco American Spaghetti. The possibility that the can might have fallen out of a trash container and rolled across the floor occurred to me only to be rejected. Even full cans of spaghetti can't open doors, and the empty one I'd found had been lying beneath the bed in a room with a closed door.

  Again I considered the possibility that Ginger or Susan had snitched the spaghetti and eaten it in that bedroom so as not to get caught, but I doubted it. Mrs. Bissel was too kindhearted an employer to begrudge her housemaids enough to eat. And if her kitchen was anything like ours, there were always leftovers lying around, calling out to be eaten.

  Crumb. I was driving myself crazy. And I hadn't been paying attention. Again. When I guiltily glanced up, I saw that I was driving Mr. Hostetter crazy, too, and swore to myself that I'd forget about basements and sing.

  When I left choir practice to return home, we'd managed to whip “I Want a Principle Within” into submission. The hymn was still, in my estimation, as dull as dirt, but at least I'd learned my part. I have a feeling poor Mr. Hostetter was going to need to take a powder when he got home, and it was probably all my fault.

  # # #

  I woke up the next morning to weather well suited to hauntings. Fog had rolled in overnight, and it enveloped our little bungalow in a thick, swirly, surly-looking gray blanket, through which I couldn't even see to the street in front of the house.

  When I staggered out of bed, threw on a robe, dragged myself through the kitchen, dining room, and living room, opened the door, and went outside out to get our morning newspaper, one of our neighbors, Mr. Longnecker, emerged out of the gray mist like an apparition, and nearly scared the stuffing out of me. I managed to smile and wave at him without showing that he'd startled me. Who'd hire a medium who was afraid of the fog? Nobody, that's who.

  If I were a ghost, I'd have loved weather like that. Since I wasn't, it only made me feel gloomy, which was a normal state of affairs.

  I really wanted that little dachshund puppy. If it didn't cheer Billy up, I was almost positive it would cheer me up.

  With that in mind, I made short shrift of breakfast, dressed in another one of my spiritualist costumes (a gray wool dress, and my standard black shoes, hat, handbag, and coat), kissed Billy good-bye, and headed to the red car line on Colorado Street. Billy hadn't been pleased when I'd told him I was going to Mrs. Bissel's house again, which was also a normal state of affairs.

  At least Mrs. Bissel, Ginger, Susan, Mrs. Cummings, and Henry, who was in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and chatting with Mrs. Cummings, appreciated me. I don't know why. It's not as if I'd done anything for them.

  After giving my coat and hat to Ginger and greeting one and all, I tripped down the basement steps, propelled by a renewed sense of confidence. Darn it, it had to be Marianne Wagner down there. Nothing else made sense. In any case, I'd forgotten to bring the rodent trap, so it had better not be a skunk.

  My optimism lasted approximately five minutes. Marianne didn't respond to any of my cajolery. In fact, nothing responded. What's more, I didn't find any more empty Franco American spaghetti cans. The sheet and blanket were neatly folded and resting in the washing machine, the pitcher and bowl in the tidy little bedroom were both slightly damp, and that was it.

  This was getting downright discouraging. Since I've always had more persistence than brains (according to my beloved husband), I sat on the basement steps and thought hard. There had to be a way to find out who had taken up housekeeping in Mrs. Bissel's basement.

  Whoever it was needed to eat, and evidently had been eating, as illustrated by the empty spaghetti tin. Hunnicutt's, a small grocery market, sat on the southeast corner of Foothill Boulevard and Lake Avenue, next to the fire station. I suppose a transient basement-dweller might buy food there, although it would be risky. Marianne Wagner's picture had been printed in both the Star News and the Herald, although she probably didn't know it. Also, I didn't suppose she'd taken much money with her. I doubted that Dr. Wagner allowed her a huge allowance, since he had two worthless sons to support.

  Plus, there was that fire station next door to Hunnicutt's. I've always heard that firemen are a particularly watchful and alert bunch. If any of them spied Marianne buying food, they'd assuredly notify her parents or the police.

  It followed, therefore, that Marianne must be sneaking into Mrs. Bissel's kitchen at night and snatching foodstuffs. She couldn't have been stealing much, because Mrs. Cummings hadn't noticed any losses. She'd have told Mrs. Bissel if the larder had been raided, and neither lady had announced signs of a shrinking food supply to me.

  Naturally, if Mrs. Bissel's unwelcome visitor turned out to be an escaped lunatic or criminal, he or she would also probably be raiding the kitchen at night. I didn't like that idea, but at least I'd more or less eliminated mountain lions and bears from my list of suspects. And skunks. That was a good thing, if not awfully useful.

  Nuts. I had to try a different approach. Sadly, I couldn't think of one. So I sat there with my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands for several more minutes. My mind kept wandering off the topic of basement-dwelling spirits for lack of any more rewarding thoughts to occupy it.

  I was in the middle of deciding whether or not I wanted to get an Oldsmobile or a Chevrolet should a bounty of dollars magically fall on my head, when an idea interrupted me. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, because it was about the only way to achieve results. If I spent the night down there, I'd be sure to see Marianne if she emerged from wherever she was hiding in order to scrounge for food.

  I glanced around the basement and s
hivered. Maybe it wasn't such a great idea. The notion of hanging out in Mrs. Bissel's basement after dark when everyone in the whole household, except the being hiding in there, had gone upstairs, leaving me absolutely alone without even a dachshund to warn me if somebody decided to sneak up on me with, say, a huge butcher knife in his fist, didn't really sound like a lot of fun.

  But I could spend the night in Mrs. Bissel's kitchen, couldn't I? That wouldn't be quite so spooky, and it would be just as effective, providing Marianne actually was sneaking food at night.

  Of course, if it wasn't Marianne, whoever it was might kill me with that big, ugly butcher knife, but that was a chance I was willing to take, mainly because I could run really fast when scared out of my wits. Besides, I felt in my bones that it was Marianne. Which just goes to show what a deep thinker I was. Instead of my brain, I trusted my bones. No wonder my third-grade teacher, Miss West, had made a habit of whacking my knuckles with her ruler.

  Because I'd occasionally found that some of my brilliant ideas weren't so great upon closer inspection, I remained at the foot of the stairs and mulled it over for several minutes more. I thought so much and so hard, in fact, that I darned near fell asleep.

  Finally I concluded that I'd thought enough for one day. Billy would be happy if I came home early, and there clearly wasn't anything more I could do downstairs.

  I guess Mrs. Bissel's household staff had become accustomed to me calling on the specter in the basement and surviving the experience, because they'd ceased waiting for me at the head of the kitchen stairs in a terrified clump. When I opened the door, only Mrs. Cummings was there to greet me--or she would have done so had she been watching the door.

  At least she cared enough to utter a shriek of fright and whirl around when she heard me. When she saw me, she gasped and slapped a hand to her heart. She was wielding a butter knife as if she aimed to stab me with it. “Merciful heaven, Daisy Majesty! You frightened me to death!”

  “I'm sorry, Mrs. Cummings.” Golly, I guess I'd better start announcing my presence before opening the basement door from now on.