Fine Spirits [Spirits 02]

by Alice Duncan

  “But you can't!” I sucked in approximately an acre of cold, cold air. The wind had picked up again, and I knew we were in for a rough day. His legs couldn't support my weight without hurting, so I eased myself from his lap. “I know you hate it, Billy.”

  I brushed his dark hair from his brow-the brow that used to be tanned and glowing with health and was now sickly white and furrowed with pain. My heart broke every time I thought about the Billy who used to be, the Billy I'd married. Our wedding day seemed like decades ago. I could scarcely remember that Billy.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I hate it.”

  “Then why can't you be a little nicer about my work?” I asked. “I know you'd rather be the one supporting us, but I don't mind, Billy. Truly, I don't. If I could heal you, don't you think I would? But I can't. The only thing I can do is try to earn as much money as I can, and I can make much more money as a spiritualist-medium than I ever could if I worked as a clerk at Nash's.”

  His shoulders hunched. “I know it.”

  And he hated it. Because Billy could no longer sigh very well, I heaved a big one for both of us. I contemplated saying something more, but there wasn't anything we hadn't both said a million times before. I figured one more “I love you” wouldn't hurt, so I gave him one.

  “I know it, Daisy. I love you, too.”

  If anyone ever asks you if all a couple needs is love, you can tell them from someone who's tried it that the answer is a firm and absolute No. Billy and I loved each other, and look at us. We were both as unhappy as we could be. Worse, we hurt each other all the time for no reason.

  A gust of wind lifted the skirt of my house dress and blew my straw hat right off my head. I ran to fetch it, glad for the diversion, calling back over my shoulder, “We'd better get back indoors, Billy. It's going to be a nasty day.” And I didn't want his lungs to suffer from the cold. Because I didn't want to add anymore insults to his injuries, I refrained from saying so.

  “Right,” he said. “I'll take the basket indoors.”

  I caught myself before I could shout out a horrified “No!” The basket was heavy, and if he tried to lift it from his wheelchair, his lungs were going to give out. Scooping up my hat, I raced back to him. “I'll pick it up,” I said, one hand clamped to my hat to hold it on.

  “I hate being a damned cripple.”

  It was unusual for him to admit that his physical problems were the cause of his ill tempers. I put the basket in his lap and patted him on the shoulder. “I know, Billy. I know.”

  I'd just started pushing him, one-handed, trying to keep my hat from blowing away again, when I heard a voice that darned near made me shriek, I was so startled and had been thinking so hard about family problems.

  “Here, Mrs. Majesty, please allow me.”

  Sam. I spun around, gasping. “What are you doing here?”

  Okay, I know it was impolite, but gee whiz. The man always seemed to pop up out of nowhere when I least wanted him to.

  “Just thought I'd drop by to see if you two wanted to go to the Griffith Park Zoo with me today.”

  He wasn't wearing his copper clothes today, but had on a casual outfit consisting of brown tweed trousers and jacket, a soft-bosomed shirt with an attached collar, and a sporty tie. He stood there, smiling, his hands in his trouser pockets, and I'd never seen him looking so relaxed. Naturally, I figured he was only trying to lull me into revealing something about Marianne Wagner, which just went to show how much he knew about anything. I didn't know a single thing about Marianne Wagner, except that she was missing, her father was an ass, and her mother was about as useful as hair on a basketball. The fact that I suspected several things about her wasn't any of Sam's business.

  “The zoo?” Billy tilted his head back and peered up at me.

  “What about it, sweetheart?” I guess he'd forgiven me for the divorce remark, although I hadn't forgiven myself.

  I didn't want to go anywhere with Sam Rotondo. I also knew that Billy wouldn't go without me.

  “I attached a trailer to my machine to carry your wheelchair,” Sam said, as an added inducement, I guess.

  It was nice of him to think of Billy's wheelchair. I'd never admit it.

  Because I knew Billy loved getting out and about, and because I knew it would be grossly selfish of me to object to such an outing, I offered only one flimsy objection. “What about the wind?”

  Sam shrugged. “What about the wind?”

  “That's right,” I said, recalling conversations I'd had with him months before, “you haven't lived here very long, have you?”

  Sam had moved from New York City to Pasadena because his wife was ill with tuberculosis. She'd died shortly after their move west, and Sam had stayed. The latter was unfortunate for me, although I couldn't honestly blame him for preferring the west coast to the east. Pasadena must have been heaven compared to New York City.

  “Sounds like fun to me,” said Billy.

  I knew he meant it because Billy seldom expressed a solid opinion about anything (except my work and me). The fact that he had on that blustery Saturday morning meant he definitely wanted to go on the outing.

  “Well, then . . .” I frowned at Sam, who lifted his eyebrows, innocent as a baby. Ha. I knew better. “I'll have to change clothes.”

  “Great.” Sam rubbed his hands together. “I'll push Billy's chair into the house while you get ready, Mrs. Majesty.”

  I gave up. There was no good reason for me to resent Sam Rotondo for offering Billy a day out--after giving the whole family an evening out. Billy enjoyed the animals at the zoo, and I did, too, if it came to that. It was just that I dreaded a day spent dodging Sam Rotondo's doubting glances and ironic comments. It's petty and shameful, but I also disliked the fact that Sam could make Billy happy when I couldn't.

  After that “divorce” crack, however, I owed Billy, so I acquiesced with fair grace, and we spent the day being blown to bits at the Griffith Park Zoo. I'd made the mistake of wearing a day dress with a fuller skirt than was usual for me, and it was all I could do to remain modest in front of the lions and bears and elephants. Sam bought us lunch, and he helped push Billy's chair over the largest bumps in our way.

  That day I discovered that the wind is bad for headaches and that I dislike monkeys and love elephants. I don't know what the psychologists would make of that.

  When we got home, I took a powder and a nap while Billy and Sam played gin rummy in the living room with Pa, who'd finally become fed up with Brownie's bad mood and returned the horse to his stable in the back yard. Aunt Vi hadn't come home from Los Angeles yet. She was really making a day of it-unless the red cars had blown off their tracks and left Vi stranded somewhere between the Broadway Department Store on Fourth Street in downtown L.A. and our house. Ma fixed a simple supper (the only kind she knew how to fix. I think I inherited Ma's cooking ability).

  After eating a meal of sandwiches and Campbell's tomato soup, I declined Sam's disingenuous offer of a ride to Mrs. Bissel's house, ignored Billy's sullen stare, kissed Ma and Pa good-bye, assured everyone that I'd be home in time for church on the morrow, and drove the Ford to Foothill Boulevard and Maiden Lane.

  The Model T creaked and groaned and protested, but if the night progressed as I hoped it would, I was going to need the automobile. And if the machine rebelled and wouldn't start once it got to Mrs. Bissel's house, I was pretty sure I could coast it down Lake Avenue if I had to, in order to carry Marianne Wagner back home.

  The notion of money and dachshund puppies kept my spirits from spiraling into my shoes as I drove to Altadena.

  Chapter Eight

  My head had almost stopped aching when I rang the back doorbell, having parked the Model T in the circular driveway. It looked out of place there next to Mrs. Bissel's Daimler; sort of like a poor relation.

  The wind hadn't let up. It whipped the skirt of my sober black dress against my legs, and I nearly lost my black, small-brimmed hat a couple of times as I stood there, waiting for somebody to o
pen the door. It also hurled a spiky limb from Mrs. Bissel's monkey puzzle tree at me. The branch stabbed me in the calf as if I'd been the wind's target in the first place. The poor daphne bush looked like it had been thrashed to within an inch of its life. I found myself longing for summer, even though I often longed for autumn when the weather soared into the upper nineties during the summer months.

  Eventually Ginger opened the back door and let me in. She looked down at my stocking, which had been badly vandalized by the monkey-puzzle branch. “Gee, Daisy, those monkey-puzzle things are dangerous. Do you need a bandage?”

  “Maybe some iodine,” I said. “And maybe a needle and thread.”

  So, as I didn't care to face Mrs. Bissel with a snagged stocking, Ginger led me up three flights of stairs to her room where I darned my black stocking and applied iodine to my leg. It seemed an inauspicious start to my evening's work. I told myself not to borrow trouble.

  When I'd finally doctored my wounds and showed myself downstairs, Mrs. Bissel and her dogs welcomed me with open arms (on the part of Mrs. Bissel) and wagging tails and deafening barks (on the part of the dachshunds). “I'm so glad you've come, Daisy. I can't wait to get rid of that thing.”

  “I hope I can help,” I said demurely. I was always demure when I was working. It was part of the act.

  “I'm sure you can,” cooed Mrs. Bissel.

  That was considerably more than I knew, but I let it pass.

  Mrs. Cummings patently disapproved of my agenda for the night; her severe frown told me so. Ginger and Susan looked as if they considered me nuts for even attempting such a perilous method of ghost-removal. I had a sinking suspicion they were right.

  It wasn't time for bed yet, although I was exhausted and still mildly head-achy, so I dealt out a Tarot hand for everyone in the household. I made sure the cards predicted happy times for one and all, and everybody (except Mrs. Cummings and yours truly) were feeling pretty jolly as they trooped up to the second and third floors to consort with the sand man.

  After providing me with a tray piled with more food than a family of eight could eat in a month, showing me where to get more food should I run out, and making sure I had plenty of blankets and pillows, Mrs. Cummings reluctantly left me alone in her kitchen. “I still think you're daft,” she said before she departed.

  “You're probably right,” I said with one of my gentlest, most gracious smiles.

  As soon as my tray of food and I were alone in the room, I sagged into a chair, rested my head on my arms at the kitchen table, and closed my eyes. Why couldn't something go right for a change? Why was every day a constant battle with Billy? I loved him, and I think he still loved me; why couldn't we get along? Why couldn't I have a normal life?

  No answer occurred to me, although I did indulge in an imaginary conversation with God, who told me to stop whining. Big help.

  With a gigantic sigh, I decided I might as well settle in for the night. With this purpose in mind, I surveyed the kitchen with an eye to hiding places. There weren't any. But I knew that as soon as I turned out the light, the room would be dark, and any marauding ghost or runaway would be unable to see me any better than I could see her. Or him.

  Therefore, I settled a kitchen chair in a corner across from the basement door and next to the large ice box, cushioned the chair with a pillow, and sat down, cradling another pillow in my arms and covering myself with the blanket.

  Then I searched for a nearby light switch. There were two of them, and both were across the room from me in different directions. With a sigh, I got up, poked around in kitchen drawers until I found the stub of a candle, lit the candle, traipsed across the room to turn the light off, and went back to my chair. As soon as I blew out my candle, darkness engulfed me.

  I'd known it would, of course. That was the whole point of this exercise: to lure whoever hid in the basement into believing the kitchen was empty of human occupancy.

  What I hadn't known was that it would be so creepy, sitting there in the dark, waiting for a spirit (or ghost) to show itself. If the wind hadn't been making that giant of a house creak so much, I probably wouldn't have been so ill at ease. And it would have helped, too, if the room didn't feel so cavernous. When Mrs. Cummings, Ginger, and Susan were all rushing around in it, performing their daily duties, it seemed a bright, friendly room, full of good smells and friendly people.

  Not now. Now it was a black hole of a place, fraught with weird sounds and too darned many creatures of my own imagining. Generally speaking, I cherish my imagination because it helps me in my work. As I huddled in the corner of Mrs. Bissel's kitchen, I wished my imagination would go away and leave me alone for awhile.

  No such luck. Although I'd pretty much discarded notions of mountain lions and bears as potential campers-out in Mrs. Bissel's basement, both possibilities now loomed large in my mind as eminently possible. And then there were the escaped criminals and lunatics I imagined creeping up the dark basement stairs. They'd know I was in the kitchen alone. And they'd get me.

  The wind didn't help, as I've already mentioned. Leafy tree limbs outside the kitchen windows scratched on the panes like desperate things trying to get in. The wind got sucked down chimneys and moaned and groaned like assorted souls in torment. I heard skittering noises, like those of mice hurrying across floors-only they weren't in the kitchen. I didn't know where they were. A tree branch tore away from its moorings and slammed against the service-porch door. Somewhere in the house or out of it, something thumped heavily, causing me to jump in my chair and my heart to speed up until it was racing in my chest like a hamster on a wheel.

  And cold? Oh, my goodness, that room was cold! I felt every single breeze that managed to wriggle through cracks in windows and doors. Memories niggled at my consciousness of books I'd read when I'd studied spiritualism and fortune-telling. All the books said that when ghosts are present, they bring with them the cold of the grave. I'd like to believe my teeth were chattering merely from the chill and not from sheer terror, but I'm not sure. Darn it, this was no fun.

  And Marianne Wagner didn't show up. My headache had come back to keep me company, however, with a vengeance.

  After what seemed like hours and hours, I fell into an uneasy slumber, my head resting on my arms, my arms folded on the pillow I'd settled on the kitchen table. Sounds made by the wind and its victims plagued my dreams. I wasn't sure whether I was asleep and dreaming or awake and exhausted when the slightest of noises penetrated my fuddled semi-conscious state. I blinked, not sure where I was. And then I remembered everything and darned near fell off my chair. Dread crashed through me like a rampaging tornado.

  Someone was in the room with me. Lord, Lord, someone had come up from the basement and entered the kitchen. And I was stuck in a corner with no weapon--and no light. I'd forgotten all about making sure I had matches with which to light my candle.

  There was no good to be had in contemplating vain regrets. I could chastise myself for being an idiot later, if I survived the forthcoming encounter. As quietly as I could, I shoved the blanket away from me and stood up. My heart was beating so hard, I was sure the interloper could hear it as I tiptoed to where I knew the light switch to be.

  When I got to the switch, I paused, trying to collect my wits and my courage, neither one of which was cooperating. Deciding to heck with it, I braced myself and pressed the switch. The sudden burst light nearly blinded me, but I experienced a moment of triumph when Marianne Wagner spun around, let out a terrified shriek, and dropped the supplies she'd foraged: A can of tuna fish, a can of spaghetti, and a jar of jam. Apparently, she'd become adept at pilferage in the two or so weeks she'd been doing this. The cans and the jar fell to the kitchen floor with a hideous crash, and I knew Marianne and I weren't going to be alone in the kitchen for long.

  The poor girl stood stock-still, bug-eyed, hands pressed to her cheeks, staring at me as if she suspected me of being a ghost. My heart still rattled like a machine gun, and when I opened my mouth to try to subdu
e her fears, my voice didn't work.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

  Suddenly I heard footsteps pelting down the main staircase from the upper stories, and I snapped to attention. “Don't say another word,” I whispered urgently. I darted over to the girl and picked up her foodstuffs; she was still too stunned to move, much less do anything useful. Shoving the tins and jar into her arms, I then grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. “Get back downstairs. Hurry! And don't say a word. Not one word. I'll help you. Just get out of the kitchen quick!”

  She must have been in a state of absolute panic, because she didn't object to my peremptory commands or even try to pull away from me. Rather like a docile lamb heading to the slaughter, she allowed herself to be shuffled to the basement door and shoved inside. I closed the door as quietly as I could, and turned to face the household, my hands gripping the doorknob so Marianne couldn't get back into the kitchen if she took it into her head to do so.

  “Daisy!” Mrs. Bissel shoved Mrs. Cummings out of the way and hurried into the room. When she saw me, she stopped running and stood still, panting, her huge bosom working like a bellows, and her hands held out at her sides to prevent anyone else from entering the room.

  Her household staff piled up behind her, no one willing to leave the shelter of her largeness for fear of what might befall her without the protection of the mistress of the house. It would have been funny, had I been in a mood to be amused.

  I wasn't. I did, however, get my spiritualist aura to come back and help me out, thank heaven. Holding one arm out, palm up in a gesture traffic coppers make when they want to hold up traffic, I said in my best mystical murmur, “Stay back. This is not a matter for those unversed in the ways of the spirits. Danger lies below.”

  “But what happened?”

  I wish I could have taken a photograph of Mrs. Bissel and her staff. They all stared at me as they clutched each other, and no one dared step out from behind Mrs. Bissel's bulk. I guess they figured her body would stop any projectiles directed at them by evil-intentioned ghosts or fiends. The idea tickled me, and I calmed down some more.