Spirits Onstage (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 8)

by Alice Duncan

  "How should I know?" asked Harold, irked.

  "Be still, both of you," said Sam. He was also irked, but that was only natural for him. He raised his voice. "Be quiet, all of you!" He withdrew his wallet from his trouser pocket and held out his badge so everyone could see he was legitimate. "Now. I want to know precisely what happened here. Where's this rock that was supposedly shoved off the church's roof?"

  He'd been so forceful that it took several seconds for the assembled cast and crew to react. Finally, Connie Van der Linden, whose face appeared white and pinched, walked over to the Marengo Avenue side of the church and pointed at a spot on the church lawn, right next to the walkway.

  By gum, there was a rock, all right. And Harold was right; it was big. Only it looked to me as if it were more of a paving stone than a boulder. I strode over to it and took a squint.

  "Stay back," Sam ordered.

  I frowned, but took a step back. Sam joined me and stared down at the stone, which was squarish and flattish. Precisely like a paving stone, as I said.

  "Huh," said Sam. "It's rough. Probably won't have held any fingerprints."

  "But you're going to have your men dust it for prints, aren't you?" I said.

  He frowned at me. Big surprise. "Yes."

  "F-fingerprints?"

  Connie Van der Linden took a step backward and then slithered into a heap on the ground.

  "What the hell?" said Sam.

  "I think she fainted," said Harold, heading toward Connie. Max beat him to his wife's fallen body.

  "What the devil is going on here?" Max asked in a roar that could have rivaled one of Sam's best.

  "Gloria was almost leveled by that boulder stuck in the lawn there." Harold pointed at the lawn and Sam and me.

  "She what?"

  Connie stirred and lifted a hand to touch her husband's cheek. "Don't-don't yell, Max. I have such a headache."

  Max instantly turned his ministrations to her. "What happened, darling? Harold said something about Gloria and a boulder."

  We all heard a siren and turned to watch as two police cars screeched to a stop on Colorado Boulevard right in front of the church. The machines held two uniformed officers each, and disgorged them at the same time. Their routine might have been choreographed. Kind of like the Keystone Kops.

  I'm sorry. That was unkind of me. These fellows weren't humorous at all. They were efficient.

  Sam instantly took over. "Everyone, stay exactly where you are. Doan and Ludlow, check out this stone here. That rock was evidently pushed from the roof of the church." He stepped aside so that the two men could see what he was talking about.

  "Yes, sir," said Doan, whom I knew. Sort of.

  "Perkins and Fowler, take statements. Start with her." He pointed at Gloria Lippincott, who was huddled on her bench, still being held by Lawrence Allen.

  Sylvia Allen looked upon this display in patent disgust. Hmm. Wonder where she was when the stone hit the dirt. But that wouldn't work. She was too much of a lightweight to have carried that thing upstairs and heaved it off the church roof.

  "How much does that stone weigh?" I asked of no one in particular.

  "A lot," said Harold. "I suspect twenty or thirty pounds."

  "And it could have killed anyone if it hit him or her on the head, right?"

  "I think so."

  "Then how do you know it was aimed at Gloria?"

  "Because she was there on the walkway by herself."

  "I thought there were a bunch of you walking together."

  Harold passed a hand over his forehead again. He was still rattled, and I understood. Something like that was enough to rattle anyone. "We were sort of walking together, but Gloria was kind of by herself, standing and waiting for—" Harold looked around, as if to make sure no one except me would hear him. At last he whispered, "Waiting for Lawrence, if I were to guess."

  "Hmm. Where was Sylvia?"

  "Talking to Connie, I think. They were going over some costuming things. Sylvia's going to make most of the costumes."

  "Thank God for that," I muttered, feeling reprieved. After all, Harold had introduced me as a good seamstress, and I felt abused enough at having been forced into playing Katisha.

  With a quick grin, Harold said, "Yeah. Figured you'd appreciate that." He frowned. "Connie doesn't look well, does she?"

  I squinted in Connie's direction. No, she didn't look well. On the other hand, she'd just fainted. Why'd she do that? I shook my head, which was already too full of odd goings-on to leave room to ponder Connie and her fainting spell. "She said she had a headache. Guess she fainted from the excitement."

  Harold said, "Huh," reminding me of Sam.

  "Hmm. So Gloria was essentially standing all alone on the path. Was there a big gap around her? I mean, if someone wanted to hurt her in particular, she'd made a good target of herself?"

  "I'd say a practically perfect target. She was all alone with probably five or six feet of empty space around her."

  "And she stood directly beneath the roof?" This was beginning to sound weird to me. Could Gloria have deliberately separated herself from the rest of the cast in order to make herself look like a target? I wouldn't put it past her.

  Harold blinked a couple of times as if he, too, had begun to think upon similar lines. "Hmm. Yes. Yes, indeed. Do you think she did it on purpose and that she and someone else cooked up the scheme in order to make it look as though she were the object of a killer's missile?"

  "Sounds right to me. Of course, we may be wronging the woman."

  "Of course." Harold didn't believe it either.

  "Where were the rest of the cast and crew?"

  With a shrug, Harold said, "I really wasn't keeping track. I did see Connie and Sylvia chatting. I'm not sure where Max was, although he might have been going through the blocking with your choir director. I think they were both inside the church. Um... Dennis and his wife were holding hands and chatting with each other." Harold grimaced. I guess he didn't approve of public displays of affection.

  "Anyone else you can think of whom you saw?"

  "Um... All right. I'm pretty sure I saw the Mikado and Pish-Tush conferring over there by those hydrangeas. They were singing, so I guess they were trying to work something out."

  The Mikado and Pish-Tush? "Oh, you mean George Finster and James Warden."

  "Whatever their names are."

  "All right, you two," said Sam, stamping up to us and making me jump with surprise, darn him. "I need to talk to you, Kincaid. Daisy, go away."

  "No, I will not go away. This is my church, and something awfully strange happened here after rehearsal tonight."

  As might be expected, Sam rolled his eyes. "Then stand out of the way. Come here, Kincaid." He led Harold off to another stone bench. There were several benches placed here and there on the church grounds, most of them bearing plaques honoring deceased church members and erected by said members' families.

  I glanced about and saw that Gloria and Lawrence had separated, although he still stood close to her. Officer Perkins was questioning her now. I moseyed over closer and noted she was sobbing delicately. Huh. Sylvia had Lawrence by his arm, and it looked to me as if her grip were biting into his flesh. He didn't wince, so I might have been mistaken. I tried to make myself inconspicuous behind a gardenia bush and listened hard.

  "Why do you think someone meant to drop the stone on you, Mrs. Lippincott?" asked Perkins.

  "Because someone did!" she said, still sobbing. "I was standing right there. If Harold hadn't warned me, I'd be dead right this minute." She blubbered some more.

  "But why do you think it was aimed at you and not someone else?" Perkins persisted stolidly, and I honored him for it. It couldn't be much fun to interrogate hysterical women. Or hysterical men, for that matter.

  "Because I was standing all alone! I was the only one who could have been hit by the thing!" More piteous weeping.

  "So you don't think it was an accident?"

  Gloria's head li
fted from her soggy handkerchief. "Accident? Accident! Someone tried to run me down on the street several days ago, someone murdered my husband three days ago, and now someone tried to smash me into a blob on the walkway! It was no accident!"

  She had a way with words, I'll give her that.

  Waving her arms in the air—which made her hankie flutter like a white flag—she went on. "How could it have been an accident? Did you see that thing? It couldn't have fallen by itself! Someone shoved it over the edge of the roof! Someone is trying to kill me!"

  "Do you have any idea why anyone would want to do that? Or who it might be?" Perkins went on, persevering against heavy odds.

  "No! I don't know who wants to kill me! Someone killed my husband. Maybe it's one of his enemies!"

  He had enemies, eh? Interesting.

  "He had enemies?" Perkins asked, echoing my thoughts. "Do you have any names?"

  "Names? Names? What names?" Gloria blinked and appeared befuddled. "Oh. You mean names of Michael's enemies? Why... Why, I don't know. In particular."

  "Did he have debts?" asked Perkins.

  Gee, I'd never have thought to ask that, but it sounded pertinent. I saw Gloria's mouth pinch up, so I guess she thought it was, too.

  "What do you mean by debts?" she asked, no longer weeping.

  Stupid question. What did she think he meant?

  "Did he owe people any money? Banks? Lawyers? Friends? Did he gamble? Did he owe any gambling debts?"

  It looked for a moment as if Gloria were going to clam up. But finally, she heaved a huge sigh and said, "Yes. Yes, he owed people money. I'm not sure who they were, but I know he used to... gamble." She spoke the last word in a whisper. "Sometimes. And no, I don't know with whom he gambled or what he gambled on. He... he did not leave a large estate."

  "Has his estate been settled already?" asked Perkins.

  After another exhalation of breath, Gloria said, "No. Not yet. But I knew Michael." She said his name with a good deal of bitterness. "He was always broke. I... I'm afraid I'll have to sell our home."

  She commenced crying again, and this time I didn't much blame her. It had been difficult for me to live with an invalid, and that was something Billy couldn't help being. It must drive a person flat crazy to live with someone who gambled away one's income. I almost felt sorry for Gloria, although the feeling didn't last long because she didn't bother to whisper her next words.

  "I hated him for it! And he wouldn't give me a divorce! He just hung on like grim death, squandering his money and mine and causing me nothing but problems. I'm glad he's dead." She seemed to catch herself saying things she didn't mean to say, because she then wailed, "But I don't want to die because of him! And someone just tried to murder me!"

  Interesting. If Michael Lippincott was an evil-minded gambler, what would it profit his creditors to kill his estranged wife? I hoped Perkins would ask that question, but I don't know if he did, because Sam Rotondo loomed over me at that instant, and I jumped.

  "Eavesdropping, are we?" he snarled.

  I slapped a hand over my heart and said, "Darn you, Sam Rotondo. Why do you have to sneak up on a person like that?"

  "Why are you eavesdropping on a private conversation?"

  "Pooh. It's not a private conversation. It's a policeman interrogating a witness. A witness and maybe even a target of murder, although I don't know why anybody'd want to kill her just because her estranged husband was a gambler and in debt up to his eyebrows."

  Speaking of eyebrows, Sam's lifted nearly into his hairline. "He was a what?"

  I shrugged. "That's what Gloria said. Her late husband was a gambler and owed a lot of people a lot of money. Why his creditors should want to kill her is something I'd like to know, but I won't now, because you sneaked up behind me, darn it."

  "All right. Enough of this. Come on, and I'll take you home. Kincaid couldn't tell me much, and what he did tell me I'm sure you'll know soon enough. I'm through here. Perkins and the rest can finish taking statements."

  "You're not going to stick around until everyone leaves?"

  "I'll read the reports in the morning."

  "Lucky you. Wish I could read the reports."

  "Huh."

  Sam had left his Hudson sitting in the middle of Marengo Avenue. Not that it mattered much. As I've already mentioned, very few people in Pasadena went out after dark. He opened the passenger door for me, and I climbed in, feeling as if my interesting evening had been cut short because of Sam. I really wanted to know why Gloria Lippincott thought someone was out to get her. Maybe she had lots of money.

  But no. She said her husband had cleaned her out and she might have to sell her home. So that theory didn't hold water. If what she'd said was true.

  Unless there was some kind of insurance policy on her life held by someone I didn't know about. "Say, Sam, do you know if anybody's taken out a life-insurance policy on Gloria Lippincott?"

  Sam said, "No," in such a way that told me he didn't intend to entertain questions from me about the Gloria Lippincott problem. Blast.

  He pulled the Hudson to a halt in front of my house, and I waited in the machine until he opened my door. This, in spite of his uncooperativeness.

  Spike was overjoyed to see us again. So I sat down, smack, on the floor and let the sweet doggie crawl over me and give me kisses. Sam looked upon this with disfavor writ large on his features. I frowned up at him. "What's the matter? Don't you approve of people having fun with their dogs?"

  "I don't care what people do with their dogs. I wouldn't want a dog licking my face, is all."

  The telephone rang. Sam and I looked at each other.

  "Maybe it's Kincaid," said Sam.

  I groaned as I got to my feet, giving Spike one last pat. "Maybe it is. It's kind of late for anyone to be calling." Our party-line neighbors would be incensed. It was almost ten o'clock at night. Oh, well.

  I answered the telephone as soon as I could get to it. "Gumm-Majesty residence. Mrs. Majesty speaking."

  "Daisy!" shrieked a voice on the other end of the wire. The voice was so distraught, I couldn't tell who it belonged to at first.

  "Yes?" I said, donning my purring, subdued spiritualist's voice. I was pretty sure this wasn't Mrs. Pinkerton calling, because I'd come to recognize her various squeals and wails years earlier.

  "It's Griselda Bissel," sobbed the voice, surprising me. I was accustomed to wailing from Mrs. Pinkerton, but Mrs. Bissel was a sane and sober woman, even if she was rich as Croesus, whoever he was.

  "Whatever is the matter, Mrs. Bissel?" I said, worried.

  "They've arrested Dennis!"

  I nearly dropped the receiver.

  Chapter 12

  "They've what?" I confess to having been shocked out of my spiritualist role.

  "They've arrested Dennis," Mrs. Bissel repeated. "They say he killed someone with his automobile! That woman's husband! The one who's after Dennis. Not the woman. Her husband. They say he killed him with his machine!"

  "Good heavens. I can't believe Dennis would do any such thing."

  "He didn't!"

  "I'm sure he didn't." Her words had so rattled me, I didn't know what to say, but I was absolutely positive that sweet Dennis Bissel, whose sweet wife, Patsy, adored him, would never, in a million years, run over anybody with his automobile. Heck, hitting a body might dent the fender or something. Not that Dennis would think of anything like that. Oh, never mind.

  "Oh, Daisy, I need you to do something!"

  "Um... I'm not sure what I can do, Mrs. Bissel," I said, feeling as though I were letting my side down.

  Then I nearly jumped out of my skin when a pair of big, warm hands settled on my shoulders. Sam. I was so tired and so sick of problems that I actually allowed myself to lean back against his big, warm chest for a minute.

  "What is it, Daisy? What's going on?" he murmured in my ear.

  To Mrs. Bissel, I said, "Can you hold the wire for a moment, Mrs. Bissel?" Putting my hand over the receiver, I told
Sam about Dennis being arrested. He frowned, although this frown didn't seem to be aimed at me for once. With a gesture, he asked me to hand him the receiver. So I did, with fathomless relief. Sam would know what to do. Sam could take care of Dennis. Sam would sort it all out.

  As for me, I more or less wilted onto a kitchen chair, and Spike put his paws in my lap. I petted him as I listened to Sam's side of the conversation.

  His voice was surprisingly gentle when he said, "Mrs. Bissel, this is Detective Rotondo." Pause. "I drove Daisy home from the Mikado rehearsal tonight." Pause. "Yes, I saw your son and his wife there." Pause, and Sam's frown deepened. "No, I didn't realize that." Pause. "I'll be glad to look into the matter for you." Pause. "You're welcome." Pause, and Sam grimaced. "Yes. I'll give her back the receiver."

  Glowering, he held out the receiver to me, so I had to get up and go to the telephone. I didn't want to. "Mrs. Bissel? Was Detective Rotondo of help to you?"

  She seemed to have stopped crying, thank God. "He said he'll look into the problem for me. Oh, thank you, Daisy. I know Dennis would never have hurt anyone."

  "I believe you, Mrs. Bissel. I can't imagine Dennis as a coldblooded murderer, either." I shot a glance at Sam, who rolled his eyes. Only to be expected from that source.

  "Can you come over tomorrow, Daisy? Just to see if Rolly has anything to say about this mess?"

  "Of course. I'll be happy to visit and consult Rolly with you." I lied quite nobly, if I do say so myself.

  "Thank you, Daisy."

  "You're welcome, Mrs. Bissel."

  I hung the receiver in the cradle and went back to the kitchen table. Sam had taken a chair, and I sank into the one I'd recently vacated. "I really can't believe Dennis Bissel would murder anyone."

  "I'll look into it," said Sam.

  After thinking about and rejecting several pungent comments, I said only, "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  I walked him to the door with Spike trotting along at my side. At the door, I almost fell over when Sam bent and gave me a peck. On the lips. Lips that Spike had licked not long before.

  Then he left, and I stood there gaping at the door until Spike nudged me. So I took the two of us off to bed.