by Alice Duncan
I probably shouldn’t have said that, since it precipitated a loud wail from Mrs. Pinkerton, but, as I’ve said more than once already, my temper wasn’t awfully steady in those days.
“She was picked up in a raid in a speakeasy,” said Harold bluntly. “Drinking is illegal in the first place, but this time she managed to slug a copper as she tried to escape. There was quite a to-do before they finally got her under control and into the paddy wagon.”
“Oh, Harold!” sobbed Mrs. Pinkerton. We all ignored her.
“Criminal assault against an officer of the law,” said Sam in his policeman-like voice, which was very crisp and severe, “is a serious violation.”
“She punched a cop? What was the idiot thinking?”
Another anguished wail from the chair. Again, we all ignored it.
“She wasn’t thinking. She was drunk,” said Harold, rather baldly, considering we were in the presence of his mother, of whom he was generally quite considerate. I guess he was as sick of Stacy and his mother’s incompetence in dealing with her as I.
“She was belligerent and didn’t come peacefully. After she punched the officer, she tried to run away. Then she kicked and scratched until another police officer managed to get handcuffs on her. When we finally got her to the police station, she kicked a police woman and knocked her down.”
“Good Lord. Even for Stacy, that’s pretty bad,” said I, not guarding my tongue as I should have done. After all, my living depended on idiots like Mrs. Pinkerton, and the more trouble her daughter gave her, the better off my finances would be. If you wanted to look at the matter from that point of view, which I didn’t, mainly because Stacy Kincaid made me sick.
“Oh, Daisy!” cried Mrs. Pinkerton. “Whatever shall I do?”
Harold, Sam and I eyed one another for a moment, and then we all looked at Mrs. Pinkerton. Harold tilted his head to one side. Sam scowled. I decided it was up to me. “My suggestion is that you leave her in jail and not bail her out this time, Missus Pinkerton. She’ll never learn how to behave if you keep taking care of things after she breaks the law and ends up in the slammer. She needs to learn to be responsible for her own behavior someday. She’s no longer a child. And I still believe you need to place a telephone call to Captain Buckingham. If anyone in the world has any patience left for your daughter, it’s Johnny Buckingham.”
Mrs. Pinkerton howled. It made an interesting change from wailing, although it was hard on the ears.
“Exactly what I told her,” said Harold. “You have to stop letting her get away with murder, Mother. Or one day, she might just think she can get away with murder.”
Wow, that was brutal. I was being ever so much more candid about Stacy and what I thought of her than I usually was, but even I, in my bad mood, wouldn’t say anything like that to Stacy’s poor mother, whom I didn’t respect, but whom I liked a lot in spite of herself.
“No!” cried Mrs. Pinkerton, horrified into shrieking her denial.
“But yes, Mother. If you don’t believe me, ask this nice detective here.” Harold gave Sam a sugary smile.
Sam returned Harold’s smile with another grumpy frown. “Your daughter has been in trouble for breaking the law and been arrested four times, Missus Pinkerton. It’s time somebody did something, and I agree with Missus Majesty and Mister Kincaid. Let her pay the consequences for her actions for once.” He shot me a grimace. “And it probably wouldn’t hurt to call the Salvation Army. They helped her before.”
I could tell it galled him to say those words, but they were the truth.
“Oh, my goodness!” howled Mrs. Pinkerton, although less loudly than before.
I was curious. “What set her off this time? I thought she was really happy at the Salvation Army. Her association there seemed to have turned her life around. How’d she slip?”
“I think some of her old friends kept ribbing her about her change of habits, and she finally succumbed,” said Harold. “No strength of character, my sister.”
“Harold!” screeched Mrs. Pinkerton. “How can you say such a thing?”
“Because it’s the truth, Mother,” said Harold in a voice I’d never heard him use to his mother before.
As little as I approved of the way Mrs. Pinkerton allowed her daughter to run roughshod over her, even I winced at his tone. When I glanced at Sam, I noticed he had a small, unpleasant smile on his face, as if he agreed with Harold and was glad someone besides he himself was telling Mrs. Pinkerton the ugly truth. Being a policeman in a rich woman’s house, he couldn’t be as brutally honest as Harold.
It seemed to me that all this chit-chat wasn’t getting us anywhere. I made a decision to move things along. “Missus Pinkerton, please try to calm down. Stacy’s in jail, and there’s nothing you can do for her at the moment.”
“Oh, Daisy!” At least this wail was softer than her prior several.
I knelt beside her and put a gentle hand on her shaking shoulder. Although I didn’t feel like it, I donned my spiritualist persona and made my voice a soft murmur. “It’s time to calm down and allow the spirits to guide you.” I could practically feel Sam rolling his eyes again, curse him. Nevertheless, I persevered. “I think what you need to do is consult the cards and perhaps the Ouija board. Harold and Detective Rotondo are absolutely right, you know. Stacy needs to learn how to control her own behavior and take the consequences when she does bad things. You know that in your heart, don’t you?”
She sniffled pathetically. “That-that’s what Algie said, too.”
Her new husband’s name was Algernon Pinkerton. He was a very nice man and most unlike Harold and Stacy’s rat of a father. Still, I don’t think I’d like anyone to call me Algie, which sounds like something you’d scrape off the bottom of a river rock. However, he was rich and I wasn’t, so there you go. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s always been sort of a guiding principal in my life, mainly because I make my living dealing with gullible rich people with more money than sense.
“So are we through here?” asked Sam, as if he was impatient to get going. It occurred to me to wonder why he was there, since it seemed to me a regular old policeman could have conveyed the news to Mrs. Pinkerton about her wayward daughter as well as a trained detective. On the other hand, the police treated the wealthy people in town differently from the way they treated the rest of us, whether they wanted to admit it or not, so maybe that explained his presence.
I glanced up at Harold, being still on my knees trying to comfort his mother. Harold answered Sam. “Yes. I think so. Daisy will be able to help you better than anyone else in this situation.”
I think Sam said, “Good God,” but the words were so soft, I’m not sure.
“Let me see you to the door, Detective Rotondo, and we can leave my mother to Daisy’s tender ministrations.”
My knees creaked a little when I rose, and I nodded to Harold. He made a gesture indicating I should telephone him when I was through dealing with his mother, and I nodded again to indicate I’d understood. After I stood, I didn’t have to rearrange my dress, which slid neatly into place. That had never happened before due to the unseemly curves my body possessed. Maybe I’d lost a little weight since Billy’s demise. Wouldn’t hurt me, I supposed, as the fit of my dress proved.
“I’ll be in touch, Missus Pinkerton,” said Sam in his official policeman’s voice. “I’m glad Missus Majesty is here to assist you.” He gave me a look I didn’t appreciate one bit, although I couldn’t tell him so right then.
The two men left the room, and I was left with the quivering emotional jelly that was Mrs. Pinkerton.
I don’t suppose you’ve ever wondered about what I’m going to say next, but it was important to me: why in the name of God are people more willing to accept trash from someone like me, a phony spiritualist medium, than they were from an experienced police officer? Although I’d been doing my spiritualist routine for more than a decade, I still couldn’t figure it out. It was just as well they did, or I’d probably
have to get a job as a clerk at Nash’s Dry Goods and Department Store, but it points out a curious aspect of human nature.
Mrs. Pinkerton, with much assistance from me, managed to get herself from the chair to the sofa, where she more or less fell into a seated position. She looked up at me with swollen, watery eyes, and I mentally cursed Stacy Kincaid from Pasadena to Kingdom Come.
Why was it, I asked myself—and perhaps God—did a good man like Billy, who was hard-working and responsible, have to die, when foolhardy, worthless specimens like Stacy Kincaid remained to pollute the earth with their ugliness and bad actions? As ever, I received no answer, either from myself or from God. It pains me to say so, but I resented God a good deal in those days. According to all the folks who claimed to know such things, God is always with us, and He supposedly answered prayers. So how come I couldn’t get a simple answer to a simple question? Oh, never mind.
Therefore, I pulled the medallion-backed chair over to the table in front of the sofa so that I was face to face with Mrs. Pinkerton. “I believe we should consult the cards first.”
“Do you really think so, dear? I did so hope Rolly could offer me some aid and comfort.”
See what I mean? She wanted to hear from Rolly, my totally imaginary spirit control whom I’d thought up when I was ten years old. What’s more, in my youthful eagerness I’d given him a history and a Scottish accent. Back then, I’d thought it would be romantic if Rolly and I had been soul mates and he’d followed me through all my incarnations since eleventh-century Scotland, where he’d been a soldier and we’d been married and had five sons together. I’d managed the Scottish accent thanks to the little Scottish girl who went to grade school with me. Since my tenth year I’d sometimes wished I’d given him a more sophisticated name, but what can you expect from a ten-year-old? Anyhow, most of my clients thought his name was spelled Raleigh, so I don’t suppose it mattered much.
“We’ll consult with Rolly after I read the cards for you,” I said firmly. Drat the woman; she wasn’t going to dictate my actions. If she took hell from her daughter, she could take spiritual advice from me the way I chose to deliver it.
I guess I was still in a pretty rotten mood, huh?
Chapter Five
Naturally, since I was the one manipulating the cards and the Ouija board, both the cards and Rolly told Mrs. Pinkerton exactly what Sam, Harold and I had already told her.
The cards, which I dealt out in a Celtic Cross pattern, told Mrs. Pinkerton that she would have to endure some rough days ahead, but that if she did what she needed to do—it didn’t pay to be too specific about these things—her life would resume a pleasant course again soon. Anyhow, Sam, Harold and I had already told her what she needed to know. She wasn’t the brightest woman on earth, but she must have got the picture by that time.
“Oh, dear. Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Pinkerton after the reading. “I don’t really know how to make Stacy behave, Daisy. I truly don’t.”
Good Lord. “I think the cards are saying you need to be firm with her,” I said, knowing even as I did so that Mrs. Pinkerton was about as firm as whipped cream.
“I suppose that must be it,” she said uncertainly.
So then I hauled out the Ouija board. I always kept it in a little draw-string bag I’d made for it and, while it was probably one of the very first Ouija boards ever marketed in 1903 or thereabouts, I’d polished it up some. Mrs. Pinkerton always loved chatting with Rolly, although I sensed she wasn’t going to enjoy that day’s session as much as usual, mainly because I was in such a lousy temper. As a rule, the Ouija board spells out the answers to people’s questions and Rolly only showed up to speak during séances, but since we weren’t in séance mode that day, I had him speak, through me, to Mrs. Pinkerton. I pulled the draperies so the room would be dark in order to further the pretense. Then I got to work.
“Och,” I had Rolly say in my Rolly-voice, which was about an octave lower than my normal speaking voice, “the poor woman shouldn’t have to take grief from her child. Her child should be an aid and comfort to her. Tch, tch. ‘Tis a shame, that is. She needs to learn a lesson, that daughter of hers.”
“Oh, Rolly!” wailed Mrs. Pinkerton. “But she’s my daughter!”
“She don’t act much like one,” said Rolly with more candor than usual.
Did I mention that Rolly’s grammar wasn’t the best and that he didn’t spell very well? Well, he didn’t. Remember, he came into hypothetical being when I was ten. I might have been a fairly smart kid, and I’d liked to read even then, but . . . well, I was only ten, you know?
“Rolly,” I said, feeling I ought to even though I didn’t want to, “Missus Pinkerton needs a dose of comfort.”
“She needs comfort from her children, not me,” said Rolly, although I really didn’t want him to. I couldn’t seem to help myself. I had him add, “At least she has a good son,” because I thought I should.
“True. Harold is a staunch support to his poor mother,” said I, back to being Daisy Majesty again.
“Her daughter needs to take lessons from him, then,” Rolly said, once more surprising me. Gee, I didn’t recall ever being as viciously honest in a spiritualist session before. I hoped this cranky mood of mine wouldn’t last, or I’d be out of work.
Mrs. Pinkerton sobbed. “I know! I know! Oh, I don’t know what to do!”
Something occurred to me that I decided Rolly should broach with Stacy’s mother. Therefore, I had him ask, “Does the girl have an income of her own?”
“An income?” repeated Mrs. Pinkerton, blinking.
“Aye. Does the girl have an income of her own? Or does she rely on you for her money?”
“Oh, I see. She gets an allowance.”
“From you?”
“Well . . . yes, of course. I’m her . . .” Her voice trailed off. I suspect she’d been about to say she was Stacy’s mother as though that might explain everything but didn’t because she didn’t want to hear Rolly say any more bad things about her daughter. If so, she was out of luck.
“Och!” cried Rolly in triumph. “There you have the solution. Withhold her allowance unless she agrees to comply with the rules of your house. This is your house, is it not?”
“Y-yes.”
“Then there you have it,” said Rolly firmly. “It’s your house. You set the rules. Quit paying her for behaving badly. If she kicks up a lather about having her funds cut off, she can get a job and move out.”
A job. A place of her own that she had to pay for. Wow. I doubt that Stacy Kincaid had ever considered the possibility that she might actually have to earn the bread she wasted on a daily basis or pay for the room she took up on this green earth. I’m surprised I’d had Rolly voice such a revolutionary suggestion—but I was kind of proud of myself for having done so.
“A-a job?” said Mrs. Pinkerton in a quavery voice. “A place of her own?”
“Aye. A job. A job of work. Like the rest of the people in the world. Why should she be given money by you, when all she does is get herself into trouble with it? If she don’t abide by your rules, she can get a job and a flat somewhere that she pays for with money she earns.”
“But . . . but, a job? What could she do?”
“She’s not worth much, eh? Has no useful skills? Can’t sew or cook or sweep floors?”
Boy, I really had to get myself under control. Never, in all my years as a spiritualist medium, had I been so cruelly honest with a client.
Therefore, I, Daisy Majesty, said to my Rolly-self, “Rolly, Stacy was reared as the daughter of a wealthy man and woman. She doesn’t know how to do any of those things. That’s not really her fault.”
“Och. It’s as I said: she’s worthless.”
“Rolly!”
“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Pinkerton in a ragged whisper. “I’m afraid what Rolly is saying is the absolute truth, Daisy.”
She feared that, did she? My goodness. Would wonders never cease?
“We were too easy on Stacy. Har
old was expected to do chores and help out, but I’m afraid we allowed Stacy to run a little wild.”
A little? Huh.
“ ’T’isn’t too late to change that,” said Rolly, sounding gruff but kindly. It was about time. I was beginning to despair of myself. “You ought to talk to that minister of hers. That fellow who runs the Salvation Army.”
“Um, he doesn’t really run it,” I felt compelled to say in my Daisy voice.
“Don’t matter. He probably has more influence over her than you do at this point.”
Egad. What a terrible thing to say to a fond mother!
But Mrs. Pinkerton clutched her hands to her bosom as though Rolly had revealed a miracle, although both Sam and Harold had told her the same thing not a half-hour earlier. “You really think so?”
“Aye,” said Rolly firmly. “It’s not too late. Speak with your husband about it, and take a firm stand, the two of you. In the meantime, my darling Daisy don’t know how long she has to stay in jail without being bailed out, but let her stay there. You’ve bailed her out too many times already. And be sure to talk to that minister of hers.”
A silvery tear slid down Mrs. Pinkerton’s no-longer-powdered cheeks. She’d cried all her powder off during Sam and Harold’s reign, I reckon. “Oh, dear,” she whispered. “It’s so difficult to treat one’s children harshly.”
“Harshly?” Rolly gave what I fear was a rather sarcastic laugh. “She’s the one who’s been treating you harshly, from what I’ve heard over the years. It’s past time she began to behave as a dutiful daughter should. Och, if one of our boys had given us such grief, I’d have switched his backside raw.”
Mrs. Pinkerton swallowed audibly. I was kind of appalled myself. As a rule, I didn’t favor corporal punishment for children. On the other hand, we were talking about Stacy Kincaid here, and as far as I’m concerned, the only things she deserved were maybe a silver bullet or a stake through the heart.
“Oooh,” she cried wretchedly. “I wish Algie were here. He’s my strength, you know. I’m sure he’ll help me remain firm with Stacy this time.”
