Revived Spirits

by Julia Watts

  Mrs. Wescott had spent the night on a cot by Liv’s side, and she’d withheld questions so far. Her dad had probably grilled Anthony and Cal by now. As a lawyer, he’d know just how to do it.

  He’d brought the boys with him to the hospital, and was downstairs with Mrs. Wescott, completing paperwork for her release. It gave Liv, Anthony and Cal a chance to “drop in and thank the nice man” who’d come to their aid: Morehouse.

  “It’s good to see you three,” said Morehouse, wincing as he sat up in his hospital bed. “I expect to be discharged later today, and our paths might not cross again. Tommy—Inspector Harper —called, and he’s dropping by for a visit. Or a grilling, depending on your point of view. I’m happy to tell him everything I know about Lance and company, but it’s going to get a bit sticky explaining our friendship and how we came to be where we were. I don’t suppose you’ve spilled it all, or you’d probably be in a mental ward right now.”

  Liv bit her lip and looked at Anthony and Cal.

  “We told my dad as much as we could,” Anthony said. “It’s true that we met in St. Augustine, bumped into each other here at the airport, and barely said hi. It’s also true that Cumpston saw it and overreacted, and that he’s a nutcase.”

  Anthony squirmed. “I lied to Dad about a few things, but it’s true that Cumpston was spying and jumped to crazy conclusions. He did chase us for no good reason and you did risk your life to save us.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “We might be able to avoid too many probing questions by acting traumatized, and that won’t be much of an act.”

  The hospital door swung open. “Ah, the gang’s all here.”

  Tommy—Inspector Thomas Harper—lumbered in and eased his bulky frame into a chair evidently made with only lightweight visitors in mind.

  Liv heard shallow breathing. Her own. She did her best to look calm, while Anthony plunged in. “Wow! Thanks for saving me, Inspector Harper—that was cool!”

  Here come the questions, she thought grimly, but the detective surprised her. “I suppose you’re wondering what’s been going on—I’ll fill you in.”

  He turned to Morehouse. “And you can answer some questions later, if you’re feeling up to it.” Morehouse nodded.

  He pointed to his broken nose. “I had this souvenir from my boxing days in school, but a run-in with a suspect a couple of years ago completed my gangster look, so to speak. That gave the Chief Inspector a brilliant idea: plant me undercover to infiltrate Cumpston’s fraud network, before I had reconstructive surgery. The Kensington and Chelsea Council’s Claims Investigation Group requested help some time ago, and our sting has been a year-long affair.”

  He grinned. “It’s turned out so well that now he wants me to order up a completely different nose, get the birthmark removed, and embed myself in a new undercover operation, but that’s another story. Last night, our team conducted a raid of several rented flats and residential hotels in the northeast Kensington area belonging to Lance Cumpston. We arrested Pridgeon and McKnickel, along with several tenants, the ones that tried the same scheme on their own, collecting their housing benefit cheques and subletting to illegals.”

  Liv held up a newspaper. “Dad brought a copy of the Times this morning. It looks like more of your crew were busy in Portobello Road yesterday while Cumpston was chasing us.”

  She read aloud:

  “Trading Standards officers, accompanied by police, conducted an inspection of Portobello Road merchants and seized the inventory of the antiques firm of Cumpston, Pridgeon and McKnickel. An associate, Robert Morehouse, is wanted for questioning. Though not officially a ‘person of interest’, Council officers would like to speak to Morehouse as part of their ‘complete cleansweep’.”

  Liv lowered the paper and looked at the inspector.

  Harper winked. “I think they won’t be able to find him.”

  Liv continued reading:

  “Unofficial estimates of Cumpston’s housing fraud scheme alone range from ten thousand to twenty thousand pounds per week.”

  Harper shook his head. “Twenty-five’s more like it, judging from what I saw.”

  Morehouse whistled. “That’s well over a million pounds a year.”

  “And that’s not even figuring in a penny from their shop or import/export business.” He gave Morehouse a penetrating look. “Is there anything I should know?”

  Morehouse squirmed in his hospital bed. “I sold a few high-priced items with less than solid provenance.”

  Harper raised his eyebrows.

  “What’s provenance?” asked Cal.

  Morehouse offered, “It’s proof of the history of a piece —the sort of stuff that affects the price.” He made a show of straightening his sheet, discouraging more questions.

  “That may not be ethical,”said Harper,“but it’s not technically against the law to be a smooth talker. If you mean deals like the Havards’ armchair, they let you charm them into that one. You never actually said it was eighteenth century, or that it had been owned by royalty.”

  Morehouse’s face reddened. “How did you—?”

  “Homes, places of business and cars had more bugs than one of Cumpston’s cheap hotel rooms. We even could record their mobile conversations.”

  “How about mine?”

  Harper grinned. “Sorry, chum, we were on a budget and you weren’t high priority. No offense.”

  “Well, that chair was authentic. I just couldn’t prove it had been in the duke’s townhouse, a gift from George the Third. Or that it stood in the drawing room.”

  Liv, sitting across from him on the sofa, caught the subtle upward curving of the outside of Morehouse’s mouth and what he added: “But it was,” he murmured.

  “Yeah,” answered Harper, “and the part about the cut on the chair’s leg, and how it needed to be reupholstered in seventeen-seventy after a dinner attended by a genteel pirate who got into a little ‘discussion’ with a party-crasher who tried to stab him. That was a brilliant bit of hooey.”

  Morehouse pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling.

  “No, Mr. Morehouse.” The inspector leaned his bulky torso forward in the chair, the smile replaced by a serious look. “When I speak of crimes, I’m talking about the housing scams, because that’s defrauding the government. And we’ll soon have enough evidence to indict him for murder. Witnesses are popping out of the woodwork by the hour. They all want Cumpston and his helpers put away for a very long time.”

  He leaned back, folded his beefy hands on his lap, and waited.

  Morehouse met the inspector’s gaze directly. “I may not be able to prove I never participated and didn’t know of their other crimes. They seemed to think I knew something. It’s why they were after me—after us.” He looked at the children. “It all started when he caught Liv watching him on the flight over here. He was paranoid, probably because he knew he couldn’t hide what he was doing forever.”

  “That’s more or less what we guessed, and Carmine Pridgeon has already assured us you had no part in the things we were investigating—a pretty good testimonial, as criminals usually try to pin everything on others they possibly can. Seems he was almost fond of you—tried to talk his partners out of eliminating you.”

  The inspector’s serious look turned grave. “The others weren’t so charitable—saw you as a necessary casualty of war. McKnickel, sniveling and trying to get the best deal for himself, is furious at you, you might want to know. Says you meddled in their business and got Cumpston all fired up. Says you’d be a marked man if Cumpston had any friends left,which I assured him he doesn’t. We do have the recording of your last conversation with Cumpston, and I’d say that officially clears you.”

  Morehouse looked Inspector Thomas Harper in the eye. “I had no part in their schemes.”

  He nodded. “Just wanted to hear it from you. And if you’ve made any antiques deals that are a bit over the legal edge, it’s likely no charges will be made, in appreciation of your unintentional he
lp in drawing out Cumpston. It would have taken us longer to gather evidence if you hadn’t provoked him.”

  He pointed at Morehouse. “Of course, that won’t protect you from civil suits by clients who suspect you’ve sold them something other than what they paid for. You might want to contact anyone in question, try to work things out.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” said Morehouse. He cut his eyes toward Harper and smiled. “Speaking of antiques, you may have to seize Lance’s inventory as evidence, but you’ll want to get rid of it eventually. I’m happy to help.”

  “We’ll see,” answered the inspector in a voice that made it clear no unethical favors would be granted on his watch.

  “Just one more thing—something we overheard on the tapes but couldn’t make sense of. About your taking Cumpston to Barbados—you spoke as if you’d done it, which you obviously didn’t.”

  A long pause followed. Harper slapped both hands on his knees and pushed himself to a standing position. “I’ve decided to believe it involved a client and let it go.”

  Walking to the door, he looked at all of them and settled his gaze on Liv. “For now, I’m also choosing to believe what you say about only just meeting Mr. Morehouse on that airplane, though my cop’s instinct tells me there’s more to it than that. But we don’t need your testimony to convict Cumpston or any of his crew, and I’d rather not put a minor in harm’s way over it. So, I’m dropping it.”

  He opened the hospital room door and paused. “For now.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  A glorious Sunday in Greenwich was passing all too quickly. The Wescotts and Cal, accompanied by Frederica, had played tourist all day, arriving early and taking in as many of the sights as time and energy allowed.

  They’d marveled at the displays in the Maritime Museum, sneaked onto a portrait set in the Queen’s House to snap photos of each other, and hiked up the winding path through Greenwich Park to the Observatory.

  The Prime Meridian was back in place, solidly wedged into the pavement, full of tourists straddling both hemispheres and taking pictures. The guided tour of Flamsteed House was poignant: Liv knew things she couldn’t tell, and longed to know other things she couldn’t ask.

  Did Maskelyne ever regret losing Precious? Did Octavius Cumpston get back to England and make a nuisance of himself?

  She really couldn’t complain about not having her questions answered. The four of them had squeaked by without having to reveal much about their own experiences. The Havards and Wescotts had assumed their children were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and, on the advice of a police department counselor, let discussion of the matter of gun-wielding criminals drop, ready to listen only if any of them felt the need to talk.

  Life had settled into a pleasant routine: sightseeing, running and doing footwork with the soccer ball in the parks, practicing the piano at Frederica’s house four days a week.

  The two girls were even playing duets. Frederica wasn’t pounding the keys so hard these days, and Mrs. Havard had taken to hugging Liv every time she arrived.

  While borrowing Anthony’s laptop to email her debate team answers, Liv had done some Internet research on cutting. She’d learned that cutting could be a response to pressure or any bad feelings.

  Some of the symptoms had Frederica written all over them: a feeling of not fitting in, a desire to take unnecessary risks and a tendency to be obsessive.

  She was relieved to read that cutters don’t usually mean to hurt themselves, but really want to feel better. There was hope, with family support and the right help.

  Get her talking. That would be the way to start. But how?

  Her chance came late that afternoon, at the Greenwich Sunday outdoor flea market. Tables, clotheslines, racks and chairs were laden with every used object imaginable, and Mrs. Wescott went into power-shopping mode.

  The girls moved with the family group, then drifted away by themselves to a rack of clothing. “These shirts are pretty cool,” said Liv. “The pink one would look good on you.”

  “Do you think I’m ready for short sleeves?”

  “The small cuts have healed up fine. The question is: Do you want to keep hiding?”

  Frederica twisted a strand of hair and spoke in a small voice. “I heard it talked about at school. Just some of the popular girls I never get along with, ridiculing weirdos who would do such a thing.”

  It was time to be Frederica’s friend. The kind who listened, and even asked questions, if that’s what it took to get her to open up. Liv smiled. “So, knowing you, you just had to try it yourself.”

  Frederica’s posture stiffened, then she relaxed and returned the smile. “It was just something to do—only once, I thought, but the next time I felt awful about something Mum said to me, I tried it again.”

  The smile was replaced by tears. “Then Dad made a sarcastic remark about me that he thought I didn’t overhear, and I just couldn’t bear it. I knew I really shouldn’t cut myself again, but I did. It’s something of a habit now.”

  “Hey, I don’t see any fresh cuts on those arms.”

  “You’re right,” Frederica said, her eyes widening. “I haven’t done it for days—haven’t even wanted to!”

  “Congratulations! And you’ve talked to me about it. Now it’s time to tell your mom.”

  Frederica crossed her arms and hunched over, staring at the ground. “I couldn’t possibly,” she whispered.

  “Then how about another adult?” Liv racked her brain. “I guess your teachers and school counselors are out for the summer, but do you have a family doctor you can talk to? Maybe a neighbor or a relative? “Or how about writing your mom a note? I’ll even help you write—”

  “I’ll talk to her myself, if you’ll come with me.”

  Frederica was letting down the barriers. It was time for Liv to do the same. She reached out and took Frederica’s hands in hers.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The Havard house was filled with music and laughter, but for Liv, Anthony, Cal and Frederica, the atmosphere was bittersweet. Tomorrow was packing day, and Liv would be leaving a piece of her heart here in London.

  People from Mr. Havard’s law office had gathered to say goodbye to Mr. Wescott, and the Havards had graciously extended an invitation to Morehouse, at Frederica’s request. Inspector Harper had promised to drop by later in the evening, if he could.

  Morehouse was at his most charming. Even with a shoulder in a sling and a bandage on his head, he lit up the reception room, working the crowd of lawyers and making his way toward the four young people in the dining room, having secured a handful of appointments for antiques sales.

  Inspector Thomas Harper slipped in, unremarkable in his wrinkled slacks and sportcoat. He passed up the serving plates and a tray of cauliflower-with-caviar hors d’oeuvres, piling his napkin with tiny quiches of bacon, apple and cheddar cheese. He leaned quietly against a wall, watching and listening.

  Liv didn’t interrupt Morehouse, but suspended her attention and gave Harper a smile. He acknowledged it with a wink.

  Morehouse was saying, “The shopkeeper from the Silver Vaults has been very helpful, more than willing to testify against my assailants. And he offered me a good deal on the sword, which I just couldn’t resist. I could sell it for twice that, to the right collector. But I think I may hang on to it—” he lowered his voice, “—for old times’ sake.”

  He reached into a jacket pocket, pulled out a pack of business cards, and handed one to each of them. “Here—I’ve had new ones made up, but they’re only temporary. My days in the antiques business are numbered—I miss the sea.”

  He squinted at Cal. “I don’t know exactly why you suggested it in the airport that day, but the notion of returning to Florida and getting out on the water has been growing on me. A deep-sea fishing charter business would be just the ticket.”

  A frantic flapping of wings prevented more discussion. A green blur was knocked o
ut of the air by a red one, and Precious swooped in and glided to a graceful landing on Morehouse’s shoulder.

  “Black Rob! Black Rob!” she crowed, hopping up and down.

  Morehouse pulled her close and hissed, “Will you please shut up, you wretched tuft of feathers?”

  “Shut up! Shut up, Black Rob!” she screamed.

  “Well, that’s not quite it,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen, you old seadog!”

  McGinty, recovered from his fall, joined her on Morehouse’s other shoulder. “Scurvy dog! Scallywag!”

  Morehouse looked from one to the other. “That’s enough from the pair of you. That sort of language isn’t acceptable in a proper house, so mind your manners.”

  Precious responded immediately with a bowed head, and McGinty reluctantly followed her example.

  Inspector Harper appeared at Morehouse’s side. “You have an unusual skill set,” he drawled. “Swordsmanship, an uncanny knowledge of antiques, a very odd ability to attract parrots. I don’t quite know what to make of you.”

  Morehouse grinned. “I don’t quite know what to make of myself sometimes.”

  “Dead men tell no tales!” cried Precious.

  Frederica clamped her fingers around Precious’s beak. “She’s absolutely bonkers. I do apologize.”

  “I’m on my way out anyway,” said Harper. “Take care of yourselves.” He waved to Morehouse. “See you at the trial.”

  He left them and made his way to Frederica’s parents to say goodbye.

  Morehouse sighed. “Ah, yes, the trial. At least it’s not my own.”

  McGinty hopped from Morehouse’s shoulder to Liv’s head and began to pluck at the roots of her hair. “Ahoy! Ahoy! Batten down the hatches!”

  Liv gritted her teeth while Frederica disengaged his zygodactyl toes from her scalp. “I can see he’s forgotten how I saved his tailfeathers.”

  She studied Morehouse. “What’s with you and Precious? She seems to know you awfully well.”