Nine Lives

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “So if someone was here who wasn’t a guest, then we’re looking at someone who wanted to go undetected.”

  Bella thinks of Leona and of the page she’d found ripped out of the appointment book, and her blood runs cold.

  There’s a long silence.

  Luther looks at Odelia. “Do you have some kind of . . . feeling about any of this?”

  “I can feel that Leona is troubled, but it’s tricky when you’re personally connected to someone who’s crossed over so recently. Sometimes your own emotions create a block.”

  “Is there anyone you can think of who would want her dead?” he asks.

  “No. Everyone here loves her. Everyone.”

  “Pandora Feeney?”

  “Not her. Everyone else.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Odelia’s unkempt reddish brows furrow above the rim of her cat eye glasses. “No. I don’t know.”

  “What about her nephew?”

  “Grant? He’s too fancy for my blood, but I only met him once or twice. And he was good to Leona. He always sent her a huge bouquet of flowers for Mother’s Day, even though she wasn’t his mother.”

  Bella gets that. She did the same for Aunt Sophie.

  “And Grant was her only heir?”

  “Yes—but he has plenty of money.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s a venture capitalist.”

  “Times are tough.”

  “Have you ever seen the guy? His watch costs more than I make in a year.”

  Luther shrugs. “I’ve never met him. Oh, and another thing I learned as a cop—rich people always want to be richer than they already are.”

  “Rich people, maybe. But not everyone. Besides, it’s not as if Leona was worth a fortune. As far as I know, all she had was this house—and not even the land it sits on. It isn’t worth much to anyone outside the Dale.”

  As they talk on, leaving Bella feeling as though she’s sitting on the bench at a Ping-Pong match, she realizes that Leona, like Odelia, lived quite a modest lifestyle for someone who can—ostensibly—give people a priceless gift. And they’re not the only ones.

  Most of the cottages in the Dale are humble. Some could even be considered shabby. The cars parked on their weather-beaten driveways are typically as inconspicuous and unpretentious as the people who drive them.

  There must be plenty of gazillionaires out there who would pay a fortune to contact their dearly departed. Orville Holmes is certainly cashing in.

  But as far as she can tell, Odelia and most of the others remain committed to the Spiritualist camp’s original mission: to bridge the gap between the living and the dead for the greater good rather than for personal gain. They receive only token payment in return for their service and consider it a donation that allows them to carry on spreading hope and enlightenment.

  “If we rule out Grant Everard—not saying that I have—who else might benefit with Leona out of the picture?” Luther looks from Odelia, who shrugs, to Bella.

  “I’m afraid I can’t help. I never even met her.”

  “Pandora Feeney begrudged Leona this house from the moment she bought it,” Odelia comments. “She thought it was a disgrace to turn it back into a ‘boarding house’—that’s what she calls it.”

  How far would she go to get it back? She was insufferable and eccentric, but she certainly didn’t strike Bella as malevolent.

  “It could have been anyone, even a total stranger—some random psycho who got angry with Leona and lashed out. Although,” she adds, remembering how quiet the Dale was before the onslaught of summer visitors, “I’m guessing she didn’t cross paths with very many strangers before the season started, right?”

  Luther shakes his head. “Not likely. Good point.”

  “All of us who live here year-round have our regulars,” Odelia comments. “I know all of Leona’s, and they wouldn’t hurt her in a million years.”

  “People do come around looking for readings during the off-season.” Luther’s next words send a chill down Bella’s spine: “This is one of the few places in the world where it’s not just acceptable to open your door to a total stranger and invite him into your home, but it’s expected.”

  “That’s true. But business has been slow lately for all of us. And I’ve spent a good part of the past month sitting on my porch, thanks to this.” Odelia gestures at her leg in the cast. “I’ve seen just about everyone who’s come and gone from Leona’s place.”

  “What about on that last day?”

  “Especially then. I remember because Jiffy only had half a day of school, and he’d come home with a big bag of colored chalk his teacher gave him. He was out there until dark, coloring a mural on the road. I wanted to keep an eye on him.”

  Bella bites her tongue to keep from calling their attention to the appointment book.

  Luther writes something on his notepad. “You could have missed something. Someone.”

  “I could have. But Leona made digital recordings of every reading, and she kept meticulous written records.”

  “Where?”

  “The audio files would be in her laptop, I imagine, and her notes must be around here someplace.”

  “Have you seen them?” he asks Bella. “The laptop, the notes.”

  She manages to keep her voice steady. “There’s an appointment book on the table in her study. Is that what you mean?”

  “There should be a notebook, too,” Odelia says, shaking her head. “The appointment book just has her schedule.”

  “I didn’t see a notebook. Or a laptop, either. Not since I got here. Do you want to take another look?”

  Luther glances at his watch. “A quick one. I have to be someplace soon.”

  The two of them step back into the study. Luther takes a cursory look around and then picks up the appointment book. “I guess I’ll take this with me.”

  He’s going to discover that the page is missing. If Bella mentions it now, she might inadvertently incriminate herself. He’ll wonder why she didn’t bring it up before.

  “Do you want to check the rest of the house for the other things?” she asks as they step back out into the parlor, in part hoping he’ll forget the appointment book and in part wanting to reinforce that she’s being cooperative.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t. I’m already running late.”

  “That’s right, you said earlier that you have a hot date,” Odelia says behind them as Bella locks the study door again and pockets the keys.

  “Right now, I have a dentist appointment. I wouldn’t call that a hot date. And then I have to go spend some time at the hospital with my mom.”

  “How is she feeling?”

  “No better, no worse.” Then Luther explains to Bella, “My mother has been ill.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. It isn’t easy, watching your parents grow old.”

  Nor is it easy not getting to see them grow old. Or your spouse, either, for that matter.

  “So your mom is your hot date?” Odelia asks Luther. “Because I distinctly remember your saying you had one today.”

  “That isn’t until later tonight—and I don’t recall saying hot date.”

  “I have a feeling it will be.”

  “I thought you were off your game, Odelia,” he says, heading for the hall with the spiral appointment book tucked under his arm.

  “Not about everything,” she calls after him as Bella trails him out.

  They find Max lying on his belly, shining the flashlight under the registration table.

  “Still no cat?” Luther asks.

  “Nope.” He clicks off the flashlight and holds it out. “Thanks for letting me use this.”

  “You can keep it.”

  “Are you sure?” Max happily clicks it on again.

  “Positive. I’ve got lots at home.”

  “Thanks!” Max shimmies across the floor on his stomach, flashlight once again in search mode.

  “Good luck f
inding your furry friend, Max. If she got out, I’m sure she’ll come back when she gets hungry enough.”

  “I just hope it’s before the kittens are born.” Max’s top half disappears under the low edge of an antique console table, but his voice floats from beneath it. “They’re coming today.”

  “Scheduled C-section?” Luther asks Bella dryly.

  “More like wishful thinking. He wants the kittens to be born while we’re here so that he can name them.”

  “Maybe they will be. And listen,” he adds in a low voice, his hand on the doorknob, “if I thought you were in danger here, I’d tell you to get out right now.”

  “So you don’t believe in this Lily Dale stuff?” she asks, now that Odelia is safely out of range.

  She expects an ambiguous answer, but he nods. “I do believe it. Odelia’s good. She’s told me too many things she couldn’t possibly have known. But mediums can only interpret the information they’re given by Spirit. It’s not a perfect science.”

  “Science? Is that what it is?”

  “It’s all about energy. Ever study quantum physics?”

  “I teach it,” she informs him, and enjoys the look of surprise on his face. “Well, I really just touch upon it. There’s a lot to cover. I’m a science teacher. I mean, I was.”

  “Then you probably know what Einstein said.”

  “About what?”

  Luther reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet, and takes a folded slip of paper from it. He hands it to her.

  She reads the handwritten note aloud: “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe.”

  She looks up at him. “Einstein said that?”

  Luther nods. “Odelia told me that when I met her. I didn’t believe her, so I looked it up. After she’d helped me solve that first case, I wrote it down, and I’ve carried it with me ever since so that I won’t forget.”

  She digests that as she refolds the paper along its well-worn crease and starts to hand it back to him.

  “Keep it,” he says. “I know it by heart. It might help you while you’re here.”

  She tucks it into the back pocket of her shorts. “If you believe that there’s something to this, why are you telling me that it’s safe for us to stay here?”

  “It’s just like what Odelia said about connecting the dots. I don’t immediately jump from one fact—Leona died—to another—someone killed her. There would have to be a lot of other facts for me to draw that conclusion, and right now, it’s all too fuzzy.”

  “So are you humoring her, then? Is that why you came over here?”

  “Absolutely not. Odelia’s been right about this kind of thing before. But she’s also been wrong.” He chuckles a little bit, shaking his head. “Way wrong.”

  “Do you think she’s wrong this time?”

  “I hope so. All we have to go on is what she says might have happened—what she feels might have happened—and what a little boy thought he saw in the middle of the night.”

  “A pirate. I get it. I’m a mom.” She nods her head toward all that’s visible now of Max beneath the console: the rubber soles of his sneakers.

  That, of course, brings her back to thinking about the muddy footprint and the creaking floorboard.

  There are logical—and yes, illogical—explanations. It’s all about how you connect the dots. She went from point A—seeing someone in the house last night—to point Z—that it might have been Leona’s murderer.

  “Here . . .” Luther takes a business card out of his wallet and hands it to her. Luther Ragland, Private Investigator.

  “I’m going to look into a few things as soon as I have time,” he says, “but in the meantime, holler if you need me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Just please don’t mention any of this to anyone.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  She unlocks the door for him, and he steps outside. Beyond the porch, the patchy lawn is pocked with marshy puddles, and the furrows worn along the road have become rushing streams that feed pothole ponds. A steady downpour falls from a contagiously monochromatic sky, washing away pretty pastels of the cottages, their vibrant garden blooms and verdant foliage.

  “It’s still raining!” she exclaims.

  Luther turns to shoot her an amused glance. “Better get used to it.”

  “Oh, I’m used to rain. I just meant—it hasn’t really let up at all since I got out of bed. Usually, it comes and goes.”

  “Not here.”

  “You mean it rains like this a lot, then? Like . . . all day?”

  He nods. “But most of the year, it just snows all day. All night.”

  “Most of the year?”

  “All right, half the year—but that’s no exaggeration. This is blizzard country, Bella. We’re buried in lake-effect snow from October ’til April. Sometimes, it starts in September and lasts into May.”

  It snows back home in Bedford—though not as much as here, by any means. But Chicago is blizzard country, too. Sam told her about the legendary Great Lakes storms. She always thought it sounded like fun, being snowbound for days on end.

  But with Sam.

  Not with Millicent.

  “I like rain,” she says with a shrug, thinking that the drab weather suits her mood. “Not that it matters, since I’m only here a few more days.”

  “So you mentioned. A few times. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

  “You forgot your umbrella by the back door. I’ll go grab it for you.”

  “It’s okay. Leave it for Odelia. I’m parked right over there.” Pulling a key fob from his pocket, he aims it toward the parking lot across the street. A blue Jeep beeps and flashes its brake lights as he unlocks the doors remotely. “Oh, and Bella? Not an acceptable answer to my question, but I’ll take it. For now.”

  Chapter Twelve

  When Odelia invited Max to come back next door with her to bake her famous zucchini-jalapeño-lime cookies, Bella let him go. He was so worried about the still-missing cat that he needed a distraction.

  But what about me?

  All afternoon, try as she might to forget it, that muddy footprint has dogged her as effectively as if it had been an actual shoe—pair of shoes—with a relentless predator in them.

  No matter how busy she’s been around the house washing towels and making beds, no matter how eager she is to accept Luther’s reassurance that there’s nothing to worry about, she can’t seem to forget that someone might have been eavesdropping at the study door.

  Now, as she goes about her domestic duties, putting the guests’ rooms back in order, Bella keeps an eye out for the cat.

  There was no sign of her in the Rose Room, where she found that the papers scattered on the floor had apparently fallen from a box Max must have knocked off the closet shelf. How the heck did he reach it? He must have climbed on a chair.

  He could have fallen and been seriously hurt.

  I’m a lousy mother, she decided as she haphazardly collected the papers on the bureau.

  She’s had a couple of hours to reconsider.

  Maybe she’s not a lousy mother. Just an overwhelmed one.

  Thank goodness for Odelia. Lifting the blinds on the window of the St. Clair sisters’ third-floor, ballerina-themed guest room, Bella can see directly across the rainy yard into the kitchen next door. Her son is contentedly mixing cookie dough and appears to be chattering a mile a minute.

  It’s too bad her own mom isn’t around or that Millicent isn’t more like Odelia.

  Millicent—Bella really has to call her just as soon as she finishes this last room.

  She’s not looking forward to the conversation, but she can’t keep putting it off.

  She turns to change the sheets on the queen-sized bed. Lifting one of the plump feather pillows, she finds a racy best-selling romance novel tucked beneath. She wonders which of the elderly spinsters is reading it and wh
ether she intended to keep it hidden even from her sister.

  Probably. If her journey through the guestrooms this afternoon has taught her anything, it’s that everyone has secrets. Everyone.

  For example, she never would have guessed that Bonnie Barrington’s long blonde hair isn’t her own, but there’s an empty Styrofoam wig form sitting alongside the collection of bone china teacups on the bureau in her room. The staid Piersons seem to have quite the active love life, judging by the kinky black lace lingerie hanging on the back of the bathroom doorknob. And the Tooklers, well, they’re in the opposite situation, judging by the self-help book and medication—prescribed for Jim by a urologist—on the nightstand.

  Unaccustomed to glimpsing such intimate details in virtual strangers’ lives, she’s taken it all in with a twinge of voyeuristic guilt. It’s not as if she’s been snooping through drawers, though. She can’t help but notice what’s been left in plain sight.

  As she finishes the hospital corners on the bed, she marvels that you never know what goes on behind closed doors, or even in people’s private thoughts.

  That doesn’t mean Bella suspects any of the guests of having something to do with Leona’s death. None of them were even here when it happened . . .

  Unless someone had sneaked into town, killed her, and sneaked away again, only to show up two weeks later feigning shock at the terrible news.

  She supposes that isn’t out of the question, but why?

  What if it was because—

  “Hello?”

  Startled by the voice behind her, Bella cries out. She whirls around to see a man standing in the doorway.

  “Sorry,” he says.

  She’s never seen him before, yet he looks very much at home, leaning against the doorjamb as though he belongs here and she’s the interloper.

  She knows the hammering in her rib cage is because he scared her and not—no, of course not—because he’s incredibly good looking.

  He is, though. Dark and slick and clean-shaven, he’s wearing a well-cut suit and polished shoes. His devil-may-care elegance reminds her of the Gatsbyesque dandies she glimpsed the other night in the vintage photo albums.

  He’s quite the suave, seductive charmer . . .

  What if Odelia’s “Rudy” Valentino showed up at the wrong house this time?