High Spirits [Spirits 03] (10 page)

      
Was it? I didn’t know. If it wasn’t, it should be. I decided to ask Sam. Since I had to deal with him anyway, thanks to our accursed bargain, I might as well get some useful information out of the situation.

      
She sat like a lump, neither moving nor speaking, so I continued on the same theme.

      
“You deserve someone who treats you well, Flossie, not some thug who slaps you around.”

      
This time she reacted. She shrugged. “Naw. I don’t, really. I’m no good.”

      
Shocked, I shouted. “Nuts to that! You are, too! Everyone’s worth being treated well, for heaven’s sake.
Everyone
!”

      
Her poor mouth, which had already undergone tortures, twisted up and she sobbed again. “No I’m not. I’m trash. Jinx knows it. I know it. Everybody knows it.”

      
“That’s nonsense.” It would take more than a brief conversation in a Chevrolet, however new and shiny, to convince her of it, though, and I had other things to do that morning. Nevertheless, I couldn’t just let her go back to Jinx. Not without a fight. Well, I didn’t mean a fight, but ... Aw, nuts.

      
Thinking fast, I said, “Say, Flossie, I’ve got to do a job right now, but we need to talk some more. You deserve better than Jinx. Jinx is nothing but a big stinker and a bully, and you’re a good person whose shoes he doesn’t deserve to lick, and I’m going to prove it to you.”

      
Apparently, nobody had ever mentioned these salient facts to Flossie before or told her she was worth anything and that Jinx wasn’t. If her eyes weren’t such a painful mess, they’d have popped open wide. She only whispered, “Oh!”

      
“But I can’t talk now because I have a job I have to go to.” My hands went to the steering wheel again, and I engaged in another bout of hard thought. “Let me pop into the grocery store and buy some potatoes and onions and beans, and then you can go to the library with me.”

      
“The library?” She said the word as if she’d never been in one and didn’t know what a body was supposed to do there.

      
“Yes. You can wait for me there.”

      
“With a bunch of books?”

      
“Books are better than Jinx,” I pointed out.

      
She nodded slowly, as if she didn’t quite believe it but was willing to give it a try.

      
“They have lots of magazines there, too.”

      
She brightened slightly. “That’s good. I like looking at magazines.”

      
“I’ll pick you up there as soon as I’m though with my job, and we can go to the Tea Cup Inn. We can have a bite to eat there and talk.” The Tea Cup Inn was a little teashop on North Marengo, close to home. I was pretty sure Jinx wouldn’t show up there. It was much too refined for him.

      
“You’re awful kind, Mrs. Majesty,” she whispered.

      
“Nuts. Call me Daisy. You need a friend, Flossie, and Jinx isn’t it.”

      
She covered her face with her hankie and her shoulders shook. I sighed, pressed the starter button, drove to the little corner grocery store and then the library, thinking all the way, which did no good, as usual. By the time I left Flossie in the reading room next to the magazine rack, I still didn’t have a clue how to help her. She’d seemed to like the idea of magazines. Maybe she could find something interesting to read in one—maybe, say, an article on how to type, so she could get herself a job and give Jinx the boot.

      
Then I went to the front desk, didn’t find any books set aside for me by Miss Petrie, toured the book racks, and picked out two new-to-me mystery books and an old favorite,
The Spiral Staircase
, by Mary Roberts Rinehart. I loved that book; it always comforted me to read it. And, believe me, I needed comfort right then.

      
As I drove from the library to Mrs. Kincaid’s mansion on Orange Grove, I pondered how the heck I was supposed to help Sam Rotondo shut down Vicenzo Maggiori’s speakeasy. When I’d worked that one to a standstill without reaching any conclusions, I concentrated on how to instill self-respect into a woman who had none. Sounded like a daunting task, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t up to it—and I was even more sure that I didn’t want to tackle it.

Smiling broadly, Jackson waved to me as I tootled on past him and up to the front door of the Kincaid mansion. I was dying to ask him about his son in the speakeasy but didn’t dare. If Sam ever found out I’d blabbed, he’d have my hide.

      
Our shiny new Chevrolet didn’t look quite as out of place in such an elegant setting as our old 1909 Model T Ford had, but a Pierce Arrow or a big Packard would have looked better. Or Harold’s Stutz Bearcat.

      
On the other hand, the Chevrolet was a lot better than our old horse, Brownie, who used to haul me around. Brownie had gone to his reward the year before, and I kind of missed him, even though he’d always been a reluctant beast of burden.

      
Since this was Southern California, even though it was technically still winter, vibrant irises and gladioli lined the semicircular drive in front of the porch. Mrs. Kincaid’s gardening staff made sure things bloomed all year long. That day there were even a few early roses showing their pretty blossoms here and there.

      
Looking around and sniffing the sweet fragrances, I sighed happily, glad that my profession allowed me access to the homes of rich people since they were the only ones who could afford huge fancy gardens—and a full gardening staff. I enjoyed gardening, and our modest home on Marengo boasted a pretty little garden, but it sure wasn’t anything like this.

      
Because I didn’t want the Chevy to feel inferior in such grand surroundings, I patted it on its hood before I bounced up the huge marble steps, past the huge marble lions guarding the door, onto the huge marble porch, and pressed the doorbell. The door was huge, too, although it wasn’t marble. I think it was mahogany.

      
Featherstone, Mrs. Kincaid’s butler, opened the door to me. I adored Featherstone. He was the most elegant man I’d ever seen in my life, and was absolutely perfect for his job, as stiff and humorless as the marble lions outside. I admired him tremendously. “Good morning, Featherstone.” I gave him a broad smile.

      
He never, ever smiled back. “Good morning, Mrs. Majesty. Please come this way.”

      
The thing about Featherstone that impressed me so much was that he never showed any emotions at all. I’d been in a room with him when Stacy Kincaid was throwing a full-blown temper tantrum, and he’d stood there like a statue, not even watching the action, but staring over it with cool indifference, as if it neither interested nor concerned him. He was, in fact, rather like an automaton. He must have been the most perfect butler God ever created. Sometimes I thought that if old Featherstone ever died, someone ought to stuff him and stand him in the hall. He wouldn’t look a bit different. I’d miss his British accent, though.

      
“Thank you, Featherstone.”

      
His head high, his back straight, his gait steady, he preceded me along the hall to the drawing room. I did my best to perfect my own spiritualistic persona before we reached the door where Featherstone stood aside, held out a hand to accept my handbag, hat, and coat, and marched off to the hat rack while I entered the drawing room.

      
As soon as she saw me, Mrs. Kincaid jumped to her feet and rushed over to greet me, her hands held out to grasp mine. Unlike Featherstone’s, Mrs. Kincaid’s emotions were always right there on the surface, often spilling over.

      
A good-looking, slightly overweight woman, Mrs. Kincaid was always as beautifully groomed and coifed as if she’d just stepped out of a magazine. According to my friend Edie Applewood, who worked as a housemaid for her, Mrs. Kincaid employed a personal maid to do nothing but take care of her person and her clothes. Every single morning of Mrs. Kincaid’s life, the maid applied her makeup, fixed her lovely graying hair (which I believe owed a good deal of its beauty to regular bluing), and made sure her clothes were cleaned and pressed. That morning Mrs. Kincaid wore a simply smashing day dress of royal blue silk.

      
She was also in a frenzy, which wasn’t unusual. She had a good reason for it that morning since her daughter had almost been arrested the night before.

      
“Daisy! Oh, my dear, I’m
so glad
to see you! I’ve been in such a state!”

      
I could tell. “I’m so sorry,” I purred, trying to waft to the sofa while she clung to me. It wasn’t easy since she wasn’t a small woman, but wafting was part of my act, so I wafted.

      
After depositing her on the sofa, I pulled over a beautiful chair, settling it across from her. I don’t know what kind of chair it was—one of the French Louis-es, I think—but it had a medallion back and a plush red velvet-covered seat. I wouldn’t have minded having a couple of chairs like that, although I’m sure they’d have cost more than our entire bungalow.

      
“Shall we start with the cards?”

      
“Oh, yes, please.” She hauled out a hankie and dabbed at her eyes. It looked as if my entire day was going to be full of weeping females. At least this one paid me to put up with her tears.

      
With a quick move, she reached across the table and grabbed my hand just as I was about to withdraw my tarot deck from the embroidered velvet pouch I’d made for it. I glanced at her quizzically.

      
She swallowed, squeezed my hand, and gave me a deeply penitent look. “First I must apologize to you, Daisy. I’m
so
sorry for all the trouble you’ve been through on my behalf.”

      
She didn’t know the half of it. I smiled with gentle condescension. Clients loved that smile.

      
“I had no idea that horrid place was going to be raided last night.”

      
That was a darned good thing, for both of us. If she
had
known and hadn’t told me, I might just have had to find another best customer, which would have been a real pain in the neck.

      
“And Stacy said you were already in your trance when the police barged in.” She squeezed my hand again, and tears seeped from her eyes. “Oh, my dear, that might have been so dangerous for you. You might have been trapped in your trance. And it’s all my fault!”

      
True. I’d been feeling a little testy about it, too. Smiling graciously, I said, “The spirits treated me better than might have been expected. It’s always tricky when a séance is interrupted.” Her face was a study in misery, but I pressed on, figuring she deserved it for begging me to break the law in the first place. “My soul might have been lost in the netherworld forevermore.” I bowed my head soberly as Mrs. Kincaid gasped, released me, and pressed her hands to her bosom.

      
“Oh, Daisy!” Her voice wobbled. “I’m so, so sorry. It was outrageous of me to ask you to risk yourself that way.”

      
Now, here’s the thing. I’d had a rough night, and it had been followed by a rough morning. I was sick of Stacy Kincaid, annoyed with Mrs. Kincaid, apprehensive on my own account, mad at Sam Rotondo, sorry for Flossie, and worried to death about Billy. Therefore, my mood was neither jolly nor forgiving.

      
Because that was the case, and because I couldn’t shake the selfish notion that many of my problems were basically Mrs. Kincaid’s fault, I said in my softest, most serious and portentous medium’s voice, “I must tell you that which was brought home to me last night, Mrs. Kincaid. Rolly has told me that I must divulge
all
to you. That speakeasy is an evil place. The people who operate it are vicious criminals who deal in crime and murder. The emanations are wicked there. Rolly hates it.”

      
I took a deep breath and then went farther than I’d ever before gone when dealing with a client. “I don’t want to worry you unduly, but I must say this. Rolly has spoken to me. Other spirits have spoken to me. If Stacy doesn’t stop mingling with those people, something terrible will happen to her.”

      
Madeline Kincaid’s scream nearly ruptured my eardrums. I know I winced, which is very unspiritualist-like behavior, but I doubt that Mrs. Kincaid noticed, being involved in her own problems at the moment. “I knew it!” she wailed. “I knew it! I told her! Oh, Daisy,
please, please
say that you’ll help us avoid this catastrophe!”

      
And here I’d been hoping she’d call on somebody else—say Father Frederick or even an alienist—to help her out with Stacy. I should have known better. Mrs. Kincaid didn’t trust alienists, and Father Frederick always told the truth, which she didn’t want to hear. She preferred to deal with me, a phony spiritualist. You figure it out; it’s beyond me.

      
I started feeling guilty. I’d browbeaten, in my own gentle way, a woman who was extremely kind, if stupid. She’d always been nice to me, and she’d paid me heaps of money over the years. She didn’t deserve having her legitimate problems added to by me, someone who was only miffed. Or maybe she did, although her heart was in the right place. All I knew for sure was that I felt awful for having upset her so badly. I put my arms around her, but she kept weeping.

      
“Oh! Oh! Oh! I knew it!” she cried. “It’s all my fault! Oh, Daisy! Oh, Stacy! I should have been firmer with her! I should have left Eustace years earlier!” Eustace was her no-good crook of a husband and Stacy’s father. “I should have made her go to college! I should have done so many things differently! What’s going to happen to her?”