Unsettled Spirits (17 page)

And she did. If you've never seen a tall, thin, extremely rich woman dressed as Mary, hauling a white poodle along behind her as her little white-as-snow lamb, you've missed out on a worthwhile spectacle. And that's not even taking into consideration that the poodle was a standard-sized one and much larger than your average lamb.

"Thank you. Harold Kincaid helped me with this costume. And, of course, Carlotta makes a charming sheep." She smiled fondly down upon her poodle, who didn't seem quite as thrilled with the proceedings as her mistress. I'm sure Spike would have sympathized.

"She's adorable," I said. And I guess she was, for a poodle. I preferred my dogs to look more rugged and hunter-like. Spike, for instance, was the dog for me. Although, from what I'd read, poodles were bred to be water dogs for duck hunters and so forth. Spike could do his own hunting, bless him. Well, except when he went after the neighbor's cat, Samson. Then I was more apt to curse than bless him.

"Thank you. But I'm hoping perhaps you can help me. Mrs. Underhill told me you brought your crystal ball with you this evening, and I thought perhaps if you concentrated hard, you might see something related to Evans. I'm so worried about him. He's utterly vanished, without taking a thing with him, and I'm so afraid he's met with an accident or something. And if he
did
have an accident, wouldn't someone have found him by this time? His disappearance is too mysterious to bear."

Oh, dear. Well, why not? "I can certainly use the crystal ball for that purpose, Mrs. Wright." As Mrs. Wright seated herself and her poodle, being a well-trained animal, sat obediently at her side, I asked, "Do you have any idea what Mr. Evans did during his off hours? I mean, did he frequent the cinema or go to plays or visit friends?"

"I'm not altogether sure," said Mrs. Wright, who, like most of the rich women I knew, didn't keep tabs on her servants' recreational activities.

"Hmm," said I, passing my hands over the crystal ball and trying to look spiritualistic. I gave up on that line of questioning, and stared into the ball. Then I blinked and stared harder. What the heck was going on in my crystal ball, which had heretofore only sat there, a prop in my farce of employment?

"Oh, my," said I, astounded. But really. When you're accustomed to staring into a ball made of glass and seeing nothing in it but more glass, this evening the ball seemed to be performing rather oddly.

"Oh, can you see something?" asked Mrs. Wright with much more enthusiasm than I felt at that moment.

"Um... yes. I think so." It was giving me creeping willies, too.

But darned if I didn't see, fogged over by something, a stand of pine and fir trees, wavering there in my stupid crystal ball! Whatever did this mean? Whatever it meant, I didn't like it. I felt rather as I had the one time in my spiritualistic career when an honest-to-God ghost had shown up at a séance. This wasn't fair. It wasn't right. It was... weird.

"It's showing me trees," I whispered, for once not having to feign a low, purring spiritualist voice. "I... I think they may be in a forest. They're the kinds of trees that grow in the San Gabriel Mountains. Or in the foothills. You know, near Mount Lowe."

"Oh, my goodness," said Mrs. Wright after I'd been waving my hands for a second or two and wondering what in Hades was going on with my heretofore unremarkable crystal ball. "I do believe I recall him hiking to Mount Lowe a couple of times. I know the lodge burned down, but I think he enjoyed the hike."

Interesting. Mount Lowe was a definite hike from the Wrights' mansion, but if a person were determined to hike in the foothills, he could take a red car to the end of the line in Altadena and then walk to Mount Lowe and even visit the Mount Lowe Observatory if he were so inclined. "Do you know if Mr. Evans had an interest in astronomy?" I asked conversationally.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Wright.

I ventured another question, "Is the railroad up to Mount Lowe still in operation?"

"Hmm. I'm not sure. I don't think so."

"Well," said I, "the ball is definitely showing me fir and pine trees." I squinted harder into my crystal ball, hoping in that way to make it behave. Didn't work. "Um... I think I see some kind of structure among the trees."

"Oh, dear!" Mrs. Wright clapped a hand over her mouth. "Do you think Evans is lost in the foothills somewhere?"

"I don't know. I need silence for this communication." I hoped she wouldn't take offense.

She didn't seem to. She sat there still as a carved decoy duck for another several seconds as I stared in total mystification into my crystal ball. The image of swaying trees didn't resolve into anything clearer, nor did the structure stuck in amongst them. After I'd stared for what seemed like forever, both trees and structure faded into the glass until all that was left was, well, glass. I allowed my hands to fall to my lap and gazed at Mrs. Wright. "It didn't show me anything else, I'm afraid."

"Oh, dear. I do wish the ball had been clearer."

"I do, too," I said in heartfelt sympathy.

"But perhaps that will give us a place to start. If poor Evans is lost in the forest... Well, I'm not sure what to do."

"Get in touch with the Altadena Sheriff's Station?" I suggested. "And maybe the park rangers? I imagine the Altadena Sheriff's Station knows how to get in touch with the rangers. They'll probably do it for you."

"Good idea." Mrs. Wright stood abruptly, her poodle with her, stuffed a twenty-dollar bill into the money bowl, and said, "Thank you so much, Mrs. Majesty. I think I know what to do from here. Come along, Carlotta." She and Carlotta, the extremely tall little-lamb poodle, exited the tent.

As for me, I sat in my chair, staring at my crystal ball in disbelief and unhappiness. Darn it, I hated when things I depended on went crazy on me!

A large gray hippopotamus appeared at the entrance to the tent mere seconds later. I glanced up at the vision and said, "Harold," in a weak voice.

Harold hurried over to me and plunked himself into a chair. "What's the matter, Daisy? Did another ghost appear? Good God, look at the money you're raking in! I'd better take that off your hands."

Ignoring the first part of his comment, I said, "Yes. People have been giving more than a dollar for my expertise the last couple of times. I kept trying to get up and take the bowl of money to you, but people persisted in interrupting me."

"I'll take it." Harold lifted a big canvas sack and emptied my over-f money bowl into it. Then he peered more closely at me. "Why do you look as if someone just hit you with a brick?"

After heaving a cleansing breath, I admitted, "I actually saw something besides glass in the crystal ball."

Harold's eyebrows lifted. "Oh? What did you see?"

"Trees. Pines and firs. Waving in a breeze, I guess, and with some sort of building with them. Unless it was a mysterious crystal-ball fog."

"Why the devil would you see trees?"

I shrugged. "Mrs. Wright asked me where her missing butler was. I stared into the crystal ball and saw trees. I don't understand it either." I gazed with a plea for understanding at Harold. "Honestly, Harold, all I usually see in the blasted ball is glass."

"I think you need a snack, Daisy. You're hallucinating."

"Am not."

"Are too."

We might have gone on that way indefinitely, but another person entered the tent, this one dressed as a horse, which was almost appropriate. "Daisy!" honked Mrs. Pansy Hanratty, one of my favorite people in the world. She always sounded as if she were speaking into a hollow tube or something.

"Mrs. Hanratty! You make a wonderful horse," I said, instantly forgetting trees swaying in my crystal ball, and trying not to laugh. If anyone in the world could carry off a horse costume, it was Mrs. Hanratty.

"Thank you, dear. Monty says it looks just like me." She laughed her huge honking laugh, and both Harold and I joined her. She might look and sound like a horse, even when she wasn't in costume, but she was a dear woman who performed a worthwhile service with her dog obedience-training courses.

"Mrs. Hanratty, you're a joy to know," said Harold, rising from his chair and kissing the woman on both cheeks. "Tell Daisy what you want to know, and she'll give you a forest setting."

"I beg your pardon?" said Mrs. Hanratty, baffled.

"Pay no attention to Harold, Mrs. Hanratty. He's only being silly."

"Am not."

Before I could respond in kind, Harold gave us both a finger wave and vanished through the tent flap.

"I love that boy," said Mrs. Hanratty.

"Me, too. He's one of my best friends," I concurred. Then I gave myself a mental shake and commanded myself to stop thinking about trees. "What can I do for you, Mrs. Hanratty? Want your cards read? Want to ask Rolly a question?"

"Actually, I want to know who killed that ghastly man, Grover Underhill. Is there any way you can use your skills to let us know?"

I blinked at her a couple of times. "Um... Not really, I fear. Rolly can answer specific questions about the person who's asking the question, and the cards can tell the person for whom the cards are being read something about his or her life. The crystal ball also only answers personal questions." Most of the time. I didn't say so.

"Damn," said Mrs. Hanratty. "I was hoping you could tell me who killed the son of a bitch so I could offer whoever it is asylum from the law and a lot of money. Whoever did it is a hero."

I blinked, not accustomed to such language from any of my rich clients. On the other hand, Mrs. Hanratty was a very special woman. "Oh, my. You didn't like him either?"

"Nobody liked him," said Mrs. H forcefully. "He was a brute, and he was unkind to his daughters' animals."

"Really? I didn't know that." Well, I did, but only second-hand.

"He killed their pet rabbit!" announced Mrs. Hanratty in a ringing voice. If the band weren't so loud, everyone in the ballroom could probably have heard her.

"He
killed
it?" I repeated, horrified.

"He did. And he made them take their sweet doggie to the Humane Society.
After
he kicked it downstairs."

"Good heavens!"

"You might say so. The Humane Society called me, because the poor animal—it was a Yorkshire terrier pup—had a broken leg. So I paid for its veterinary expenses, and the poor thing was eventually adopted by a nice family. But Grover Underhill was a wretched man, and whoever killed him deserves a medal!"

Well, there you go. I'd spoken to I couldn't even remember how many people that evening, and not a single one of them had a good word to say about the late Mr. Underhill.

By the end of the evening, I was kind of glad someone had bumped him off, just as Mrs. Hanratty was.

Chapter 14

I didn't get home until nearly two a.m. on Sunday morning, which was extremely late for me, who generally trundled off to bed with my dog and a book around nine or ten. My coming home late, however, didn't negate the fact that I had to get up at seven-thirty in order to attend church with my family. If I didn't sing in the choir, I might have begged off, but there you go.

My family, unlike me, was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that second Sunday in February. Well, Spike's tail isn't bushy, but he was as happy as ever. My eyes felt as though the lids were hanging at half-mast and someone had glued them together after throwing sand in them. I wanted to growl at my wonderful relations, unlike Spike, who only growled at stray cats and strangers. I tried to appear cheerful even as I gazed with longing at the butcher's knife with which Vi was cutting a cold baked ham.

"So tell us all about the party last night, Daisy," said Ma happily. "Who was there, and what did they dress as?"

"Oh, that's right," chirped Pa. "It was a costume party, wasn't it?"

"Mrs. Pinkerton was a gray cat," said Vi from the stove. "Harold made her costume."

A silence ensued, during which I decided I didn't really want to murder my family, in spite of not having had enough sleep. I could nap that afternoon, I told myself.

"You've about covered it," I said, hoping they wouldn't press me for details. Silly me. So I went into details. I didn't neglect to tell them about Harold being a hippo and Mrs. Hanratty a horse.

"Oh, my," said Ma. "You know, I'm not sure a horse was the best choice for her."