Fine Spirits [Spirits 02] (13 page)

      
Mrs. Cummings, walking into the breakfast room with a tray in her hands, stopped in her tracks. “No, what?”

      
Mrs. Bissel turned to her housekeeper for support. “No, Daisy can't spend the night in the basement. It's far too dangerous.”

      
Staring at me as if I'd lost what was left of my mind, Mrs. Cummings snorted, regained her footing, and set a plate of iced cakes on the table between Mrs. Bissel and me. “You're daft, Daisy Majesty. There's no way on God's green earth that you'll be allowed to sleep in the basement. If the ghost don't get you, the damp and chill will.”

      
Comforting thought. “I'm sure that's not so, Mrs. Cummings. I deal with the spirits all the time, don't forget.”

      
“Tush.” With the one pithy word, Mrs. Cummings set a flowery teapot and two flowery cups on the table so hard, I feared for their continued health. Nothing broke, and I breathed more easily.

      
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Bissel, pouring tea into a cup and pushing it at me. “It would be the height of folly for you to remain belowstairs after dark. I don't care how much experience you've had in dealing with spirits.”

      
I'd been hoping for such a reaction, although I hid my delight. I was a mistress of my craft, as one of my friends had told me on more than one occasion. I pretended to be unhappy. “But how else can I exorcize the spirit? I need to be in your home when the spirit is active, Mrs. Bissel.” If neither woman brought up the kitchen, I aimed to do so. Darned if I'd sleep in her basement; the mere thought gave me the willies.

      
Mrs. Bissel shook her head so hard, her chins wobbled. “Nonsense. I won't allow you to do so risky a thing, Daisy. There has to be another way.”

      
“Absolutely.” Mrs. Cummings placed the cream pitcher and the bowl of sugar on the table more gently than she had the teacups. “Even thinking about spending the night down there is insane, and you'd be a blockhead to try it.”

      
I didn't enjoy being called a blockhead. It didn't go with my carefully constructed appearance and demeanor. I held my frown in check, but it was an effort. I did, however, say, “I don't believe that's the case, Mrs. Cummings. I deal with the--”

      
“I know, I know,” she interrupted gruffly. “I don't care how many spirits you talk to in your séances, this one's bad, and I won't let you do it.”

      
“Nor will I.”

      
I sipped my tea, pretending to contemplate the ladies' words. It was nice of them to worry about me. I guess Billy worried about me, too, but not like this. He mostly just resented me.

      
After several moments passed and it looked as if Mrs. Bissel and Mrs. Cummings were becoming confused and unhappy, I said slowly, and as mysteriously as possible, “Perhaps there's another way.”

      
“There'd darned well better be,” muttered Mrs. Cummings. Evidently feeling that it was safe to leave me alone with Mrs. Bissel, she stomped back into the kitchen. “A night in the basement, my hind foot.”

      
“What other way is there, dear?” Mrs. Bissel asked, popping a piece of cake into her mouth and following it up with a sip of tea into which she'd dumped four lumps of sugar and half a cup of cream.

      
I bowed my head and tried to appear innocent and cryptic at the same time. “Perhaps I can stay overnight in the kitchen.”

      
Mrs. Bissel brightened up immediately. “Why, Daisy, that's a perfect solution! That way, you'll be close to the basement when the spirit or ghost is active, but you won't be directly in its path.”

      
“My thoughts exactly.” It occurred to me to ask how she expected me to get rid of her haunter if she wouldn't allow me to confront it directly, but I'd long since stopped trying to figure out how some people thought.

      
I left shortly after that, making a short detour into Hunnicutt's Market. In order to disguise the purpose of my visit, I bought a pound of peanut butter for Aunt Vi. Truth to tell, it was for me, too. Aunt Vi made the most delicious cookies with peanut butter; Mrs. Cummings' cookies had reminded me.

      
A stack of newspapers rested on the counter. As I rooted around in my handbag, I motioned at the top one. “It's too bad about that girl who disappeared, isn't it?”

      
Mr. Hunnicutt, scooping peanut butter out of the barrel and into a jar, nodded. “Probably buried in the foothills.”

      
“I thought exactly the same thing,” I said, wondering how many other people in the area read detective novels. “What a tragedy that would be.”

      
“Sure would.”

      
“I don't suppose you've seen her since she disappeared, have you?”

      
He gave me an odd look. “Nope. Can't say as I have.”

      
No one else there had seen anyone resembling Marianne Wagner either, as I discovered after a few more minutes of chit-chat. I got the impression Mr. Hunnicutt thought I was nuts, but at least I learned what I'd visited the store for. Then I tried to decide if I was disappointed or not, couldn't, caught a red car, and rode it down to Lake and Colorado, where I transferred to a car on an east-west route that let me off on the corner of Marengo and Colorado. It was only a short walk home, and, as I had expected, Billy was happy to see me.

      
“Hey, Daisy, Sam called and invited the whole family out to eat at the Crown Chop Suey Parlor and to a picture show afterwards tonight.”

      
He was more enthusiastic than I'd seen him in ages, so I put on a show of being pleased. Under the circumstances, I didn't want to be anywhere near Sam Rotondo. He was too darned smart, and I wouldn't put it past him to figure out that I expected to find Marianne Wagner in Mrs. Bissel's basement.

      
However, the prospect of dining out, and on Chinese food, which was my favorite (truth to tell, all kinds of food are my favorites), was a nice one. “Sounds good. What picture are we seeing?”

      
“
Knickerbocker Buckaroo
. It's got Marjorie Daw and Douglas Fairbanks in it.”

      
“Ah. Good.” I'd have preferred to see
Anne of Green Gables
, but I knew the men would have objected and called it a “girl's” movie. Anyhow, it was always a pleasure to see Douglas Fairbanks in anything. Or Mary Pickford. I envied her those blond ringlets. Redheads never got treated like fragile flowers the way blondes did. Of course, this particular redhead (me) didn't act much like a fragile flower, either, but that's another story entirely.

Chapter Seven
 

      
The picture was pretty good, but first I had to endure eating a Chinese dinner with Sam Rotondo. If it had been anything but Chinese, the meal would have been much more trying.

      
Even before we got to the restaurant on North Fair Oaks, driven there in his car, a closed-in Hudson that had given me a appreciation of Hudsons, I didn't like the way he looked at me. Piercing. That's what his eyes were that evening, and they made me nervous. I always got the feeling Sam Rotondo knew more than I wanted him to about my business.

      
With Sam's support, Billy walked into the restaurant. He couldn't walk very far, even with help, and he hated me to assist him. It galled me that he'd accept assistance from Sam, a man who considered me some kind of lower life form. Billy was probably afraid I'd drop him-and I might have, since his weight was difficult for me to balance, as small as I am. Sam was a big man. Maybe it was only sensible that he be the one to help Billy, but I still didn't like it.

      
In an effort to make Sam think I had nothing to hide--which I didn't, actually, since I had no idea if the Wagner girl was hiding in Mrs. Bissel's basement--I decided to strike the first blow instead of waiting for him to blind-side me. As the waiter led us to a table, I asked, “Have the Wagners had any results from the notice they placed in the newspapers?” I smiled as innocently as I was able.

      
I think the innocent smile was a mistake because Sam's eyes got squinty. “Why do you ask, Mrs. Majesty?” His own smile reminded me of a cobra about to strike. Not that cobras smile. Oh, you know what I mean.

      
I blinked, again innocently, since I couldn't think of anything else to do. “Why, because we're all worried about the poor girl and her parents.” My troublesome sense of honesty got the better of me, darn it, and I added, “At least I feel sorry for her mother.”

      
“I see.” He held a chair for my mother. I didn't wait for anyone to perform the gentlemanly gesture for me, but pulled out my own chair and plunked myself down on it. When I glanced up, I saw him eyeing me as if he'd like to haul me out back and take a blackjack to me until I confessed to something. Dog-gone him, anyhow.

      
“My goodness, yes,” said Vi, for whom Pa pulled out a chair. I was the only female present who didn't deserve masculine courtesy, I guess. “Her parents must be frantic.”

      
“They're upset, all right,” said Sam. “Can you blame them?” He stared at me as he said it, and took a seat across the table from me. He would. The better to spy on me, I suppose.

      
Billy sat next to me at the table. I felt more comfortable with my husband at my side; don't ask me why. “No,” I said. “I can't blame them at all. It must be awful for them, not knowing if their child is alive or dead.”

      
“Daisy,” my mother said softly in a mildly reproving tone of voice. I guess she didn't want me talking about the possibility of death as concerned Marianne Wagner.

      
  Oh, brother. We hadn't even been given menus yet, and already I'd disappointed my mother. Because I couldn't seem to win, I decided to remain mute unless forced to talk. It was going to be tough, because I'm not shy and I generally love to blab.

      
“I guess the police have to take such things as possible death or suicide into consideration when it comes to missing persons.”

      
This declaration of support came from the throat of my own husband, thereby shocking
me
for a change, instead of Ma.

      
“After all, people don't usually drop off the face of the earth as this Wagner girl seems to have done, unless they have help or they've run away. From what Daisy's told me about the girl, she's not the type to run away.”

      
“Exactly,” I said, smiling upon my husband.

      
“I suppose so.” After giving me one last long look, Sam glanced around the restaurant as if he expected to find Marianne hiding underneath a chair.

      
Upon a sudden and (I thought at the time) brilliant inspiration, I said, “Or maybe she committed suicide.” I knew the suggestion had been a mistake as soon as the word
suicide
hit the air. Everyone looked at me as if they'd been delivered of a brutal and communal blow from the Almighty.

      
“My goodness,” murmured Ma, her eyes as round as baseballs, “I hadn't considered the possibility of suicide. How awful.”

      
It sure was. I swallowed, for the first time thinking about what I'd said. It was a bad habit of mine to speak before thinking, I know. I sure hoped Marianne hadn't taken that way out.

      
A smiling Chinese waiter walked up to our table and handed out menus. I love Chinese food, and as much as I mistrusted Sam, I still had to admit that it was nice of him to take us all out, even though he could undoubtedly afford to. Besides that, he was probably trying to make up for all the free meals he'd mooched off Ma and Aunt Vi. Not that they minded. I was the only member of the family who minded when Sam came over, primarily because he drove me nuts. I already had one man driving me nuts in Billy. I didn't need another one.

      
The meal was delicious. I was especially fond of the spareribs they served.

      
After we'd all eaten more than we should have, and finished off several pots of tea and a dozen or more almond cookies, we went to the Crown Theater. There, as mentioned before, we saw Douglas Fairbanks and Marjorie Daw in
Knickerbocker Buckaroo
. A one-reel comedy accompanied the featured picture. I wasn't actually in the mood for a slapstick comedy, mainly because my mind kept dwelling on how I was going to tell Billy I aimed to spend the following night away from him. It wasn't going to be easy. I'd never done anything like it before.

      
I think what was really bothering me was the thought of suicide. Ever since I'd spoken the word in connection with Marianne Wagner, I'd been thinking of it in connection with Billy himself.

      
He'd never commit suicide, would he? I couldn't imagine it, although I knew he was unhappy and in terrible pain. The truth was that he wouldn't have been the first shell-shocked veteran of the Great War to kill himself. What an abysmal legacy from an atrocious conflict. Even during the picture, I couldn't drive away the notion of my Billy taking his own life. It kept spinning in my head until I wanted to cover my ears and scream in order to drive it out.

      
As Sam ushered us all into his automobile-he had supported Billy into the theater, as he'd done into the restaurant-I knew I should be grateful to him. After all, it was a real pleasure for Billy when we got to go out. Since it was so difficult for him to get around, when we went to the pictures we usually visited the two motion-picture theaters that were within walking distance of our house, and I'd push him in his wheelchair. This outing must have been like an exciting adventure to poor Billy.