Fine Spirits [Spirits 02] (25 page)

      
This time, it was I who grunted. Spike bounded over to sniff at Sam, and I thought about asking Sam to take his feet off the second step and put them on the walkway in the hope that Spike would decorate his shoe again. I decided it would be prudent not to.

      
“I,” Sam went on, “am of the opinion the girl's hiding out somewhere in town.”

      
“How do you figure that?” I didn't look at him, but picked up a twig and, after showing it to Spike, threw it across the yard. Elated, the puppy bounded after it. It's so easy to please a dog. I wished husbands were as easy to amuse.

      
“It's a feeling,” said Sam. “That's all. When you've been a policeman long enough, you learn to pay attention to your hunches.”

      
“Is that so?” I glanced at him. The porch light had been turned on while I'd been gone, probably by Pa or Ma or Aunt Vi in anticipation of my return home from my fictitious séance. Sam's face looked craggy, with the shadows of night battling with the illumination from the porch fixture. The light picked out the planes of his face and accentuated his deep-set, dark eyes. They were glittering now, those eyes, and he didn't stop staring at me. It was disconcerting, primarily because he looked big and solid and dependable, and I had a treacherous urge to throw myself into his arms and beg him to take care of me.

      
The very idea disgusted me. I mean, what kind of married woman, even if her husband is crippled, has thoughts like that about another man? The worst kind, is what. Moreover, this particular man was perpetually out to get me and didn't like me at all.

      
Because I was so irked with myself, I said sarcastically, “I hope the majority of your police work is based on considerably more than your hunches, or the citizens of Pasadena are in big trouble.”

      
He didn't say anything for several seconds, which doesn't sound like much time unless you're the one telling lies to the copper. My heart started jumping around like it was doing Swedish exercises, and that line of Sir Walter Scott's slithered through my brain: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

      
Darn it, how come I remembered poetry at the most inconvenient times? Besides, none of this was my fault. My only sin so far was in being too tender-hearted for my own good. My temper climbed. “Don't look at
me
like that, Sam Rotondo!
I'm
not the one who kidnapped Marianne and slit her throat!”

      
That brief but impassioned speech took both of us aback. I couldn't believe I'd said it, and neither, evidently, could Sam. “Slit her throat? What do you know about someone slitting her throat?”

      
Totally out of sorts now, I picked Spike up and tried to settle him in my lap. He didn't want to settle; he wanted to play. Blast it, I ought to have known better than to get a male dog. Men are all alike. Perverse creatures. Never do what you want them to do. After wiggling like a fiend for several seconds, the puppy jumped from my lap and streaked across the grass once more, chasing God alone knew what.

      
Sam watched him go with more amusement than I. “What's he after, I wonder.”

      
I didn't answer Sam's question, mostly because I was so cranky with him and mad at myself. Instead, I shrugged.

      
As I should have expected of him, he didn't let the prior subject drop. “What about that throat-slitting scenario, Mrs. Majesty? Do you know something the police don't?”

      
“Oh, for heaven's sake, call me Daisy!” I don't know to this day why I said that particular thing at that particular moment. I guess his calling me
Mrs. Majesty
in that accusatory tone of voice got my goat. “And I don't know a darned thing about Marianne Wagner.”

      
“You just said--”

      
”I know what I said! I only said it as a possibility. I hope nobody cut her throat; but if you haven't found her
yet
, she's probably dead somewhere.” I glared at Sam. “What's more, I'll bet her old man did it, no matter what evidence you claim not to have.”

      
“Hmmm.”

      
We sat on the porch without speaking for another few seconds until I couldn't stand it any longer and broke the tense silence. “I wonder where Spike went.”

      
“Thataway, I think,” Sam said, pointing to the Wilsons' house next door.

      
“Ah.” Pudge Wilson, who was eight years old, was in awe of me, and I adored him for it. He was always gazing at me as if I were a motion-picture star. It was comforting to know that at least one member of the male gender thought I was worth revering. Too bad I wasn't married to Pudge.

      
“Will he come back on his own, do you think?”

      
“I don't know.” With a weary exhalation of breath, I got up from the porch. “I'd better find him. The Wilsons have a mean cat named Samson that's always chasing Mr. and Mrs. Longnecker's dog.”

      
Sam rose, too. “The cat chases the dog? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.”

      
“Not in this case. Samson's a lot bigger than Spike, too.”

      
Sam fell into step beside me, and I gave him what I hoped was a withering glance. “I don't need help to find a puppy.”

      
He smiled. He would. It wasn't a friendly smile. “You never know. It might be hard to find a black dog in the dark.”

      
“Maybe.”

      
It wasn't difficult to find Spike because he trotted down the Wilson's driveway, past their gardenia hedge (which smelled glorious during the summertime but it wasn't summertime, more's the pity) and greeted us as if we were paying him a social call. When he wagged his tail, the whole back end of his body wagged with it. He was the most precious puppy in the world, even if he was a boy. I squatted on the lawn and held out my hand to him. He ran over, wiggling, and I picked him up.

      
“He's a fine little fellow,” Sam said, holding out his fingers for Spike to gnaw, which he did with gusto.

      
“I'm glad Mrs. Bissel let me have him.”

      
“That's right. You exorcized her ghost, didn't you?”

      
I sighed. “It wasn't a ghost. It was a cat.”

      
“Ah.”

      
He didn't believe me. To heck with him.

      
We walked back toward our bungalow. Sam stopped beside his Hudson. “I'm off now,” he said.

      
“I'm going to bed,” I said. “I can't remember ever being this tired.”

      
“Right. Must be tiring, ridding a house of a ghost and then conducting a séance to talk with several more of them.”

      
“Don't be sarcastic,” I advised bitterly. “It's how I earn enough money for Billy and me to live.”

      
I'd turned up our walkway and had begun to believe I was going to escape relatively unscathed until Sam next spoke. “Mrs. Majesty? Daisy?”

      
Darn. I turned. “Yes?”

      
“I just want you to know that I don't believe you.”

      
“No, really? What a surprise.”

      
I'm sure he frowned, although it was too dark for me to discern his expression. “This isn't a joke, Daisy. I think you know something about Marianne Wagner. If you don't come forward with your information, you're liable to get into big trouble. I don't think Dr. Wagner is the type to let something like this go.”

      
His words scared me to death. Nevertheless, I couldn't give Marianne up to her awful old man. “Dr. Wagner,” I said, “is a villain and a louse.”

      
“He's the girl's father, whatever else he might be.”

      
“I don't care what he is.” Oh, how I longed to pour out Marianne's troubles into Sam's ears.
Then
he wouldn't threaten me with the law, I'll bet. He'd probably arrest Dr. Wagner, in fact. “I hope Marianne ran away to the Yukon Territory and never gets found.”

      
Sam stared at me and I stared at him for I don't know how long. It seemed like an eternity; fully long enough for my knees to give out, if a Gumm's knees did such things. After what might have been forever or longer, he said, “Just remember what I've said, please.”

      
“I will.”

      
Couldn't do anything else. His threats positively haunted me.

      
He got into his automobile, pressed the self-starter-I was going to get us a new car come heck or high water so I never had to crank the Model T again-and drove off down the street. Holding on to Spike so that he wouldn't jump out of my arms and hurt himself, I watched the Hudson retreat, wondering where Sam lived.

      
“Oh, boy, Spike. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm afraid I'm in big trouble.”

      
Spike only wagged and wiggled. Figured.

# # #

      
The next several days passed without anything too ghastly happening.

      
On the Monday following Marianne's escape and my coming home with Spike, I put on my best bib and tucker. Actually, it was a tailored suit I'd made of navy blue tricotine, with the seams bound with braid. It was quite elegant, especially when I wore it with the turban-style hat I'd made of the same material, as I did that day. The skirt had one of those hems that went up and down, but even the highest part of it didn't go more than six inches above my shoes. I followed fashion. I knew what was considered acceptable and what wasn't. Whenever I left the house, I did my best to look modish, modest, and refined so that people wouldn't consider me more of an oddball than they already did on account of my spiritualist business.

      
The first place I headed after leaving the house was to Dr. Benjamin's office. I could have telephoned first to see if he was in, but decided it would be more circumspect to take a chance on his being in the office. I couldn't be sure a telephone conversation wouldn't be overheard, either by Billy, the operator at the telephone exchange, or by prying neighbors on our party line.

      
The weather on that December day might have been designed to buck me up. The day was brisk but sunny, and as I gently persuaded the Model T up Lake Avenue to Beverly Street, where Doc Benjamin's office sat, my battered soul drank in the glory of the San Gabriel mountains and the clear, perfect blue sky. A few pillowy white clouds hovered over Mount Wilson, but they only added to the perfection of the scene. In my opinion, a sky without clouds is boring.

      
Dr. Benjamin's normal office hours were from one to five in the afternoon, leaving his morning hours free for making house calls. Luck was with me that day. Before even bothering to hang up my coat I walked over to Mrs. Benjamin, who acted as his nurse and office manager. She sat behind the counter, shuffling papers and looking harried. But when she glanced up to see who'd come in, she smiled. She also told me the doctor was in his office and would see me presently.

      
“Are you ill, Mrs. Majesty?”

      
“No. Thank you. I'm not sick. I'm here about something else.”

      
Mrs. Benjamin brightened. “Oh, my dear, you're not . . .”

      
In those days all but the very young, who considered themselves too sophisticated for tact, used euphemisms for words like “pregnant.” A lady was “expecting a blessed event” or “in the family way.” She was never flat-out pregnant.

      
I anticipated the end of her question, primarily because I didn't want to hear it for fear I'd start crying. I was feeling pretty wobbly that morning. “I'm afraid not, Mrs. Benjamin. I need to talk to the doctor about Billy.”

      
Billy couldn't sire children any longer. If I'd known what was going to happen to him after he left me to go to war, I might have jumped the gun on our wedding day and insisted on intimacy earlier. I suppose that sounds shocking-or it would have back then, anyhow.

      
The fact remains that I'd always wanted children and so had Billy. We'd talked about rearing a family lots of times before we were married. After he came home from the Great War, the subject hadn't come up once. Children weren't in the cards for me as long as Billy and I were married, and since I'd never, in a million years, desert him, I guess I would remain childless. It was a bleak thought; almost as bleak as having a drug-addicted husband.

      
Mrs. Benjamin's happy smile crumpled instantly. “How is the poor boy, dear?” She reached a hand across the counter to me, and I took it, telling myself not to cry.

      
“He's not too chipper, I'm afraid. I'm worried about--” I had to stop and swallow the lump of tears clogging my throat. Then I blurted out the sordid truth. “I'm worried about his morphine use.”

      
Shaking her head in sympathy, she said, “I'm sure the doctor will be able to advise you, Mrs. Majesty. He'll only be another little minute. The Mathison boy had to have his wrist set. He sprained it when he fell out of a tree.”

      
“Boys will be boys,” I said, wishing I had one of my own.

      
“Oh, my, yes.”

      
“I'll just take a seat, then. Thanks.”

      
“It won't be but another minute or two.”

      
I sat on the comfortable, old, over-stuffed chair that matched the sofa in the same condition, and picked up a tattered issue of the
Saturday Evening Post
. My eyes blurred as I flipped through the pages, and I used my waiting time to try to control my rampaging emotions. I'd feel like a fool, blubbering in front of Dr. Benjamin, although I was sure he wouldn't have minded.