Strong Spirits [Spirits 01] (34 page)

      
Rotondo squinted hard at Quincy. “Why was that? I mean, why did you think she might have been kidnapped? Did you ever see Miss Marsh with Mr. Kincaid?”

      
“Naw.” Quincy shrugged once more, evidently forgetting how badly it had hurt the first time he’d done it, because he came out with a short, sharp word that I shan’t repeat on these pages. “I guess I thought . . . Ah, hell, I was afraid he’d killed her, chopped her up, and stuffed her in the suitcase. You know, like that freak Crippen a few years back.” He was embarrassed after his admission. When this session was over, I aimed to ask Quincy if he liked to read crime novels as much as I did.

      
Rotondo didn’t crack a smile. “And then what did you do?”

      
“As soon as he went out through the service porch door, the driver got out of the machine and went to the back of it. He took the bag and satchel from Kincaid and put them in the rumble seat. Then he went to the back door on the passenger’s side and opened it for Kincaid.” Quincy sneered, which didn’t seem to hurt any of his cuts or bruises. “It was like he was the guy’s chauffeur or something.”

      
Hey
, I thought,
my pa’s been a chauffeur for years, and he never went around whacking people over the head with blunt instruments. Or even knobby instruments
.

      
“And then?”

      
Rotondo sure was a pushy fellow. I guess he had to be, given his line of work.

      
“Then I decided to follow the son of a bitch and see what he was up to.”

      
“Quincy!”

      
Quincy shot a guilty look at Edie and muttered, “Sorry.”

      
“If you don’t clean up your language, I won’t marry you.”

      
Wow, I didn’t know Edie was so tough.

      
Abashed, Quincy repeated, “Sorry.”

      
“Please go on.” It was getting harder and harder for Rotondo to push words through his teeth as he became more frustrated. I got the feeling he’d be really happy if Edie went somewhere and dusted something. He sure didn’t care for interruptions.

      
“Okay. So, anyhow, I decided to follow Kincaid’s machine to see what he was up to. I figured it couldn’t be anything honest because of how it was happening.

      
“I went downstairs and stood at the barn door, making sure neither Kincaid nor his driver could see me. As soon as their car had been cranked up and was moving, I waited until it had gone quite a ways down the deodar drive before I started up the Ford and followed them.”

      
“You kept them in sight the whole time?”

      
Quincy looked at Rotondo as if the detective was the biggest dimwit in the world. “How the hell could I keep them in sight? They were behind a bunch of trees once they left the circular drive.”

      
Edie opened her mouth, I imagine to chastise Quincy for using the word “hell,” but she shut it again. I think she’d caught some sort of vibration emanating from Rotondo and feared he’d ask her to leave the room if she interrupted the interview again.

      
“How do you know you were following the right car, then?”

      
It was an almost-reasonable question, I decided, but not quite, as Quincy instantly pointed out.

      
“Because it was past midnight and nobody else was on the damned road!” Quincy’s voice had risen, but he was in a lot of pain, so he didn’t keep shouting. Rather, he pressed a hand to his head, grimaced horribly, and said, “Aw, nuts.”

      
Rotondo’s tone of voice softened. “I’m sorry about this, Mr. Applewood, but I have to ask these questions. I’m sure you’ll understand if you think about it.”

      
“I guess.” Quincy didn’t sound convinced to me.

      
“You followed the car in which Mr. Kincaid was riding,” Rotondo prompted.

      
“Yeah. I followed it. I tried to stay sort of far back, and I drove a lot with the lights off, because of the full moon, but I had to turn them on sometimes because you can’t see much in the dark.”

      
“Right.”

      
“I followed them down Fair Oaks.
Way
down Fair Oaks, until you get to that sycamore grove they’re turning into a park, past the ostrich farm. It’s real rural there.”

      
“I’m familiar with the area,” said Rotondo. His pencil never left his paper.

      
“Anyhow, that’s where I lost them. When I made that curve near the sycamore grove, I didn’t see another car anywhere. I wondered if they’d driven into the sycamore grove to stash the loot somewhere, but that didn’t make much sense to me.”

      
Me neither. Naturally, I didn’t say so.

      
“What did you do then?”

      
“I drove on for a little bit, then pulled over to think.” He made a face, not that he had to, because the one he was sporting at the moment was enough to scare a witch off her broom. “Brother, was
that
a mistake. As I sat there thinking, Kincaid’s driver snuck up on the driver’s side of the Ford, opened the door, and yanked me out of it.”

      
“Did you recognize him? Did you know who he was? Had you ever seen him before?”

      
“Hell, no. All I know is he was about nine feet tall and six feet wide and strong as an ox. I don’t know what he hit me with, but I saw stars, believe me. I think he hit me on the head twice, although I don’t know for sure, and I went down hard. He must have kicked me when I’d passed out, because—” He stopped speaking and glanced over at me, as if he didn’t want me to hear the rest of his statement.

      
Too bad. I wasn’t going anywhere. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared back at him to let him know it.

      
He sighed. “I guess he kicked me a couple of times, because my ribs hurt like the devil.”

      
“Did you see Mr. Kincaid during this period of time?”

      
“All I saw were stars,” Quincy said gloomily. “He got me good.”

      
“So I see,” said Rotondo. He didn’t sound precisely sympathetic.

      
“I don’t know how long I was out. It could have been minutes or hours. It took me a forever even to stand upright. I managed to get to my hands and knees twice, I think. Maybe three times, but every time I tried to stand, I passed out again.”

      
Edie sobbed out loud. I noticed Rotondo’s lips tighten.

      
“That’s about it,” Quincy said after thinking about it for a minute. “Thank God the Ford was still there by the time I finally managed to get my feet working. If it had been stolen, I’d have been in worse trouble than I already was.” He glance apprehensively at Rotondo and corrected himself. “Am.”

      
“True.” Rotondo sounded cynical.

      
Quincy recognized that tone of voice as one that boded ill for his own personal future, because he said, “But I didn’t
do
anything! I was trying to stop Kincaid from doing whatever he was doing! I
know
he was up to no good, dammit!”

      
“Yes, so you say.” Rotondo perused his notes as Quincy gazed upon him with a mixture of worry and dislike.

      
“What did you do with the bearer bonds, Mr. Applewood?”

      
Quincy blinked a couple of times. “Huh?”

      
“The bearer bonds. You took them from Mr. Kincaid, didn’t you? Where are they now?”

      
There was a period of silence in the room that I swear lasted a century. Then Quincy said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s a bearer bond?”

      
Rotondo laid his pencil and notebook on his knee and looked straight at Quincy, unsmiling. “There’s a theory—a good theory, in my opinion—that Mr. Kincaid stole the bonds from the bank.”

      
“Well, yeah, I guess so.” Quincy sounded confused. “I figured he’d stolen something. I thought it was money.”

      
“I can well imagine,” said Rotondo in his most detectival mode, “that you did indeed follow Mr. Kincaid in a car. It also wouldn’t surprise me if it was Mr. Kincaid with whom you fought, and that you stole the stolen bonds from him. Where’s the body, Mr. Applewood?”

      
“
What
? Where’s the
body
?
What
body? If you think I killed that son of a bitch, you’re crazy! I never touched him.” He frowned sulkily. “For that matter, he never touched me. He didn’t need to. He had his hired goon do it for him.”

      
“Hmmm.” Rotondo wasn’t convinced.

      
I was. I thought Quincy had told the absolute truth. So, of course, did Edie, who had begun crying again. I can’t keep away from crying women to save myself.

      
“So what happens now?” Quincy was scared stiff. His fingers clutched the arms of his chair as if he were trying to wrench them off.

      
“I haven’t decided that yet,” Rotondo said. “First we’re going to give you some medicine, bind your ribs, and have Mrs. Majesty tape your nose. Other policemen are questioning the rest of the servants in the household as we speak.”

      
Golly, I didn’t know that. These guys were thorough when rich people were involved.

      
“I don’t want any damned laudanum,” Quincy grumbled.

      
Rotondo gave him what could only be deemed an evil grin. “Too bad. You’re getting it.” He turned and nodded at Harold and me.

      
Harold picked up the brown bottle Edie had brought downstairs. I noticed that it was more than half full, which I hoped meant that Mrs. Kincaid didn’t depend on the drug too much. I knew from talking with Billy’s doctors that people could become addicted to laudanum and morphine and other drugs derived from opium. The thought of Billy becoming an addict worried me during those periods of time when I wasn’t worrying about other things. In other words, I worried about it approximately half my waking hours.

      
“Would you like me to telephone Dr. Dearing, Detective? I know for a fact that Daisy can perform magic, but it might be wise to call in a doctor for this situation.”

      
“That’s a good idea, Mr. Kincaid. Let’s get this over with first, and then the doctor can give him a thorough examination and patch anything else that needs patching.”

      
“Good. Mr. Applewood can stay in the apartment off the breakfast room.” The Kincaids were so rich, they had a dining room
and
a breakfast room. “Daisy’s aunt doesn’t sleep here at night, and the room is fully furnished and has its own bathroom.”

      
“For God’s sake, you don’t have to do that!” Quincy was plainly undergoing tortures of humiliation and irritation.

      
Harold winked at him. “Too bad you’re too busted up to do anything but complain, isn’t it?”

      
Oh, my, but I
did
like Harold Kincaid.

      
“One minute, everyone.” Rotondo stood up. He looked awfully tall, standing there when everyone else was sitting down. “I have yet to make up my mind whether or not Mr. Applewood is to be arrested for murder.”

      
“
Murder
?” It was embarrassing, but I admit I screeched the word. “You can’t arrest Quincy for murder. You don’t even know if there’s a body involved yet! And if there is a body, where is it?”

      
“If you will recall, Mrs. Majesty,
I
am the police officer in charge in this situation.”

      
I stood up, too. I don’t suppose I made a very impressive figure, since I’m only a little over five feet tall, but I was furious. “I don’t care if you’re the Lord God Almighty! Until you can prove that Mr. Kincaid is dead, and that his death was the result of murder, you have no business arresting anyone, and especially not Quincy, because he’s
wounded
! What’s more, he was wounded in action. So to speak. I mean, he was trying to figure out what Kincaid was up to, and if he’d succeeded, you’d be calling him a hero instead of a criminal!”

      
I think the noise I heard after I ended my rather loud speech was Harold applauding, but I didn’t look to see for sure.

      
Rotondo stared at me as if he wished he could stomp on me and squish me like a cockroach that had invaded his larder. But I was right, and he knew it. He hated knowing it, too. After heaving a huge sigh, he said, “Very well. Mr. Applewood can stay here until the body’s found.”

      
“There isn’t any body,” Quincy muttered. He looked rather furious himself.

      
“That remains to be seen,” said Rotondo in a voice filled with condemnation. “Right now you’d better take that laudanum and we’ll get your ribs and nose attended to.”

      
Quincy gave up arguing about the laudanum after that. Heck, I would have, too. It’s true laudanum tastes awful, but I’d rather take it than be arrested for murder. Quincy must have felt the same way.

      
He did try scrunching back in his chair to get away from us, but it didn’t work. Harold held his arms, Edie sat on his feet, and Rotondo pinched his nose shut. I hoped he did it gently, since the nose was broken, but I doubt it.

      
Quincy struggled for breath for a few moments until he either had to open his mouth or suffocate, and I thrust a spoonful of laudanum into his mouth then clamped his lips together. Poor guy. We really did treat him roughly. But, darn it, he needed the pain relief!