With June, Jen, and Vegas helping out, the midnight buffet had been a snap. After finishing my dinner, I delivered the large bat cake to the sideboard, and Vegas carried in the other desserts people had brought. Jen made the rounds with mugs, coffee, hot cider, and tea. I placed an assortment of liqueurs on the buffet so those inclined to doctor their drinks or have an after-dinner drink could help themselves. Either I didn’t have what Karl preferred, or he couldn’t wait, because he poured something from a flask into his drink and Maggie’s.
While June assisted me in wrapping the dinner leftovers and wedging them into the bulging fridge, I conceded that Jen’s party had been a success so far, in spite of the presence of Karl and Ray.
I returned to the dining room, where Mars stoked the fireplace, much as he had during our marriage, which made me a hair uncomfortable. Normally, I would have simply been appreciative, but given his recent behavior, every simple gesture, no matter how kind and well intended, unnerved me a bit.
Bernie sidled up to me. “Our fearless soothsayer has made it a point to speak in depth with Blake and Maggie. Dash avoided her for the most part, but I’d say she did a fairly good job of milking details about Patrick.”
After Madame Poisson had sampled each dessert and pronounced the double fudge cake her favorite, she retrieved her bag from the foyer and asked us to bring chairs from the dining room to the living room. At her direction, we placed them between the sofa and arm chairs so they formed a circle of sorts, and everyone took a seat.
“Please join hands, but do not allow your knees to touch.”
I sat again and took the hands of Jen on my left and Bernie on my right. Across the way, Nina’s eyes seemed to twinkle with excited anticipation in the candlelight.
“Close your eyes and concentrate on Patrick.”
The fire crackled in the background. I peeked and saw that most of my friends had followed her instructions.
“I feel the disruption of a nonbeliever. You must believe and feel love for the departed or his spirit will not visit us.”
I tried. Really I did. After all, I believed that Faye’s spirit moved her portrait in the kitchen. Why shouldn’t I believe that Madame Poisson had the ability to contact the dead?
I peeked again, amused by the fact that Vegas and Jen had closed their eyes and were participating. If they brought up a vampire again, I would have to point out to them, as I had to Natasha, that Patrick couldn’t be both a vampire and a ghost.
“Concentrate,” Madame Poisson intoned. “Welcome spirits. The hour of midnight on All Hallows’ Eve is nigh. The barriers to Earth are at their lowest. Come forth and make your presence known.”
TWENTY-NINE
Dear Sophie,
I love the idea of a witch-themed decor for Halloween. I have the candlesticks and the cauldron, the ravens, and the black cat. What else should I include?
—Endora in Witch Hazel, Oregon
Dear Endora,
Don’t forget to make a broom! Find a thick, misshapen stick and tie straw or twigs around the bottom. You’ll also need a spell book. Check your local used bookstore for a very thick book. Age it a little with droplets of water or by singeing it. Lay it, opened, next to a crooked candle and insert a handwritten note or two about spells!
—Sophie
I heard a click and my eyes popped wide open. Madame Poisson had brought a CD player. The “Funeral March” sonata by Chopin began to play. I wasn’t the only one surprised by her choice of music. Bernie squeezed my hand so tight that I knew if I looked at him I wouldn’t be able to stop from breaking out in laughter.
Madame Poisson turned the music down. The ominous death march played in the background, setting a somber mood. “Yes,” she murmured. “Thank you.” She nodded her head, as though she could hear someone speaking. “Thank you, dear. Is your name Patrick?” She paused. “Thank you. Patrick is here with us. He says he misses his family.”
Maggie sniffled.
“He wants you to know that his vision has returned. He can see perfectly now.”
Either Patrick had an eye problem I didn’t know about, or someone told Madame Poisson about the eye patch he wore as part of his pirate costume, and she misunderstood. Dash was biting his upper lip so hard that his lower lip trembled, so I had a feeling it might be the latter.
“What . . . what about his neck?” murmured Maggie.
“It’s completely healed now.”
She dodged that one.
“So he’s n-not a vampire?” Maggie’s eyes were closed and the muscles in her neck stretched taut with tension.
Madame Poisson’s eyes grew large, and she stared at Maggie in horror. “Thank you, thank you. Patrick assures me he has passed over and is not a vampire. Wait . . . is someone else with us? Please come forward and speak to me.”
I fully expected her to say Faye had arrived.
“She’s wearing a gorgeous dress, a green . . . silk, I think, with a tight bodice and a long full skirt like a ball gown.” Madame raised her head and shifted from side to side. “She says she’s pleased to have company in her home. She remembers her parents throwing her coming out party in this very room in 1860.”
Apparently no one had mentioned to Madame Poisson that the living room was an addition built by Faye in the 1960s.
“No! Wait! Patrick? Patrick, are you still with us?” Panic resonated in Maggie’s voice.
“Paaatrick,” intoned Madame Poisson. “Paaatrick, are you here? Yes. Yes, thank you. I’m seeing several people now. They’re all waiting their turn.”
“Ask Patrick who murdered him.” Maggie’s entire body curved forward. I hoped she wouldn’t fall off her chair.
“He’s saying the killer was male. Someone who resented him. Someone single, or whose wife has left him.” A gust of wind blew out the candles in front of her, splashing hot melted wax onto her hands and arms. Madame screamed, shrill and prolonged, setting off a chain of screams from Vegas, Jen, and Lilly.
A ghastly cat screech rattled through the house, provoking more screams.
I jumped up and ran to Madame Poisson. “I’m so sorry!”
“You have a spirit in this house!” Her nostrils flared.
Wanda helped her stand and rushed her in the direction of my powder room, while I shot toward the kitchen to check on Mochie. Jen and her friends followed me.
Mochie stood on the window seat, his back arched like a Halloween cat. Daisy had wedged under the table and managed to get her two front paws on the window seat. She growled at the window.
Outside, something slammed against the glass and disappeared in an instant.
“What was that?” Dana stood behind Jesse with a protective hand on his shoulder as though ready to whisk him out of harm’s way should it happen again.
I wasn’t quite sure. Daisy barked at it, and Mochie hissed.
“It’s a vampire trying to get into the house,” cried Vegas.
“Nonsense.” I spoke firmly. I didn’t know
what
it was, but it most certainly was not a vampire.
The bang on the window startled us when it happened again. But this time, an unearthly yowl accompanied it, and claws scrabbled at the window for a foothold.
I inched onto the window seat with Mochie and Daisy.
“No, Sophie,” screamed Jen. “Don’t get so close!”
I peered into the darkness and flinched backward at the third strike against the window. My closeness paid off, though. The black cat Nina had chased through Old Town must have seen Mochie through the window. It was an old-fashioned cat fight, but, thankfully, the glass separated them. I heaved a huge sigh of relief. “Somebody get Nina and tell her the black cat is outside.” The way it had been running from her, if it saw Nina, it would probably take off and forget about Mochie.
I’d momentarily forgotten about Nina’s tight dress. I met her waddling into the foyer.
“I can’t catch a cat in this get-up! I can barely bend to sit down, much less be agile enough to grab that elusive fellow. Are you sure it’s him?” She opened the front door. “What are you two doing out here?”
Vegas and Lilly raised their forefingers to their mouths and shushed her.
I stepped outside with them and closed the door behind me so Daisy and Mochie wouldn’t escape and chase the black cat.
“Jen’s after the cat,” whispered Vegas.
Jen’s flapper dress wasn’t exactly cat-catching garb, either. I needn’t have worried. She ran to us, breathless.
“He jumped the gate to the backyard. Aunt Sophie, I smelled licorice.”
Nina snorted. “Cats don’t eat licorice. Oh!” Her eyes grew wide and she threw her arms in the air. “Hurry, hurry!”
“Nina, you keep the girls inside, please,” I said. “I don’t want them out there. Jen, go get Mars or Bernie and tell them what’s going on so they won’t be noisy when they come outside.”
I breezed past Natasha, Wanda, and Maggie, who were begging Madame Poisson to give the spirits another chance.
“Perhaps if I could have a bit of brandy for my nerves . . .”
As quietly as I could, I let myself out the kitchen door. For a long moment, I simply listened and allowed my eyes to adjust to the darkness in my service alley. Faint laughter, low and male, came from the backyard. I crept in that direction.
The light of the moon illuminated two figures. Keeping close to the fence, I ducked behind the potting shed. Their voices became clear.
“Why don’t you come in? They’ve got some kind of phony pretending she can speak to Patrick in the hereafter.”
“I’d like to, but after my absence last night, my wife is about to blow a gasket. She thinks I’m in the basement. Won’t take her long to catch on. If you hadn’t been so close, I wouldn’t have been able to bring you a refill.”
“You really don’t remember anything about last night?”
“A total blackout. Even in college I never did anything like that.”
A gentle breeze brushed my neck. I swiped at it and realized Bernie had snuck up on me and blown at my neck to get my attention.
“I hear you came to the party with Maggie. You’ve been seeing a lot of her.”
“That’s pretty funny coming from you. Does my sister know how much time
you’ve
been spending with Maggie?”
“Maggie is a close family friend.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Bernie spoke to me so close that his breath warmed my ear. “Who is it?”
“I think one of them is Frank.”
“Peculiar. The other one must be a guest?”
Mars darted up behind Bernie and crouched with us. “I see them. What do we do?”
Good question. Their little meeting at my back gate surely qualified as odd behavior, but they hadn’t done or said anything suspicious. So far their only possible connection to the killer was the aroma of licorice, but Frank’s presence explained that. Wolf’s words rang in my ears. He couldn’t make an arrest based on the smell of licorice.
I shrugged and held up my open palms. Maybe there wasn’t anything to do. Maybe we were being totally foolish to huddle behind my potting shed and eavesdrop.
The light of the moon caught a glimmer around one man’s neck, revealing a chain of daggers and giving away Karl’s identity. His flask caught a moonbeam as Frank poured something into it. Good heavens! With all the wines and liqueurs available to him at my house, he still needed something special that Frank had to bring to him?
Bernie nudged me. “Absinthe. Smells like licorice.”
For pity’s sake. Was Karl so addicted to the stuff that he had called his brother-in-law for a refill? Better yet, why would Frank dare to go out in the dark and amble through an alley after being so brutally attacked the night before? I motioned to Bernie and Mars to scoot back to the house, but before any of us had moved, my back gate creaked open.
THIRTY
Dear Natasha,
I saw the first part of your show where you said bowls were a lazy way to hand out candy. I had to go to work and missed your solution.
—Domestic Diva in Chocolate Bayou, Texas
Dear Domestic Diva,
Make a candy topiary! Hot glue a Styrofoam ball to the top of an urn. Glue a dowel rod into the top center. Add a slightly smaller ball on top of the dowel rod. Cover the rod with Halloween ribbon. Hot glue candy to the balls and you’ll have a creative and beautiful candy topiary!
—Natasha
Heather stomped into my backyard and pumped her fists on her hips. “There you are! I knew it. This is just like the night Patrick died when I got into so much trouble. You two are out running around and having a great time, while I have to babysit the monster child.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you promised to go straight home after your babysitting job. And keep your voice down. You don’t want
Blake
to hear you making a fuss, do you?” The inflection Karl placed on Blake’s name suggested to me that it wasn’t the first time he’d used the threat of Blake to obtain Heather’s cooperation.
“You never come home anymore.” Heather’s voice broke like she was crying. “I hate waking up in the middle of the night and knowing you’re not there. Everybody thinks I’m so cool because I can do anything I want. You know the night everybody went to the haunted house? I was there, too. I instigated it! But I didn’t get into trouble because I was smart enough to run down the back stairs and out of the house before they caught me. You weren’t home and didn’t know that I wasn’t home, either. Ever since Mom left, nobody cares about me.”
I wanted to jump up and hug her in spite of all the mean things she’d done. Poor kid.
“What’s that?” she asked. “Ugh, I hate this stuff. Both of you smell like it all the time. I’ll never eat another piece of licorice as long as I live.”
“Heather,” Karl’s tone carried a warning, “let’s not make a fuss in front of Uncle Frank. You go on home now, and we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”