Strong Spirits [Spirits 01] (13 page)

      
Guiding his mother over to the sofa, Harold said, “There’s a police detective coming to visit us soon, Mother, so try to get yourself under control. You don’t want to be crying when he gets here.”

      
I didn’t know why not. I mean, if a kid of mine were to be arrested, I don’t think I’d care if a policeman saw me cry. Yet another difference between rich people and the rest of us, I supposed.

      
Sniffling into her hankie, Mrs. Kincaid whispered, “Yes. Of course. Thank you, Harold.”

      
After ridding himself of his mother, Harold grinned at me. “Hello, Daisy. How nice to see you again so soon. Sorry for the circumstances.”

      
Mrs. Kincaid sobbed again, dabbed at her eyes, and said, “I asked her to come, Harold. I need some sort of comfort.”

      
“Ah, I see,” said Harold, who plainly didn’t.

      
I didn’t either, if it came to that, but I’d do pretty much anything Mrs. Kincaid asked me to do since she was by far my best customer.

      
Harold’s mother lifted tear-dampened eyes to her son. “Will you please go fetch my Ouija Board, Harold darling? Daisy said she’d help me by consulting Rolly for me.” She turned the eyes my way. “Did you bring the cards, Daisy dear?”

      
I held up the deck. “Right here.”

      
“Swell,” said Harold brightly. He definitely didn’t share his mother’s fear for his sister’s overall welfare, and I wondered if he was as sick of her outlandish behavior as I was. “Be right back.” He winked at me as he dashed out the door.

      
“Um, would you like me to deal the cards while he gets the board, Mrs. Kincaid?”

      
“Oh, yes, dear. Thank you so much.”

      
Mr. Kincaid sneered at both of us, which was nothing new. I ignored him and dealt out a Celtic Cross pattern with the Tarot cards. I’d brought my best deck, bought from a lady I’d met in Chinatown in Los Angeles when I was doing some research. She (the lady) claimed to be a Gypsy, but they all did. I never took claims like that seriously.

      
As I’d half expected, the cards decided not to cooperate with me that day. The very first hand I dealt contained more swords than I’d ever seen, bless it. I sighed inwardly, not wanting to upset Mrs. Kincaid by letting it show. Darn the swords, anyhow. They were the scariest cards in the whole blasted deck.

      
Evidently I didn’t hide my distress well enough or didn’t speak quickly enough or something, because Mrs. Kincaid gasped. “Oh, Daisy! Please tell me they don’t predict disaster.”

      
I ignored Mr. Kincaid’s snort of disgust. “Disaster? Why, no, Mrs. Kincaid. No such thing.” Thinking fast, I said, “They do indicate that you’re facing a time of uncertainty.” That was good. “There’s going to be a period of—chaos.” Was that too strong a word? Glancing at my victim—I mean my subject—from under my lashes, I saw that the poor woman had gone pale, so I hastened on. “This is to be expected, of course, under the circumstances.” Her lips lost their straight-line rigidity, and she nodded. Good. That had worked pretty well, so I played up the temporary aspect of the period of chaos. “We all go through difficult times.” I gave her one of my stock of gracious smiles, and she seemed to appreciate it.

      
“Yes. Of course.”

      
I kept dealing, hoping a couple of wands would show up soon. The darned swords predominated, though, and failing wands, I hoped Harold would jog back into the room with the Ouija board.

      
At last the Empress landed face up on the coffee table. Thank God for small favors. I smiled harder. “Oh, there. You see? It will all work out in the end.” Which was a silly thing to say. I mean, everything works out somehow in the end. Fortunately, people like Mrs. Kincaid didn’t ever stop to consider the nonsensical nature of fortune-telling, or I’d be out of a job.

      
“I’m
so
glad,” she breathed.

      
Bless his heart, Harold trotted into the room, holding his mother’s Ouija board under his arm. I gathered the cards together without further explanation of the dismal nature of their predictions and smiled at Harold, who winked back at me. “Let’s consult Rolly, shall we?”

      
“Oh, yes! Let’s do.” Mrs. Kincaid clasped her hands at her bosom and beamed. “Oh, Daisy, I can’t even begin to tell you how this is helping me cope with this tragedy.”

      
She said no more, which was probably just as well, since I got embarrassed easily.

      
Harold grinned harder.

      
Her husband snorted again.

Chapter Seven
 

      
Rolly had just told Mrs. Kincaid that the Stacy problem would, after a period of strife and confusion, resolve itself happily (something I myself didn’t half believe, given Stacy’s snotty nature) when Featherstone appeared at the drawing-room door. Nobody heard him until he was there, and my admiration for him swelled anew. The guy should have gone in for spiritualism instead of butlering, he was so good at appearing and disappearing silently. When he saw that we were all staring at him, he announced that the police had arrived.

      
“Detective Rotondo,” Featherstone announced in a voice that would have sounded right at home on the Grim Reaper.

      
Harold jumped to his feet. Mrs. Kincaid looked as if she might faint. Mr. Kincaid scowled at his butler, who didn’t look down his nose far enough to see. I just sat there, trying to be as invisible as possible. Not possessing Featherstone’s skill at the art, I imagined anyone coming into the room would see me just fine.

      
A large, dark man in a brown tweed suit loomed up behind the butler. Flanking him were two uniformed police officers. I recognized one of them as Johnny Liljenwall, son of the woman who made Mrs. Kincaid’s clothes. We’d gone to school together. I smiled briefly at him, but I wasn’t sure he saw me. He looked as if he’d rather be somewhere else. Couldn’t say as I blamed him, since I felt the same.

      
Featherstone stepped aside, allowing the police contingent to enter the room. The man I assumed to be Detective Rotondo, the large, dark man in the tweed suit, appeared to feel right at home. I was impressed. Heck, even I, who’d first entered these hallowed portals at the tender age of ten, had been vaguely intimidated during my first several visits.

      
Detective Rotondo nodded at the assembly without visible pleasure. He glanced at the Ouija board, passed over it, and jerked his gaze back to it. From the board, he squinted at me. I thought I recognized disfavor, so I lifted my chin a little to tell him he could lump it if he didn’t like it.

      
He spoke first. “How do you do?” Training his dark eyes on Mrs. Kincaid, he said, “Mrs. Kincaid?”

      
Mrs. Kincaid lifted a trembling hand to her mouth, let it drop to her lap, and whispered, “Yes.”

      
“I’m sorry to have to disturb you, ma’am.” He glanced at the man in the wheelchair and his eyes narrowed. “Mr. Kincaid?”

      
“I’m Kincaid,” said he grumpily. “This won’t take long, will it?”

      
Detective Rotondo cocked his head slightly. “As to that, sir, I can’t say until we get started.”

      
“It had better not take long. I won’t stand for being bothered.”

      
Ignoring Mr. Kincaid, which I considered a sensible reaction, the detective turned to Harold. “And you are . . .?”

      
Harold, evidently opposed to his parents’ not-awfully-polite welcome of this officer into their home—after all, it wasn’t the police department’s fault his sister was a nitwit—walked over to Rotondo, his hand outstretched. “I’m Harold Kincaid. Stacy’s brother. Have a seat.”

      
Mr. Kincaid looked as if he’d have objected except that he didn’t want to make a fuss. Detective Rotondo seemed to relax under the benevolent beam in Harold’s light hazel eyes. Rotondo’s eyes were as dark as the rest of him. He looked like he ought to be posing for statues in parks somewhere in Europe. He’d removed his hat, and his hair showed black, glossy, short-cropped curls. He hadn’t spoken much yet, but I thought I detected the kind of accent Mrs. Barrow had, only not as extreme. From this, I gathered he’d originated somewhere back East, perhaps even New York City.

      
“Thank you, Mr. Kincaid.” Detective Rotondo bestowed a fleeting smile upon Harold, nodded to his two police cohorts, and sat on a chair across from the Kincaid congregation. And me. He eyed Mrs. Kincaid’s Ouija board suspiciously, then eyed me the same way. “And you are?” He was no longer being as polite as he’d first been, probably because he could tell I didn’t belong there.

      
“My name,” I said with frigid diction, “is Mrs. William Majesty.”

      
“She’s a friend of the family’s,” Harold rushed to supply.

      
“Oh, yes,” agreed Mrs. Kincaid. “Daisy’s a wonderful friend to us all.”

      
Mr. Kincaid snorted. He did that a lot.

      
“I see,” said the detective. He didn’t look as if he believed it. Pointing, he asked, “Is that one of those spirit board things?”

      
I answered. “Yes.”

      
“Hmmm.”

      
“Daisy’s been trying to help me through this terrible tragedy,” supplied Mrs. Kincaid, smiling tremulously at me. “She’s such a sweetheart to come when I need her.”

      
“Fortune-telling’s illegal, you know, Mrs. Majesty.”

      
Of course, I knew that. The law didn’t bother me, since I never advertised my services. People just asked me to do my act, and then they gave me money. “Yes,” I said, even colder than before. “I know.”

      
Mrs. Kincaid rose nobly to my defense, which I thought was mighty keen of her, since she had plenty of her own troubles. “Daisy’s not a fortune teller!” she cried. “She uses the gifts God has bestowed upon her to help us who don’t have her—her gifts.”

      
I smiled at her to let her know how much I liked and appreciated her. In fact, I thought she was a peach.

      
The detective shot me another frown and opened his mouth, presumably to rebut Mrs. Kincaid’s assessment of me. The good lady drew herself up in a pose of indignation and didn’t give him a chance, bless her heart.

      
“Daisy does absolutely nothing illegal, I can assure you, Officer. Why, she’s a God-send!” Mrs. Kincaid, who was a mild-mannered woman, sounded about as offended as she possibly could, which wasn’t a whole lot, but she got her point across.

      
The detective graced us with another “Hmmm”, as if he knew what was what even if Mrs. Kincaid chose to allow herself to be fooled. Then he nodded at Johnny Liljenwall, who took out a pencil and a notebook. The other policeman stood at the door, as if he wanted to be sure nobody’d make a bolt for freedom. I crossed my arms over my chest, sat back in the chair I’d chosen, and frowned at the detective. I decided I didn’t like him very much, mainly because he didn’t seem to like me. I really hated it when people assumed I was a cheat and a humbug, even though it was true. At least I was a good charlatan, and my heart was in the right place, and I never made anyone feel bad, which I’m sure is more than
he
could say about
his
job.

      
Detective Rotondo asked questions of Mrs. Kincaid, who answered them to the best of her ability. It was clear to me, and I’m sure it was also clear to the detective, that the poor dear lady didn’t have a clue what her daughter was up to most of the time.

      
The detective seemed incredulous. “You mean to say you didn’t know Miss Kincaid was accustomed to visit speakeasies, Mrs. Kincaid?”

      
Before she could answer, Mr. Kincaid butted in. “Of course, we didn’t know Stacy went to the speaks! Do you think we’d allow her to go if we knew?”

      
He probably would, actually. I don’t think Mr. Kincaid gave a hoot what his kids did.

      
Rotondo eyed him with disfavor. “I’ll ask you a few questions in a minute, sir. Right now I’d like to get an understanding of Mrs. Kincaid’s knowledge of your daughter’s friends and practices.”

      
“This is ridiculous!” Mr. Kincaid snapped. “And it’s offensive. I plan to talk to the chief about this, Officer.”

      
“Detective,” said Rotondo, who didn’t seem to care much who Mr. Kincaid talked to. I began to think maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all, although it was too soon to tell.

      
“You have no right to invade our home,” insisted Mr. Kincaid.

      
“Actually, we do, sir. We have every right when a crime is involved. But we don’t mean it to be an invasion,” said Rotondo stonily. “We need to find out everything we can about your daughter’s activities. She was arrested while breaking the law. Actually, she broke two laws. Even if it were legal to drink alcoholic beverages in saloons, she’s too young to do so. You do understand that, don’t you?”

      
Mrs. Kincaid sobbed at this harsh litany regarding her daughter, and Detective Rotondo lost some ground in my estimation. There was no need to be brutal in the poor lady’s presence, even when he was talking to her husband, who deserved it.

      
Mr. Kincaid muttered, “Balderdash,” wheeled himself around, and commenced staring at the wall. “The girl deserves whatever she gets.”

      
While I agreed with him regarding Stacy, I got the feeling he was more angry with her for getting caught than for breaking the law in the first place. I also thought it was mighty mean to say so in front of Stacy’s mother, who clearly loved her daughter even if Stacy wasn’t worth it. In fact, if I weren’t an adult, professional woman, I might have stuck my tongue out at the old geezer. What did he expect, anyhow? That the police would go away and not bother him because his wife was rich? Or did he think the sons and daughters of millionaires ought not be arrested when they broke the law? Probably.