Fine Spirits [Spirits 02] (35 page)

      
Not that he could ever have rivaled my Billy in good looks. Or that I cared.

Chapter Seventeen
 

      
In those days, most stores were closed on Saturday, and all of them were closed on Sunday, so I didn't get to take my Russian bracelet to Arnold's Jewelry Store until Monday. You can bet I showed it to Ma and Aunt Vi, though. They were as awed as I had been--especially when I told them Sam said the gems were genuine.

      
Aunt Vi had to return to work at Mrs. Kincaid's house that morning, and Ma worked half-days on Saturdays at the Hotel Marengo, so I had to get to them early.

      
As soon as I heard Vi in the kitchen starting the coffee brewing, I bounced out of bed, shoved my feet into my old floppy slippers, flung on my robe, and scooted out of the bedroom, leaving Billy to take his time about getting up. It usually took him a while, because his muscles would relax overnight and then hurt like fury when he tried to move his limbs the next morning. He also had to cough a good deal to get the phlegm out of his ruined lungs. Poor Billy.

      
As Ma and Vi stared at the bracelet I'd put on the kitchen table, I stood back and grinned. “I'm going to take it to be appraised at Arnold's on Monday. If it's worth what Sam thinks it's worth, I'm going to buy us a new motorcar sooner than I'd planned.”

      
I guess Ma was still trying to take in the glory of the gemstones because she didn't shut her mouth, which had fallen open in surprise. It was Vi who spoke first. “Are you sure you don't want to keep it, Daisy? It's not every day a body is given something like this. This valuable.” She shook her head, as if she couldn't quite believe it was true.

      
To be honest, I couldn't, either. In fact, I'd thought about it a lot during the night, since I hadn't slept well. If Arnold's Jewelers confirmed Sam's assessment of the bracelet, I decided I'd better hold onto it for a while, just in case the count decided he hadn't really wanted to part with it after all. I don't suppose he'd have been the first person to regret a generous act and then accuse the recipient of theft. I didn't aim to get caught up in anything like that.

      
So, although the notion didn't thrill me, I'd come to the conclusion that I'd better wait and save up my money, without using the bracelet, before I bought a new car. My statement to Vi had been for entertainment's sake.

      
“Actually, I'm not going to sell it. At least, not right away.”

      
“My goodness, Daisy, I've never seen anything like it,” said Ma at last. “May I pick it up?”

      
“Sure! Pick away. If you hold it to the light, better shade your eyes, because the shimmer will blind you.”

      
As if she were lifting a newborn baby out of a bassinet, Ma raised the bracelet in her fingers. “Oh, my, it's heavy, isn't it?”

      
“Sure is. And I'll bet those little shaky stems would catch on your clothes if you didn't take care.” I clasped my hands behind my back and beamed upon my two favorite ladies in the world. They'd been best friends since their school days. Vi had married Pa's brother way back in '92, a few years before Ma married Pa. They were as different as night was from day, but they were still the very closest of friends.

      
I was happy to have brought something interesting into their lives. Not that they were bored or unhappy with the roles they played on a daily basis, but face it, they were both working drudges, just like me, only I had a more interesting job than either of them. What's more, my job was one that occasionally, as it had that day, provided intriguing sidelights.

      
In a way, I looked upon the count's bracelet rather as if it were a treat for all of us, if only because it was unusual for such an item to appear in the Gumm household. And if the count one day rued his generous impulse and demanded the bracelet back, that would be interesting, too.

      
How many other people would have turned a talent for manipulating a Ouija board into a fascinating, full-time, and very remunerative, job? Not very darned many, I'll bet. Even if you didn't approve of how I earned my living, you had to give me credit for ingenuity.

      
The word made me think of Marianne, who didn't have any, and I sighed. Ma, who had been staring at the bracelet as if it were a holy vision, tore her gaze away from it and glanced at me. “What's the matter, dear?”

      
“Not a thing, Ma.” I tried to look as perky as I sounded. “Just thinking about what I'm going to do today.”

      
I usually didn't have to work during daylight hours unless people made appointments to come over for Tarot or Ouija board readings, so I took it upon myself to keep the house clean and tidy. As a rule, I did the job on Saturday, with occasional forays into various rooms with the dust rag, mop, and vacuum cleaner during the week. Once every six months or so, we all washed windows. Even Billy got into the act during window-washing time, because he could reach the lower ones from his wheelchair.

      
That day, after Ma and Vi had admired the bracelet until they were both almost late for work, I put it away, threw on my oldest house dress, tied a big white apron over it, wrapped a scarf around my head, put on my ugliest and most comfortable shoes, and grabbed the dust mop. I actually enjoyed cleaning house. The chore made me feel like a real housewife instead of a phony spiritualist whose husband didn't appreciate her.

      
The day didn't work out exactly as I'd planned. I should have anticipated as much, since my days seldom went the way I wanted them to. I was actually humming the choir's Sunday anthem, “How Great Thou Art,” when the phone rang, almost startling me out of my skin.

      
Although it was our ring, I was in the living room and didn't make it to the kitchen until the entire herd of party-line people had already picked up. Billy grinned over his toast and eggs as I shooed them off the line. Mrs. Barrow was particularly tenacious that day, but eventually even she hung up.

      
With a wink for my husband, I finally got to talk to Mrs. Kincaid, the calling party. I was surprised to hear from her, since she'd only just come home from wherever she'd been visiting, and I knew she was preparing for a large engagement party in a few days' time. The fact that she was practically hysterical jarred my composure.

      
I've already mentioned (probably too often) that Mrs. Kincaid's daughter, Stacy, is a first-class drip. Stacy fancies herself a member of the “lost generation” when she isn't fancying herself one of the “bright young things” everyone was talking about in the early twenties. As far as I was concerned, she was a pain in the neck, and the USA's favorite expression, “I'll say she does,” might have been coined for her alone. She did just about everything she could think of, as long as it annoyed her mother.

      
That day, Mrs. Kincaid sobbed at me about how Stacy had been drinking and carrying on (her words, and I'm not sure exactly what she meant) at a speakeasy on South Fair Oaks Avenue. The place had a Pasadena address, but was technically in the county, so the Pasadena Police Department didn't have jurisdiction over it, according to Mrs. Kincaid, as if the news would interest me, which it didn't.

      
I also didn't know what she expected me to do about it, but I listened. Couldn't do anything else, since she was one of my best clients and a lovely lady, if the tiniest bit dim.

      
“And oh, Daisy, she's taken up with a female named
Flossie
! Can you imagine it?”

      
“Um, I believe Flossie is a nickname for Florence, Mrs. Kincaid.”

      
“Flossie? Flossie? What kind of woman calls herself Flossie?”

      
I couldn't answer that one, although I suspected I knew what Mrs. Kincaid assumed. In the gently soothing tone I adopted when attempting to calm down bereaved or hysterical clients, I purred, “Would you like me to read the cards for you, Mrs. Kincaid? The spirits might offer some suggestions or a bit of comfort.”

      
She sniffled loudly and swallowed. “Yes. Oh, yes, if you can, dear. I'd so appreciate it. I'm so worried about Stacy.”

      
“I understand.” Which was true. Stacy'd been causing Mrs. Kincaid palpitations of one sort or another for years.

      
“I wish one of your spiritual contacts would suggest something to be done about her.”

      
I've never voiced my own personal suggestion, that Mrs. Kincaid should deliver a couple of hearty smacks to Stacy's rear end, and I never would. Mrs. Kincaid would have been shocked and appalled. Not only that, but if she took my suggestion and started treating her daughter like the bratty kid she was, Stacy might reform, and that would cut into my Kincaid business.

      
All right, so maybe Billy might have had some small reason to worry about my overall moral character, but I wasn't
that
bad. Anyhow, it was probably too late for Mrs. Kincaid to begin acting the stern parent. If she started in on Stacy now, the monster child would probably just run away from home. Unlike Marianne Wagner, Stacy wouldn't have felt the slightest qualm about breaking her mother's heart.

      
“She asked me to call you.”

      
This bit of news so astounded me, I nearly dropped the receiver. Billy had been watching, grinning, and I guess he saw my eyebrows shoot up, because he tilted his head and stopped grinning. I shook my head to let him know there was nothing for him to worry about.

      
“Um . . . Do you mean Stacy asked you to call me?” I gave Billy an incredulous grimace. I thought of something that was probably stupid but not quite as unbelievable as the notion of Stacy Kincaid asking her mother to telephone me. Stacy didn't like me any more than I liked her. “Or do you mean Flossie asked you to call me?”

      
“Flossie?” Mrs. Kincaid shrieked the name. “Good heavens, no. I don't know the woman and don't want to.”

      
“I see.” Needless to say, I didn't see a thing.

      
“Stacy asked me to call you because a man named Jenkins--oh, Daisy, Stacy calls the man
Jinx
--wants to hold a séance, and she recommended you.”

      
Nuts to that! If there was one thing on God's green earth not even
I
would do, it was hang out in a speakeasy and conduct a séance for a bunch of lousy, murdering bootleggers. I didn't yell at the woman because I liked her and needed her business, although I refused her request so firmly, I doubted even she could misinterpret my feelings on the matter.

      
“I'm afraid I can't do that, Mrs. Kincaid. My spirit guide is extremely particular about the ambience in which he reveals himself. The atmosphere in such a den of iniquity wouldn't be appropriate.” It wasn't the first time I'd wished I'd chosen a more elegant name than Rolly for my spirit control. But what can one expect from a ten-year-old?

      
Another sniffle. “I told her that,” said a subdued Mrs. Kincaid. A pause ensued, probably because I couldn't think of anything to say, and she was trying to come up with some way to persuade Rolly that it would be perfectly all right for him to show himself in an illicit gin joint. I knew Rolly better than she did, though, and I knew she couldn't do it. “Are you sure, dear?”

      
“Absolutely,” I said firmly. I resisted the urge to say something about speakeasies already being full of spirits and not needing mine.

      
“Very well.” Now she sounded sad.

      
I thought that was a shame, given the fact that she was getting married to a really nice man soon, and almost wished Stacy were present so I could slap her for her mother's sake. I couldn't wait to tell Harold about this. Harold had about as much use for his sister as I did.

      
As soon as I hung up after having my ears abused by poor Mrs. Kincaid for several more minutes, I told Billy all about the call. He shook his head. “This isn't the first time I've thought one of your clients needed a psychiatrist more than she needed you,” he muttered dryly.

      
I sighed. “You're probably right.”

      
I'd no sooner resumed dust-mopping than the doorbell rang, so I trotted to the door and scooped up Spike before he could chew a hole through the door and attack the foot of whoever was standing there (he couldn't reach any higher than that). You can probably imagine my embarrassment when, clad in my house-cleaning clothes, I encountered an entire regiment of Salvation Army members, holding out their tambourines in the hope that I'd donate to their cause.

      
Mind you, I appreciate the Salvation Army. Not only do they serve a truly noble purpose, but they provide the community with a lot of music, and I love music. You couldn't walk down Colorado Boulevard in those days without encountering a Salvation Army band playing up a storm on some street corner or other.

      
Also, my late cousin Paul's best friend, Johnny Buckingham (who was leading the contingent at my front door), had just been promoted to Captain in the Salvation Army. Paul and Johnny had gone off to war together. Johnny had come home. For the first couple of years after that, as had happened to so many other young men, he'd gone to the dogs--no disrespect to Spike intended.

      
It was the Salvation Army that had dragged Johnny out of the gutter and given him a new purpose in life. I honored any institution that didn't give up on people. Besides all that, I'd always liked Johnny and was glad to see him, even if I was also embarrassed by my dowdy appearance.