Shaken Spirits (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 13): Historical Mystery

by Alice Duncan

  “Thank you,” I said, still weakly.

  “But the Benjamins will be joining us, won’t you?” Vi asked the doctor and his wife.

  But they, too, declined Vi’s invitation.

  “It’s tempting,” said Mrs. Benjamin. “But our meal, too, is cooked and ready for us to eat.”

  “I’m sorry for interrupting everyone’s New Year’s Day,” I said, snuffling again. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Nonsense,” said Doc Benjamin. “You need to rest more than you need to worry.”

  If he said so. But I did worry. I worried about my livelihood and that of my family. As the primary bread-winner therein, I catered to people in Pasadena who had lots of money to waste. I appreciated them for wasting so much of their money on me.

  But how could I practice my skills if I couldn’t use my left arm?

  And who had hit me with his or her car? Stacy Kincaid, my best client’s daughter and the only person whom I knew for a fact would like to run me down and kill me, was in jail. The reason she hated me was because I’d been, in part, responsible for her getting arrested. But for Pete’s sake, she’d assisted her lover-boy in committing a foul murder! Not to mention the fact that she’d participated in a child-trafficking scheme in which her cohorts kidnapped children and sold them to perverted men. She was evil, and she wanted me dead, but I figured that was only fair. I loathed her and wouldn’t be at all cut up if someone were to do her in.

  That sounds terrible, doesn’t it?

  I don’t care. It’s the truth.

  “I’m going to sit with you for a while,” said Sam, dragging my mind from the swamp of its distressing thoughts. “And then I’m going to do my best to find out who hit you and why.”

  I gazed at my darling fiancé with eyes swimming in tears.

  “Th-thank you, Sam.”

  He took my right hand and gave it a little squeeze. I shrieked in pain, and he dropped my hand like a hot rock.

  Good Lord, I really did hurt everywhere.

  Two

  Fortunately for all of us, my aunt, Viola Gumm, had her wits about her even in times of crisis. As she’d proposed, she and my mother set the table for the wonderful meal she’d had cooking while we’d been gawking at the Rose Parade. She’d prepared a New England boiled dinner, which consisted of a ham simmered with a bunch of vegetables. She’d put all the ingredients in a huge pot and set it on the stovetop to cook as we watched the parade. Smart woman, my aunt. She was also acknowledged, by people who knew about such things, to be the best cook in Pasadena, California. Not only did she cook for us, but she also worked as a cook for my best client, Mrs. Pinkerton.

  Unfortunately for all of us, Mrs. Pinkerton was the mother of Stacy Kincaid, the one person I could think of who might want to see me dead in a ditch. Mrs. Pinkerton was also an extremely wealthy woman, and one with little common sense or self-control. It had become clear to me at that point in my life that very rich people didn’t need common sense or self-control, because they could purchase the services of others who thought and did things for them.

  Luckily or unluckily, Mrs. Pinkerton depended on me a lot. I appreciated her for it, although I didn’t understand precisely. However, I’d been spiritualist-mediuming since my tenth year, and Mrs. Pinkerton believed the folderol I spewed. Or rather, she believed the folderol Rolly, my made-up spirit control, spewed via the Ouija board, tarot cards and crystal ball.

  Speaking of that stupid crystal ball, it would evidently be a long time before I’d be able to lift that heavy piece of nonsense again.

  Oh, Lord.

  “You’ll be all right, Daisy,” said Sam, reading the worry and frustration in my expression. He didn’t try to take my hand again, which I guess was a good thing, although I could have used some physical comfort at the time.

  Thank God for dogs. Spike, sensing my need for consolation, crept up the bed from the quilt at its bottom and nuzzled my hand. I dared lift it—which hurt—and laid it on his head. Spike sighed, smiled, and went back to sleep. I’ve often wished I could emulate Spike’s philosophy which was, basically, if you can’t eat it or play with it, pee on it and leave it be. Well, I wouldn’t pee on anything, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

  “Thanks, Sam.” I turned my head to look at him, since my neck was about the only part of my body that didn’t screech in agony every time it moved. “Can you think of anyone who might have hit me with the car?”

  “Not offhand.”

  He was lying. I could tell.

  “You’re lying, Sam.”

  He heaved a sigh. “Not lying exactly, but you do have one or two enemies, you know.”

  “But…But…But the only person I know who really wants me dead is Stacy Kincaid!”

  “There are remnants of the Petrie family still extant in Pasadena, sweetheart,” said Sam softly. He too reached out and gave Spike a stroke or two behind his ears. Spike sighed again. He loved his humans.

  “The Petries? But…I thought all the bad guys in that family were dead or locked up, too. Do you know any who aren’t?”

  “Not specifically.”

  I gazed at my beloved. “You’re not being awfully helpful, Sam.”

  “I know, I know. But I’ve got to do some investigating before I can focus on anyone in particular.”

  “Do you know what kind of automobile it was that hit me?”

  “Cole Sportster Sedan. Looked like a ’twenty-three to me.”

  “A Cole Sportster? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Cole Sportster.”

  “Cole Motor Company in Indianapolis, Indiana. Not a lot of them around, which is moderately encouraging, since it should be easy to track the owners of Coles.”

  “Huh,” I said, borrowing one of Sam’s favorite words.

  “Might have been stolen, which will make finding the driver who hit you harder to do.”

  “Can you think of anyone besides Stacy who might want to see me rubbed out?” I’d just read that expression in a book and kind of liked it.

  “Sure. Tons of them.”

  “Tons? What do you mean, tons?”

  “Well, you’ve run up against the Ku Klux Klan, don’t forget.”

  “But they were trying to kill Mrs. Pinkerton’s gatekeeper!” Mrs. Pinkerton’s gatekeeper was a Negro gentleman named Jackson. He was a nice fellow, and those terrible KKK people actually shot him. His mother, a real, live Voodoo Mambo from New Orleans, Louisiana, had given me a Voodoo juju, which, she said, would bring me luck. I wore it on a ribbon around my neck all the time. If I hadn’t ached so much, I might have grasped same and scolded it for not bringing me luck that first day of January in 1925.

  “Heck, I can think of ten or twelve more people who might hold a grudge against you.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “You definitely should watch your step until we figure out who hit you with that car. And don’t forget,” said Sam, interrupting my melancholy contemplation, “There might be friends of that student who might hold a grudge.”

  “That student killed a librarian. I think there should be a special place in hell for people who kill librarians.”

  “What about that doctor at the institute? What was his name?”

  “Dr. Melton. Yes, he was a slimy fellow.”

  “Slimy, was he?” Sam chuckled.

  “Yes! He tried to put his hands all over me when I met him. I know he’s smart, or he wouldn’t be a professor at the California Institute of Technology, but he’s still slimy. I don’t like him any better than Davidson, although I guess Davidson had a legitimate grudge against that horrid professor—providing he was telling the truth. Melton used Davidson’s research and claimed it as his own in a book he wrote.”

  “A book nobody will ever read.”

  “Good point.”

  “Melton’s wife was something, too,” said Sam with a reminiscent smile. I’d like to have smacked him for remembering the gorgeous and slinky Mrs. Melton, but I couldn’t for reasons already mentioned.

>   “Sam.” I tried to sound stern.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not out looking for female companionship.”

  “You’d better not be.”

  “Trust me, you’re plenty enough for me to handle.”

  I don’t think that was meant as a compliment.

  Sam went on in a meditative voice, “Although I believe she’s available now. She divorced Dr. Melton, thanks in part to you.”

  “That wasn’t my fault! Anyhow, from everything Gladys told me, she was just as bad a philanderer as he was.” Gladys Fellowes was the extremely pregnant wife of one of the Caltech professors who’d been involved in the project in question. Dr. Fellowes, however, wasn’t a cad or a philanderer. Both he and Gladys were upright and respectable citizens of our fair city.

  Gladys Fellowes, in case you’re interested, was an old high-school friend of mine, although we’d never been awfully close. That’s because Gladys, whose last name was Pennywhistle until she married Dr. Homer Fellowes, is a brain and I’m not. She even liked algebra! The mere notion of algebra makes me want to hide in a closet. Geometry, on the other hand, was kind of fun as long as we were drawing pictures and/or proving theorems. Then algebra trod upon geometry’s toes, and I got confused again.

  “Anybody else?” I asked, feeling grumpy. But, really, can you blame me?

  “Yeah,” Sam said, scratching his chin as he thought.

  “Who?” This was getting downright frightening.

  “I’ll have to think about it. Maybe I’ll make a list. I’m sure it’ll contain some Petries.”

  “Poor Miss Petrie at the library is so ashamed of the bad branch of her family.” Miss Regina Petrie, who would soon become Mrs. Robert Browning thanks, in part, to me, was my favorite librarian at the Pasadena Public Library.

  “She shouldn’t feel that way. There are lots of crooks with last names shared by good people.”

  “I know that, but she’s sensitive.”

  Sam rolled his eyes again.

  “And I’m supposed to make her wedding gown!” I cried, thinking of one more thing I couldn’t do without the use of my left arm. “How can I make her wedding gown and the bridesmaids’ dresses if I can’t use the sewing machine?” I had to blink away tears.

  “When’s the wedding.”

  “J-June,” I said, sniveling.

  “Plenty of time. It’s the first of January. You’ll be fit as a flea come February.”

  His turn of phrase dried my tears. “Fit as a flea? What does that mean?”

  “Beats me. One of the guys at the department says it a lot.”

  “Oh.”

  Sam and I sat in silence for a moment or two. For some reason, I tried to figure out why a flea might or might not be fit, and why anyone would come up with a saying like that. I personally detested fleas. So did Spike.

  After a few seconds spent pondering that useless train of thought, I said, “What about your idiot nephew?” Sam’s nephew, Frank Pagano, had run away from his home in New York City and landed on Sam’s doorstep with an unwelcome thump a few months prior to that day.

  “As far as I know, Frank’s still with my poor sister in New York,” said Sam. “I haven’t heard any different. Anyway, I don’t think he’s murdered anyone. Yet. Although there’s always time. The kid’s young.”

  “Hmm. Well, I know he doesn’t like me much, but I can’t imagine why he’d want to kill me.”

  “I can’t either, but he’s stupid. Stupid people can often be dangerous, especially if they allow themselves be led by smarter people.”

  “I guess so,” I said, feeling downtrodden, abused and oppressed. “But who might be smarter than he and want to kill me.”

  “I don’t know. I’ll put a trunk call through to Renata as soon as I can, and maybe I’ll find an answer for you.”

  “Thanks, Sam. I think. I mean, I do thank you. I appreciate you helping me so much.”

  “Good.” Sam grinned and patted my hand. Very gently.

  “Anyone else?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

  “Probably. I’ll need some time to think about it.”

  After no more than a split-second’s thought—about as much thought as I ever gave to anything, I fear—I blurted out, “What about you?”

  “What do you mean, what about me? I don’t want you dead. At least not at the moment. Maybe after we’ve been married for a few—”

  “I didn’t mean it that way! Still, you’ve locked up far more crooks and bimbos than I have. You were a policeman in New York City before you came to Pasadena, after all.”

  “Bushwa.”

  “Don’t you ‘bushwa’ me, Sam Rotondo. What if some horrible thug in New York City hired a torpedo to take you out?”

  Sam squinted at me for a second or two. “I beg your pardon?”

  Aggravated, I said, “You know slang as well as I, Sam Rotondo. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  A frown beetled Sam’s brows, and his bushy eyebrows drew together. In a suspiciously snooty voice, he said, “Highly unlikely.”

  “Nertz.”

  “Dinner’s ready!” came the chirpy voice of my darling aunt from the door of my bedroom.

  Dropping his frown, Sam obediently got to his feet and met Vi at the door. She held a tray upon which two plates piled high with foodstuffs rested, along with dinnerware and napkins.

  “You should have called me in to fix that tray, Vi,” said Sam.

  “Nonsense. Daisy needs you more than I do. I have several able-bodied family members to help in the kitchen.”

  “Thank you, Vi,” I said from my bed.

  “You’re welcome, dear. Just you rest. Sam can bring the dishes back to the kitchen when you’re through eating.”

  Technically, it was New Year’s Day, and it was a bit past noon. But, as we did on Sundays, we ate our dinner at lunchtime on New Year’s Day. Which reminded me of something else.

  As Sam settled the tray on my night stand, after carefully removing the lamp and books therefrom, I said, “I wonder if I’ll be able to go to choir practice next Thursday.”

  Without glancing up from his chore, Sam said, “I doubt it, but if you do go, I’ll drive you.”

  “I can—” I began. Then I shut up.

  Peering at me, Sam grinned. “You can what?”

  Heaving a soft sigh, mainly because a big one would have ached too much, I said, “I was going to say I can drive myself, but I guess I can’t, can I?”

  “Not until you get the okay from Dr. Benjamin, you can’t. Even then, I don’t think you should go out alone.”

  “Out of curiosity, how did the accident happen? Evidently someone hit me with a car, but where were you guys? I mean, was I standing alone in the middle of the street or something?”

  “Not originally.” Sam sat back down on the chair beside my bed and glanced from the tray of food to me. “How are we going to do this?”

  “I’m not sure,” said I. “Maybe I can sit up?”

  “Do you think you should?”

  “Well, I can’t eat lying down. At least I don’t think I can.”

  “Let me help you sit up. It’s going to hurt, so brace yourself.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “Yeah.”

  Sam was right. It hurt. A lot.

  Three

  “That’s why Doc Benjamin left you that bottle of morphine syrup, Daisy,” Sam said when I’d almost stopped sobbing.

  Spike, by the way, startled by my cries and moans, had fled to the dining room where there were…well, diners. He lived in hope that someone would drop something. And someone always did, most often on purpose.

  “But I don’t want to take morphine syrup! My Billy killed himself with that stuff!”

  Sam thoughtfully handed me a clean hanky, which he’d fetched from my top dresser drawer. I have no idea how he knew that’s where I kept them. Maybe he’d used his well-developed detectival skills. Or maybe Ma or Aunt Vi had whispered the secret when I’d been unconscious. I didn’t bother a
sking, mainly because I was busy mopping up tears and feeling sorry for myself.

  “Daisy,” said my beloved, staring down at me from his considerable height. Well, he was about six feet tall. As I was only around five feet, four inches—and that’s when I was upright—it seemed considerable to me.

  “What?” I sounded sullen even to my own ears.

  “Billy had been shot during a war and had a body chock-full of shrapnel. His lungs were eaten away by mustard gas. You got hit by a car and will be sore for a week or two. There’s a world of difference between your condition and Billy’s.”

  That sounded reasonable. Because I was so sore and cranky, I didn’t want to say so. However, as I was a trifle sorer than I was cranky, I grumbled, “You’re probably right.”

  “You know I’m right.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t want to admit it.”

  With a chuckle, Sam said, “At least you’re honest.” He picked up the bottle Doc Benjamin had left for me. After pulling his reading glasses from his coat pocket, he peered at the instructions the doctor had written on the label. “Says here you should take a teaspoonful when your pain gets out of hand.” He eyed me critically for a second or two. “I’d say the pain is out of hand. If you want to eat your dinner, you’d better take a spoonful of this stuff first.”

  “I’m not really hungry,” I told him, “but I don’t want Vi to be upset with me for not eating.”

  “Morphine syrup is strong stuff,” said Sam. “It might make you sick to your stomach if you don’t take it with food. So drink the syrup and then eat your dinner.”

  “Yes, sir.” I’d have saluted, but it would have hurt too much. “Anyway, I wouldn’t want to alarm Aunt Vi. She worries when I don’t eat because…Well, you know.”

  “Yes,” said Sam. “I know.”

  After Billy’s death, I couldn’t eat. Just couldn’t. As a result, I got so skinny I nearly disappeared. As of January 1, 1925, I still hadn’t regained all the weight I’d lost during those terrible months.

  “So you’ll take a spoonful of this stuff,” Sam commanded.

  “I guess I’d better.” I sighed heavily.