Murder on Waverly Place

by Victoria Thompson

“She was still asking her mother if she should sell it, so I think she did not, at least not yet.”

  “How was she paying for the séances, then?” Malloy asked.

  Serafina stole a guilty glance at Mrs. Decker, then looked down to where her hands were clenched on the tabletop.

  “What is it, Serafina?” Sarah prodded. “We can’t help you if you don’t tell us the whole story.”

  Serafina swallowed. “Mrs. Gittings told Mrs. Burke that she could come back if she brought someone new.”

  “Had she brought other people there before?” Sarah asked.

  “No, but . . . but Mrs. Gittings said she would charge the new person twice the fee so Mrs. Burke did not have to pay.”

  Mrs. Decker gasped in outrage. “I can’t believe Kathy would do something like that!”

  “She was desperate, Mrs. Decker,” Serafina said, defending her. “You do not know . . .”

  “Well, I’ll certainly have something to say to her about it,” Mrs. Decker said.

  “Do you think she was desperate enough to kill Mrs. Gittings?” Sarah asked.

  “She was very angry,” Serafina said. “And frightened. And she asked me . . .”

  “What did she ask you?” Malloy prodded.

  “She asked me if I knew Mrs. Gittings was demanding so much money from her.”

  “What did you tell her?” Sarah asked.

  Serafina bit her lip, as if she were carefully considering her reply. “Mrs. Gittings always said I should never talk about money with the clients, so I told her if not for Mrs. Gittings, I would not even charge her.”

  “Oh, my,” Sarah said softly.

  Serafina realized everyone was staring at her. “What is wrong?” she asked in alarm.

  “You gave Mrs. Burke a very good reason to get rid of Mrs. Gittings,” Malloy said grimly.

  The girl looked horrified.

  “I don’t care what reasons she had or how desperate she was, I just can’t imagine Kathy Burke stabbing anyone like that,” Mrs. Decker said, defending her old friend.

  Sarah knew better than to offer an opinion. Even her limited experience with investigating murders told her that often the most unlikely suspect was the guilty one. “What about Mr. Sharpe?” she asked, remembering that he was sitting on the other side of Mrs. Gittings and would have had an even better opportunity to stick the knife into her back.

  “He is a very proud man,” Serafina said. “He is used to having people do what he wants.”

  “What did he want you to do?” Sarah asked.

  “Not what you think,” the girl hastened to explain.

  “I wasn’t thinking anything,” Sarah lied.

  “He has visited many spiritualists,” Serafina said. “He never believed in any of them until he came to me.”

  “How did you convince him when the others didn’t?” Malloy asked.

  “I do not know,” Serafina said, “but many of them are fakes and not even good fakes at that.”

  Sarah gave Malloy a warning glance. She knew he agreed with her that all spiritualists were fakes. She didn’t want to offend Serafina just when she was starting to give them useful information, though.

  “How long had he been coming to see you?” Mrs. Decker asked.

  “About two months,” she said. “He wanted to contact his wife. He loved her very much, and he was lonely without her.”

  “When I was there, he asked his wife about a decision he was making,” Sarah reminded all of them. “Do you know what he was trying to decide?”

  “No, I told you before. When Yellow Feather is there, I do not know what is happening. But Mr. Sharpe always consulted his wife before he made a decision. That is why he was so glad when I was able to help him contact her. None of the others could do that.”

  Sarah suddenly realized something important. “If Sharpe had been to a lot of séances, he might know the trick about holding hands,” she told Malloy.

  “What trick about holding hands?” Mrs. Decker asked.

  Sarah demonstrated it for her.

  “Good heavens,” she exclaimed. “How clever.”

  “And Sharpe was sitting right next to Mrs. Gittings,” Sarah reminded them. “So he really believed you’d contacted his dead wife?”

  “Oh, yes, he was very pleased. He said it was not right that I had to sell my talents, though. He thought I should be free to help anyone who came to me.”

  “And he offered to set you up in a house of your own,” Sarah recalled.

  “What did he want in return?” Malloy asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing,” Serafina assured him. “Except . . .”

  Malloy brightened, expecting the worst. “Except what?”

  “He wanted me to . . . to test my powers,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “What does that mean?” Sarah asked.

  “I am not sure, but Mrs. Gittings would never allow it.”

  “There are people who make it their business to show up people who are frauds,” Malloy said. “They go to a séance and expose the tricks.”

  “No, that is not what he wanted to do,” Serafina explained quickly. “He wanted to bring in some people who would ask me questions to prove my powers are real.”

  “Or that they weren’t,” Malloy offered.

  “My powers are real!” Serafina insisted. “Mr. Sharpe said that when they proved me, I would be famous. I was willing, but Mrs. Gittings refused.”

  “Why not?” Malloy asked, not bothering to hide his skep ticism. “If you could prove you were real, a lot more people would pay to see you. Wouldn’t Mrs. Gittings like that?”

  Serafina turned the full force of her disdain on him. “If I got famous, I could leave her. She knew Mr. Sharpe had already made me an offer. Others would, too.”

  Unless they proved she had no powers at all, Sarah thought, which was more likely what Mrs. Gittings feared.

  “Did Sharpe ask you to leave Mrs. Gittings?” Malloy asked.

  “Not at first,” Serafina said. “He did not know she was my manager, so he offered to be my sponsor. He said he would pay for everything so I would not have to take money for my readings anymore. I did not know what to say, so I told him I could not accept. He would not stop asking, though, so Mrs. Gittings had to tell him the truth.”

  “Were you there when she did?” Sarah asked.

  “No, but Mr. Sharpe was not pleased. As I said, he is used to getting what he wants, and Mrs. Gittings was not kind to him. I think she was very happy to tell him about her power over me.”

  “Did he give up then?” Malloy asked.

  Serafina’s lovely face hardened. “No, he did not. He tried to convince me to leave Mrs. Gittings. I told him I could not, but I could not tell him why, not the real reason, so he would not stop asking me.”

  “What was the real reason?” Mrs. Decker asked.

  Serafina smiled sadly. “I am sure Mr. Sharpe would not allow Nicola to live with me in the house he was paying for.”

  “He must have wondered what kind of a hold Mrs. Gittings had over you,” Sarah mused. “And why it was so strong.”

  “And maybe he thought if Mrs. Gittings was dead, she’d be free of it,” Malloy added.

  “I never thought of that,” Serafina marveled.

  “Mr. Sharpe seemed like such a gentleman,” Mrs. Decker observed. “I just can’t see him . . . Well, I must admit I can’t imagine anyone wanting to stick a knife into a woman in the hope of killing her.”

  Serafina’s fine eyes glowed with suppressed fury. “That is because you did not know her.”

  Sarah saw Malloy looking at Serafina in a completely new way.

  “Did you want to kill her?” he asked casually.

  “Yes, I did,” she admitted guilelessly, “but I was too afraid.” She lifted a hand to her throat. “I do not want to hang.”

  “Murderers don’t hang anymore,” Malloy said mildly. “They go to the electric chair.”

  All three women gasped. Sarah could have cheerful
ly smacked him, but he didn’t seem concerned. He was too busy studying Serafina’s reaction.

  The blood seemed to have drained from her face. “What does this electric chair do?” she asked in a whisper.

  “It kills,” Sarah snapped, silently warning Malloy not to offer any details. “It’s supposed to be more humane than hanging.”

  “What does that mean?” Serafina asked in alarm.

  Sarah searched for a word. “It’s kinder,” she tried, although she knew she was misleading the poor girl. She had no illusions that the electric chair was any kinder a way to die than hanging.

  “But you’re still dead,” Malloy said.

  “Which is why,” Mrs. Decker said, jumping in with a reproving glare for Malloy, “you need to tell us everything you can to help us find the real killer, my dear.”

  “Yes,” Sarah said quickly. “Who’s left?”

  “Mr. Cunningham,” Mrs. Decker said when Serafina seemed still too stunned to respond.

  “He was sitting too far away from Mrs. Gittings,” Mrs. Decker said. “He was between me and Serafina, completely on the other side of the table.”

  “Did he ever let go of your hand?” Malloy asked her.

  “Actually, I was holding his wrist and no, I didn’t . . . Oh, wait.”

  “What is it, Mother?” Sarah asked when her mother hesitated.

  “I just remembered, he did . . . or rather I did, let go, I mean. When Madame Serafina got up to turn out the light. He started coughing. He said excuse me or something, and he withdrew his hand so he could get out a handkerchief.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember,” Serafina said. “He coughed into it.”

  “Yes, and he was still coughing when you closed the door and the room went dark. I heard you sit down, and he was still coughing, but then he stopped, and he must have put his handkerchief away, and I felt his wrist brush my hand and I took hold of it.”

  “Did you have one of your hands free that day?” Malloy asked Serafina.

  “No, not that day. I . . . I was supposed to, but I knew I would be leaving that night, so I was not afraid of what Mrs. Gittings would say if everything did not go the way she wanted.”

  “But you said Mr. Cunningham knew the trick of how to keep one hand free,” Sarah remembered.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “What good would that do him, though?” Mrs. Decker asked. “Even if he had one hand free, he would have had to reach around me and Mr. Sharpe both to stab Mrs. Gittings. He couldn’t possibly have done that.”

  “So each of you had hold of his hands—or at least of one of them—when Mrs. Gittings was killed,” Malloy asked Serafina and Mrs. Decker.

  “Yes,” they both agreed.

  “And since he couldn’t have reached her from where he was sitting, and he couldn’t have gotten up without one of them knowing it, he couldn’t have killed her,” Sarah determined.

  “Did he have any reason to want to?” Malloy asked Serafina. “You claimed yesterday that they all did, so what was his reason?”

  “He . . . he wanted me to . . .” Serafina could not make herself say the words.

  “He’s in love with her,” Mrs. Decker said for her. “Couldn’t you see it yesterday?”

  “Yes, I could,” Malloy confirmed. “Did he want to marry you, Serafina?”

  “No, of course not,” she snapped angrily. “He could not marry a girl like me. He wanted me for his mistress.”

  “Did he actually make you that offer?” Mrs. Decker asked in outrage.

  “No, but . . . Mrs. Gittings told me. She said he offered her money to let me go, but it was not enough,” she added bitterly.

  “Who was it he was trying to contact?” Malloy asked, as if he couldn’t remember, although Sarah was sure he did.

  “His father. He did not know what to do without his father.”

  “And what did his father tell him to do?” Malloy asked.

  “He . . . Mrs. Gittings made me tell him to invest money in a . . . I do not know. Something her friend was doing.”

  “Some phony investment scheme,” Malloy guessed.

  “Why would Mr. Cunningham do that?” Sarah asked.

  “Because he needed more money,” Serafina said, her cheeks crimson with fury. “Mrs. Gittings told him if he offered more money, he could . . . he could have me.”

  “That’s unspeakable!” Mrs. Decker declared.

  “But he lost his money, didn’t he?” Malloy asked relentlessly.

  “Yes, and then I was supposed to tell him to invest more. Mrs. Gittings kept telling him he needed more and more . . .” Her voice broke, and she covered her mouth, fighting tears.

  “What a horrible woman,” Mrs. Decker said as Sarah put an arm around Serafina. “I’m not sure whoever killed her did such a bad thing.”

  “Wait a minute,” Malloy said. “I thought Cunningham was rich. Why would he need this phony investment scheme to get the money Mrs. Gittings wanted?”

  “His family is rich,” Serafina said. “But he only gets an allowance. He does not inherit his father’s fortune until he is twenty-five, in three more years.”

  “Where did he get the money to invest then?” Malloy asked.

  “From his mother. She . . . He is her only child. She is very generous, but she would not give him money for a mistress,” Serafina said, spitting out the last word.

  “Thank heaven for that, at least,” Mrs. Decker murmured.

  “How much money did Cunningham lose to Mrs. Gittings’s friend?” Malloy asked.

  “I do not know.”

  “If he was going to use the money to get Serafina away from Mrs. Gittings and then he lost it,” Sarah said, “he might have been desperate enough to kill her.”

  “But we were both holding his hands,” Mrs. Decker reminded her.

  “Serafina,” Malloy said, startling her. “If you can keep one hand free when everybody is holding hands around the table, can you keep both hands free?”

  “I do not know,” she said in surprise. “I have never tried it.”

  “Let’s try it now,” he said, offering Mrs. Decker his wrist. They all joined hands again.

  “Now Serafina is getting up, and I’m going to start coughing and let go.” Malloy and Serafina freed both of their hands. “Then Serafina comes back, but I don’t put my hands on the table this time.” He pulled his hands back and put them in his lap. “Mrs. Decker, you’d be looking for my hand in the dark.”

  “And Serafina would be looking for your other hand,” Sarah said, understanding how it could work.

  Mrs. Decker took Serafina’s wrist in her left hand, but then she shook her head. “No, no. I might take her wrist by mistake in the dark, but I would never believe it was yours, Mr. Malloy.”

  “Could you have mistaken it for Cunningham’s, though?” he challenged her. “He’s a much thinner man.”

  “Yes, he is,” Serafina said in surprise. “I had not thought of it before.”

  “Could that have happened, Mother?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Decker said with a frown, “but it’s possible, I suppose.”

  “Even if he could get free, he’d still have to find Mrs. Gittings in the dark, though,” Sarah pointed out.

  “And how would he know where to stab her?” Mrs. Decker added. “He would have had to feel around in the dark, and she would have noticed if someone touched her. Surely, she would have cried out in surprise, if nothing else.”

  “I don’t think it would be too hard,” Malloy mused. “He didn’t have to walk far, and he’d hear people talking, so he could get his bearings that way.”

  “He could touch the chairs,” Serafina offered.

  They all looked at her in surprise.

  “You touch the backs of the chairs,” she repeated. “That is how you know where you are.”

  “So he could just walk around the table until he came to the third chair, where he knew Mrs. Gittings was sitting,” Malloy said. “The chair back would tell him
where her body was, so all he had to do was—”

  “That’s enough,” Sarah said quickly. “We understand. But could he have gotten up quietly enough so no one noticed?”

  “Everybody was shouting,” Malloy reminded them. “Were you paying attention to the people around you, Mrs. Decker?”

  “Not at all,” she said in surprise. “I would have known if someone let go of my hand, but if Mr. Cunningham had slid his chair back and gotten up, I doubt I would have noticed.”

  “But shouldn’t someone have noticed when Mrs. Gittings got stabbed?” Sarah asked. “Wouldn’t she have screamed or something?”

  “I asked the medical examiner the same thing, and he said no,” Malloy said. “The knife went straight into her heart, and she died quickly.”

  “But surely she felt some pain when the knife went in,” Sarah said.

  “She might’ve felt a pain, but since she wasn’t expecting to be stabbed, she probably wouldn’t have thought it was anything really bad,” Malloy explained. “Everybody has unexpected pains from time to time. They usually just pass, and we forget about them.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Decker exclaimed. “I think we’ve proven that any one of the three of them could be the killer.”

  “And don’t forget the Professor,” Malloy said.

  “But he wasn’t even in the room,” Sarah reminded him.

  Malloy turned to Serafina. “Could he have gotten in without anybody knowing it?”

  She frowned. “He could have come in through the cabinet, but Nicola was in there. He would have seen him, and he would have told me.”

  “Is there any other way to sneak in?”

  “No,” Serafina said.

  Malloy gave her one of his glares.

  The girl blinked but held her ground. “I would tell you,” she insisted. “I want to help.”

  “Of course you do, dear,” Mrs. Decker soothed her and gave Malloy a reproving glance.

  He ignored it. “Supposing he could have gotten into the room somehow, did he have any reason to want Mrs. Gittings dead?”

  Serafina considered the question for a long moment. “I do not know.”

  “You said they were lovers,” Sarah reminded her, thinking that was a strange word to use for middle-aged people but unable to think of another. “Did they get along well?”