Spirits Onstage (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 8)

by Alice Duncan

  "I can't talk to you any longer, Harold. I have a ghastly feeling my home is about to be invaded by the Pasadena Police Department."

  "The Pa—"

  But I hung the receiver on its cradle, sucked in a gallon or so of air in preparation for the unpleasantness to come, and walked to the front door. After I'd told my darling dog to sit and stay, which he did, thereby cementing him in my esteem as much superior to most of the human beings on earth. I opened the door.

  "H'lo, Sam," said I even before I knew it was he.

  "Let me in, dammit," said Sam, growling. He growled a lot. Especially at me.

  I stepped aside, pulling the door with me, and told Spike he was free to lavish his affections upon Sam, who was unworthy of them. "No need to swear at me," I said. But I only said it out of... I don't know. Habit? Tradition? I guess one of those was it. I always told him not to swear at me, and he always swore at me, so nothing ever changed.

  In spite of that kiss. Crumb.

  Because I knew why he was there, I said, "Harold just called and told me."

  Sam, who had been kneeling to pay homage to Spike, as was only right, stood and whirled around, making his heavy overcoat twirl out like a cape in a bad melodrama. "Harold called and told you what?"

  "That Gloria Lippincott's husband was murdered last night."

  "How the hell...?" His voice trailed off, and he pressed a hand to his forehead, dislodging his hat, which he caught with a deft movement. For such a large man, he could move quickly when necessity called for it.

  "I don't know how he knows," I said in answer to his unasked question. "I suspect Gloria told him. She's been whining on his shoulder for weeks now. She probably did it. What was his name, anyway?"

  "Michael. And why do you say she did it?"

  "Come on in and sit down. Hang your coat and hat on the rack. I'll get us some... I don't know. Something to drink."

  Sam did part of what I suggested and hung up his hat and coat on the rack by the door. He said, "Is your aunt home?"

  I turned and squinted at him. "You know as well as I do that Vi works for the Pinkertons every day, Sam Rotondo. Of course, she's not home."

  "In that case, I'll just have a glass of water, please."

  I felt my lips press together. Very well. I know I'm a rotten cook. And Sam knows it, because he's tasted the results of some of my disasters in the kitchen. Still, if a man's going to kiss a woman one day, he shouldn't insult her the next, darn it.

  But there was no way I was going to tell Sam I thought those things, especially about the kiss. "Milk might go better with the cookies Vi made the other day. She calls them sand tarts. They're made with ground pecans."

  "Sounds good. I'll take a glass of milk and some cookies then."

  "Sit at the table while I get them."

  So Sam sat at the table, making it two males who'd followed my instructions in one day. Only I knew this obedience on Sam's part wouldn't last. Spike, I could depend on.

  Nevertheless, I prepared a plate complete with a doily and a pile of Vi's scrumptious sand tarts, and poured two glasses of milk, one for Sam and one for me. I set his milk and the plate of cookies before him on the table. Spike sat at attention at his feet, hoping for a crumb or two.

  I saw Sam break a cookie in half and said harshly, "Don't feed that to Spike!"

  Sam glanced at me, frowning. No surprise there. "Why not?"

  "Because dachshunds shouldn't eat cookies. They get fat easily, and the extra weight is bad for their backs."

  "Oh." Sam shrugged and popped the half-cookie he had aimed to feed Spike into his mouth. "Sorry, Spike."

  Spike took it like the man he was, and only sat there, alert and on guard. And cookieless. Poor Spike.

  "Now, what about Mr. Lippincott?" I asked. "How'd he die?"

  "First of all, why did you say Gloria Lippincott did it?"

  I should have known he'd zero in on that. "A mere slip of the tongue," said I, and ate a cookie.

  "Huh. He was hit by a car outside his club."

  "That's odd. Just the other day, Mrs. Lippincott said she'd almost been run down outside Nash's."

  "Yeah. I remember. But she didn't do it." Sam frowned at me some more. I was used to it.

  "How do you know that? Have the police even bothered to question her?"

  "She was taken in to the station and questioned for hours," said Sam.

  "Well, how do you know for sure she didn't do it?" I asked, feeling outraged. Dagnabbit, Gloria Lippincott was a slithery snake in the grass who preyed on men. She should have done it!

  "She was at a bridge game when the man was killed."

  "Oh." Rats. There went my perfect theory. "Well, I'll bet she's in cahoots with whoever did it. Or should that be whomever?"

  "How the hell should I know?" Sam thrust another sand tart into his mouth and chewed savagely.

  I tried another tack. "Well, can you tell by what's left of him, or on him, what kind or color of automobile did him in?"

  "The forensics people are working on that."

  "Where's his club?" I asked for the heck of it.

  "El Molino Avenue, a little north of Colorado."

  "Oh." I tried to visualize the location in my mind. I kind of remembered a building on El Molino north of Colorado that might well have been a men's club.

  "So why'd you say his wife did it?" Sam asked, after swallowing.

  "I don't know," I told him. "I don't like the woman, and Mrs. Bissel told me just this morning that she's been trying to seduce Dennis. Dennis is her son. The woman's a she-devil."

  "You know this how? That she's a she-devil, I mean."

  He had me there. "Well, if Mrs. Bissel's right, Mrs. Lippincott is trying to break up her son's marriage. I think that qualifies her as a she-devil."

  "If," Sam said. "If. It's a small word, but it carries a lot of weight."

  "Yeah, yeah. I know." I was annoyed. Yes, I'd jumped the gun by naming Gloria Lippincott a murderess, but I didn't like her and figured better her than someone I did like. "So how do you know for sure she was at the bridge party? Where was it?"

  "I know because the hostess of the bridge party was Mrs. Hastings, and she confirmed Mrs. Lippincott's presence at her home all evening."

  "Drat. Mrs. Hastings wouldn't lie for that harpy." Mrs. Hastings was a lovely woman who grew orchids in her astonishingly large estate in the San Rafael hills of Pasadena. Her only son had been murdered several months prior.

  "What do you know about this Lippincott dame?" By that time, Sam had demolished the cookies on the plate and finished his glass of milk.

  "Not much. She has a beautiful soprano voice, which doesn't seem fair somehow, and she's playing Pitti-Sing in The Mikado. I don't think her husband, from whom she was estranged according to Harold, was cast in the play. She's..." I tried to think of a good word to describe what little I knew about Gloria Lippincott—and I came up with a good one, by gum! "She's sultry."

  Sam wrinkled his nose and squinted at me. "Sultry? How so?"

  I waved a hand, giving Spike hope, which was wrong of me. I'd give him a treat later to make up for it. "I don't know. She's slinky. Good looking. Elegant. Wears her eyes at half-mast in order to appear alluring, which, for all I know, she is, men being the foolish creatures they are. Older than I am by maybe ten years. Maybe more. Wears a lot of makeup. Flutters her eyelashes at the men and ignores the women. You know. She's that type."

  "Great. That gives me a lot to go on."

  "Darn it, Sam Rotondo, I don't know the woman!"

  "You seem to have her pegged, even if you don't know her."

  "I observed her at the rehearsal, and I've seen her at other people's houses. And Harold told me that she told him that her husband was trying to kill her." Drat. And I'd told Harold only days earlier than I never observed anything. Well, neither Sam nor Harold needed to know about my wishy-washiness. "Harold knows her heaps better than I do. Why don't you go and ask him?"

  "I will. You say your next r
ehearsal is tomorrow night?"

  I heaved a largish sigh. Thanks to Gloria Lippincott having someone murder her estranged husband—or maybe she didn't. What did I know?—Sam was going to see tomorrow's rehearsal whether I wanted him to or not. "Yes. Seven to nine. Sanctuary at the First Methodist-Episcopal Church on—"

  "I know where it is," Sam barked at me.

  "Good," I barked back. "If her husband just died, she might not be there," I reminded him.

  He said, "Huh," which was typical.

  "Well, Harold said they were estranged. Whatever that means. Maybe she doesn't care that he got murdered."

  With a roll of his eyes, Sam rose from the table. "Thanks for the cookies and milk."

  "You're welcome."

  Because Spike had been so very patient and hadn't barked or begged, I said, "Before you go, I want to show you something."

  "What?"

  "Just a minute, and I'll show you."

  I hurried to the kitchen and snatched an arrowroot biscuit from a tin in the cupboard. Arrowroot biscuits might not be dog food, but they were probably better for dachshunds than sand tarts. I broke the biscuit in half as I hurried back to the dining room.

  Naturally, Sam hadn't waited for me there, but had gone to the living room, donned his hat and coat, and now stood impatiently before the front door, gazing at me crankily, as if I'd kept him waiting for hours and hours. Nuts to him.

  "Watch this," I commanded Sam.

  "Yeah. Go on."

  I looked down upon my dog, who was in the process of frolicking at Sam's feet. I said, "Spike," and he stopped frolicking and looked up at me. I said, "Spike. Sit." He sat.

  Sam grumbled something under his breath, but I ignored him.

  "Spike, what's two plus two."

  My faithful hound's tail started wagging up a storm. He knew this game. He barked four times and stopped.

  I said, "Good boy!" and handed him half of the arrowroot biscuit.

  Sam's eyebrows dipped over his eyes. They reminded me of a couple of fuzzy caterpillars having a conference right above his nose.

  "Spike," I went on. "What's three times two?"

  Spike barked six times and stopped, looking up at me with eyes aglow.

  "What a special, good boy you are!" I cried at my amazing pooch, and I knelt and not only gave him the other half of the arrowroot biscuit, but petted him thoroughly.

  "How'd you teach him math?" Sam asked. He wasn't even growling any longer, but sounded honestly curious.

  Ha. Spike and I had managed to astonish the great detective. I peered up at him and grinned. "Spike is brilliant."

  "No, really. How'd you teach him that?"

  "Maybe, if you're good, I'll tell you. Some day."

  "Cripes." Sam slammed the door on his way outside.

  "Good boy, Spike!"

  After I'd changed from my spiritualist clothes into a comfy old day dress, Spike and I retired to the sofa in the living room, and he sat on my lap while I read The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. I felt a little triumphant myself, for having flummoxed the great detective.

  Chapter 9

  Rehearsal began promptly at seven p.m. that Thursday—choir practice had been rescheduled for six p.m. for the duration. I was pleased to see Dennis and Patsy Bissel holding hands. They were playing parts in the chorus. I guess Dennis hadn't succumbed to Gloria Lippincott's wiles. Yet, anyway. They were a sweet couple.

  Lawrence and Sylvia Allen were there, too. They were a society couple, but they didn't seem as lovey-dovey as Dennis and Patsy. In fact, Sylvia appeared downright distressed. I cornered Harold, and he said that was because Lawrence and another woman were having a hot-and-heavy affair, and that Sylvia knew all about it, but that she loved Lawrence and didn't want to give him a divorce.

  Hmm. People were sure wanting to divorce each other a lot in those loose days, weren't they? I'd never have divorced Billy. Never mind that our married life had been fraught with... well, it had been fraught, but that wasn't our fault. The fault lay with Kaiser Bill.

  By the way, there were governmental talks underway about extracting some sort of retribution in monetary form from the land-grabbing, boy-killing Kaiser, but I doubted they'd do any good even if they could be enforced. Heck, Wilhelm II had abdicated, was in exile in Holland, and the damage was already done. Anyway, how much money were several thousand dead people worth? Or the Belgian, French and British regions that had been bombed all to heck by the Germans? Mind you, if some Dutch citizen took it upon himself to kill the man, I doubt many tears would be shed.

  Oh, don't let me get started.

  Gloria Lippincott turned up at rehearsal on Thursday night. I'm not sure why I was surprised. After all, she had been estranged from her husband. I guess that meant they hadn't liked each other and weren't living together, although I wasn't positive about that last part.

  So I asked Harold, "Why's the cat-woman here tonight? Isn't she in distress over her husband's demise?"

  Harold said something like, "Tsch." Then he added, "They hadn't been living together for a couple of years. Anyway, she wants to be near her new prey."

  "By that, I presume you mean other men, like Lawrence Allen and Dennis Bissel."

  "Bingo."

  "Well... still. Wouldn't you think she'd at least put on a show of being heartbroken or something?"

  "Look at her," Harold advised. "If that's not heartbroken, I don't know what is."

  I took his advice, not having wanted to make a spectacle of myself and stare at her when I first walked into the sanctuary. "Oh. I see."

  "Indeed." Harold's voice was quite dry.

  But, really. Somehow or other, Gloria Lippincott had managed to smudge her makeup around her eyes so that she appeared woebegone. She also had her hankie out and dabbed at her eyes whenever anyone passed her by—she sat in the front row of pews. That's something you don't see often, by the way. People in the front row of Methodist churches, I mean. I understand the Baptists aren't so shy, but we Methodists generally fill up the sanctuary from about the third row back.

  Then there was Sam. Sam had driven me to rehearsal, over my objections. But he said he had a murder to investigate, and one of his suspects—who evidently hadn't done the deed herself, having been playing bridge at the time—had a part in The Mikado, so there wasn't much I could do about it.

  So there he was. Not for Sam the front row. Not he. He stood on the right side of the chancel, his arms crossed over his chest, looking official, even though he wasn't wearing a uniform. But from the way he scowled as his gaze scanned everyone there, you'd have thought he was going to pounce upon all of us and arrest the whole cast. I tried not to stare at him, but kept my gaze on Gloria Lippincott.

  "Hmm," said I. "Maybe I should go offer my sympathy."

  Harold gawked at me. "You mean to Gloria?"

  I shrugged. "Why not. Is anyone else you know bereaved? Maybe I can wrangle some information out of her."

  "About what?"

  "About whom she hired to murder her husband."

  "What?"

  People turned to stare at Harold and me, so I frowned and said, "Shh. No need to yell."

  "But... do you really think she...?"

  "I have no idea. But I'm going to go offer her my sympathy, which, I'm sure, is at least as genuine as her grief."

  "The role of Katisha is beginning to affect you in adverse ways, Daisy Majesty."

  I only grinned and walked down the chancel steps and up to Gloria Lippincott, composing my face into a mask of sympathetic understanding as I did so. She glanced up at me uneasily, as if she were hoping a male cast member would offer her comfort and was disappointed to find a female instead.

  But I was a mistress of my art. I put on my most compassionate expression, and sank down onto the pew next to her. "I was so awfully sorry to learn of your husband's passing, Mrs. Lippincott. I know what it's like to lose a husband." Instantly my heart squished. Maybe Katisha had turned me sour. I'd loved my Billy.
In fact, I loved him still. Yet here I was, using him as a prop for my snooping. I'd have been ashamed of myself if I weren't already in my role as consoler.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Majesty. Yes." She paused to sniffle a couple of times. "Michael and I hadn't been getting along, but it was still such a shock."

  "And so ironic that it happened so shortly after you were nearly run down, too."

  Her eyes opened fully for the first time since I'd met her at Mrs. Pinkerton's party. "You know about that?"

  I nodded, slathering on a sad face to go with my benevolent tone. "Yes. Harold told me. I'm so sorry. Do you have any idea who's doing these awful things?"

  Another sniffle. "No. I don't have any idea. I... I originally thought Michael was trying to kill me, because he wouldn't give me a divorce, even though he was having an affair with another woman." She sniffed again, only this one sounded more irritated than tragic. "But strange things kept happening to me. And then a car almost hit me in front of Nash's the other day. I was so upset."

  "I can imagine."

  Suddenly, Gloria turned to face me and put a hand on my arm, as if she'd just thought of something pertinent. "Oh, Mrs. Majesty! You're the medium, aren't you?"

  "Ah... yes, I'm a spiritualist-medium." So what? I wanted to add, but didn't.

  "Could I hire you to do a séance? Perhaps Michael himself can tell us who tried to kill me and who did kill him!"

  Well, pooh. This wasn't turning out the way I'd expected it to. I'd expected her to have been the evildoer in this melodrama, not an almost-murdered widow. But if she were asking me to perform a séance in order to get in touch with her late estranged husband, maybe I was wronging her. On the other hand, maybe she was just a good actress.

  Putting on my spiritualist's cloak of mystery, I said, "I could, of course, perform a séance and attempt to get in touch with your late husband, Mrs. Lippincott. However, I must tell you that it often takes a spirit some time to settle into peace on the Other Side. This is especially true if a person has had his or her life cut short violently." I hauled out this excuse a lot, and it saved me a good deal of time and effort.

  "Oh." She removed her hand from my arm, folded her hands in her lap, and recommenced looking heartbroken. "I see." Then she turned and faced me again, abruptly. I darned near jumped, but I'm better at my job than to allow folks to rattle me. "But could you try? Whoever killed Michael may still want to kill me, and I'm... I'm... I'm frightened." She brought her hankie to her eyes and pressed it to them, smudging more of her mascara.