Spirits Revived (Daisy Gumm Majesty)

by Alice Duncan

  “Will he be annoyed if I visit your home again?”

  “He will if he finds out, but he won’t. The servants are all most discreet, and . . . well, they don’t care much for Mr. Hastings.”

  I didn’t blame them. I’d never met the man, and I loathed him. “I’ll be happy to visit you, Mrs. Hastings. What time would you like me to come over?” What the heck. After Pa and I walked Spike, I’d aimed to spend the rest of the day tidying up the house and reading anyway.

  “Will eleven o’clock be all right with you?”

  “Perfect. I’ll be at your home at eleven.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  That settled that. I turned, aiming to clear the table and wash the dishes.

  “Who was that?” asked Pa, who’d put down the paper to look at me.

  “Mrs. Stephen Hastings. She’s the mother of Eddie Hastings. You know. The one who . . .” Crashed my séance. I couldn’t say that to my father. Not again. He’d think I was nuts. “She’s the mother of the young man who died in March.”

  Pa’s eyes narrowed. “The one who . . .”

  Aw, fudge. “Yes. The one who spoke through me last Saturday night.” I shivered, remembering, and felt tiny icy feet clamber up my spine.

  “Daisy . . .”

  “I know, I know. It’s unbelievable. If it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t believe it, either. It was the most horrible experience of my life, barring when Billy died.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Now Mrs. Hastings claims she’s found something that might relate to her son’s death and wants me to come over so she can show it to me. She thinks I can advise her what to do with it. I know what I’d like to tell her to do with it,” I said darkly—and, to be honest, untruthfully. I was wildly curious about whatever it was she thought she’d found.

  With a frown, Pa said, “I don’t know, Daisy. Maybe I should come with you. I don’t want you to put yourself in any danger.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “There’s no danger from Mrs. Hastings. There might be from her husband, but he won’t be there. She told me the servants hate his guts, so they won’t blab.”

  “They what?” Pa stared at me.

  “She told me the servants don’t like her husband. If he’s as awful as Belinda Young told me he was, I can understand why.”

  “Who’s Belinda Young? I’m getting confused here.”

  “She’s a girl I used to go to school with, Pa. She was Eddie Hastings’ secretary. But don’t let’s think about that now. Let me wash up the dishes and then we can take Spike for a walk.”

  The two words, “Spike” and “walk,” galvanized my dog, who instantly stood up and started madly wagging his tail. Staring at his hopeful doggy eyes, I said, “Or maybe we should walk Spike first. I shouldn’t have said the word w-a-l-k aloud.”

  With a laugh, Pa folded the newspaper and rose from his chair. “Sounds like a good idea to me. Let me get my hat, and you get the leash.”

  So I rinsed the breakfast dishes, fetched my own hat and Spike’s leash, and we took a nice, long ramble around the neighborhood. We got back home in plenty of time for me to wash the dishes, change clothes, grab the accumulated library books on the little table next to the door, and head to the Hastings’ estate.

  The same Chinese gate guard asked for my name and let me into the grounds, and the same Chinese maid opened the massive front door to the palace in which the Hastings family lived.

  It occurred to me that I’d never asked Mrs. Hastings if they had any children besides Eddie. I imagine his death would have been even more devastating if he’d been their only child, although losing any child would be wrenching. I don’t think a person, especially a mother, can really recover from that sort of blow. I know Vi still grieved for her lost Paul.

  The maid led me to another room in the giant house, this one a sunroom that lived up to its name. It was all windows, and white wicker furniture occupied it along with splashy orchids of different colors. The effect was stunning. In fact, I must have stood at the door, blinking at the room and looking like a fool, for long enough that Mrs. Hastings noticed me.

  “Mrs. Majesty. How kind of you to come.” She rose from where she’d been kneeling, a pair of secateurs in her hand. She wore gardening gloves, and I had a sudden panicky feeling, as if the woman were a monster who aimed to stab me in the heart with those pointy shears. Too much imagination can be a scary thing. I mentally shook myself, and Mrs. Hastings went from ogre to grieving mother in half a second.

  “Happy to help,” I said lamely.

  Laying down the secateurs and stripping off her gloves, Mrs. Hastings said to the maid, “Will you please bring us tea, Lee?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the maid, and hightailed it out of the room.

  I gazed around some more. “What a beautiful room, Mrs. Hastings. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  She smiled, as if my comment had pleased her. “I’m quite fond of gardening, and orchids are my particular favorites. Would you like me to cut a stem or two for you to take home?”

  “Oh, but . . .” I didn’t know what to say.

  “It’s no bother, and I love to share my orchids. But please, let’s sit at the table and wait for Lee. I have what I want to show you in my apron pocket.”

  She patted a pocket in the apron she wore, which I’d heard my aunt call a “shopkeeper’s apron.” Mrs. Hastings bore no resemblance whatever to any shopkeeper I’d ever seen. And her apron was a beautifully scalloped affair in a pretty blue-checked calico. Then she waved at a little table and two chairs in front of the largest window in the room.

  “What a magnificent view,” I said as I gazed out over rolling green lawns before taking my seat. When Mrs. Hastings sat with a sigh, I did likewise, only without the sigh.

  “Yes. Mr. Hastings likes to have his grounds as perfect as everything else in his life. They are pretty, though, aren’t they?”

  I saw what looked like miles of green grass with splashes of color here and there. I suspected the color came from azaleas and hydrangeas, although I also spotted what looked like a big rose garden with an arbor off to the right. “Magnificent,” I said again, wishing I could think of more words to describe the fabulous view.

  “We have a staff of gardeners to take care of the grounds, of course.”

  Don’t ask me why, but I asked, “Are they Chinese?”

  “Why, yes, they are. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious, I guess. I noticed all the rest of your staff whom I’ve seen are Chinese.”

  “Yes. I believe I told you that Stephen—Mr. Hastings—used to work in Hong Kong. He still has many connections in the Chinese community.”

  Jeepers, I didn’t even know Pasadena had a Chinese community. I should have. After all, just north of Colorado on Marengo sat the Chinese Methodist Church. Evidently, according to Keiji Saito, Pasadena also boasted a Japanese community. One can become so isolated in one’s own tiny little society of souls, couldn’t one? I decided then and there to branch out more. I knew there was a Chinatown in Los Angeles. For all I knew there was a Japantown, too. Keiji could probably tell me.

  “Interesting,” I said.

  Lee entered with a tray bearing a gorgeous Chinese tea service and some delicate little cookies at that point, so both Mrs. Hastings and I merely smiled at the girl as she laid out the tea things.

  As soon as Lee left the room, Mrs. Hastings poured us both a cup of tea. Then she reached into her apron’s middle pocket. “Take a look at this. I don’t know what it means, if anything, but it might mean something.”

  I took the piece of paper she handed me and read. I’m sure my eyes grew two sizes as I did so.

  You have to get me out of this place. You know how much you have to lose if I tell the authorities what I know, and those fellows you work with aren’t a pack of pansies. They deal hard and rough and don’t care whom they step on. I’m sick of rotting here in this prison. I know I said I’d keep my mouth shut. Lord knows
, it won’t do me any good if our business dealings became public, but San Quentin isn’t a picnic, and I want out.

  Eustace Kincaid

  “My goodness!” I cried, looking up from the paper and staring at Mrs. Hastings, who appeared rather paler than she had a moment before. “Was this sent to your husband by Mr. Kincaid?”

  “I honestly don’t know to whom it was sent. I found it in a nook in a hall cabinet. It might have been sent to Mr. Hastings or . . .” She waved at the note in my hand. “I just don’t know. I’m sure Eddie wasn’t involved with Mr. Kincaid in any way, and I don’t believe Stephen had anything to do with him. Wasn’t Mr. Kincaid the one who robbed his own bank? I remember feeling terrible for poor Madeline at the time.”

  “Yes, he was.” I glanced down at the note and then back at Mrs. Hastings. Bewildered doesn’t begin to describe how I felt. However, I did think this was something Sam should probably know about. “Would you mind if I took this to Detective Rotondo at the Pasadena Police Department? I know the police are investigating something that might possibly involve your son’s death.”

  Mrs. Hastings goggled at me. “What could possibly involve Eddie’s death?”

  Nuts. “Well . . . you do know that your son died from an overdose of heroin injected into his body, don’t you?”

  After blinking at me in incomprehension for a second or two, Mrs. Hastings said, “Heroine? How can a person inject a human female into the body of another person? I’m sorry, Mrs. Majesty. I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t know what it was either, until I began investigating your son’s case. Heroin—without the e on the end—is a drug derived from opium. According to Sam—Detective Rotondo—traffic in both heroin and cocaine is growing, and bootleggers have begun dealing the drugs as well as illegal liquor.”

  “Eddie was injected with a drug?” Tears started rolling down Mrs. Hastings’ cheeks. I wished I could hug her, but I didn’t dare. “Why did no one tell me? Stephen must have known. Why didn’t he tell me? I’m Eddie’s mother. I deserve to know how he died! Oh, I hate men! They always think they need to protect women from things. As if the cause of Eddie’s death wouldn’t have been of vital interest to me.”

  I didn’t know what to say, but it didn’t matter, because Mrs. Hastings wasn’t through yet.

  “My God, do you suppose Stephen was in league with Mr. Kincaid in the illegal drug business? I’ll kill him!” She rose and grabbed her secateurs as if she aimed to rip right down to the law office and stab her husband in the heart.

  I rose and put a hand on her arm. Tentatively. I didn’t want any secateur stab wounds on my own personal body. “Please, Mrs. Hastings. Don’t jump to any conclusions. This note might or might not mean anything at all. And it might or might not pertain to your son’s death. I’m going to take it to Detective Rotondo and see what he thinks about it.” Not, of course, that he’d tell me what he thought. Drat Sam anyhow!

  Mrs. Hastings sat with a plunk, her secateurs dropping to the floor of the greenhouse, put her face in her hands, and sobbed. Poor, poor woman.

  “Mrs. Hastings, I’m sorry this has come as a . . . shock to you. I don’t believe the cause of your son’s death should have been kept from you. If it’s any comfort, everyone I’ve spoken with so far has told me your son had nothing to do with drugs.”

  “Of course he didn’t!” she cried through her tears.

  “So that increases the probability that someone killed him. But you’re right. Men are always thinking of women as the weaker sex and try to protect us from things we don’t need to be protected from. In fact, if you stop to think about it, women are ever so much stronger than men. Why, you even bore . . . well, at least one child.” I was making a botch of this, drat it.

  She sniffled several times and wiped her eyes on her apron, which made me wince a little. I mean, she’d just been digging in dirt. On the other hand, it was orchid dirt and, therefore, probably too refined to contain germs.

  “We have two daughters. Eloise and Erica. They were crushed by Eddie’s death, too.”

  Hmm. A bunch of Es in the family. “Do they live with you?”

  “No. They’re both married. Eloise and her family live in San Marino. Erica and her husband—they were only married last summer—live in Santa Barbara. It’s a lovely beach community.”

  I wouldn’t know. “I’m glad you have other children, although I know they don’t make up for the loss of your son.”

  She sniffled again. “They are a comfort, I have to admit.”

  I’m glad she had some kind of comfort. Her dearly beloved Stephen sounded like an ice-cold fish to me, and I doubt he was any solace at all for the poor grieving woman. Speaking of whom . . .

  “I think it would be better if you don’t mention this note to anyone, Mrs. Hastings, including your husband. I sincerely doubt that a successful attorney like him would have anything to do with the illegal drug business, but clearly someone knew something about whatever it is Mr. Kincaid was involved with. That may or may not be drugs, but it’s still probably better if no one knows about the note but you and me. And, of course, the police.”

  “Yes. Yes, I agree with you. Anyhow, Stephen and I are long past being chatty with each other.”

  How sad. I wonder if Billy and I would ever have reached that stage of indifference—or downright dislike—if our marriage hadn’t suffered such a tremendous blow at the beginning. Ma and Pa still chatted with each other. Heck, they even held hands sometimes.

  I heaved a huge sigh. “Well, I suppose I’d better take this to the police. Thank you for calling me this morning. This might help with the investigation.”

  “I hope it does. But let me give you some orchids first, Mrs. Majesty. They aren’t much in the way of compensation, but I want you to have some.”

  “Thank you. I’d be very happy to take some sprays home with me. I’m sure the whole family will love them.”

  So, what with an armful of simply gorgeous orchid sprays sitting on the seat next to me in the Chevrolet, I had to drive home and deal with them before I drove to the police station and then the library. That was all right. I didn’t have anything else planned for the day.

  Mrs. Hastings had been more than generous. There were orchids enough for the dining room table, orchids for the living room, and even a spray of orchids for my bedroom. I chose yellow ones for my room, purple not being my favorite color, and most of the others were purple, pink, or white. Pa was terribly impressed. I presumed the Benjamins would be, too, when they arrived for dinner that evening.

  Then I betook myself to the Pasadena Police Department. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  * * *

  Sam snatched the note from me as if I’d been withholding evidence regarding the biggest case in his career.

  “When did you get this?” he demanded, although I’d already told him.

  With a sigh, I said, “This morning. From Mrs. Hastings. She found it in a drawer—well, she said it was in a nook, whatever that might be—in a hall cabinet. Don’t ask me to whom it was sent or why, because I don’t know anything other than that she found the note and called me.”

  “Huh.” Sam gave me a hard look. “It beats me why all these people call you instead of the police when evidence shows up.”

  I sniffed. “I’m nicer than you are.”

  “Huh.”

  “Anyhow, for what it’s worth, there’s the note.” I waved a hand carelessly in the stuffy air of Sam’s office.

  Actually, it wasn’t merely his office. There were four other desks for four other detectives in the room. The first time I met Sam at the police department and walked into that room, I got some mighty odd stares. I guess the other detectives were used to me by this time, because the two of them in residence in this instance simply glanced up and then went back to their paperwork.

  As Sam glared at the note, I figured there was no need for me to hang out at the police department any longer. I rose. “
Well, I don’t know what you can do with it, but I thought you should have it. I have to go to the library now.” Because it was lunchtime and I was hungry, I added, “See you tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it.”

  Sam cast a fevered glance around the room, but my voice hadn’t been loud, and none of his colleagues had heard my comment. Huh to him! For a man who was supposed to love me, he sure didn’t act like it. Not that I blamed him. I wouldn’t want a herd of policemen teasing me, either.

  “Yeah,” he said, standing and getting ready to see me to the door. Then inspiration must have stricken because he added, “Want to go to the Chop Suey place for lunch? I’m hungry.”

  Oh, boy. Big fat dinner tonight with the Benjamins. Big fat dinner tomorrow with Sam and my family. Why not a big fat lunch? Then I could go to the library.

  With a smile, I said, “Why, thank you. Don’t mind if I do.”

  Sam said, “Huh,” again.

  The Crown Chop Suey Parlor was within walking distance of the Pasadena Police Department, so Sam and I strolled up the street together. Luckily, I’d worn a coolish dress that day, because it was quite a warm one. Sometimes the months of June and July are foggy and overcast in the fair city of Pasadena—and, I presume, the rest of the Los Angeles area—but not that day.

  I tried not to stuff myself, in deference to the turkey Aunt Vi aimed to fix for dinner that night, but I was pretty darned full by the time we left the restaurant. Sam paid, which was nice of him. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel any tension between us as we chatted over our lunches. How different this time was from the time we’d taken luncheon together at the same restaurant, when I’d been worried to death about Billy, and Sam had been trying to reassure me. No need for that now. Now we just chatted about stuff in general. I think our conversation ranged from Spike’s excellent retention of his year-old dog-obedience training to books. We’d never spoken about books before.

  “I’m heading to the library as soon as we finish here,” I said after I’d swallowed a bite of sloppy noodles and wondered how the Chinese managed to eat that kind of stuff with chopsticks. I didn’t have mine with me or I might have attempted it. But no. I wanted to astonish my family, not to mention Sam, with my ability to handle those two little bamboo sticks the following evening.