Strong Spirits [Spirits 01]

by Alice Duncan

  I really hated the girl in that instant. I mean, gee whiz, she must have known the worry and pain she’d caused her poor mother. The very least she could have done is give the impression she was glad to be home again.

  Not only that, but if she’d been my daughter, I’d have been mortified to behold her. For heaven’s sake! I’m no prude, as I might have mentioned before this, but she looked exactly as I’d expect a lady of the night to look. Her dress was so sheer, you could see right through it, and the hem was so short that her naked knees were exposed. Add that to the fact that she’d rolled her stockings—her flesh-colored stockings, for heaven’s sake—and her costume revealed several inches of knee and shin, bare white and gleaming as if begging to be stared at. It worked. I stared.

  The whole effect, especially when you added to it the aroma of dissipation (gin and cigarette smoke) . . . Well, no respectable woman, and I don’t care how rich her parents are, would appear in front of other people like that. Or in public, even the dubious public of a speakeasy. And in front of her own parents. I could cheerfully have driven a stake through the little tart’s heart. If she had one.

  My sympathy for Mrs. Kincaid trebled. And where was Mr. Kincaid when his daughter had been busy turning herself into a public spectacle? is what I wanted to know. Reading Spanish phrase books? Trying to seduce the housemaids? He sure as heck couldn’t have been paying any attention to his family. He and Stacy deserved each other.

  A harried-looking man appeared at the door of the drawing room, holding an elegant hat in his hand and gazing at the not-very-touching reunion between mother and daughter with a sour expression on his face. I didn’t have to wonder long who he was, because Harold hurried over and grabbed the hand not holding the hat.

  As he pumped it hard, he said, “Joshua! Thank God you’re on the job. I hope Stacy didn’t give you fits.”

  Whoever Joshua was, he withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket as soon as Harold relinquished control of his hand, and mopped his glistening brow. “Ah,” he said, and I could tell he was striving for some kind of diplomatic response, “Miss Kincaid can be a handful.” I thought that was extremely tactful and, therefore, decided he must be some kind of lawyer.

  Since Stacy and her mother were still occupied with each other, Harold handed Joshua’s hat to Featherstone, who’d appeared behind the assembly as silently as ever and also apparently unfazed by the scandalous behavior demonstrated by one of the members of his household. He must have graduated from butler school with high honors. He disappeared with the hat as silently as he’d appeared.

  Harold hauled Joshua my way. “Joshua, please let me introduce you to Mrs. Majesty. Daisy, this is Joshua Pearlman, my family’s ill-used attorney. At least, I’ll wager he’s been ill-used these last few hours.” Harold laughed.

  Mr. Pearlman didn’t. He did shake my hand and offer me a skinny, sort of acerbic smile. “Mrs. Majesty.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Pearlman.” I struggled to achieve an extra measure of politeness, both because I figured he deserved it after what must have been an unpleasant interlude with Stacy, and because I’d been rude to Detective Rotondo.

  I hoped the brutish Rotondo was watching, because I wanted him to understand that rudeness begets rudeness. Unless you were the Kincaids’ attorney, that is to say, and then I guess you got paid pretty well for putting up with the Stacy Kincaids of this world. In that instant, I was glad I’d pursued spiritualism as a career instead of the law.

  I don’t know what he’d have said next because Stacy, who jerked away from her mother as soon as she could, threw a fit. It was manifest that she didn’t much care for Detective Rotondo, which made him a little easier to tolerate on my part.

  As Harold and Mr. Pearlman tried to capture her hands, which were in the process of pummeling the detective’s broad chest, Mrs. Kincaid stood with her hands pressed to her cheeks and doing nothing, and Johnny and his fellow police officer looked on in awe, I made my escape. Shoot, what a monster that girl was! If life were fair, she’d have been sent to France to get shot and gassed, and Billy would still be safe and whole.

  Stupid thinking, and I didn’t know why my brain insisted on contemplating such notions. I hot-footed it to the back of the house, where I aimed to tell Aunt Vi a little bit about what had happened in the drawing room and try to ease her wounded spirits. Aunt Vi had worked for Mrs. Kincaid for decades, and she was very fond of the woman.

  As I passed a room I knew to be the library, the door to which was closed, I heard a scuttling, shuffling sound coming therefrom. Suspicious—I instantly pictured Mr. Kincaid chasing Edie around room in his wheelchair—I paused.

  Bump. Slide. Swish. The thud of furniture smacking against another piece of furniture. A muffled “No!”

  That was enough for me. Something was going on in there. Something wrong. I knew what it was. Because I was already angry—at Stacy Kincaid and at Detective Rotondo—I decided to heck with what might be considered trespass and eased the door open. Thanks to Edie’s good housekeeping, the hinges didn’t so much as whisper, much less squeak.

  And there they were. The louse Kincaid had pinned Edie behind his desk and was smirking at her as if he were God’s gift to womankind instead of a disgusting reprobate in a wheelchair.

  “No, Mr. Kincaid! Please let me go.”

  “I’ll let you go after you kiss me, Edie. You know you want to.”

  Ew.

  “No!” she cried, sounding as if she weren’t far from hysteria. “I don’t want to!”

  “Pshaw.”

  “This isn’t fair,” she pleaded. “What would your wife think?”

  He scoffed. “My wife never thinks. She’s never had a thought in her life.”

  The rat! How could he, who lived well only because of his marriage to Mrs. Kincaid, say such an unkind thing? And did he honestly think a woman like pretty, competent, not to mention young, Edie Marsh could be attracted to him? Fat chance. He was evil, pure and simple.

  Since the hinges wouldn’t announce me, I shoved the door hard. The crash it made as it hit the plaster wall served my purpose just as well. Maybe too well. I winced at the thought of plaster dust sprinkling down upon the wildly expensive Persian rug covering the library floor.

  However, my ploy worked. I had the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Kincaid’s body darned near lift out of his chair in alarm. Edie uttered a shriek that was (thank God) muffled by the hand that had flown to her mouth at the ghastly noise the door had made.

  “Hi there,” I said inanely. I wanted to light into the rotter Kincaid and tell him what I thought of him, but Edie, who had recovered as soon as she saw who’d made the noise, had commenced grimacing at me in a way I understood.

  Kincaid recovered quickly, as well. Too quickly, the villain. “What the devil are you doing here?” I got the feeling he didn’t like me very well.

  “Um . . .” Good question. “I thought I heard something in this room.”

  He wheeled my way, and I prudently stepped behind an overstuffed chair, just in case he was angry enough to run me over with his chair. “And are you in the habit of intruding into other people’s business every time you hear things, Mrs. Majesty?”

  To heck with that. While I considered discretion the better part of valor—after all, I depended on rich people for a living—I didn’t have to put up with this sort of thing. “I thought I heard Edie’s voice,” I said deliberately. “And,” I added with as much coldness as I could command at the moment, which probably wasn’t much since I was rattled, “she sounded as if she was in some distress.” I derived a modicum of satisfaction from his flinch. “I wanted to help my friend if I could.”

  “Huh!” And with that, he sped past me and out the door.

  Thank God, thank God. I slumped against the overstuffed chair and stared at Edie, who stared back. Recalling the terrific crash the doorknob had made, I tentatively pulled the door away from the wall and peered with some trepidation.

  I saw that no damage
had been done to the plaster wall. “Shoot. Thank the good Lord for sturdy construction.”

  Edie giggled. I figured she was still close to hysteria. I mean, what I’d said wasn’t funny, you know? I shut the door quietly and went over to her. “Are you okay, Edie?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I think so. Thanks for the rescue, Daisy.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  Okay, I know Edie and Quincy’s business is their own. They’d asked me to butt out—or, at least, Edie had. She was a grown woman. So was Quincy—a grown man, I mean. They were both smart people who knew what they wanted out of life and also knew how to get it.

  But, darn it all, I was angry! And, however much it pains me to admit it, I’m not good at minding my own business. I walked over to Edie, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her. “If you don’t tell Quincy about this now, I’ll do it! Darn it, Edie, that man is evil!”

  Unfortunately, Edie’s no shrinking violet, either. She grabbed my wrists and yanked my hands off her shoulders. “If you do, I’ll never speak to you again, Daisy Majesty! I can take care of myself!”

  “You weren’t doing a very good job of it when I came in here!”

  “Fudge.” Edie sank into the big desk chair with a whump that wrinkled her tidy black uniform skirt. She looked up at me and gave me a shaky smile. “I would have triumphed over that cripple if you hadn’t come in. I was trying not to make a lot of noise and fuss.”

  Resting my hands on my hips, I tilted my head, stared at Edie, and sighed. She was right. Well, she was right in that she probably could have solved the problem by herself. And she was also right that she hadn’t been making much noise.

  I still didn’t like it.

  And it still wasn’t my business. So, after smoothing things over with Edie, I went to the kitchen, told Aunt Vi what had happened regarding Stacy, and toddled out to the Model T.

  Quincy, bless his heart, started the thing for me. I drove home alternately worrying about Mrs. Kincaid and Edie and dreaming about buying a closed-top Hudson. I’d heard they were starting to put batteries into automobiles now, so you didn’t have to be so careful with the clutch wire when you started it. It was about time, if you ask me, since I didn’t fancy breaking my arm on the darned crank if I happened to do it wrong one morning.

  I still burned to tell Quincy what Mr. Kincaid was trying to do to his lady love.

  Chapter Eight

  The day following the Stacy debacle was the first Sunday in June and we were all going to church. June had always struck me as a cheerful month, so I’d put on my favorite summery dress. I’d made this one, too, out of a sprigged blue-and-white georgette. It had a dropped waist with a pretty blue sash encircling it, and was no more than five inches from the straps of my low-heeled shoes. I’d trimmed my straw hat with a ribbon crafted from the scraps left over from the dress. Naturally, I wore plain cotton stockings. Not for me those flesh-colored horrors worn by the Stacy Kincaids of the world.

  I’d have liked to wear pink, which is my favorite summertime color, but in those days redheads didn’t wear pink. Well, except for my old pink-and-white checked house dress I wore now and then. The two colors were said to clash. I couldn’t see it myself, but I didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself. Unlike some people I could mention.

  It didn’t matter anyhow, since not very many people would see my lovely costume until after the church service concluded and we all moseyed over to the fellowship hall for cookies and punch, because I’d be wearing a dull blue robe during the service. For a variety of reasons, I sang in the choir.

  The first reason is that I love to sing.

  The second reason is that I tried in every way I could think of to demonstrate to everyone who might doubt my intentions that I was a good Christian girl and didn’t truck with the devil. My chosen career put me in a somewhat equivocal position in some people’s minds some of the time. All of the time, if you took Billy into consideration, and I had to since I was married to him.

  I don’t really think Billy considered what I did wicked, even though he said he did. As I’ve mentioned before, probably too often already, I think Billy’s objections were based on his own pain and frustration. I’m sure that, if he were able to hold a regular job—and he was a crackerjack mechanic and could have made a mint in automobile repair—he wouldn’t have minded if I’d fiddled around with spiritualism. He’d probably have been glad if I’d made some money on the side. Maybe he’d even have been proud of his little wife, who supplemented the family income doing something so interesting.

  As things stood, well . . . Life was complicated, and singing in the choir slightly mitigated the tensions I occasionally perceived in our home and in the community.

  I even have a pretty good voice, although I have no ambition to sing on the vaudeville stage or in the grand opera. My voice doesn’t vibrate enough for opera (and I’m not fat enough), and I’d have a heart attack and die if I ever had to sing a solo on a vaudeville stage.

  My voice was good enough for our choir director, though, and that’s what mattered. This morning, Lucille Spinks and I were going to sing a duet, in fact. I don’t mind singing with other people. It’s when they’re on their own that my vocal chords shrivel up and begin croaking.

  My family has always attended the First Methodist Episcopal Church (North) on the corner of Marengo and Colorado. It was approximately two and a half blocks down from the Chinese Methodist Episcopal Church which I’d always wanted to attend just to see, but have never quite dared, since I obviously wouldn’t exactly blend in, if you know what I mean.

  Our church was only a few blocks from where we lived. When the weather was fine, as it was this Sunday morning, we liked to walk. The whole family attended, including Ma and Pa and Aunt Vi. Mrs. Wilson from next door with Pudge in his Junior Boy Scout uniform and looking neater than usual, often walked with us. They did so that day.

  Billy was in a good mood. I’d told him about the Stacy affair, placing special emphasis on how she’d attacked Detective Rotondo, and he’d laughed about it.

  You never knew how he’d take anything. He could easily have used Stacy’s deplorable behavior as another stick to beat me with, but instead he chose to find the incident amusing. I wondered if it was the morphine laughing, but didn’t dwell on the possibility. My poor broken husband needed the pain relief morphine afforded him—and I needed it almost as much as he did. Pitiful, but there you go.

  “What are you and Lucy singing today, Daisy?”

  Billy had acquiesced when Pudge had volunteered to push his chair. I’d shrieked inside when the boy had asked but Billy took it in good temper, for which condescension I was infinitely grateful. Pudge, as a Junior Boy Scout, put a lot of emphasis on doing good deeds. Billy, as a ruined ex-soldier, didn’t often appreciate his enthusiasm.

  Lucy had wanted us to sing “Alas! and did My Savior Bleed,” and the choir director, Floy Hostetter, had liked the selection. I’d objected. Easter had fallen on April 4, sort of mid-way through the season. That was almost two months ago, and I’m sure most of the congregation wouldn’t have cared what we sang. But it seemed to me as though we’d been singing Easter songs until the day before yesterday. Besides, summertime was right around the corner.

  So what, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

  “Alas! and did My Savior Bleed” is a beautiful old hymn. We always hauled it out at Easter time, which is totally appropriate, and I sang it with all my heart during the Easter season. But it seemed a trifle dismal to me with springtime over and summer hurtling toward us as fast as it could. I’d suggested a bouncier tune, “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

  Mr. Hostetter had visibly paled, winced, and wrinkled his nose. He equated my choice with the Salvation Army, which I had to admit made sense. In those days you could hardly pass a street corner that didn’t have a Salvation Army band on it playing “Onward Christian Soldiers” with women jangling their tambourines to the rhythm, trying to get people to cough up their pennies and ni
ckels to help feed the poor and dry out the drunks. But I still liked it. I did, however, offer an alternative which was eventually approved of by all parties.

  Therefore, Lucy and I aimed to sing “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus.” I liked it pretty well, and it was nice and soldierly, which I sanctioned. Ever since the war started, I’d been feeling militant. After it ended and Billy came back to me, I’d been downright bloodthirsty.

  Lucy had a much prettier voice than I. Not only that, but she was a soprano and perpetually took the melody. Next life, if there is one, I want to come back as a soprano because they always get the good parts. As luck would have it, I’d learned to read music when I was a kid (some rich picture star had given Pa a piano when I was seven. Heck, I could read music before I could read Tarot cards), so I never had much trouble picking up my part.

  “We’re going to sing ‘Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus’ right after the Doxology. Wish us luck.”

  “Aw, you’ll do swell, Miss Desdemona.”

  When I glanced over, I saw Pudge gazing at me with adoring eyes. God bless the child. “Thanks, Pudge.” I smiled, but felt obliged to point out that we were approaching a street corner. I could just imagine what horrors would ensue if Pudge managed to dump my poor husband out of his chair because he was staring at me. “Corner,” I mouthed at him.

  Pudge gave a start of surprise, but managed to avert the approaching calamity. He said, “You’re welcome.”

  “You and Lucy sound good together.”

  This kind and pithy statement had emerged from my own husband’s mouth, and it shocked me nearly out of my georgette-covered skin. He didn’t generally offer compliments, being more apt to criticize.

  “Thanks, Billy. I hope I don’t go flat during the chorus. The alto part drones a little bit there, and sometimes I sag.”

  “You don’t sag yet,” murmured my husband with a grin and a wink.