Strong Spirits [Spirits 01]

by Alice Duncan

  Mrs. Kincaid squeezed my hands so tightly, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold on to the Model T’s steering wheel. Thank heavens James was still there in the stables to crank for me. “Oh, Daisy,” sobbed Mrs. Kincaid, “I can’t thank you enough for coming over to help me today. I don’t believe I could have survived the day without you.”

  All right, I know this sounds unkind, but sometimes I wish some people wouldn’t cry so darned much. I liked Mrs. Kincaid a whole lot, and I appreciated her, and I valued her even if she didn’t have a very useful brain or anything much in it, and had bred one offensive daughter, but blast it all, she cried every time anything at all happened, and it got to be a trial after a while. Maybe I was only tired. It had been a full day for me, too, and I still had to fill Aunt Vi in on all of it before I could go home to my husband.

  Fortunately, Aunt Vi knew my situation with Billy. So to the aroma of roasting lamb and garlic-mashed-potatoes and tomato and cucumber salad, which didn’t do as much damage to my self-control as it might have done had I not consumed so much shortbread, I told Vi all the interesting tidbits of the day. Never think I left out Stacy’s nasty comments to me or her fainting fits, either. After all, we Gumms know what goes on in the world, and we appreciate hearing how the other half behaves itself, which it so often doesn’t.

  “That child will be the death of her poor mother, if her father doesn’t finish the poor woman off first,” Aunt Vi said, tutting as she stirred the gravy. It smelled so good. We Gumms and Majestys didn’t eat a lot of lamb because it was an expensive meat, but I adored it when I could get it.

  “But at least Del Farrington and Algie Pinkerton are saving the bank,” I said, hoping to make her feel better.

  I succeeded beyond my expectations. She actually dropped her wooden spoon into the gravy pan and slapped her hands together as if she were praying. “They are? You really think they’re going to be able to save the bank?”

  “They think so. I guess Mr. Pinkerton is something of a financial genius.” I snabbled a piece of the lamb before Vi could smack my hand. It was so good. “You’d never know it to look at him, would you?”

  “You can never tell by appearances, Daisy Majesty, as you ought to have learned long before this.”

  Lectures, lectures, lectures. I suppose that’s what mothers and aunts are for, but it did put a crimp in one’s style sometimes. “Say, Vi, I really need to get home to Billy. Would you mind filling Edie in on what’s gone on today. I promised her I would, but—well, you know Billy.”

  “Oh, Daisy, my love!”

  I knew a reference to poor Billy would get her. It always did. Vi felt sorry for both of us. So did I, for that matter. This time it worked out okay, because she sliced off a large portion of lamb, added some gravy and some potatoes, handed me a small jar of cooked green beans, and I left the house with a better dinner than Billy could ever get from me. Unfortunately, I hadn’t inherited the family’s cooking gene, or whatever it was.

  “Are you sure you can spare this?” I asked, not wanting to deprive even so wealthy a family as the Kincaids of their dinner.

  “Don’t be daft, child. I always make enough for an army, and there’s not going to be an appetite in the house this evening anyhow.”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way. Made me feel better as I crept out the back door with the spoils of my day.

  You could have knocked me over with a feather when I tippy-toed in through the front door of our house on Marengo Avenue, expecting to find my darling Billy in a roaring rage and my parents gone somewhere to get away from him, and I discovered him sitting on the comfy old sofa in the living room, laughing up a storm, and playing gin rummy with—hold your breath—Detective Sam Rotondo!

  Chapter Thirteen

  I stopped dead in the doorway, holding the jars of food Aunt Vi had wrapped up for me. “You!” I’m pretty sure I didn’t sound delighted to see him.

  “Hey, Daisy!” my Billy cried, unmistakably pleased as punch to have me home again and not even mad that I’d been gone all day.

  What was going on here, anyway?

  “You know Detective Sam Rotondo, don’t you?” asked my innocent spouse. Little did he know that Rotondo and I had been mortal enemies from the moment we’d set eyes on each other. Why, the fiend had even suspected me of murder. I know he had. I’d have liked to have told Billy so, but I couldn’t bear to spoil his fun since he got so little of it.

  “I’ve had that pleasure,” I said, trying not to sound sarcastic for Billy’s sake, but it was a rough bicycle to ride when one wheel was flat and the other was losing air fast.

  Rotondo had stood as I’d entered the room, much to my stupefaction. He was never this polite to me at the Kincaids’. “Here, Mrs. Majesty, please let me help you carry your burdens.”

  My “burdens” were our dinner, Billy’s and mine. If I were feeling charitable, I’d have had to admit that there was plenty enough for three, but I didn’t feel the least bit charitable toward this man and didn’t expect I ever would. “Thanks,” I said. “I can manage.”

  “Come on, Sam, why don’t you join us for dinner? From the smell of things, Daisy’s aunt Vi sent some food home with her, so we’ll eat well tonight.” Billy smiled up at me, reminding me of what he’d once been, and my heart broke all over again. I could never stay angry with Billy, no matter what other provocations were present, such as irascible detectives and so forth. “Is there enough for three?”

  “Oh, sure,” I said, resigned to my fate. I carried the stuff to the kitchen, but then went back to the living room. Darned if I wasn’t going to find out what fell purpose lay behind Rotondo’s sudden appearance in my own personal home, playing cards with my own personal husband. Something was rotten in the State of California, and it wasn’t Hamlet or his villainous step-father.

  I sat down next to Billy, who’d abandoned his wheelchair for the sofa. Our sofa, needless to say, was nowhere near as elegant as any of those residing in the Kincaid mansion, but it was a good height for Billy, who could get onto it and off of it with relative ease. Billy must have told Rotondo where the card table was (in the hall closet), because he’d set it up and currently sat on a kitchen chair he’d hauled in from that room.

  I have to admit that Rotondo looked more comfortable in these surroundings than in the Kincaids’ place, which probably meant his financial upbringing had been more akin to mine than Harold’s. Made sense, I guess, or he’d have been a stock broker instead of a policeman. Or done nothing, like those guys in Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books generally did. Or didn’t. Oh, you know what I mean.

  Reconciled to an evening of unpleasantness, not unlike the rest of my day, after a short, boring time during which I watched them play cards, I left the two men. They seemed to be having a grand old time without me, anyhow. I went to the kitchen to heat the food. I even made a salad to go with the lamb and potatoes and gravy and beans. Heck, even I can make a decent salad dressing. Sometimes.

  I loaded up the plates in the kitchen and carried them to the living room. I figured it would be easier to eat at the card table than for Billy to get himself to the dining room.

  After we’d dug in and the relative deliciousness of the food had waned as a conversational topic, I turned to Rotondo. “So, how come you invaded our house this afternoon, Detective? I thought you were going back to the police station. Don’t you have enough to do without investigating the obviously innocent?”

  Billy’s mouth was full, or he’d assuredly have taken me to task for being ugly to someone he was beginning to consider a friend—God protect us all.

  Rotondo didn’t seem offended by the question or my attitude, doubtless because he was used to them both by this time. “It occurred to me that you’re a smart cookie, Mrs. Majesty. It also occurred to me that your husband might be able to shed some light on the Kincaid situation.”

  “Yeah?” My glance slid between him and Billy, and I couldn’t detect a single indication of fabrication or out-and-out falsehoo
d on either face. Billy’s handsome countenance even indicated to me, who knew it so well, that he considered the detective’s reasoning . . . well . . . reasonable.

  I didn’t consider it any such thing. “I must admit to being surprised by this supposition of yours, Detective, especially since Billy has never met a single one of the Kincaids and doesn’t care for my association with the family.”

  Billy shrugged and grinned. “Aw, heck, Daisy, I don’t mind the Kincaids. They just take you away from me a lot, is all I have against them. But I told Sam everything I know, which is just about nothing. You spend more time at the Kincaids’ than you do here, but you make a good living at it, so it’s okay. God knows, my disability pension isn’t worth much more than the paper it’s printed on.”

  Not only did the above words spouting forth from my very own and beloved husband’s lips directly contradict everything he’d been yelling at me for months now, but I couldn’t help but be concerned that the two men had fallen into a first-name basis at the drop of a hat. I feared for my future peace of mind.

  “You can’t help what happened to you in France, Billy,” Rotondo said in a voice I never would have expected to hear come out of his mouth. Why, the man sounded . . . I don’t even know how to describe it. It was as if he understood Billy’s plight and, while he was sorry about it and felt like hell for Billy’s sake, he’d be hung upside down from a chestnut tree and had his guts pecked out by a band of ravening jackdaws (whatever they are) before he’d admit his sympathy aloud.

  Darned if I didn’t start to like him, which turned out to be a stupid thing to do, as I might have predicted had I been in my spiritualist mode. I wasn’t, having been disarmed by two attractive men, blast them. They’re totally untrustworthy, men are. Just when you think one of them’s all right in the overall scheme of things, he turns around and bites you on the butt.

  “Well,” I said, touched and not wanting to show it, “we all do our part.”

  “Actually,” Rotondo said in his back-to-business voice, “your husband has been quite helpful to me, Mrs. Majesty.”

  “He has?” What did this mean? Nothing good, I was sure.

  “Indeed. He confirmed everything you’ve told me regarding the Kincaids and their household.” He forked up a piece of lamb. “And he also confirmed your sentiments about your aunt’s cooking. Not that he needed to, since I’m confirming them right now all by myself.”

  “Aunt Vi’s the best,” I said honestly and because I couldn’t think of anything vile enough to say to this louse in front of Billy, who’d apparently decided he liked him. I mean, what in the name of God did this detective think he was doing, checking up on me with my own husband? I took back all the good thoughts I’d almost started having about him.

  “Anyone in the city of Pasadena can tell you Aunt Vi’s the best cook in town. People try to hire her away from the Kincaids all the time,” I said. “But she likes working there, and Mrs. Kincaid’s a good woman who treats her staff well. And Mr. Kincaid never chased Aunt Vi around in his wheelchair.” So there and nyah, nyah, nyah. I didn’t add that part, as I’m sure I need not say.

  “That’s the impression I’ve come away with,” confirmed Rotondo. “But what about that daughter of hers? And that husband?”

  Good questions. “I don’t know. I think Stacy’s just a spoiled rich kid who’s never had to do anything for herself. Harold’s a great fellow who’d give you the shirt off his back. He tries to help people at every turn.” I saw the glance that passed between the two men when I made the “shirt off his back” comment and knew what they were thinking. Men have such filthy minds.

  “How well acquainted are you with Mr. Farrington, Mrs. Majesty? I know you believe Mr. Kincaid is behind the bank business, but don’t forget that Mr. Farrington has been second in charge at the bank for quite a while now. From what the staff at the bank have told my men, Farrington’s the one who knows what’s going on. Kincaid seems to be regarded as merely a figurehead.”

  “That’s the impression I got, too, but I can tell you that Mr. Farrington wouldn’t steal a penny from a fountain in Chinatown, Detective Rotondo. He’s too good for this world. Kincaid, on the other hand, would steal the pencils out of a blind man’s cup if he felt like it.”

  “His staff at the bank don’t seem to care much for Mr. Kincaid. They all speak highly of Farrington.”

  “Sure, they do. He’s a good man, and I doubt that he’d ever even think of doing anything illegal or immoral.”

  Billy made a face, and I knew why, but I pretended not to see it. These so-called “regular” men might not appreciate the Harolds and Dels of this world, but we woman, who are much more discerning and kindly disposed toward our fellow human beings than are members of the male gender, are not so blind to other people’s good qualities, no matter what . . . um . . . eccentricities, I guess is a good word for it, they might otherwise possess.

  “To your knowledge has your friend Miss Marsh heard anything from Mr. Quincy Applewood since his disappearance?” Rotondo asked, getting back to business once more.

  “I didn’t see her again after she left the drawing room to go to Aunt Vi for a cup of tea. But I don’t think so. I’m sure she’d have raced right back downstairs and told everyone if Quincy’d come home again.”

  “If she didn’t decide to hide him from the law.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” I said with a something of a snarl. “She only drank some tea. And she needed it!”

  “Ah, tea,” sighed Rotondo. “The universal cure for everyone’s ills.”

  “Tea and Aunt Vi’s Scotch shortbread,” I said.

  He smiled and looked wistful, so I knew he agreed.

  “She made shortbread?” Billy sounded as excited as I’d heard him sound in days. “Did she send some home with you?”

  I was so glad I’d remembered to beg some shortbread from Vi. By the time I got out of the Kincaid house, there wasn’t much left, but Vi gave it all to me. The woman’s a saint. “Yup.”

  “You’re sure Miss Marsh hasn’t heard from Mr. Applewood?” Rotondo was certainly a dogged fellow. I guess that was a good quality in a policeman, but it could be a real pain in the neck during social occasions.

  “I’m sure. Besides, Edie knows, and I know, that Quincy Applewood could no more harm Mr. Kincaid—no matter how much the stinking rat of a man deserved it—than he could fly to the moon.”

  “Oh,” said Rotondo. I was rather proud that I’d evidently been so forceful I my defense of my friends that he couldn’t think of anything more interesting to say than Oh.

  “How about some of that shortbread?” asked my adorable Billy.

  I smiled benignly and rose from the table. “Coming right up.”

  “Aunt Vi’s shortbread is a miracle of nature,” Billy whispered, sounding as if he were awaiting message from the Almighty.

  “God bless us all,” whispered Rotondo in agreement. He, on the other hand, sounded like an older, slightly overweight, New-York-Italian version of Tiny Tim Cratchit.

  I cleared the remains of dinner from the table—there weren’t many of them, either, Aunt Vi’s roast lamb and garlic-mashed-potatoes being what they were—and took the plates to the kitchen. Then I made up a pot of tea in my favorite yellow-flowered teapot, set out some pretty cups, unmatched but that went together pleasantly, and carried the tray to the dinner table. Not long after that, I brought out the remains of the shortbread. It didn’t last long enough for Pa to get any when he and Ma came home a half-hour or so later, but nobody seemed to mind.

  Pa and Ma took to Rotondo almost as much and as quickly as Billy had, for some unfathomable, not to mention unfortunate, reason. I was beginning to feel left out of this picture, and I didn’t like it. But there wasn’t much I could do about it except wash dishes, so that’s what I did. By the time I had them all dried off and put away, Pa had joined Billy and Sam in their gin rummy game. I guess Ma had gone to her room to sew or read or something, because she wasn’t around. A
unt Vi had come home while we’d been eating, and she’d vanished, too. She liked to go upstairs and read after a day at work, and she always ate dinner in the Kincaids’ kitchen with the rest of the staff.

  Because I was feeling out of sorts with the men in my life and excluded from the happy group (not to mention deserted by my mother and my aunt), I said, “What are those pennies doing on the table, Detective, hmmm? Isn’t gambling illegal? Like you told me fortune-telling is?”

  He grinned up at me. “Aw, we make allowances.”

  “Humph. You’d darned well better make allowances for me, is all I have to say about it.”

  “No problem,” he said. I wondered if he meant it.

  Rotondo left our house shortly after that encounter. I was relieved to see him go. I also (and I hate to admit this because it sounds so petty) was feeling a good deal of annoyance that my family should instantly like a man who’d given every appearance of loathing me at first sight.

  Maybe I was being too hard on Rotondo. After all, he was just doing his job at the Kincaids’. Maybe I was being too hard on me, for that matter. Aw, heck, I don’t know. All I know for sure is that I’d never been so happy to hit the sack as I was that night.

  Billy had remained in a good mood until we were in bed, too, what’s more. I attributed his happiness to having met a man he liked and who was willing to talk to him and play cards with him, and treat him as he would any other person in the world. In other words, Rotondo didn’t treat Billy like a cripple. I’m ashamed to admit this, too, but that upset me a bit. I didn’t want Billy liking Sam Rotondo more than he liked me, for Pete’s sake.

  In short, I was jealous of Sam Rotondo. Please feel free to consider me a fool; you’d be doing no more than I did when I realized it.

  I worried about the Sam-versus-me situation for approximately thirty seconds before I fell asleep. Didn’t wake up once during the night, either, what’s more, so I guess I wasn’t all that concerned about the Sam-and-Billy situation.