by Lucy Ness
“Not the furnace?”
Clemmie raised those perfectly penciled eyebrows. “You just heard the furnace. I’d know for sure if that’s what it was. That thing is louder than the engine of a tin lizzie. No, this was a quieter sound, smoother. It made me think of the time when I was a kid and my grandmother, she took me over to O’Rourke’s. You know, the department store. It had an elevator and a man who was in charge of it. He wore a uniform and greeted you when you got on. That sound I heard, it sounded like that elevator.”
“Like the elevator in the lobby?”
“Is that where it is?” When Clemmie shook her head, her feathered headband swayed. “I’ve heard that sound and it’s different. More modern, if you know what I mean. This was hushed, old-fashioned. Almost soothing, I’d say.”
“Soft and soothing.” I thought about it before I slanted Clemmie a look. “Like the dumbwaiter?”
Her shrug was not exactly reassuring, but that didn’t stop me.
“Come on,” I told her, and headed up the stairs. “Let’s check it out.”
I was all the way on the second floor and in the Lilac Lounge before I realized Clemmie hadn’t followed me. No matter. I threaded my way around the tables and desks and chairs where Jack had set up reference books and a station to air out the pages of some of the volumes damaged in Marigold, and made my way to the far wall.
“Dodie’s dumbwaiter,” I reminded myself, and I flung open the door.
Here’s the thing about dumbwaiters in old houses. They aren’t very big. They were never intended to hold people, just objects up and down from the kitchen thanks to a series of hand-powered pulley ropes.
It didn’t take me long to look it over.
That’s why I couldn’t miss what was inside. The statue of Hortense Dash, covered with blood.
* * *
* * *
The doors were wide open and when Oz stepped back, he studied the system of ropes and pulleys that made the dumbwaiter move from floor to floor.
“Glad you called. But I’m not happy our guys missed this.”
I don’t know why, but I felt I needed to defend the members of the crime scene unit who had arrived on the night I found Muriel’s body. One of them, a guy with a sheepish expression and nervous hands, watched Oz from the doorway, obviously waiting to get lambasted. “It’s not exactly something anyone expects to see and nobody would even notice it when the doors are closed.” I moved forward to do just that so I could show Oz that when the dumbwaiter doors were closed they blended right into the wall, but he warned me off with a sharp look.
“Sorry,” I said. “I forgot. Fingerprints.”
He brushed a hand through his dark hair. “I’m sure yours are already all over it.”
“Sorry,” I said again.
“She must have been killed up here, then the murderer tossed the statue and the body in the dumbwaiter.” He slid me a look. “Where does it go?”
“The kitchen.”
Oz nodded. “She was a tiny woman. It would have been pretty easy to move her from the kitchen to the basement. The way she was on the steps—”
“Like the door was opened and . . .” I remembered what Clemmie had said and my stomach soured. “Muriel was given the heave-ho down the steps.”
“Well, we’re closer toward figuring out what happened than we were.” Oz didn’t sound especially pleased by this. “Now if we can just figure out what the killer used to move Ms. Sadler—”
“Well, the plastic runners I had on the carpet in Marigold were missing.”
As if we’d choreographed the move, Oz and I turned to the door just in time to see Jack arrive.
I stared at him with slack-jawed wonder.
Oz closed in. “What do you mean?”
Jack was carrying a stack of books and he set them down on the desk. “I told you, Avery.” He looked my way. “I told you I had to order more plastic runners.”
This time I didn’t even bother to say I was sorry. I just cringed. And automatically defended myself. “You didn’t say any were missing. You just said you needed more. I thought—”
“Well you should have known,” Jack insisted. “There were plastic runners on the carpet in Marigold. If I said I needed more plastic runners—”
“That meant you needed more plastic runners. Not that the runners you had were missing. Why didn’t you—”
“All right, you two.” Oz stepped between us, his hands out in a way that made me think he must have once directed traffic. “You.” He turned toward Jack. “You’re telling me the runners you had on the floor in Marigold were there one day—”
“The day of the murder. Yes.” Jack nodded.
“And not there the next?” Oz wanted to know. “That means the murder could have happened in Marigold, the runners kept the blood off the carpet, then the body was dragged here on the plastic runners and they were taken away.”
Jack flushed a color that reminded me of the puddle of blood I’d found in the dumbwaiter. “I just thought—”
Another wave of Oz’s hands and Jack’s words dissolved.
“And you.” He spun my way. “You’re saying that when . . .” He looked over his shoulder at our shame-faced restorationist. “When Jack here told you he needed more plastic runners, you never thought anything of it.”
“It’s not like I’ve ever worked where there was a murder,” I reminded him. “I just thought—”
“What?” Oz demanded.
And there was really nothing else I could say. I settled for, “Sorry.”
When Oz went quiet, I was sure it was because he was counting to ten. Finally, he turned toward the crime scene technician. “Go take a look in . . .” Oz glanced my way. “Marigold, did you say? Which one is that?”
I started out of the room so I could accompany the tech.
“He’ll find it on his own,” Oz said. “Just say where. We don’t need anyone else in there messing up the scene.
I pointed across the hall.
This time, I didn’t even bother to tell him I was sorry.
CHAPTER 14
Except for special events, Portage Path Women’s Club is not open on Sundays.
Oh, how glad I was there was no special event scheduled!
My plan was to spend all of that Sunday in my jammies, going over the details of what I’d begun to think of as “my case.” With the way thoughts were flying through my head, I knew it was enough to keep me busy for hours.
Muriel dead.
Muriel as the burglar who’d taken—and hidden—my things.
Bill and Brittany, Patricia and Agnes, Tab Sadler.
And then, of course, the big inauguration coming up.
Really, if I thought I could lounge around that gloomy Sunday, I thought all wrong.
My brain was too full, my nerves were drawn too taut. I was up early, changed out of those comfy jammies, and rarin’ to go.
If only I could figure out where I was headed.
I started at the most logical place. The ladies of the inaugural committee had been hard at work the day before, and thanks to the visit from Oz and the crime scene guys, I hadn’t had a chance to catch up on their plans. After a quick trip to the kitchen to make myself coffee and rummage through the fridge (where I found eggs, which I scrambled), I went into the ballroom and looked around in awe.
The committee had been busy.
The poster of Agnes’s family tree was done, complete with photos of her mother and grandmother, both proudly wearing their PPWC pins. There was a scrapbook set out that was filled with articles old and new—the Yarboroughs at the opera, the Yarboroughs serving Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless at one of the local churches, Agnes’s grandmother cutting the ribbon on the building the day its title transferred from Chauncey Dennison and it officially became the Portage Path Women’s Clu
b.
It would be great to give the ceremony even more of a spin on history.
This note was on the table next to the scrapbook, and I recognized the loops and swirls of Valentina’s handwriting.
Historical costumes? Recipes from the past? A tour of the building, for sure. Let’s get Avery going on this.
It was a logical request. And certainly part of my job. But as I stood there in the grand and glorious ballroom, surrounded by mementoes from the club’s past, ice formed in my stomach.
I really didn’t know all that much about the history of the club. Or the house, for that matter. And I didn’t have much time to learn.
There was, however, someone around who might know a whole lot.
I didn’t waste any time. Down in the basement, I paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Hey, Clemmie! Got a minute? I need to talk to you.”
A wisp of mist gathered in front of me. It swirled, congealed, solidified.
“Do I have a minute? Are you kidding, sister? I got more than all the minutes I could ever want and nothing much to do with any of them. What’s on your mind?”
“History, and the way I figure it, you know more about that than anyone around here. You’ve lived it.” When her mouth twisted, I winced. “Sorry. What I meant is—”
“I know what you meant. That I was alive back then, and I’m dead now, only I’m still hanging around. I’m not sure how I can help.”
“I thought we could start with the building itself. That we could walk around and you could tell me how things used to look. You know, like how the ballroom is different than it was in the old days. Or what the rooms upstairs might have looked like and been used for before they were converted into offices and meeting rooms.” I turned and headed up the steps. “It will give me some background to work with so I can put something together for the inauguration. The ladies would like to place the emphasis on history and tradition. I get that. And—”
When I got to the top of the stairs, Clemmie wasn’t behind me so I bent to peer into the basement. She was at the bottom of the steps, as still as a statue.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked her.
“I . . . er . . .” Clemmie backed away from the stairs. She blurred and faded.
“Oh no!” I raced back down. “You can’t disappear. I need your help.”
Her spirit, or ectoplasm, or whatever it was that made it possible for me to see her, swirled a little more and came back into focus just in time for me to see her look past me toward the doorway at the top of the steps. Her voice was small and uncertain. “I can’t.”
“Can’t . . .” I, too, looked toward the upstairs. “Can’t walk up stairs? Then float, I’ve seen you do that.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “It’s not that, it’s—”
“Tell me about it when we’re walking around.” I’d already grabbed her hand when I realized I didn’t know what would happen if I tried to make contact with Clemmie. Would my hand go right through hers? Would she feel as cold as death?
To my surprise, she felt as real as anybody else, even if she was chilly. And just a little damp.
It wasn’t an icky sort of dampness, not like an old graveyard or anything. It was more the way the air feels on a summer morning when the dew is just fading from the grass.
“Come on,” I said, and I tugged her up the stairs.
We were nearly at the top of the steps when I felt a jerk and turned to see what was going on.
There was Clemmie, two steps below me.
And there I was, nearly at the door, my hand still on hers.
But between us . . .
I looked in wonder at the opaque wall that suddenly separated us.
It was blue one second, green the next. On my side of the weird wall, everything felt normal, but on the other side, where Clemmie stood, my hand still on hers, the air was as cold as death. It eddied and swirled and my fingers turned to ice. Instinctively, I pulled my hand to my side and rubbed it with my other hand. It was numb and stiff and so cold, it felt as if my skin would crack.
“What’s happening?” I asked Clemmie.
Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve been trying to tell you. I can’t!” She blinked and a single tear slipped down her cheek. “This is what happens every time I try to go upstairs. You see, I’m not allowed.”
Her feet inches above the steps, she floated back down to the basement and in a flash like a sparkler, she exploded into an effervescent ball that zipped into the speakeasy. Like a comet, she left a trail of bubbling sparks.
Once Clemmie was gone, so was that wall that had separated us. I ran after her, slapping away the remnants of the cold when it threatened to settle on my shoulders. By the time I got into the old speakeasy, she was Clemmie again, as solid looking as if she were still alive. She was curled into a ball in a dark corner, hunched and crying.
I wasn’t exactly sure how to console a ghost. I thought back to everything Aunt Rosemary had ever tried to teach me, but heck, mumbo jumbo didn’t seem like the appropriate response. Not to a kid whose shoulders were heaving and whose sobs echoed through the basement like the wail of a banshee.
“Hey!” I put a hand on Clemmie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s not . . .” She looked over her shoulder at me. “It’s not you. It’s not your fault, Avery. I just can’t . . . I’m not allowed . . .”
“Not allowed to go upstairs?”
She nodded.
“Who says?”
She sniffled and stood up straight and she wiped her hands over her cheeks before she said, “Mr. Dennison, of course.”
I laughed. “Chauncey Dennison’s been dead for like forever.” I cringed. “No offense intended. What I mean is, he doesn’t have any say-so in what goes on around here. It isn’t his house anymore.”
“No, but when it was . . .” Clemmie turned to take in the vast room that was once a speakeasy, and her eyes misted with memory. “It was such a swell place, Avery. There were bright lights and tables with linen tablecloths. The bar was over there.” She pointed toward the far wall. “And the stage was there.” She pointed this out, too. “It was like nothin’ I ever saw before. That first time I came here—”
“When was that?”
She blinked back to reality. “I saw an ad. In the newspaper. It said this swanky joint over on Main Street, the Casbah Club, was looking for a singer. I ain’t half bad, you know.”
I remembered the first day I was at the club, how I’d heard “Bye Bye Blackbird” come from what seemed a long way off. “I know you’re good. I heard you.”
She smiled and sniffled. “I had plans. Don’t think I didn’t.” Her shoulders shot back. “First I’d get that job over at the Casbah. You know, so that I could make a name for myself. After that, there’d be no stopping me. I was going to New York. To be a Ziegfeld girl.”
I guess my blank expression spoke wonders.
Clemmie rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you never heard of them. Ziegfeld girls, they were famous, the showgirls who danced in the Ziegfeld Follies in New York City. Gorgeous costumes! Beautiful makeup! And men falling madly in love with you. Oodles of them.” She clasped her hands together and pressed them to her heart. “Swooning over you and showering you with jewelry and furs!”
Which certainly brought up the question of how Clemmie went from dreaming of the life of a showgirl to being stuck—and dead—in a basement.
I searched for the right way to bring it up without offending her and couldn’t come up with anything better than, “What happened?”
Clemmie pouted. “This place happened. See, they never really needed a singer over at the Casbah. That was just a come-on. Dennison, he was really looking for a singer for this place. Only he couldn’t come right out and say that in a newspaper ad—could
he?—what with it being illegal to run one of these juice joints.”
“And you came here to the speakeasy?”
She nodded. “For an audition. And I’ll tell you what, I wowed ’em. I did, Avery. I sang ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ and every big cheese in the place sat up and listened. They told me I had the job right then and there and they were going to pay me thirty dollars a week. Thirty! I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my ma, and when I did, she just about fainted right there on the floor. She never knew anybody could make that kind of money. Not for just singing, that’s for sure.”
“But then . . .” I looked back toward the stairs and that weird blue wall that was nowhere in sight. “Why—?”
One corner of Clemmie’s mouth pulled tight. “It was after my audition. I saw one of them swells go upstairs, and I figured, how could it hurt? I just wanted a peek at the place, you know what I mean? I never saw a house like this before, and I just wanted to see how the big shots lived.”
“You went upstairs?”
She shook her head. “I tried. That’s when ol’ man Dennison himself stopped me. I thought he was going to fire me right then and there, before I ever even started my job. He didn’t, but he told me I wasn’t ever allowed to go up those steps. Not ever again. I had to come and go just like I did that day, from a door hidden in the garden. It was a secret-like door he had installed in case the cops ever raided the place. So his swell friends would never be caught leaving. He told me a girl like me, well, he said my type of girl wasn’t allowed upstairs with people who were better than me.”
“Creep,” I grumbled.
Clemmie shrugged. “Maybe he was right. I was just a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe I didn’t belong upstairs.”
“Well, I’ve got news for you. Nobody’s better than anyone else. And as of right now, what you heard from Dennison no longer counts.” I grabbed her arm and piloted her back to the stairway and when we got there, I left Clemmie in the basement and hurried up the steps. At the top, I turned. “Clementine Bow,” I said, “I invite you upstairs into the house.”
“Bushwa!” She waved a hand. “No way it can be that easy.”