Seances Are for Suckers

by Tamara Berry

  Right?

  Chapter 22

  Setting up a séance using nothing but supplies casually borrowed from a centuries-old castle requires much more effort than it seems.

  Now that Thomas is back, I toy with the idea of delaying the big event until he shows up and manages to break down my bedroom door, but I hate to be so obvious. A medium who can’t conduct a séance without access to her luggage is a medium who’s up to no good. If I’m going to make this a convincing show, then I need to get results in a way that will mystify all.

  “Well, Madame Eleanor, we meet again.”

  I smell Inspector Piper’s cigarette before I hear his voice. I’m currently perched on top of a stool as I tack a length of black fabric to the ceiling of the parlor, so it’s not the most ideal time for a rendezvous. But then, a worn sheet I had to dye using rusty nails soaked in a bathtub overnight isn’t an ideal decoration. Sometimes, you just have to wing it.

  “Can you do me a favor and hold the other end of this?” I indicate the drooping strip with a tilt of my chin. “I’m trying to ensure the room is as soundproof and dark as possible for the séance tonight, and I could use an extra hand.”

  He hesitates but eventually scrapes a chair across the floor. With slow, deliberate movements, he climbs on top and lifts the sheet. It hasn’t fully dried from its overnight soak, so his fingers are probably going to turn black to match, but they’re already stained by nicotine, so who’s he to complain?

  “Are you here to interview Thomas?” I ask in what I hope is a conversational tone.

  “No.”

  “Spread the edges out a little more, please.” I wait only until he complies before thumbing a few tacks in place and leaning back to admire my handiwork. “You aren’t going to question him at all? That seems like shoddy police work.”

  He examines the damp pads of black dye on his fingers and grunts. “This seems like shoddy medium work, but you don’t hear me complaining. He came by the office this morning.”

  “Oh.”

  I wait, hoping he’ll tell me something to indicate whether he finds that whole the-harbormaster-gave-me-an-alibi thing suspicious, but all he does is glance around the transformation in the parlor with an inscrutable look in his eyes. Shoddy work the dyed sheet might be on its own, but as part of the whole picture, I’m quite pleased with the result. What the decaying grandeur of the parlor hasn’t supplied on its own, I’ve made up for with wispy shawls and scarves borrowed from the ladies of the house tossed over light fixtures and on top of every painting and mirror. With the lights off and a few tapers strategically located near the draftiest spots, the result will be decidedly funereal. Especially since the shawls provide the additional advantage of hiding a few small upgrades I’ve added to the room for the night.

  “Was there something you wanted?” I ask. “I hate to be rude, but I’ve got quite a bit of work left to do before the séance tonight.”

  “What kind of work?”

  I cast an obvious look at his cigarette. “Well, for one, I’m going to have to smudge the room with lavender to get rid of that smell.”

  “Smudge?”

  “Burn aromatics to purify the air and call the spirits.”

  To my surprise, he puts the cigarette out, though he does it in a bowl that looks to be made of Waterford crystal. “And that works?”

  I’m not sure how comfortable I am lying to him, so I hedge with “It doesn’t hurt. Lavender can be very soothing to the soul. They used it inside Egyptian mummies all the time.”

  “Funny you should mention the Egyptians.” Inspector Piper coughs. “Thomas seemed rather concerned about a cat of his that’s gone missing. They had cats, too, didn’t they?”

  “Um.”

  “Strange thing, cats. My wife kept two nasty little brutes, always bringing dead mice and birds into the house. I told him they have a way of returning home on their own most of the time. I’m sure that’s what will happen here.” Inspector Piper’s steely look is nothing short of a command.

  “Yes,” I agree with a gulp, “I’m sure it will.”

  Apparently satisfied with my response, the inspector begins a cursory examination of the parlor. His hands are clasped behind his back, and he does no more than peer closely at a few of my fixtures with a low hmm on his lips, but I can feel a cold sweat breaking out on my upper lip. In the bright light of daytime, and with the knowledge that Beast is shut up in the cleaning cupboard a few doors down, I’m feeling none too confident in my position. But he does nothing more than wander back to where I’m standing, his lips spread thin.

  “By the way, Ms. Wilde, we identified your body.”

  Surprise prevents me from speaking right away, but I’m coming to learn that the good inspector relies on theatrical pauses as much as a fake medium. He stands and watches me, unblinking, until I gather my scattered wits.

  “The bones?” I gasp. “Who are they?”

  He gives a slight shake of his head. “Not that body. The other one. The, er, fresh one.”

  His parroting use of my own words does little to abate the sudden thump-thump of my heart. “Holy hypnosis. You actually found it?”

  “Not quite. We identified the man based on your sketch. Walter Powell, a trade compliance officer reported missing from his London home two days ago.”

  “I knew it!” I cry, much more triumphant than is seemly for a man who’s been killed—and under this roof, no less. Tempering my excitement, I add, “Who is he?”

  “Walter Powell, a trade compliance officer reported missing from his London home two days ago.”

  “Yes, I understood the first time. I mean who is he? His personality, his hopes and dreams, his reason for being inside this house in the first place . . . ?”

  “If I knew all of that, I wouldn’t need a psychic, would I?”

  If I’m surprised to hear that the police have identified the dead body, it’s nothing compared to my feelings at hearing the words need and psychic coming from those thin lips—however disdainfully that second one dangles.

  “I’m sorry?” I ask, somewhat dazed.

  He fingers a wisp of scarf. “I want a bloody cigarette,” he mutters but doesn’t reach for one. With a deep breath, he raises his eyes to mine with a directness that’s disconcerting in the extreme. “I haven’t told anyone outside the force about my findings just yet. If—and I want you to know how much this pains me—if you were to mention the name during your little séance tonight, I might find it in me to overlook your other crimes.”

  “But I haven’t committed any crimes,” I protest before remembering Mrs. Brennigan and the cat. Also possibly the fact that I’ve been using Thomas’s house as a Liam calling center all weekend.

  “The man’s family is desperate for answers,” Inspector Piper continues as though I haven’t spoken. “They can’t tell me what he was doing in Sussex or why he’d be mixed up with a family like the Hartfords.”

  “You could always ask them,” I suggest.

  “True. But in my experience, murderers tend to lie when asked direct questions like that. I can’t imagine why.” His sarcasm is so dry it sucks all the moisture out of the room. “Please, Ms. Wilde. You’d be doing me a big favor.”

  “Just dropping the name, all casual-like?”

  He stares at me as though my IQ has sloughed off like a snake’s skin. “Someone in this house knows more than they’re letting on. Perhaps your . . . manipulations will rouse one of them to action.”

  “Oh.” Awareness dawns, and with it, a burgeoning respect for Inspector Piper. I’m starting to realize he’s a man after my own heart. “It’s like arsonists watching a house burn after the firemen arrive. You want me to scare the murderer into checking on the body.”

  He tilts his head in a gesture that’s half acceptance, half doubt. “That would be a best-case scenario, but yes. At this point, I’ll settle for someone in the room blinking too many times. You’ll do it?”

  Well, yes. Naturally. A cat looking omin
ous in the background and warnings uttered under the guise of eternal damnation are good, but they’re not that good. The name of the dead man is just the piece this puzzle has been missing.

  “Wait—does this mean you’re going to want to be present at this séance?” I ask. It’s going to be bad enough having Nicholas watching my every move; I hardly need a detective added into the mix. “No offense, but no one is going to believe you’re suddenly interested in the occult.”

  “My men and I will be stationed at various points around the grounds,” he says, speaking down as if to a child. “In the event that your séance works.”

  Oh, it’ll work. I have yet to perform a séance that didn’t leave at least one person in hysterics. “Okay, but you’re going to have to get a nicotine patch or something before you start your stakeout. If you leave piles of cigarette butts around, you’re sure to give your location away.”

  He laughs, a dry, papery sound that’s brittle from misuse. “You do your job, Ms. Wilde,” he says, that brittle sound cracking open, “and I’ll do mine.”

  * * *

  There’s no sign of Beast when I return to the cleaning closet.

  Her food dish looks as though it hasn’t been touched. The water dish bobs with clean provisions. Even the litter box appears not to have been used. In fact, if those items weren’t still installed in the closet, I might have assumed I dreamed the whole thing.

  But I didn’t. I haven’t dreamed any of this past week. All of it, from the gothic castle to the pile of bones to the team of cops waiting outside for me to set my trap, has been eerily, uneasily real.

  “Beast?” I hiss, afraid to speak too loud for fear of being overheard. “Kitty, kitty?”

  Nothing. Like the murdered man at the bottom of the stairs, the cat seems to have vanished into thin air.

  “Come on, Beast,” I hiss again, louder this time. “This isn’t funny. The séance starts in a few hours. I need to hide you inside the game cupboard.”

  “Madame Eleanor? Hello? Madame Eleanor?” Cal’s loud, officious voice sounds from somewhere in the dining room.

  I contemplate the wisdom of crouching in the back of the closet until he takes himself off again before deciding against it. For one, I still have quite a few last touches to put on my séance, and there’s no telling how long Cal could spend snacking in the next room. For another, he notices the open door and pokes his vibrant head in before I land on a good hiding spot. The dumbwaiter is rusted shut, and I’m not sure I can fit my whole body inside one of those cupboards.

  “I thought I heard you slip in here,” he says, squeezing his large frame through the door and shutting it behind him. “Good thinking. I can never get over how many strange little rooms these old homes have. Just think—there were Hartfords living here all the way back when our ancestors across the pond were enjoying a little thing they like to call the Revolution.”

  The Hartford home is an interesting topic in light of recent revelations, but I don’t like the fact that he’s blocking my only exit. Cal Whitkin is a large man, no question. He’s also my top Xavier suspect. I don’t think he’ll hurt me with so many people milling around the house right now, but I’m no clairvoyant. The future is a thing I can neither predict nor control.

  I can, however, control conversations. As long as I’m trapped, I might as well make good use of my time.

  “Yes, Nicholas was telling me a little bit about the place a few days ago,” I say, casting my mind back on our walk along the rocky bluffs. “Apparently, it’s very costly to maintain in this day and age. A money pit, I believe, was his exact term.”

  “Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. I know a little something of the profit margins around these parts myself.”

  My heartbeat picks up. “Oh?”

  “Real estate, Madame Eleanor,” he booms. “Real estate and tech. There’s money to be made in this world, but only if you know where to look.”

  I’m unaccountably disappointed by this utterance, which is almost a verbatim replica of what Rachel already told me. Cal’s Machiavellian tendencies are showing again. If he’s going to be the villain of my piece, I’d like him to show at least a little more finesse.

  A strange silence settles over us as I contemplate my next move. Cal seems strangely loath to leave me, but not in an intimidating way. By the time he opens and closes his mouth three times in succession without any words issuing forth, I realize there’s something on his mind.

  “You didn’t come here to chat about real estate,” I say and wait. When he still doesn’t speak, I add, “There’s something else that’s troubling you.”

  It’s eerily close to what Annis said to me yesterday—you’re troubled by something—and a twinge of guilt fills me at having borrowed her phrase. She meant only to ease my burden; I’m trying to trick Cal into revealing more of his secrets. Though, in a way, I guess that’s exactly what a vicar does: manipulates people into opening up, convinces them to share parts of themselves that are so deeply private they’re closed even to God.

  “It’s the boy,” Cal says after one more mouth-opening-and-closing attempt. No boys rise immediately to memory, and my expression says as much. To clarify, he adds, “The one who went missing.”

  The boy who went missing? “You mean Thomas?”

  Cal casts a furtive look behind him, but the door to the closet remains firmly shut. As it’s an interior room and there are no windows, he safely—and accurately—accepts that we’re alone. “Something isn’t right there,” he says.

  It’s a sentiment I share, but I’m not yet sure what Cal’s angle is, so I don’t say anything.

  “I’ve been staying here at the castle for eight weeks already. Can you believe it? Me, Cal Whitkin, rusticating in a dump like this for a woman.”

  “Love is a powerful thing,” I say with a vague air. More realistically, I’d say that a warm body in your bed is a powerful thing, but that lacks a certain savoir faire.

  “Between you and me,” Cal adds with a conspiratorial air, “I normally stay somewhere with Wi-Fi and, well . . .”

  “Room service?” I suggest.

  He guffaws, the sound bouncing from the close walls, but it’s a short-lived merriment. With a seriousness that’s almost alarming, coming, as it does, from so ridiculous a man, he says, “From what I’ve seen, that Thomas kid gets every Wednesday off as well as his one long weekend a month.”

  “Tedious hours for a tedious job,” I murmur.

  “Sure is,” he agrees. “But what I find strange is that he had his weekend off not too long before you arrived. Made a big show of it, too—came back with a bucket full of smelt. Nasty little buggers, smelt. I had to stock up on supplies. I figured it’d be just like old Viv to serve them for dinner all week.”

  I stare at him for a full ten seconds, his words taking that long to penetrate.

  “He already had his weekend off this month?” I echo.

  Cal nods and, as if afraid I didn’t catch the rest of the story, adds, “Smelt fishing.”

  “But his whereabouts have been confirmed. By Nicholas and Rachel and—” I’m thinking of Inspector Piper and the harbormaster, but Cal’s not supposed to know that I’ve spoken with the detective.

  In the end, it doesn’t matter, because Cal understands me just fine.

  “This whole family is hiding something, to my way of thinking.” His brows lower just enough to hint at the hard-edged businessman behind his massive fortune. “Excepting Fern, of course. That lamb couldn’t tell you what month we’re in, let alone what day. She’s timeless.”

  Fern is neither timeless nor ageless, as we both well know.

  “She’d never admit to it, but she’s the oldest in the family. Did you know that?”

  I stop, unsure if I heard him correctly. “Um. What?”

  He winks. “You didn’t hear it from me, but she’s three years older than her brother. Of course, I’m not supposed to know it, but Cal Whitkin’s no fool. She and the old lady signed this crumbling heap
over to Rachel rather than admit her age publicly. Kept the kid out of school, too, which seems a little hard, but beautiful women are always difficult. Worth it, most of the time. Well, Fern is, anyway.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, even though I understand the concept just fine. In fact, it explains quite a few things. A teenage daughter ages a woman in ways nothing else can. In order to hide her own advancing years, Fern would have to hide Rachel’s—maybe even going so far as to keep her out of school and tucked away where the world can’t see her.

  But what I don’t understand is why Cal is telling me this. And now, of all times.

  “I’m just saying the family keeps things close, that’s all. Rachel’s uncle holds the place in trust for her, and does a good job of it, if you ask me, but what with Xavier and those bones . . .” He gives a rueful shake of his head. “I’d look into it myself, but I can’t. Not without Fern knowing I’m on to her real age, so to speak. Got to keep the waters calm.”

  “So you don’t want this property?” I ask. “You aren’t trying to buy it from Fern?”

  At this, Cal’s eyes, never his most attractive feature, practically goggle out of his head. “What for? A man can’t develop a National Heritage site like this one—not with the regulations this blasted country has in place. You’ve never seen people so in love with old rocks.”

  My head fairly spins with the information being hurtled my way. All the mysteries I thought I’d unraveled, the idea that Cal was behind everything, are now tied up even tighter than before.

  “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for it all,” Cal says in a tone that sounds falsely hearty, even for him. “Could be I’m blowing smoke before there’s a fire, but I thought you’d want to know. Seeing as how that body just up and walked away from you around the same time that boy went fishing . . .”

  “You believe me, don’t you?” I ask, unable to stop myself. I don’t normally suffer from such low self-esteem that I need to seek out reassurances from men like Cal, but I can’t help it. Yes, I’ve started hearing my sister’s voice, and yes, I’m halfway starting to believe the dead can walk around here, but I’m still the most rational person under this roof. That’s one of the few things I do know for sure. “About finding the man at the bottom of the stairs?”