Fine Spirits ( Spirits Series )

by Alice Duncan

Sam watched him go with more amusement than I. “What's he after, I wonder.”

  I didn't answer Sam's question, mostly because I was so cranky with him and mad at myself. Instead, I shrugged.

  As I should have expected of him, he didn't let the prior subject drop. “What about that throat-slitting scenario, Mrs. Majesty? Do you know something the police don't?”

  “Oh, for heaven's sake, call me Daisy!” I don't know to this day why I said that particular thing at that particular moment. I guess his calling me Mrs. Majesty in that accusatory tone of voice got my goat. “And I don't know a darned thing about Marianne Wagner.”

  “You just said--”

  ”I know what I said! I only said it as a possibility. I hope nobody cut her throat; but if you haven't found her yet, she's probably dead somewhere.” I glared at Sam. “What's more, I'll bet her old man did it, no matter what evidence you claim not to have.”

  “Hmmm.”

  We sat on the porch without speaking for another few seconds until I couldn't stand it any longer and broke the tense silence. “I wonder where Spike went.”

  “Thataway, I think,” Sam said, pointing to the Wilsons' house next door.

  “Ah.” Pudge Wilson, who was eight years old, was in awe of me, and I adored him for it. He was always gazing at me as if I were a motion-picture star. It was comforting to know that at least one member of the male gender thought I was worth revering. Too bad I wasn't married to Pudge.

  “Will he come back on his own, do you think?”

  “I don't know.” With a weary exhalation of breath, I got up from the porch. “I'd better find him. The Wilsons have a mean cat named Samson that's always chasing Mr. and Mrs. Longnecker's dog.”

  Sam rose, too. “The cat chases the dog? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.”

  “Not in this case. Samson's a lot bigger than Spike, too.”

  Sam fell into step beside me, and I gave him what I hoped was a withering glance. “I don't need help to find a puppy.”

  He smiled. He would. It wasn't a friendly smile. “You never know. It might be hard to find a black dog in the dark.”

  “Maybe.”

  It wasn't difficult to find Spike because he trotted down the Wilson's driveway, past their gardenia hedge (which smelled glorious during the summertime but it wasn't summertime, more's the pity) and greeted us as if we were paying him a social call. When he wagged his tail, the whole back end of his body wagged with it. He was the most precious puppy in the world, even if he was a boy. I squatted on the lawn and held out my hand to him. He ran over, wiggling, and I picked him up.

  “He's a fine little fellow,” Sam said, holding out his fingers for Spike to gnaw, which he did with gusto.

  “I'm glad Mrs. Bissel let me have him.”

  “That's right. You exorcized her ghost, didn't you?”

  I sighed. “It wasn't a ghost. It was a cat.”

  “Ah.”

  He didn't believe me. To heck with him.

  We walked back toward our bungalow. Sam stopped beside his Hudson. “I'm off now,” he said.

  “I'm going to bed,” I said. “I can't remember ever being this tired.”

  “Right. Must be tiring, ridding a house of a ghost and then conducting a séance to talk with several more of them.”

  “Don't be sarcastic,” I advised bitterly. “It's how I earn enough money for Billy and me to live.”

  I'd turned up our walkway and had begun to believe I was going to escape relatively unscathed until Sam next spoke. “Mrs. Majesty? Daisy?”

  Darn. I turned. “Yes?”

  “I just want you to know that I don't believe you.”

  “No, really? What a surprise.”

  I'm sure he frowned, although it was too dark for me to discern his expression. “This isn't a joke, Daisy. I think you know something about Marianne Wagner. If you don't come forward with your information, you're liable to get into big trouble. I don't think Dr. Wagner is the type to let something like this go.”

  His words scared me to death. Nevertheless, I couldn't give Marianne up to her awful old man. “Dr. Wagner,” I said, “is a villain and a louse.”

  “He's the girl's father, whatever else he might be.”

  “I don't care what he is.” Oh, how I longed to pour out Marianne's troubles into Sam's ears. Then he wouldn't threaten me with the law, I'll bet. He'd probably arrest Dr. Wagner, in fact. “I hope Marianne ran away to the Yukon Territory and never gets found.”

  Sam stared at me and I stared at him for I don't know how long. It seemed like an eternity; fully long enough for my knees to give out, if a Gumm's knees did such things. After what might have been forever or longer, he said, “Just remember what I've said, please.”

  “I will.”

  Couldn't do anything else. His threats positively haunted me.

  He got into his automobile, pressed the self-starter-I was going to get us a new car come heck or high water so I never had to crank the Model T again-and drove off down the street. Holding on to Spike so that he wouldn't jump out of my arms and hurt himself, I watched the Hudson retreat, wondering where Sam lived.

  “Oh, boy, Spike. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm afraid I'm in big trouble.”

  Spike only wagged and wiggled. Figured.

  # # #

  The next several days passed without anything too ghastly happening.

  On the Monday following Marianne's escape and my coming home with Spike, I put on my best bib and tucker. Actually, it was a tailored suit I'd made of navy blue tricotine, with the seams bound with braid. It was quite elegant, especially when I wore it with the turban-style hat I'd made of the same material, as I did that day. The skirt had one of those hems that went up and down, but even the highest part of it didn't go more than six inches above my shoes. I followed fashion. I knew what was considered acceptable and what wasn't. Whenever I left the house, I did my best to look modish, modest, and refined so that people wouldn't consider me more of an oddball than they already did on account of my spiritualist business.

  The first place I headed after leaving the house was to Dr. Benjamin's office. I could have telephoned first to see if he was in, but decided it would be more circumspect to take a chance on his being in the office. I couldn't be sure a telephone conversation wouldn't be overheard, either by Billy, the operator at the telephone exchange, or by prying neighbors on our party line.

  The weather on that December day might have been designed to buck me up. The day was brisk but sunny, and as I gently persuaded the Model T up Lake Avenue to Beverly Street, where Doc Benjamin's office sat, my battered soul drank in the glory of the San Gabriel mountains and the clear, perfect blue sky. A few pillowy white clouds hovered over Mount Wilson, but they only added to the perfection of the scene. In my opinion, a sky without clouds is boring.

  Dr. Benjamin's normal office hours were from one to five in the afternoon, leaving his morning hours free for making house calls. Luck was with me that day. Before even bothering to hang up my coat I walked over to Mrs. Benjamin, who acted as his nurse and office manager. She sat behind the counter, shuffling papers and looking harried. But when she glanced up to see who'd come in, she smiled. She also told me the doctor was in his office and would see me presently.

  “Are you ill, Mrs. Majesty?”

  “No. Thank you. I'm not sick. I'm here about something else.”

  Mrs. Benjamin brightened. “Oh, my dear, you're not . . .”

  In those days all but the very young, who considered themselves too sophisticated for tact, used euphemisms for words like “pregnant.” A lady was “expecting a blessed event” or “in the family way.” She was never flat-out pregnant.

  I anticipated the end of her question, primarily because I didn't want to hear it for fear I'd start crying. I was feeling pretty wobbly that morning. “I'm afraid not, Mrs. Benjamin. I need to talk to the doctor about Billy.”

  Billy couldn't sire children any longer. If I'd known wha
t was going to happen to him after he left me to go to war, I might have jumped the gun on our wedding day and insisted on intimacy earlier. I suppose that sounds shocking-or it would have back then, anyhow.

  The fact remains that I'd always wanted children and so had Billy. We'd talked about rearing a family lots of times before we were married. After he came home from the Great War, the subject hadn't come up once. Children weren't in the cards for me as long as Billy and I were married, and since I'd never, in a million years, desert him, I guess I would remain childless. It was a bleak thought; almost as bleak as having a drug-addicted husband.

  Mrs. Benjamin's happy smile crumpled instantly. “How is the poor boy, dear?” She reached a hand across the counter to me, and I took it, telling myself not to cry.

  “He's not too chipper, I'm afraid. I'm worried about--” I had to stop and swallow the lump of tears clogging my throat. Then I blurted out the sordid truth. “I'm worried about his morphine use.”

  Shaking her head in sympathy, she said, “I'm sure the doctor will be able to advise you, Mrs. Majesty. He'll only be another little minute. The Mathison boy had to have his wrist set. He sprained it when he fell out of a tree.”

  “Boys will be boys,” I said, wishing I had one of my own.

  “Oh, my, yes.”

  “I'll just take a seat, then. Thanks.”

  “It won't be but another minute or two.”

  I sat on the comfortable, old, over-stuffed chair that matched the sofa in the same condition, and picked up a tattered issue of the Saturday Evening Post. My eyes blurred as I flipped through the pages, and I used my waiting time to try to control my rampaging emotions. I'd feel like a fool, blubbering in front of Dr. Benjamin, although I was sure he wouldn't have minded.

  A few minutes later, a little boy and his mother exited the doctor's sanctum. The kid looked as if he'd been crying, but heck, he was only five or six years old. I smiled at him and felt bereft and incomplete and sorry for myself. He grinned back and held up his bandaged left hand as if the bandage were a mark of courage.

  “I busted my wrist,” he said proudly.

  I said, “Ouch. That must have hurt.”

  His mother tutted. “It's not broken, Freddie. It's sprained.”

  “I mean it's spained,” he corrected himself, still holding up his hand.

  “Poor you. I hope it gets better soon.”

  The little boy shrugged as his mother fetched his coat and cap from the coat rack in the corner. After she'd helped her boy don his outer garments, she did the same with hers, went to the counter and opened her handbag, and took out a five-dollar bill. “The doctor told us to come back in a week, Mrs. Benjamin.”

  “That's fine, dear. Here's a lollipop for Freddie. He was a brave little soldier.”

  A brave little soldier, was he? Darn it, I wished Mrs. Benjamin hadn't used those words. My eyes filled up, and my throat started aching to beat the band. Brother, was I a mess.

  “Your turn, Mrs. Majesty,” Mrs. Benjamin said cheerfully. “Just go right on in.”

  “Thank you.” I used the approximately fifteen seconds it took me to open the door and walk to the doctor's office to concentrate on not breaking down. It was no use. I was sobbing by the time I'd finished telling my tale to Dr. Benjamin.

  He was such a nice man. He got up and closed the door so that we could be private, and he patted me soothingly on the back as he went to his chair behind his big, scarred desk, cluttered with papers, powder packets, medicine jars, and his stethoscope.

  “I-I'm sorry,” I blubbered, feeling stupid and wretched and generally lousy.

  “There's no need to apologize, my dear. Neither you nor Bill deserve what's happened to him and, by extension, you and your marriage.”

  After mopping my eyes and blowing my nose, I thanked him and asked, “Am I worrying for nothing, Dr. Benjamin? Is it safe for him to take so much morphine? I'm so afraid he'll become addicted--or, worse, take an overdose.” I wish the subject of suicide had never been mentioned. It had been paying me visits ever since I'd spoken the word a few days earlier.

  The sympathy in his kind old eyes almost made me cry again. “I can tell you three things, Daisy.” He held up a fist and illustrated his points with his fingers. “The first is no, you're not worrying for nothing. The second thing is that your poor husband is, without the drug, in constant and severe pain. His legs are ruined, there was nerve damage to both of them from the shrapnel, and his lungs were eaten up with gas. The third thing is, I don't have any solutions for his problems and it breaks my heart. I also suspect he is becoming addicted to the morphine.”

  I think I gasped. I know I whispered, “Oh, no!” because the doctor held up his other hand to forestall further words from me.

  “The thing is, my dear, that he-and you-have to choose between two evils: agony or addiction. If it were I, and I must say I'm glad it's not, I'd choose addiction. With the morphine, he'll at least be able to get around, which I'm sure I'd prefer over being bed-ridden and in constant pain.”

  Squeezing my handkerchief in my hands, I asked, “Isn't there anything to give him for his pain other than morphine?”

  He shook his head. “I'm afraid your husband is in bad shape, Daisy. You know that, but I'm not sure you understand exactly how perilous his condition is.”

  “I think I do,” I murmured. Actually, it was more like a moan.

  “Then you know he's more susceptible to pleurisy and pneumonia and many other pulmonary ailments than he was before he was so badly injured.”

  I nodded.

  “And you also know that such an illness will probably take him one of these days.”

  After sniffling and vowing I wouldn't break down again, I nodded once more. “I was just . . . I don't know. Hoping, I guess, that there might be something else we can do for him.”

  “There's always hope, my dear.”

  “Do you really think so? For Billy?”

  The tenderness in his eyes told me the answer to that one. I pressed my lips together so as not to blubber.

  “Take heart, Daisy. Researchers are making great strides in many areas of medical science. The best thing you can do for Bill is to love him.”

  “I do.” The two words came out squeaky.

  “I know you do, my dear.” He heaved a huge sigh. “Sometimes, when I see men who fought for this great country in the late war--and especially those who were the recipients of the Kaiser's mustard gas--I wonder if they weren't the unlucky ones, instead of those who died in action.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. As somebody said, probably Shakespeare because he said almost everything people quote, except for the few choice epigrams rendered by Oscar Wilde, “If wishes were horses, all men would ride.”

  “So I guess it's the morphine and addiction or bed and pain?” The idea of my Billy, who used to be so healthy and athletic, confined to a bed made my insides scream with fury and impotence. Darn it, this wasn't fair!

  “I'm afraid that's about it. As I said, if it were I, I'd choose the morphine. And don't forget, too, that pain can wear a man down. I'm sure you view drug addiction as a social evil, as do most of us, and it is, except in certain special cases. The more debilitated by pain your husband becomes, the more liable he is to succumb to diseases. And melancholia. You might want to consider the morphine as preventing his falling victim to some other dire illness.”

  “That's a good point,” I said, not quite certain I believed it.

  Dr. Benjamin didn't rush me. I'm sure the compassionate fellow would have let me sit in his office and whine indefinitely, but a Gumm knows how to accept fate, even when she doesn't want to. At that moment, I wanted to gas fate with the same mustard gas that had ruined Billy's lungs and then shoot it, as the Huns had shot Billy. Damned cold-hearted, indifferent fate; I hated it almost as much (and as unproductively) as I hated the Germans.

  When I finally rose to leave, Dr. Benjamin handed me another bottle of medicine for Billy, opened his office door,
and then walked with me down the corridor to where his wife sat, working on the books. It was a special courtesy on his part, and I understood and appreciated it. Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin watched me as I retrieved my coat.

  “Good luck, dear,” Mrs. Benjamin called as I opened the door.

  Turning to give the couple a last wave, I said, “Thanks.” I remember thinking it was a shame Marianne's doctor father couldn't have been the Benjamin-esque type. She'd never have run away from home with a father like Dr. Benjamin.

  After my discouraging meeting with the doctor, I was happy to visit Mrs. Frasier's house and read the Tarot cards for her. I admired her duet of miniature pinschers, mentally comparing them to Billy's Spike. I suppose if I couldn't have a dachshund, I'd settle for a miniature pinscher, although they seemed a bit high-strung for my taste. We didn't need a dog that required more attention than Billy, for Pete's sake.

  Mrs. Frasier, a tall, lean woman, lived on Orange Grove Boulevard about three mansions down and across the street from Mrs. Kincaid's place. She and her husband entered dog shows all across the country, and they both lived and breathed miniature pinschers. As I've mentioned before, Mrs. Frasier had made it her mission in life to get her dogs recognized by the Westminster Kennel Club. I wished her well, and only hoped she'd not feel bored and aimless if she ever achieved her goal.

  I always enjoyed driving through that neighborhood because it was so beautiful. Even in December the yards were green, and the whole street practically reeked of wealth and prosperity. Sleek automobiles were parked in drives and on the street, and my rickety old 1909 Model T felt out of place. I patted it on its dashboard and told it not to pout. I didn't mention that I was aiming to trade it in on a new model because I didn't want to make it feel worse.

  Since I was blue myself, I made sure the Tarot cards predicted nothing but sunny skies and bliss for Mrs. Frasier. She was particularly concerned about how her dogs would place in the upcoming dog shows in which they were entered. I didn't know anything about dog shows, but I gave her an equivocal answer that could be taken any old way she wanted to take it. I was almost as good as a Jesuit when it came to equivocation.