Fine Spirits ( Spirits Series )

by Alice Duncan

  Billy was absolutely right about the different colors available in collars and leashes. We got Spike a lovely red-leather collar (I made sure Billy thought it was his own idea), and a cunning, woven, red-and-green plaid leash. He looked quite dashing as he trotted out of Nelson's, his tail held high, and his shiny black doggie ears flopping. He was all dressed up for Christmas.

  I couldn't help smiling. Spike had such a presence about him. He was definitely king of our own small Pasadena hill.

  When we got home, wonderful food smells greeted us as soon as I opened the front door. Good old Aunt Vi was on the job--and our meals didn't have to take a detour through Mrs. Kincaid's house first, either, for the next couple of days. Ma and Pa had both come home, and they were delighted with Spike's new clothes.

  “Now all he needs is a little red Santa hat, and he'll be perfect for the season,” Pa said, grinning as Spike showed off his pretty new collar by chasing the knotted sock Billy threw for him. He was sure an energetic little guy.

  “Oh, boy, wouldn't that be a sight,” Billy said, also grinning.

  So far, the afternoon was progressing nicely. Billy hadn't said a single snide thing to me since shortly after I returned from Grenville's Books, and he'd remained relatively cheerful during our entire walk and all the way home. Also, he hadn't taken any morphine that I'd seen--and I'd been watching. I hoped I wouldn't spoil his good mood when I left him to drive back down to Greenville's in order to visit Marianne after supper. I didn't dare not go, since I still had my doubts about leaving George and her alone together.

  Not that I had the slightest doubt that George had meant his passionate declaration of chivalrous intent. But shoot, even book sellers are human. Given the circumstances, what with his apparent adoration of Marianne and hers of him, anything was likely to happen, no matter how strong George's moral fiber.

  Marianne herself was built of such weak stuff that she'd bend in the merest breath of a breeze. It wouldn't take even a full-blown storm to crumble her defenses. I just wanted to make sure, is all.

  “That nice policeman came by a little while ago, dear, and I invited him for dinner.”

  My gaze whizzed from Spike, who was growling and shaking the sock as if he were trying to kill it, to Ma, who'd spoken. “What nice policeman? Sam Rotondo?” What the heck was the matter with my family, anyhow, that they all thought Sam was such a nice guy? Were they all blind that they couldn't see how sly the man was? He was forever poking and prying into other people's business.

  Okay, I know Sam was a detective, and I suppose it was his job to snoop into criminal activities, but the darned man was always suspecting me of evil deeds, and I didn't think it was fair. Granted, this time there might be the tiniest little reason for Sam to suspect me of having something to do with Marianne Wagner, but he shouldn't know that.

  “Yes, that nice man who took us all out to dinner last week. I'm so glad you got to know him, Billy. He's such an asset to the family.”

  Oh, brother.

  “Yeah,” said my husband. “Sam's a nice guy. What's even better is that he's a lousy gin rummy player.”

  Pa laughed. I didn't, but I did come up with a smile. It was a struggle. “I'm going to change clothes,” I told my treacherous family as I headed to our bedroom.

  I don't mean that. My family wasn't treacherous, even though they were singularly blind when it came to Sam Rotondo. As I hung up my skirt and waist, I decided that if Sam could be sneaky, so could I.

  The relationship between George and Marianne might ultimately prove to be Marianne's salvation. I wasn't sure what the laws were in the state of California, but I thought a woman could get married without her parents' permission at the age of eighteen. I knew you had to be twenty-one before you could vote, and you used to have to be twenty-one before you could drink (before it became illegal for anyone at any age to drink), but I wasn't sure about the marriage deal.

  Then again, if they could get married without Marianne's parents' permission, the Star News published notices of applications for marriage licenses once a week. Did they print all the names, or just some of them? It would be a terrible thing if notice of a pending marriage between George and Marianne appeared in the newspaper before they could tie the knot. Her father would see it for sure.

  Wasn't there some sort of waiting period between the issuing of a license and the time the marriage could take place? I couldn't remember from my own wedding.

  Of course, I might be jumping the gun. For all I knew, George intended to love Marianne from a distance, like Lancelot should have loved Guinevere if he'd given half a hang about Arthur and his kingdom. George seemed to be a terrible romantic. Sometimes romantics had a hard time dealing with reality.

  Egad. I didn't need Sam Rotondo to drive me crazy; I was doing a great job on my own.

  # # #

  If there's anything I love better than Aunt Vi's pork roast or roast beef or roast chicken (or a dozen other of her wonderful meals), it's her roast leg of lamb. And to dine on leg of lamb on a Monday night was particularly special, since we generally had to wait until Easter, or at least Sunday, and then get it left-over from Mrs. Kincaid's dinner. I almost didn't mind having Sam there, the food was so good.

  Besides, I aimed to pump him. I'd read plenty of detective novels. Surely, I could question somebody without him cottoning on to my motives for doing so.

  I suppose I could have been wronger (if that's a word), but I'm not sure how. I was trying so hard to sound guileless, too.

  “Why do you want to know that?” he asked in response to my question about the legal marrying age in California. He'd already gone squinty-eyed, the rat.

  “Just curious,” I said with a sprightly grin.

  I was not, it turned out, sprightly enough. As Sam continued to squint and Aunt Vi sliced lamb, Billy aimed his pretty brown eyes my way, too. “Yeah, Daisy. Who're you aiming to marry this time?”

  Fiddle. Turning to Billy, I tried to maintain my bright demeanor. “Nobody. I'm happy with the husband I have, thanks.” It wasn't much of a lie, really. I loved Billy. I wanted us to be happy. I wished we were happy.

  “That's right,” said Pa, merrily accepting a plate piled high with lamb, roast potatoes, green beans, and Aunt Vi's delicious popovers. “We Gumms are lucky in love.” He winked at Ma.

  “Lucky you,” said Billy.

  That hurt my feelings, but I didn't say so. Since I'd already begun my attempted pump of Sam, I continued. Spike wasn't the only dogged individual in the family. “I was just thinking about ages today. You have to be twenty-one to vote, and you used to have to be twenty-one to drink, but can you get married when you're younger than that? Without your parents' permission, I mean.”

  “And this is just because you're curious?” Sam smiled at Aunt Vi as he accepted his own fully loaded plate. He had a nice smile when he wasn't being sly. So far, I'd never been the recipient of one of his plain, old, non-sly smiles.

  “Yes,” I said. My stomach growled. How come the men always got served first in this family, was what I wanted to know. Among other things.

  Sam eyed his plate hungrily. He was polite enough not to dig in until we were all served and Pa and said grace, so he answered me. Not that he wouldn't have otherwise, but sometimes I thought he only tolerated me because he couldn't shoot me. “Eighteen is the legal age of consent in California. A person doesn't need a parent's permission at eighteen.”

  “Ah. I thought so.” I accepted my plate with gratitude.

  After we were all served, Pa said grace, and we dug in.

  “This is delicious, Mrs. Gumm,” Sam said affably. He was always nice to my relatives. It was only my humble self toward whom he expressed reservations.

  “It's wonderful,” I concurred.

  “Aunt Vi's the best cook in the United States,” Billy said.

  This was a normal conversation for us during the first few minutes of a meal. We all appreciated Aunt Vi more than we could say, and we didn't want her to think otherw
ise. It would be awful if she got mad at us and moved away or refused to cook our meals. Not that she'd do that, but still, she deserved as much praise as we could heap on her, so we heaped it high.

  I think we all feared some man would snap her up one of these days and carry her off to cook for him instead of us. She wasn't a spring chicken any longer, being about Ma's age, which was fifty or so, but any man would be a fool not to value her just because she was kind of plump and not in the first blush of youth. Then again, most men are fools. Too bad there aren't more men like Pa around.

  I wanted to work my way back to the subject of marriage, but discreetly. I didn't want Sam to suspect my purpose. Not that he didn't already, but I didn't want to give him any further motive to press me regarding the Marianne Wagner situation. “Say, did I tell you that I'm going to meet a Russian count this coming Friday?”

  “A Russian count?” Ma stared at me as if she thought her little girl was coming up in the world.

  I nodded. “Yep. Mrs. Wright's giving a party for him, and wants me to conduct a séance. He's interested in psychic phenomena and mysticism and so forth, and is hoping I'll be able to communicate with the late Tsar Nicholas via Rolly.”

  That this was true, and that I was a little nervous about it, didn't make Sam's response any more welcome.

  “Do you ever worry that one of your clients will consider you a fraud?”

  Sam was of Billy's opinion regarding the way I earned our living. I frowned at him, which is less than he deserved, but as much as my mother and aunt would tolerate. Not to mention my father and husband. “Heaven's no. I'm a mistress of my craft.” So there.

  “She sure makes good money at it,” said my husband. I smiled at him, since that was perhaps the nicest thing he'd said about my work in a year or more.

  “That's right,” I agreed. “And that's because I'm an excellent practitioner of my art, Sam Rotondo. If you don't believe me, you can just go ask my clients.”

  “I already did,” said Sam glumly. “Mrs. Kincaid thinks you belong on a pedestal. Maybe with a golden crown.”

  I think I smirked. At least I didn't voice the She's right that danced on the end of my tongue.

  “My little girl would look darned good on a pedestal with a golden crown on her head,” said Pa, bless his heart. “She's the cat's meow, and that's the truth.”

  “Daisy's always had such a way about her,” said Aunt Vi, smiling fondly at me.

  This was another one of Aunt Vi's sayings. I don't know why, but she always said these vague things that were meant kindly, but which I never quite understood. I mean, what does “she has a way about her” mean, anyhow? What kind of way? A good way? A bad way? It was kind of like her saying, “go along with you,” which is something else I've never figured out. When I told Billy about my reaction to these equivocal statements of Vi's, he only laughed and said I was being too literal. That didn't help, but at least I knew what it meant.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Ma, beaming at me.

  “Do you have to speak Russian?” Sam asked. He appeared truly curious, but I didn't believe it. I knew he was only trying to catch me out somehow.

  “No. Rolly is Scottish, and he interprets for me.”

  He eyed me skeptically, but I only lifted my chin and chewed.

  “You should hear her accent when she's got Rolly going,” Billy told him. I think he would have laughed if his lungs were still healthy. It was the first time in a long time that he'd spoken of my job and me in so friendly a manner. I stared at him hard, but could detect no indication that he might have taken more morphine than was good for him.

  “She's really something, my Daisy,” said Pa. “She could probably speak Russian if she had to.”

  “Or if somebody paid her enough.” Sam. With sarcasm.

  I sniffed significantly, but didn't snap back. At least my family liked me. I decided it wouldn't hurt to ask another marriage question. “Say, Sam, when a couple gets a marriage license, is it always reported in the local newspaper, or just sometimes?”

  “What's this obsession you have about marriage licenses, Daisy?”

  Darn it. I tried not to glare at my husband. “I'm not obsessed with marriage licenses. I just wondered, is all.”

  “But why? You're already married.”

  Okay, the thing is, I know now that I approached this thing totally the wrong way. I ought to have thought of a good lie to account for my interest in marriages before I'd dared broach the subject. However, I've always been of the opinion that it's never too late to correct a mistake, if you have enough imagination.

  That being the case, and since I have an agile imagination (and was feeling kind of desperate), I shrugged and said, “I ran into Laura Berry today. She said she and Roger Markham are getting married in June. It got me to thinking about it, is all. Our own wedding was only three years ago, but I can't remember what we did to prepare for it.” I gave the assembled diners a careless laugh.

  That was a big whopper, and I hoped Billy never ran into Laura and asked her about it. He probably wouldn't, since he couldn't get around very well, and I think Laura had moved to the Altadena area.

  “Yeah,” said Billy. “A lot's happened since then.”

  Boy, was that the truth. I sighed and smiled at him. “I guess when we got our license, there was a notice about it printed in the paper.”

  “There was,” Ma said. “I have it in the album I kept at the time.” She sighed. “You were both so young and happy then. You made such a splendid couple.”

  As Billy had said: a lot had happened since then. I think I sighed, too, remembering how happy we'd both been. “I'd like to look at the album, Ma. I'd forgotten all about it.”

  “I'll get it out after dinner.”

  “Thanks.”

  I decided to wait until then to ask more marriage-license questions. As I ate, I thought about Marianne and George and how they could be married secretly. Maybe a couple could go to another town and procure a license without the information being reported in the Star News. Was there a waiting period? Did you have to have any sorts of tests before they gave you a license? I doubted it. I don't remember taking any tests.

  Or maybe I was totally off base. Maybe George just had a Prince Charming complex and a compulsion to save silly women from catastrophes of their own devising. I'd read about Napoleon complexes; why not Prince Charming complexes? Lots of people were interested in psychology in those days, although only the rich ones could afford to go to psychiatrists. The rest of us had to muddle along on our own.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ma, Aunt Vi, and I had cleaned up the dishes, and I'd taken Spike out to piddle and poop before Ma got the wedding album down from the book shelf in the back room, where we did the sewing and I read palms and Ouija boards and Tarot cards. I'd hoped that in the interim between dinner and the album, Sam would have left for his own house. I was beginning to wonder if he even had a house, he was at ours so often.

  As usual, he didn't oblige me. When I handed Ma the album (I'd had to climb on a chair to get it), and we walked into the living room, he was there, chatting with Pa and Billy, and looking as if he aimed to stay. And stay, and stay, and stay. Drat the man.

  Looking at the wedding album made me teary-eyed, and I felt like a fool. When I lifted my head to peek at everyone else (they were all standing behind the sofa, leaning over my shoulder, except for Billy), I noticed that Ma and Aunt Vi were surreptitiously wiping their eyes with their fingers. I guess I wasn't the only one who felt sorry for Billy and me.

  When I made the mistake of peering at Sam, his face might have been carved out of granite. That was okay. I hadn't expected to find sympathy in that quarter.

  “You were so beautiful that day, Daisy.” Ma sniffled.

  “She still is,” said Aunt Vi dreamily.

  “That's why I married her,” said Billy. When I grinned at him, he winked back.

  Now why, I wondered, was he in such an all-fired good mood all of a sudden? Could Spik
e have had such a benevolent influence in only one short day? He was napping in Billy's lap while we glanced at the album, and I think it was at that moment that I began to look upon him as a miracle dog. Until then, I hadn't properly understood the value of pets in a person's life. It occurred to me that Rolly might suggest pet ownership as a valuable means of coping with grief in my clients. Boy, you just never know when inspiration will strike, do you?

  Returning my attention to the album, I pointed at another picture. “Oh, Billy, look at you in your uniform. You were so handsome in it.” I gently pried the photograph out of its corner holders and handed it to him, hoping he wouldn't get depressed by looking at himself as he used to be.

  He gazed at the picture with a pensive frown. “That seems like a million years ago, doesn't it?”

  I nodded. “Yes. But it was only a little over three years ago.”

  He handed back the photograph, and I carefully replaced it in the album. When I glanced up at the audience again, I saw that Ma and Aunt Vi were weeping for real now, and both had pulled out their hankies. Even Pa had a funny, sad look on his face. Sam looked as if his entire body had been carved from stone instead of just his face, and I wondered if he was thinking about his deceased wife.

  Suddenly I wanted to ask him if he had a wedding album. Had he and his wife wanted children, as Billy and I did? Did he know about colored dog collars because they'd had a dog? What kind had it been?

  I pressed a hand over my eyes and decided I was going crazy. There couldn't be another reason for me to want to know about Sam Rotondo's life, either before or after he'd invaded ours.

  With another deep sigh, I shut the album, hoping it hadn't been a mistake to take it out. Billy didn't need any reminders, other than his daily life, of how much he'd lost by serving his country. Neither did I. “Thanks, Ma. We sure had a beautiful wedding, didn't we?”

  “You did. Even Reverend Smith said it was a special wedding.”

  “He did, didn't he?” I smiled, remembering.