Everyone around the older woman froze, Seymour included. His mouth went slack and he didn't appear to know what to do or say. Nobody did.
After a moment of silence, Mrs. Fromsette obviously realized her inappropriate reaction and shook her head. Her fingers twitching nervously, she forced a smile and changed the subject, gesturing broadly to the silver-framed photograph of Miss Todd.
"It's good to see this place so full of life again," she said with exaggerated cheerfulness—as if trying to will normalcy back into the moment. "Miss Todd was so reclusive."
"You knew her well?" I asked, stepping up. I quickly introduced myself.
"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. McClure. No, I didn't know her that well," Mrs. Fromsette replied. "She was always a very aloof, standoffish neighbor."
"Did you know she had a sister?"
"Yes, I did," the woman replied with a nod. "I never met her, but Timothea once mentioned her to me. She said they had a falling-out many decades ago."
Listen up, doll. Could be the lead you're looking for.
I leaned closer. "Do you know her name?"
Mrs. Fromsette shook her head. "I'm sorry, dear. I'm sure it was Todd at one time. But Timothea said her sister married and moved to Newport. Mr. Stoddard must know more. Emory Stoddard is the lawyer who handled all of Miss Todd's affairs. He had an office in Newport until recently. Now I believe he's working out of Millstone."
"I know Mr. Stoddard. We've met," I said aloud, and to Jack, I silently said—
"Did you hear that? Stoddard had an office in Newport. That confirms what I already suspected."
Yeah, it's a big step down for lawyer boy, all right, baby. Sounds like the man's in dire straights.
"Dire enough to maybe arrange the death of his client? You heard Mrs. Fromsette. She believes Miss Todd's sister resides in Newport. I'll bet the sister's the one who hooked up Miss Todd with Stoddard's firm in the first place."
Mrs. Fromsette was still speaking to me. "... and I did want to meet Mr. Tarnish. I understand he was very kind to Miss Todd in her last days."
"She was a nice lady."
"And you're a very nice man," April said, still clinging to Seymour's arm.
Seymour blushed at the attention. Dean Pepper blinked in surprise. Brainert's Spock eyebrow rose.
"Is she flirting with him?" I whispered.
"Undoubtedly," Brainert replied. "Can't imagine why."
New money's the oldest aphrodisiac. Seymour's grown real attractive since he's become landed gentry.
Meanwhile, Dean Pepper glanced at his watch. "I'm sorry to say I have to go. I'm giving a lecture about John Milton at the Episcopal Church tomorrow afternoon, and I haven't even written it yet."
"Thanks for coming, Wendell," Seymour said.
April smiled and leaned closer to the mailman. "Would you mind showing me around?"
Seymour nodded like crazy. "Sure."
She pointed. "How about telling me about that poster above the mantel?"
"Love to!" Seymour grinned. "The actor is Pierce Armstrong. I actually met the gentleman ..."
I have to admit, I was pretty surprised to see a woman like April looking up at Seymour Tarnish with flirty female interest—then again, I probably would have been surprised to see any woman doing the same. On the other hand, the mailman had transformed himself, and it wasn't just the smoking jacket and Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Cranky Seymour was virtually bubbling over with good cheer and masculine confidence. It was sort of attractive.
"You know, Jack, for the first time I can actually see marriage in Seymour's future."
What the hell are you doing just standing there ?!
I jumped at the chill Jack had sent my way. "What do you mean?"
I mean get your panties in motion and go brace that overgrown Yalie before he leaves!
I didn't know what I was supposed to "brace" Dean Pepper about, but I didn't waste time arguing. I just handed Brainert my iced tea glass—empty now—and headed Pepper off in the foyer.
"Uh, excuse me? Dean Pepper?"
"Yes?" The dean turned and smiled—still affable enough, but strain at the edges told me I was holding him up and he wasn't happy about it.
"Uh..." I said.
Ask him about the Fromsette broad! Haven't you noticed her acting squirrelly? Get a handle on that. See if there's more to her relationship with the Todd dame.
"Mrs. Fromsette's very nice," I said, trying not to slur my words. "Why haven't I seen her around Quindicott?"
Wendell frowned. "She used to be quite active in the community. Head of the Larchmont Avenue Charity Drive, that sort of thing. All that changed when Mr. Fromsette went missing—"
"Missing?" That sounded odd. "But I heard you mention a funeral."
"There was a funeral," Dr. Pepper said. "But Arthur Fromsette's body was never found. Only his sailboat washed ashore, off Mullet Point. He enjoyed fishing. He'd started on Quindicott Pond and then followed the inlet out to the ocean. He did it every day for years. The Coast Guard concluded he'd fainted, had a spell, or perhaps even a heart attack, and fell overboard." "How tragic."
"She never quite got over it," Wendell said. He leaned closer, lowered his voice. "That black shawl she refused to let Seymour take? She put it on for Mr. Fromsette's funeral and hasn't taken it off since. Wears it all day, every day, I understand."
"Is that why April's here? To take care of her mother?" "Yes, but April usually visits every summer," Pepper said.
"From where?"
"Boston. She was married until recently." "Oh, divorced, eh?"
"Separated, but I believe the divorce papers are filed. You should get to know her better, Mrs. McClure. She's thinking about making a permanent move back to Quindicott, to be near her mother."
"Really? Wouldn't that be a difficult commute to her job?"
"From what I recall, she runs her own bookkeeping business so she can probably relocate fairly easily."
I could certainly sympathize with April's situation. After my husband's suicide, I'd wanted to get away—not just from the memories of Calvin's unholy leap, but of the truth of how bad our marriage really had been. April was obviously on the rebound and looking for a summer fling. Seymour was single, available, and a brand-new, prosperous-looking Larchmont resident.
Looks like your mailman's about to become the beneficiary of something a lot steamier than an old Victorian.
Pepper glanced at his watch. "I'd better go."
"One more thing, Dean Pepper. I'm just curious. You don't happen to know Mrs. Fromsette's maiden name, do you?"
"Why yes, as a matter of fact. I believe her husband's funeral announcement listed it as Field." Hoping for Todd, weren 't you ?
"Yes, Jack," I told the ghost. "It would have been a nice, neat package, wouldn't it?"
Sorry, baby, but the gumshoe game's rarely that clean and easy.
Pepper left and I watched him wander down the dark drive. "That's odd about Mrs. Fromsette's husband disappearing, don't you think, Jack?"
Yeah, baby.
"You think he's still alive?"
It's possible. In my experience, faking your own death's usually linked to theft of a great deal of money or cheating the life insurance company.
"Or he could just be dead."
Either way, the Fromsette dame gave you the best lead on the case you 're trying to crack.
"Yes, you're right. Miss Todd's sister is married and lives in Newport—or at least she did. And now I'm almost positive I already got a glimpse of her."
You're talking about the old dame you saw in front of Stoddard's run-down office?
"Exactly. And remember when she climbed into that Mercedes sedan? There was a chauffeur driving—and wouldn't someone like that know all about cars and how to sabotage them?'
Good call, baby. But you still don't have a name.
'True, but I can tell Eddie my theories tomorrow. Maybe he can figure out a legal way to pressure Stoddard into revealing it."
I hav
e a better idea.
"Well, tell me in a minute okay? I'm thirsty again."
I returned to the party and crossed to the bar. As if he'd read my mind, Hardy handed me a third ice-cold glass of tea before I even asked for it. Grateful, I took a long gulp, not caring anymore whether or not it contained alcohol.
Got enough liquid courage now, baby? "For what?"
I want you to brace someone else, someone who does
know the identity of Miss Todd's estranged sister, someone who you yve been avoiding like the plague.
"Who?"
Ghoul Girl.
"Aw, crap." I took another sip of spiked tea.
Let's go, Penelope. You and me together. Let's find out, once and for all, whether or not this broad really can see yours truly.
CHAPTER 16
Now You See Him
I've got to keep in some sort of touch with all the loose ends of this dizzy affair if I'm ever going to make heads or tails of it.
—The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett, 1930
"DID YOU KNOW there's a magic circle under this rug?"
Ophelia turned to face me. Her heavily lined eyes flashed darkly, but she said nothing.
"It's a pentagram," I said, "like the one on the gate outside, only it has a—"
"Fleur-de-lis in the center," she said flatly. "Yes. I know."
"You can see the circle then? You can see it through this rug?"
She rolled her eyes. "I've seen the gate outside. I don't have X-ray vision." "Oh."
Ophelia swirled her drink. The ice tinkled softly against the tumbler. Tink-tink, tink-tink... It was mildly hypnotic, but then, I had consumed some pretty powerful fire juice.
"You know about magic circles, Mrs. McClure?"
"Not much. What do you know?"
"In rituals of ceremonial magic, the practitioner stands inside the circle, which forms a barrier against the demons and evil spirits the sorcerer hopes to summon and control. Bend to his will, so to speak."
I felt a chill, not the ghostly kind, more like the old-fashioned kind, right up my spine. "What can these demons and spirits do?"
Ophelia shrugged. "Whatever the sorcerer wants them to do. Turn lead into gold. Bring you the mate you desire. Grant power and influence, bestow eternal youth—"
"Gould the spirits be employed to destroy another person?"
"That, too, I suspect." Ophelia sipped her green tea, met my eyes. "If you believe in such things."
I looked away, pointed to the carpet. "That's where I found Miss Todd's corpse. Right there, on the rug, in the center of the circle."
"You're thinking there are spirits in this house, and that the magic circle failed to protect Miss Todd, right?"
I took a gulp of my own tea and nodded.
Ophelia forced a laugh. "Which proves your fears are baseless. If this house really was haunted, and if those spirits suddenly menaced Miss Todd, shouldn't she have been safe from harm inside the magic circle?"
"Well, I guess ..."
But she died, anyway, which proves that witchcraft stuff is a bunch of hooey.
Ophelia sighed like a patient teacher with a particularly slow student. "For starters, sir," she Whispered to the air just above my head. "Ritual magic is not the same thing as witchcraft. Ritual magic is a conceptual system that asserts human ability to control the natural and supernatural world."
An exceedingly uncomfortable moment of silence stretched between us.
"Do you see him?" I whispered. Ophelia nodded. "Don't you?"
"I just hear him. Unless I'm dreaming. He sometimes comes into my dreams, influences them. But then he disappears. He did that after our last dream."
"It takes energy to manifest. They draw it from the molecules around them. That's why the air's cold whenever they're present. A dream like the one you're describing probably took a lot of energy from him."
I glanced uneasily around us, making sure no one could overhear our discussion.
"You mean he has to rest after expending a lot of energy?"
"Just like we do." Ophelia studied me closely for a moment. "You suspect me of something, don't you, Mrs. Mc-Clure?"
"You're a psychic, right? Not just a medium or whatever you call yourself?"
"I call myself Ophelia." She sniffed. "Listen, I can see spirits, which is obvious, right? And I can read emotions of maybe six out of ten people. You're easy to read. You're an open book."
Jack laughed.
"Okay, Ophelia, if I'm such an open book, then you must know what I suspect you of."
She shrugged. "Not really. I just know you suspect me of something. Why don't you enlighten me on the what?’
"I need to know the name and address of Miss Todd's living sister. It's important."
"Why?"
"I think she's trying to hurt Seymour."
Ophelia's eyebrows rose. "What makes you think that?"
"A lot of things make me think it, but I'd rather not go into all of that right now."
Just spill, Cleo. Give up the name.
"Cleo?" Ophelia frowned and glanced around. "Who's Cleo?"
"You," I informed her. "Your makeup reminds Jack of Cleopatra."
She's not Egyptian, is she, doll?
Ophelia rolled her eyes. "The 'smoky eye' look is in, sir."
Don't call me sir. It makes me feel old.
"As opposed to dead?"
This whole thing was freaking me out. I drained my glass, which began to impair my ability to stand completely straight. Whoa.
Listen up, raccoon eyes! Answer the questions and lose the attitude!
"It's my attitude. Live with it. Oops. You can't, can you?"
Show some respect for the dead!
The room began to spin a little and suddenly got a whole lot colder. I shivered. "Stop pissing him off," I warned, knowing instinctively it was Jack creating the chill and not some other spook.
"Sorry," she said, but her tone was still insolent.
Then Ophelia's handbag rang—or rather the cell phone inside it. She fished it out and took the cell call in front of me (and Jack).
"Yes?" She glanced at me, then higher up. "I'm at Mr. Tarnish's," she told the other party. She listened some more, then looked back at me. "Excuse me."
She walked away, her voice a whisper. After a minute, she closed the phone, threw me an uneasy glance, and approached Seymour, who was laughing with April Briggs on the red velvet, claw-footed loveseat in the corner.
"Alas, I've got to go," Ophelia announced.
Brainert wandered over to say goodbye to Seymour as well. As I bid him pleasant dreams, I noticed Leo Rollins had finished working on the television and was drinking a bottle of Sam Adams. His gaze appeared preoccupied with Ophelia. Did he know her? It sure seemed to me she threw him a nod of recognition when she'd first walked in.
I addressed the ghost: "I was just thinking ..." Considering your inebriated state, that's a miracle— "No, not thinking." I shook my head, trying to clear it. "More like remembering. Leo Rollins has that suspicious knife with the Todd Mansion pentagram design. And Leo was on the road that day I found Miss Todd's corpse. Don't
you recall? I heard that Harley motor of his first, and then I saw him pass me going in the opposite direction."
So?
"So Leo was coming from Larchmont. He could have been at Miss Todd's house. He could have been involved in her death!"
I passed Bud Napp, who was loudly complaining about the construction vehicles parked in front of his business. As I approached Leo, I noticed him glance at me, then nervously shift his bottle from one hand to the other.
"He's looking awfully uncomfortable, Jack."
Could be he's just bashful around attractive redheads.
"Who, me?" I pushed up my black-framed glasses. "Get a grip!"
"Hi, Leo," I said, a little too loudly. (The Long Island Iced Tea was most definitely talking now.) "I wanted to thank you again for helping my aunt and me on the highway the other night!"
&nb
sp; "No big deal," he grunted, then lowered his eyes.
"So, are you having fun?"
"Sure," he said with a shrug.
"Really something about that pentagram design on the floor, huh?" I pointed to the rug. "It looks just like the one on your dagger."
Leo's head bobbed once. "I guess."
"Tell me again where you got that—"
"Hey, Leo," Bud cried, interrupting.
"Yeah," Leo said, looking past me.
"You know Jim Wolfe, right? You did work for him last year. Can't you ask him to move his trucks?"
"I haven't seen him much, not this summer. He cut back—having a bad year, I think. I'm not on his payroll. Anyway, I'm just an independent contractor. He's not going to listen to me." Leo drained his bottle, and before I could speak with him again, he whirled and headed for Hardy Miles and a refill.
Sadie appeared just then, and offered me the last pass on the tray of fried chicken. I wolfed down two wings, suddenly ravenous, and realized eating might help me sober up. I found more snacks, then headed to the bar again and ordered myself a soft drink. "Dr Pepper!" I giggled. "Oops! He already left!"
The Ghost and the Haunted Mansion Page 17