Nine Lives

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “But not this time. I wonder why not.”

  “Maybe the pirate kidnapped her,” Bella hears herself suggest, and they turn to look at her, apparently as surprised by the words as she is.

  Where the heck did that come from?

  “I don’t mean an actual pirate,” she says hastily. “Just . . . that’s what Jiffy called him and—well, if there really was someone here that night, maybe he took the cat along and dumped her out on the way back down toward the interstate.”

  Luther is nodding. “That makes sense.”

  Does it?

  Why would Leona’s murderer—if she was, indeed, murdered—take a cat along in the getaway car?

  “All I know,” Odelia says thoughtfully, “is what my guides are telling me: if Chance hadn’t wound up where she did, you and Max wouldn’t have wound up in Lily Dale.”

  “What does that have to do with Leona?”

  “Maybe nothing,” she tells Bella. “It’s not always about connecting the dots. It’s like the night sky. Remember I mentioned that I’m an astronomy buff?”

  Not only that, but she mentioned that she’s the reincarnation of a nineteenth-century astronomer—which might strike Bella as amusing if she were in the mood.

  Odelia talks on. “Think about how when you’re in the planetarium, the patterns of the constellations are distinctly outlined. But when you’re outside and the night sky isn’t particularly clear, sometimes all you can see is a little pinprick of light here and there. You don’t know if you’re looking at part of Orion or just a couple of random, unrelated stars.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Maybe we’re trying to connect dots—these little glimmers of fact—that aren’t part of the big picture.”

  “Do you mean Leona’s death?”

  “Not necessarily. Maybe the cat was there only because you were supposed to come here. Do you see?”

  Confused, Bella looks at Luther, who shrugs.

  “The message you should take from this is that you need to embrace it,” Odelia tells her firmly.

  “Embrace . . . what?”

  “Being here. In the Dale.”

  “I am embracing it—for the weekend,” she adds pointedly. “But as soon as the car is repaired, you know that I have to . . . Odelia, why are you shaking your head like that?”

  “Because everything happens for a reason. There are no coincidences.”

  Now isn’t the time to get sidetracked by Odelia’s . . . by her psychobabble or her . . . her words of wisdom, if one chooses that viewpoint.

  She takes a deep breath. Focus. “Odelia, you said you had a dream about Leona.”

  “Not a dream.”

  “A vision, then? What did you see?”

  “She was standing in the bathroom brushing her hair, and someone came up behind her, someone she knew. And then . . .” She shakes her head. “And then she was trying to breathe, but she couldn’t, and she was outside, and the wind was blowing, and the water was choppy . . .” She shudders.

  She was standing in the bathroom brushing her hair . . .

  The wind was blowing . . .

  Bella’s own dream comes back. The face in the mirror . . . the face, Leona’s face . . .

  “Were there wind chimes?” she asks, her pulse racing. “In the dream? Could you hear them?”

  “I don’t remember anything specific, but there are always wind chimes in the Dale. And there’s usually wind.” Odelia’s tone is matter-of-fact, but her gaze is fixed on Bella’s face. “Why?”

  “I just . . .” She shrugs, not wanting to think . . . anything like that. “I dreamed about wind chimes, that’s all. It reminded me—” She breaks off, looking expectantly at the closed French door as a floorboard creaks on the other side.

  “Max!” Bella stands abruptly, realizing how much time has gone by. “Sorry, but my son was looking for the cat, and now he’s probably looking for me.”

  She quickly crosses the small space and opens the door.

  She fully expects to find Max standing there, with or without the cat. But the parlor is empty.

  “Max?” Poised, she listens and hears nothing but the ticking clock. “Max!”

  “What?” The reply is far off, coming from upstairs.

  It wasn’t him.

  Then who was it?

  Odelia and Luther are beside her, Luther’s deep voice calling, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  Silence.

  As Bella wonders if she—if all three of them—might have imagined the creaking sound, she looks down at the floor.

  There, directly in front of the door, are the faint remnants of a wet, muddy footprint.

  Someone was eavesdropping.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Wait here,” Luther warns, holding up an arm to keep Bella and Odelia safely behind him, in the study.

  Ignoring him, Bella pushes past and races to the stairs, frantic to get to her son. Her foot catches on a step halfway up, and she falls forward, slamming her knee. Heedless of the pain, she gets up and keeps going.

  “Max! Where are you?”

  “I’m in here,” he calls from behind the closed door of the Rose Room.

  Reaching it, she tries to turn the knob. It’s locked. Of course it is—she’d told him to always keep it locked when he’s inside, now that there are guests in the house. “Max!” She bangs on the door. “Max! Open the door!”

  After a long, heart-stopping moment, he does. “Did you find Chance the Cat?”

  “Chance? No, I—” She grabs him and gives him a swift, hard hug, relieved that he’s okay.

  Behind him, she can see papers scattered all over the floor in front of the closet, where the door is ajar. Before she can ask him what happened, she hears Luther calling from downstairs.

  “Everything okay up there?”

  “Yes,” she calls back, and locks the Rose Room door before hustling Max back downstairs.

  Luther and Odelia are in the parlor, Odelia sitting on the sofa with her injured leg propped on the coffee table beside the stack of photo albums.

  “Did you find . . . anything?” Bella asks, resting a protective hand on Max’s shoulder.

  Luther shakes his head.

  Max, assuming she’s asking them about the missing cat, says, “I didn’t know you were helping, too.”

  “Yes,” Odelia says quickly, “and I’m sure Chance is just fine, wherever she is. She probably got out of the house and is hiding someplace dry until the rain lets up. She does that sometimes.”

  “But how did she get out of the house?” Max asks.

  “She’s a little escape artist, Max, believe me.”

  “But Mommy locked her into the bedroom with me, and she can’t unlock doors.”

  Though the missing cat is the least of her concerns right now, that comment gives Bella pause.

  Max is right. There’s only one way the cat could have gotten out of the room: through the door. Certainly Chance couldn’t have unlocked it, and Bella didn’t unlock it, so . . .

  Who did?

  She shudders and pulls her son even closer.

  “You know, cats like to hide indoors, too,” Luther tells Max, pulling a small flashlight from his back pocket and clicking it on. “Why don’t you take this and check underneath all the furniture?”

  Max brightens along with the flashlight’s narrow beam.

  “Downstairs only, though,” Bella says quickly.

  “Yes, stay right with us for now.” The avuncular Luther gives her son a pat on the head.

  “Here, kitty, kitty,” Max calls, crawling around the room, shining the light along the floor as, in a low voice, Luther tells Bella he’d swiftly and thoroughly searched the first floor. It was deserted with the exception of the St. Claire sisters, who are reading in the cozy library nook off the dining room.

  “It must have been one of our own footprints outside the door,” he concludes. “My feet were wet when I walked in. I guess I should have done a better job of
wiping them.”

  As if to prove it, he aligns his own large loafer next to the barely visible traces of mud on the hardwood.

  Finding it impossible to tell whether it’s a match, Bella says, “But I didn’t imagine that the floor creaked outside the door, did I? You guys heard it, too?”

  They nod, but Luther says with a shrug, “Old houses settle. Mine makes all kinds of strange noises.”

  “So does mine,” Odelia agrees, sinking onto the sofa with a wince, as though her leg is bothering her. She points at a meandering crack that runs along the plaster wall. “See that? It hasn’t always been there. Even after all these years, the place is shifting on its foundation.”

  The walls and ceilings of the Bedford apartment were also marred by fault lines. She feels a little better.

  Then Odelia adds, “And of course, sometimes, it’s just Spirit.”

  “Just Spirit? Do you mean just a ghost?”

  Cringing at Bella’s reckless terminology, Odelia explains that Spirit energy can, on occasion, manipulate objects. “It’s called psychokinesis. If you’re interested in learning more about it, Patsy Metcalf is teaching a workshop on the subject this afternoon.”

  She most definitely is not interested. She’s had her fill of Spiritualism for the moment, thank you very much.

  Even Luther—seemingly sane, logical ex-cop Luther—doesn’t seem to balk at the suggestion that the creaking sound might be attributed to something that isn’t merely structural . . . or human.

  He might not live here in the Dale, but he’s accustomed to the way people think here. He respects their beliefs, whether or not he practices them.

  “Look,” he says, “I’m sure there wasn’t anyone prowling around, other than those little old ladies. Maybe it was one of them, just looking for a quiet place to read.”

  “Then why didn’t they answer when you called out?”

  “Because they’re hard of hearing.”

  “And why didn’t they mention it when you asked them if they’d been in the parlor?”

  “Because they forgot. In case you hadn’t noticed, Bella, they’re a little bit senile. It’s a wonder they remember each other’s names, let alone that they can tell themselves apart.”

  She has to smile at that, but it’s fleeting.

  She has to tell him. About last night.

  She clears her throat and checks to make sure Max isn’t listening before saying, “There’s something you should know . . . it’s probably nothing . . .”

  But as she fills them in about the intruder, she isn’t so sure.

  “So it was a man?” Luther asks, pen poised.

  “I don’t know for sure. I’m sorry. I just didn’t get a good look.”

  Predictably, Odelia says, “It could have been Spirit.”

  “Or one of the guests.”

  “I’ve been trying to convince myself of that,” Bella tells Luther, “but the truth is, it could have been almost anyone.” Except Spirit.

  “Were the doors locked?”

  “Both the front and back doors were, until I stepped out onto the porch. Then I left the front door open to let in fresh air through the screen. But I was sitting right there the whole time. It’s not like someone walked past me.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe you dozed off.”

  She was tired last night.

  But she shakes her head stubbornly, certain she’d been wide awake. “No, someone probably came in the back using the key. It seems as though everyone and his brother has one.”

  “Why do you say that?” Luther asks.

  “Because Pandora Feeney—”

  At the mention of the woman’s name, Odelia makes an exasperated sound.

  “What’s the matter?” Bella asks. “Do you know her?”

  Silly question. She learned last night that Lily Dale has a year-round population of a few hundred people at most.

  “Pandora Feeney,” Odelia says, shaking her head, “is easily the most meddling medium in town. I didn’t realize you’d met.”

  “Yes, she stopped by yesterday. She said she has a key to the house, but she didn’t bring it because Leona never locked the doors.”

  “That’s not true. She locked them at night and whenever she wasn’t home, just like anyone else with half a brain in her head. Which Pandora doesn’t have. And by the way, she and Leona can’t stand each other, so if she told you they were friends, she was lying, right, Luther?”

  “They were not friends,” he agrees. “What did she tell you about the keys, Bella?”

  “She said that Leona wasn’t very good about getting them back from guests when they checked out. And that she hadn’t bothered to change the locks when she bought the place from Pandora.”

  “I doubt that.” Odelia scowls. “She’s a pathological liar.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” Luther inserts wryly, “Odelia and Pandora aren’t very fond of each other either.”

  “Pandora isn’t fond of anyone in the Dale! Any female, anyway. She blames us—all of us—for her divorce.”

  “Why?” Bella asks.

  “Because she thinks we welcomed the advances of her skirt-chasing ex-husband. Let me tell you, I wouldn’t get involved with Orville Holmes if he had all the money in the world.”

  “At this point, he might,” Luther says.

  “Okay, Pandora told me he’s her ex, but I feel like the name Orville Holmes is supposed to mean something to me. Why?”

  “You’ve never heard of him?” Odelia grins at Bella. “Well, that’s refreshing. Finally, someone who doesn’t think he’s the hottest thing to hit Hollywood since Rudy Valentino.”

  “Rudy Valentino—you call him Rudy? How old are you, anyway?” Luther asks.

  “Older than I look. Rudy and I have been in touch lately. He visited the Dale once or twice back in the twenties. Stayed in this very house. The place was supposedly run by bootleggers at the time, if you want to believe Orville.” She rolls her eyes. “After Rudy passed away, Mae West used to come to the Dale to try to make contact with him. She was convinced he was murdered.”

  “Was he?”

  “No,” she tells Luther decisively. “Anyway, poor Rudy’s still trying to set the record straight.”

  “Do you mean about the murder or the bootleg rumor?”

  “Neither. He’s unhappy about the ongoing innuendo about his . . . masculinity. And let me tell you, there’s nothing to it. He’s quite the suave, seductive charmer, unlike the high and mighty Orville Holmes, who’s just an ordinary medium just like the rest of us.”

  Just an ordinary medium?

  Bella manages to keep a straight face as Odelia goes on. “The only difference between Orville and the rest of the registered mediums in the Dale is that he happened to have an available appointment the day Jillian Jessup came to town—you must know who she is, Bella?”

  “Of course.” Bella and Sam had seen Wish Come True—the romantic comedy that transformed Jillian Jessup into a huge movie star—on their first date.

  They’d made an annual tradition of watching it on their anniversary, joking that the genie-in-a-bottle plot seemed cheesier and sappier every year. On their final viewing last year, they were snuggled together in Sam’s hospital bed. He was too weak to crack a smile, much less a joke, and slept through most of it. She found herself surreptitiously wiping tears on the blanket during what she knew damn well was an overblown melodramatic denouement, envying the fictional couple’s happily ever after and mourning the loss of her own.

  “Jillian Jessup had a reading with Orville that day, and he connected her with her father,” Odelia says, “and she was so impressed, she decided to make a film about the Dale and make him a consultant.”

  “There was a film about Lily Dale?” Bella asks.

  “Pfft. After all that talk, they never even got that project off the ground. But that hasn’t stopped Orville from acting as if he’ll be winning an Oscar any moment now.”

  “He did make a big splash with
the Hollywood crowd,” Luther says. “You can’t argue with that.”

  “Who’s arguing? I’m just answering Bella’s question.”

  She’s uncharacteristically peevish. Clearly, neither Orville nor his ex-wife brings out the best in her. As she goes on with her story, Bella wonders whether there’s any more to it than small-town dynamics and overbearing, egotistical neighbors who rub each other the wrong way.

  “So the next thing you know, Orville’s left Pandora—which was a long time coming. Now he’s married to some bimbo starlet, and he calls himself the Psychic Guru to the Stars or some such nonsense. He thinks he’s a big deal, and so do a lot of people around here who wouldn’t have given him the time of day before.”

  “Does that answer your question, Bella?”

  She smiles faintly. “I’m not sure I remember what it was.”

  Even Odelia has to grin at that.

  Then Luther shifts the conversation back to speculation about how last night’s visitor might have gotten into the house if it wasn’t one of the guests. “Even if Leona had changed the locks, and even if she was careful to get the keys back from her guests, it wouldn’t be hard for someone to have made a duplicate for whatever reason.”

  “They say Do Not Duplicate,” Bella points out.

  “Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean Can Not Duplicate. In all my years as a police detective, I’ve never seen a key that can’t be copied if you find the right locksmith.”

  “Right, as in someone who’s willing to look the other way for a little extra cash?” Odelia asks, and he nods.

  “What about the keys to the bedroom doors?” Bella asks, again thinking of the missing cat. “You said they’re too old-fashioned to be copied.”

  “That’s what Leona told me.”

  Luther just shakes his head. “Look, the truth is, if some lowlife wanted to get into this house—or any of the guest rooms—he’d find a way to copy a key, or he’d just break in. Burglars do it all the time.”

  “I know, but in this case, it doesn’t seem like anyone broke in,” Bella says, “and I don’t think anything was stolen. The glassware in the dining room alone is worth tens of thousands of dollars.”

  “There are valuable antiques all over the house,” Odelia confirms.