Hungry Spirits [Spirits 04]

by Alice Duncan

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” said Pa. “I’m still trying to wade through The Beautiful and the Damned.”

  “I read that. Didn’t like it.” I wrinkled my nose. “I already know too many people who don’t have anything to do with themselves but drink illegal booze and throw parties.”

  Pa chuckled. “You’re just jealous.”

  “Am not. Any one member of our family is worth more than Gloria and Anthony and all their friends mushed together.”

  “Can’t argue with you there,” Pa acknowledged. “But I’m curious to know why everybody is raving about this book.”

  “I’m sure I couldn’t tell you.” In part, I blamed F. Scott Fitzgerald for Stacy Kincaid. Not now that she’d joined the Salvation Army, but before, when she hung out at speakeasies and smoked and drank like crazy.

  Anyhow, a little after nine that bright autumn morning—to tell the truth, autumn in Southern California is a whole lot like the other three seasons—I drove our Chevrolet to the Pasadena Public Library on the corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Walnut Street. I was meandering through the new novels, looking for Billy’s Zane Grey book, when I bumped into the library page who was shelving books. I turned around to apologize and got as far as “Oh, I’m so—” when I realized I was looking into the frightened face of the woman who had run out of my cooking class on Saturday. “Oh. It’s you.” Stupid thing to say, but it’s what came out.

  “M-Mrs. Majesty,” she stuttered, shocked. She had some kind of accent, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.

  I saw her swallow hard, and wondered why she was so darned nervous. So I smiled. “How nice to see you here.”

  “Thank you.” It sounded more like “tank you,” but I understood her. I did, however, wonder if this was the German lady. Not unlike a cuckoo in the nest, thought I unkindly. “Nice to see you, too.”

  And she fled with her cart. It rattled over the floors in a manner I’m sure Miss Petrie would not approve. I stared after her, bewildered. Then I decided to heck with it, and went back to perusing the new-book section, to see if I could find a Zane Grey book Billy hadn’t read yet. And there, by gum, I found The Men of the Forest and The Call of the Canyon. I wasn’t sure if Billy had read either of them, so I took them both.

  After that, I went to the desk and asked Miss Petrie if she’d tucked away any new detective stories for me.

  “I’m not sure if this is a mystery story,” she said, “but it’s by Mary Roberts Rinehart, and I know she’s a favorite of yours.”

  I was thrilled. I thought I’d read all of Mrs. Rinehart’s books, but when I looked at the one Miss Petrie hauled out from under her desk, I saw it was one I hadn’t happened upon: The Amazing Interlude. “Oh, my, that looks great!”

  “I haven’t read it, but I hear it’s a wonderful book.”

  Miss Petrie appeared to be happy that she’d made me happy. I thought that was sweet. So I checked out Billy’s books, The Amazing Interlude, The Great Portrait Mystery by R. Austin Freeman (I really loved his Dr. Thorndyke stories), a couple of Oppenheim books I hadn’t read, and The Case of Jennie Brice, which I’d already read, but had liked and decided to read again. I was happy when I left the library. As long as you always have books to read, you can never truly be unhappy.

  That was my philosophy then, anyway.

  At any rate, after I left the library, I drove to Mrs. Kincaid’s house, where I was greeted at the front door by Featherstone, Mrs. Kincaid’s butler. I thought Featherstone was swell. Except that he moved and spoke (when spoken to), he might as well have been a marble statue. I’ve never met anyone less effusive than Featherstone. I wished I was more like him, actually. My emotions are often perilously near the surface, which means I cry a lot, and I consider that a weakness.

  “Good morning, Featherstone,” I said brightly.

  “Mrs. Majesty,” he said soberly.

  “Lead me to the lady of the manor, please.”

  Without batting an eye, Featherstone turned and said, “Mrs. Kincaid is in the drawing room. Please follow me.”

  I’d been in that house dozens, if not hundreds, of times. I knew good and well where the drawing room was. Far be it from me, however, to step on another person’s livelihood. So I let Featherstone lead the way to the drawing room. When I entered the room, I was pleased to see Harold there. He hurried over to me.

  “Daisy! Good to see you. What’s this I hear about you teaching a cooking class?” He proceeded to laugh like your basic hyena.

  Now I love Harold Kincaid. He’s a great friend, and we liked to chat and go places together. That morning I have to admit I’d as soon have chucked him upside the head with my pretty beaded handbag. “It’s not funny, Harold.” I frowned at him. “Besides, how’d you even find out I was teaching the stupid class?”

  He waved airily. “Word gets around, my dear. Stacy told me.”

  I should have figured as much, except that Harold and Stacy don’t speak much on a regular basis, Harold sharing my opinion of his sister.

  He went on, “Say, Daisy, we need to get together one of these days and have lunch or something.”

  Although I was still smarting slightly from his laughter, I said, “Sure, Harold. I’d love that.”

  “Del had to go to Louisiana for a family thing—I think one of his aunts died or something—and I’ve been awfully lonely.” He sighed heavily.

  Former Lieutenant 1Delroy Crowe Farrington, Harold’s . . . um . . . well . . . friend. . . . Oh, heck, they were lovers. That had shocked me when I’d first learned about it, but it didn’t any longer. Both Harold and Del were wonderful people, and I don’t think Del had ever said an unkind word about anyone or had ever done anything underhanded in his entire life. In actual fact, he was probably nicer than Harold, but I was closer to Harold than I was to Del—perhaps for that very reason. I find perfection difficult to deal with. Not only that, but Del was probably the most handsome man in the entire universe. Harold was more of a normal-type person. More like the rest of us, if you know what I mean.

  “Well, I’ll try to perk you up, Harold. You must be missing Del.”

  Harold took my hand. “You’re a gem, Daisy.”

  “Oh, Daisy!”

  I turned to find Mrs. Kincaid rushing up to me. She was a pleasant-looking lady of early middle age, and she dressed beautifully. A trifle plump, her skin always looked freshly powdered, which it probably was. Near as I could tell, Mrs. Kincaid had never had to do anything more difficult than paint her nails in her entire life. Come to think of it, she probably hadn’t had to do that, either, since she had a lady’s maid to do her hair, paint her nails and even draw her bath, for Pete’s sake. I wouldn’t mind being rich, but I don’t think I’d care for anyone doing all that stuff for me. I like my privacy. In the case of Mrs. Kincaid, however, I was glad she used a maid, because one of my old school friends, Edie Applewood, had just been promoted to the position of lady’s maid. Edie and her husband both worked for Mrs. Kincaid, in fact.

  Moderating my friendly tone to a more spiritualistic one, I held out both of my hands to Mrs. Kincaid. That two-handed reach thing is effective when you need to calm someone down, I’d learned over the years. Makes people think you’re only interested in their welfare and are there to help them or something.

  “Oh, Daisy! I need you to do a reading for me!”

  “Of course, Mrs. Kincaid.”

  Harold tipped me a wink over his mother’s shoulder. I didn’t even crack a smile. See? Told you I was good at my job.

  “I’ll be off now, Mother,” Harold said, kissing Mrs. Kincaid on her softly powdered cheek. “I’ll give you a call, Daisy.”

  “Thank you, Harold.”

  So Harold, who was a costumer for some studio in Los Angeles but still took time to visit his mother and do other stuff like that, took off, and I once again read the tarot cards for Mrs. Kincaid. The cards told her exactly what they’d told her before: that she and Algernon Pinkerton were destined to be very happy together. The cards a
lways said that because I always said that. I’m not big on predictions as a rule, since you never really know what predicament life is going to fling at you or how you’ll get yourself out of them, but I figured that particular prediction was relatively safe. After all, Mrs. Kincaid and Mr. Pinkerton had known each other for a million years and they still liked each other. What could go wrong?

  Of course, as soon as I thought the latter to myself, I remembered all the things that could go wrong and that had gone wrong and that might go wrong, and began to doubt my prediction, but I didn’t take it back. Shoot, the two of them were rich, and as much as I hate to admit it, money really does help heal a multitude of woes.

  Which is just one more reason Billy should be proud of me, darn it.

  Chapter Four

  The Amazing Interlude wasn’t a mystery. In actual fact, I was almost sorry I’d checked it out of the library. The book told the story of a young American woman who wanted to help with the war effort in Europe. So she went to France and started a little soup-kitchen-type place, fell in love with a French soldier, and lots of things happened. Not only that, but at the end, you couldn’t tell if the two lovers would be together forever, or if the soldier would be killed or gassed, or a bomb would take the roof off the soup kitchen and the heroine, Sara Lee, with it. The story left me up in the air and feeling kind of blue. I’d faced enough real problems from that stupid war. I didn’t want to read about fictional ones.

  In other words, the book made me cry. I think I already mentioned that I do enough crying on my own and don’t really need books to help me along. I finished reading it, but decided I wouldn’t be rereading it anytime soon.

  Thus it was that I was almost glad when Saturday rolled around again and I had to teach another class in cooking. I read ever so much better than I cook, but The Amazing Interlude had truly ruffled my feathers, and I wanted to forget it. That Saturday, moreover, I was going to spread my wings and fly. Or try to. Aunt Vi had spent two solid days—well, two solid evenings, anyhow—teaching me how to make chicken croquettes, and I was going to do my best to impart this newfound knowledge to my students. As for my family, I doubt that any of us will ask Vi to fix chicken croquettes for supper again for a long, long time.

  Be that as it may, I felt minimally confident as I parked our Chevrolet at the Salvation Army, climbed out and headed to the room where my classes took place. Flossie greeted me warmly, and I was pleased to see that none of my students frowned at me. I guess their bread and macaroni pudding of the preceding Saturday had met with their approval—or at least hadn’t made anyone sick. Although I was too nervous about the impending lesson to take note of the women’s faces or count their number, I decided it might be a good idea for the students to wear name tags so I could try to learn their names. Oh, well. I guess I should have thought of name tags before the class began.

  Holding up my copy of Sixty-Five Delicious Dishes, I said, “Please turn to page nine, ladies. Today we’re fixing chicken croquettes.” I smiled winningly, or tried to, my courage waning slightly.

  Then I reminded myself that these women didn’t know I couldn’t cook. Didn’t help. And it didn’t matter, either, since I was here and so were the ladies of the class, and there was no escape.

  Because I’d already telephoned Johnny and given him a list of ingredients our class would need, everything was prepared ahead of time and in the Salvation Army’s kitchen facility at the back of the hall. Still smiling, I read the very short, very simple—so far—recipe and then told the ladies, “Let’s all go to the icebox and fetch our ingredients.”

  Fortunately for me, Flossie had already chopped a whole mess of chicken, so I didn’t have to deal with that part of this ordeal. It would have been bad for my class’s morale if I’d chopped a finger off.

  I felt rather like a mother hen with several chicks as I led the way to the kitchen, and we divvied up our chopped chicken, eggs, and stale bread. Now came the hard part.

  “First of all, we need to crush our bread,” said I, as if I knew what I was talking about. “The easiest way to do that is to put the stale bread between two pieces of paper and crush it with a rolling pin.” Aunt Vi had taught me as much.

  “But first,” I said, remembering perhaps the most important part of the entire operation, “I need to light the oven. A moderate oven will be best for these croquettes.” Not that I knew this from personal experience. Vi had told me so. I was so glad I’d remembered to light the oven, I nearly giggled, but restrained myself.

  Since we were all still in the kitchen, we took turns placing our chunks and slices of hard bread on pieces of paper on the wooden cutting board, covering them with another piece of paper and smashing them into crumbs. This was the first time it occurred to me that cooking might well be a good way to relieve the strains of life. There’s something about pounding something into submission that’s vaguely satisfying.

  After all the crumbs were crumbed, I said, “And now we need to measure our cold chicken. We’ll each need approximately three cups’ worth.”

  I was so glad Flossie had chopped the stupid chicken! The first time Vi had shown me her chopping technique, she worked so quickly I couldn’t even see the butcher knife or what she was doing with it. So she slowed down, and I managed to get a handle on the technique. Not a good handle, mind you, but a handle. Still, I was intensely glad that I didn’t have to try to chop anything that day.

  Thanks to Flossie, in no time at all, I had the required three cups of chopped chicken prepared and in my mixing bowl.

  Lest you think the hard part of this recipe was over, let me tell you that the really difficult part was yet to come: when we mixed our chopped chicken, bread crumbs, eggs, salt and pepper together and tried to fashion the mixture into little volcanoes. Vi told me that if the mixture didn’t stick together at first, just add a little water, but I didn’t want to do that since it smacked, to my mind, of incompetence; and I didn’t want my students to grasp my own personal ineptitude. I mean, how would you like it if you learned your algebra teacher had failed a class in basic mathematics? Would such information inspire confidence in his or her ability as an instructor? I think not.

  As my students chopped and stirred, I noticed that the student who had run out on the class last Saturday had come back, although she seemed to be trying to hide. I couldn’t remember her name, drat it, and decided to ask Flossie to make name tags or little paper tents for the students’ desks for our next session.

  After everyone had their chicken and crumbs in their mixing bowls, I carried a carton containing eighteen eggs and my own mixing bowl back to the head of the class. It then occurred to me that I could learn everyone’s name when I passed out the required two eggs each to my students. Thus it was then I discovered my frightened student, who had placed herself in the back of the class behind the largest woman, was named Gertrude, not a name I personally favor, but certainly not awful enough to induce a person to hide from the world. Odd.

  However, there was no time to worry about another person’s idiosyncrasies at that point in time. I had to demonstrate—I, Daisy Gumm Majesty, who was the least talented cook in the entire universe—how to shape chicken croquettes into neat little conical shapes.

  “Now, ladies, what we need to do is beat our eggs very well.”

  “How well?” a student asked. She would.

  But I had an answer for her. Aunt Vi had given it to me, bless her heart. “Beat them until they’re light and frothy,” I said with authority. As if I knew a light-and-frothy egg from a penguin.

  Beating-egg noises ensued.

  After a minute or two, I asked, “Is everyone ready?”

  Nods.

  “Very well. What we need to do now is mix our eggs with our chicken and bread crumbs. Be sure to season the mixture with salt and pepper.” Vi always said “salt and pepper to taste,” but I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I didn’t add that part. “If you like, you can add a little powdered mustard, although I prefer to save t
he mustard for ham croquettes. Chicken is a milder meat, so the mustard might be overpowering.” And if you think I made that up on my own, you haven’t grasped the extent of my ineptitude yet. A few muttered comments from the ladies seemed to agree with Vi’s opinion on the mustard issue, which pleased me.

  They followed my instructions. If I’d had more confidence in my ability to teach the stupid class, this blind obedience might have given me a sense of power, but it didn’t. I was still too shaky to don the mantle of power. Heck, even competence was an elusive trait at that moment in time.

  “And now, ladies, we need to shape our croquettes into little cones and place them flat side down on our buttered baking tin.” I picked up a glob of the mixture and began shaping, praying like mad that the stupid stuff wouldn’t crumble to bits as soon as I put it on my buttered baking pan. As I prodded and shaped my chicken, I said, “When you make these at home, you may decide to fry them in hot fat rather than bake them. That’s perfectly all right. Since there are so many of us and only one stove, we’re going to bake ours today.”

  Murmurs from the class told me they thought my reasoning was sound. Only it wasn’t my reasoning. It was, as ever, Vi’s.

  My first croquette didn’t fall apart. Gathering courage from this auspicious beginning, I began shaping another one as I chatted to the class. “Croquettes are a great way to use dried bread, and you don’t even need to add meat to them. Plain croquettes made only with bread and eggs make a tasty side dish. Or they can be served for breakfast as a cheap-and-easy dish.” I’d learned this little tidbit from the cook booklet. “You can also make ham croquettes, if you like. Croquettes, aside, if your bread is too old to be eaten fresh with butter, you can crush it into crumbs and create bread dumplings for stews or soups.” Another clue from the booklet. The Fleischmann Company gave all sorts of nifty tips in their tiny recipe collection.

  A second perfectly sound croquette appeared! Firm and solid and looking amazingly like a dunce cap—which I decided not to take personally—it joined its fellow on my buttered baking tin, and I began to truly relax for the first time since class began.