Seance on a Summer's Night

  “I didn’t know the whole story, no. I did realize a long time ago that Ogden—Oscar—wasn’t who I imagined when we married. By that, I don’t mean I guessed he was using a false identity. That never occurred to me.” She shook her head as though even now she had trouble believing she had been so blind.

  “Then you didn’t know about Liana either? You didn’t suspect?”

  I’d never heard that edge to my aunt’s laugh before. “No. As a matter of fact, this is something of a relief. I’d suspected something far worse.”

  “Yikes,” I said as her meaning sank in.

  Aunt H. said, “It was hard to miss the fact that Liana—Lacey’s—feelings were not exactly…sisterly.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?”

  Her look was a mix of affection and impatience. “It wasn’t something to trouble you with. You had your own life.”

  I thought of her annual spring visits to New York. Each year she’d seemed a little more tired, a little more worn down, but I’d never guessed the reason. Even disliking Ogden as I did, I hadn’t attributed the change in her to him. Partly because Aunt H. had never spoken a disparaging word about her new husband. Discretion, circumspection, pride—sure, there was a time and a place for all that, but there was also a time and a place for being honest and admitting you needed help.

  “Do you have any idea where that money is?” I asked.

  “There’s no money.” She said it with absolute certainty.

  “Seamus seems pretty confident—”

  “Yes,” Aunt H. said crisply. “Cassidy is a very confident young man. He’s used to being right. But he’s not right about this. By the end, Ogden and I argued constantly about money. He bitterly resented being financially dependent. After he spent everything I could give him, he borrowed from our friends. It was…embarrassing. To say the least.”

  “Why in God’s name didn’t you divorce the bastard?”

  She gave another of those odd, edged laughs. “I was going to.”

  I stared at her in surprise. “Wait. You were?”

  “Yes.” Her smile twisted at my expression. “I’m not that big a fool, Artie.”

  “I should hope not. Did he know?”

  “Yes.”

  I considered. Didn’t this change everything? “Is that why you believe his—his—” Even now I felt ridiculous saying it aloud.

  Aunt H. said calmly, “His spirit has returned? Yes.”

  “And that’s what you meant when you said Ogden might believe he had cause for grievance?”

  She hesitated. “Yes,” she said without any of her previous conviction.

  Hmm. Warm, warmer…cold! Somehow my line of questioning had gone off the rails.

  I persisted. “Did you tell him the afternoon of the accident that you wanted a divorce?”

  She seemed to be picking her way through her answer. “I had informed him previously. We did argue about it again that afternoon.”

  “And that’s why you feel responsible? Because Ogden would have been distracted while he was driving? The weather was bad…”

  “He was a horrible driver,” Aunt H. said almost absently.

  “He was,” I agreed. “Which is why you shouldn’t feel guilty about the accident.”

  She said nothing.

  I studied her face. “Right?”

  She seemed to think it over before finally saying, “It doesn’t matter what I think, my dear. Ogden’s spirit believes he has been wronged.”

  I groaned. “Aunt H. you can’t really believe—”

  She said with asperity, “Then how do you explain the things that have happened here? You’ve searched for a so-called rational solution, and you haven’t been able to find one.”

  I remembered the weird floating light in the garden the night before. I said nothing.

  Aunt H. said, “The fact that Ogden was an embezzler and an adulterer doesn’t change anything. His spirit has returned to Green Lanterns. Regardless of who and what he was in life, in death he’s seeking reparation.”

  “Well, go fucking fish!” I called to the ceiling.

  “Artemus!”

  “I mean it. He made your life hell when he was alive, and I can’t stand the fact that you’re giving him permission to continue on in the afterlife.”

  She looked alarmed. Did she think Ogden was listening to us even now? “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I know exactly what I’m saying. First of all, I don’t believe Ogden has returned from the dead. I’m not even convinced he is dead. Yes, I know I can’t explain away the lights and the spooky laughter and the footsteps and all the other apparent manifestations. I’m guessing Roma is in on it, whatever the plan is. Maybe Ogden is having an affair with her too—”

  “Stop it at once!” Aunt H. snapped, and I guess old habits die hard, because right on cue, I shut up. I watched her struggle to control her voice and face. “Artemus, dearest, I know this has been a strain on your nerves as much as anyone’s. I blame myself. It was very wrong of me, cowardly of me, to drag you into this. I meant what I said before. I want you to leave Green Lanterns.”

  “Not a chance.”

  She hung on to her patience. “Nothing you can do is going to stop whatever is going to happen—be it in this world or the next.”

  “You’re going to have to throw me out of the house, then, because I’m not leaving.”

  Again, I had the odd impression I was looking at a stranger, but she regained control. Mostly. She couldn’t quite hide her ire. Her eyes sparked with unfamiliar temper. “This is a ridiculous conversation. Of course I’m not going to have you thrown from the house. I’m asking you to respect my wishes and leave.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  Even as I said it, though, I felt a pang for my own home and my own life in New York. How the hell long was I going to be trapped in the alternate universe of Green Lanterns?

  Her chest rose and fell, and then she said, “We’ll continue this conversation later. I’m not comfortable leaving Liana for too long.”

  “I’m not clear why she’s even still here now that you know what you know about her.”

  Aunt H. opened her mouth, thought better of it, and repeated more ominously, “We’ll continue this conversation later.”

  She opened the door to Liana’s rooms and vanished inside.

  The day passed.

  That about summed it up.

  There was no word from Seamus, but Police Chief Kingsland showed up around three o’clock, asking to speak to Aunt Halcyone. I was afraid he was there to arrest her—at the very least interrogate her—but it turned out Aunt H. had summoned him. My next fear was that Aunt H. was going to confess to him.

  They retreated to the music room, where they spoke behind closed doors for about forty-five nail-biting minutes. Then the door opened, and Aunt H., looking eerily serene, returned upstairs to resume her vigil over Liana. Chief Kingsland joined me in the kitchen, where I was making lasagna.

  “Your aunt wants you to go back to New York,” Kingsland informed me.

  He was a bit older than Aunt H. Tall, lean, and sort of handsome in a rawboned way. Like Aunt H., he had aged a lot over the past year. There was more gray in his red hair and unfamiliar lines around his dark eyes. I knew they had grown up together and were still very good friends. I vaguely remembered some rumor about Kingsland’s wife being committed to a mental hospital a few years earlier, although I had my doubts about that. I knew from personal experience it was not easy to have people permanently locked up, even when they posed a danger to themselves.

  I set the cheese grater and remaining nub of mozzarella aside. “And you’re going to forcibly evict me if I won’t go?”

  Kingsland grinned. “Nope. I’m on your side. I don’t know what the hell is going on around here, but I don’t like it. I think you should stay put for now.”

  “You don’t believe in ghosts?” I asked.

  “No. I don’t.” He handed me a
business card. “This is my cell phone and pager number. Don’t hesitate to use it.”

  “Thanks.” I tucked the card in my shirt pocket. “Any word on Tarrant?”

  “As far as I know, they haven’t found him yet.” He nodded politely. “I’ll see myself out.”

  A few hours spent scouring the Internet confirmed that Seamus was correct. No one, alive or dead, had gone missing in Russian Bay—or even Sonoma County—around the time of Ogden’s death.

  As stumbling blocks went, it was kind of an insurmountable one.

  There had definitely been a body in Ogden’s car. Burned to a crisp, yes, but not to the extent where it couldn’t be recognized as human.

  Worse, though there was no hard evidence, according to one newspaper report, there were indications—the position of the body and lack of skid marks on the road—that Ogden had been unconscious, maybe even already dead, when his BMW went off the road.

  The good news was there was no sign the car had been tampered with. The bad news was there appeared to be at least a possibility that an accelerant had been used to magnify that DNA-destroying fire.

  It was worrying, no question. The lack of skid marks and the position of the body could be explained by Ogden having suffered some kind of fatal stroke or seizure in the seconds before the accident. The accelerant used was gasoline, which would have been present at the scene anyway. There was no prosecution-worthy proof of foul play, and it seemed that the police—Chief Kingsland—had never even entertained the idea of investigating the accident as a homicide. All the same, I now understood where the rumors about Aunt Halcyone knocking off Ogden had started.

  The fact that she had no motive for murdering her husband didn’t seem to have discouraged the gossips. It comforted me, though. I could not think of any reason Aunt H. would have to resort to killing Ogden. He couldn’t stop her from divorcing him, and what other motive could there be?

  I wasn’t sure why she was so willing to assume the guilt for his death, but that was between her and her conscience.

  An online search of Roma Loveridge was equally unrewarding. I tried searching for complaints, claims of fraud—I even checked her out on the Better Business Bureau website. There was nothing. Roma seemed to be exactly what she presented herself as: the last of a long line of respected (all things being relative) spiritualists.

  Finally, I amused myself searching for Seamus Cassidy. Despite the 614,000 results that turned up within .43 seconds, I couldn’t find anything about my—er, using the term “my” loosely—Seamus. That wasn’t a bad thing. I was a big fan of keeping one’s private life…private.

  We all had our secrets.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Seamus returned by dinnertime.

  “No sign of Tarrant,” he told me as I pulled the bubbling lasagna from the oven. He sniffed appreciatively over my shoulder. “Is that lasagna? It smells fantastic.”

  “Yeah, it’s one of my specialt—”

  I broke off as he gave me a quick peck on the mouth. I laughed. I wasn’t used to playful—these were not playful circumstances—but I liked his good humor and his easy affection.

  “And he can cook,” Seamus informed the ether.

  “Enough to survive. Anyway, Tarrant. Where would he go? Why would he go?” I elbowed the oven door closed, transferred the casserole dish to the counter, opened the lower oven door, and pulled out the toasted garlic bread.

  “My theory is he caught the nine a.m. bus across the street from the church headquarters. Which means he could be in San Francisco by now. We’ve got an APB out on him, but locating him could take time.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “I’m having trouble buying the idea of Tarrant on the run with Ogden’s ill-gotten gains.”

  “He’s been searching for something these past weeks. If it wasn’t the money, what was it? And why did he take off without a word?”

  “Oh, I believe he somehow found out about the money and was hunting for it. I don’t think he found it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “First, because I spoke with Aunt H., and she swears there was no money.”

  Seamus opened his mouth to object, but I kept talking. “Hear me out. Aunt H. says she and Ogden fought constantly about money, that he was bitter at being dependent on her, and that he had started borrowing from their friends and neighbors.”

  Seamus spread his hands like I had just handed over a basketful of nothing.

  “But the main thing is Betty. It’s too much of a coincidence that Betty would die the same morning Tarrant goes missing.”

  “It’s not a coincidence at all. I’m guessing Ulyanna’s attack was brought on by something Tarrant said or did this morning. They probably argued. And when Tarrant saw what had happened, he snapped.”

  It sort of made sense, yet I just couldn’t quite believe this scenario of Seamus’s. It was also hard to believe that Betty had died only that day.

  I said, “Betty’s expression. Did you notice it?”

  “Yes.” Seamus looked ill at ease, remembering. “That doesn’t mean anything, though. Even when people die a natural death, they don’t always look like they do when they’re prepared for a viewing.”

  I was quickly losing my appetite for lasagna—or anything else. “She looked scared to death.”

  “I know. Where are you going with this?”

  “What if what Betty saw was Tarrant being murdered?”

  “Whoa. That’s quite a leap.”

  “Yes, but it’s not impossible.”

  “No, but it’s pretty unlikely. What are you basing that theory on? Who’s your suspect? What’s the motive?”

  “Maybe Liana and Roma Loveridge working together.”

  “Seriously?”

  I shrugged. “No. Well, I don’t know. I just—I’m hoping you’ll keep an open mind because, while I know I’m biased, I really don’t believe my aunt knows anything about that money. And without the money, she had no motive for getting rid of Ogden. Oscar. Whoever.”

  Once again Seamus opened his mouth, and once again I cut him off. “She’d have divorced him. There’s no reason she couldn’t have divorced him.” I closed my mind to my own suspicions—and the memory of Aunt H.’s guilty demeanor.

  Seamus looked unconvinced. “The thing you learn in police work is 99 percent of the time, the most obvious solution is the correct solution.”

  “But there’s always that one percent.”

  “True. Anyway, let’s table the discussion for now. Neither of us got much sleep last night, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t think straight when I’m starving.”

  I assented. “Dinner’s ready when you are.”

  Aunt H. joined us for dinner after heating up canned soup for Liana and taking it upstairs on a tray.

  “How’s she doing?” Seamus inquired, and I knew he was wondering how long until he could question Liana.

  Aunt H. said, “Still very groggy. She’s agreed to have someone from the RCU come and stay tonight.”

  “Thank God for small mercies,” I said. “At least you’ll be able to get some sleep tonight.”

  Aunt H. said nothing.

  “RCU?” Seamus asked.

  “Rational Christians United,” I said. “Our new neighbors.”

  “Oh, the cult.”

  Aunt H. began to splutter. “I think cult is perhaps an exaggeration. The church seems to do a lot of good work locally.”

  “I notice you’re not a member,” I said. “I still have trouble believing Liana is.”

  “She joined shortly after Ogden’s death. She found it very difficult to come to terms with losing him. She’s been less involved lately.”

  “So many séances, so little time,” I said.

  “Whatever gets you through the night,” Seamus said.

  Aunt H. studied him curiously and then glanced at me. Meeting my eyes, she smiled faintly, ruefully.

  “
I thought the RCU had died out years ago. What brought them back?” I asked.

  “The economy. And Reverend Ormston.”

  “I don’t remember Reverend Ormston.”

  “Is that the guy on the fliers?” Seamus asked. “The one who looks like Biker Jesus?”

  That started Aunt H. spluttering again. “I don’t know much about him,” she said finally.

  “The Bancrofts have always identified as Episcopalian,” I told Seamus. “Carpenter Jesus is as blue collar as we get.”

  “Ah.”

  Aunt H. rolled her eyes at this sacrilege. “I believe he was a friend of Reverend Hornsby. He moved from San Francisco about six years ago. By that time the church was in decline.”

  “Village scandal,” I informed Seamus. “The very married Reverend Hornsby was caught fooling around with his organist.”

  Aunt H. shook her head at me. More in sorrow than in anger, as Horatio said to Hamlet—although in Aunt H.’s case it was more in resignation. “Ormston took over from Hornsby, with Hornsby’s blessing, and from everything I’ve heard, completely revitalized the church. I think the RCU is only second in size—and influence—to St. Teresa’s. Even Tarrant started attending services.” Aunt H. sighed. “I suppose I should consult with the reverend regarding Ulyanna’s funeral arrangements. I keep hoping we’re going to hear from Tarrant.”

  Seamus and I exchanged looks but said nothing.

  The doorbell rang as we were finishing up dinner.

  Sister Regina was small, slim, and dark-haired. She looked about seventeen. A serious, solemn seventeen, but still. A kid. Then again, all she had to do was not fall asleep during the night, so after a brief interview, Aunt H. bade us good night and escorted the teen angel of mercy upstairs.

  Seamus and I gathered up the dinner dishes and carried them into the kitchen.

  I set my load in the sink and said, “I think these can wait until tomorrow. I’m calling it a day.”

  Seamus hesitated. Said tentatively, “Do you want company tonight?”

  It was my turn to hesitate, to be tentative. “I do, but I really am beat.”