Seance on a Summer's Night

  According to Seamus, Ogden had no history of violence.

  Plus, none of this solved the problem of Ogden being inconveniently and officially dead—and therefore unable to openly take advantage of his ill-gotten gains.

  No. For any of this to make sense, there had to be a way for Ogden to return to life.

  Which would require a miracle.

  A miracle.

  I sat up straight. “Oh, my God…”

  I had it. Just like that, I had the answer.

  Now the problem was how to prove it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “I thought you’d decided to spend the evening out.”

  Aunt Halcyone greeted me with less than her usual warmth when I arrived back at Green Lanterns slightly before eight.

  A summer storm had rolled in during the afternoon, and the cool, wet scent of outside wafting through the large central hall seemed to collide with the stuffy, dusty warmth of the house, creating its own mini weather front.

  Tension crackled in the air.

  I leaned in to kiss Aunt H.’s Chanel-scented cheek. “I never said that, darling. Of course I’m going to be here to welcome Ogden home.”

  The grandfather clock on the landing melodiously chimed the hour.

  She frowned and touched my shoulder. “Artemus, you’re soaked to the skin. What on earth? Where have you been all day?”

  “For the last three hours I’ve been dealing with a flat tire. There’s no spare in the Bel Air.” And before that I’d been speaking with Cee Cee Lenton in her cubbyhole of an office at Building Heritage, LLC.

  I was now sure of my facts—and scared to death. Not so much for myself—although I suspected no one in this house was safe—but for Aunt H.

  “Oh no!” Aunt H. exclaimed. “In this rain?”

  “Is Seamus back?” I asked. He’d left a message while I’d been speaking with Mrs. Lenton, letting me know he would be late returning to Green Lanterns—and, as if I wasn’t worried enough, warning me that the police were currently operating on the assumption that Tarrant was dead. He didn’t specify whether the authorities suspected suicide or murder, but I knew Tarrant had not taken his own life.

  Murder, then.

  Another murder.

  I’d tried phoning Seamus back, but he hadn’t picked up, so I’d been reduced to leaving what were probably increasingly incoherent voice mails.

  “Not that I’m aware of.” Aunt H. made a sound of exasperation. “The phone is dead, and the electricity keeps going out.”

  “The phone is dead?”

  Aunt H. shrugged. “I don’t suppose it matters. We don’t get many calls these days. And you have your cell phone.”

  Which needed charging immediately if it was going to be our only line of communication.

  “Is she here?” Liana’s anxious voice floated from the doorway leading into the dining room. “Has Roma arrived?” Liana was dressed in a flowing black caftan. She wore a white turban pinned in place with an oversize onyx, her injured arm rested in a black silk sling, and her face was made up. She looked eerily like the Liana of old—which I did not find reassuring.

  “Not yet,” Aunt H. told her.

  Liana spotted me, and her face tightened. “Artie! You shouldn’t be here. I thought he was dining with friends, Halcyone. You know how disruptive he is to the vibrations.”

  “There’s gratitude,” I said.

  Aunt H. gave me a reproving look, which I interpreted to mean we were still in coddling-Liana mode. Aunt H. had not yet informed her that she knew who she really was.

  Liana said, “The cards have warned—”

  The doorbell rang, and we all jumped.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” Liana gasped, relaxing. “Roma.”

  “You’d better change out of those wet things,” Aunt H. said, moving past me to open the door.

  She was right. I did not want to risk being locked out of the séance room. While I had no idea of what might happen during that night’s session, I felt increasingly, uneasily certain something alarming was afoot.

  I sprinted upstairs, plugged my phone into the charger, and hastily changed into dry jeans and a warmer shirt. All the while, my thoughts raced ahead. Whatever had happened to Tarrant and Betty could not have been part of any master plan, which meant that whatever that plan was, the timetable had to be accelerated.

  The room smelled faintly, comfortingly of Seamus’s aftershave. The rain beat against the windows and drizzled down the glass in long silvery trails. I didn’t bother to turn on a lamp, and as I moved around the bed and chairs, I caught motion behind me in the oval mirror over the bureau.

  I froze, not sure if what I saw was a trick of the light or if there really was substance to that shadowy motion. I turned slowly. A fist-sized ball of mist seemed to float in front of the fireplace. For one heart-stopping second it seemed as though that pale, glimmering fog started to unfurl, grow.

  It looked real. No question it looked real. The room even felt suddenly colder.

  “I don’t know how you’re doing this, but save it for the show,” I said over the pounding of my heart.

  The ball of mist evaporated as suddenly and completely as a popped balloon.

  I stared in astonishment at the empty air. Had it been a trick of the hazy light? Were my nerves getting the better of me?

  No time to worry about it now. I grabbed my phone, hoping those few minutes of charging had given me vital percentage points of juice, and ran downstairs.

  They had already gathered at the table when I entered the dining room. Sister Regina stood beside the light switch, looking wide-eyed and worried.

  “Don’t hesitate to break glass in case of fire,” I told her.

  Her eyes grew larger still. “Wha-what?”

  “Halcyone, can’t you do something?” Liana complained. “He’s going to make a mockery of this.”

  She was seated to the left of Roma. Aunt H. sat on the right. Roma, who was in the process of draping her black mantilla over her pale hair, glanced at me without welcome.

  “I’ll be good,” I said to Aunt H.

  “Artie—”

  “I’m staying.”

  “My dearest boy, you don’t belong here.”

  I laughed, though I was not finding any of this funny, and took the empty chair at the foot of the table. I stretched my hands out to Aunt H. and Liana.

  “Oh, Artie,” Aunt H. murmured. She looked both sad and resigned as she took my hand. Her own was ice-cold.

  Liana made a sound of impatience and also linked hands. In contrast, her skin felt hot, almost feverish.

  “Shall we begin?” Roma inquired.

  “You may turn the lights off and leave the room, Sister Regina,” Aunt H. said.

  Sister Regina looked only too happy to comply. She flicked the switch, the room plunged into darkness, and the double doors opened and swiftly closed. The key scraped in the lock.

  “Close your eyes and empty your mind of all negative thoughts,” Roma spoke in that soothing singsong. “Be at peace. We are safe here.”

  Liana made a small, anxious sound. Her hand was trembling in mine.

  No one else spoke. The sound of rain against the windows was loudest, but I could hear Roma’s slow, deliberate inhalations and exhalations.

  Long minutes passed. Somewhere in the Twilight Zone a phone was ringing unanswered. Last time, the spirits had been faster to pick up.

  I scanned the room, eyes probing the deep shadows. Nothing stirred. The walls remained reassuringly solid.

  Somewhere overhead I could hear a shutter banging. Tarrant’s handiwork coming undone.

  I hoped Chief Kingsland got my message. I hoped Seamus was on his way. Not that I had any clear idea of what either of them could do at this point.

  Roma moaned something unintelligible. Her body jerked. Her breaths grew rough and unsteady.

  “He’s coming,” Liana whispered. “I can feel it!”

  My scalp crawled with tension, the very ha
ir on my arms standing on end. I squeezed Aunt H.’s hand in reassurance, and she squeezed back.

  Roma’s head fell back, her body arched, and she began to mumble her version of ancient Egyptian.

  The spate of gibberish broke off, and Roma said in normal tones, “Are you there, Lord Rekhmire?”

  Silence.

  “Is there another spirit with you?”

  Liana made an anxious sound.

  There seemed to be a pause before Roma murmured, “Spirit, have you a message for one of those in attendance?”

  Silence.

  Silence.

  Had the operator dropped the call?

  Roma shivered suddenly. She sounded almost alert as she said, “I don’t understand…”

  This time there was something…uncanny in the pause that followed.

  Liana said, “Where is Ogden? What is Ogden saying? Tell us!”

  “I… I…”

  We all watched in silence as Roma began to shake.

  “So…much…anger…”

  “So…much…hate…”

  So…much…bad…acting. Although, in fairness, given the way my heart was jumping around my chest, the performance was not without its strengths.

  Aunt H. whispered, “What does he want?”

  “Despair…”

  “Oh, Ogden. Ogden,” wailed Liana.

  “Darkness…”

  “Why did he kill Tarrant?”

  The voice was hard and flat as a slap across the face, surprising everyone into silence.

  Although the most surprising thing was that it was my voice.

  The room fell utterly silent.

  Then Roma let out a long sigh and slumped forward onto the table as though someone had let the air out of a rubber doll.

  “You’ve killed her!” screeched Liana, snatching her hand from mine. “I knew it was a mistake to let you take part—”

  “Look,” Aunt H. interrupted in a strange voice.

  I could see the outline of her profile in the gloom. She was staring at me. No. She was staring behind me.

  Liana screamed.

  I think I stopped breathing. Even without looking, I could feel that terrible cold. A chill like no other. It took every ounce of will power I had to turn in my chair—and what I saw had me on my feet in an instant.

  The cloud of milky-white substance we had witnessed before was swirling less than a foot from me.

  We all watched, wordless, stricken, as the glowing mist seemed to roil in the air, unfolding like smoke through water, spreading, stretching…taking form.

  “Ogden,” Liana whispered.

  Phosphorescent, fuzzy…but yes, the shining vapor seemed to be taking the form of a man.

  First the torso, then the arms and legs, and finally the head.

  I stared and stared as the features began to resolve themselves. A craggy jaw, blunt nose, and piercing eyes that seemed to bore right into me.

  What the hell?

  I knew that face all right. I’d spent nearly an hour that afternoon staring at a photograph of it. Him.

  “That’s not Ogden,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Oh my God,” Aunt H. said softly. “Artie’s right.”

  Liana gave a little scream of protest, and rose. “It is Ogden. It has to be him.” She took a step toward the misty outline but faltered. “It has to be,” she repeated, but I could hear the doubt in her voice.

  “It’s Hart Lenton,” I said.

  The wavering white shadow seemed to deepen, solidify—and then fade again. As though there was a short in the wiring.

  “Roma!” Liana cried. “Roma, tell them!”

  Roma still slumped, unmoving, over the table.

  As we watched, Lenton’s features blurred, his form softened, melting away into shapeless, shimmering light.

  “He can’t speak without the conduit of Roma,” Aunt H. said wonderingly.

  Lenton’s form suddenly vanished like a pinched-out candle.

  Liana sagged back into her chair. “I don’t understand. Who is Hart Lenton? Why has he appeared to us? What can this mean?”

  I said, “Hart Lenton was a contractor who specialized in renovating historic homes. Ogden hired him to restore the entrances to the Prohibition-era passageways this house is riddled with.”

  Aunt H. and Liana said in unison, “What?”

  “I don’t think it was originally part of Ogden’s plan to murder Lenton—”

  “Artie, what are you saying?” Aunt H. demanded.

  “I’m saying Ogden murdered Hart Lenton and faked his own supposedly fatal accident.”

  “But…that’s not possible.”

  “Ogden needed a body, and they were roughly the same height and build—plus it was a way of making sure Lenton could never testify about the work he did, in case news of the haunting of Green Lanterns ever reached him.”

  “You’re crazy!” Liana cried. She reached over to jog Roma’s shoulder. “Roma, wake up! You’ve got to stop this. Artie’s saying terrible things about Ogden.”

  Roma began to breathe heavily, stertorously.

  I have to confess my love of theater got the better of me just then because I couldn’t help pronouncing, “It isn’t Ogden haunting Green Lanterns. It’s the spirit of Hart Lenton.”

  The jarring burst of laughter that followed my dramatic announcement had us all looking wildly around the room. Where was that coming from?

  “Now there you’re wrong,” a voice said from the corner. “And you were doing so well too!”

  I knew that voice. Recognized those amused, lightly mocking tones. But the figure that detached itself from the darkness and moved toward the table was not familiar. Even in the dim light, I could see long, unruly hair and a full beard. Biker Jesus himself.

  “Oh my God…” Aunt H. breathed.

  “Oscar? Oscar?” Liana leaned forward, her voice wobbling with emotion. “Is it you? Is it really you?”

  “Yes, my darling. It is I.”

  Aunt H. said very faintly, “This can’t be.” I hoped she wasn’t going to swoon. Not that she was the swooning kind, but having your dead husband return from the grave would test anyone’s limits. It was kind of testing mine.

  “But why?” Liana protested. “Why would you pretend? Why would you let me think you were dead? Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

  “I couldn’t, my dearest. I’ll explain it all later. First we have to—”

  I said, “You should know that I’ve already shared all this with Chief Kingsland and Sergeant Cassidy.”

  “Sergeant—? Oh, our undercover gardener?” Ogden laughed. “Shared what? Suspecting is not proving.”

  “Why?” Aunt H. demanded. Her voice was steady now, fierce. “Why did you do it? How could you? Why didn’t you just leave?”

  “Would you like to do the honors?” Ogden seemed to be asking me.

  “I would, but I don’t understand why you killed Tarrant or how you killed Betty.”

  “Who the hell is Betty?”

  “Ulyanna.”

  He sounded almost indignant. “I didn’t touch her. She walked into the kitchen as I was slipping out through the door behind the china cabinet. I didn’t say a word to her. She keeled over.”

  “You killed Tarrant?” Aunt H. said in horror-stricken tones.

  “It’s not something I planned. The old fool figured it out somehow and thought we were going to be partners.”

  It wasn’t that hard to guess how Tarrant might have figured it out. All he’d need was a glimpse of Reverend Ormston skulking around Green Lanterns in the dead of night, and he’d be bound to start connecting the dots. Especially as he was a member of the church and could study Ormston on a fairly regular basis.

  “I still don’t understand,” Aunt H. said. “What was the point? What was the purpose? What can you possibly get out of this when everyone believes you’re dead?”

  Ogden heaved a heavy sigh, as though the effort of being patient with slower intellects w
as wearing him down. “Turn on the light, Artemus,” he instructed, adding, “And don’t do anything stupid like try to open the door. I’d prefer not to shoot the girl. She’s a sweet child.”

  I walked over to the wall switch and flicked it on. The chandelier blazed into sparkling crystal prisms of light. It threw the tableau before me into sharp relief.

  Roma was slowly coming back to life. She straightened groggily, resting her face in her hands. Aunt H. and Liana sat staring as though mesmerized by the man before them. The man holding a gun. A gun currently pointed at me.

  It looked like a stage prop, but I knew it wasn’t.

  “Reverend Ormston?” Liana said. “But…”

  Aunt H. burst out, “I knew you were selfish. I didn’t realize how cruel you were. How long did you plan this?”

  Ogden did not seem offended. He tipped his head as though considering. “About three years of planning. One year of execution. Don’t look like that, my dear. I assure you, I had every intention of settling down here permanently as Ogden Hyde. Or, let’s be honest, as Ogden Bancroft. But the opportunity to take over the church was quite literally a godsend. I could hardly ignore it.”

  “Is that what happened to the money you stole?” I asked. “You used it to take over the church?”

  Ogden made a sound of contempt. “Are you serious? Most of that money was used to create the identity of Ogden Hyde. Plastic surgery is expensive. Starting a publishing company is expensive. Courting women like Halcyone Bancroft is expensive.”

  “The property next door to Green Lanterns was purchased by the RCU for over a million dollars,” I said.

  “And property is expensive,” Ogden agreed. “It’s also the best investment there is.”

  Which was why he couldn’t leave bad enough alone, why he hadn’t been satisfied with setting up an identity and a new life, why he had set his sights once more on Green Lanterns. This time minus the encumbrance of Halcyone Bancroft.

  I said to Aunt H., “The idea was you would change your will in favor of Liana, and then Liana would donate everything to the church. Correct?”

  “Correct,” Ogden said. “That was—and is—the plan.”

  “What’s…going on?” Roma asked. She blinked owlishly at Ogden, who ignored her.