Hungry Spirits [Spirits 04] (5 page)

After I hung up the receiver, I turned from the ’phone with a sigh to find Billy and Pa looking at me, both grinning. “Mrs. Kincaid,” I said, although from their smirks, I presumed they already knew that.

Pa confirmed my presumption. “We heard.”

“
I don’t understand why she keeps calling,” said Billy. “I mean, once you read the cards, the message doesn’t change, does it?”

“
Not much,” I confirmed as I started clearing the table.

“
The cards don’t say different things at different times?” Pa asked.

“
Well,” said I, “it all depends on what questions you ask.” Then I stopped stock-still in the middle of the kitchen, marveling that I, who knew better, was actually talking as if there was really something to this spiritualism nonsense. I’m pretty sure I sighed again.

Changing the subject, I said, “I’m going to stop by the library before I go to the Kincaids’ place. Does anyone want anything?”

“
Yeah,” said Billy. “Will you see if there are any new Zane Grey books there? I think he’s published a new one.”

“
I’ll check on it. I’m hoping Miss Petrie will have a new mystery or two for me.”

“
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 always 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.