Strong Spirits [Spirits 01] (23 page)

      
Thank God for Harold, who interrupted the scene at that point. “Detective, I really think my mother ought to rest now. Ah, I believe Mrs. Majesty and I might be of help to you.” He waved his arms in a vague gesture. “As to . . . er . . . about Quincy Applewood and my father, I mean.”

      
I didn’t want to be of help to the man, but I didn’t say so. I knew Harold was right.

      
Detective Rotondo must have perceived some kind of hint in Harold’s suggestion, which led me to believe yet again that he wasn’t as thick-headed as I’d hoped. After peering at Harold with eyes slitted up, Rotondo nodded. “Very well.” He turned to Mrs. Kincaid. “I’m sorry this is so distressing for you, ma’am. I’ll probably have to talk to you more later.”

      
“Yes. Yes, thank you.” She began struggling on the sofa. It didn’t take me more than a second or two to understand she needed help getting up. Poor thing. So I took her arm and assisted her to her feet.

      
“I’ll see you upstairs, Madeline.” Algie Pinkerton appeared at my side and took Mrs. Kincaid’s right arm. He’d stopped crying, thank heavens.

      
“And I’ll go, too. You don’t need me here, do you, Detective? I’m sure I can be of more assistance to Mrs. Kincaid than the police.”

      
Detective Rotondo gave Father Frederick his okay. Father Frederick fell in beside Mrs. Kincaid on her other side. “I’m sure prayer will help,” he said in a well-oiled, preacherly voice. He might even have meant it. He looked sincere enough.

      
Thus supported on either side by men who appreciated her, unlike her sneaky-mean lizard of a husband, Mrs. Kincaid tottered out of the room. As for me, I was pondering the nature of a marriage that would lead a woman to call her husband “Mr. Kincaid” even after thirty-odd years of marriage. I know she called her friends by their first names. I’d heard her call Algie Pinkerton Algie many times, and I’d heard her call Father Frederick Freddy once or twice. But Eustace Kincaid was always “Mr. Kincaid.” You figure it out. I sure couldn’t.

      
I was extremely glad to see the three of them leave the room, though. I think I even sighed inside with relief. It didn’t last long.

Chapter Eleven
 

      
As soon as the door shut behind Mrs. Kincaid, Algie Pinkerton, and Father Frederick, Rotondo focused on me as if I were a criminal he was trying to nail. I sat up straighter. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

      
“I might have known it would come down to you,” said he in a nasty tone.

      
“What’s that supposed to mean? Darn it, none of this is my fault!”

      
“Never mind.”

      
“I don’t know a single thing about any of this,” I said coldly. “The only thing I might be able to help with is the reason Quincy Applewood and Mr. Kincaid were fighting. Er, arguing, I mean.” I glanced toward Harold, silently asking his permission to tell all. Not that I knew all. He nodded, bless him.

      
“Oh?” I could hear the sneer in Rotondo’s voice and took exception to it. There was no reason I could see why he should dislike me. Heck, he didn’t even
know
me. “And why do you think they were arguing, Mrs. Majesty?”

      
“Because Mr. Kincaid was always trying to trap Edie—Miss Marsh, I mean. That’s Quincy’s fiancé—with his wheelchair and—and touch her. I interrupted them once when he was trying to get her to kiss him.” I couldn’t repress a shudder.

      
One of Rotondo’s eyebrows lifted. “Is that so?”

      
“Yes,” I snapped, sensing his disbelief. “It is.”

      
“Ah.” He tapped his notebook with his pencil. His brow was furrowed as he stared at me, making me uncomfortable. “You say Mr. Kincaid pursued Miss Marsh in his wheelchair?”

      
“Yes.” I didn’t like the way he’d asked the question, so I lifted my chin and dared him to doubt me. Not that he needed a dare. He seemed to doubt me no matter what.

      
Still tapping, he said, “Mr. Kincaid needed his wheelchair to get around?”

      
I shrugged. “I guess so.”

      
“And he used it in pursuit of housemaids?”

      
That tore it. Jumping up from the sofa, I fairly shouted, “Darn it, this isn’t my fault! I’m only telling you what Edie told me and what I saw with my own eyes!”

      
“Calm down, Mrs. Majesty. I’m not doubting your word.”

      
“Like heck.” I sat again, though, knowing I’d spoil my family’s fun if I left before I’d gleaned every tidbit I could about this latest Kincaid scandal.

      
“Out of curiosity, where were you last night, Mrs. Majesty?”

      
He already knew that, but I guess it was better that he didn’t let on, since I didn’t want everyone in the room to know I’d blabbed to the police. “Conducting a séance at Mr. Harold Kincaid’s house.”

      
“And where did you go after the séance concluded?”

      
“Home.”

      
“Did you make any stops on your way home?” Rotondo’s brow beetled.

      
Did this man honestly think
I
might have killed Kincaid? “No!”

      
“No need to shout, Mrs. Majesty.”

      
“The heck there’s not! If you think
I
killed that old goat, you’re crazy!”

      
“I accused you of no such thing,” Rotondo said.

      
“You thought it.”

      
“Nonsense.”

      
“Nuts.”

      
“Where did you go after the séance at the younger Mr. Kincaid’s house?”

      
“Home. Without stopping anywhere else.”

      
Rotondo didn’t pursue my pique or his doubt about my complicity in a crime. Good thing, or I might have felt compelled to take a stand, leave in a huff, and then I’d never learn anything.

      
“And you say Mr. Kincaid needed a wheelchair in order to get around?”

      
“I don’t know,” I said with a crisp snap to my voice to let him know I wouldn’t put up with any more guff from him, even though I planned to. “All I know is that I never saw him out of it.”

      
“Father’s health has been extremely poor these past few years, Detective,” Harold slid in. “He could walk a little bit, but almost always needed his wheelchair. We installed the lift so that he wouldn’t have to climb stairs.”

      
A lift would be nice for Billy to have. Unfortunately, the Gumms of this world couldn’t afford such luxuries. Anyhow, Billy’d probably pooh-pooh such a convenience. He was like that.

      
“I see.” Rotondo hadn’t removed his gaze from my humble self. “And you think Miss Marsh found Mr. Kincaid’s advances unwelcome, Mrs. Majesty?”

      
“
What
?” I gaped at him. “Of
course
she found them unwelcome! Wouldn’t you? Anyhow, she and Quincy were planning to get married as soon as Quincy had saved up enough money. Why would she welcome advances from a miserable, ugly creature like Mr. Kincaid?” I darted a glance at Harold, sorry that I’d exclaimed so loudly something so unfortunately true. Harold only grinned at me. Manifestly, he had known his father well.

      
“And you think that Mr. Applewood found out about this pursuit of Miss Marsh by Mr. Kincaid?”

      
I lowered my gaze and would have inspected my fingernails, except that I was wearing gloves. “Um, I know he found out.”

      
“Oh? And how is that?”

      
With a heartfelt sigh, I admitted culpability. “Because I let the cat out of the bag and told him. I didn’t mean to. It happened sort of by accident. At Harold’s séance.”

      
Rotondo mouth pursed into a grimace, I presume at the word
séance
. “Oh?”

      
“Quincy was parking cars there. Harold and I got to talking afterwards. That’s where I found out—” Whoops. I’d almost gone and done it again: blurted out something I didn’t want to admit. I really, really didn’t want Harold to know that I’d blabbed to Rotondo about the conversation between Harold and Mr. Farrington that I’d overheard at his house.

      
The notion that Harold might find out made me feel defensive. Nobody wants people to think she’s a sneak and a spy. In reaction, I jumped all over Rotondo some more. “But what I want to know is why are you asking so darned many questions about Quincy? I thought it was Mr. Kincaid who’d robbed his bank and run off, and that’s why we’re here.”

      
“We don’t know what happened to Mr. Kincaid. And we don’t know what, if anything, has happened regarding the bank’s assets.”

      
“Are there bearer bonds missing?” I asked loudly and, I fear, sarcastically. If this man was going to tell me that nothing had gone wrong with the bank after I’d spied for him . . . Well, not spied, exactly, but . . . Oh, nuts.

      
“There appear to be some irregularities at the bank,” Rotondo admitted.

      
“Involving bearer bonds.” Only then did I recall that I wasn’t supposed to know anything about the bearer bonds and the only reason I
did
know was because I’d overheard Harold and Del’s conversation. Fiddle. I was getting very confused. When I glanced at Harold, his face appeared about as blank as a clean sheet of paper, so I guess he didn’t suspect my part in anything. Rotondo’s expression didn’t undergo much of a change as a result of my sarcasm. In fact, he didn’t seem to give a hoot. Figured. Even at the most intense of times I don’t look particularly formidable. The best I can ever seem to manage is mystical.

      
“The fact that there might be irregularities at the bank,” Rotondo went on, “doesn’t negate the fact that Mr. Eustace Kincaid is missing after having had an apparently violent argument with Mr. Quincy Applewood.”

      
“Nobody said anything about it being violent,” I grumbled, expecting no one to accept my amendment. I was right.

      
“It is always possible that Mr. Kincaid, in an attempt to get away with bank assets, was set upon by Mr. Applewood.”

      
“Oh, yeah? That’s nonsense. Anyhow, if that happened, what happened to Quincy? Where’s the money? For that matter, where’s Mr. Kincaid? Corpses don’t generally get up and mosey off on their own, you know.”

      
Looking as if he’d like to swat me like a fly, Rotondo said, “If there were illicit bank assets in Mr. Kincaid’s possession at the time Mr. Applewood accosted him, who’s to say but that Mr. Applewood found them, realized he’d hit the jackpot, and has taken off with them.”

      
“That’s ridiculous. Quincy would never do anything like that.” And if he
had
discovered himself in sudden and illegal possession of a lot of money, he’d at least have gone back for Edie. It goes without saying that I didn’t voice my thoughts.

      
Suddenly it occurred to me that I was defending someone I didn’t really know very well. What did I actually know about Quincy Applewood? I knew that Edie Marsh was in love with him, and I trusted Edie’s judgment. On the other hand, maybe her judgment was sound regarding everything but men. That sort of thing had been known to happen to other girls. Sometimes I wondered if it had happened to me, actually, although that wasn’t fair. It was the war that had ruined any chances of marital bliss that Billy and I might have had.

      
Then I told myself to stop thinking so hard. I could almost always undermine myself if I thought too hard. “Quincy Applewood is a good man. A moral man.” I hope my implied message, that Mr. Eustace Kincaid was
neither of those things, came across.

      
Rotondo grunted, so I guess it did. “I suppose I should talk to Miss Marsh.”

      
Oh, boy. Edie was going to kill me when she learned that it had been I who’d spilled the beans on her and Mr. Kincaid. Nevertheless, I stood up, feeling noble and willing to sacrifice myself to the cause. “Would you like me to get her for you?”

      
Eyeing me as if he were trying to decide what sort of evil business I was up to, Rotondo didn’t answer for a minute. Then he said, “Yes. Thanks. Please let me ask any questions of Miss Marsh, Mrs. Majesty. You needn’t contribute any of your own.”

      
After shooting him a glance of withering scorn, I skedaddled out of there as fast as I could. Since I couldn’t remember where Edie’d said she was going to be, but recollected something about bedrooms, I went upstairs to look for her. I was glad I’d done so after I’d peeked into the first couple of rooms. What a place that was! Suites of rooms, and lots of them. Boy, wouldn’t that be something, to live in a house like that?

      
When you got to the head of the staircase, which branched off in both directions, there was a hallway like another entry hall, only on the second floor. Pictures of everything from the Kincaids themselves to what looked like all the lords and ladies in England, not to mention landscapes roaming with cows and horses that were so gorgeous they made me drool, graced the walls. From this picture-lined hallway to the right was a sitting room with tons of books and lots of easy chairs and a fireplace that might have been cozy had it been about a quarter of its size.

      
A hallway on either side of the book room led to the bedroom suites, which were arranged sort of like this: Sitting room, dressing room, bathroom, dressing room, sitting room, bedroom. There were at least three of those. There might have been more on the other side of the staircase, but I found Edie before I’d come to the end of the elegancies afforded by the Kincaid mansion’s second story.