Read High Spirits [Spirits 03] for Free Online Page B

you didn’t get involved in County matters.” My teeth chattered, my voice shook, my heart raced like a greyhound chasing a rabbit, and I was pretty sure I was going to die from fright any minute. I didn’t feel like fighting with Sam. But darn it, it was the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department that was supposed to watch out for things in the area where we’d all been arrested. Yet here we were, in the Pasadena Police Station, being glowered at by Sam Rotondo, my worst nightmare.
           “We cooperate,” he growled. “Which is more than I can say for some people.”
           Meaning me. I’d have argued, but I was too rattled. Plus, I was still straining not to cry. We Gumms are made of tough stuff. If I cried in front of Sam, I’d hate myself. Of course, since I already hated myself, there was probably no point to the struggle. Nuts.
           After skewering me with a hideous frown fully long enough for me to wish I was dead, or at least visiting my father’s relatives in Massachusetts, Sam jerked his head at a policeman who stood behind Stacy and Flossie. “Take those two to the lobby, Joe. I need to talk to Mrs. Majesty and Mr. Kincaid for a minute.”
           Oh sweet heaven. I watched them go, wishing for the first time since I’d met her that Stacy wasn’t leaving a room in which I existed. As soon as the door shut behind the two women and the copper, Sam turned on me.
           “Damn it, Daisy Majesty, does Billy have any idea where you were and what you were doing tonight?”
           “St-stop shouting at me.” My protest was feeble. I’d done a terrible thing that night and deserved to be shouted at. Sam was quivering like the aspic on one of Aunt Vi’s preserved chickens. Ignoring Harold in favor of berating me, he loomed over me like a mountain, and he was doing a darned good job of making me feel like a crawling bug or a plague-infested rat.
           “Damn it, how could you do this to your husband? Don’t you feel any sense of responsibility at all?”
           That hurt a lot, mainly because my sense of responsibility regarding Billy was as large as an alp—and also because I thought I’d treated my husband shabbily by agreeing to help Mrs. Kincaid. I didn’t want Sam to know how much his words stung. Still, the shock of hearing him shout them made me suck in a gulp of air.
           “Really now, Detective Rotondo. There’s no need for that sort of thing. Daisy has felt terrible about this job ever since my mother talked her into accepting it. She was absolutely petrified the whole of the evening and could speak of nothing but how ashamed she was to have misled her husband.”
           Bless Harold Kincaid’s sweet heart. Sam didn’t buy it, which is no less than I’d expected of him, but I appreciated Harold’s attempt to make him see the truth.
           Sam swung around to face Harold, making poor Harold start. “ Misled ? That’s a fine word for it, I’d say. She lied to him! Damn it, why did she do it, if she was so damned miserable?”
           “Because she’s a kind-hearted woman who tries to help people. She feels obliged to my mother—don’t ask me why—and she agreed to take this job even though she didn’t want to.”
           “Nuts. Your mother’s got more money than God. Mrs. Majesty’s got a family that needs her a lot more than Mrs. Kincaid does.”
           “I’m sure that’s true. But don’t you see that working at her job as a spiritualist is taking care of her family?” Harold sounded irritated, which was unusual for him.
       “She doesn’t have to work in speakeasies, for God’s sake!”
           I flinched. Harold proved his mettle. He hollered right back at Sam, “She had to work in a speakeasy this time!”
           I’d covered my ears at Sam’s bellow. With Harold’s, I decided I’d cowered enough. Gumms aren’t supposed to cower.