I dropped into the passenger seat. “I haven’t been gone that long. Have you ever heard about the stressful effects of a type A personality?”
Her eyes narrowed as she punched the button. “When I want mental-health advice, I’ll ask my shrink. What took you so long?”
“Ronald Phillips eavesdropped on Evelyn and Alison.” I described the scene in Laverne and Ronald’s bedroom.
She gave a low whistle of surprise. “Laverne moves majestically around The Castle and he follows like a well-bred lapdog.”
“Fake.” I was crisp. “He’s the puppeteer.”
“What do you think he’s up to?” Her tone was considering.
“He said, ‘The Great Spirit’s going to put on a good show tonight.’” I had a feeling of foreboding.
Kay gave a hoot of laughter. “They’ll make Diane pay double. Sounds like fun.”
“Kay!” My tone rebuked her.
She shot a wickedly amused glance toward the passenger seat. “I forgot, you don’t take kindly to the afterworld. Isn’t that a bit of a double standard, lady?”
“Absolutely not.” My reply was hot. “I am an official emissary of the Department of Good Intentions, sent to achieve goodness. Psychics and fortune-tellers purvey nonsense to the credulous for their own profit.”
“Go, girl. I like a woman who will slug it out. As for psychics, et al, I agree with you, even if you sound like you have vinegar in your mouth.”
Had I sounded acidulous? Possibly. But that wasn’t the point. “We should discourage Diane from engaging in the occult.”
“Lots of luck on that one.” Kay’s expression was abruptly compassionate. “Threatening to cut her lifeline to James turns her into a shrew.”
I remembered the gazebo and Diane’s passionate defense of Laverne.
Kay glanced behind her, backed up, then wheeled the car toward the street. “I’ve got places to go and people to see.” The Corvette burned out of the drive. “But”—and her tone was almost admiring—“your coming and going may turn out to be helpful. What did Alison want?”
My hair streamed behind me. I liked speed. I recalled the exhilarating plunge down one of Adelaide’s biggest hills when I was here for a spot of Christmas intrigue. As then, I couldn’t resist a whooping, “Yee-hah!” If you’ve never given a Rebel yell, you don’t know how to have fun.
Kay gasped and the Corvette swerved. “What’s up with you?” Her voice was both shaky and exasperated.
“Riding shotgun, sweetie, and having a blast. As for Alison, it’s a shame I didn’t have a camcorder. The Adelaide police carry them as part of their equipment.”
Just for fun I appeared in full police regalia, black-billed blue cap, long-sleeved French blue blouse, French blue trousers with a darker blue stripe, a nameplate for Officer M. Loy—my tribute to Mryna Loy—holster, gun, belt with flashlight, and a camcorder.
After one swift glance, Kay stared straight ahead. “Has anyone ever told you showing off is poor form?” The Corvette slowed to the speed limit.
I didn’t think it was showing off to swirl into a more summery outfit. Besides, Adelaide is a small town and a police officer riding in the passenger seat of a yellow Corvette would definitely be noticed. This time I chose a hand-painted silk georgette blouse and pale pink slacks.
Kay glanced again. “Nice blouse.”
“Thank you.”
“Why did you wish you had a camcorder?”
We were almost downtown. “I wish I had a recording of Evelyn and Alison’s conversation.” I described Evelyn’s not terribly subtle offer of profit for a verdict of erosion at the base of the vase and concluded, “As soon as Evelyn dangled the bait of replacing the vases, Alison did the Texas two-step quicker than a firefly flickers. Tell me about Alison.”
Kay turned into a parking lot behind a small redbrick building with black shutters. “Clever, smart, on the make. Jack called Laverne and Ronald Diane’s leeches. I’d describe Alison as Evelyn’s leech, albeit a suave, sophisticated, savvy leech.” She eased the Corvette beneath the shade of a sycamore.
“It doesn’t surprise you that Alison would be willing to adjust her opinion to suit Evelyn?”
Kay was sardonic. “Does the sun rise in the east? The surprise is Evelyn. Either she’s protecting herself or someone else.”
“Who would she protect?”
Kay looked thoughtful. “Possibly Jimmy. She’s fond of her nephew. I’d say no one else in the house matters to her at all. Maybe it’s all much simpler. Maybe she’s trying to deflect scandal from the family.”
“The Humes”—my voice was dry—“have always had a talent for scandal.”
“Not Evelyn.” Kay slipped out of the car.
I disappeared.
Her dark brows drew down in a tight frown. “Will you either be here or not?”
“The two of us together would intimidate any man. Use your charm with Paul Fisher. I’m sure you have some.”
She shot a hostile look where I had been. “As Charlie Chan said, ‘Assistants should be seen, not heard.’” She strode toward the entrance.
I called after her, “So last century.” As she opened the door, I added sweetly, “Charlie also said, ‘Charming company turn lowly sandwich into rich banquet.’”
She looked back. “Touché.”
My intent was to pop directly to Paul Fisher’s office. I wanted to see him when he considered himself safe from observation. Private faces revealed character. Are the brows drawn in a frown? Is there sadness in the eyes? Does the expression show meanness or generosity?
I felt no need to hurry. Kay must first speak with the receptionist. I paused to enjoy once again the rasp of cicadas. When I was growing up in Oklahoma, we called them locusts. A biology teacher explained they were not locusts, but insects of another order. Whenever I heard cicadas, I felt even younger than my chosen age of twenty-seven. I was ten again and running barefoot through freshly cut grass with its distinctive scent, sunlight hot on my skin, living gloriously and heedlessly in what seemed to be the never-ending sun of summer.
“‘Mind, like parachute, only function when open.’” Wiggins’s voice was gruff. I might even describe his tone as anguished. “Bailey Ruth, when will you stop and think?”
Without taking time to reflect, I blurted, “Too much thinking is deleterious to mental health.”
His riposte bristled. “That’s not Charlie Chan.”
“Of course not.” Had I made that claim? “That’s Bailey Ruth Raeburn.” Possibly I had a future in some great salon of intellectual conversationalists.
“Umph. Not bad. But you’re distracting me from my point. If you hadn’t appeared in the gazebo, you wouldn’t have been seen by Diane Hume and now the fat’s in the fire.”
“It’s much too hot to picture a lump of fat sizzling in flames.”
“Bailey Ruth, focus on the matter at hand. You. Visible you. Contravening Precepts One, Three, and Four.” His voice rose and a splatting sound suggested fist hitting palm.
A girl walking a golden retriever stopped and looked around, seeking the source of the scolding voice. No one was visible in the parking lot. The teenage dogwalker’s gaze swept up, down, back, forth.
Wiggins and I hovered unseen about fifteen feet above the hot, still parking lot.
“Precept Six.” The exclamation seemed torn from Wiggins’s heart.
At the shout above her, the girl’s head jerked up. She gazed at sycamore limbs quivering in the breeze. With a squeal, the girl turned. Pigtails flying, she bolted up the sidewalk with the dog.
When the girl and dog were out of sight, and, of course, ear-shot, I tried for a light touch. “Don’t worry. She’ll probably decide she heard a car radio.” The street was empty of traffic.
“From an imaginary car? From an invisible car?” Wiggins’s volume increased with each word.
“These things happen.” I hoped he was in an accepting mood. “Dear Wiggins, don’t you always feel there’s a purpose? Perhaps that sweet girl will be led to a life of creative imagining. Why, this moment might mark the beginning of a career as a novelist. She may—”