Mr. Prophet was as good as his word. When I left my room at around seven o’clock Wednesday morning, there he was, standing over the range with a spatula in his hand and an apron on as if he cooked for people every day. Actually, he had cooked for us two days in a row. I hoped this wouldn’t last long, although so far, he’d only fed us tasty stuff.
“Mornin’, Miss Daisy,” he said, nodding at me.
Glad I’d brushed my hair and donned my newish blue robe—I wasn’t trying to impress Mr. Prophet, but I didn’t want him to think I was slovenly, either—I responded, “Morning. Did you set the oven to medium?”
“Yup.”
“Would you mind showing me how to do it?”
After giving me a long, narrow-eyed look, he said, “Naw. C’mon over here, and I’ll show you.”
So I did, he did, and then I knew how to set the oven to medium. By golly, people are right when they say you’re never too old to learn new things.
Ma and Pa walked into the kitchen together, and I decided to get dressed. It didn’t look to me as if breakfast would be ready in a flash. A knock at our door made me veer away from my intended destination. When I peered through the peephole, I saw Pudge Wilson standing on our porch. A trifle apprehensively, I opened the door, hoping to heaven he hadn’t come over to play “Reveille” for us.
My relief when I saw him grinning at me and holding out our morning newspaper was profound. “Thanks a lot, Pudge,” I said, taking the paper from his freckled, skinny hand.
“You’re welcome. The paperboy was late this morning, so I thought you might want to know it came.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Pudge stood there, gazing up at me with adoring eyes. Don’t ask me why, but the kid had been sweet on me for-blooming-ever.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when from behind me Sam’s voice boomed, “Thank you, Pudge. I was just going out to see if the paper had been delivered yet.” Actually, I jumped a little bit, too. Sam was big, but he could be stealthy when he wanted to be.
“Y-you’re welcome, Detective Rotondo.” Now Pudge’s gaze switched to Sam, and it still held worship. I guess he admired lawmen as much as he admired me. Fine by me. “Well, I’ve gotta go eat breakfast. It’s still Easter vacation, so I don’t have to go to school. Maybe I’ll practice playing my bugle some more. See ya!” He waved as he trotted down the front porch steps and headed north to this house.
“Got his good deed done early this morning,” muttered Sam as he and I walked back to the kitchen.
“Yes. Now he can cut up for the rest of the day.”
“Gotta admire Boy Scouts, especially when they’re not bearing bugles,” grunted Mr. Prophet.
“True, but he did give us fair warning.”
“I’ll be saved because I have to go to work,” observed Sam
“I almost miss Mrs. Pinkerton.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” I agreed. “I don’t.” I laughed and turned to give my own big lug a hug and a kiss, which he returned.
“I spoke with Mrs. Bissel yesterday,” said he, getting back to business almost immediately.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked, tugging the belt to my robe tighter. It had come undone a little during that too-brief hug.
“Do what? Hug you?” asked Sam who could be annoying as heck without half trying.
“No! Why’d you call Mrs. Bissel?”
“Wanted to know if she can host a séance on Thursday night.”
“Thursday night is choir practice,” I reminded him.
The look he gave me should not be bestowed by a fiancé on his fiancée. “I was only saying!” I said.
“You want to get Vi back?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, then, do you think you can skip choir practice for one night?”
“Yes. I’ll call Mr. Hostetter and tell him…Gee, I don’t know what to tell him. I hate lying to the choir director.”
“Tell him something unusual has come up, you need to miss choir practice, ask him what the anthem and hymns will be, and then say you’ll practice them at home on Friday.”
“Oh. Great idea.” For someone who lied for a living, I could be remarkably dense when it came to lying in my daily life. “I hope he doesn’t ask what’s come up, and can he put someone on the prayer list.”
“If he should ask what came up, you can say a friend is sick and needs your help. If he asks who, tell him it’s Flossie Buckingham. If he asked if he should put her on the prayer list, say yes.”
“Is Flossie sick?”
“Of course, not! She’s expecting again, though, so she’s probably sick in the mornings.”
“Is she really? How come she told you and not me?” I was kind of hurt, although my reaction even at the time struck me as selfish and silly.
“She didn’t tell me. Buckingham did. He said you and your folks don’t need anything to think about now except finding Vi. Is that all right with you? You’re going to see her at one today, anyway, so you can…I don’t know. Take her aside and tell her you’ll make baby clothes for the kid when it comes.”
“True. I hope she’ll be all right to exercise. I mean, do women have to rest a lot when they’re…expecting?” I swear, there were so many euphemisms for pregnancy. We were supposed to be free-thinking and enlightened in the 1920s, but I couldn’t even make myself say “pregnant” to my own fiancé. This might bode ill if we ever had children of our own, which I hoped we would.
“If she can’t exercise, she can watch. Buckingham said she’s healthy as a horse and happy as can be. He’s happy, too.”
“Aw,” I said, thinking of little Billy Buckingham, named after my own beloved late husband. “Billy will have a little brother or sister soon.”
“Yeah,” said Sam. “Lucky kid.”
He sounded as if he felt sorry for little Billy. Then again, Sam was the oldest member of an Italian family featuring Sam and his five sisters). I absolutely adored my own two siblings, Daphne and Walter, but I often got the feeling Sam wasn’t quite as enamored of his own large family. Of course, his thick-headed nephew might have something to do with his opinion.
“Soup’s on!” came a rusty call from the kitchen.
“Thanks, Lou,” said Sam. “Come on, Daisy. I’ll give Joe the paper.”
So that’s what we did. Mrs. Rattle’s cinnamon rolls weren’t quite as good as Vi’s, but they were pretty darned good. And Mr. Prophet was an expert at cooking bacon. He’d told me before that, when he was on the trail of a bad guy during his bounty-hunting days, he ate bacon and beans all the time, which sounds boring.
After breakfast, Ma went on to work and I donned an apron and washed up the dishes. Sam went to work, and Mr. Prophet walked back across the street to the little cottage behind Sam’s bungalow. At least I guess he did. He might have taken a detour down the street to visit with his lady love. Scandalous old man.
After Pa handed the church’s key over to Sam, he remained in the kitchen looking through the morning paper while I did the dishes. “Want to take Spike with a walk for me after I take a bath and get dressed?” I asked him.
“Sure.”
For the record, I felt free speaking openly about walks with Pa because Spike was currently occupied in sniffing stuff in the back yard. He occasionally found something with which to entertain himself out there, but we didn’t get, like, wild game in Pasadena. The Wilsons’ cat, Samson, was about his only real opportunity to chase something. Earlier in the year, Mr. Prophet had shot a man out behind the hibiscus bushes, but that was a one-time-only thing. I hoped.
“Good Lord, Daisy, did you know about this?”
I turned from slathering soapy water on breakfast plates and looked at Pa. “Know about what?”
“A policeman was shot to death last night!”
Oh, dear. Should I tell my wonderful father I already knew all about it? Easy question.
“No! Really? I wonder if Sam knows.” Sinful, fibbing Daisy! Oh, well. It was for Pa’s own good. He didn’t need to know Vi was in the hands of truly dangerous people. Although, come to think of it, anyone who’d kidnap a woman had to be dangerous, if not insane. Maybe both.
“Says here, his name was Costello, and he’d most recently been in charge of a work gang of prisoners. He was off duty at the time of his death.”
He’d been off duty, all right. He’d been fired, the evil toad. No disrespect to toads intended. “Good heavens. Where’d it happen? I didn’t hear any sirens or anything last night.”
“Neither did I. Says here it was near the Arroyo Seco Bridge.”
“Some wags have started calling that bridge ‘suicide bridge.’ Is the newspaper sure he didn’t jump?”
“He didn’t jump. He was shot.” Pa glanced up from the newspaper and mused for a second. “I suppose he might have shot himself and fallen off the bridge. The paper doesn’t have any details. Just says a policeman was found shot to death near the Arroyo Seco Dam’s spillway.”
“That’s not good,” I said, thinking to myself it actually was good. Maybe. We didn’t have Vi back yet, so I wasn’t sure what might or might not be considered good.
“No, it isn’t. You don’t expect things like that to happen in Pasadena. Chicago or New York, maybe.” He lifted the paper, flapped it once, and resumed perusing it.
So I continued washing dishes and wondering. Why the heck did Sam want me to conduct a séance for Mrs. Bissel tomorrow night? Did he know something about those wretched kidnappers I didn’t? Well, of course, he did. Darn the blasted man.
I didn’t mean it.
Um…sometimes I did. Anyway, after I finished drying and putting dishes away, I let Spike back into the house because he’d knocked. Honestly. I’d taught him how to knock at the door. He was one smart dog.
And after Spike came in and sat at the foot of Pa’s chair, I took a bath, soaking a little bit in preparation for the afternoon’s exercise class—which was silly. I’d need to soak in hot water and Epsom Salts after the class. Then I went to my room and put on the same faded green housedress I’d worn the night before, sensible stockings and walking shoes, peeked out the window and decided a straw hat would be appropriate, donned one, and left to join Pa and Spike on our walk.
We had a lovely time. The pepper trees lining Marengo Avenue formed a canopy over the street, so the walkway was shady. People in the neighborhood kept the sidewalks swept of debris—pepper trees can be quite messy—and Spike got a whole lot of sniffing done. He loved to go for walks. So did I, actually, and so did Pa. He and I didn’t chat much on our walk. Pa must have caught me staring when we walked past Mrs. Mainwaring’s grand home, because he said, “What are you looking at, sweetheart?”
“Oh, nothing. Just wondering how Mrs. Mainwaring and Li are doing.” Actually, I’d been staring in hopes of finding hide or hair of Mr. Lou Prophet’s presence. Didn’t.
“Mrs. Mainwaring is an…interesting person,” said Pa in what might classify as the understatement of the decade, if not the entire century.
“Yes. She is. She sure has a lovely home. And the house in her orange grove is beautiful, too. She’s done really well for herself.”
“I guess she has.”
Pa didn’t know the half of it. I didn’t aim to fill him in, either. He might be shocked. For some reason, when men ran roughshod over people to claw their way to the top of the heap and become rich, nobody blinked an eye. If a woman did likewise, everyone was shocked, if not downright horrified. Worse, they made sure the woman paid dearly for acting like a man. Mr. Castleton, of the Castleton Hotel, Hospital, etc., sprang to mind. His own daughter, a friend of mine, said now that he’d made his fortune taking grievous advantage of people, he fancied himself a philanthropist. Andrew Carnegie also sprang to mind.
In fact, a whole host of grievances against humanity sprang to mind. I attempted to suppress them. Fortunately, Pa asked me a question, driving those thoughts out of my head.
And don’t make any jokes about me being out of my head even before Pa asked the question, either. Please. Thank you.
“Sam said Mrs. Bissel wants you to perform a séance tomorrow night,” Pa said after another few moments. “Isn’t Thursday choir practice night?”
“Yes, it is, but Mrs. Bissel evidently has a particular problem she’s hoping I’ll be able to help her with, and tomorrow’s the only night she’s available.” Gee, my excuse sounded lame.
“Hmmm.”
Guess it sounded lame to Pa, too. I considered elaborating, but decided not to. Lying is a fine art and unless I knew considerably more about Sam’s plans than I did, I figured the less I blabbed, the better. I should probably blab less, anyway, but seldom remember in time.
The rest of the morning seemed to drag along as if it were on the back of a garden snail. I felt fidgety but didn’t want Pa to perceive my state of anxiety. He had enough to do just staying alive. If he died before he could give me away at my wedding, I’d kill him.
Mrs. Rattle showed up around nine, and she wouldn’t even let me dust or mop the floors! I picked up an Edgar Wallace book, but couldn’t concentrate. Then choir practice occurred to me, so I telephoned the church. Mrs. Smith, the pastor’s wife, answered the telephone.
“Good morning, Mrs. Smith. This is Daisy Majesty. I don’t suppose Mr. Hostetter is around at this hour of the day, is he?”
“No, dear, but I’ll be happy to take a message if you need to reach him.” I was about to open my mouth and utter a lie, when she added, “I think it’s wonderful what you and Mrs. Zollinger are doing. You know, starting that exercise class.”
Startled, I said, “Thank you, Mrs. Smith. I…Well, I’m not sure about it myself, but Lucy—Mrs. Zollinger—Miss Betsy Powell and Mrs. Dermott are quite eager to participate in the class. I guess it’s a good idea. You know, do exercises and keep in shape and all.” Babble, babble, babble.
“I think it’s wonderful.” She didn’t sound as if she were fibbing, and yet once more I wished I were as enthusiastic about the class as everyone else seemed to be.
“Feel free to join us if you like,” I said.
“I’d love to, dear, but I have to get home by noon today. You’re wonderful to invite me.”
“I think someone is bringing a Victrola—or maybe it’s a radio—so we’ll be able to exercise to music.”
“Isn’t that wonderful?”
I didn’t think so. I did think Mrs. Smith might enlarge her vocabulary, however. I’d never say so. “Yes,” I said instead.
“But I didn’t mean to interrupt you, dear. Did you need to leave a message for Mr. Hostetter?”
Crumb. I’d almost forgotten why I’d made this telephone call. “Um, yes. Thank you. I won’t be able to attend choir practice tomorrow. I hate to miss it, but I’ll be at church on Sunday, and I wondered if he could tell me the hymns. I think the anthem will be ‘Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise,’ but if he could give me the hymns, so I can practice them at home, I’d appreciate it.” And why didn’t I just ask someone about the hymns when I got to church at one? Fortunately, Mrs. Smith didn’t propound the question.
“Let me look on Mr. Smith’s desk. I haven’t taken the bulletin to the printers yet, so it should be here somewhere. I believe Mr. Smith and Mr. Hostetter chose the hymns some time ago.”
I heard her rustling through papers, and she finally said, “Yes!” sounding triumphant. “Here they are.” And she rattled off the numbers of hymns we’d sing on the Sunday after Easter. We had to get Vi back by then!