We drove the rest of the way to his mother’s Orange Grove estate in silence. When Harold pulled up beside the gatehouse at Mr. Jackson’s vigorous wave, he rolled down his window. “Good morning, Mr. Jackson. Did you wish to speak to Daisy or me?”
Not that it matters, but I approved of Harold calling Jackson Mister Jackson. Most white people didn’t bother being polite to people of colors other than their own. But Harold had been at odds with most of societal proprieties since the day he was born.
“Maybe Miss Daisy, Mr. Harold,” said Jackson, who knew better than to take what he’d consider liberties.
“Sure, Mr. Jackson. What is it?” I leaned over Harold, who pressed back in his seat to give me some room.
“It’s my mama again,” said Mr. Jackson, laughing. I thought he sounded nervous, although I might have been projecting my own antsiness onto him. “She says she wants you to wear your juju all the time. She made this one for your auntie, but she didn’t get to her in time to do her any good. But when you get Mrs. Vi back, please give her this. It’s from my mother.” He held out a dark arm. On his pink-palmed hand rested a Mrs. Jackson-made Voodoo juju quite a bit like my own.
Oddly enough, however, the juju in Mr. Jackson’s hand looked like Aunt Vi. I’d never tell her so, because Mrs. Jackson had made the juju out of cloth and pipe-cleaners, just as she’d made mine and Sam’s. But if I’d just seen it lying, say, on the street or sidewalk or wherever, I’d have known it belonged to my aunt.
Don’t ask me why, because I have absolutely no idea.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Jackson!” I said, touched by his mother’s thoughtfulness—and his. “And please thank your mother for me.”
“I’ll do that, Miss Daisy. And you might want to know that whoever took your auntie come back last night and cleaned out the new fellow’s apartment over the garage.”
My mind went blank when I heard this news. It remained blank.
Fortunately, Harold didn’t suffer from my idiocy. “You mean Cullen O’Hara’s personal belongings have been taken?”
I withdrew from the window abruptly, Harold having shouted his question into my ear. There was no way he could avoid doing so under the circumstances, but it gave me a start.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Harold. The place is clean as a whistle this morning. Mr. Featherstone, he called me on the house telephone and asked if I’d seen anyplace people could have come in and took stuff.”
“And did you?”
“I walked around the grounds, and I think I found the place someone might’ve got in, though they’d’ve had some hard work to do it. The ivy’s all wore off the big wall, way in the back of the property.”
“Where no one ever goes,” muttered Harold.
“Exactly, Mr. Harold.”
“Goodness!” I said, finally having been jolted out of my stupor. “I wonder who could have done it.”
“His pals in the gang, would be my guess,” said Harold under his breath.
“I don’t know, Miss Daisy. Mr. Featherstone, he don’t know, either.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Jackson,” Harold said before tootling up the deodar-lined road toward the circular drive in front of his mother’s marvelous manor.
“Why don’t you drive around back and see where the thieves came in?” I suggested.
So, after slowing down a bit, Harold again stepped on the gas, and we drove farther up the road without detouring into the circular part of it. Sure enough, when we got to the very back acre or three of Mrs. P’s vast estate, we saw where it looked as if people had climbed over the wall and back again—probably carrying O’Hara’s lovely radio along with the rest of his left-behind property.
“Bother,” I said.
With a shrug, Harold said, “Why ‘bother’? Did any of O’Hara’s stuff give you a hint about where he might have gone? They sure didn’t give me one.”
“Well, no, they didn’t.”
“They must have used a ladder. That’s a six-foot concrete wall.”
“You’re probably right. Want me to look? Maybe there will be ladder holes on the other side of the wall. This side’s too full of ivy to tell.”
Harold squinted at me. “You’re what? Five feet, four inches or thereabouts? How are you going to look?”
Good question. “Um…I could stand on the hood of your car?”
“No one, not even you, will stand on the hood of my brand-new automobile,” said Harold in a no-nonsense voice.
“All right. It was only a suggestion, and your car’s so short, I probably still wouldn’t have been able to see over the wall.”
“Yeah,” said Harold. He made a three-point turn and drove back to where the circular drive veered from the straight up-and-down drive. That sentence would make sense if you could have seen the property.
Never mind.
Harold brought his bright yellow Kissel Gold Bug to a stop in front of his mother’s massive front porch and walked around to open my door for me. I grabbed my Ouija board and got out, thanking Harold as I did so.
“Did you tell her about the tea leaves?” I asked him.
“Yes. She was thrilled.”
“Oh, good.”
“Your father was right. That is an evil grin.”
“Yours is as evil as mine,” I retorted.
“Truer words were never spoken,” said Harold, grinning even more broadly and evilly.
As we approached the front door of the Pinkerton mansion, said door opened, revealing Featherstone, cane in hand, with one leg bent at the knee. It looked rather like a skinny shelf, actually.
“Featherstone!” I cried. “You shouldn’t be opening doors for people. You’re injured!”
“Yes, Featherstone,” said Harold. “My mother isn’t forcing to you to work while you’re recuperating, is she?”
With no display of emotion—in other words, as usual—Featherstone said, “Mrs. Pinkerton is expecting Mrs. Majesty, Mr. Harold. I am doing my duty as her butler.”
Okey-dokey. Guess he put us in our places. I’ve always admired Featherstone. I’ve never seen him rattled. Even yesterday, when Harold and I got him out of bed, he wasn’t rattled, merely a trifle ruffled.
“Detective Rotondo has just arrived, Mr. Harold. He is at present in the kitchen.”
Turning to Harold, I said, “You’d better tell him about the back wall, Harold.”
“I told the detective about the theft and the back wall, ma’am,” said Featherstone, his voice so level and uninflected (well, except for his spiffy English accent), it shamed me.
“Thank you, Featherstone,” I said meekly.
“I’ll go talk to him, Daisy. He needs to look at the place where the thieves gained access and maybe figure out if they used a ladder or whatever.”
“Thanks, Harold.” I shot a peek at Featherstone to see if his face might give a hint as to his thoughts, but I couldn’t tell. A superior butler, Featherstone.
Without bothering with Harold again, Featherstone turned to me. “Please come this way, Mrs. Majesty.”
So I did. As ever, he led me to Mrs. P’s drawing room. Fortunately, as Featherstone would probably have collapsed if called upon to support my weight if Mrs. P hit me at a run, she didn’t. Hit me at a run, I mean. Rather, she sat on one of the beautiful Luis the Somethingth sofas across the room, huddled over a teacup and saucer, staring into it as if she could see the end of the world written therein.
“Oh, Daisy!” she cried, sounding relieved, although I don’t know why. Except when I was sick or injured, I’d never let her down in the more than half my life she’d been involved in. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
“Of course, I’m here, Mrs. Pinkerton,” I said in my comforting spiritualist’s purr. I wafted over to her and settled like a feather on the medallion-back chair across the coffee table from her seat on the sofa. “I would never let you down.”
What, never? Well, hardly ever.
Oh, dear. I’d been playing too much Gilbert and Sullivan on our piano, I guess.
“I see you have a cup of tea handy,” I said, glancing at same, and only then realizing the teacup was empty save for some tea leaves artistically arranged at its bottom.
“I already drank the tea,” Mrs. P said in an afraid-sounding voice. “Was that all right to do?”
“Of course, it was,” I said, smiling soothingly.
“Oh!” she cried. “But I should offer some tea to you! Oh, Daisy, I’m so sorry for thinking only of myself!”
I saw tears in her eyes. The poor woman was in a State, with a capital S.
“Nonsense,” I soothed her. “I don’t need tea. I came here to read tea leaves for you, so that’s what we’ll do.”
“You learned rather quickly, didn’t you, dear?” she said doubtfully.
“Rolly visited me and taught me how to read the leaves,” I lied.
“Oh, of course!” Relief, in a big whoosh, left her sagging on the sofa.
The credulity of some people will forever amaze me. And gratify me. Don’t get me wrong. Without other people’s credulity, my family would be in the soup. “Shall we begin? I see you have a message waiting…” I allowed my words to dribble mysteriously off into the ether.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered, overawed by all the inscrutability going on.
“Very well. Let us hold hands for a moment while I gather my occult powers together.”
So we took hands over the empty teacup. I sat there with my head bowed for what seemed like forever—to the end of the world and into the beginning of the next one—but which was probably only ten seconds or thereabouts. Mrs. P became fidgety at around the five-second mark. I’d expected this.
Before she could explode, I said quietly and sweetly, “Very well. Let us begin.” Gently, I placed her hands on the coffee table, one on each side of the teacup, and peered at the soggy leaves therein.
Mrs. P opened her mouth as if to ask a question—the poor dear was trembling by this time—but I held up a hand to stop her. She swallowed her words.
“Hmm,” I said. “The way is dark,” I said. “Shadows,” I said. “Many shadows,” I said. “Strange,” I said. “Baffling road,” I said. “So dim; so dim,” I said. “Curious,” I said.
As if she would pop if she didn’t speak, Mrs. P whispered, “What do you see? Oh, Daisy! What do you see?”
I saw a bunch of soggy tea leaves, was what I saw. Naturally, I didn’t tell her so. What I did was hold up my hand—my beautifully manicured hand, darn it—and say, “Ominous.”
“What?” she whimpered.
“The way is foggy. Unclear.”
“Oooooh.”
“But there is hope.”
“Thank God!”
“Faint hope.”
“Oh, dear!”
By then, I’d begun feeling guilty about what I was doing. Yes, Mrs. Pinkerton was silly. Yes, she believed hogwash like my spiritualist-medium act. But the woman was not merely rich, she was also kindhearted and…well, nice. So I relented.
“The way is now clear, and I know what you should do,” I said at last, sounding as perky as a mysterious spiritualist-medium could sound. “You must rest from the chaos surrounding you. Take time for deep meditation and prayer. The way will become less obscure. There is faint light ahead.” Because I didn’t want her coming back from Santa Barbara any sooner than strictly necessary, and even though I felt like an evil so-and-so, I added, “But it will take some time. Some time. During that time you will need to search your innermost soul for peace. You may obtain peace.” I’d almost made the mistake of saying she would obtain peace, thereby possibly talking myself out of a job, but I caught myself in time.
Poor Mrs. P had begun sniffling, and I figured I’d done enough damage for one day. Yes, we needed her to get away so she wouldn’t blab about Vi’s kidnapping all over Pasadena society, but I truly did feel sorry for the poor woman. She had some real problems. Mind you, she didn’t know how to address them in a sensible manner, but still…Mrs. Pinkerton was living proof of the old adage: money can’t buy happiness. I’d like to put the adage to the test myself one day, but never mind that.
Sitting up straight in my chair, I reached for Mrs. P’s hand, which trembled as it held a hankie to her dripping eyes. “Please try not to worry, Mrs. Pinkerton. The tea leaves and Rolly both predict happier times ahead.”
“But the leaves said the road was ominous and foggy.”
They’d said that? I couldn’t remember, although I fear I did boost the drama a trifle in order to keep her out of town for a while. “They also said your life will improve and things will become clear. It was wise of Harold to suggest you leave town for a couple of weeks. You can use the time to meditate and pray.”
“Yes. Yes, I can do that. Uh…Pray about what?”
She had me there. However, as I’d been improvising since I started this silly business when I was ten years old, I said, “Clarity of vision.”
“Um…Clarity of vision? I’m not sure what that means.”
“There is no one way to restore yourself to peace of mind, Mrs. Pinkerton. Rolly and the tea leaves are correct about that. But if you pray for healing in your heart and meditate on the good in your life, you will find yourself becoming calmer and brighter. I suspect Rolly would tell you the worst thing you could do is fret and worry. There’s nothing you can do about anyone else in the world. The only person over whom you hold sway is yourself.”
“Really?” She sounded incredulous.
“Really.” I took in about a millionaire’s bank vault’s worth of air and continued. “You have many challenges in your life right now. For one thing, your daughter has strayed far, far from the path of goodness. For another thing, something evil has invaded your home. But you can find inner peace if you get away from the ugliness for a while. Keep calm, take in the cleansing sea air, and concentrate on the beauty of the earth and the kindness of its Maker.”
“Oh, Daisy,” she whispered.
I gave her a gentle spiritualist’s faint smile.
“How did you become so wise at your young age?”
Wise? Me? Wily was more like it, and it was because I’d had a family to support. Also, I wasn’t brought up in the lap of luxury, and my parents had taught me common sense. Rather than say any of those things, I murmured, “It is not I, Mrs. Pinkerton. Communication from the Other Side has revealed to me the benefits of prayer and meditation upon our many blessings. Concentrate on your blessings, and your heart’s burdens will lighten.”
Because I’d upset the woman so badly, I tried to think of what I’d done after Billy’s death, when I’d felt so utterly lost. But really, I hadn’t done anything. Harold had hauled me off to Egypt and Turkey, I’d been sick unto death, nearly starved myself into oblivion, and…Well, I’d been absolutely miserable. Then one day I realized warm bath water felt good on my skin, my darling dachshund adored me, I had a wonderful family, and the roses growing in our yard smelled heavenly. I still dwelt in the dismals, but it was becoming a little lighter in there.
Therefore, since I had no explicit advice to offer the suffering woman, I said, “Attempt with all your being to concentrate on good things, Mrs. Pinkerton. Don’t dwell on the evils of mankind. Appreciate the Pacific Ocean and your beautiful surroundings. Divert your mind onto pleasant paths when you find yourself worrying. There is no one thing a person can do to climb out of the pit of despair. Time is the great healer.” And money, but she already had plenty of money.
“I’m a fortunate woman in many ways, aren’t I, dear?”
Was this a trick question? I didn’t quite dare answer it, so I cocked my head at an inquisitive angle.
“I have the means to get away from my troubles for a while, and I should take advantage of my…well, my advantages. You and Rolly…and now the tea leaves are all telling me so. I’m really quite fortunate.”
“In some ways, you are,” I said, equivocating for all I was worth. “You do have legitimate troubles.”
“Yes, but I have money. So many people don’t, you know.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know.”
“Thank you so much, Daisy! You’ve lifted my spirits already, and I know that once Algie and I get to the Miramar, I’ll do just what the tea leaves and Rolly have advised me to do. I shall concentrate on the fortunate things in my life, and try not to dwell on the unpleasant ones.”
“Perfect,” I said.
“While we’re away, please let me know when your wonderful young man finds Mrs. Gumm. You must miss her terribly.”
“Yes, we do. And yes, I shall do that. Thank you, Mrs. Pinkerton, for thinking of us.”
“Oh, my land, Daisy! I take up so much of your time! Harold says I’m the bane of your existence, but I hope I’m not.”
“Of course, you’re not,” said I, her noble spiritualist-medium.
The session with the tea leaves turned out to be profitable. Not only did Mrs. P seem almost chipper when I left her, but she gave me a staggering bonus for catering to her whims and pretending to learn how to read tea leaves.
I vowed I would learn to read tea leaves. As soon as we got Vi again.