Fine Spirits [Spirits 02] (3 page)

      
When we came to the end of the line and I got off the car, I noticed the conductor staring at me as if he was worried about me. “Is anything the matter, Miss?”

      
“Not a thing,” I lied. “But thanks for asking.” I gave him a quick smile to let him know I was fine, even though I wasn't, and commenced walking briskly to Mrs. Bissel's mansion.

      
As mansions go, Mrs. Bissel's was kind of small. I mean, Mrs. Kincaid's mansion on Orange Grove Boulevard had a huge iron fence around it, an electrically operated gate, and a man to guard it. I don't know how many acres of prime Pasadena property Mrs. Kincaid owned, but she had an entire orange grove in her back yard.

      
In contrast, you could walk right up to Mrs. Bissel's front door from the street. Of course, it was a long walk. She owned all the property from her house on the corner of Maiden Lane and Foothill to Lake Avenue, and everything behind her house as far as a street called Las Flores. She owned a hunk of land. I guess it didn't look as impressive as Mrs. Kincaid's property because there was no iron fence surrounding it.

      
The house itself was smaller than the Kincaid mansion, too, although it was still huge. It was a three-storied, stucco, beige-colored house with brown trim. A balcony on the second floor looked out over the big, rolling lawn in front. Mrs. Bissel's back yard featured a circular drive surrounding a monkey-puzzle tree she'd imported from Australia.

      
Behind the tree, on the other side of the circular drive from the house, Mrs. Bissel had a rose garden that looked and smelled wonderful during the summertime. Some stairs led from the rose garden up to a little picnic area where Mrs. Bissel entertained friends during the warm months.

      
That day I was glad I didn't have to go through the back door, because I'm sure looking at the bare, brown rose garden and the empty picnic area would only make me feel worse, if such a thing was possible.

      
Mrs. Bissel also owned a couple of horses, both of which were grazing in the field between her house and Lake Avenue that day. I blessed her for those horses. They looked so pretty, and I desperately needed something pleasant in my life just then. One of them was brown and the other had brown-and-white spots, and I could imagine red Indians riding them across the plains in a Zane Grey novel. I didn't know what variety of horse they were, although I knew they must have had better pedigrees than our own old horse, Brownie, who lived in back of our house, and who was getting lazier and more cantankerous with each passing day.

      
Heck, they had better pedigrees than Billy and me, if anybody cared to check. Whatever their ancestry, those horses looked swell, and watching them made me feel a tiny bit better, although not much.

      
The lawn in front of the Bissel place had three sloping hills on it. Her front porch ran the entire width of the house. The grass was green and well tended, although it was getting a little yellow because it was that time of year. A row of bird of paradise had been planted in a garden running the length of the porch, and there were a bunch of rosebushes in front of the bird of paradise.

      
Nothing was blooming on that depressing fall day, but the rolling lawn still looked pretty. Fortunately for my shoes, there was a concrete walkway running from the street to the porch, so my heels didn't get stuck in the dirt on my way to the house.

      
As soon as I neared the doorbell and even before I pressed it, I heard Mrs. Bissel's herd of wild dachshunds indoors go into their announcement act. They cheered me up even more than the sight of the gorgeous horses in the field had.

      
I don't know what it is about dachshunds. They're so short and funny looking, yet they think they're such tough cookies. Perhaps I identified with them because I felt so puny and yet acted so tough myself. Who knows? Probably Dr. Freud could tell me, but I don't speak German and never want to, so his diagnosis wouldn't help me much.

      
Mrs. Bissel didn't have a butler, as did Mrs. Kincaid. She did, however, have a live-in housekeeper and a couple of housemaids. It was one of the maids, Ginger Sullivan, who opened the door to me. I knew Ginger from school.

      
I grinned at her, but she didn't grin back. I considered this reaction strange, since Ginger and I had always been friendly. “Hi, Ginger. How are you?” I could hardly hear myself for all the barking.

      
Evidently Ginger was accustomed to the dogs, because she didn't seem fazed in the slightest. “Scared to death,” she said flatly, opening the door and allowing me entry and several of the dogs outlet. “This place is haunted. I hope you can get rid of it, Daisy, because I'm about to quit.”

      
“Golly, Ginger, I didn't know it was so bad.”

      
She shivered. I knew she wasn't faking it, either, because I saw the gooseflesh on her arms when she rubbed them. “I've never been so scared in my life.”

      
Now, this was an ominous declaration, for certain. It wasn't good for anyone, including Ginger and me. Jobs weren't as easy to come by as they had been before the war, and the whole country had sunk into a depression. Ginger wouldn't be talking about quitting her job for no good reason, because there was no guarantee that she'd be able to find another one.

      
As for me, I could almost imagine Mrs. Bissel being frightened about nothing, but if Ginger confirmed her employer's estimation of the basement situation, it meant there truly
was
something down there. And I was expected to get rid of it. I wondered if Pa or Billy had a gun somewhere. Not that I knew how to shoot a gun, but still . . .

      
I'd have liked to ask Ginger some questions, but Mrs. Bissel emerged into the huge entry hall from the front room, her arms outstretched, managing somehow to avoid stepping on any of the dogs frolicking at her feet and mine. She was clad in a shocking maroon day dress (shocking because it was such a vibrant color for so large a woman). She looked like an ambulatory purple whale. If I ever get fat, I'm sticking to basic black.

      
Some of the dogs jumped up on me, digging their sharp little doggie claws into the skirt of my beautiful black dress, but I only bent down, spoke softly, and gently disengaged the claws. Not even for a lovely hand-made black wool frock would I alienate a client by hollering at her dogs.

      
Fortunately, Mrs. Bissel hollered at them for me, so my skirt was spared except for one tiny snag that I knew I could fix in a jiffy. She also clapped her hands, which seemed to affect the dogs. They all stood back, sat down (it was difficult to tell whether they were standing or sitting because their legs were so short) gazed up at me, and a chorus of tails swept the floor. Gee, those dogs were cunning! I
really
wanted one.

      
“Daisy's here, Mrs. B.,” Ginger announced informally (and unnecessarily). At Mrs. Kincaid's house, nothing was informal. Mrs. Kincaid's butler, Featherstone, probably wore his butler suit to bed at night. I preferred Mrs. Bissel's more relaxed standards.

      
“I'm so glad you could come, Daisy!” Mrs. Bissel beamed at me and gave me a small hug. “Sorry about the welcoming committee.”

      
“I don't mind,” I told her honestly. “I love your dogs.” I glanced at the floor and tried to count, but the dogs kept moving around. “How many do you have now? It seems there are more than there were the last time I was here.”

      
Mrs. Bissel loved anyone who loved her dogs. “I have a grand total of ten glorious dachshunds at this minute, Daisy, dear. Of course, I'm counting Lucille and Lancelot's pups in the grand total.”

      
“Ah.” Ten dogs. The mind boggled. At least these dogs were small. Can you imagine if they were great Danes? “I see you have some brown ones along with the black-and-tan ones, too.”

      
“Yes.” Mrs. Bissel sighed happily. “I bought two red dachshunds from a gentleman in Arizona and plan to breed them.” She took me by the arm and started leading me kitchenwards. “I'm hoping that one of these days, I'll have a Westminster winner.”

      
Okay, here's the thing about rich people and their dogs. Most people like dogs.
I
like dogs. But people who have a lot of time on their hands, and most of them are the rich ones because the rest of us have to work all the time, like to enter their dogs in dog shows. There's a big dog show at Tournament Park in Pasadena every year, and I know Mrs. Bissel “showed” her dogs there.

      
I'd learned from various clients over the years that the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, held annually in New York City, was the be-all and end-all of dog shows, and the one everyone wanted to be entered into and win. If your dog earned enough points at other dog shows during the year, the dog could go to Westminster. More than one Pasadena dog owner has told me it's an honor for dogs even to be entered into the Westminster Dog Show. I say, more power to them, especially if they're dachshunds.

      
Another rich lady of my acquaintance, Mrs. Frasier, bred feisty, frenetic little dogs she called miniature pinschers. Her main goal in life was to get these miniature pinschers recognized as a legitimate breed at the Westminster Kennel Club. I'm not sure what that entailed, but it sounded strange to me. I mean, since I'd met Mrs. Frasier, I could identify a miniature pinscher when I saw one. I didn't understand why the Westminster folks had trouble recognizing them. I could conceive of someone mistaking a miniature pinscher for a Chihuahua, but only until you looked at him more closely. Then you realized the pinscher had longer legs, less bulgy eyes, and a short, stubby tail. Both breeds were small and noisy, but they didn't really look
that
much alike.

      
But I digress.

      
“Would you like a cup of tea or anything before you confront our phantom?” Mrs. Bissel asked.

      
“No, thank you. I'd best get to work at once.”

      
“Good.” This short, pithy comment came from Ginger. “The sooner the better.”

      
“Yes, that's probably the best thing. But do take Daisy's coat, Ginger. She won't need it, I'm sure.”

      
“Sure thing, Mrs. B.” Ginger took my coat. The house was warm enough. “I'll hang it in the hall closet.”

      
“Thank you, Ginger.” Mrs. Bissel gestured for me to follow her as Ginger went to hang up my coat. “There's a door to the basement from the kitchen,” she told me as we walked through the huge dining room and into the pantry. The kitchen lay straight ahead. “I'll take you downstairs from the kitchen.”

      
“That's fine, Mrs. Bissel.”

      
“We never hear anything during the day,” she went on. “So I don't think there's any danger right now, although the household help have taken to going downstairs in pairs or trios because they're all so frightened.” She glanced at me and I saw her lips quiver slightly. “So am I.”

      
“I'm awfully sorry,” I said. And I was. Shoot, I didn't want to tangle with a real problem. Maybe it was just a cat. Or maybe it was a bear. Mrs. Bissel's house was right there up against the foothills. I suppose there were bears in the foothills. Or mountain lions. I
really
didn't want to meet a mountain lion face-to-fang.

      
I realized I was scaring myself and gave myself a mental shake.

      
Mrs. Bissel's housekeeper was also her cook, I guess, because she was in the kitchen, cooking something. I knew her slightly, so I smiled and said, “Hello, Mrs. Cummings.”

      
“Hello, Mrs. Majesty. I sure hope you can help us.”

      
Golly, everybody in the whole house was spooked. Something puzzled me about all this, though. When Mrs. Bissel went to the door leading to the basement and unlocked it, I asked her about it. “What about all your dogs, Mrs. Bissel? Can't they help you find out what's down there? They certainly let you know when someone's at the door. Don't they bark at the thing in the basement?”

      
“That's true, but the only doggies who sleep in the house at night are Lucille and Lancelot and their pups, and I carry them all upstairs with me when I go to bed.”

      
“Ah. Have you considered allowing a few of the others to sleep in the kitchen or on the service porch?”

      
“I've thought about it,” she said, “but I don't want them going down into the basement.”

      
“Oh? Why is that?”

      
“It's not good for them to climb up and down the stairs,” said Mrs. Bissel. “Their legs are too short and their backs are too long. They might hurt themselves. Besides, I'd not risk a hair on any of their backs if the spirit or ghost turns violent.”

      
Which meant she was perfectly willing to risk my hair. I didn't object. I supposed ridding houses of spirits could be viewed as an aspect of my job, although I kind of resented not being judged to be as important as a dachshund. Anyhow, she was right about their legs and backs. Someday perhaps someone could design a dachshund with an extra pair of legs in the middle. But no. That would make them look even sillier than they already do.

      
“They do bark sometimes in the night,” Mrs. Cummings said. She shivered, as had Ginger, and I saw that she had gooseflesh, too.

      
Obviously, there was
something
in the basement. I wasn't happy to know it.

      
“I'll go down with you,” announced Mrs. Bissel stoutly. She took a deep breath, as if to brace herself.