Fixing To Die

Marcelline must be near seventy by now, Dickce reckoned, because she had started working for the family as a teenager when Mary Turner’s father was a boy nearly fifty years ago.

Dickce dug into her slice of carrot cake with anticipation. She savored the first mouthful. It tasted heavenly. She told Marcelline so the moment she could speak.

“I’m glad y’all are enjoying it,” the housekeeper responded. “There’s plenty more if any y’all wants another piece.”

“I could probably eat half the cake myself.” Benjy grinned. “This is probably the best cake I ever ate.”

Marcelline beamed at him. “Well, you just come get more of it whenever you want, honey. Now, if y’all will excuse me, I got to go start thinking about dinner.”

As she resumed her place at the table, Mary Turner said, “Marcelline is happy to have someone besides me and Henry Howard to cook for. We make do with sandwiches, salads, and scrambled eggs a lot of the time.”

Dickce eyed her hostess’s trim figure and suppressed a sigh of envy. She wouldn’t mind losing a few pounds but the thought of giving up food like this depressed her. So she was a little plump, what of it? At her age, she decided, she wasn’t going to change the habits of eight decades of life.

Henry Howard returned and pulled out his chair. Once seated, he eyed the serving of carrot cake at his place, then pushed it away. Dickce thought he looked grumpy. His next words confirmed that as he cast a resentful glance at his wife.

“Madame Blavatsky loves her room, you’ll be delighted to know. Apparently she’s already feeling vibrations, or whatever the heck they are.”

“Who’s Madame Blavatsky?” Benjy asked with a frown. “I thought she said her name was Pace.”

Henry Howard scowled, and Mary Turner appeared embarrassed.

Dickce hastened to explain. “Madame Blavatsky was a famous spirit medium in the nineteenth century. She developed a large following, though of course, many people thought she was a fraud.”

“Okay, I get it,” Benjy said. “You don’t believe in this medium gig, do you?” He addressed his question to Henry Howard.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Henry Howard shook his head. “Something has to explain what the heck’s been going on in this house the past couple of months. Either that, or Mary Turner and I have been hallucinating like crazy.”

“I’m about at my wit’s end,” Mary Turner said. “This house has made odd noises ever since I can remember, but the other strange things . . .” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “Maybe these things happened in Grandmother’s day, and even my dad’s when he was young, but nobody ever said anything.”

“No, I don’t remember any talk about supernatural happenings,” An’gel said, “and we knew your grandmother for many years. If anything of the kind occurred here, she never mentioned it to us.”

“What kinds of things have occurred?” Dickce asked. “Henry Howard mentioned problems with lightbulbs going out unexpectedly, and you told An’gel about issues with your computers and cell phones.”

“Those issues, yes,” Mary Turner said. “I’ve experienced one really peculiar thing.” She paused to nod in her husband’s direction. “Henry Howard hasn’t experienced it, and I don’t think he really believes me.”

“I never said that.” Henry Howard looked even grumpier. “It’s just so weird, that’s all. You’d think as often as I go up and down those stairs, I would have felt it, too.”

“Felt what?” Dickce remembered the sudden aura of cold she had felt earlier. She had to suppress a shiver.

“A sensation of cold near the bottom of the front stairs,” Mary Turner said. “It’s only happened a few times, but it’s always unnerving when it does.” She crossed her arms over her chest for a moment, as if hugging herself against the cold.

“I felt it, too,” Dickce said. “While An’gel was in the powder room.”

“Really?” Mary Turner looked at Henry Howard. “I told you so.”

Before Henry Howard could respond, Primrose Pace spoke from the doorway.

“I felt it, too,” she said as she advanced into the room. “I must warn you that the spirit causing this is an unhappy one, and if you don’t put it to rest, you could be in great danger, Mrs. Catlin.”

CHAPTER 5

Does the woman always have to make a dramatic entrance? An’gel wondered, then decided, Of course she does. Part of her stock-in-trade.

“Do you have any idea who this angry spirit is, Mrs. Pace?” An’gel asked after a glance at Mary Turner. The young woman appeared to be in shock after the medium’s announcement.

Mrs. Pace inclined her head a mere fraction. “Not as yet. She—and I’m pretty sure it’s she—isn’t willing to communicate that at the moment.” She paused—for more dramatic effect, An’gel was convinced—then continued in dark tones, “Sometimes the spirits have to be coaxed. We have to treat this one gently if we want her to confide in us.”

“Is that the royal we you’re using?” Henry Howard asked, his tone barely polite. “Do you mean confide in you?”