Fixing To Die

The parlor door was closed, and An’gel wondered whether Lieutenant Steinberg still had Mrs. Pace in there. An’gel hoped the policeman questioned the medium thoroughly. She wished she could have overheard their interview, but instead she would have to count on Benjy’s ability to dig out what they needed to know about Mrs. Pace.

Only Serenity Foster and Truss Wilbanks still remained in the dining room. They appeared absorbed in conversation, their positions much the same as they had been when An’gel departed the room only a little while ago.

An’gel was annoyed to discover that, despite what she had said earlier, Dickce and Benjy, along with the pets, had left the room. An’gel hovered in the doorway for a moment, undecided whether to enter and speak to its occupants or steal away, unobserved.

Serenity Foster looked toward the doorway and spotted An’gel. “What do you want?” she said.

An’gel advanced into the room. “I was looking for my sister and our ward,” she said. “But I did want to offer you my condolences on the loss of your brother. I know this has been a terrible shock to you.”

“Thank you,” Serenity said. “I don’t understand what could have happened. I’m not going to believe it was natural, and you can tell your friend Miss High-and-Mighty Mary Turner that, too. She’s going to pay for what she’s done to my brother.”

Truss Wilbanks sat back in his chair, apparently exhausted by trying to rein in his client’s wild accusations. He did make a token protest. “Serenity, you’ve got to stop saying those things. The last thing you need right now is another lawsuit.”

“Mrs. Foster, you should heed your attorney’s advice,” An’gel said, enraged by the young woman’s continued attack on Mary Turner. “Should it become necessary, I will be happy to serve as a witness for Mary Turner if she decides to sue you. I suggest you look to your own behavior first before you criticize anyone else’s. By your own admission, you were enraged by your brother’s lack of monetary support for you. It won’t take the police long to figure out that you had a far stronger motive to kill him than anyone else did.”

An’gel did not wait to see or hear Serenity Foster’s reaction to her speech. She turned and walked out of the room and right into her sister, who had evidently been lingering in the hallway.

“That’s telling her, Sister.” Dickce’s eyes danced with mischief. “I get such a kick out of it when you go into terminator mode.”

“I wish you wouldn’t insist on using that ridiculous phrase,” An’gel said, still angry from her confrontation with Serenity. “Come upstairs with me. I need to be somewhere quiet for a little while, and we can talk about this mess in private.” She headed up the stairs.

She didn’t speak again until she was seated in the armchair in her bedroom. Dickce found a place on the old trunk at the foot of An’gel’s bed.

“Where are Benjy and the animals?” An’gel asked.

“They’ve gone back to their room,” Dickce said. “I suggested that Benjy go online and see what he can find out about our mysterious Mrs. Pace.”

An’gel nodded approvingly. “Excellent. That’s exactly what I wanted him to do. I want to know who—and what—that woman really is.”

“What if he doesn’t find anything?” Dickce asked.

“That will prove she’s a fake,” An’gel said. “In that case, I would speak with Lieutenant Steinberg and ask him to investigate. It would be obvious the woman came here to defraud Mary Turner in some fashion, and surely he would look into that if Mary Turner complains to him. I can’t see why she wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know,” Dickce said. “She might be afraid of the publicity if the story gets out. It’s going to be bad enough when the press gets wind of Nathan Gamble’s death. I can see the headlines now. Ghost Frightens Man to Death. Haunted House Claims Innocent Victim. Death by Ghost.” She shook her head. “Mary Turner will be upset.”

“It will probably triple the reservations to stay here,” An’gel said wryly. “There are always thrill-seekers looking for haunted houses, you know.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think those are the kinds of guests she wants here, do you?”

“No,” An’gel said. “I wouldn’t want them either, frankly. But this is a business, and they have to have guests if they’re going to keep it running.”

“Speaking of running the business,” Dickce said, “I’m sure you’ve noticed that Henry Howard isn’t all that enthusiastic about it.”

“He’s not,” An’gel said. “He talked to me briefly just now when I took him to the kitchen for breakfast.” She relayed the conversation to Dickce and told her about Marcelline’s behavior.

“She seemed really fond of him the last time we were here,” Dickce said. “Do you think she’s actually turned against him? Or was it simply the stress talking?”