Dark Spirits (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 7) Read online

  Without responding to my... what? Threat? Well, whatever it was, Sam turned to Doan. "Stay here until Mrs. Jackson can organize a couple of fellows to stand guard at this door, Doan." Then he stopped and squinted at Doan, whose eyes opened wide with what looked a whole lot like alarm. "You don't belong to that damned Klan, do you?"

  "Me? Good God, no! I think the KKK is a work of the devil."

  For goodness' sakes. "Are you a religious man, Officer Doan?" I asked out of honest curiosity.

  "I am, ma'am. My wife and I attend St. Andrew's Catholic Church every Sunday of our lives."

  "Good. Glad to hear it." Especially since the Klan hated Catholics almost as much as they hated Negroes. "I'm sure Mrs. Jackson will have reinforcements here soon."

  Sam heaved a big sigh. "Yeah. Well, if no one shows up within the hour, give the station a call, Doan. I'll telephone to have a uniform come here to relieve you."

  "Yes, sir." He seemed troubled for a moment, then said, "If I have to telephone the station, sir, I'll have to leave this door unguarded while I do it."

  Sam hung his head and muttered, "Shit."

  "Tell you what," I said, having come up with a brilliant notion. Well, maybe not, but you already know my experience with brilliant notions. "I'll stay with Officer Doan, and then if one of us has to telephone you, someone will still be posted at the door."

  Neither Sam nor Officer Doan seemed particularly taken with this idea, but they didn't object. All Sam said was, "I have to talk to the hospital administration folks and then get in touch with someone at the station." So he left to do so.

  And it all worked out all right, considering Officer Doan and I didn't have a lot to say to each other, and every time I looked into Jackson's room, he seemed to be sound asleep. Perhaps thirty or forty minutes after Sam left, four extremely large black men cleared the top of the staircase and moved like a freight train toward Jackson's door. Officer Doan seemed a trifle intimidated, so it was I who walked up to the men.

  "Are you here to guard Mr. Jackson?" I asked the man who appeared to be the oldest of the bunch. His curly black hair was streaked with silver in spots.

  "Yes, ma'am," said he, appearing rather standoffish. Guess he wasn't accustomed to white ladies accosting him in hospital corridors.

  I held out my hand. "I'm Mrs. Majesty. Daisy Majesty. I've been a friend to Mr. Jackson for years now, ever since I started working for Mrs. Pinkerton. Well, when she was Mrs. Kincaid and now that she's Mrs. Pinkerton. Both. For more than ten years, anyway." Bother. I was getting all confused.

  Fortunately, the man smiled, took my hand and shook it, thus redeeming the situation of my idiocy.

  "Carl Simmons, Mrs. Majesty."

  "Oh, you're the one who drove Jackson to the hospital! Thank you so much for doing that. Poor Mr. Jackson has been going through so much lately, and this is just... horrible."

  "Yes, ma'am." Mr. Simmons let go of my hand and tilted his head to his companions. "These here guys are Jackie Jones, Ron Griffith and Alvin Lee, ma'am."

  "I'm so glad you fellows are here. I was afraid that awful man who shot Jackson might come back here and finish the job before you arrived, so Officer Doan and I stood outside his door until you got here."

  "That was right kind of you, ma'am."

  The glance he shot at Doan wasn't quite as friendly as the one he gave me. I wanted to tell these men that Doan was a Catholic and, therefore, as much of a target of the Klan as they were, but I held my tongue, something I too seldom did.

  But the four men planted themselves on either side of Jackson's door, and Doan and I left our posts and walked together to the staircase.

  "Thank you for staying with me, Officer Doan."

  "Just doing my job, ma'am," said Officer Doan fairly stiffly.

  "Well, thank you anyway. I've come to understand, since Jackson's family has incurred the wrath of the Klan, that most Negro families don't expect much by way of help and protection from the police. Unfortunately, I believe they have a good reason for their expectations. I think you've proved yourself to be one of the good men on the job." Did I sound pompous or did I not sound pompous? I didn't mean to. I meant what I said.

  There was a noticeable pause before Officer Doan said, "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  And that was it as far a conversation between the officer and me went. I went down the stairs before him, he clunked along behind me in his big policemanly shoes, and he held the front door of the hospital open for me to exit, and I exited. Then we parted ways, and I went home.

  Where Sam was. I ought to have known he would be.

  Chapter 15

  "Sam!" I said as soon as I stepped into the house and before I knelt to greet Spike. "Have you interviewed anyone or learned anything else yet?"

  Aggrieved, Sam said, "I only just got here, for Pete's sake. I had to go to the station and make arrangements for someone to relieve Doan if he called. Since you're here, I guess he didn't need anyone to come rescue him."

  "Four of Mr. Jackson's friends showed up just a few minutes ago. They're huge, Sam. If anyone tries anything funny, I expect one of them will just pick him up and throw him down the stairs or something. Or maybe sit on him until he suffocates. Or—"

  "I get the picture," said Sam, grumpy as usual.

  Pa chuckled, bless the man. Neither Ma nor Aunt Vi was anywhere in sight—this was in the dining room, since I'd come through the side door. Sam and Pa had each taken a seat at the table. I presume Ma and Aunt Vi were napping, which was what I aimed to do as soon as I could. It had been an eventful day, and I wanted to rest a while. After, of course, I ate my carrots like a good girl.

  Too bad for me Sam had other ideas. "Would you be willing to go with me to interview Mrs. Georgia Akers?"

  That woke me up in a hurry. I stood abruptly and stared at the man. "You want me to help you?"

  He heaved a huge sigh. "Yeah. These people don't seem to dislike talking to you as much as they dislike talking to police personnel."

  I smiled at him. "Told you so. Over and over again. I'm nicer than you are. That's why people talk to me."

  "Daisy, that's not fair," said Pa, not awfully forcefully.

  "It might not be fair, but you don't understand what some segments of Pasadena's populace have endured via the police of our fair city."

  "You don't know that they've endured anything," said Sam, thundering slightly.

  I sniffed. "How many policemen have been suspended because they're members of the Ku Klux Klan?"

  "Dammit. Six. But they've been suspended, which means the city fathers of Pasadena won't put up with that sort of nonsense."

  "Officer Petrie is a member of the Klan, and he hasn't been suspended." Although he did break his leg, a circumstance that made me smile.

  "He will be. I visited him after I left Jackson's room. He was pretty mad about my questioning him, but he owned up to being a Klan member, so I told him to quit either the Klan or the police department. I'll tell the chief tomorrow. Don't want to bother him on a Sunday."

  "Was Miss Petrie there with him?"

  "I don't know Miss Petrie," Sam grumbled. "A woman was in his room when I entered it. She didn't speak while I was there."

  "Medium height, skinny, mouse-brown hair, limp—her hair, not her—big glasses. Looks intellectual. Actually, I think she'd be pretty if she fixed her hair and wore a touch or rouge. Wears boring clothes."

  After eyeing me for an appreciable second or two, Sam said, "Yeah, I think that must have been the one."

  I grinned. "She said she was going to visit him. She hates his guts because he's a disgrace to the family. She's the one who told me he was a Klansman."

  "And she thinks he's involved in some shaky real-estate deal. Yes, I remember quite well."

  I sniffed again. "Well, he's a louse. By the way, I'll probably know more about the real-estate thing after I see Mrs. Hastings tomorrow."

  With a roll of his eyes, Sam let the real-estate question slide. "W
ell? Will you come with me to interview Mrs. Akers?"

  "Sure! Let me change my shoes. My feet are aching like mad because I didn't change into sensible shoes after church and before I drove down to visit Jackson. In fact, I think I'll change my dress, too."

  "I want to see the woman today, Daisy."

  "You needn't be sarcastic, Sam Rotondo. It'll only take me a minute."

  Very well, so it took me about five minutes to change out of my church clothes and into regular, but suitable for visiting strangers, clothes. It was then around three in the afternoon and still warm, so I chose a blue-and-white checked dress and low-heeled black shoes. It occurred to me that I was wearing this very same dress the day Sam tracked me down on a motion-picture set to tell me that my Billy had finally drunk all the morphine syrup he'd had stashed away in our closet, and my heart took to aching again. I didn't tell it not to, because that would have been stupid. I missed my husband still. Probably always would. With a sigh, I gave my stylish straw hat a pat and went back into the dining room, where Pa and Sam awaited me.

  "The Hudson's out front," said Sam, rising.

  "I saw it," said I, tucking my handbag under my arm and giving my father a peck on the cheek. "Be back soon, Pa."

  "Probably," said Sam.

  "Probably," I amended.

  "Take your time. Nothing's going on today that I know about," said Pa with a big smile.

  I hoped it wasn't as obvious to Sam as it was to me that my family wanted a romance to spark between the two of us.

  "By the way," I said as we bade Spike farewell—Spike was quite unhappy with me for deserting him so much that day—and went out onto the front porch, "Carl Simmons, the fellow who drove Jackson to the hospital, is one of his door guardians."

  "Guardians," Sam repeated in a disgusted-sounding voice. "You make it sound as if a gang of hoodlums is after him."

  "A gang of hoodlums is after him," I said, my own tone acidic.

  "Maybe. We still don't have proof of anything or anyone. I did talk to Petrie, but he said he hasn't had anything to do with the Jacksons and their troubles."

  "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"

  "I guess. But let's concentrate on Mrs. Akers now."

  "Very well." I think I sniffed again. But I held my tongue and didn't tell Sam what I thought of him or his police Klan cohorts or say anything else of an incendiary nature.

  The Akers' home was a little north of the Jacksons', on the other side of the street. I waited for Sam to open my door for me, even though I'm quite good at opening doors for myself. But I didn't want to goad the bear, if you know what I mean. This home, too, was small and neat and had lots of flowers around it. In fact, it looked to me as if someone in the Akers family was particularly fond of roses, because there were scads of them, most of them still blooming, even on this warm September day.

  I'd read a book about roses once. Don't ask me why. I didn't intend to, but I saw it lying on a table at the library, picked it up, and learned that roses truly are interesting flowers with a very long history. Until I read that book, I didn't know how much trouble horticulturists have taken over the years to invent varieties of roses. I really wanted to get my hands on a climbing rose called Zephrine Drouhin, which is supposed to be fantastically fragrant and has no thorns! I'd like a rosebush with no thorns, mainly because I always managed to gouge myself several times every January when I prune our paltry ten rosebushes at home. Not that Zephrine Drouhin has anything to do with this story; I only mention it. Her. Whatever it is. Probably her. Zephrine sounds like a woman's name, doesn't it? Oh, never mind.

  Anyway, I was admiring the lovely rose garden someone in the Akers' household had cultivated when Sam and I walked up the porch stairs, and Sam knocked at the door. A moment or two later the door opened a crack, and a small black face peered out at us. I smiled at the face.

  Sam held out his police badge. I don't know about you, but having a policeman show up at my door, spang, on a Sunday afternoon, without previous knowledge of his intent, would make me very nervous. I could have clipped Sam on the ear for frightening this person. But I didn't.

  "We're here to speak with Mrs. Georgia Akers, if she's available. My name is Detective Rotondo, and this is Mrs. Majesty. We're investigating the injury sustained by Mr. Joseph Jackson."

  As soon as the face heard my name, its eyes widened, the door opened a little more, and I could tell that it belonged to a small, spare woman, who looked as though she were still dressed in her Sunday best. Mrs. Akers? I didn't know, but I smiled harder.

  Without looking at Sam, the woman said to me, "You the Mrs. Majesty Joseph Jackson knows from the Pinkerton place?"

  "Yes, indeed."

  "You the white mambo?"

  The question brought me up short. I hesitated for a second and then decided what the heck. "Yes, indeed. That's me, all right."

  "Huh." She finally turned her head and looked way, way up—she was a small woman—at Sam. "And you're the detective friend of the white mambo, right?"

  Sam, who was a good deal quicker on his feet than I, didn't skip a beat. "Right."

  "Well, you all come on in, then. I'm Mrs. Akers, all right. My children are cleaning up after dinner, so I can chat with you in the parlor."

  She didn't have the New Orleans accent Mrs. Jackson and her son did, nor did she talk like Mrs. Armistead. I wondered where she'd come from originally. Well, she might have been born right here in Pasadena, just like me, for all I knew.

  "Thank you," I said, walking into the house.

  "Thank you," said Sam, following me.

  Mrs. Akers led us straight into the front parlor of the little house. It was as neat as a pin, with crocheted doilies covering all bare surfaces and the backs of chairs and sofas. I wondered if Mrs. Akers was the crocheter. I couldn't imagine her having a whole lot of time, if she cleaned other people's houses every day.

  "You can take that chair, Detective," said Mrs. Akers, pointing to an overstuffed chair with doilies on both arms and its back. "And you can set on the sofa with me, Mrs. Majesty."

  "Thank you." I took one end of the sofa, and Mrs. Akers took the other. She sat on the edge of her seat, as if she were ready to run if she had to. I noticed a framed picture of a Negro family that looked as if it had been taken in the late 1800s. My family had a couple of framed pictures of our family from before we moved West from Massachusetts taken around the same time period.

  Mrs. Akers must have noticed my looking at the picture, because she said, "That's my grandmother and grandfather. Their name was Stoddard, and they were free Negroes from their first day in the United States. Lived in Hartland, Maine. I think my first Stoddard ancestor landed in seventeen sixty-nine or thereabouts. That was before Hartland was incorporated, but they were farmers in the area."

  "My family is from Auburn, Massachusetts. I'm not sure when they arrived, but it must have been around the same time. Are you from Revolutionary stock?"

  Her chin lifting slightly, Mrs. Akers said, "Yes, ma'am."

  "So are we!" I beamed at her. She appeared a bit taken aback. Oh, dear. I think I was trying too hard. I shut up and let Sam take over the conversation.

  He did so instantly, after shooting me a withering glance. I probably deserved it.

  "Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Armistead said you work for several families in Pasadena, Mrs. Akers. They also said you might know if any of them are connected with or belong to the Ku Klux Klan. We're looking into the harassment suffered by the Jackson family recently. The family seems to think the Klan is the cause of their troubles."

  "So do I," I said, unable to keep still as usual.

  Mrs. Akers sat there, her mouth twisted a trifle, looking to me as if she wasn't sure she wanted to confide in a police officer. Couldn't blame her for that, knowing what I knew about the police and the darker-skinned population of Pasadena. I felt ashamed of my race at that moment, even though I'd never done anything awful to a person because of his or her skin tone.

  Sile
nce prevailed while Mrs. Akers decided how—or perhaps whether—to answer Sam's question.

  After the pause had stretched to the nerve-wracking stage, Sam broke it. "Your name will never come up in any reports. No one will ever know you talked to me. Us," he amended, probably because he feared I would if he didn't.

  "You sure about that?" asked Mrs. Akers, her skepticism plain.

  "Absolutely."

  More silence, during which Mrs. Akers seemed to take Sam's measure and then mine. I felt like squirming, but didn't.

  "I can't afford to lose any of my jobs. And I sure don't want my kids run down, or my husband shot, or a cross burned on my lawn. Mr. Akers takes care of those roses, and I don't want 'em ruined."

  "I love your roses," I plopped irrelevantly into the conversation.

  "Well..." Again Mrs. Akers stopped speaking. "You got a notebook in your hand. How do I know my name won't pop up somewhere in your records."

  "I'll make sure it doesn't," said Sam.

  "I don't know..."

  I decided what the heck. "Please, Mrs. Akers. We've got Mrs. Armistead's son photographing the area where Mr. Jackson was shot, but we really need more help in identifying possible members of the Klan. Both Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Armistead told us you know pretty much everything about everyone in Pasadena."

  Turning her attention to me, Mrs. Akers said, "It was those two ladies gave you my name and address?"

  I nodded and Sam said, "Yes. At the hospital."

  "Detective Rotondo was there trying to find out who shot Mr. Jackson," I added.

  "Hmmm. Well, I don't know." Another silence ensued, during which I felt like twitching or shouting or grabbing the woman and shaking information out of her. I didn't.

  "All right," she said at last, upon a long and heart-felt sigh. "I can tell you what I know. I work for the Mertons on Friday afternoons."

  I started slightly in my chair but didn't speak.

  "The Mr. Todd Mertons?" Sam asked, his dark eyes round.