Murder on Waverly Place (6 page)

“She appeared to,” was all Sarah could manage.

Mrs. Decker turned to look out the window again. The carriage moved slowly through the crowded streets. People walked past on the sidewalk, giving them hardly a glance. “Maggie was there,” she said softly after a few moments.

Sarah closed her eyes and bit her tongue. She mustn’t say what she was thinking. Her mother was as stubborn as she, and Sarah would never give up on something just because her mother advised her to. In fact, she’d be more likely to persevere if her mother advised her to stop. She swallowed down her frustration and willed her voice to steadiness. “If you believe Maggie was there, then she heard you say you were sorry,” she pointed out reasonably. “You accomplished your purpose.” This was the only reason she had agreed to go with her mother in the first place.

Mrs. Decker looked at her sharply, as if trying to judge her sincerity. “That’s true.”

Sarah felt the knot of tension in her stomach ease a bit. “I know that must be a great burden lifted from you. I may not approve, but if this . . . what happened today . . . If this gives you peace, then I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you, Sarah. That means a lot to me.”

“But I hope this will be the end of it.” Her mother stiffened in silent resistance, but Sarah hurried on, determined to follow Maeve’s advice not to allow Mrs. Decker to be taken advantage of. “Did you notice that Mrs. Burke didn’t seem very happy with the message she got today? Neither did Mr. Sharpe. I have a feeling that you might not always be pleased with what you hear.”

“I wasn’t pleased today,” her mother reminded her.

“Exactly. If all you wanted was an opportunity to tell Maggie you were sorry, you got that today.”

“But she didn’t forgive me,” Mrs. Decker reminded her.

“And what if she never does?” Sarah asked ruthlessly. “What if she curses you or says hurtful things? Would you be able to bear it?”

“I—”

“I know you’ve suffered all these years, Mother, but it could be even worse. I beg you to stop now. You’ve asked for Maggie’s forgiveness. That’s all we can ever do when we’ve wronged someone. I think she would have forgiven you in life, if she’d had the chance. We have to believe she would also forgive you in death.”

“If only I could be sure,” Mrs. Decker said, her voice catching on tears.

“
I’m
sure,” Sarah said. “Mother, don’t do this to yourself again. Let Maggie’s spirit rest in peace.”

Her mother drew an unsteady breath. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I am, I promise you.”

“I feel sorry for that poor girl.”

“Who?” Sarah asked in surprise.

“Madame Serafina.”

“Why?”

“That must be so difficult for her. You saw her afterwards. She was exhausted.”

Or pretending to be, Sarah thought. If she was too tired to continue, the clients would have to pay to come back another time to finish the session, just like Maeve had predicted. Poor Mr. Cunningham had gotten nothing at all for his fee today. Or Mrs. Gittings either. “She seems very young to be involved in all this,” Sarah said.

“Mrs. Burke told me she’s been doing it since she was a child. It’s something you’re born with, she said.”

“Really?” Sarah couldn’t imagine a child suddenly realizing she could commune with spirits. “That’s amazing.”

“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Decker agreed vaguely. She was looking out the window again, thinking.

Sarah didn’t want her thinking about the séance anymore, but she knew better than to say so. She was wracking her brain for a neutral topic when the carriage came to a stop, and Sarah realized they were in front of her house. “You’re coming in for a while, aren’t you?” Sarah asked. “I told Catherine you would.”

“Oh, dear, I’m sorry, Sarah, but I just can’t. I’m . . . Well, I’m as exhausted as Madame Serafina, I’m afraid. Tell her I’ll come tomorrow and bring her something nice.”

“Perhaps that’s best. You do look worn out. Try to get some rest and put all of this behind you,” Sarah advised.

Mrs. Decker managed a small smile. “Of course I will. Thank you again for coming with me, my dear. I can’t imagine how I would have managed without you.”

“I’m glad you asked me. Get some rest now, and I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sarah said as the coachman opened the door.

Catherine was disappointed when Mrs. Decker didn’t come in for a visit, but Sarah’s promise that she would come tomorrow and bring a present mollified her a bit. Their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Ellsworth, had spend the morning with the girls, making cookies, and Sarah had to taste them. Eventually, Maeve took Catherine upstairs to play, leaving the two women alone in the kitchen, lingering over their coffee.

“Maeve tells me you went to a séance this morning,” Mrs. Ellsworth said casually, but she didn’t fool Sarah one bit. Mrs. Ellsworth had been the foremost authority on everyone else’s business since long before Sarah had moved to Bank Street. She’d spent many years of her life sweeping her front steps so she could keep her eye on everyone’s comings and goings, and nothing was too insignificant to escape her notice. Her keen observations had saved Sarah from disaster more than once, so she had long since forgiven her for being perhaps a bit too interested in Sarah’s business. And since Sarah had taken Catherine to live with her, Mrs. Ellsworth had proven herself more than a good friend to all of them, turning her full energies to teaching the girls housewifely skills instead of minding other people’s business.

“Have you ever been to a séance?” Sarah asked her.

“Heavens, no!” she exclaimed, surprising Sarah.

“Really? I would have thought . . .” She let her voice trail off awkwardly.

“Because I’m superstitious?” Mrs. Ellsworth guessed slyly. Her superstitions were legendary. “There’s a big difference between throwing salt over your shoulder and talking to the dead.”

“I guess you’re right,” Sarah admitted a bit sheepishly.

“What was it like?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly. “I’ve always wondered.”

Where to begin? “I know it’s all fake, of course, but—”

“Are you sure?” Mrs. Ellsworth challenged, quite seriously.

“Of course it is. Nobody can talk to the dead.”

“Are you
sure
?” she repeated. “I’ve heard stories from people . . . regular people, not the ones who set themselves up in business, mind you, but people like us. An old friend of mine, her mother who’d been dead more than twenty years appeared one day and warned her that her daughter was involved with a terrible man. She was, too. My friend put a stop to it just in time.”

“I know things sometimes happen that we can’t explain,” Sarah said. “But your friend didn’t try to contact her mother, did she? She didn’t sit down in a dark room with a bunch of strangers and try to summon her spirit.”

Mrs. Ellsworth tapped her upper lip with her finger thoughtfully. “It does sound odd when you say it like that.”

“It was more than odd, I assure you.” She told Mrs. Ellsworth about arriving at the house and meeting the other people gathered there and then seeing Madame Serafina for the first time. “She didn’t look like she was more than twenty.”

“I would’ve expected a much older person.”

“She was a lovely girl, too. I can’t imagine how she became involved in this.”

“How does she contact the spirits?”

Sarah told her about going into the other room and sitting down around the table. “Then we all held hands around the circle, and she turned out the light.”

“You were in total darkness?”

“Oh, yes. I couldn’t see a thing. Then she calls for the spirits.”

“Just like that?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked in surprise.

“Well, I should have said that she calls for her spirit guide, Yellow Feather.”

“Yellow
what
?”

“Yellow Feather. He’s an Indian warrior who died in battle,” Sarah explained with a smirk.

“How very odd!”

“He’s her spirit contact or something like that. The other spirits speak to him and he passes along what they say and asks them questions.”

“And she’s the only one who can hear him?”

“Oh, no, I forgot to tell you, he speaks through her.”

“How does he do that?”

“I’m not exactly sure how it works, but his voice comes out of her mouth, as if he were using her body.”

“How do you know it’s his voice?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked, thoroughly confused now.

“Oh, it sounds like a man’s voice. I could hardly believe my ears at first. Her voice changed completely. And when it was all over, she claimed she didn’t remember anything he’d said. When he’s speaking through her, she’s not really conscious, I suppose. That’s how she explained it anyway.”

“Good heavens. I never heard of such a thing.”

“Neither had I,” Sarah assured her.

“Why on earth did your mother want to attend this séance in the first place?”

Sarah sighed wearily. “She wanted to contact my sister.”

“Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“She died long before I met you,” Sarah said, wishing she hadn’t mentioned Maggie. She hated telling her story, even to kindly Mrs. Ellsworth. “She . . . she married a man my parents didn’t approve of,” she said, keeping to the bare facts.

“Just as you did,” Mrs. Ellsworth reminded her with a puzzled frown.

“She did it long before I did, and they disowned her for it,” Sarah said, the words paining her even now. “And then she died in childbirth. My mother has carried that guilt all this time.”

“And I suppose she wanted to ask for forgiveness,” Mrs.

Ellsworth said. “Poor thing. We tend to think that people who have a lot of money don’t have any troubles, but that isn’t true, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” Sarah confirmed, remembering all the wealthy people who had been involved in murders that she had investigated with her friend Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy of the New York City Police. “They don’t have to worry about putting food on the table or keeping a roof over their heads, but they have the same kinds of losses and disappointments that everyone else has.”

“I guess that explains why your parents didn’t protest too much when you married Dr. Brandt.”

“They weren’t happy about it,” Sarah recalled with a pang, “but they accepted it, just as they accepted my becoming a midwife.”

“Even though they would have been much happier if you’d given it up and returned to your rightful place in society after Dr. Brandt died,” Mrs. Ellsworth guessed. Sarah’s husband, Tom, had been murdered four years earlier.

“I think they’ve finally accepted the fact that I never will.”

“And do you think your mother was satisfied with the séance?”

Sarah had almost forgotten the original subject of their conversation. “I hope so. I reminded her that she’s wanted to apologize to Maggie and she did that at the séance. I don’t believe for a moment that Maggie’s spirit was there to hear it, but my mother believes it was, and so she thinks she accomplished her purpose. I hope that will satisfy her.”

“You don’t sound very sure,” Mrs. Ellsworth said.

“Those other people at the séance, they’ve all been to see Madame Serafina more than once. They seemed well acquainted with each other, and I got the impression this was a regular event in their lives.”

Mrs. Ellsworth frowned. “I guess I could understand that, if I believed this Madame what’s her name could contact my dead loved ones. I’ve always wanted to ask my husband where he put his pocket watch. I wanted to give it to Nelson after he died, but I never found it.”

Sarah smiled in spite of herself. “Maybe you should go see Madame.”

“I can’t imagine what else I’d ask him, though,” she mused. “I’d think one visit would be enough.”

Sarah tried to recall what the others had been asking. “They seemed to want guidance about making decisions. As if they came back regularly to ask about something new.”

“Oh, dear, how tiresome,” Mrs. Ellsworth said. “Why can’t they just make up their own minds? Or at least ask somebody who’s easier to contact, like a living relative, for instance?”

This really made Sarah smile. “I’m sure I don’t know. But some people just don’t seem to be able to stop. I don’t want my mother to become one of them.”

“Oh, I’m sure your father would soon put a stop to it if she did,” Mrs. Ellsworth said.

Sarah wasn’t so sure. Felix Decker was one of the richest, most powerful men in the city, but he was completely powerless to manage his wife, particularly if he had no idea what she was doing. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Sarah said and tried to change the subject. “Is that the newspaper?”

Mrs. Ellsworth glanced over to where the paper lay folded on the end of the table. “Oh, yes, I brought it over for you to see. I don’t suppose you’ve heard the news yet,” she added with a frown.

“What news?”

“About Mr. Roosevelt.”

“Oh, dear,” Sarah said, reaching for the paper. She unfolded it to reveal the headline, ROOSEVELT RESIGNS. She quickly scanned the story. Her old friend Theodore Roosevelt had resigned as police commissioner to accept a job in Washington, D.C. “Just as my father predicted.”

“Your father knew that President McKinley was going to offer him a position in Washington?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked in amazement.

“I’m sure he didn’t know exactly what it would be, but politicians always pay their debts, and Mr. Roosevelt campaigned very vigorously for McKinley. The president will be giving out hundreds of political patronage jobs to his supporters to reward them.”

“Assistant secretary of the Navy doesn’t sound like a very important job,” Mrs. Ellsworth observed.

“I’m sure Theodore will make the most of it,” Sarah said, recalling her old friend’s ambition fondly, “although this probably isn’t good news for the police department.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Roosevelt made a lot of changes in the department. He hired men on merit instead of political patronage. He promoted men who were good at their jobs instead of those who could afford to pay a bribe to get a better position. He even hired officers who weren’t Irish.”