“What would you like to wet your whistle, Gavin?” Zelda asked him. “There’s water. We have herbal tea. There should be some organic orange juice. No liquor. Neither Mavis nor I drink much, particularly during working hours.”
“Water for me, thanks. And some working hours, by the way. You don’t drink?” he asked, turning to Mavis.
“Only once in a blue moon,” she admitted. “Dad’s a recovering alcoholic. Mom never kept liquor in the house. Some of us had better things to do in high school and college than binge drink.”
“Not me,” he remembered fondly.
“No, I never said anything about you, did I?” she said drolly.
“So you don’t drink when you go out?” he asked.
“Out where?” she asked, mouth full of soup.
“Out,” he said. “That place people tend to go when they leave the house. Particularly single people on Friday and Saturday nights.” He peered at her when she turned her face to his without answering. “You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Freckles?”
“Do I look like an idiot?”
“You look like a blur,” he said. “A sweet, spotted blur.”
He could tell she was frowning. “I work three jobs. One fielding customers at Flora for Mom. Another doing bookkeeping for Dad at the garage. And another on nights and weekends here with Miss Zelda. My social agenda is pretty limited. Not that I mind. And not that it’s relevant.”
“I think it’s relevant,” he claimed.
“Why?”
He shrugged, scarfing another bite. He stopped for a second to enjoy its impact before spooning another. “Because you are a tight-ass.” She scoffed at him and he added, “And in another life, you might’ve been a cheap date.”
Mavis made a choking noise, then coughed. Gavin dropped his spoon into his bowl, lifted his arm over the back of her chair. He gave her several raps on the back.
“Another life?” Zelda spoke with all the nonchalance of an innocent bystander. “Why not this one? Gavin, I assume you’re single. That Leighton boy was the last one to tickle Mavis’s fancy. And that was back when he was still a man-baby.”
Gavin demanded, “Which Leighton?”
Mavis choked again.
Zelda called his bluff. “So you are interested. Hot dog!”
When Mavis reached desperately for his glass of water, he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Mmph.”
He heard the water going down her throat. He thought about it—her throat.
Stop being weird, Savitt, he chided himself.
She was talking again, to Miss Zelda. She sounded husky. Vital. He felt an odd stir, the same one she’d cranked to life in the bougainvillea. Something told him to reel it in, but he kept his arm across her back, cupping her slender shoulder blade through the thin wool of her sweater. He’d never been good at listening to sense, especially when it came to warm, smart women of the unconventional variety.
This one happened to be his best buddy’s sister. But Kyle was training hard somewhere out in California. Helicopter rappelling. The bastard. And Mavis. She was in arm’s reach. The threat of Kyle was lessened by the miles between them and conversation with Mavis... Her proximity had kept the lingering threat of that afternoon’s headache at bay.
“The meal’s put color in your face,” Zelda observed as she ate from the other side of the counter. Her tone slid homily into something sly. “Or is it the company?”
Gavin felt Mavis go rigid and circled the spot of her shoulder blade beneath his hand before removing it, going back to his meal. “Both are unrivaled,” he granted. Zelda’s low laugh was one of approval. The knuckles of his drinking hand knocked into something hard. Another book, he surmised. Cautiously, he asked, “What about this genealogy thing? How does that factor into...whatever it is you do?”
“Cases are confidential,” Mavis informed him shrewdly.
“He’s living here,” Zelda reminded her. “There’re things he’s bound to overhear. Such as, Vincent and Phyllis Muculney out of southern Louisiana are investigating the family lore of an alleged presence in her family’s planation homeplace. Vincent and Phyllis are friends of mine from the eighties so I knew a drive there wouldn’t be a waste. They’ve drawn attention to the property over the last year because of its rich landscape. Phyllis is very into conservation; Vincent is very into history. Local media have drawn widespread interest in the family lore and reports of paranormal activity. We got some interesting EMF readings off what’s left of the Isnard Plantation, didn’t we, Mavis?”
“Sure,” Mavis said mildly. Pages flipped. She was back to her research, multitasking as she spooned more minestrone into her mouth.
“Excuse me,” Gavin said, holding up a hand. “EMF?”
It was Mavis who answered. “Electromagnet fields. The theory is that ghosts are able to manipulate them. Our EMF meters can detect this.”
“And this is how you find Casper? Beetlejuice? Bruce Willis?”
She stared at him a second or two before answering with amusement. “If you will.”
“The audio was most revealing,” Zelda said, excitement growing. “Tell him about the audio.”
Mavis spared a weary glance for Miss Zelda before continuing. “We often take voice recordings, particularly in areas of EMF anomalies,” Mavis told him, adjusting her glasses. “While playing back the Isnard tapes, we found something.”
“You heard voices?” he asked, back to skeptic.
“Just one,” she said, nonchalant. As if they were discussing the ingredients of minestrone soup.
“What did it tell you?” he asked. “Have you unlocked the mysteries of the universe? Should we call Stephen Hawking or—”
“No,” she replied. “After passing what we heard on to Vincent and Phyllis, they told us about twin brothers who owned the planation jointly before being called off to service in 1862.”
“Here’s where it gets intriguing,” Zelda said conversationally.
Mavis paused. “Neither Josiah nor Daniel returned from battle,” she said finally. “Those who remained were convinced that the family line ended there. Until, of course, a kitchen girl revealed that she was pregnant with an Isnard heir.”
“So?” Gavin said.
Zelda smiled. “She didn’t know which twin was the father.”
“Which means either one of them cornered her in one of the secret passages under the cover of night,” Mavis said admonishingly.
“Or she was having an affair with both,” Zelda finished.
“The first theory’s more likely,” Mavis murmured. “I don’t see a ménage à trois happening in the grand master suite.”
“People back then were no different from people today,” Zelda informed her. “There was scandal. And secrets aplenty. Besides, I like the idea of the servant girl getting her own.”
“Was this voice you heard on the tapes by chance female?” Gavin asked.
“Why, yes,” Zelda said, glad he was catching on.
“So you think it was the kitchen girl,” he surmised.
“It’s a sound theory,” Zelda said. “One Mavis, Phyllis and I are in agreeance on. But what’s most interesting is that she spoke two names. The