“That’s a relief. I wouldn’t want Catherine to overhear us. Now what were we discussing?”
“Serafina is going to tell us what she knows about the other people at the seance.” Sarah gave the girl an encouraging smile.
“Where should I start?” she asked uncertainly.
“With Mrs. Burke,” Mrs. Decker said. “What you don’t know, I’m sure I can supply. I’ve known her for years.”
Serafina took a deep breath as if to fortify herself. “She has been coming to see me since last fall. She wanted to contact her sister.”
“Yes, they had a quarrel,” Mrs. Decker said. “The sister died before they could make it up. She told me Madame Serafina contacted her sister, and she was able to apologize and be forgiven.”
“Yes, and this made her very happy,” Serafina reported. “But Mrs. Gittings wanted her to keep coming back, so I had to tell her that her sister had important messages for her. We had a private sitting for her, and her sister told her things about her children.”
“Mrs. Burke’s children?” Sarah clarified.
“Yes, they are… not happy,” Serafina hedged.
“Kathy’s son is a worthless profligate,” Mrs. Decker reported. “His father has had to rescue him time and again, but he never seems to learn his lesson.”
“What is a profligate?” Serafina asked.
“A bum,” Malloy offered. Sarah was glad to note that he had gone from furious to resigned. “What about her other children?”
Serafina didn’t like this one bit. “One daughter is respectable and married, but the other…”
“The other is married as well,” Mrs. Decker supplied, “but she’s far from respectable. She married an older man, and she’s taken a series of lovers through the years. Her conduct has been so blatant that some families won’t even receive her anymore.”
“She wanted someone to tell her what to do for her children,” Serafina said. “So I asked the spirits to help her.”
“You said her husband wouldn’t give her money for the seances anymore,” Sarah reminded her.
“No, she said he cut off her allowance,” Serafina said.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Decker said. “He must have been very angry with her to do that.”
“I was trying to help her,” Serafina said, looking at each of them in turn to judge their reaction. “But Mrs. Gittings kept asking her for more money. She did not care how Mrs. Burke got the money, and she said I should not care either. She said Mrs. Burke is rich, and I should not feel sorry for rich people.”
“Who told her to sell her jewelry?” Malloy asked.
Serafina bit her lip. “Mrs. Gittings did at first. I never talked to anyone about money, but…”
“But what?” Sarah coaxed.
“But Mrs. Gittings said the spirits must tell her to sell something. I had to do what she said, even though I knew it was wrong,” she added desperately.
“Of course you did, dear,” Mrs. Decker said, patting the girl’s hand.
“Did Mrs. Burke ever threaten Mrs. Gittings?” Malloy asked, ever the policeman.
“You mean threaten to hurt her?” Serafina asked uncertainly.
“Any kind of threat,” Malloy replied.
“I did not hear it if she did. Mrs. Gittings would talk to the clients alone when she… when she wanted to get them to pay more. She did not want them to think I cared about the money.”
“When I was at the seance,” Sarah said, “the spirits told Mrs. Burke to sell something her mother had given her. A brooch of some kind, I think. Did she sell it?”
“I do not know,” Serafina claimed. “She returned yesterday, but I think…” She seemed to catch herself.
“What do you think?” Sarah prodded.
“She was still asking her mother if she should sell it, so I think she did not, at least not yet.”
“How was she paying for the seances, then?” Malloy asked.
Serafina stole a guilty glance at Mrs. Decker, then looked down to where her hands were clenched on the tabletop.
“What is it, Serafina?” Sarah prodded. “We can’t help you if you don’t tell us the whole story.”
Serafina swallowed. “Mrs. Gittings told Mrs. Burke that she could come back if she brought someone new.”
“Had she brought other people there before?” Sarah asked.
“No, but… but Mrs. Gittings said she would charge the new person twice the fee so Mrs. Burke did not have to pay.”
Mrs. Decker gasped in outrage. “I can’t believe Kathy would do something like that!”
“She was desperate, Mrs. Decker,” Serafina said, defending her. “You do not know…”
“Well, I’ll certainly have something to say to her about it,” Mrs. Decker said.
“Do you think she was desperate enough to kill Mrs. Gittings?” Sarah asked.
“She was very angry,” Serafina said. “And frightened. And she asked me…”
“What did she ask you?” Malloy prodded.
“She asked me if I knew Mrs. Gittings was demanding so much money from her.”
“What did you tell her?” Sarah asked.
Serafina bit her lip, as if she were carefully considering her reply. “Mrs. Gittings always said I should never talk about money with the clients, so I told her if not for Mrs. Gittings, I would not even charge her.”
“Oh, my,” Sarah said softly.
Serafina realized everyone was staring at her. “What is wrong?” she asked in alarm.
“You gave Mrs. Burke a very good reason to get rid of Mrs. Gittings,” Malloy said grimly.
The girl looked horrified.
“I don’t care what reasons she had or how desperate she was, I just can’t imagine Kathy Burke stabbing anyone like that,” Mrs. Decker said, defending her old friend.
Sarah knew better than to offer an opinion. Even her limited experience with investigating murders told her that often the most unlikely suspect was the guilty one. “What about Mr. Sharpe?” she asked, remembering that he was sitting on the other side of Mrs. Gittings and would have had an even better opportunity to stick the knife into her back.
“He is a very proud man,” Serafina said. “He is used to having people do what he wants.”
“What did he want you to do?” Sarah asked.
“Not what you think,” the girl hastened to explain.
“I wasn’t thinking anything,” Sarah lied.
“He has visited many spiritualists,” Serafina said. “He never believed in any of them until he came to me.”
“How did you convince him when the others didn’t?” Malloy asked.
“I do not know,” Serafina said, “but many of them are fakes and not even good fakes at that.”
Sarah gave Malloy a warning glance. She knew he agreed with her that
“How long had he been coming to see you?” Mrs. Decker asked.
“About two months,” she said. “He wanted to contact his wife. He loved her very much, and he was lonely without her.”
“When I was there, he asked his wife about a decision he was making,” Sarah reminded all of them. “Do you know what he was trying to decide?”
“No, I told you before. When Yellow Feather is there, I do not know what is happening. But Mr. Sharpe always consulted his wife before he made a decision. That is why he was so glad when I was able to help him contact her. None of the others could do that.”
Sarah suddenly realized something important. “If Sharpe had been to a lot of seances, he might know the trick about holding hands,” she told Malloy.
“What trick about holding hands?” Mrs. Decker asked.
Sarah demonstrated it for her.
