Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery Page 9

  “She attacked you?” I asked.

  “You trippin’,” said Diego. “She did not. You dreamed that.”

  Eddie shrugged. “Seemed real. I was trying to get the cupboard over the fridge open. It’s, like, painted shut? And I practically fell, I was so freaked-out.”

  “All right,” I said, blowing out a breath. “I’ll try to figure this out, but it might take a few days.”

  “Okay, guys, you can unload your stuff from my car back at my place tonight. I’ll see you all later.” Luz turned to me. “I know I said I would take you wherever you wanted for lunch, but I am in desperate need of lemongrass chicken and a beer. Maybe the other way around.”

  “Beer and Thai food, it is.”

  Chapter Ten

  On the way to the restaurant I dropped Dog off with my foreman Raul, who loved dogs and whose own beloved pup had recently passed away. The pup would be well taken care of while I was at lunch. Raul still carried Milk-Bones in his truck.

  “You okay?” I asked Luz.

  We were seated at Lers Ros Thai restaurant and had ordered egg rolls, pad Thai, lemongrass chicken; beer for Luz and Thai iced tea for me.

  Luz nodded, but she seemed distracted, as though she had something on her mind—something beyond her troubled students. And I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what it was. Luz was fierce and proud, and wasn’t afraid of anything except ghosts and clowns. The clown part was self-explanatory—they gave me the willies, too—but for some time now I’d had the sense that Luz had had some kind of experience with the unexplainable, something that had left a scar. And if she wouldn’t tell me, I imagined she hadn’t shared it with anyone.

  “Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me,” I said as I dug into the egg rolls.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I’m your best friend. And I won’t make fun of you or think you’re crazy for having seen ghosts. Or . . . whatever it was you saw, or experienced. Not that I’m saying you have, you know. Just in case you did.”

  She shrugged.

  I watched as she toyed with her food. Luz always played her cards close to her chest. Though she taught social work, she was much more comfortable with theory than practice and didn’t believe in a lot of self-disclosure. She knew far more about my issues and concerns than I did about hers, but she was fiercely loyal and dependable and about the best friend a person could have. I wanted to be that for her, too.

  I forced myself to remain silent. Finally, she opened her mouth as though to say something.

  My phone rang.

  Dammit. The screen read: Annette Crawford. I try to avoid answering the phone while dining with friends, but the SFPD was hard to ignore.

  “Take it,” Luz urged.

  “I’m sorry. It’s Annette Crawford, so I probably should. I’ll be right back.”

  I went outside and ducked down a little alley, away from the noise on Larkin Street.

  “I thought you were babysitting Landon Demetrius?” Inspector Crawford asked without preamble.

  “I, um . . . didn’t realize babysitting was in order.” Had the Inspector picked up on Landon’s lost puppy vibrations? Or was he just getting in her way? “I dropped him off at his hotel yesterday. I figured he’d be all right since he is, after all, a grown man, and . . .” I paused. “You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”

  I heard her deep, pleasant chuckle. “He thinks you’re very . . . interesting, I believe was the word he used.”

  “Isn’t that polite Brit-speak for ‘kind of weird’?”

  “That’d be my guess.”

  “Yeah, well, tell him to take a number. So what can I do for you, Inspector?”

  “According to Demetrius, you saw his sister. His dead sister. In a didn’t-seem-dead state, if you catch my drift.”

  “Well, now, I suppose that is true. . . .”

  “Any reason you didn’t think to mention that to me? You know, when I asked you if there was anything else, anything at all you needed to tell me?”

  “No. . . . She didn’t tell me anything pertinent.”

  “Did she say anything at all?”

  The fact that Annette would ask me this, that she even knew to ask me this, was proof of how much our relationship had changed over the past couple of years. When I first met Inspector Crawford on a crime scene, neither of us was sure we believed in ghosts. Since then, we’d both learned a lot.

  This was why Annette was my go-to homicide inspector whenever I tripped over bodies. It was refreshing not to have to explain myself each and every time.

  “No,” I said. “She didn’t speak. She came out of the apartment, and sort of smiled, as though trying to signal she was okay. She ran her hand over her brother’s face, and then she went down the hall, got in the elevator, and went up.”

  “Is that a metaphor?”

  “No. Or . . . yes, I suppose it is. But it’s also what I saw.”

  “What about Crosswinds?” Annette asked. “Anything further on that possible connection?”

  “I went by there this morning, and spoke with the caretaker and the extended Flynt family, who all seem pretty eager to sell the place. They seemed genuinely shocked by the news of Chantelle’s death. I can’t imagine what they would be holding against Chantelle, but then as we both know I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”

  “I don’t know about that. You tend to stumble on murderers.”

  “I guess ‘stumble on’ is the part I’m referring to. I rarely seem able to suss out the killer before they try to kill me. I should probably work on that.”

  “Personal growth. It’s important never to stop learning.”

  “You’re funny today,” I said. Annette was in a positively jocular mood. It was rare for her. “What’s up?”

  “Can’t a woman enjoy her work?”

  “Of course . . . although considering you work in homicide, that gets into a creepy zone pretty quickly.”

  She chuckled. “Anyway, what else have you learned about Crosswinds?”

  “I can confirm the presence of at least one ghost. An older man, late fifties or early sixties, dressed as though from the late 1800s. I don’t know what his story is yet, much less what he has to do with Chantelle’s death, if anything. He yelled at me to get off the roof. He startled me, and I nearly fell.”

  “What were you doing on the roof?”

  “Looking for a ghost.”

  Annette paused. “You do have an interesting time of it, don’t you?”

  “Anyway, after my ghost encounter, I went to speak with the contractor who did the remodel. Before Chantelle was murdered, she told the Flynts to appease the ghost by undoing some of the renovations on Crosswinds. So now I’m trying to track down some of items that were ripped out. The contractor, Skip Buhner, is supposed to be getting me some before-and-after photos. But there’s no obvious connection between Crosswinds and Chantelle’s death that I can see so far. Is there?”

  “I have no idea. She worked out of her condo and had a lot of clients going in and out, which annoyed some of the neighbors. Didn’t seem like the problem was sufficient to provoke murder, but I’ve seen murders committed for less reason. She also appears to have been juggling more than one boyfriend, which may be a promising lead. There are plenty of ways to get in and out of the building undetected, so the murderer could also have been a stranger. But I’ll be talking to the Flynts today. Just wanted to touch base with you first for any insights you might have.”

  “Oh, Skip says the Crosswinds caretaker, named Egypt Davis, probably killed Chantelle so she doesn’t have to move out.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m just telling you what he told me. Seems like a bit of a long shot, but as you always say, tell you everything.”

  “True.”

  “Sorry I can’t be more help.” />
  “Just keep me up to speed, if you don’t mind.”

  “Annette, is Landon Demetrius a suspect?”

  “We don’t have anything in particular to make us think so—other than you.”

  “Me?”

  “You saw him kneeling over the body.”

  “Well, yeah—but he wasn’t stabbing her, just kneeling there looking like he was about to cry. Is there anything else to suggest he did it?”

  “Not so far. Forensics took photos and swabbed his hands and clothes, but didn’t find anything incriminating such as defensive wounds or blood spatter. We released his luggage to him today. But family often seems to drive people to thoughts of murder.”

  “I suppose that’s true enough. Hey, while I’ve got you on the phone, does this address mean anything to you?” I read off the address of the Mermaid Cove apartment complex.

  “No. Should it?”

  “Just wondering. Seems to be haunted. A group of students going to San Francisco State rented it, and were run out by a spirit or spirits unknown. According to the neighbor, no one stays very long.”

  “I’ll run it and see if anything pops up, crime-wise. But you haven’t found any dead bodies there, so far?”

  “Dead-body free at the moment,” I said.

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way. Gotta go.”

  “Bye.” I hung up and turned to go back into the restaurant. One of the chefs had come outside for a smoke break, and was staring at me with a look of horror on his face. Either that or he’d eaten some bad lemongrass.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Talking to my friend, the homicide inspector.”

  This explanation did not help the situation.

  I ducked back into the restaurant and joined Luz, who was scrolling through her phone.

  “Googled the address, but nothing came up,” she said, before shutting it down. “How’s Annette? Find the killer yet?”

  A waitress chose that moment to approach the table with steaming plates of noodles and chicken. Again with the look of dismay. I wondered if she and the chef would trade notes and ban us from their restaurant, which worried me. Lers Ros was my favorite Thai food in the city.

  “Not yet,” I said after the waitress left. “In fact, the investigation is just starting. And we don’t even know that it’s connected to the Crosswinds mansion.”

  “Probably is.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you’re involved. No offense, amiga mia, but you do attract this kind of disaster.”

  “Hey, weren’t you the one asking for pro bono ghostbusting services? Speaking of which—what were you about to tell me when Annette called?”

  She gave a quick, tight shake of her head, which meant: off-limits. Dammit. She had been ready to spill, but had changed her mind while I was on the phone. No point pushing her now. If there was one thing I knew for certain about Luz Cabrera, she wouldn’t tell me—or anyone—anything until she was good and ready.

  Instead, she changed the subject.

  “So, you were saying last night that there was a weathervane on Crosswinds? Makes me think of the opening scene in Mary Poppins. You remember that one?”

  “Remind me.”

  “The wind changes, and down comes Mary Poppins with her umbrella.”

  “Strangely enough, that thought doesn’t actually comfort me. I always found Mary Poppins sort of creepy.”

  Luz nodded. “Anybody who holds her feet like that shouldn’t be permitted around small children without supervision.”

  “She scared the heck out of me when she floated down like that. I’ll bet that movie wouldn’t even be made in today’s day and age.”

  “Me too, to tell the truth.” She helped herself to more pad Thai. “So any idea how we track down this landlady?”

  “There must be a record of who owns the property at the city,” I said. “I’ll check out the paperwork, you check out anything you can think of.”

  “The students send their rent to a PO box, but maybe I can get some information from the post office, or Google her name for an address. And then we’ll go talk to her together, try to figure out what she knows, shake her down if need be. But in the meantime, could you look into arranging for a spiritual cleansing so the kids can move back?”

  I nodded as I dug into my lemongrass chicken. “Usually, though, if a ghost is hanging around there’s a reason. And as loath as I am to admit it, I seem destined to help them out. This ghost reached out to me. I’d like to see if I can figure out what it wants.”

  “She reached out to you by throwing silverware all over the floor?”

  “It’s a ghost thing,” I said with a shrug. “They can only communicate in very particular fashions. Sometimes they scare by accident, even when they don’t mean to. It’s not easy to get through the veil.”

  “An accidental haunting?” Luz finished off her beer. “I gotta hand it to you, chica. You do have an interesting take on things.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Before I left the house the following morning, I met with Stan and went over the Crosswinds contract which, due to its unusual content—ghost ridding and remodel dismantling—required more thought than the usual boilerplate. Then we chatted about where some of the Crosswinds items might have wound up. Yesterday Stan had called around to salvage yards, but so far he hadn’t gotten any hits. The folks answering the phone were usually underpaid workers who didn’t keep records of where items came from. And they surely didn’t keep track of what they sold. It was a cash business, easy in, easy out.

  A lot of their inventory came from off the back of some contractor’s truck, but items also came in from homeowners and junk dealers, or were picked up off the street. I myself once had caused a major traffic snarl when I stopped my vehicle in the middle of International Boulevard to pick up a slightly distressed stained glass window.

  I hated to admit it, but finding the items torn out of the Flynt residence was a long shot. According to what he’d told me, Skip had dumped them five months ago, and many would have been snatched up by savvy antiques store dealers. A solid copper antique weathervane wouldn’t have lasted two days in a well-patronized salvage yard.

  On the other hand, there were enough nooks and crannies in some of those places that some items could be overlooked. I decided to check a few out in person later this morning. But first, I had made arrangements by e-mail to meet the Crosswinds Realtor, Skip’s wife, Karla.

  “Bye, Dad,” I said as I breezed through the kitchen. “No coffee for me this morning, I’m meeting Karla Buhner at the Royal.”

  He fixed me with a look. “You’re gonna pay perfect strangers to make you breakfast but turn up your nose at mine?”

  “I’ll just have coffee, like I do here. No more, no less. No worries.”

  “And who is this Karla Buhner person?”

  “She’s the Realtor for Crosswinds; her husband did the remodel. Brittany Humm gave her my name as the ghost buster of choice on this project.”

  He grunted. Brittany Humm was a bright, wonderful woman who had been the first Realtor I’d ever met who specialized in haunted houses—which, to my surprise, was a thing. There were actually people who wanted to live with ghosts. Just like those folks who requested the haunted room at the Claremont Hotel.

  This was precisely why my father didn’t care for her. While he was slowly coming around to my seeing ghosts, the understanding did not extend to Brittany or Olivier or any other of the other “ghost professionals” who were now in my supernatural social circle.

  I kissed his whiskery cheek, petted Dog good-bye, and headed to Mama’s Royal Café on Broadway in Oakland.

  Karla was waiting for me at a table; I recognized her from the Crosswinds Web site. She was a well–put together, somewhat tight-lipped woman. Fortyish, reddish-brown hair. Attractive in that bland way of business profe
ssionals who weren’t lucky enough to be able to wear sparkles to work.

  “Hi,” I said as I approached. Her eyes slid up and down my outfit. “Karla? I’m Mel. Good to meet you.”

  “You’re Mel Turner? The contractor?”

  “Yes, nice to meet you.”

  “I thought you were a man. By your name, I mean.”

  “I get that a lot.”

  The eyes flickered over my ensemble one more time. It was annoying, but this was on me. The guys I worked with were used to my personal style, and since I signed their checks and got the job done it wasn’t an issue. For everyone else it came as a surprise. But Turner Construction was doing just fine lately—I still had a full-time crew on the Wakefield Retreat Center up in Marin County, and several other smaller remodels—and frankly, I was getting the feeling that if I wanted to work full-time as a ghost consultant, there was plenty of demand in San Francisco. So I figured my combined talents of historic reconstruction and spirit talker gave me a little sartorial leeway.

  We ordered coffee, and I launched into what I wanted to know.

  “So, what can you tell me about Crosswinds?”

  “Probably nothing you haven’t already heard,” she said as she stirred cream and two packets of Sweet’N Low into her cup. “Gorgeous property, incomparable views, so spacious! And an address to die for.”

  I cringed at her pun, and wondered if she was even aware she’d made it. Had Karla heard about Chantelle’s death? She must have. It had been splashed over the papers; apparently, everyone but me was familiar with Chantelle-the-psychic.

  “Did you hear about what happened to Chantelle?” I asked.

  “Oh! Oh yes, I did. I could scarce believe it when Skip told me! And then the police came to talk with me, because I had left a message on her answering machine right as she was killed. What a thing!” Her blue eyes settled on me. “Oh, wait. Are you thinking there was a connection between what Chantelle said about Crosswinds, and her death?”