Dead Bolt (10 page)

“Janet’s your daughter?”

“Yep. Anyways, the ghosts used to scare my cats, too, but they still protected me. Soon as the law took my cats away, there was nothing standing between me and them. That’s what did it, why I moved. Well, that and the whole arrest thing.” She tugged on her oversized T-shirt and ran her tongue around in her mouth, as though poking at dentures. “I would never hurt the little kitty-witty-woos.”

She seemed to be reaching for dignity. It was the least I could offer her.

“Tell me about your cats.”

“This one here’s Horatio,” she said, picking up the orange cat. “Found him in an alley behind the Safeway. Heard him crying all the way from the parking lot. Scrawny little fella. But he’s real purty now.”

“He is,” I said, scratching the friendly tabby under its chin.

“And there’s another round here, white with long hair. That’s Pudding.”

I feared I was already carrying a good deal of Pudding’s long white hair on my black sweater.

“I understand you had a number of cats in the Cheshire Inn.”

She jutted her chin out like a stubborn child. “Most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. . . . Me? Cruel to my babies? Someone called the animal control on me, but I wasn’t like one of them people you hear about. Yes, I buried the cats in my yard when they passed away, but what am I supposed to do? Pay for a pet burial plot somewhere? I don’t have that kind of money. Besides, this way I got to visit them. Planted daisies on their graves. The law came and dug it all up. Dug everything up. It was a disgrace.”

“What do you know about the man you bought the house from? Junior?”

“A grown man who referred to himself as Junior—let’s just start with that. He was real old when I met him. One foot in the grave. Guess he lived there his whole life. Told me only to rent to men, and he was right about that.”

“How do you mean?”

“I had my girl there with me. Janet. That was a mistake. The ghosts don’t like girls.”

“Did they do something to her?”

“At first she hated it there. Said they pulled her hair. But then she started to love the place, maybe too much. She didn’t want to go when I sent her away to live with her daddy, when she was in high school. Never did have no problem with men—least not most of them—but the ghosts were meddlesome around girls. Locked doors, ran the showers.”

“Do you think I could talk to your daughter?”

She looked at me suspiciously. “What for?”

“Just to hear what her experiences were.”

“I guess it’d be all right. . . . She works over to Emeryville, on the other side of the bridge. She drives the . . . whaddayacallit? The shuttle that takes people from the BART station to the stores. She came to see me the other day, so I don’t expect to see her again for a while. But sometimes she’s at the animal shelter. So when you go ask them about me being some crazy lunatic animal hoarder, maybe you can talk to her right there and then.”

“I don’t think you’re a crazy lunatic animal hoarder, Hettie.”

“You don’t?”

I shook my head. “Janet’s an animal lover, too, then?”

“Don’t know if I’d call her that, exactly.”

“No?”

She shook her head, but didn’t elaborate.

“Hettie, do you know who turned you in?”

“Anonymous, they said.”

“What about the boarder who moved out? The one who said he saw ghosts in the attic? Do you have any information on him?”

“That was ten years ago, maybe more. He used to work for a lumberyard in the East Bay; don’t know if he’s still . . .” Her pale eyes narrowed. “Hey, why you looking into this? I thought you said you were renovating that old place; you were a lady builder.”

“I am, yes. I’m the general contractor on the job. But I thought that while I looked into the architectural history, maybe I could find out something about the less savory aspects of the place, as well.” I chose my words carefully. “Did anything bad ever happen in the boardinghouse while you were there? Was anyone hurt? Did anyone pass away?”

She stuck her chin out a little and shook her head. “I took good care o’ my boarders. Even the spirits were just annoying. Mostly, I let ’em have the attic to themselves. That’s why that one fella got so scared: He and Janet went into the attic. I never went up there, never used it.”

“Katenka Daley, one of the new owners, thinks she’s being menaced by a ghost. Or several ghosts.”

“I guess she is, then. I told that man, the guy who bought it, not to bring his wife and child into that house. But he didn’t listen.”

“When was this?”

“Before he bought it. My Realtor showed me the offer, and I said I wanted to meet the buyers. Couldn’t let ’em walk into that without a warning, could I? Wouldn’t be right.”

“Did the new owner, Jim Daley, say anything to you?” She shrugged and hugged the cat closer to her plump chest. “He laughed at me, same as the others. But that little gal who bought it, the Russian? She came by and said she heard cats in the walls still. But that’s not possible, is it? I would feel terrible if we left one behind. I was in jail at the time, or I woulda helped to gather them all up, find ’em homes. But my girl was there, at least.”

“You mean Janet?”

“That’s right.” She got up and gestured for me to follow her. “You know, if you want to talk about the house, you should check this out.”

Hettie had re-created a Cheshire Inn in miniature. It was an amateur effort, closer to a dollhouse than a precise architectural model, but it was a beautiful rendering of the house, using dark woods and patterned wallpapers, all the fireplaces built with tiny tile facades. It was helpful to see a three-dimensional rendition of the place, and to talk about the structural changes Hettie knew about. Junior had operated the place as a boardinghouse pretty much as-was, but when Hettie and her husband took the place over, they added small sinks in each room. The bathrooms were precisely that: rooms with only baths in them. The toilets had only toilets.

In the attic, I noticed Hettie had misrepresented one area—I recalled the layout well enough to remember there was something different there.

“Do you know what this is, here?” I asked as I pointed to a line in the interior that didn’t match up with the exterior, as though there were a void in the wall.

She hesitated before shrugging her shoulders. “Like I said, I didn’t really go up in the attic much, so I sort of fudged it.”

Then she fixed me with a steady gaze. “Be careful there, Mel. They don’t like young women.”

“One more question,” I said. “Did you know the neighbor with the upholstery shop across the street, Emile Blunt?”

Her eyes seemed to flash, but she averted her gaze and looked down at her cat.

“Emile? A little.”

I hesitated. “He passed away this morning.”

Her pale eyes flew up to mine. “
Emile
? How?”

“It looks like a burglary. He was shot.”

She took a deep breath, shook her head.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“The ghosts. They didn’t care for him, not one bit.”

“Why not?”

“He lived at the Cheshire Inn for a couple of months when his plumbing busted. Seems like they took a shine to him. They wanted him to stay.”

“To stay?”

“Like, for good. Forever.”

I
left Hettie’s condo with a whole new set of questions, plus the contact information for her daughter, Janet, and the name of the lumberyard where Dave Enrique—the boarder who claimed to have seen ghosts in the attic—worked, last Hettie knew.

Why would the ghosts have wanted Emile Blunt to remain at the house? Did that have anything to do with his desire to purchase it? And could they have killed him in his shop across the street? Could ghosts kill people? Could they even cross streets?

I closed my eyes and blew out a breath.

Within the last six months I had gone from denying the existence of ghosts at all to wondering if they could roam the streets and handle a gun.

Perhaps the real question I should be asking was, Why should I take the word of a crazy old cat lady?

I had looked up the ghost tour leader, Olivier Galopin, on the Web last night. When I called the number listed, an upbeat, French-accented voice on the answering machine said it would not take any messages but that tours left every night except Thursday at eight, rain or shine, from the haunted hotel at the corner of Steiner and Pine. I hung up, frustrated. I didn’t want a ghost tour; I just wanted to talk with the guy.

After returning a few professional calls, I rang the San Francisco Ghost Society. They told me they record evidence of paranormal phenomena, but don’t perform cleansings. For that, they referred me back to Galopin.

I sat in my car, frustrated. All these phone calls and I hadn’t really gotten anywhere. What was I doing? If Katenka and Jim didn’t want me to finish the job, perhaps I should just let it go. The haunting was not my concern if I was no longer renovating the historic house. I had other jobs I could be working on, projects that were starting up that I could push. Running a construction company meant scheduling—and rescheduling—jobs according to permits, architectural drawings, environmental reports, and the availabilities of subcontractors. It was a juggling act, and the general contractor who let one or two items spin out of control found herself booed offstage and out of work. I’d proven very good at keeping my employees working and Turner Construction in the black, and at transforming crumbling, abused structures like Cheshire House into showcases of craftsmanship.

On the other hand . . . even if I figured Katenka and Jim could hold their own against the ghosts, could I abandon baby Quinn to the strange happenings? If a ghost had actually murdered Emile Blunt, and I was one of the few people around who might be able to communicate with the angry spirits, could I live with myself if I just walked away?

And finally, what if my father really was named a suspect? After all, he had found the body . . . and I myself had been overheard threatening to run the old man down. I cringed, once more, at the memory.

My phone rang, interrupting my thoughts. It was the foreman on the Vallejo Street job, the house where I had encountered my very first ghost.

Good. Work I could handle. And I knew for a fact the ghost haunting the Vallejo Street house wasn’t out to hurt anybody.

 

My first ghostly project was a fine Beaux Arts mansion, one of a pair built by a man made wealthy during the gold rush. It featured broad, low arches and monolithic rather than fanciful details. In marked contrast to Cheshire House, the only frilly trimmings were the wrought-iron balconies on the front of the building, which had been reworked by a brilliant metal artist who based the design on a Greek-inspired laurel-wreath frieze we copied from one of the carved fireplace mantels.

My friend Matt, who was supposed to be “flipping” this house, recently had been offered his own reality show, to document the life of a washed-up musician who was still good-looking and slightly outrageous, and who surrounded himself with good-looking, outrageous friends. With the exception of me, of course. I was happy for Matt at this unexpected turn of events, but it was annoying to have to deal with cameras and sound people every time I wanted to talk with him.

“Mel! Great to see you, pet!” exclaimed Matt in his British accent. Matt gushed like Old Faithful at the best of times; now, with the camera documenting his every move, he was eternally pumped up. “Graham and I were just discussing the range of paints that aren’t off-gassing, which if you ask me sounds a little like what happens after a midnight trip to the taco truck, am I right?”

I smiled. An old joke, but we were on camera, after all.

“Great news—I might not try to flip this house after all,” said Matt. “With the show and all, I might be able to buy out the investors and keep the place.”

“Matt, that’s great,” I said, wondering how he could stand to live in a house where a friend had been fatally injured. On the other hand, it was an incredible home, a grande dame in the best sense of the word. And the renovations had been so extensive that very little had remained of the original walls, floors, and ceiling where Kenneth Kostow’s messy death had occurred.

Still . . . another ghost lingered in this home. I felt his presence from time to time, smelled the smoke from his pipe, heard the rattling of his newspaper. But he was a forlorn, sad ghost, not at all like the more powerful sensations I felt in Cheshire House. This ghost wouldn’t bother anyone. And in any case, Matt was not the most astute fellow when it came to the subtle sensations around him, living or not.

I met with the faux finishers and the painters, making sure all the details were coming along well. This was the fun stage, when months of hard work, scheduling and rescheduling, and juggling came together in the finishing touches. The exterior had been done in integral color plaster, which meant never having to paint—though you had to be okay with the plaster discoloring here and there due to water runoff, and, in earthquake country, the occasional crack. But in general the final result was a mellow, multihued finish reminiscent of historic homes.

Each room here had a different theme, but they were united by complementary colors. In Cheshire House they would all be variations of Victoriana, since the designs of those houses dictated the internal design. But Matt’s house was more open, a conglomeration of styles. While I was there I spoke to the faux finishers about coming by Cheshire House with some books and sample portfolios of classic Queen Anne designs. The head finisher, Dallas Finkel, was a hardheaded businessman who brought the work in on time and up to my standards. All his artists were women, because according to Dallas only women could be trusted not to make a mess and to get the job done. I tried not to think in gender terms, but I had to agree with Dallas on this one. The construction site was dominated by testosterone up until the finishing artistic touches, which were often completed by women.