Home For the Haunting: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (14 page)

I took a step toward the parlor, but Annette was headed for the dining room.

I looked over at her and noticed she was clearly uncomfortable but had a determined set to her face.

Slowly, she turned and flashed her beam toward the kitchen, the light illuminating harvest gold linoleum tiles with a floral design on them. I pointed my beam that way as well, then stood staring.

“You see something?” she asked.

I did. I saw wallpaper that was identical to the paper I had helped my mother put up in one of the houses they renovated, the first one I remember trying to take part in, when I was just a child. A pattern popular in the early eighties. A blue background with little geese on it in bonnets, ribbons around their necks.

“That wallpaper . . . I remember that pattern.”

Annette rolled her eyes, thinking I was joking or at the very least focusing on unimportant details. But for some reason, the sight of that and the sudden memory of spending time with my mother sent my mind reeling.

And then I glanced into the reflection on the window and saw a woman.

The image was bluish and faded, like the home movies Hugh had shown me.

It was the mother of the family, Jean Lawrence. On the floor, pushing herself up on one arm, the other reaching up to me . . .

“Sidney . . . ,”
came the fierce whisper, before it rose to a scream: “No . . . Sidney!”

I whirled around to look at the floor directly. Nothing.

Annette watched me with hawk eyes.

My heart pounded; my head pounded. I blew out a breath, shook my head, and then nodded.

“The mother, Jean, was killed here, right?”

She nodded.

Something moved past the passage in the corner of my eye. Great. The first time I’d seen a ghost, I could see it only in my peripheral vision, or occasionally in a mirror or other reflective surface. It drove me nuts. As though seeing spirits weren’t crazy enough already, a person had to see them and yet
not
see them, constantly wondering whether there was really anything there.

But my last spectral encounter was different—I saw the ghost as if she were as real as Annette. I had thought maybe my abilities were getting stronger, but Olivier had suggested that in that instance, the spirit’s visibility had more to do with the ghost’s wanting to be seen or having the power to manifest, rather than with my talents.

I paused and tried to get a handle on myself. Being resolute and centered was among the most important aspects of encountering spirits. They are people, just as we are, and might be confused or scared, angry or threatening, just as they might have been when they were alive, but even more so now that they were in limbo. Having a calm, serene countenance and reaction helped calm them down as well, making the entire interaction much more pleasant.

“You see something?” Annette asked, a slight frown on her otherwise smooth forehead, but at least she was sparing me the raised eyebrow. “The EMF reader is going crazy.”

“Maybe,” I said, hesitating. Not only did I not want to freak her out, I didn’t want to muck up whatever I saw with preconceived notions. I wanted to remain open to whatever came. Like the position and mode of death. It made more sense for me to see, first, and check notes later to see how close I was.

Carefully skirting the area where I had seen the specter, I started up the stairs. An old runner, dirty and matted in spots, was plush mauve with a forest green edging. The fifth stair up squeaked loudly in protest as I stepped on it.

Annette practically jumped out of her skin.

“Just a squeaky tread,” I said. “I can fix that, no problem.”

“We’re not here to renovate the place, but to find . . . ghosts. Or insight into the recent murder, at least.”

“I know that,” I said with a shrug, “Just saying.”

She was still looking over her shoulder, staying as close behind me as decency would allow. She held the EMF reader out like a gun in her left hand, and I noticed her right hovering over the butt of the gun in her waistband.

“Hate to tell you, Inspector, but guns don’t do much against ghosts.”

“I’m not quite sure what I’m afraid of yet. Ghosts or people. And in my experience, guns do pretty well against people.”

She had me there.

Upstairs, we peeked into the bedrooms, each more heartbreaking than the next. A teenage girl’s room with a grass green printed bedcover, wallpaper, stuffed animals, trophies, and school albums. A boy’s room all in shades of blue, a border of sailboats just under the crown molding. A large casement window led out of a dormer and onto the roof.

Was this the window Linda had led Hugh through on that night? I looked out and imagined what it must have been like to crawl out, escaping one’s father in the middle of the night.

I saw occasional flickers and flashes, but not like what I’d seen below with Jean.

To make conversation, I asked Annette about what the children—and others—had insinuated: this empty house was sometimes used as a stage for nefarious activity.

“So you’ve said that empty houses like this, even in a nice neighborhood, might be used for drug drops? How does that work?” I asked.

“They just need a safe place to stash stuff temporarily, where it won’t be found or disturbed. Happens all over the place.”

“This isn’t exactly a fancy neighborhood, but I’m surprised.”

“Don’t be. The foreclosure crisis has created a whole new crop of drop locations, even in the suburbs. The other day a friend of mine found a grow house in Blackhawk, of all places.”

“Seriously?” Blackhawk was a wildly self-conscious, expensive, elite gated community on the other side of the East Bay Hills. “Blackhawk. Huh. Who knew?”

“You should hear some of my stories. They’d melt your mind.”

I stopped my inspection of the bathroom and studied her.

“What?”

“Your vision of the world must be a little . . . twisted.”

She appeared to ponder that for a moment, sticking her chin out slightly. “I guess I’ll take that. What about
you
? You keep trying to fix up houses and end up finding corpses instead. That’s got to do wonders for your worldview.”

“I never really thought about it that way.”

“I’m just saying, that can’t add a lot to your mental health.”

“Touché.”

Bam bam bam . . . bam!

We both straightened, and our eyes met.

“Hugh would just walk in, right? We didn’t lock it, did we?”

I shook my head.

“Let’s . . . ignore it for now,” continued Annette. “Probably those kids you were talking about.”

“Okay. But I think we should go back down, anyway, since that’s where the murders occurred.”

The very moment I turned to go down the stairs, the overhead light went out.

An apparition appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

Was that Sidney himself? Holding out a gun?

But no, it wasn’t a gun, but a flashlight. Simone came up to join him and I realized it wasn’t Sidney at all; it was Hugh. Alive and breathing.

“What is it?” he said. “Do you see something?”

“Sorry,” I said, shaking it off as we descended the stairs. “For a second, I thought I was looking at your father’s ghost.”

He nodded gravely.

“He gets that a lot,” said Simone. “Linda thought the same thing when she was here that last . . . well, the last time we were here.” She sighed and explained: “Hugh sent Linda to one of the best rehab clinics in California, but her counselor said her addiction was her way of trying to deal with past trauma. We were getting her therapy, trying to address the root cause, but not surprisingly, she didn’t want to think about that night. We were hoping being in the house would help Linda to face the past, but when she saw Hugh standing here like this, she thought it was that night all over again. It was like PTSD. She panicked.”

“Do you think that’s what happened?” Hugh asked, looking into his wife’s face so intensely, it was as though he knew the truth was there somewhere, if only he could find it.

“I think Linda was a disturbed woman,” Simone said, placing her hand on his shoulder and returning his gaze. “You did everything you could for her, Hugh. You and Ray both. No one could have done more. This is all because of your father’s actions, no one else’s. Remember what the therapist said?”

Hugh nodded and took a deep breath, as though gathering his thoughts.

It was oddly fascinating to watch these two. Simone seemed to play the role of mother as much as mate, but they certainly seemed to care deeply for each other in a relationship that appeared beyond the norm. I supposed someone like Hugh would require a special kind of love. In fact, it was hard to imagine him romancing anyone, taking the time to court or even respond to another person’s advances.

But then, as was pointed out to me so often, I was no expert in the field of romance.

Our foursome continued on the tour of the house, and Simone and Hugh suggested upgrades and renovations they’d like to see. By and large, the ghosts were still. I caught glimpses of movement in my peripheral vision, a sense of yearning, but no one spoke to me. Not that I really expected them to. In my experience, ghosts were pretty fickle about when they decided to make contact. Usually, they waited until particularly inopportune times.

Or maybe there were simply too many people here. If I was truly brave, I thought, I would come back all alone.

Nope
. Not that brave.

Simone kept pulling swatches and samples out of her bag; I had no idea where she had managed to dig up such relics. There was a lot of blue with ducks, little diamonds, mauve and green and ferns. When she wasn’t doing that, she was fiddling with the control panels in each room and synching them with her handheld electronic devices.

“Uh-huh, looking good . . .” She had a habit of talking to herself that I personally would find very difficult to live with. I talked to myself from time to time, sure, but usually I was actually talking to ghosts that no one else could see, so that didn’t really count. But then I noticed her husband whispering something under his breath while stroking dusty curtains. I guess I cut him more slack because I assumed he was writing award-winning poetry in his mind, whereas for all I knew, he was crafting his grocery list.

Bam bam bam . . . Bam!

Then came more noises. And a thumping.

Annette swore under her breath. “Dammit, those kids are getting on my nerves.”

“At least they knock,” said Hugh. “Kids these days just walk in. A person’s house is his castle; people should knock. Don’t you think?”

He gazed at me for a long moment, until I realized that this wasn’t a rhetorical question.

“Sure I do,” I said. “I’m all for knocking.”

“Wait,” said Annette. “Do y’all hear that?”

Hugh looked vague and distracted, as per usual. Simone shrugged and shook her head. Clearly, this wasn’t something she’d dealt with before.

Faint voices, as though whispering. Another thump. And . . . the smell of smoke.

Okay . . . this just got interesting.

As we turned down the little hallway behind the kitchen, we realized the sounds and the smells were emanating from the basement.

Carefully, we crept down the small staircase off the kitchen to the lower level: me first, then Annette, with Hugh and Simone bringing up the rear. As in Monty’s house, the lower floor wasn’t a basement per se, in that it was above ground at the lower backyard level.

At the bottom of the stairs was a closed door. There was light showing through the cracks. And then more noises . . . was that
chanting
?

Annette glanced at me as though I had a clue. Unfortunately, though she was a smart woman, she was off base in this one.

I made an exaggerated “no idea” shrug, hands palm-up.

She looked impatient, and I wondered whether she was considering turning me in for a more useful ghost buster on her next otherworldly case.

Annette held her gun up and at the ready. She put her back against the wall on one side of the door, and I mimicked her on the other, feeling like I was enacting every cop show I’d ever seen on TV.

Behind us, Simone and Hugh clutched each other. She was as tall as he, and held his head to her shoulder, patting him as though comforting a child.

Annette looked at me and telegraphed her intent, mouthing “on three” and holding up three fingers. She counted down:
One, two . . . three.

Then she flung the door open.

A
t least ten teenagers sat in a circle on the floor. Dressed to a one in black, with heavy pale makeup and black eyeliner. There were candles everywhere, and a pentagram had been drawn in chalk in the center of a circle of salt. A Ouija board sat in front of them.

For a couple of seconds everyone froze, and you could hear a pin drop.

A bunch of teenagers were a lot less scary than encountering Sidney Lawrence’s murderous ghost. Especially with an SFPD inspector at my side, with firepower.

“Seriously?” I said. “A Ouija board?”

But then Annette holstered her gun. As soon as she did, the kids bolted, scattering like rats on a sinking ship.

“Stop! Police!”
ordered Annette, to no effect. They tore out the basement door, and one or two jumped through an open window.

One young woman, with hair dyed a sooty black, was shoved to the floor by one of her less-than-gentlemanly companions in his quest for escape. Before she could get back up, I put my boot-clad foot, gently but firmly, right between her shoulder blades. Meanwhile, Annette ran outside after the little miscreants.

“I hate it when my criminal cronies leave me behind for the police while they run away, don’t you?” I asked my prisoner.

The young woman under my boot wriggled and swore a blue streak. I was unfazed. When it came to grumpy teens, like cantankerous old men, I wasn’t easily moved.

Simone and Hugh lingered in the doorway, eyes wide and mouths agape. Annette came back a few moments later, winded and empty-handed.

“I caught one,” I said proudly. “She’s a wriggler.”

Annette locked eyes with me, apparently questioning my methods of prisoner detainment. I shrugged and lifted my foot.

The girl stood, dusting dirt from her black lace top and ripped black skirt. Black boots and leather cuffs completed the look. I couldn’t see the point in making sure the black was dust free, though; given the overall gestalt of the outfit, I thought the dirt fit in rather well. I told her so.

Her response was “Screw you.”

“What is all this?” I asked. “What were you kids doing here? Don’t you know breaking and entering is against the law?”

“I thought
I
would be the one to ask the questions,” Annette interrupted, though her tone was decidedly amused. “What with me having the police badge and all.”

“Be my guest.” I stood back and made a sweeping gesture, like I was being gracious, allowing her to ask the questions of the nonghosts.

“Name,” demanded Annette.

“Raven.”

Of course,
I thought
.

“
Real
name.”

The girl was cowed by Annette’s laser cop eyes.

“Rhonda. Rhonda Andersen.”

“ID?”

She shook her head.

“Address.”

The girl gave her an address not far from there.

“What do you know about this place?”

“Some guy murdered his family here a long time ago.”

I glanced over at Hugh, but his expression was as flat as always.

“And?”

“And, like, the anniversary’s totally coming up and . . . they say the ghosts will be here, and we could, like, make contact with them.”

“And did you?”

The girl looked at Annette, clearly stunned that this cop wasn’t challenging the idea of talking to ghosts.

“Um . . . no.”

“You’re sure?”

I wondered about mixing the Ouija board with adolescent hormones. Olivier had once told me it was a recipe for poltergeist activity. But what I’d seen earlier was no poltergeist.

“Have you been here before?”

She shrugged. “A coupla times. We don’t really hurt anything . . .”

Except for leaving trash, and the knowledge that people were conducting creepy séances in your basement,
I thought. Then again, I was considering holding a creepy séance that Friday.

“The owners might have a thing or two to say about that.” I looked back, but Hugh and Simone were nowhere to be seen.

“It’s abandoned,” said Raven. “There are no owners. Just the . . . ghosts.”

“Have you ever seen this person?”

Annette brought out a photo of Linda Lawrence, clearly taken in better days.

Rhonda-Raven nodded. “She was here a few days ago.”

“She was? Did you talk with her?”

“She chased us out, just like you. She was kind of, like, weird.”

“In what way?”

“It was sort of, like, at first we thought she was a ghost, but then we realized that she couldn’t even like, walk through walls? But then she started throwing things at us and telling us that her family had died here and that it was a shrine, not, like, a trailer park.” I heard a gasp from Hugh from behind us, but we all ignored it.

Raven continued. “I’m not sure where the trailer park thing came in. Was she calling us trailer trash?”

Annette shrugged. “Then what happened?”

“Nothing, really. We all ran away, just like tonight. Except that time, no one totally
stood
on me.” She cast a glare in my direction.

“If I had
stood
on you, you wouldn’t be breathing right now.” I had at least fifty pounds on the girl. “I showed a great deal of restraint.”

Raven twisted her mouth and shrugged.

“So that was it?” Annette clarified. “You didn’t see anyone else, and Linda didn’t say anything else?”

“Nah. But I guess she was the lucky one, right? She was the girl who jumped out the window.”

Yes. Linda was the lucky one.

•   •   •

“You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?” demanded Annette as we settled into a booth at a nearby café that served wine and beer—I had wine, she had beer.

Annette had taken Raven home and talked to her parents while I waited outside. I could only imagine the rousing “come to Jesus” speech Annette delivered with the intent to intimidate and ensure cooperation.

“I don’t think they meant any real harm. Kids today—well, I think they’re dealing with a level of alienation and—”

“Yes, thank you, Oprah. I wasn’t looking for a bleeding-heart liberal explanation of why teenagers are little creeps.”

“Okaaaay,” I said, thinking that Inspector Crawford might need a vacation. Even considering her normally high-handed disposition, she seemed a little lacking in patience lately. “Then what were you asking?”

“I’m sorry. I apologize. Believe it or not, I actually
like
kids. But . . . I’m feeling a little on edge.” She leaned closer to me, her elbows on the table. “The truth is, I’m feeling a lot of pressure to close this case. The medical examiner is saying overdose, that there’s no sign of homicide. So it really should be open-and-shut. But my gut . . .” She shook her head and sipped her beer.

“There’s something about this scenario,” I said with a nod. “It’s all so wrenching. That Linda should have saved herself and her brother, but then die like this . . .”

Annette nodded. “Exactly. So okay, that’s exactly what I’m thinking: I can’t get past the thought that this death has to do with the double murder suicide, even though that crime was forever ago. So that’s what I want to know: What did you see in that house tonight?”

“It’s a little hard to explain. It’s not like I’m seeing something coherent and clear, at least not usually.” I thought back on a little girl ghost I had met who had seemed just as real as Annette sitting across the table. But in my limited experience, that little girl ghost was an anomaly. “I get images, flickers of things happening, a lot of time in reflective surfaces like mirrors or windows.”

“And at the Lawrence house? Did you see anything?”

I nodded. “I thought I saw the mother at the bottom of the stairs. Reaching up, as though begging for her life. Saying, ‘Please, Sidney.’”

“Anything else?”

I shook my head. “That was about the extent of it. I felt the presence of spirits but didn’t see or hear anything concrete.”

We sat in silence for a moment, both of us nursing our drinks and lost in our thoughts.

“But there was the banging,” I said. “I don’t think it was the kids. There’s something about the knocker on the front door, something that really bothers me.”

“The knocker?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it’s just symbolic of something. But . . . there’s something I should tell you. The day after we found Linda, I snooped a little.”

“Well, I’m flabbergasted. You? Snooping?”

“Funny. As I was saying, I felt compelled to look around a little in the shed where we found her.”

“And did you see something there?”

“Not really. I thought I felt something, though, and I heard whistling. And then I was shoved from behind and locked in, and the banging started, just like when you and I were in the house.
Bam, bam, bam . . . bam.
Always the same pattern.”

“Did you see who shoved you?”

I shook my head.

“Can ghosts shove?” asked Annette.

“I don’t think so. I was assuming someone real pushed me in and locked the door, but maybe the ghosts were trying to tell me something.”

“But we have no idea what.”

I shook my head. We sat for a long moment in silence, nursing our drinks and pondering the situation.

“I like you, Mel. But as far as this ghost whisperer thing goes? You’re a little lacking.”

“Tell me about it.”

•   •   •

On Wednesday, I was supposed to pick up Graham from the San Francisco airport at eleven a.m.

I woke up early, as usual, but under the watchful, curious eyes of Dog, I donned and then abandoned one outfit after another. One of the things I liked about my style was that usually I didn’t have to think much. I just pulled on the next dress in the closet.

Usually. But
usual
did not apply today, because of a
boy
. As was often the case when it came to romance, I immediately regressed to about age fourteen.

Graham was tall and handsome and inexplicably patient with me and my moods. He was also a darned good “green” contractor who was making something of a name for himself among the rich and environmentally aware. This meant he worked in Marin County a lot, the local haven for liberal folks who drove hybrids and ate organic and spent the equivalent of a small nation’s gross national product on making their homes as environmentally and technically advanced as possible.

My father loved Graham. Stan loved Graham. Caleb loved Graham. Graham was good to my dog and nice to old people. There wasn’t a darned thing wrong with him, which made me very nervous. I mean, really, this was San Francisco. You didn’t run across unmarried, un-gay, un-crazy men very often. One who was also attractive and employed?

A man like Graham was so rare Luz referred to him as my “San Francisco unicorn.”

There must be something seriously wrong with him. I just hadn’t figured it out yet.

And now Cookie was in town. And I had to figure out how to dress so I looked alluring but not like I got dressed up for him, which would give him the wrong impression. Didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard.

Speaking of trying too hard: If I parked and met him inside at security, it would seem overeager. But pulling up to the curb meant going up against the ever-vigilant airport curbside parking Nazis, who seemed to imagine anyone slowing to more than a rolling stop was trying to blow the place up. So if he wasn’t there when I drove by, I’d have to circle, which meant he’d come out and I wouldn’t be there, and then what would he think?

These were the thoughts that had kept me up half the night. I was pretty sure I was sublimating, fretting over details like these because I was actually worried about my relationship with Graham. Not that there
was
a relationship. Not really.

I finally decided on a short peacock blue shift with waves of spangles, but I drew a plain, thigh-length cream-colored sweater on over it. I did my regular makeup routine, but more carefully than usual, and took extra time putting up my hair in a carefully casual chignon.

Down in the kitchen, Cookie was chatting with Dad and Stan. All the years she lived here, she slept in until all hours. Now she was an early bird. I used to think it was because Dad and I were in construction that we awoke so early, but maybe it ran in the genes.

“Hey there, babe,” said Dad as he handed me a cup of coffee, eyes flicking over my outfit but saying nothing, as was his wont. He didn’t get my style, but he let it pass because I had threatened to walk away from the business if he didn’t stop making comments.

“Mornin’, gorgeous,” said Stan.

“Well, don’t you look pretty?” Cookie said. “You know, I like how you wear what you want, no matter that you carry a few extra pounds. I really admire that.”

My sister, queen of the backhanded compliment.

“I see you made it home from scary BART in one piece,” I said in a snide sibling voice. I really
was
fourteen.