Home For the Haunting: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (21 page)

“Are you kidding me? You’re accusing me of killing off that family? What, have you been talking to that detective, I forget his name? He always thought I knew more than I was telling about the Lawrence family. Hounded me for years; he was the one collared me for the real crime I committed. But he’s the one got me into the dog training program, so I can’t hold too much of a grudge against him.” He put his palm up to the glass, the phone in the crook of his neck, and pulled down the neck of his orange jumpsuit to show me his tattoo of a cross. “I swear on all that is holy, on my faith in Christ, that I never hurt one hair on the head of anyone in that family.”

“And you weren’t seeing Linda Lawrence?”

“She was fourteen. I was almost twenty.”

“I saw photos of her—she looked older than she was. Very pretty.”

“Real cute. And I already told you, I liked and respected her, and her family, too much to even think about that sort of thing. She might have . . . She had a little crush on me, and one time she came inside, and I gave her a soda, and she asked for some rum in it. I almost did it, almost gave in to the demons that told me to destroy her innocence, to take away her family’s happiness. But I didn’t. Even then I wasn’t that lost. I told her to get going and not to come back. She was crying when she left. I felt bad, but I would have felt a damned sight worse if I’d given in to my base temptations.”

I didn’t know what else to ask. I wasn’t even sure why I was here, in this grim place of desperation, other than the need to understand what could have happened, the strange neighborhood dynamics that seemed to exist back then and might have somehow contributed to what happened.

“I have nightmares sometimes,” Dave continued, his voice quiet. “It’s a pair of shoes, just the athletic shoes by themselves running down an alley, running away. No body, just the shoes.”

I waited, not sure what to say.

“It’s . . . I think it’s because, you know when people get shot, and the police are taking them away, they cover them with a blanket. But the shoes stick out the end. All’s you can see of them are these white athletic shoes. Gets so the mothers in the neighborhood, they recognize their kids’ shoes; that’s how they know their babies are dead.”

There were tears in his eyes. Either this guy was a truly great actor, or Etta was right: He had a good heart. He had made some terrible choices, but if he’d had a different start to life? He could have been so much more.

“Anyway, whenever I feel like, whatever, I’ll just give in and try to screw everybody over like everyone else in here, then I think about those shoes. If I can do any good from inside, I will.”

Z
ach and I walked silently side by side out of the meeting room, down the various corridors, and through the several lockdown doorways. When we were finally outside, the breeze was blowing in off the bay and the day was sunny and in the low sixties, one of those late winter days in the Bay Area that remind residents why they pay such a high price for the privilege of living here.

The snug little town of San Quentin seemed ludicrously charming after the grim reality of life inside the walls.

“Surreal,” said Zach, giving voice to my thoughts.

“You can say that again,” I said. Our boots crunched on the broken blacktop and gravel cul-de-sac, the dead end that was the prison, as we walked toward my car parked on the main street. “Do you believe him?”

“I’m no expert in this sort of thing,” he said. “But he came off as pretty believable. And perhaps more important, I can’t think why he would lie about it at this point.”

“There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

“True, but he’s already a lifer. He had a criminal history and special circumstances of drugs and guns . . . life without the possibility of parole already. I suppose he might not want to be nailed for a triple murder. . . . But, I don’t know; I guess I believed him. He admits to everything else so readily. And besides, didn’t Linda Lawrence tell the police her father killed her mother? Why would she lie about something like that?”

“I was thinking that maybe he and Linda were seeing each other, and she didn’t want to finger him for the crime. Or maybe she saw him that night but was so scared she didn’t say.”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“Possible, but it’s a stretch. Why would she blame it on her father, of all people? If she was lying to cover up the fact that she saw Dave, wouldn’t she make up some other intruder or, at the very least, say she didn’t see who did it? To finger your own father—that seems pretty extreme.”

“It was worth following up on the idea, though, junior detective. And I’ve never been to San Quentin. One more destination to cross off my list of places to see in the Bay Area.”

I smiled. “Also, you’re now on a first-name basis with Duct-Tape Dave. That’s got to be good for bragging rights at least, right?”

He grinned.

I clicked the remote to open the car doors but stood for a moment, just to savor the day. The bright sunshine warmed my back, seagulls called, and I basked in the knowledge that I was free to climb in the car and drive out of town, leaving the denizens of San Quentin in our dust—and relegated to the very back of our minds. Freedom felt like a sweet dream in comparison to the life that Dave—and all those other men condemned to San Quentin—were living.

“Where to next?” asked Zach.

“Have you ever been to a frat house?”

“Of course. I lived in a frat house when I was in a frat.”

“You were a frat boy? Where was this?”

He smiled. “Oh, the things we don’t know about each other. Let’s grab some lunch, and I’ll teach you the Greek alphabet.”

•   •   •

I went to University of California, Santa Cruz, which was founded in 1968, and in an attempt to be progressive and nontraditional, the school had done away with things like competitive sports and the Greek system. In fact, prior to my lunch with Zach, I had been so unfamiliar with fraternity/sorority life that when I was studying anthropology in graduate school and was invited to a Greek party, I showed up in a toga.

But the University of California, Berkeley, wore its Greekness with pride. Several fraternity and sorority houses sat on one of the main streets through campus. What had once been beautiful homes for prominent families now sported huge wooden Greek letters and the occasional ratty couch on the front porches or bras hanging in the trees. Despite myself, I’d always wanted to check them out.

“I thought you saw the body yourself,” Zach said. “Why question this guy about it?”

“I did, sort of. But to tell you the truth, I can’t remember much. Weird, huh? It’s like I couldn’t hear, either. My ears were roaring . . . I think I may have been in shock. But this frat boy discovered her, and I just thought maybe he could remember something, or it would jostle my own memory . . .”

“Besides, you want to check out the building.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

Parking is at a premium anywhere near the campus, so we were on our third loop around the block.

“I was thinking,” said Zach. “Maybe you could develop some spirit pals on the other side, the kind who might make sure we have a parking space wherever we go. That would be mighty helpful.”

“I’m not sure there are a lot of parking-valet ghosts. For that matter, it’s not like they’re just hanging around, waiting to do our bidding.”

He shrugged. “I’m just saying . . . it could be helpful. You could probably make money off the service.”

I urged Zach to take over looking for parking and meet me later.

“No way,” he said with a chuckle. “I can only imagine what havoc you might wreak unattended in a fraternity house.”

“What do you mean by that? I’ve got my steel-toed boots on; I can take care of myself.”

“I don’t doubt that when it comes to the boys. But knowing you, you’ll accidentally attract some devilish spirit of a long-dead frat boy, and by the time I show up you’ll already be embroiled in some kind of undead hazing. And you don’t even have your ghost-busting stuff with you.”

“Undead hazing?” I had to smile. “I didn’t think you were much of one for hyperbole.”

“If only it were hyperbole. Let’s just call it an educated guess. And look, here’s a parking space.”

So a few minutes later, accompanied by Zach, I climbed the wooden steps up to the porch of the frat.

“Hello,” I said to the young man who appeared to be asleep in a hammock. “Sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Jefferson Caster?”

“Yeah,” he said, not opening his eyes or moving a muscle. “Inside. Upstairs, first room on the right.”

Inside, the woodwork and original lines were still intact, demonstrating what a lovely house it must once have been. But at least it was being put to good use now, I supposed. Probably no one but the wealthiest would be able to live here if it weren’t owned by the fraternity, and that wasn’t fair. One of the problems with my profession: I wanted people to restore and live in beautiful historic buildings, but those people tended to be rich. And I didn’t want to deal with only the rich. Why couldn’t the rest of the world enjoy beauty as well?

“After you,” said Zach, disturbing my reverie and sweeping his arm toward the stair in a gentlemanly gesture. But I wasn’t fooled.

“Scared to go first?”

He grinned. I mounted the stairs, and he took up the rear.

The first door on the right was covered in posters and notes, many of which extolled the virtues of women’s bodies and the like. There was also a whiteboard with various messages, including a rather ingenious dirty limerick.

“Look at that,” said Zach. “This guy could give your poet laureate a run for his money. I didn’t think anything rhymed with orange.”

I tapped on the door. No response. Zach reached around me and banged caveman-style.

“’S open,” came the voice. Groggy, it came in that tone I was used to from my stepson and others who seemed to equate vagueness with coolness.

I opened to see a large room with several beds, all of which appeared disheveled as though the room had been tossed. But I wasn’t fooled; I’d been to college, and Greeks or no Greeks, I knew what the average dorm room looked like . . . especially the average guy’s dorm room.

Jefferson was lying on the bed, in approximately the same position and attitude as the guy on the porch. I reminded myself that these were UC Berkeley students, and Berkeley was one of the more competitive universities in California, or perhaps the world. Surely they were smarter than met the eye.

“Hey,” said Jefferson, bloodshot eyes meeting mine. “Wait, weren’t you the chick from the community service whatever?”

“Yup, that’s me. The chick from the community service whatever. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”

“What’s up?”

“Could you walk me through how you found the, um . . . ?”

“The body? Dude, that’s all I can think about. I mean, you don’t come across something like that every day—you know what I mean? It’s not like I’m a doctor or whatever.”

“You should go into the construction business,” murmured Zach. I elbowed him and heard a muffled
ooofh
.

“I’m, like, an architecture major,” Jefferson answered seriously, not getting Zach’s joke. “That’s sort of the construction business.”

“It is, sort of. So, about the body?”

“I mean, seriously? It makes a person think about, like, mortality or whatever. And the fact that we don’t really deal much with death in this society. It’s, like, all handled by doctors and whatever behind closed doors.”

“True,” I said, shifting my attitude. Like my stepson, Jefferson had a certain mien that distracted from his thoughtfulness. “I know it was hard for you. Do you think you could walk me through it?”

“I already told the police, like, a few times.”

“I know, but I’m looking into it for a friend, for her brother.”

“Dude, her brother? What a drag for him. Is it true he’s, like, a totally famous poet?”

I nodded. “Yep. Poet laureate. It’s a pretty big deal.”

“Yeah, I told it to my girlfriend—she’s a lit major—and she was all, like, that guy’s a genius. Poor guy.”

“Yes, he’s dealt with a lot. So when you found the body . . . ?”

“Okay, so like I said, I was just pushing in the door to the shed, but it wouldn’t really budge. And then, like, I saw hair, so I knew it wasn’t good.”

“Did you see anything else, anything that seemed out of place, anything like that?”

“She had, like, vomit on her. And what really bothered me—I don’t know why exactly, but what bothered me was she was all swollen.”

He was right; Linda had looked terrible. Not much of a surprise. After all, she was dead.

As though reading my mind, he went on: “I mean, she looked bad because she was dead; I get that. Kind of a weird gray color, not the normal color. But what I keep thinking is, dude, you kill yourself with painkillers because it’s like a sweet way to go, right? No pain, just ride right on out of this life. But dude, what rotten luck that you’d be allergic and instead of just having a nice trip to the beyond, you blow up and get all itchy and weird. You know? But if you don’t know your pills, I guess you wouldn’t know.”

But Linda
did
know her pills. She had been using one thing or another—Hugh had mentioned prescription drugs specifically—for years. Wouldn’t she have known she was allergic to opioids? Jefferson was right—it would be surprising for someone to knowingly dose herself with the sorts of drugs that would cause her such discomfort on the way out.

So did that prove that someone else was there, that someone gave her those pills? And whether she had taken them willingly or not we might never know . . . unless we could figure out who that person was, and he—or she—told us the truth.

“Oh, one other thing? One of the sorority girls told me she saw a lot of vials of pain pills in Monty’s bathroom. Maybe she got into those somehow?”

•   •   •

We picked Caleb up from school and headed to Monty’s house.

Caleb remained silent in the back seat. When we pulled up and Zach got out, Caleb leaned forward. “So, like, are you with Zach now?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I’m not ‘with’ anybody.”

“Oh. ’Cause I sort of, like, invited Graham—”

Just as he was saying it, I saw Graham emerge from his truck, glaring at Zach. For his part, Zach held his hands splayed out as though he was surrendering. They didn’t have the best history.

But no fistfights broke out, and everyone got to work. There was no Port o’ Potty or free food, but our little group seemed like a nice echo of the huge weekend crew. All of us here, working together for a good cause.

Kobe came wandering by shortly after we arrived. He was without his entourage today. I introduced him to everyone and asked if he wanted to join us, even without the enticement of cookies.

“C’mon, you could do a good deed. No one would have to know, and you’ll see how good it feels.”

Kobe shrugged. Caleb rolled his eyes. Apparently I no longer knew how to speak to the youth.

Graham handed him a hammer. “Come help me finish up this ramp. I’ll teach you how.”

To my surprise, Kobe followed him across the yard but then asked, “Why I wanna learn how to build a ramp?”

“Build a ramp today, build a skateboard park tomorrow.”

“Why I wanna build a skateboard park?”

Graham shrugged as he started to set out his tools.

“I guess a person who could build a skateboard park might be able to do a lot of things. Build things, start a business, be his own man. On the other hand, maybe you want to stay in school and study and go to law school or something like that; not everyone’s cut out to work with his hands. Or I guess you could join your buddies down the street and sell drugs.” Graham took some measurements and studied the drawings for a moment. Perhaps it was because he didn’t make eye contact with Kobe that the boy seemed rapt, waiting for him to finish. Finally, Graham continued. “Problem with that, as far as I can tell, is that most of the money goes to the guys in charge, while the kids out on the street get busted or shot. In fact, I guess a person might want to learn to build a wheelchair ramp in case he gets shot in the back sometime and needs to use it for the rest of his life.”