Murder on the House: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (Haunted Home Repair Mystery) (11 page)

“Maybe you should wait outside for this part,” I told Daniel. “I’ll stay with Caleb.”

Daniel blew out a breath and seemed like he was about to lose it. He was looking anywhere but at his son.

“It’s cool, Dad,” said Caleb. “Mel’ll stay with me.”

“I’ll be right outside,” Daniel said, and fled.

As soon as his father left, Caleb whispered to me, “Mel, listen. I think it might have been a ghost.”

“What ghost?”

Caleb’s reaction to my ability to see spirits had been patient yet patronizing, rather like Stan’s. They weren’t overtly hostile to the idea like my father, but neither were they what one might call supportive, much less believers.

“Um, Dad and Valerie are having some work done at the house, or whatever? Like, the kitchen, and now the bathroom that’s attached to their bedroom . . .”

“The master bath?” Back when I was married to Daniel and lived in that house, I had gutted that bath and painstakingly replaced all its fixtures and finishes with vintage items.

“Yeah. Anyway, there’s been some stuff, like, happening?” He grimaced as the doctor continued to work on the wound.

“What kinds of things? Can you be specific?”

“Weird stuff, like things left out of place, or found scattered around, stuff going wrong . . . and all the plumbing keeps backing up. Valerie ruined her favorite pair of shoes. Ah, man, she was
so
pissed.”

Call me petty, but the visual of Valerie standing in her own toilet water in her Manolo Blahniks brought a little sunshine into my heart. Caleb and I shared a wicked smile until he winced again at the stitches, and I remembered that he could have been seriously hurt.

“So this morning, I got up early for basketball practice. I was going downstairs and I thought I heard something, so I looked up, but then something fell from the top of the landing.”

“What was it?”

“A broken toilet thingee. You know, the part that, like, goes on the back?”

“Sorry, little man, we’re going to have to go with the knife-in-the-bar story. A toilet tank lid just isn’t going to cut it with the ladies,” I said. “Pardon the pun.”

Caleb smiled and nodded. “Right? I was thinking that myself. But listen, do you think it could, like, really be a ghost? Valerie thinks so. . . .”

“Have you mentioned this to your dad?”

“I wanted to talk to you first to see if you’d come over and check it out. You don’t have to—I mean, I know Valerie’s there, and you and Dad, well, you’re like, whatever. When I think about it . . . I mean, you don’t have any actual real connection. You don’t have to if you don’t want.”

I tried to ignore the pang deep in my gut.
You don’t have any real connection.
True. An ex-stepmother might have only a tenuous connection, at best, to her stepson. But I had lived with Caleb from ages five to twelve and without exactly meaning to, I wound up doing the mom thing: Besides sword fighting, I kissed a hundred boo-boos and packed a thousand lunches and stayed awake through too many interminable school plays. I left his father in high dudgeon and without a second thought, but Caleb was a different matter altogether.

I would lay my life down for the boy without a moment’s hesitation. That gave me sort-of-Mom status, right?

“Sixteen stitches,” said the doctor, as she finished up. She patted Caleb awkwardly on the shoulder as the nurse stepped in and started dressing the wound. “Good job.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said to Caleb. “I’ll talk to your dad about it.”

“’Kay,” Caleb grunted in that teenage way that made it hard to believe there was a keen mind behind the grunting. “Mom’s already freaking out, so I didn’t want to tell her.”

“She’ll be back tomorrow?”

He nodded. “But she’s putting together a big conference, so she’s hecka busy. I told her not to worry, it’s totally not a big deal.”

As the bandage grew larger, I thought she might have a different response when she saw the actual damage. I knew I would.

I stepped outside and found Daniel on his phone in the waiting room.

“Caleb thinks there might be something suspicious about what happened,” I said after he hung up.

Daniel nodded, his lips pressed together in annoyance. “Let me guess: Valerie’s got him convinced it’s a ghost.”

“I take it you don’t agree?”

Daniel gave me the look I remembered too well: disbelief mixed with downright disgust, topped by a patronizing smirk.

“I’m not saying she’s right,” I said, “but why not let me snoop around the construction a little? I could let you know what I think of the job they’re doing. You know I’d be able to see things you can’t. And if Caleb’s safety is at stake . . .”

“Caleb’s perfectly safe.”

“Which is why we’re in the emergency room?”

He jangled his keys in his pocket, as if to imply he had places to be, people to see. About my height, he appeared taller with his sense of authority and the demeanor of a university professor who could teach you a thing or two. And he could. Of all the things I could fault Daniel with, his smarts weren’t one of them. He was one of the most intelligent men I knew, able to make logical leaps and disparate connections in a way that never ceased to fascinate me, even in the deepest despair of our divorce. The fact that those smarts didn’t translate into making good choices about his personal life, much less his personal development . . . well, that was a different story altogether.

Daniel had been dashing when I’d married him. But his dark hair had gone from sophisticated gray at the temples to an all-over salt, and was thinning. In addition, he’d cut it very short and shaved his trim beard, so that now he appeared jowly and middle-aged. Which he was. He was twelve years my senior, and I was pushing forty.

“All right,” Daniel said finally. “Actually, I think we could use your help. Valerie . . . well, she might be out of her depth on this one.”

“Who’s the general on the remodel?”

“Valerie’s overseeing everything.”

“
Valerie?
Valerie’s directing all the subcontractors and managing her own project? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

I saw by the look on Daniel’s face that I’d overstepped.

“I meant to say it would be difficult for any homeowner,” I lied. We both knew what I
really
meant to say was, how could you leave
Valerie
in charge? But this was one situation where diplomacy really was the best policy. “I was practically raised on a construction site, but even
I
had a lot to learn. It’s a tough gig.”

Daniel nodded, accepting my explanation at face value. “It really has been tough. I’d appreciate it if you’d take a look, thank you. I’ll talk to Valerie and figure out a good time.”

“How about I swing by tomorrow, noonish,” I said, just to be in charge. “My schedule’s pretty full.”

He nodded curtly, and we both went back in to be with Caleb.

* * *

I put Dog on a leash and took him for a short walk while I made some phone calls: to let Dad know Caleb was okay; to reassure Caleb’s mother; and while I was on the phone, I returned a call to a stained-glass artist who was restoring the intricate windows of a Queen Anne Victorian called Cheshire House, over on Union Street. That was where I’d met Inspector Crawford, not even a month ago, at the site of yet another murder.

Dog had regained his naturally happy disposition and wagged his tail as he sniffed at a sad patch of weeds, lifted his leg on a fireplug, and then tried to eat some unidentifiable bit of ickiness he found on the sidewalk.

I yanked him away and headed back to the car, feeling at loose ends. It was Sunday, so my crews weren’t working, but it wouldn’t hurt to get a jump on things for Monday by checking on the progress over at my friend Matt’s house, which was still undergoing a protracted renovation. Or . . . My mind wandered back to last night.

What was going on with the Bernini house? Had the police contacted the Propaks, and were they considered suspects? They might have wanted Mrs. Bernini out of the house so they could step up progress on the B&B, it’s true, but she was allowing them to line up contractors and do all the preliminary work, so it wasn’t as though she was standing in their way . . . at least not at this point.

And what about Josh Avery? His disappearance seemed very odd. But what possible motive could he have to harm Mrs. Bernini? Did he have a prior relationship to her? And if so, wouldn’t there be a better way to off the pour soul? Why risk it with us around as witnesses—unless he wanted us there as suspects, or to confuse matters? But besides all of that, there couldn’t have been enough time between when Josh disappeared and when we found Mrs. Bernini for him to have killed her, could there? Unless he had an accomplice, someone who had set up a supposed haunting with the dolls and marbles while we were in the kitchen, then killed Mrs. Bernini while we were fleeing, distracted by the haunting. That seemed pretty convoluted to my mind.

Or could it have been a crime of opportunity? Had Mrs. Bernini been wandering her garden at night, just enjoying the evening . . . and what? Someone jumped the fence and thought she was carrying a wad of cash under her shawl? Besides, she’d mentioned she strolled in the gardens every night, and had never run into trouble.

And what about the woman who came forward at the scene, saying she was supposed to inherit the house? That was bizarre. I wondered what Inspector Crawford had found out, and whether she would share any information with me. Or whether she might consider letting me back in the house to see if I could speak to the ghosts.

Maybe Anabelle could tell me what had happened, who had killed Mrs. Bernini.

Or could I find a way to communicate with Mrs. Bernini’s spirit? She hadn’t responded to me at all when I saw her spirit in the garden, but I once communicated with a newly minted ghost. Then again, I’d had a close interaction with him just before he died. I wished I knew more about how this sort of thing worked, but in all the research I’d done, I hadn’t found a lot of agreement. I guess that’s one reason the field of supernatural research was considered less than scientific. Still, it couldn’t hurt to try.

I put Dog back in the car and started driving.

The phone rang. I checked the readout and my heart sped up.

Graham.

I switched to the hands-free Bluetooth. “Hello?”

“How are you?” he asked.

“Oh, fine. Fine.”

He chuckled. “‘Fine’? I take it Caleb’s okay?”

“Yes, he’ll have a scar, but we’re coming up with a good story so he can get all the girls.”

“I would expect nothing less. And you’re okay? Not thrown by your night of murder and mayhem?”

“Let me guess: My dad called you?”

“Just hung up. He doesn’t like the idea of you hanging out with your ex-husband, especially after the night you just had. You sure you’re all right?”

“I’m not ‘hanging out’ with Daniel. And as for last night, nothing happened to
me
. It’s not even as though we witnessed anything. . . . It was just that the woman who owned the house, Mrs. Bernini, went missing, and then we found . . .” There was a little hitch in my voice. I swallowed, hard. “. . . found her in the garden, in the . . . uh . . . well.”

I thought I heard him swearing. “And you weren’t threatened?”

“We had no idea what was happening. That’s the part I can’t get over, actually. If only we could have helped her . . .”

“If you’d tried, you might have been hurt yourself,” he said, his voice gruff. When he spoke again, he sounded more upbeat, almost teasing. “Your father also said something about you bringing home another man.”

“It wasn’t another man. It was Stephen.”

“And you’re saying Stephen’s not a man?”

“Stephen’s my gay best friend.”

“That would be a comfort except for the fact that he’s not gay.” I heard Graham chuckling again, and realized I was grinning like a fool, myself. I forgot what we were talking about for a moment, just enjoying the sound of his voice, having him on the other end of the line.

“Where are you now?” he asked.

“Near UCSF Medical Center, on Parnassus near Irving.”

“How about I meet you at the Mucky Duck? We could have a beer, and it looks like the rain has passed. . . . Maybe take a walk on the beach?”

“A walk on the beach? Seriously? Sounds like a personals ad.”

“That’s why I suggested it. I thought we could check out all those folks from the ads who claim to love romantic walks on the beach. I’m sure they’ll all be there.”

“I, um, just got up,” I said, stalling. A glance in the rearview mirror confirmed my worst fears: Caleb had been right to laugh. And despite Luz’s frequent admonitions that grown-up women carry around makeup bags with them for such instances as these, I had nothing with me. Not even a comb.

I heard a strange noise and looked over at Dog, who was back in the footwell, rocking slightly and grunting, as though ready to hurl. Poor pooch.

Dog and I were quite the glamorous pair. I blew out a frustrated breath. I felt sure this sort of thing wouldn’t happen if I were living in Paris.

“Okay,” said Graham, “how about I take you to a place that serves Sunday brunch late?”

“I don’t like breakfast.”

“Lunch, then.”

“I . . .”

“Mel, if you’d rather not get together, just say so. But I’d like to see you, and knowing you, if no one intervenes, you’ll check on your jobs while you’re in the city.”

“I don’t suppose . . . I mean, you wouldn’t be interested in going over to the Bernini house with me, would you?”

“The haunted house you ran screaming into the night to escape? The one where a little old lady was killed last night?”

“That would be the one.”

“You’re not going back there.”

“I didn’t realize you were my boss.” Graham might be adorable, but I’m not great at taking orders.

“It’s not safe.”

There was a long pause. Graham and I had been dancing around this romance thing, and this ghost thing, for a bit. The romance had begun with a few toe-curling kisses right before Christmas, but then the craziness of the holidays hit, relatives visited . . . and our nascent affair was put on hold, enticing but not quite attainable; a glittery, leftover present still under the tree.