Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (24 page)

We signed off.

T
here was no one in the lobby when I arrived.

“Gabe?” I called, then realized that the man probably didn’t work here twenty-four/seven. Probably there were other people on staff—and most likely one of them had run to park another guest’s car.

Just then I sensed something out of the corner of my eye, an arm going up . . .

I whirled around, dropping the bag I was carrying and crouching slightly the way I’d seen Landon do.

But it was just Gabe in the small side corridor, doing some sort of Tai-Chi thing, apparently so focused he didn’t hear me come in or call for him.

I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to relax. My heart pounded, and my bones ached. I don’t do well with too little sleep.

“You okay?” Gabe asked, picking up the bag I dropped.

“Sure,” I croaked, exchanging my keys for the bag.

“S’okay,” he said with a shrug. “Everybody’s been on edge since the murder. Lot of blood.”

Annette walked in. Her intelligent eyes flickered from
my face to Gabe’s, then back to me. “Everything all right?”

“Sure,” said Gabe.

I nodded.

“Let’s go,” she said to me, and Gabe watched as we got in the elevator.

“I’m going to assume you checked him out?” I asked as the car sped silently up nine floors.

“Gabe? Of course. We have a pretty good idea of when Chantelle was killed, because you called and talked with her, and her brother arrived at two fifty. Gabe was on the security cam the whole time, except when he ran for cars. I think he’s just weird.”

“Is that a professional assessment?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Oh, hey, these are for you,” I said, handing her the bag.

“What is it?”

“Tamales. Be careful, a couple of them have pineapple in them. I tried to stop it from happening, but I was outmaneuvered.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I love tamales.”

“So tell me what you want me to look for in Chantelle’s apartment.”

“I’d rather not. I was hoping you could just see if you saw anything you found pertinent, first, so I don’t color your expectations.”

The elevator doors slid open and we headed down the hall to the right. Crime scene tape had once crisscrossed Chantelle’s door, but it now hung down in limp strips.

“That doesn’t bode well. . . .” Annette murmured, her hand hovering over the gun in her holster.

She gestured to me to stay where I was, out in the hall, then stood to the side of the door, her back to the wall. She leaned over to turn the knob and pushed open the door.

“SFPD,”
she called. “Police! Anybody here?”

Silence. Finally she peeked around the doorframe, then entered with caution, her gun drawn.

“Police!”
I heard her call again. I could hear a door opening and some muted thumping from inside the apartment. And then, silence.

“Annette?”

I peeked my head around the corner. When I didn’t see anything, I crept inside.

“I told you to wait outside,” Annette said from behind me.

I jumped. “I was . . . just making sure you were okay.”

Her mouth kicked up in a half smile. “I’m the one with the gun, remember?”

I nodded. “Did you find anything?”

“No, but it looks like the place has been gone through. I gotta say, I don’t think this building has what you’d call a crack security team. There’s a camera in the lobby, but the ones on the back door and the garage weren’t working when Chantelle was killed.”

The mess on the floor where Chantelle had lain had not yet been cleaned up. I had learned on my first murder scene that when a crime takes place on private property, it is up to the homeowners to bring in the crime scene cleanup folks. Sometimes they had to replace carpets and wallboard to get the bloodstains out. My early-morning coffee churned in my gut.

“What do you suppose they were looking for?” I asked.

“The same thing I was hoping you’d see,” she said. “Which is: I don’t know. I was hoping you might see something out of place, something that might serve as a clue.”

We spent the next several minutes looking around, but saw nothing suspicious, nothing that might tell me anything.

Neither did I see Chantelle. I had really been hoping she might appear, send a sign, throw a pie, anything.

And then my eyes alighted on a silver frame hanging over Chantelle’s desk. It held a sepia-toned photograph of a young woman holding an Italian half mask up to her face. A little Post-it note stuck to the frame had the name, Flora, along with a series of dates, written in purple ink.

“Every couple of weeks for the past few months,” Annette said, reading the dates on the note. “Mean anything to you?”

“I think it’s possible that Chantelle saw Flora Summerton’s ghost walking on California Street.”

“You wanna back up and explain that sentence to me?”

I gave Annette the rundown, as best I understood it, of Flora, the hitchhiking ghost. “I saw her myself the other day, and it occurred to me that her favorite stretch of California is awfully close to Chantelle’s apartment. If Chantelle was as gifted a psychic as everyone seems to think, it’s not hard to imagine she encountered Flora’s ghost.”

“So you think she finagled this job, somehow, to get into Crosswinds and figure out how to get Flora home? Seems rather convoluted, without a lot of payoff.”

“When you say it like that, it does sound a little far-fetched. But . . . maybe it all just came together, like it was meant to be.”

Annette looked worried. “I can handle the fact that we’re discussing ghosts as though we’re rational people, but you start throwing around phrases like ‘meant to be’ and I might have to strangle you.”

“Got it. Annette, would it be all right to take the photo back to Crosswinds? I have a theory that one of the things that has stirred up the ghost there is that people have been removing these photographs.”

She nodded. “Sure.”

“Thanks. Anyway, I don’t really see anything else—”

On a bureau was a bright batik scarf, full of Caribbean flowers. I picked it up, the silk soft in my hands.

“This looks familiar . . . ,” I said.

Annette nodded. “Egypt’s scarf, right? She has been high on the list of persons of interest.”

“You think she was here, looking for something?”

“Could well be. Egypt and Chantelle, after meeting at Crosswinds, formed an interesting kind of partnership.”

“Seriously? Chantelle certainly knew how to make friends and influence people. She must work fast; it wasn’t that long ago she did the reading on the house, was it?”

“Almost a month. A lot can happen in a month.”

“Do you think all this has something to do with allegations of embezzlement at Tempus?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Karla Buhner mentioned Stephanie was upset about it.”

Annette nodded slowly. “And on top of that, someone hacked into the Tempus computer system.”

“Was it Egypt?”

“Not sure. But apparently she’s quite the computer whiz. She wouldn’t give us access to her room, though, and because of her association with Chantelle and Chantelle’s connection to the Flynts and Tempus, Ltd., I was hoping to get a warrant to take a look at her computers. But . . .”

“But?”

“She was found down by Fisherman’s Wharf. Hit and run.”

“
What?
When?”

“Last night. She’s in serious condition, hasn’t been able to talk to us yet. Witnesses saw a black truck, no markings. Only a partial license plate. Not much to go on.”

I let that one sink in for a moment.

“Who brought the allegations of embezzlement at Tempus?”

“Official questions were raised during a routine audit, but there were whispers before that. It’s quite a moneymaking place, lots of cash changing hands, so it’s hard to pinpoint what’s going on. The Flynts have not exactly been cooperative. You’re right, by the way: that Stephanie is a piece of work.”

“You talked to her again?”

She nodded. “She tried spouting a bunch of Buddhist crap, but lost it when I pushed her.”

I had to smile. “Buddhist ‘crap’?”

“I’m just saying, if you walk the walk I respect you. If you use it as a shield to hide behind, it’s crap. Anyway, it turns out Andrew was having an affair with Chantelle. And get this: George and Chantelle appear to have had a brief encounter, as well. With what you overheard in the restroom, and what we found in her appointment book, they both fessed up.”

“Hard to imagine of old man Flynt, isn’t it? He always spoke of Chantelle so . . . dismissively.”

“She was a beautiful woman. And by all accounts, fascinating. I find those two factors go a long way when it comes to attraction.”

“I see why
they
were attracted to
her
, but it’s harder to understand from her vantage point.”

“Never underestimate the power of money.”

“She was blackmailing them?”

“No, actually. But she was using her influence—I’m gonna let you use your imagination as to what that entailed—to get in on the ground floor of Tempus, Ltd. Egypt was helping her to position herself as a spokesperson, and if everything went according to plan they stood to make some big bucks when the company went
public.” She tilted her head and looked at me. “You think Chantelle had any special knowledge about it doing well in the IPO?”

I smiled. “I think if her special sight worked that way, she wouldn’t have had to ask her brother for a loan.”

“Good point.”

“Speaking of that . . .” I had to ask. “What about Landon?”

“Chantelle’s brother? His taxi from the airport arrived about four minutes before you did. Gabe verified that, and it was backed up by the security tape of the lobby. There’s no way Landon could have let himself in here, killed Chantelle, and gotten cleaned up before you arrived. Not with this amount of blood splatter.”

My stomach lurched again. Not enough sleep and too much coffee and talk of blood splatter didn’t make for an easy morning. “Okay, good, if you’re sure.”

She tilted her head and gave me a questioning look. “You have some reason to suspect Landon Demetrius that you haven’t shared with me?”

I shrugged. “Not really. I mean, not as such.”

“That means nothing to me. Spill.”

“No, I mean it’s really nothing . . . just that I sort of like him.”

“Like him?”

“I mean”—I could feel my cheeks burn—“
like
him. I feel . . . attracted to him.”

“I thought you were with Graham?”

“I am. It’s not like I’ve
done
anything about it.”

She fixed me with one of her intense cop looks. “So you’re saying that because you sort of like this guy . . .”

“It made me wonder if he might be a murderer.”

She gave me the lifted eyebrow treatment.

“I’m just saying,” I tried to clarify. “It doesn’t seem totally out of the realm of possibility that I’d fall for the
main suspect. You know, given that it’s me we’re talking about.”

She seemed to be trying to stifle a smile. “You do give yourself a hard time, don’t you? Couldn’t it just be as simple as the fact that you like him, and maybe you and Graham need to have a talk?”

“I suppose,” I said, noticing a huge crystal ball sitting on an elaborate stand on the coffee table and wondering, if I stared long enough into its depths, would it hold any answers for me? “Though things are rarely simple when it comes to me and mine.”

We headed back down to the lobby. Annette told Gabe the apartment seemed to have been broken into and she was going to need to see the security tapes for the past several days. Annette was one of those people who never had to yell to get her point across. He blanched and apologized obsequiously, then ran for her car.

“To be fair, if he’s running in and out, parking and retrieving cars he can hardly watch over the desk all the time,” I said.

“Well, I’ll check the tapes and see if they tell us anything. Are you off to the beach, now?”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said, though truth to tell I hadn’t planned for it when I left the house, so I had no picnic or blanket or anything. Still. I could head out to Stinson Beach, talk a walk along the cliffs, soak up a little sun if it was warm enough. . . .

Gabe pulled up in Annette’s car, tires screeching.

“Have fun at the beach,” Annette said. “And stay away from ghosts of shipwrecks past.”

“You bet. Thanks, Annette.”

W
ho was I kidding? I wasn’t going to the beach. I headed to Crosswinds.

I still had the weathervane in my car, and my toolbox. On the one hand, I knew darned well I shouldn’t be traipsing around up on a roof by myself. It was against basic safety procedure.

But on the other hand, I wanted to put this weathervane back where it belonged. It was the first haunted thing I had ever heard at Crosswinds, and what Nancy had said made sense to me: The vane seemed, somehow, magical.

Maybe if I installed the antique and let it spin in the wind and squeak for real, Peregrine’s ghost would warm up to me a little and tell me something useful. Or perhaps Chantelle, if she was connected to Flora somehow, could manage to make contact with me here.

Chantelle seemed like a force of nature; I wished I could have gotten to know her when she was alive. Not to mention that had I been closer to the psychic, I would have had a much better idea of who could have committed such a heinous crime.

Egypt mentioned Chantelle had met with each of the Flynts separately when she did her reading at the house. What if one of them was embezzling from Tempus, Ltd., and Chantelle had intuited enough to figure it out? In the run-up to the IPO such allegations might have been devastating, right?

I didn’t really know enough about big business to understand how that would work. In Turner Construction the principals—Dad, Stan, and yours truly—drew our salaries from the company, and shared any profits on a quarterly basis. If one of us was embezzling funds it would reduce the others’ share of the profits, but it wouldn’t affect salaries unless the theft was extreme.

But surely the bookkeeping for a company like Tempus, Ltd. was not nearly as straightforward as Turner Construction. Probably someone could have been skimming off profits for a very long time without getting caught.

•   •   •

Just as I pulled up to Crosswinds, I realized I had forgotten to make contact with Landon after the memorial service yesterday.

I hesitated for a moment, then texted,
Sorry I wasn’t able to say hello in person yesterday. Hope you’re doing well. Guess what! Found the weathervane!

Then I let myself in through the front door, mounted the stairs, passed by Egypt’s still-locked door—saying a little prayer that she’d be okay—and climbed out onto the roof. I moved carefully, taking note of the varying slopes and treading carefully on the cantilevered eaves. Mounting the weathervane in its original position on the roof didn’t take much: I attached the Phillips head screwdriver bit to my power drill and used it to screw the bracing onto the peak of the roof, then attached the weathervane. It was a temporary job—I would ask Jeremy to build a new
metal brace to make sure the vane could withstand whatever storm might whip in off the bay.

But it would do for now. I watched happily as it spun around in the breeze. Looking out at the stunning view, I imagined Flora standing on the top of the turret, hearing the squeaking of the weathervane as she gazed out to the vast unknown of the world beyond the horizon.

And then I imagined her father, Peregrine, scowling at her and yelling at her to come back in. So he could take more pictures of her? I imagined him trailing around after her, like those really annoying people at parties so intent on having a photographic record of everything that they ruin the evening.

But this was back in the day, when taking a photo required a lot of equipment, and the subject had to keep absolutely still for the long exposure or the final result would be blurred.

Again I thought of old movies from the Wild West, the popping sound of the old-fashioned flashbulb, the burst of smoke and fire.

I imagined Flora standing stiffly in her costumes, trying not to move, acceding to her father’s wishes even while plotting her own escape on her eighteenth birthday, when she would come into her inheritance. Fleeing during a celebratory ball marking the announcement of her engagement to another rich man.

Peregrine didn’t materialize on the roof, nor was he scowling from the other side of the skylight when I went back down. But I thought of him throwing Landon and me out of his darkroom the other day.

Was there something he didn’t want us to see?

I climbed down the spiral stairs, and descended to the huge foyer, where I had left my bag. Inside was the framed photo of Flora from Chantelle’s apartment, along with the manila envelope Karla had given me. With these in hand,
I crawled through the hole in the wall, moved the lamp shade until I heard the click of the mechanism releasing the bookcase, and then pushed. It opened a little easier this time, loosened up from our last trip through.

I shone my flashlight as I made my way through the cobwebby passage. It dawned on me that I hadn’t talked to Andrew about what to do about the false walls and secret staircases and darkroom. Should I try to incorporate them into the remodel? Maybe Karla was right, after all: Maybe it was absurd to try to reclaim Crosswinds. It was too far gone; unless Andrew was willing to spend another year and a
lot
more money there was no way to return it to its former glory.

That
was a depressing thought.

When I got to the darkroom I lingered in the passageway for a moment. The rational part of my brain knew that the ghostly yelling couldn’t actually harm me, but my gut didn’t seem to be getting the message.

Peregrine Summerton frightened me when he yelled. His anger and despair felt immediate, and overwhelming.

But now the darkroom seemed quiet. The dusty old canisters and jars, the cobwebs, the photos hanging on the rope, the ancient camera on the tripod—all was still. The room looked just the same as it had the other day and, rather like in Suzanne White’s kitchen, all the things that the ghost had knocked over and scattered had been put back in order.

I stepped into the room. “Mr. Summerton? I’d like to talk to you.”

Turning around slowly, I searched my peripheral vision, looking for his apparition. I had been buoyed by my success with the ghost of Suzanne White and it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, I was getting better at calling spirits.

Or not.

“Mr. Summerton? Please try. . . . I brought back some more of your photographs. I want to help you.”

Another moment passed. Nothing.

I set the framed photo on the counter, and then took out the contents of the envelope, splaying the photos in an arc. They showed Flora as a proper Victorian lady, Flora as a tavern wench, Flora as a goatherd. I still had a few more photos of Flora in my jobsite file, so I made a mental note to bring those back next time I came.

I started searching through cabinets and stacks of old photographic plates and papers. The only problem was, I didn’t know what I was looking for.

But finally I unearthed an old ledger that reminded me of Dingo’s big book of hauntings. And just as with Dingo’s book, this one was stuffed with yellowed newspaper clippings and random advertisements, mostly regarding photographic equipment.

The paper was so fragile it crumbled, so I took care to turn the pages with the gentlest touch of my fingertips along the edges.

Peregrine’s handwriting was shaky and hard to read, and the ink was faded, but I could make out several of the entries: notations on experiments with different chemical baths for his photographs, and lists of costume ideas for Flora: Peasant Girl, Southern Belle, Dance Hall Girl.

And there were other, more telling notes.

She is too much like me. When she hears the wind shift, she clambers up to watch the sea. It is indecent for a girl. The things she says . . . She is twice the man my boys should be.

And:

I feel almost as if this camera, these photographic renditions might capture her, hold her here. Otherwise, she will slip through my fingers. I fear for her. What will the world make of my girl’s unseemly bravery and independence? She will be destroyed.

And finally:

She has gone. Fled. And I have only myself to blame. Along with her go my political aspirations, my best hopes for the Summerton family. And the very finest part of me. Her mother is distraught and treats me with silence. I am left with my photographs—that is all.

While I read, I realized I could hear the strains of a waltz. And a man’s anguished voice.

It wasn’t Peregrine. This was yet another old man. I closed the ancient journal and made my way along the passageway and down the stairs. I stood on my tiptoes and pressed the brass lever to open the door, and stepped into the exercise room storage closet.

Cautiously, I opened the door to the Pilates studio.

George Flynt was standing by the window, his head in his hands, moaning loudly.

“Mr. Flynt? Are you all right?” I asked as I approached him.

When he looked up at me, his eyes looked wild. His gray hair was askew, he appeared unshaven.

“Where did you come from?” he asked, twisting around to look around the room.

“I was upstairs, on the roof. Installing the weathervane. I found the original.”

“Oh,” he said, underwhelmed.

“I apologize. I think I’m intruding. I’ll go.”

He let out a sound of despair. “Do you have any idea how much the Flynt name means to me? Do you? I’ve spent my entire life building my fortune, my reputation. I came from nothing—you know that? Not like my son—I gave that boy everything, but it turned out it was too much. Silver spoon in his mouth did him no damned good. So I went the other way with the grandkids, and where did that get me?”

When I first saw him, head hanging low, I thought he was a distraught old man. But now I wasn’t so sure.

“I think I’ve intruded on your privacy,” I said. “I’ll just go—”

“You damned psychics. First Chantelle, now you. And if you’re so good at reading minds, I guess you know what I’m doing here,” he said, walking toward me. He was between me and the doors. I could probably take him, but what if he had a weapon? I backed up slowly. “Mason tells me you and that computer genius from England hacked into my business accounts.”

“I don’t know anything, believe me,” I said, my mind racing. He had nearly backed me into the corner. “And I’m no good at computers. Truly wretched. Hacking’s wrong, isn’t it? Illegal, even. I mean, it’s hard to know the intricacies of such things, but really—”

As he loomed toward me, I shoved him, hard. He wasn’t a large man, and he was elderly. He stumbled backward.

I ran into the closet and slammed the door, then rushed into the tunnel, closing the door behind me. Unless George was superstitious enough to believe I had somehow mastered the skills of disappearing, he would quickly figure out the secret passage. I had a few minutes, tops.

It was enough. It would have to be.

I could hear the weathervane, and the sound of the
waltz, which didn’t surprise me—this sort of thing was probably stirring up old Peregrine’s ghost. Violence had a way of doing that.

As I rushed through the dark hallway I pulled out my phone and tried to call 911 but I didn’t get any reception.
Dammit.

Cobwebs stroked my face, and I tripped over an errant bit of trim as I raced through the dark corridor. Finally I found the back of the bookcase at the foyer, and shoved as hard as I could.

It swung open and I lost my balance, falling flat on my face.

I had to hurry. Chances were good old man Flynt had either figured out the secret passage, or was even now racing up the stairs. The only thing I had in my favor was his advanced age.

I scrambled to my feet and climbed through the hole in the sheetrock, only to realize that Mason was standing in the foyer.

“Mason! Your grandfather—”

“He’s a mean old coot, isn’t he?” Mason said. “He fired me today,
and
disowned me. Can you believe that? His own grandson.”

Realization was dawning, and it wasn’t looking good.

“But unless I’m mistaken he hasn’t had a chance to tell anyone. Nor will he.” Mason looked around and casually pulled a gun out from under his jacket. “Speaking of Grandpop, have you seen him? He was supposed to meet me here. To ‘talk.’”

“I have, yes,” I said. “He’s up on the fourth floor.”

“Liar,” he said quietly. “He has a hard time with the stairs. Arthritic knees. And he’s claustrophobic, afraid of elevators. You believe that? A captain of industry, but he’s scared of elevators. Hey, that’s not a bad idea—thanks!”

Ugh.
I hated to think what idea I might have given him. I had pegged George as a nasty piece of work, but it was friendly, peacekeeping Mason all along.

“You know, Mason,” I began. It occurred to me to point out that he couldn’t possibly track down everyone who might know about his crime in order to kill us all; that would have been quite the bloodbath. “I’m not the one who uncovered the embezzling of Tempus. I think Egypt—”

“Egypt?” Mason swore a long streak. “I took care of her.”

So much for using logic when facing a murderer. When would I learn?

“You want to hear something funny?” Mason asked.

“Sure. You bet,” I said, hoping to stall until something, anything, came to mind. I thought about making a grab for the gun but while I’m no waif, Mason was a healthy young man. He probably had me in the pure strength category. And it was just too easy for him to pull that trigger.

“I thought you could read my mind, like Chantelle did, so I followed you to that salvage yard. But I finally realized you didn’t know anything, you were so clueless when you came to Tempus. Just a clueless idiot, like the rest of them.”

“Well, now, that’s true,” I started to say when I realized I heard the sound of a waltz coming through the wall, and the squeaking of the weathervane spinning overhead. A faraway door slammed, and the lights blinked.

A worried look passed over Mason’s pleasant features.

“What are you
doing
? Stop it.”

“I’m calling out to Chantelle,” I lied. As I said it I decided it wasn’t half bad, as far as ideas for not getting killed went.

“Stop it!”

“She’s already on the other side, Mason. As you know better than anyone, since you put her there. And I gotta say, she isn’t very happy about it.”