Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (3 page)

She nodded, and without a word turned and went into the apartment. I followed.

And found her on the floor, in a pool of bright red blood.

T
here was also a man in the apartment entryway, down on one knee, leaning over the body.

Upon seeing me he pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and announced, “She’s . . . gone. I’m calling nine-one-one.”

He looked pale and was probably suffering from shock. I assumed he wasn’t the reason Chantelle lay dead on the floor in a pool of blood. Or, if he
was
the murderer, he was so overcome with guilt that he posed no threat to me. Either way, I decided to make a call of my own to Homicide Inspector Annette Crawford of the San Francisco Police Department.

“The dispatcher says the police are on their way,” the man said, still holding the phone to his ear. There were tears in his eyes. His voice was gruff with emotion, the words clipped. He didn’t have a foreign accent, exactly, but I couldn’t quite place the oddness in his voice. “Who are
you
calling?”

“A, er . . . friend. Annette Crawford, homicide inspector.” My eyes lit upon what looked like a butcher knife lying on the floor next to Chantelle. It was covered in
blood. My stomach lurched. When I continued my voice dropped to a whisper: “We . . . Annette and I have a history.”

Just then the inspector picked up.

“Again, Mel?” Annette answered. Clearly she had Caller ID.

“’Fraid so,” I said, and gave her Chantelle’s address.

“What’s the situation? Anybody else there?”

“Yes.” I turned away from the man, who remained beside the body.

“Friend of yours?”

“No,” I whispered. “He was in the apartment when I got here.”

“Are you in danger?”

“I don’t think so. He called nine-one-one and he seems . . . stoic, but upset.”

“Listen to me, Mel. I want you to go out in the hallway and wait until help arrives, do you hear me? No heroics.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not big on heroics.”

“Allow me to rephrase: nothing stupid, understood?”

“Okay, good point.”

“The officers should be there in a few minutes; give me about twenty. Don’t touch anything and stay away from the body.”

“I know, I know. I’m not
that
stupid.”

“That’s what they all say.”

I did as the inspector said and went out to the hallway, but couldn’t help but peer through the open door into the apartment. The man remained balanced on one knee beside Chantelle’s body. The way he held himself reminded me of some of my father’s former Marine buddies, making me wonder if he was in the military. He was handsome, with a trim beard and light brown hair worn long, sweeping his collar, reminding me of photographs of soldiers from long ago.

Aw, crap,
I thought with a start.
Was he a ghost, too?

When I’d first learned I could communicate with spirits, I saw them only in my peripheral vision. Recently, I had started to see some of them straight on, as I would anyone else. More than once, in fact, I had assumed a ghost was a living person, as I had with Chantelle a moment ago. Distinguishing between a spirit and a live human can be all the more challenging because ghosts often don’t realize they’re dead. Asking a few questions usually clarified the situation.

“Soooo,” I said, feeling awkward. “Are you . . . from around here?”

Lame, Mel. You’re not picking up a man in a bar.

“Just visiting.”

Wait a minute
—the man had called 911, I reminded myself. There’s an awful lot I still had to learn about the supernatural world, but one thing I did know: Ghosts don’t carry cell phones. Much less
use
them.

“Are you a friend of Chantelle’s?”

“Her brother, Landon Demetrius III,” he said.

“Oh, I . . . I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” His eyes glistened with tears, but his voice showed little emotion. “And might I inquire as to who you are?”

His formal phrasing piqued my interest. Something about him made me suspect that he might have a mysterious past. Or was he just a theater major a little too committed to Shakespeare’s English?

“I’m Mel Turner.”

“How do you do?” Landon said with a nod, then looked toward the sound of distant sirens. “Let us hope those sirens are for us.”

“Shouldn’t be long now,” I agreed.

We waited in silence for a few moments as the sirens drew closer.

“You had an appointment for a reading, then?” Landon asked.

“No, I was supposed to talk to your sister ab—” I realized with a start that I had not escaped
Mel’s Dreaded Curse
: I had once again encountered a body associated with a haunted house. Chantelle’s ghost wouldn’t be haunting Crosswinds, but . . . could her death be linked to that haunted mansion, somehow?

“May I ask the nature of your reading?”

“A twenty-nine-million-dollar haunted house.”

His elegant eyebrows rose, just a smidgen.

He was still kneeling, and despite the tragic circumstances I couldn’t help but admire him for it. Last week my friend Luz finally convinced me to give yoga a try, and the balancing-on-the-knee thing just about did me in.

“Do you know Chantelle well?” he asked. “Any idea what could have happened? Who might have
done
such a thing?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. We spoke for the first time a couple of hours ago, to make the appointment. We’d never met in person.”

The elevator pinged and uniformed officers poured out. I automatically raised my hands and stepped away from the door to allow them to enter.

“Hands up! Back away from the body!”

I peered around the police to watch Landon Demetrius do as he was told, raising his hands in the air and rising smoothly from his kneeling position without tipping or falling over, or even using his hands to steady himself. He would do just fine in yoga class.

“I called Inspector Crawford,” I said, my hands still in the air. “She’s on her way.”

“You in the apartment,” one cop barked. “Come out here into the hallway.”

“And
you
stay right here,” the other police officer said to me. His colleague kneeled by Chantelle and placed two fingers on her neck, checking for signs of life. He shook his head and spoke softly into his radio.

Landon and I lined up against the wall, like kids waiting to meet with the principal, one officer in particular eyeing us suspiciously. Landon stood ramrod-straight, and I found myself checking my posture.

He looked at his phone, pursed his lips, and then glanced around the hallway as if to spot whatever was foiling his reception.

“Old buildings,” Landon muttered, shaking his head.

“It’s not that told. Probably from the 1970s, at the most.” I dealt with truly old buildings—at least by local standards—and the 1970s didn’t qualify. Besides, the architecture of that decade was so ugly that I didn’t like it lumped in with historic buildings.

“Old enough not to have decent cell reception,” he snapped.

“Probably reinforced concrete, or steel beams—earthquake stuff,” said the young cop babysitting us. “And, uh, hands up.”

A few more moments of silence ensued. I heard the sound of thumping from inside the apartment, as if the cops were searching the premises for evidence. The elevator pinged and opened once again, and another trio of uniformed officers arrived and crowded into the apartment.

“So, you don’t care for old buildings?” I asked Landon.

He checked his phone once more, then shoved it into his pocket. “Not as much as I like connectivity.”

Now that was a phrase I couldn’t imagine uttering. As a contractor I live on the phone, and find it an indispensable tool for running several construction sites
simultaneously. But to prefer connectivity over history?
No, thank you.

His eyes slewed toward me. They were a light sherry, with a few specks of green.

“How does this sort of thing usually go?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“This . . .
homicide
investigation
sort of thing.”

“What makes you think
I
know?” For some reason I didn’t want this man to believe I was the kind of woman who tripped over dead bodies with disturbing frequency. Even though I was.

“You’re friends with a homicide inspector. I just assumed—”

Said inspector chose that moment to step off the elevator and fix me with her patented Interrogation 101 look: one raised eyebrow. Annette Crawford was tall for a woman, curvy yet muscular, a dedicated professional with a no-nonsense air. There was never any question as to who was in charge when Inspector Crawford was on the scene. She had climbed the ranks of the police department the old-fashioned way, through sheer hard work and talent, and had had to prove wrong more than a few who assumed a woman of color was not their peer. After working with her on a cold case recently, I knew she also had a wicked sense of humor and the imagination to think outside the box.

She nodded at the young officer, glanced at Landon, then zeroed in on me as she approached.

“Put your hands down,” she said. “No one’s under arrest. Yet.”

“I had nothing to do with it this time,” I said, relieved. Holding one’s hands in the air is surprisingly hard work. “Nothing at all. I had an appointment, and when I arrived found her dead.”

Landon looked at me. “
This
time?”

“And you are?” Crawford asked.

“Landon Demetrius III,” he said. “I’m Chantelle’s brother.”

“Chantelle is . . . ?”

“The victim,” I said quietly.

“I see,” said Annette, conveying a lot in a few words. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Demetrius.”

“Thank you.”

“Were you the one who found her?”

He nodded.

“All right. Let me take a look at the scene, and then we’ll have a little chat.” She raised her chin in the direction of the young cop babysitting us. “Keep an eye on them, will you?”

“Yes sir! Um, Inspector,” stuttered the officer.

She swept into the apartment.

Landon glanced at me. “I thought you said you two were friends. She didn’t seem particularly friendly.”

“‘Friend’ might have been a bit of a stretch. Acquaintance would be more accurate.”

“Been involved with a murder investigation previously, have you?”

“A few. But my role was minimal.”

“As in, not really your fault?”

“As in, I was an innocent witness.”

He looked down his nose, and I sensed he didn’t believe me. I sighed: first Andrew Flynt and now Landon Demetrius III. I’m from Oakland, so I’m accustomed to San Franciscans looking askance at me, but it doesn’t mean I like it. I started to say something snide, but reconsidered. His sister had just been murdered, after all. Assuming he didn’t do it, the least I could do was cut him a little slack. I thought about my own sisters, and what it
would mean to find them like that, on the floor in a pool of their own blood.

I banished the thought; it was too painful to even contemplate.

I started to say something to Landon when black spots began to swim before my eyes and a wave of nausea took hold deep in my belly. I shook my head and breathed slowly, trying to hold it together. The temperature in the hallway plummeted; my breath came out in little clouds and hung in the frigid air.

Part of my brain knew what was happening, but the rest refused to acknowledge it.

Chantelle emerged from the apartment. She cupped Landon’s face in her hands for a moment, then reached into the same jacket pocket where he had stowed his cell phone. She turned and gazed at me with those beautiful eyes, smiled beatifically, and nodded once. Then she drifted down the corridor and disappeared into the open elevator. The doors closed softly and the elevator started to ascend.

Landon frowned. “It’s like ice in here. Another problem with these outdated buildings. Lousy HVAC systems.”

“Got that right,” said the young officer.

I didn’t respond, still nauseated and breathless.

“Are you quite all right?” Landon asked me after a moment.

I nodded.

Not for the first time I felt exasperated after a supernatural encounter. Why couldn’t the ghosts of murder victims just
tell
me what happened? If they weren’t going to be of use, why subject me to funky feelings and such strangeness? I was a
contractor
, for heaven’s sake. How come it was always up to
me
to solve these crimes?

Me, and Annette Crawford of the SFPD, of course.

I checked myself. It did no good to curse my fate. I’d tried that before, and it didn’t get me anywhere.

“So,” I said to Landon while we waited for Inspector Crawford to return. “Are—were you and your sister close?”

“Not recently.”

“You live around here?”

“You already asked me that. Why are you obsessed with my residence? Are you with Homeland Security?”

I was going to bet that Landon Demetrius III here was the type to respond to tragedy with testiness. Either that, or he was an exceptionally cool murderer who didn’t feel the need to be polite to anyone.

“Sorry,” I said. “Just making conversation. How was it you were visiting the sister you aren’t close to when . . .”

“When she was murdered?” He blew out a breath, as though trying to rein in his emotions. “I just flew in from England. I teach at Cambridge. We were quite close as children, but we . . . grew apart. Last time I saw Chantelle she still called herself Cheryl. Must have been ten years ago.”

“I see.”

“But I shall never forgive myself for not arriving an hour earlier. Or perhaps even fifteen minutes earlier . . . Whatever it would have taken to avoid this tragedy.”

Landon’s voice caught in his throat, and his emotions seemed genuine. Unless he was a first-class actor, which, for all I knew, he was. “I’m sorry, Landon. If it helps at all, I . . . I think she’s okay.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, yes, she’s passed on, but she’s okay. What you felt a moment ago, when it got so cold? That was her putting her hands on your face.”

The expression on Landon’s face said plainly he
thought I was nuts. It didn’t surprise me, I was accustomed to it by now, but it still annoyed me. I hadn’t been in touch with the dead long enough to have figured out how to deliver the news—“Your loved one is gone, but not
gone
gone”—in a way that offers comfort instead of inspiring hostility or fear for my sanity. I wasn’t sure it was even possible.