Keeper of the Castle: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (13 page)

“Have you seen this fabled warehouse full of stuff that Libole has collected?”

He shook his head.

“Maybe I’ll ask if I can look around.”

“That sounds like a great idea: an isolated warehouse and a murderer on the loose. What could possibly go wrong?” We pulled to a stop, and Graham fixed me with a stern look. “Mel, promise me, here and now, you won’t go snooping without me.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” I said with a mock salute. “You’re cute when you get all macho and dictatorial; you know that?”

He grunted.

We arrived at the Elrich place much too soon for my taste. I had even toyed with the idea of renting a room at the Pelican Inn until I remembered Dog was waiting for me. But I decided to propose a weekend getaway to Graham soon. I kept talking about going to Europe one day,
but it wasn’t reasonable to think I could take that much time away from Turner Construction. A weekend at the Pelican Inn, though, was doable. There was no cell phone reception out there, so we could eat our English breakfast in the greenhouse, spend the day hiking along the foggy banks of the ocean, and return for port in the pub and a dinner by the walk-in fireplace, as if we were thousands of miles away from home.

As enticing as staying at Elrich’s well-appointed estate had sounded, I was rethinking it. Almost everyone I had met so far—Alicia, Vernon, Harper, and even Florian—had been unpleasant. Only Elrich was friendly, and I was still loath to admit how much I liked him. It went against my grain to join what was trendy and popular. Finally, although Graham and I were sleeping under the same roof, the situation wasn’t conducive to romantic interludes. What if we were sharing a roof with McCall’s murderer?

We pulled in front of Elrich’s mansion, parked, and were set upon by Alicia as soon as we stepped into the tiled foyer.

“Where have you
been
?” she asked, her tone urgent. “You’ve nearly missed sherry hour.”

“I assumed it was canceled,” said Graham. “What with the memorial and all.”

“No. We just moved it back to accommodate the service. Didn’t you see the updated schedule?”

“Yes, Graham.” I looked at him with wide eyes and a concerned frown. “Didn’t you see the updated
schedule
?”

Graham, showing much more patience and maturity than I, said to Alicia, “I’m afraid I’m not yet in the habit of checking the schedule consistently, Alicia. I apologize. Please, lead the way and allow us to make amends.”

We trailed her down the hall to the front parlor. A full bar had been set up in one corner, where a bartender in formal attire was shaking a martini mixer with aplomb. All the usual suspects were there, as were Tony, Miguel, Jacek, and a few of the other men from the jobsite, and several faces I didn’t recognize.

I asked for a martini. I didn’t usually drink that much, but what with Elrich’s sherry hours and assignations with Scotsmen who insulted me in bars, I feared I was on my way to becoming a lush.

One man introduced himself as a lawyer for Kieran Lachaidh, on behalf of the people of Scotland.

“I was flabbergasted when I received an invitation to come by for drinks,” he said.

“Is Elrich willing to talk about the situation, then?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he said, sipping a large margarita festooned with a little umbrella. “He hasn’t really talked to me about it. . . .”

He, like everyone, seemed in awe of Elrich.

Tony, who earlier had been on the verge of walking off the job, seemed to be placated, as well.

Elrich stood in a corner chatting with Harper and Alicia, and it was as though there were an invisible shield around him. He had the strangest way of making everyone think they were welcome and had access to him, while actually holding himself apart.

I forced myself to chat briefly with Vernon, met the talented chef Jean-Claude Villandry, and was introduced to a structural engineer who had been working with Libole. Florian himself was conspicuous by his absence.

“I thought the costumes were clever,” I overheard Ellis saying. “It’s always hard to get the press to pay any attention, so he gave them a good photo opportunity.”

“But he’s a troublemaker, I feel sure,” said Alicia. “I had to call the police again.”

Ellis shrugged. Harper looked into her drink.

I was trying to think of a polite way to excuse myself from sherry hour—and dinner afterward—when Alicia approached me.

“Mr. Elrich suggested I speak to you directly,” she said, handing me a to-do list. “I’d like to have some projects done here at the house while your men are available.”

“They aren’t exactly
available
,” I tried to explain. “We’re already running two shifts trying to get ready for the grand opening.”

Alicia blinked and starting reading items off her list. I gave her points for dogged determination.

“Sure. Why not?” I said, thinking rather guiltily of the tiles I’d dislodged in my bedroom. “I’ll see about bringing Brendan up from the jobsite tomorrow and put him on these house projects. Maybe Graham could help, as well.”

Graham shot me a look when he realized he’d been volunteered.

“And I don’t think we should simply repair things,” continued Alicia, “but take this opportunity to really spruce the place up. I don’t really care for all this . . . white.”

“White stucco is traditional for the Spanish or Mission style,” I said. “Although clearly the house used to be a Victorian—”

“Mr. Elrich and I don’t care that much for the Victorian style,” said Alicia. “We prefer Spanish.”

“I see.”

“What about something more . . . exciting on the walls?”

“Naturally, you can paint it any color you’d like. But
traditionally, in the Spanish Revival style they would have been decorated with murals and borders.” I thought of the intricate murals in the Discovery Room downstairs. Clearly Elrich was not averse to wall paintings.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” said Alicia, and for the first time I saw her smile.

I stepped outside for a minute and put in a call to my favorite faux finisher and mural painter. Years ago, Yuri Andropov had done a lot of wall finishes for Turner Construction, but ever since the Tuscan fad passed, I couldn’t give him as much work as before. But whenever we needed wood graining or marbling done in old Victorian homes, Yuri was our go-to guy.

He asked me to send him some photos of the work sites along with measurements and said he would come up with some designs that were historically appropriate, though he was as dismayed as I at my description of a Victorian envelope for a Spanish interior. We decided on a few full-scale murals for the main rooms and then smaller decorative accents for others.

In addition, I mentioned that I might have a fresco job coming up for the Wakefield project. Yuri was particularly excited about that: There wasn’t a lot of modern demand for true fresco painting.

While I had my phone out, I made a call to Raul to see how our San Francisco projects were progressing. There were a few small headaches, but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with over the phone. Then I checked in with Stan, who gave me the office report—he was hard at work figuring out how the accounting was going to make payroll this Friday to all of Nolan’s men as well as our own.

And finally I called Dad, who didn’t answer the call but texted me:
Stop calling and get back to work. LOL.

I returned to what was left of the sherry-hour crowd secure in the knowledge that there was no way I would make it through a formal dinner with these folks. Much to Alicia’s thoroughly predictable consternation, I begged off the meal and finally managed to slip away. She suggested I grab a ready-made item from the snack bar, but just as I’d prophesied, I had eaten so many of the delectable hors d’oeuvres that I wasn’t hungry.

“You’re a better man than I am, sitting through dinner with that crowd,” I said as Graham walked me back to my room.

“I’m still trying to get a handle on all these personalities. Besides . . . if this Scottish character is right, then one of them might be responsible for McCall’s death.”

“Just promise to tell me what they’re saying behind my back.”

“Mel, I know I’m sounding like the voice of doom, but if Pete didn’t kill McCall, then we’re talking about something much more serious. Someone who not only set out to kill McCall, but who knew enough about the workings of the jobsite, and all of our movements, to do it in such a way as to implicate Pete Nolan.”

“Good point,” I said, stifling a yawn.

“No, I don’t think you’re getting my point. My point is that if it wasn’t Pete, then you may be in trouble. As usual.”

I twisted my mouth a little, trying to think how to respond to that. Of course I knew Graham was right: My being in trouble did seem to be “as usual” lately. I wasn’t sure why I could see ghosts, and why they were so often connected to scenes of violent death. But see them, I could; and connected, they were.

Still, I was becoming accustomed to my new status quo; it wasn’t freaking me out anymore. I thought of a
cartoon that Stan had taped to his computer in Turner Construction’s home office. The first panel showed three people panicking as they fell into a bottomless pit; the second panel showed the same three characters sitting back and relaxing—one had brought out her knitting—after six months of falling into the bottomless pit.

In other words, a person could get used to just about anything after a while.

So perhaps I was becoming resigned to my fate. Apparently, I was meant to become embroiled in renovating historic houses, negotiating with their resident ghosts, doing my best to unmask murderers, and when my work was done, riding off into the sunset with a handsome man on my arm, just like the woman on the cover of
Keeper of the Castle
.

I wondered if Graham would be willing to pose shirtless for me. . . .

Given the grim look on his face, I doubted it.

T
he next day, I was going over supply orders with Tony in the trailer when we heard a commotion outside.

Oh, boy.
I had wondered how long it would take for the ghosts to wreak havoc.

But it wasn’t ghosts. Instead, Alicia had outdone herself. Under the shed, but beyond the reach of the stone dust, two long conference tables had been set up with urns of coffee and tea, tubs of iced sodas and sports drinks, and covered platters of fruit and crackers, chips and energy bars. Large red coolers held granola and yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, and sandwiches galore.

One comment to Ellis Elrich, and the crew was no longer arguing over stolen food, and I was a hero. Amazing.

Alicia hovered over the tables, straightening things every time one of the guys took something. She seemed nervous around them at first, but relaxed and blushed prettily as they politely thanked her.

“This is incredible, Alicia,” I said. “It looks great.”

She shrugged.

Biting into a sandwich as big as his head, Tony thanked Alicia, then went to check on the reinforcement rods I had ordered installed at the mouth of the refectory. I lingered with Alicia for a moment, pouring myself a cup of coffee.

“So, I was wondering,” I said, oh so casual-like. “Ellis mentioned you had an audio recording from the surveillance system at the time of Larry McCall’s murder.”

She blinked.

“Do you suppose I could listen to it?”

“Why in the world would you want to?”

I wasn’t sure, exactly. “I thought maybe it could tell me something—”

“Why would it tell you something? The police have already listened to the tapes—there was no video, just a gray screen, and the audio seems to have come from some other place.”

“Have the tapes been ruined before, at other times? Or did it happen only when Larry McCall was murdered?”

“It does happen from time to time. It’s probably because we’re so remote, up here on the hill. Stray radio waves, is what the detective said.”

I had a little experience with “stray radio waves.” Sometimes they were neither stray nor generated by a radio. Sometimes spirits were able to make themselves heard through such devices. I had seen the Lady in Red when I discovered Larry McCall’s body; maybe the tape hadn’t been erased on purpose, but her energy interfered with the surveillance tape, somehow. And if so, maybe I could make out what she was saying. It was a long shot, but as an “up-and-coming ghost buster,” I thought I should check it out.

“It’s unintelligible,” said Alicia.

“Do you know if the police sent it to be analyzed in a lab? By sound editors?”

She frowned. “I don’t think so. Detective Bernardino said it was worthless.”

“Did he take it with him, or ask for a copy?”

“No.”

“Could—”

My request was cut off by the unnerving sound of men shouting. Workers were streaming out of the mouth of the chapel.

“What is it?” I asked, grabbing Tony by the arm as he ran by.

“I . . .” His eyes shifted to the building behind me. I looked around but didn’t see anything beyond the stone walls.

“Did you see something?” I urged. “What was it?”

He swallowed audibly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was some guy out of
Highlander
, with a sword and . . .” He trailed off with a few choice swearwords. He took his hard hat off with one hand and ran the other through his sweaty locks.

Highlander
? Not my Lady in Red, then.

“You sure it wasn’t . . . ?” Could Kieran be responsible for some kind of trick? He’d seemed harmless enough in the pub, but was it possible he was orchestrating costumed protesters to scare the hell out of the workers? “One of the protesters, maybe? Some of them wear kilts.”

“I swear, Mel, it wasn’t my imagination. I know it sounds crazy, but I wasn’t the only one who saw . . .”

“I believe you. Just tell me exactly what you saw, and where. And how—was it there waiting for you?”

“We were here.” On the blueprints, he pointed to
demonstrate the spot near the mouth of the refectory. “The men were putting in those reinforcement rods, like you asked us to. But then a few of us were checking out the other side, near that round room. I kept feeling like something was behind me, kinda like that tingling you get sometimes when you’re being watched? And then there was that noise—that’s why I say he was like out of the
Highlander
movie, because before we saw anything, we heard the sword as he took it out of its whaddayacallit? The sheaf?”

“Sheath.”

“Right. And then this . . . yell—it was terrible. Before we could react, he came running at us full-bore, sword drawn.”

I tried to process this. I didn’t get far before Tony continued.

“And as we were running, I looked behind me, and he . . . disappeared.”

“As in, he hid?”

“No. He disappeared. Into thin air. This was no protester in costume, Mel. It’s happened before—it’s something about that round room. That’s when it happens, when we’re doing something in that area.”

“Every time? It’s always the round room?”

“Not every time, but that’s the only place guys have seen . . . it. Or him, or whatever.”

“All right. Go get yourself something to drink, and take ten. I’m going to check it out.”

“Mel,
don’t
. Seriously.”

“It’s okay. I’m a professional.”

I put on a hard hat, then grabbed a big flashlight in case I needed to bop someone over the head.

Who was I kidding? Not once had I managed to adequately defend myself in a crisis situation. Especially
considering the course of my life lately, I kept intending to take a self-defense class, but there were only so many hours in a day and I was already making time for a ghost-busting class. Dad’s Glock was hidden in my bedroom up at Elrich’s house, of course, because though I wanted to have it nearby in scary situations, its mere presence gave me the willies. After all, once we all started running around with guns, civilization as we knew it was surely coming to an end. Then again . . .

There was a sound.

I halted and tried to quiet my ragged breathing. What
was
that?

Caught up in my thoughts, I hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings. I was still in the main chapel, nearing the sacristy. The arched windows and stone walls looked ludicrously out of place with the new cement floor, at least until the stone was laid. There was an echoey gloom in here, making me think of the monks that had passed through, the legions of people seeking sanctuary within these walls, the wars and suffering this place had witnessed.

Resolve
. Ghosts were merely remnants of humans, I intoned. Humans in the next dimension. Often confused, yearning, trying to attend to unfinished business.

They weren’t actually out to kill a person.

I rubbed the gold ring on the chain around my neck and thought about my mother, and her mother before her.

As quietly as possible in my heavy work boots, I started walking again, passing through a series of cramped chambers, heading for the refectory. As I moved through a low stone doorway, I paused and listened.

Sure enough, I heard something. But it wasn’t a bloodcurdling Highland yell. Or the Lady in Red’s heartbroken weeping. It was a sigh.

An audible sigh.

I inched around the side of the doorway antechamber, peering around the carved stone edge.

A man was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. He was powerfully built, wearing a tunic and a kilt and carrying a sword. A yellow-and-black-plaid tartan was slung over one shoulder.

He was leaning over, holding his head in his large hands. Even in the dim light I could see a nasty scar running the length of the back of one hand.

He leaped up.

Then came the singing of his sword echoing off the stone walls as he pulled it from his sheath in one smooth move.

My heart was hammering in my chest, and it was all I could do not to wet my pants right then and there. So much for my big talk about getting used to dealing with ghosts. I braced myself, forcing myself not to run away. If he charged me, I would stand my ground. Perhaps that would confuse him enough to make him talk to me.

But he didn’t charge. At the last instant, he seemed to check himself. He tilted his head, and a frown of concentration spread across his broad brow. He was a giant of a man, especially considering he came from a time when people were much smaller than today. He had another scar on one cheek and a puckered one across his chin, which gave him a slightly lopsided countenance.

“I’m, uh . . . Hello,” I began, then cleared my throat.

“Who are ye?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“You’re a lass.”

“Yes.”

“I thought at first you were a man.”

“I get that a lot.”

He frowned again, then approached me. Walking slowly, deliberately, he held his sword at the ready. His eyes flickered left and right, making sure I was alone, that this wasn’t an ambush of some sort. Then his gaze returned to me. His eyes were dark, and though I could barely see, they seemed lit with something, as though an internal fire. Something otherworldly. Mesmerizing.

Fear gnawed at my innards, and I forced myself to stand very still as he walked all the way around me, studying me.

When I finally wrested my gaze from his, I realized the rest of him was fading in and out. The image was perfectly clear one moment, ethereal the next. At least he was appearing to me normally, I thought, and not merely out of the corner of my eye, like the other spectral denizen of these stones. It drove me nuts when that happened.

Finally, he returned to stand in front of me. He sheathed his sword, and I relaxed. Theoretically a ghost sword couldn’t hurt me. But I didn’t want to put that theory to the test.

“What strange sort of lass are ye?”

Hoo boy. That was a doozy of a conversation starter. “I’m Mel Turner.”

“Turner? English?”

“American. It’s a . . . different time. What’s your name?”

“Donnchadh MacPhaidein.”

“Sorry, Donka . . . ?”

“Donnchadh,” he repeated. “American? I dinnae understand. This place . . . Naught looks familiar.”

“I know. Let’s talk, and I’ll try to explain.”

There was a sound. A boot scraping on cement. I turned to see Tony in the vestibule.

Before I could say anything, Donnchadh transformed, a look of fury on his face. He unsheathed his sword and let out a bloodcurdling yell as he ran toward the sacristy.

Tony turned and ran in the opposite direction, screaming.

I ran after them, back through the series of chambers and into the chapel. The image of the Highland warrior disappeared as we ran out into the sunlight.

A couple of the men were gathered around, asking what was wrong. Tony shook off their help. But once the men dispersed, he drew me aside.

“I don’t think I can take this much longer,” said Tony. “Seriously, Mel. I know you’re new, and I hate to leave you in the lurch, but I gotta say, this job ain’t worth it. One of these days that . . . that
thing
is going to catch me, and I don’t want to be here when that day arrives. I got kids.”

I didn’t point out the faulty logic of his statement; I got the gist. But I would be up a creek if I lost a good foreman like Tony; most of the guys on the site didn’t really know me, and therefore didn’t trust me. The tone on a jobsite was set by the foreman, and his presence allowed me a certain flexibility that I would otherwise lose. Not to mention, if we were going to get this job done in time for the big opening event, I couldn’t afford to lose a single man.

“Look, I don’t want to overstate the case,” I said, “but I have a certain expertise in these areas.”

“What areas?”

“The, um . . . ghost areas.”

He stared at me for a long moment.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, as they say.”

Tony nodded slowly. “Is that why Elrich hired you for this job?”

First Kieran suggested I was hired because I’m a woman, and now Tony was saying I was hired because I was a ghost whisperer. Apparently, the thought that I was hired because I was talented didn’t cross anyone’s mind.

Irked, I said: “I’m well qualified to bring this project to completion, on time and on budget. Whatever other qualifications I have are just frosting on top.”

“Okaaay,” Tony said, clearly neither believing me, nor caring. “So, are you going to talk to that . . . thing? Tell him to lay off so we can get this job done?”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll get right on that.”

“Right now?”

“No, um . . . not right now. I’ve got . . . a few details I need to take care of first.”

“It’s almost lunchtime.”

“Right. Can’t neglect one’s nutrition,” I heard myself saying. “Watch and learn, Tony. Watch and learn.”

And I strode off, hoping he would be temporarily appeased with the “learn, young grasshopper” school of avoiding the damned issue.