Keeper of the Castle: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery

by Juliet Blackwell

  That helped explain his attachment to the place.

  I closed the book. I really should read more about my host and client, but at the moment, nonfiction didn’t suit my mood. I was yearning for an engrossing story.

  My eyes alit on the vivid cover of Keeper of the Castle.

  Maybe just a few pages. Just to see what it was all about.

  An hour later, the penniless daughter of the laird and the poor-but-scrappy serf were arguing about nothing in particular, and you could cut the sexual tension with a knife.

  I was utterly absorbed in the tale when I heard an odd sound.

  Music. Or something like music. Was that a flute? Eerie, ethereal, it was a simple tune played over and over, as though the musician didn’t know the next notes.

  One of Elrich’s many guests, perhaps?

  I sat up and listened. The music was coming from outside.

  I pulled on a robe, grabbed my aluminum water bottle, and went out the French doors to the terrace. The cool night air was fragrant with eucalyptus and damp earth. Though this area didn’t see a lot of rain per se, the fog gave everything a good dousing. California’s famous redwood trees flourished along the misty coast, absorbing water through their leaves as well as their roots.

  I took a long swig from my water bottle and looked down over the meadow toward the ocean, the moon shining so brightly I could see the blanket of low-lying fog gliding this way, having already enveloped the piles of stones and building materials down below. As I watched, I saw a flicker of light in the half-built chapel.

  Was someone down there? Or had I imagined it?

  Were the ghosts wandering those stone corridors, looking for their lost loves? Had the evil laird refused his daughter permission to marry a commoner, and now . . . Get a grip, Mel, I chided myself. I was going to have to stop reading that book; it was putting ideas in my head. Like I needed fiction, given the life I led.

  There it was again: a flicker illuminating one arched window, then the next. I saw the glow of yellowish light, as though from a candle, and then a flash of red. The lilting notes drifted up from the ruins. And was that a . . . a plaintive wail? Was the woman in red still crying?

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” came a voice from behind me.

  I jumped a good six inches and dropped my aluminum bottle, which clattered loudly on the terra-cotta tiles as it sprayed its contents across the terrace. I swore a blue streak as I crouched to pick it up.

  “Sorry,” said Ellis Elrich with a chuckle. He held a snifter of amber liquid in each hand. “Guilty conscience?”

  “No, I . . .” I looked at the monastery. The lights were gone, and the flute had been silenced. “Just absorbed in thought. I thought I saw something at the construction site.”

  Dog finally roused himself to bark as he trotted out to the terrace, tail wagging, and made a beeline for Elrich.

  “Some guard dog you are,” I muttered.

  Elrich held out one of the brandy snifters. “Cognac. Very old cognac.”

  “Oh, um, thank you,” I said as I took it from him.

  I swirled the amber liquid and breathed in the heady aroma. A beautiful moonlit night, a lovely snifter of cognac on the terrace of a gorgeous estate—what a perfect romantic setting. My flannel pajamas spoiled the ambience a bit, but that was the only off note. But surely Ellis Elrich wasn’t interested in me? Rich men who were ugly and old had their pick of beautiful young women; I could only imagine the romantic prospects available to a rich man who was handsome and young. Besides, I wasn’t the kind of woman who inspired men to spout poetry, much less to flout their lawyers’ advice and date an employee.

  Once more I wished Graham would hurry up and get here.

  Ellis petted Dog. “He knows a dog lover when he sees one. What’s his name?”

  “He doesn’t really have one, sad to say. We just call him Dog.”

  “Let me guess: He was a stray, and you refused to name him for fear of becoming attached.”

  I had to laugh. “How did you know?”

  “Experience. I remember the first time Harper swore a kitty had ‘followed her home.’ But,” he said with a shrug, “since it was pretty clear there was no way that kitten was ever leaving, I let her name it right from the start. Fluffy. Silly name for a short-haired cat—for any cat, actually—but Harper was only six, so we let it go.”

  After giving Dog a final pat, Ellis peered down the hill at the monastery, lit by the nearly full moon. As he studied the vista, I studied him. Ellis had the bland good looks of a B-movie actor or a successful motivational speaker: easy on the eyes but nothing too out of the ordinary. Still, he had a certain charm, an appeal that grew the longer I knew him.

  “I don’t see anything,” he said.

  “I don’t either, now. Must have been my imagination.”

  “It’s possible someone broke through the perimeter fence. One of the protesters, maybe. I should notify security.” But he stayed where he was, sipping his cognac, apparently feeling no sense of urgency.

  “Has that happened before?”

  “From time to time.” He shrugged. “A while back, some kids were found camping in the woods. You can hardly blame them, with this view, right?”

  “What were they doing there?”

  “Kid stuff: getting high and playing their guitars. Badly, I might add. If memory serves, they favored Neil Young. Got to admire their taste, though no points for originality.”

  “Tony was telling me about sabotage on the jobsite. Do you think the protesters could have anything to do with that? Maybe they’re accessing the site, and . . .”

  He shook his head. “I seriously doubt it. They’re protesting a situation in one offshoot of Elrich Enterprises. It has nothing to do with Wakefield.”

  I nodded, though it seemed to me Elrich was missing the point: If the sabotage wasn’t the work of trespassers, then the culprit had to be one of the crew.

  Or a ghost.

  I wondered if I should broach the subject. Elrich seemed open-minded, and was no doubt already aware of my reputation. A businessman of Elrich’s caliber would have done his due diligence before hiring me for such a critical position. Probably knew where I went to elementary school and the combination to my locker at John F. Kennedy Junior High. So my raising the topic of ghosts should not have come as a shock to him. What’s more, I had a sense that something was mounting. I’d encountered the monastery’s unpleasant ghost twice in as many days, which suggested she wanted to tell me something. And even if she had no interest in chatting with me, I might soon be in the position of having to oust her from the ruins. This job would never get finished if she kept chasing people out of the building.

  Still . . . This was my first day on the job. Maybe it would be wise to wait until Graham arrived and I had a little backup.

  “Do you . . . ? I heard someone mention you have cameras at the site. Did they record what happened to the building inspector?”

  Elrich hesitated. “Alicia has the footage on the computer, but the visual cut out just moments before the murder.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” Or convenient, if you happened to be the killer. “How did that happen?”

  “We’re not sure. There was no power surge, no sign of tampering with the equipment, nothing to account for the lapse. The recording just . . . stopped. And that’s not the oddest thing.”

  I was afraid to ask. “Oh?”

  “There is some audio, but it doesn’t appear to be related to the homicide. There’s some muttering, nothing intelligible. The police suggested it may have been an errant radio signal, though I’m not sure how that would happen. Very strange.”

  “Indeed,” I said. Very strange.

  Dog was leaning against Ellis’s leg. I’ve always heard that dogs are good judges of character, though I wasn’t convinced. I knew for a fact that Dog would like anyone who smelled like or appeared in any way to be a conduit to food.

  “I hear you met Harper.”

  “Yes, just b
riefly.” That was fast, I thought. Had Harper mentioned it to him? Or did Elrich have surveillance cameras throughout the house, as well as on the jobsite? “She’s charming.”

  Ellis let out a mirthless chuckle. “She’s spoiled rotten, with few social graces. Don’t get me wrong. I adore my daughter, but I should have drawn the line more when she was young. After I lost her sister, I couldn’t bear to deny Harper anything. I realize now I didn’t do her any favors. She’s smart and has a good heart, but I’m afraid the world’s going to knock her around a little. As a father, it’s hard to sit back and watch.”

  “You say you ‘lost’ her sister?”

  “Childhood leukemia. Adrienne was only five years old; she was a year and a half younger than Harper.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I was devastated, as you can imagine. My marriage didn’t survive. The pain was so bad, I didn’t think I could bear it any longer. For a while there, I even considered killing myself, and might have done so if not for Harper. She was my lifeline.” He cleared his throat and took a sip of cognac. “After finally coming through that dark period . . . that’s when I started speaking to others. It began with my own grief support group; then I went on to talk with other grieving families, and it sort of grew from that into the current enterprise. Amazing where life will take you, isn’t it?”

  I nodded, thinking of the unexpected twists and turns my own life had taken lately.

  “It’s so odd. . . . In a way, my daughter’s death brought me all of this.” He swept his arm to show the estate. “And yet I’d give it all up for another day with her. One single day.”

  The flute music started up again, weaving through the air like there were fairies playing around us.

  “I have a stepson, Caleb—you met him the other day,” I heard myself confiding to Ellis. “He’s not technically my stepson, but I married his dad when he was five, and we were together for eight years. He’s seventeen now, and he’s struggling a little.”

  “Drugs?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so. But he’s unhappy at school, seems to be searching, trying to find himself. He grunts a lot.”

  Ellis smiled. “Even grunting is communication. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of this, but cherish every moment with him, grunting or not. The future is never guaranteed. Time is a gift, and life is fleeting. There’s no amount of money that can buy more, and there’s no way of knowing when it will be taken away.”

  His words made me think of Larry McCall’s murder. We had been speaking to the man one moment, and just a few minutes later, McCall’s life was snuffed out. Like the flame of a candle.

  I was becoming maudlin, I thought.

  “Well,” Ellis said as though reading my mind, “Thank you, Mel. This has been a lovely way to end the day. I’ll let you get some rest now. Alicia tells me you’re planning on getting up with the birds tomorrow. I appreciate your work ethic.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask about what Vernon had said—about Ellis hiring me for reasons other than my abilities as a contractor—but I held my tongue. Ellis had shown me nothing but faith and friendship so far. I should give him the benefit of the doubt.

  As I watched him walk across the moonlit terrace, he seemed neither powerful nor rich, but profoundly lonely. He had lost a child, surely one of the most difficult sorrows for a person to survive. My heart went out to him.

  I was surprised how much I liked him.

  Then again, I reminded myself, it was his business to make others like him.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning, I was up before dawn, fed Dog, showered, dressed in a fringed dress topped by a sweatshirt, pulled on my work boots, and took my canine pal for a quick walk through the meadow, fresh with dew. We returned to the room, and I was about to venture out in search of coffee when I saw a piece of paper on the floor near the door.

  It was today’s schedule: Coffee and breakfast would be served from six to nine in the breakfast bar; lunch would be available from eleven thirty to two in the dining room. Elrich was in a couple of meetings, the memorial service for Larry McCall was set for five o’clock in the Wakefield Chapel (construction would stop early; men would be paid for their time and invited to join the service), and sherry hour was scheduled for seven o’clock (late to accommodate the memorial service). Dinner would be served late as well, at nine.

  No way could I guarantee I would make it through a nine-o’clock dinner. Not if I was getting up at five and working a twelve-hour day. It was far more likely that I would stuff myself on canapés at sherry hour, become inarticulate and combative by eight thirty, and fall asleep within the hour.

  It occurred to me that if Graham wasn’t already having serious doubts about me as a girlfriend, a little too much togetherness at the Elrich mansion might do the trick.

  The house felt hushed when I ventured out of my room, putting me in mind of Alicia’s response to my early-coffee request. Probably no one else—besides the inimitable Ellis Elrich, of course—would bother to roll out of bed for another hour. On the other hand, given how soundproof the house was, I supposed it was possible all sorts of activities were going on behind closed doors.

  But not, apparently, in the breakfast bar. There wasn’t a soul in sight, though a big urn of coffee had been set out, along with silver platters full of a number of other food items: pastries, doughnuts, muffins. I’m not a big pastry gal, but even I was tempted. These weren’t the dried-out baked goods laid out at the free Continental breakfast offered by midrange hotels. On the contrary, it looked as though someone had gotten out of bed much earlier than I in order to roll out buttery croissant dough.

  Which reminded me: I had forgotten to talk to Ellis Elrich about arranging for coffee and snacks for the men. General contractor fail.

  I started filling my large travel mug at the urn, grateful when a rich aroma wafted up, indicating excellent coffee. Not that I would expect anything less from such a classy joint.

  “What would you like for breakfast?”

  Alicia was standing in the doorway, looking fresh as a daisy in a turquoise linen shift dress and matching shoes. If it hadn’t been for the perturbed expression she habitually wore, she would have been darling.

  “All I need is coffee. Thanks,” I said as I struggled with the cap of my mug, which always gave me fits. It was the only travel mug I’d found that didn’t drip, but the cap was a bear to get on.

  Alicia took the mug from me unceremoniously and—without apparent effort—snapped on the lid and handed it back. “You don’t want anything at all? Not even a muffin?”

  She held out something that looked made of whole grains and would probably fulfill my dietary fiber needs for an entire week. I tried not to take it personally that she wasn’t offering me a frosting-laden doughnut.

  “I’m good, thanks,” I said. “I think I mentioned yesterday that I don’t really eat br—”

  “The chef is standing by, available to cook any hot item you might want. Omelet, eggs, bacon . . . sausage?”

  “I’m not really a breakfast person. I’m more a caffeine-driven, let’s-get-this-show-on-the-road kind of person.”

  Alicia looked at me as though not entirely understanding what I was saying. I almost suggested she trade notes with my father, who appeared heartbroken every morning when I declined what he would call “a hearty breakfast.” The man had made it through two tours of Vietnam with his good spirits intact, but I feared one day my refusal of “the most important meal of the day” would cause him to break down and cry.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask Alicia about getting some coffee and snacks set up for the jobsite, but she had looked about ready to crack when I asked for early coffee yesterday. I decided to take it up with Ellis directly, or arrange for a truck to come by myself.

  Alicia was still staring at me.

  “I guess I could take a croissant with me,” I conceded.

  She wrapped up two croissants, along with the bran m
uffin, and tucked them into a brown paper bag. She added a paper napkin, folded the top of the bag over neatly, and handed it to me.

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling like a child going off to school with her lunch bag.

  Alicia nodded, frowned, and didn’t wait for me to leave before turning back to rearrange the platters of pastries, straightening up the already spotless breakfast bar.

  * * *

  My new commute was great. The sun was coming up by the time Dog and I started down the path that led from the house to the construction site, and seven minutes later we stood on the jobsite.

  I was pleased to see the area was still deserted. New as I was to the project, I wanted a few moments alone before the men started to arrive, the day’s commotion shifted into gear, and the steady stream of construction questions began.

  There is something mysterious and beautiful about a ruin, and something magical about laying a new structure on those shattered remains, breathing new life into the old. Like an archaeologist sifting through layers of soil, peeling back the layers. Except I was doing the opposite, trying to restore what once was, without much of a road map.

  And besides, I’m really not that kind of anthropologist.

  I walked along the outside wall of the chapel, my fingers trailing along the stone, feeling the irregular crevices and rough texture under my fingertips. I was beginning to see the building in my mind, to sense it, and I knew my psyche had been at work while I slept: thinking how I might use epoxy resin to reinforce fragile supports, imagining simple double-pane glazing to infill window gaps and stainless steel frames to hold the walls together. Lighter materials like fresh finished wood, white plaster, and reflective glass would provide a welcome contrast to the heavy stone. In contrast to my usual approach to historical buildings, this place was so old that rather than return it to its authentic original state, we would update it and leave distinctions between the old and new: sleek black-powder-coated steel window trim would meet crude stone arches; new wood supports would hold up ancient ceiling vaults. It would be a glorious mélange.