A Haunting Is Brewing: A Haunted Home Renovation and a Witchcraft Mystery Novella

by Juliet Blackwell

  “That would be . . .” Scummy, I thought to myself, but said: “hard to believe.”

  He shrugged. “Anyway, I guess Lurch is determined to go through with this fund-raiser no matter what.”

  “Gaskin told me Adam’s family asked him to go ahead with the party, because Adam cared about the causes. The family’s providing matching funds.”

  Duff shrugged. “The way I heard it was the other way around: Lurch went to Adam’s mom and totally sold her on the idea. Tell you the truth, I mean . . . I don’t think Adam even knew much about the youth center. That was more Riley’s thing.”

  Riley just shrugged.

  “That would totally blow if they sold it,” mumbled Tess.

  “We’re going to go check out the house,” I said. “You guys stay outside, okay?”

  I opened the door, and Dog started barking his fool head off before we’d even entered the building. Oscar, for his part, trotted around on his little hoofs, clacking loudly on the broad plank floors.

  Both animals scampered upstairs right away. Lily and I were about to follow when Annette Crawford appeared in the doorway.

  “You figure out what’s going on yet?” she asked me without preamble.

  “I’m working on it,” I said. “This is Lily Ivory. She owns a vintage clothing shop on Haight. Lily, this is Inspector Annette Crawford.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Annette said. “Are you involved with Spooner House?”

  “No,” Lily said. “I’m . . . trying to help figure out what happened to the young man who died here.”

  Annette raised one eyebrow. “Vintage clothes dealer-slash-amateur detective?”

  “I sometimes give advice on less ordinary situations,” she said. “I’ve worked with Inspector Carlos Romero a few times. Do you know him?”

  Annette nodded. “Yes, I do. Good detective, good man.”

  There was a brief pause while Lily and Annette assessed each other. Suddenly the patter of piggy hooves and dog’s nails clacking overhead on the wood floors sounded like a herd of animals, rather than just two.

  Annette’s eyes moved skyward. “And . . . you decided to bring your pets?”

  “It’s sort of hard to explain,” I said. “But please believe me when I tell you there’s a reason for it.”

  “Okay,” said Crawford, and I imagined she was barely repressing the urge to roll her eyes. But she and I had been through a few homicide investigations before; she was accustomed to my unconventional approach to this sort of thing. “You two do whatever you were going to do with your menagerie, and then we’ll get a cup of coffee and talk. I’ll wait outside.”

  Lily headed up the stairs; I followed.

  The steps creaked as they always did; the curved walls and colorful glass windows appeared as elegant as ever. So why did I feel a sense of dread as we reached the upstairs landing?

  Perhaps it was because I couldn’t stop looking at the chandelier, and the place where Adam had died. It was homicide, not suicide; I felt sure of it now. But who would have gone after the young performing arts student? What kind of enemies could he have possibly had?

  I grabbed the sepia-toned family portrait off the wall so we could compare the dolls to the faces in the photo.

  “Who opened that door?” I asked Lily, the back of my neck tingling as I noted the hatch to the attic was open. The animals were clearly up there—we could hear them overhead.

  “I . . . I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” said Lily, sounding evasive. I studied her as she climbed the attic stairs. Could she have somehow opened the door with witchcraft. . . . ? Get a grip, Mel. First you aren’t sure you believe her at all, and now you think she’s capable of opening doors long-distance?

  “Maybe . . . maybe someone left it open.”

  Lily looked at me over her shoulder as though she could read my mind. “It could have been my pig. He’s . . . remarkably capable.”

  “Your—?”

  I was cut off by the sight of our pets gazing at the mannequins. Dog was doing that strange growling/mewling sound he sometimes did when confronted with spirits. Oscar-the-pig was trotting back and forth excitedly, his little hooves tapping loudly, as though he could barely contain himself.

  Lily nodded. “It’s as we thought. Definitely something about these poppets. . . . Not those two,” she said, pointing to one man and one woman, “but these here.” She grouped the suspect dolls: one male, three females.

  We consulted the photo.

  “The two on the end are empty—they must have been Thaddeus’s sister and her husband. These here are Thaddeus, Miriam, Betsy, and Charity,” said Lily. “Can you communicate with them?”

  I grounded myself as I’d been taught, doing a body scan and establishing myself as part of this earth, this time period. Next I began rubbing the gold ring at my neck. Closing my eyes and regulating my breathing. Clearing my mind to allow for errant vibrations or energies. Calling out psychically.

  I opened one eye. The four Spooner family members were staring at me, heads cocked, glassy eyes wide.

  They weren’t talking.

  “No luck, sorry. If they don’t want to communicate, I can’t force them. Like I said . . . I’m really not much good at this.”

  Lily shrugged. “None of this is easy or straightforward. My training is all about how to affect reality while maintaining control, but I’ve been studying most of my life and I still can’t always get the results I was hoping for. Keep working at it; you’ll get better.”

  “I suppose,” I said without much enthusiasm.

  “It’s a privilege to have contact with those beyond the veil, Mel,” said Lily. “A rare gift.”

  “I’d rather win the lottery,” I said. “So anyway, as I told you, Reginald’s doll is missing. Given what Herve told us, I’m thinking we should check his trunk for magic tricks.”

  “Good idea,” Lily said.

  I turned toward the corner where the old steamer trunk sat. Scratch that: used to sit. Now there was a dust-free rectangle marking the spot.

  The trunk was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  “What have you got so far?” Annette asked the two of us over mochas at Coffee to the People, a café in the Haight that was a holdover from the famous Summer of Love. We had stashed the animals at Aunt Cora’s Closet, where Bronwyn was cosseting them shamelessly.

  “According to the records we found, most of the Spooner family died in 1918,” I said. “That was the year of the great flu epidemic, so it wasn’t that unusual for whole families to die within days of each other. But there was a bit of a scandal because the surviving family members, especially Thaddeus Spooner’s sister Hazel and her husband, Frederick, accused their nephew Reginald of something nefarious—they said he wouldn’t let anyone visit when his family was sick. He also sent the servants away.”

  “And everyone died except Reginald?” Annette asked.

  “Yes, he survived his family. He worked as a stage magician and was fairly successful on the local circuit. He continued for a while longer, but according to what I could glean from a newspaper article from the time, his act had become rather maudlin. The reporter speculated it was because of what happened to his family, and mentioned the accusations made by Reginald’s aunt and uncle. Anyway, his shows lost popularity, and nine months after his family passed, he hung himself in the house.”

  “Hung himself, like Adam?”

  I nodded. “From the same chandelier, on Halloween night.”

  Annette gazed at me, then at Lily.

  “Okay. I get that the dolls are creepy, but why are you two so interested in them?”

  “Dolls, especially when they have a close likeness to someone, may be used as poppets,” said Lily. “In the hands of a practitioner, they are capable of holding a bit of one’s soul.”

  Annette raised one eyebrow.
This usually was more than enough to quell the likes of me, but Lily seemed undeterred.

  “It’s possible Reginald used those dolls to trap the spirits of his family members.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I don’t actually deal with poppets that much. They give me the willies. But I’ve got a voodoo guy if you’d like to learn about the details.”

  “A voodoo guy?”

  Lily nodded and sipped her drink, a chocolate mocha concoction.

  “Let’s set aside the voodoo guy for the moment and move on,” said Annette with a wry twist of her lips. “So you’re saying this Reginald character may have used the dolls in some way to trap the spirits of his whole family after their deaths?”

  “His father, mother, and sisters.”

  “Uh-huh. And why would he do such a thing?”

  “Maybe he didn’t like them? Or maybe he wanted to get rid of his family so he could inherit everything. The Spooners had a lot of money.”

  “Then why not just let them die?”

  “Maybe they were getting better? It’s hard to say. . . . It might tell us something if we could find Reginald’s poppet. I was hoping Mel could communicate with it,” Lily told Annette.

  “When did it go missing?”

  “We don’t know if it was ever there; no one’s seen it,” I said. “But we know Thaddeus Spooner carved a doll for each of his family members, so it stands to reason there’s one of Reginald floating around. I was thinking it might be in his magic trunk in the attic, but now the trunk is missing, too. And the attic was left open.”

  “Why would someone steal his magic trunk?”

  “I don’t know that, either,” I said, discouraged. “I’ve been in that attic a couple of times since Adam died, but I can’t remember whether it was there or not, so I’m not even sure when it went missing.”

  “Not very helpful.”

  “No. All I’m certain of right now is that Adam didn’t kill himself.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Annette asked.

  “Because he told me.”

  “I’d have to check the state statutes, but I’m reasonably sure that won’t hold up in a court of law,” Annette replied.

  “Think about this: If Adam didn’t kill himself, there’s a murderer running around.”

  “A sobering thought,” Lily said.

  “But what I can’t figure out is why anyone would kill Adam,” I said. “Annette, have you found anything?”

  “We’re following up on leads.”

  “Would anyone have anything to gain by his death?”

  She hesitated. Annette was too much of a by-the-book inspector to reveal confidential police information, even to a sort-of friend.

  “It’s possible.”

  “Did he have a life insurance policy?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Isn’t he awfully young to have a life insurance policy? Who’s the beneficiary?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” she said with a significant glance toward Lily. I had the sense that had it been just the two of us, she might have given me a hint, but she didn’t know Lily well enough to trust her. “But watch your back. Especially around relatives. Family can be a real killer.”

  ***

  “Are you thinking Uncle Preston?” Lily asked later.

  We were walking down Haight toward her shop, and she kept stopping and snipping pieces of flowers and herbs from gardens as we passed, and tucking them in the deep pockets of her vintage sundress. For her witchy brews, I presumed.

  I nodded. “He’s been off-putting from the start. But then again, I can’t accuse the man of murder just because I don’t like him. In fact, the students were saying something that made me wonder. . . . I guess I should have mentioned it to Annette. I’ll call her, just in case.”

  “What is it?”

  “They were saying that Spooner House is in need of money, and Duff mentioned Adam’s death would probably spur ticket sales for a haunted ball.”

  “That’s pretty far-fetched, isn’t it? To think someone would orchestrate something like that in order to sell tickets?”

  I nodded. “Far-fetched, but . . . I’ve seen people do outrageous things for some pretty petty reasons. Homicide usually comes down to greed, or jealousy . . .”

  “Or revenge, or to cover up a secret,” finished Lily, as though ticking them off on a mental list.

  “Adam’s just a kid. What sort of secrets could he have?”

  Lily sighed. “You’ve been lucky, Mel. You’ve led a sheltered life. Trust me, when it comes to the things humans are capable of doing, Adam wasn’t that young.”

  “I guess you’re right. But why there, in Spooner House?”

  “All places have vibrations, because they absorb the energies of those who dwell within. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that.”

  I nodded. I remember when my mother, from whom I’d inherited my ability to sense the presence of those who had passed, refused to let my father buy and renovate a run-down house despite its investment potential. She had felt a foreboding sensation in the house. “Absolutely not, Bill,” she had said. “I won’t allow you or the girls to set foot in that place. That home is dangerous.” My father had, uncharacteristically, accepted her decision without arguing.

  “If a place has seen evil or violence, the vibrations may be enough to influence someone who’s already on edge,” Lily continued. “Knock them off the fence, so to speak.”

  “So, could you tell anything further from seeing the dolls?”

  “I’ll ruminate, consult with my pig, and get back to you.”

  When I looked at her, she was smiling, and I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not. “Okay. I’d better get back to work as well.”

  “Mel . . . you’re not going back to Spooner House alone, are you?”

  “No, I have a few other projects to check on. I do renovations for a living. Chasing down ghosts and murder suspects is just a sideline.”

  She laughed. “Me too. It’s been a pleasure, Mel. We’ll talk soon.”

  Chapter Ten

  That evening, just as I was thinking of calling it a day, Lily called me.

  “Riley came to see us at Aunt Cora’s Closet.”

  “Oh, really? She doing okay?”

  “She was a little shaky.”

  “I’m not surprised. Those poor kids.”

  “Listen, Mel, I’m not a big telephone person. Could you possibly drop by the store?”

  “Sure. I’m in the Castro—I’ll swing by in fifteen.”

  As soon as I hung up, the phone beeped again. There were times I wished I could be, like Lily, “not a telephone person,” but the truth was a contractor lived by her telephone. It was the only way to juggle several jobsites, communicate with clients, order supplies, push permits through the building department, and foster new projects—all while unclogging a toilet or balancing spreadsheets.

  This time it wasn’t work, though; it was Annette Crawford returning my call. I told her about the rumor that Spooner House was having financial difficulties, and I proposed the rather absurd theory that someone might have killed Adam to increase ticket sales. Of course the moment it came out of my mouth I regretted suggesting it: It was ludicrous.

  “You always tell me I should tell you everything, no matter how ridiculous,” I said in an attempt to justify sharing my suspicions.

  “That I do, and this certainly does sound ridiculous. But I’m glad you told me, nonetheless. Listen, what do you know about the girl named Riley?”

  “Nothing, really . . .” I wondered what Lily was going to tell me about Riley’s visit to Aunt Cora’s Closet. “Why?”

  “Just checking folks out.”

  “One of the guys mentioned she had a connection to the youth center, but other than that . . . nothing rea
lly stands out.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  We hung up, and I drove toward the Haight.

  ***

  Lily’s shop was officially closed when I arrived, the cheerful yellow painted sign in the window inviting me to check back tomorrow at ten.

  But Lily was standing behind the register, apparently sorting through receipts. She smiled when she saw me and hurried to open the door.

  “Sorry about that—if I leave it open, people keep coming it. I never want to complain about success, but it can be a bit overwhelming.”

  “I’m sure. I guess that’s better than the opposite problem, though, right?”

  “That’s for sure. I’ve considered staying open later, like Herve does, but I’m loath to give up my evenings. Tea?”

  “I’m okay, thanks. My dad expects me home for dinner.”

  “You live with your dad? Really? You’re so lucky!”

  Her reaction surprised me. Most people took that news with a healthy dose of either skepticism—What’s wrong with you that you still live with Daddy?—or flat-out pity.

  “I moved in a couple of years ago, after I got divorced and my mom passed away. I imagine I’ll move out eventually, but for the meantime it works.”

  “I have a . . . complicated relationship with my parents. My father . . . well, we’re not close.”

  I had the distinct sense there was a whole lot more to that story, but she moved on.

  “Anyway, the reason I asked you to come by was to ask you: How well do you know Riley?”

  “Not well at all. Why?”

  “She came by with a dress she said belonged to one of the other girls—Tess, I think? It had some grass stains on the backside, and Riley asked if we knew the best way to get them out. I don’t have to tell you that being a vintage clothes dealer means becoming an expert in laundry.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “The only thing is . . . she started to cry, and then Bronwyn was rubbing her back and offering her tea, and between all of us, well, she told us that she spent time in juvenile detention and that she slept with Adam.”

  “She . . . what? Juvenile detention? And she slept with Adam?”