Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Do you have names or phone numbers? Maybe I could ask them about what they experienced?”

  “No, I keep a tally, that’s all, unless someone volunteers their name. But most don’t—you know how it is.”

  “Okay, thanks for your help. I should let you get back to your customers. Oh wait, before you put that away—do you have a mansion called Crosswinds in that big book?”

  “Crosswinds?”

  I nodded. “I couldn’t find anything much online.”

  He hesitated.

  “What?” I asked. “You’ve heard of it?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “How come there wasn’t anything online about it?”

  “This is what I’m saying. You can’t trust the online stuff—either it’s made up, or people like Olivier insist it not be put up unless it’s documented. Or people take stuff down because they don’t want folks to know things about their house. But as far as Crosswinds, haven’t you heard of the flower girl?”

  “Let’s assume I haven’t heard of anything. What happened?”

  “No one knows. She ran away. Maybe killed herself, who knows? Flora.”

  “A little flower girl named Flora? How old was she?”

  “A young woman, I guess is more politically correct. And she wasn’t a flower girl, I just call her that on account of her name was Flora. They say she disappeared from home on the evening of her eighteenth birthday.”

  “But her ghost is there, in Crosswinds?”

  “Nope. According to legend her ghost roams California Street, between Jones and Powell, asking for rides to Crosswinds. It’s one of those really sad cases. A lot of people have seen her, but don’t know she’s a ghost. If they give her a lift she disappears before they arrive.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  He shook his head vehemently. “I don’t got the eye. But Olivier’s seen her, tried to help her get home, but she disappeared from him, too. Made him pretty mad, I tell ya.”

  “Do you know why she’s trying to get home? Could this have anything to do with a weathervane, somehow?”

  He shook his head. “No idea. But if you could help her get all the way home, maybe you could put her to rest.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  One of the most frustrating things about being a clueless ghost hunter was that I frequently found myself at this juncture: All my investigations were opening up new avenues of inquiry instead of answering my original questions.

  So now I knew more, yet understood how to address it even less.

  I called Luz and told her what I learned about the students’ apartment.

  “Maybe poor Mrs. White was killed by her soldier husband, and ever since feels compelled to keep the kitchen spotless, a pie in the oven. If we knew the full story I could try to make her understand what had happened, so she could move on once and for all.”

  “I sent a letter to the landlady,” said Luz. “An actual pen-and-paper letter that I dropped in the mailbox, can you believe it? But even if she gets right back to me, it’ll take a couple of days. Don’t know if I can hold out that long. Can’t you just do an exorcism or something?”

  “Doesn’t work that way. Besides, I’d really like to know the whole story. Tell you what . . . ,” I said, glancing at my schedule. “Why don’t we meet at the Historical Society tomorrow? I need to look up Crosswinds anyway. We’ll read through some microfiche together—it’ll be fun.”

  “Looking up dead people in libraries is not my idea of fun, as I think you know. But whatever you say, chica. Just let me know when to meet you.”

  Next I headed to Marin to meet with the electrician and make sure everything was proceeding on track for the Wakefield Retreat Center’s Grand Opening, scheduled a mere two months from now.

  As I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, taking in the incredible vista of the Pacific Ocean on one side and the San Francisco Bay on the other, I pondered. While in Marin I could check out a couple of other salvage yards and junk shops I knew up there. Which made me wonder . . . Had the incident at Uncle Joe’s been an accident?

  Could Nancy have sent me there on purpose, somehow?

  But why would Nancy do such a thing? I’d known her for years, and she’d never tried to have me killed before. If she didn’t want me to find anything from Crosswinds, why not just deny she knew anything about it? Or could someone have followed us from Griega Salvage to Uncle Joe’s? I hadn’t been paying attention to a possible tail, and besides, big black trucks weren’t exactly unknown in these parts. It looked exactly like half the trucks on any construction jobsite.

  Could it have been Skip Buhner, or one of his men? Skip had struck me as squirrely, and not above violence if the odds were in his favor. But why would he bother attacking me? What would he have to gain?

  Or maybe it really had been a random accident.

  Then I thought about what Dingo had told me about the Crosswinds ghost, Flora. Was the funny little guy reliable? He seemed so odd, but he worked for Olivier and as Dingo himself had pointed out, Olivier was pretty darned serious when it came to the business of ghosts and ghost hunting.

  Still, the tale he told about Flora sounded like a story from childhood, the kind of tale told around the campfire, of hitchhiking ghosts who could never go home again. Perhaps it was because of that association that Flora’s tale seemed spookier to me than encountering spirits in houses.

  When I arrived at my destination, I riffled through my papers until I found the photo I had picked up in Crosswinds, and the ones in the file Karla had given me.

  I studied the somber young woman for a few minutes. Could this be Flora Summerton, the girl who had fled her home on her eighteenth birthday? What might she have to say for herself? I surely would like to know.

  One way to find out. I called Dad and told him I wouldn’t be home for supper.

  “I have to meet up with someone in San Francisco tonight.”

  “Have fun.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s more business than fun, but it’s sure to be interesting.”

  “Just stay away from dead people.”

  Good advice. Which I had no intention of following.

  • • •

  It wasn’t really fun. Or interesting. It was dead boring.

  Stakeouts imply action and secret adventures. In reality, they meant struggling just to stay awake. Also, for the past half hour or so I had been trying to convince myself I didn’t need to pee, which I knew from experience was a losing battle.

  I was sitting in my car on California Street, between Powell and Mason, where Dingo swore Flora’s ghost hung out. It wasn’t far from Chantelle’s Nob Hill apartment, and the competition for parking spots was fierce. I kept having to wave people off, even while trying to focus on spotting a ghost.

  So far the best part of the evening, hands down, was the dumplings I had bought at one of my favorite Chinatown bakeries. But they were long since finished, and now I sipped cold coffee—even though it would make me have to pee even more—and tried to ignore the fact that the Scion now smelled like dumpling dipping sauce.

  California Street had two sets of tracks in the middle of it, and occasionally a cable car would go clanging past. I remembered learning on a school field trip that the rich “nobs” who originally lived on the hill paid to have the tracks installed so they wouldn’t have to climb the steep hill on their way home. But I had never heard about the ghost of Flora Summerton, walking these streets alone and trying to find her way back to Crosswinds. . . .

  Someone banged on the window, rousing me from a semislumber.

  I jumped, my heart thudding heavily in my chest. It was a cop, standing at my driver’s-side window.

  I rolled down the window. “Hi,” I said.

  “You got a problem?” he asked.

  “Only that I need to pee.”

  He
looked nonplussed.

  “Sorry,” I said. “No problem. Just waiting for . . . a friend.”

  “Someone reported suspicious activity.”

  Then I realized: He wasn’t a police officer. He was a security guard, the kind that wore a neat uniform that made him look, at first glance, like a real cop.

  “What kind of suspicious activity . . . ?” My words trailed off as I saw a woman walking in the middle of the street, between the cable car tracks. She wore a long flowing yellow dress, and her long hair half tumbled down her back, falling from an elaborate, old-fashioned coif.

  I sat up, trying to see around the wannabe cop.

  “I think . . . I think I see her now. My friend.”

  The man turned around. “Where?”

  “There, in the middle of the street.”

  She was stumbling a little, as though confused or lost.

  A couple of cars swerved to avoid her, while others passed right by. I thought of what Dingo said: “I don’t got the eye.” Funny how some could see and some couldn’t, and how those who could often didn’t realize that what they were seeing was a ghost. It was a little crazy making.

  I climbed out of my car and pushed past the security guard.

  “Flora?” I called as cars whizzed by.

  She turned toward me. It was her, the woman in the photographs. I felt transfixed by her mournful gaze.

  A cable car came between us at that moment, blocking the view. When it clambered past, she was gone.

  “I don’t see anybody,” said the security guard.

  “I don’t either, anymore. She was just here.”

  Dammit. Part of me had known it couldn’t possibly be that easy. It wasn’t like me to set out to see a ghost and then simply see a ghost.

  “Listen, lady, time to move along. You’ve got no business here,” said the rent-a-cop.

  “Am I breaking any laws by sitting here?” I asked, exasperated. “If so, by all means call the police. You might ask for Inspector Annette Crawford. She’s a good friend of mine. Tell her you’d like to use up precious SFPD resources ousting people from legal parking spaces.”

  “I might just do that,” he sneered.

  “Use my phone. I’ve got the Inspector on speed dial.”

  He gave me a nasty look.

  I got back into my car, annoyed by Deputy Doofus, but mostly wondering where Flora had gone, and what my next move should be. Would she reappear if I waited? Or was she now wandering somewhere else? Maybe she’d hitched a ride on the cable car, or with another passing motorist. I wasn’t clear on how hitchhiking ghosts operated.

  I reached up to adjust the rearview mirror to keep the end of the block in view.

  Flora Summerton gazed straight back at me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I froze at the sight of the ghost.

  “Would you please take me home?” she asked.

  Her voice was sweet and melodic, yet slightly echoey, as though she was speaking through an old-fashioned speaking tube.

  Meanwhile, I was having trouble finding my own voice.

  “I must get home,” she continued. “Do you know it?”

  “I think I know the way,” I finally said. The security guard was watching me from the sidewalk, arms crossed. Sitting here talking to a ghost would no doubt reinforce his assumption that I posed a danger to the neighborhood. “It’s on Broadway, isn’t it? Crosswinds?”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “You know it?”

  “I do,” I said, pulling out and heading up the hill. I kept the rearview mirror angled so I could watch her while I drove.

  She looked so sad. I wanted to ask her what her story was, but it was hard to find the right words.

  I have a ghost in my backseat.

  “Flora, my name’s Mel. Mel Turner. I’d like to help you get home. All the way home.”

  “Thank you. I must get home. Do you know it?”

  “Yes. Crosswinds, on Broadway,” I repeated. “I know right where that is.”

  “I must get home.”

  Her voice was so odd, almost disembodied. I’d interacted with ghosts before, held conversations with them even, but not like this. Once again I was reminded that every ghost was different. I felt shivers run down my spine at the thought of Flora sitting behind me, talking to me from beyond the grave.

  “I think . . . Is your father waiting for you at Crosswinds?” I asked.

  “Father,” she repeated.

  We were about a block from Crosswinds now, and I was so preoccupied watching Flora in my rearview mirror that I nearly missed a stop sign. Talk about distracted driving. I could just imagine trying to explain that one to the cops. “You see, Officer, there was this ghost in my car . . .”

  A shiny Jaguar laid on the horn and I slammed on the brakes.

  “Sorry about that,” I said to my spectral passenger. “We’re nearly there.”

  No answer.

  I glanced in the mirror, then turned around to look in the backseat.

  Flora was gone.

  • • •

  It was past ten by the time I got home. After Flora disappeared I retraced my steps to California Street but of course my parking spot had been taken, and though I drove up and down the avenue and circled the block for the next half an hour, I caught no glimpse of her.

  Back home in Oakland, I hung out with Dog and poked my head into Caleb’s room to say hi. A lot of people found it unusual that my ex-stepson would be living with me and my dad rather than with either of his biological parents, who both loved him and were active in his life. But it worked for us. Caleb’s mother, Angelica, had a high-powered career in finance and wasn’t home a lot, while his father and new stepmother, Valerie, were expecting a baby. Even before she launched into her high-maintenance pregnancy bliss, Valerie hadn’t been overly fond of having her teenage stepson underfoot. Several months ago, when Caleb got into trouble, teenage-boy style, the adults had held a summit meeting. We all agreed he would benefit from my father’s constant attention and old-fashioned parenting, which mostly consisted of keeping Caleb busy with chores when he acted up. It was a child-rearing style I was very familiar with, and it seemed to have worked wonders with Caleb, probably because he really liked my dad and wanted his respect. The feeling was mutual.

  Other than Caleb and Dog, the house was quiet. I slipped into the Turner Construction home office to look up the legend of Flora, but found nothing more informative than Dingo’s story. There were plenty of sightings of her, but she never found her way home. The haunted look in her wide eyes made me feel sad. She seemed caught in one of those dreams where no matter how fast you ran you never got anywhere.

  On the other hand, if old cranky-pants from Crosswinds really was her father, why would she want to go home?

  Next I flipped through the stack of today’s phone messages atop my desk, including one from George Flynt, asking me to stop by the offices of Tempus, Ltd. in the morning. According to what I’d looked up yesterday, Tempus was grandfather Flynt’s most recent pet project. He’d made billions in some Internet start-up years ago, but now that he was pushing eighty he was funding enterprises “just for fun.”

  I had intended to swing by the permit office tomorrow anyway, so it would be easy enough to stop in at Tempus. It was in the Hobart Building, right downtown, not too far from the havoc being wrought by Skip Buhner and his crew.

  I thought back on my discussion with Skip: He had been lying, I was sure of it. I just couldn’t figure out why he’d have any reason to lie to me. Then again, I was at that state in this mystery where I was pretty sure everyone was lying. Even Nancy at Griega Salvage. I looked at Dog, whose big brown head lolled over toward me.

  “You’re not lying to me, are you, Dog?”

  He gave a couple of lazy thumps of his tail and I stroked his soft fur for a while.
Then I shut down the computer and went to bed, Flora Summerton’s sorrowful expression haunting my dreams.

  • • •

  The Hobart was a gorgeous old office building designed by Willis Polk in 1914, with a sculptured terra-cotta Baroque neoclassical exterior that was asymmetrical and idiosyncratic. The lobby’s brass details and Italian marble walls retained its early twentieth century elegance. The walls on either side of the elevator were sheathed in solid stone slabs, and the stairs—which no one used—were a matching gray-and-white marble, bordered by elaborate wrought iron and brass rails.

  And if all that sumptuousness wasn’t enough: Between the two elevators was a mail slot—the kind lined with glass so you could see your letters fall. That was the sort of thing that had fascinated me as a kid, and I had to admit I still got a kick out of it.

  The grace and beauty of buildings like this just tickled me. No doubt about it: I was in the right profession.

  I took the elevator to the seventeenth floor.

  Unfortunately, like so many older buildings, while the lobby and stairwell retained their original charm the offices had been gutted and updated with the trappings of the modern office suite: drop acoustic tiles, temporary walls and cubicles, and windows that couldn’t be opened. I had the sense Skip Buhner, et al, would approve.

  The offices of Tempus, Ltd. were down the hall to the left. A burly security guard at the door checked my name against a list on a clipboard.

  Even though I had been summoned here to do the Flynts a favor, I was allowed to cool my heels for five minutes in the plush waiting room, where sage-green walls were covered in artistic black-and-white photos of attractive old people. I used the time to answer phone calls and some text messages, which the receptionist—a blonde, with her hair done up in a do as if she’d stepped off the set of Mad Men—seemed to find annoying. But if I was going to be made to wait, I was going to get some work done.

  Finally, I was met not by George, but by Lacey Flynt.

  She approached with a fake smile, and gave me the once-over, conveying the kind of dismissive disdain she had apparently learned from her father and grandfather.