Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Anything useful?” Landon asked.

  “Not really. I—”

  Without any warning, Egypt rushed into the foyer. She had her hair wrapped up in another brightly colored batik scarf, and a snowy white dress that I knew I’d be able to keep clean for about five minutes, tops.

  She looked upset. “What are you doing here . . . ? What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry to surprise you, Egypt. Andrew said he let you know we might be here. We’re going to be using the garage as our staging area for the interim.”

  “Where am I supposed to park?”

  “Well . . .” This really wasn’t my problem. And yet it was, because I was the one who had to deal with it. “How about we make sure there’s room in the driveway for you to park?”

  She looked displeased, but nodded. “Okay. Thanks. You will respect my privacy, won’t you?”

  “We haven’t gone in your room, if that’s what you mean,” I said.

  “You don’t seriously believe in this haunting thing, do you?” Egypt demanded, seeming suddenly angry. “I mean, I assumed that was just some gig you used to jack up your rates.”

  “’Fraid not,” I said, glancing surreptitiously at Landon. “I’m really not that clever. Egypt, could I just take a quick peek in your room? I’d really like to cross it off the list.”

  “What list?”

  “I just mean that I’d feel better if I’d seen the whole house, top to bottom. To rule things out.”

  “Another time, if that’s all right? I just got home, found all of this going on. . . . I’d really like to just go relax.”

  It’s true that it could be exhausting to live with construction projects. Still, we’d hardly made a dent, so if Egypt was already this disturbed by the little we’d done so far, she wasn’t going to make it for the duration.

  Her refusal to let me in could mean she was hiding something, or that she had left undies lying around on the floor, or simply was a private person. I supposed I could pull rank, call Andrew Flynt and force the issue, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to use up my chips this way. And if Egypt was going to remain on-site, I needed her to be on my side.

  Also, I was curious about her heated conversation with George Flynt, but couldn’t think how to ask her about it.

  “I understand,” I said. “And I know you’re tired. I hear you’re good with computers. Is that your day job?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I was wondering. . . . Could I ask you a question about the Flynts?”

  “What about them?”

  “You mentioned the other day that they argued about money. Was it about anything in particular?”

  “From what I overheard . . . Okay, now this is just plain gossip. But from what I’ve come to understand, it’s George’s thing, and it pisses Stephanie off big-time.”

  “What is ‘George’s thing’?”

  “Apparently he was so disappointed in how his son Andrew turned out that he decided the grandkids shouldn’t have access to the estate. They have to ‘work for a living,’ is how he put it. So he employs them at Tempus and they get paid, of course, but it’s not like they’re rolling in it.”

  “George disinherited them?”

  “I don’t think it’s that extreme. It’s just that he wants them to learn work habits, or something. Whenever I’m around he points at me like I’m some sort of symbol of working-class nobility. Creeps me out.”

  “I guess they would be pretty angry about that,” I said.

  “To tell you the truth, I think Stephanie is the one truly upset about it. She—Well, she’s got a temper, underneath it all.”

  “I thought I saw you today, near the Tempus offices?”

  She went very still. “Tempus, the Flynt company? No, I don’t do any work for them. Too bad, right? Just imagine how juicy that IT position would be. But anyway, if you repeat any of this to the Flynts, I guess I’m out on my ear. I’m looking for a place to move anyway, though. Happen to know of an apartment with a reasonable rent?”

  Yes, one that comes with housekeeping services, I thought to myself. But I just shook my head. “Sorry. I’ll be sure to let you know if anything comes up.”

  “Thanks. And sorry about being so cranky before.”

  When she left, I expected Landon to ask me about Egypt, or the haunting. Instead, he said, without meeting my eyes:

  “Would it be too much to ask to get a drink? I find myself somewhat at my wit’s end.”

  “I . . .” I glanced at my watch. Dad usually expected me for dinner, but I could call and let him know I wouldn’t be there. Since he always cooked too much he was usually flexible, and we were big leftover folks. “Sure, why not?”

  “Do you know of a good place around here?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. Let’s go sit down with the Big Four.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “The Big Four were Central Pacific’s C. P. Huntington, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, and Leland Stanford,” I explained as we walked into the clubby bar off the lobby of the Scarlet Huntington Hotel. “Four of the richest men in San Francisco, they had their homes here on Nob Hill.”

  The Big Four bar was very old-school, full of dark wood paneling and oil paintings—mostly of the four railroad tycoons. It was the sort of place I always half expected would throw me out on my keister, so, perversely, I enjoyed coming here in dusty sequins.

  It also happened to be located on Nob Hill, just a block up from where I had been last night when I saw Flora. It wasn’t dark yet as we arrived, but it should be full night by the time we left. Maybe I could try again to give her a lift.

  “I thought the Big Four were the prime ministers of England, Italy, France, and the United States who met in Paris in 1919 to sign the World War I peace treaty,” said Landon as we sat at a small table in the corner.

  I gave him a blank look, then asked, “You sure you weren’t a history major?”

  He smiled and shook his head. The waitress came and took our orders: a Manhattan for me, straight whiskey for him.

  “And,” I continued, “when you put it like that, I suppose the four who put an end to the first World War were slightly more laudable than four guys who made bundles of money off the railroads.”

  “Depends on your point of view,” Landon said diplomatically.

  A group of rowdy tourists came in soon after us, jostling tables. The bar was clearly too intimate to accommodate their large party, and the hostess helped direct them to a sports bar down the street. By the time that got worked out, the waitress arrived at the table with our drinks. She was young and pretty, and clearly intrigued by Landon, who was paying no attention to her or to anything else in his immediate vicinity.

  Instead he sat brooding, staring into the glass of amber liquid in front of him.

  “I made arrangements for a memorial service, at the Chapel of the Chimes,” he said finally. “Thank you for suggesting it. The service will be on Saturday, at eleven. I hope you’ll come.”

  “Of course.”

  He gave a humorless chuckle. “I don’t know a soul here, other than you and Inspector Crawford.”

  “Well, to be fair, we’re two of the more interesting women in San Francisco.”

  “Now that I believe.”

  “Anyway, I’m glad you liked the Chapel of the Chimes. It’s a pretty amazing place.”

  He continued to gaze into his glass. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have asked you here. I fear I’m not good company.”

  “You don’t have to try to be good company, Landon. Your sister was just killed. And, you know, your Internet’s been wonky. You’ve had a tough couple of days.”

  Another barely-there chuckle.

  “What was she like, your sister? You mentioned you used to be close.”

  He fixed me with a look. “You think this mi
ght tell you something pertinent to the crime?”

  “It’s possible. I don’t understand why she would show up in that photograph. Maybe it’s significant, somehow. Could she have felt some sort of special connection with Flora Summerton, do you think?”

  He remained still, but his eyebrows lifted as though to say: In what way?

  “It’s a long shot, but this is sort of my process when trying to figure out murders. I ask a lot of seemingly random questions, most of which are completely off target, and then eventually I stumble across something, or someone, significant. It’s worked three or four times now.”

  He took a deep draw on his whiskey, and tilted his head. “Do go on.”

  “I’m not going to get into the specifics, but as I said I’ve known Inspector Crawford for a few murders. And there was one even before I knew her. I’m sorry if this all seems strange, or out of your comfort zone.”

  “I think we can safely assume we’re so far out of my comfort zone that we should just keep going.” He signaled to the waiter for another round of drinks—even though my drink was still half full—and ordered carne asada fries. At my questioning look, he said, “I have never heard of such a thing in my life, and am intrigued beyond reason. Also, it’s Happy Hour.”

  “And yet we’re not very happy.”

  “Cheryl was my older sister by two years, yet I always felt protective of her. When our parents were killed, that feeling intensified. We went to live with my father’s brother for a while, but he was rather . . . inappropriate.”

  “Inappropriate?”

  “With Cheryl. It didn’t get too far, because I threatened to go to the cops. By then we were fifteen and seventeen. My threats were enough to keep him at bay, and we left on Cheryl’s eighteenth birthday. That was when she was able to take control of the money our parents left to us—mostly a life insurance policy—and we left for England. Our mother was British, and we were both actually born there though we grew up in the States.”

  The waitress came by with the carne asada fries, which were a pile of shoestring French fries topped with chopped-up grilled meat, guacamole, cotija cheese, and sour cream.

  “How astonishing,” he said quietly, studying the plate. “I rather thought the actual meat would be made into fries, somehow.”

  “The wonders of American food,” I said, stealing a fry.

  Landon nodded and sort of prodded the food tower, but didn’t dig in.

  “Unfortunately,” he continued with his story, “we had no close relations in England; no one who would take us in for more than a few days. But we had enough money for a while, got a small flat. Cheryl really fell in love with London. That’s where she met Gobi. He was a guru.”

  “Gobi the guru?”

  “Just so. It . . . I don’t want to say it changed her, as I imagine we were both changing by that time. But it intruded on our relationship, I’ll just say that. Cher—Chantelle—I know she preferred that name—had been searching spiritually for some time, even before our parents passed away. After she began her study with Gobi, she came to believe there was a purpose to all of it: to our parents’ deaths, to our orphanhood, even to our uncle’s lecherous behavior and our move to London. It was fate, she said.”

  He tried a French fry dipped in guacamole, with a little chunk of carne asada on top. He looked confused.

  “Please,” he said, pushing the plate toward me. “Help yourself.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anyway, I managed to finish high school in London. Then, since I was born there and my mother was British—I had dual citizenship—I was admitted into the military.”

  “So you served with the British military?”

  He nodded. “I never saw combat, anything like that.”

  “You seemed pretty good with that iron bar in the secret passage.”

  He gave me a crooked smile and an insouciant shrug, and the waitress came by and asked him if there was anything, anything at all, she could get for him. She didn’t ask me. In fact, she had eyes only for Landon, who didn’t seem to notice.

  “Would you like anything else, Mel? Something different to drink?” He gestured to the full glass sitting next to my half-finished one.

  “No, thank you. I think I’m set for the evening.”

  The waitress slipped him an extra napkin.

  “Oh, thank you,” he said. She gave him a smile full of promise, then left.

  “Anyway, while in the military . . .” He trailed off as I reached over and turned his new napkin over.

  Sure enough, the waitress had written down her name—Mia—and number.

  “Aw, how cute: She dotted the i with a little heart,” I said, then laughed at the surprised and discomfited look on Landon’s face. I handed it back to him. “Go on. While in the military . . . ?”

  “Chantelle was disappointed that I had chosen to go into the military, just as I was not happy with her following her guru. That was when we grew apart; our lives were just too different. I trained in Special Forces for a while, but what I truly excelled at was computer systems.”

  “Can you hack into things?”

  “Why is that the first thing noncomputer people always ask?”

  “It’s the most interesting aspect,” I said with a shrug. “Otherwise, what would I ask? ‘How are the zeros and ones treating you?’”

  “How about: Can you stop cyberterrorism? Can you save the world?”

  My eyes widened. “Can you?”

  He smiled.

  “I’m just saying,” I said. “If you can, you should probably get on that. All I can do is fix a sump pump. If you have a toilet backed up, I’m your gal. And I used to be an anthropologist so I know some fascinating factoids about the native peoples of Papua, New Guinea. But saving the world with a keystroke? That’s impressive.”

  Landon laughed. It was the first time I had heard a genuine laugh from him, and it was a wonderful sound: deep and resonant and full of reluctant mirth.

  It must have been the strain of the past few days, amplified by the whiskey, because I hadn’t said anything that funny. Still, I couldn’t help but smile in response.

  He shook his head, still chuckling, and stared at me for a long moment. “You are really something, Mel Turner.”

  “I guess I would have them rolling in the aisles at Cambridge,” I said. “Maybe I should book a gig.”

  “Maybe you should, at that.”

  Once again our eyes met, and held. This was getting ridiculous.

  “Tell me about your boyfriend.”

  “Uh, Graham? He’s a great guy. A green technologies consultant.”

  “I would assume there might be some conflict there, between historic restoration and green technologies.”

  “There are some issues, yes, but ultimately the carbon footprint of renovation is much less than new construction. Anyway, he’s in New York right now.”

  “He’s living there?”

  “Oh, no, he’ll be back soon.” I snuck a couple more fries, more out of nervousness and something to do than hunger.

  “And are you two serious?”

  I stopped chewing. Something went down the wrong way and I started hacking and choking.

  “I’m okay,” I managed between coughs so no one assumed I had a chunk of carne stuck in my throat. I could only imagine some hero trying to apply the Heimlich maneuver to me. How much more glamorous could one woman get?

  Once I downed some water and got hold of myself, Landon said, “I apologize if I was speaking too personally. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business. It’s just that . . . to tell you the truth, I think my coming to teach at Berkeley and reaching out to Chantelle was all part of my seeking something more in my life. I’ve been very successful by some standards, but I suppose I’m tired of feeling so . . . temporary. I’m ready to set down some roots.”


  “Well, the Bay Area is a great place to set down roots if you have scads of money.”

  “So I hear.”

  “Hey! I happen to know a nice place for sale, great neighborhood, a mere twenty-nine million dollars.”

  He smiled.

  “And it’s a ‘smart house’—you have to like that.”

  “Yes, but does it have any secret passages hidden behind bookcases?”

  “You just might be in luck.”

  He smiled and pushed the now-soggy fries to the side.

  “You’re not blown over by this culinary sensation?” I asked. “I ate more than you.”

  “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”

  “Want to go look for a ghost?”

  “Another one?”

  “This would be Flora, the young woman in the photo with Chantelle.” As I said it, it dawned on me: We weren’t far from Chantelle’s apartment. Had she seen Flora wandering up and down California Street over the years?

  And their stories did share at least one parallel: They had both fled their homes on their eighteenth birthdays. Could they have shared more? Perhaps Flora had come into some money in her majority, as well, which she used to flee? And could the grumpy photographer—who I was going to assume was Peregrine Summerton, Flora’s father—have been “inappropriate” with her? Was that what the dozens of pictures of her were about? Wasn’t it odd to have fixated so on one’s daughter?

  But if that were the case, why would Flora be trying to find her way back to Crosswinds?

  I told Landon about seeing Flora last night, and my trying to give her a ride home. He couldn’t keep the expression of shock and discomfiture from his face. We walked up and down California a few times, then sat on the steps of Grace Cathedral for a while, on the lookout together. No Flora.

  “Probably she’s not that consistent,” I said after a half hour. “Since she was here last night, I doubt she’ll show up tonight. Want me to give you a ride back to your hotel?”