Happy Medium: (Intermix)

by Meg Benjamin

  “It’s iron and obsidian, very powerful. Plus I can pour salt in a trough at the bottom if I have to.”

  He managed not to snicker. By now he knew better. There was nothing funny about it. “Did you do this?”

  She shook her head. “It was built in, so Great-grandma Siobhan did it. There’s some iron hardware on the front door that Grandma Caroline probably added. The house is warded, Ray.”

  “Does it work?”

  Rosie paused for a long moment. “It’s only been tested a couple of times since I came to live here, but yeah, it worked well. Very well.” She raised her chin, ready for an argument.

  He decided not to give her one. “But this is to keep spooks out. I’ve already got at least one in residence. How is this going to help?”

  She shrugged. “You probably can’t drive out the ghost that’s already there, at least not like this. But you can make some of the rooms ghost free. If some places have iron around the doors while others don’t, the ghost will go for the ones that don’t have anti-ghost stuff installed. That would give you a couple of rooms that were safe.”

  He nodded slowly. From a loony perspective, it made a certain amount of sense. And he already knew that loony perspective had a lot of relevance to his own situation. “Okay, I’ll try it this morning.”

  “Good. You can ward the room you were using to sleep in and the bathroom at least.”

  Right. He really didn’t want ghosts around when he was taking a shower. Particularly given the kind of ghosts he had at the Hampton house.

  Rosie rubbed the back of her neck and her forehead furrowed. “I’m trying to remember if there’s anything else I should pass on to you before I go.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ve already told me a lot. After American Medium is finished with the house, maybe I can do an exorcism or something.”

  Her eyes widened. “No. Do not do that. Trust me, exorcisms usually cause more trouble than anything else. They just piss off some ghosts.”

  He sighed. “And I should care about this why? So what if the ghost is pissed off. Maybe that will drive it away.”

  “It won’t. And an angry ghost can do a lot more damage.” She went back to filling Helen’s food bowl. “What you’ve got now sounds more like a joker than something malicious. If you piss her off, who knows what she might try next.”

  Ray took an exasperated swig of coffee, which wasn’t a great idea given that it was hot. He swallowed with difficulty. “So I can’t get rid of her and I can’t live with her there, and I’m assuming nobody else will be able to either. So how exactly am I going to sell this house, Rosie? If I don’t, the whole business goes belly up.”

  His sister narrowed her eyes. “Belly up? Your business is riding on this house? How come you didn’t mention this before?”

  He shrugged, immediately sorry he’d mentioned it now. “My problem. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Fat chance.” She scowled at him, then shook her head. “Okay, now I get a sense of the urgency here. We need to do something about this. Right away.”

  “Yeah, we do. Or I do, anyway—I don’t know that you have to do anything.” He sighed again, sipping his coffee more carefully.

  Rosie ignored him. “We need to figure out exactly what you’ve got there first. Then we can move on to how we make it leave. Maybe the real question is what turned it loose? I’m assuming it wasn’t there when you first started working.”

  “So far as I know, nothing happened until after the séance.”

  “Then that’s the triggering event. But since Gabrielle DeVere isn’t a real medium, she couldn’t have done anything to release the ghost. What had you been doing at the house up until that happened?”

  “Tearing up carpet. Tearing down wallboard.”

  “The carpet would be modern. What about the wallboard?”

  “Probably from the thirties or forties. It wasn’t used much until then.”

  Rosie tapped her fingers against her lips. “What was used before that?”

  “Plaster. Some of the rooms still have the original plaster walls.”

  “Did you do anything with those?”

  “I drilled a couple of holes—that’s it.”

  “Are you going to tear them out?”

  He shook his head. “They’re in relatively good shape. I’ll just repair the cracks.”

  “But you’ve been working with them?”

  “Some. More with tearing out wallboard and fixing the molding.”

  She gave him a dry smile. “I don’t suppose you found any hidden panels.”

  He shook his head again. “Nope.”

  “Still, you might look more closely at the things you’ve done,” she mused. “The Old Ones sometimes attach themselves to objects. If you find the particular object they’re clinging to, it’s a lot easier to deal with the spirit.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  His sister set her cup down on the counter. Then she stepped beside him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out, Ray. There’s always a way to take care of crap like this. I’ll find it for you.”

  He blew out a breath, trying to loosen the sudden tightness in his chest. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her. He just wished whatever she was going to figure out could be figured out a bit more quickly.

  Preferably before he lost everything he’d worked for.

  Chapter 10

  Emma peeked in the door at the historical society, trying to see who was sitting at the receptionist’s desk. If it was the woman from yesterday again, she’d head straight to the databases and see what she could find out about Siobhan Riordan.

  The flash of red hair she saw at the desk reassured her, and Gracie DeZavala gave her what looked like a reasonably genuine smile. “Well, well, the ghost hunter. Turn up anything interesting in the way of spooks?”

  “Not yet.” Emma gave her an overly bright smile of her own and tried for breezy. “I do have some questions about some of the people who lived in the Hampton house, though.”

  Gracie shrugged. “Ask away. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to give you any answers, though.”

  “I’m mainly interested in a man named Alexander Grunewald who owned the house in the early twenties. Except I’m not sure he lived there. He owned it for five years or so after he’d moved to Alamo Heights, according to the Express-News.”

  Gracie frowned, jamming her pencil into her topknot. “Grunewald. I know that name. Who was he?”

  “A banker from what I’ve been able to find out. He worked for something called the Salado Trust Bank. He was one of the early people to move into Alamo Heights when they first opened it as a development.”

  Gracie nodded, her smile flattening. “They didn’t have good roads between San Antonio and Alamo Heights until the late teens. After that we had some exodus from the district, but King William was still the more prestigious place to live. So what do you want to know about Grunewald?”

  “Mainly who lived in the house while he still owned it. Would he have rented it out to anyone?”

  Gracie shook her head. “Doubtful. Not a place like the Hampton house. King William wasn’t like New York. You built your house here, and then you lived in it.”

  “I figured as much. But he didn’t live in it for ten years or so. And I can’t see a banker letting it stand vacant.”

  “No, he wouldn’t do that.” Gracie gave her a narrow-eyed look. “Are you thinking he had a mistress installed here?”

  Emma shrugged. “Maybe. Wouldn’t that be possible?”

  “It would be possible, but it would also be tricky. People then knew everyone who lived on the street. And they’d know who came and went regularly. Even if they didn’t watch the street themselves, their servants would. And nothing ever stayed a secret�
�particularly not something like a prominent San Antonio banker keeping his fancy piece in a King William house.”

  “Okay, so no rental and no mistress. Who could have lived there if Grunewald didn’t?”

  Gracie leaned back in her chair, thinking. “Family, most likely. A lot of rich men bought or built houses for their kids—sometimes as wedding presents. Did Grunewald have children?”

  Emma nodded. “Two sons and a daughter. I’ve got their names here somewhere.” She dug through the printouts she’d made of Grunewald’s obituary. “Here it is. Axel, Livingston, and Sonia.”

  “Livingston Grunewald.” Gracie’s mouth curved up in a slow grin. “Now that’s a name I remember. And that’s who probably lived in the house.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Younger son, right?”

  Emma checked the printout again. “Right. Axel was the oldest.”

  “That would most likely make Axel the principal heir. Livingston Grunewald was a man about town, very desirable as an escort, maybe not so much as a marriage prospect. He was also something of a hell-raiser as I recall. There’s some scandal associated with the name, but I don’t remember the details offhand. My guess would be his father wanted him kept away from the rest of the family, hence the house. The whole family probably lived there until Daddy bought the new place in Alamo Heights. Then Livingston was left behind. Wouldn’t want his activities to reflect on the other two children.”

  “Do you think he’d be in the database?”

  Gracie shrugged. “Wouldn’t hurt to check. We’ve got a lot of stuff in the collection, some bits more gossipy than others.”

  “Okay, I’ll look him up.” Emma’s grin was a lot more sincere this time. “Thanks, Gracie.”

  Gracie gave her a slightly evil grin of her own. “Yeah, thank me now. You may not feel that way if the database sends you up to the third floor to dig through the less respectable books. No air-conditioning up there.”

  Emma managed not to grimace. “Well, thanks anyway.”

  “You’re welcome, sweet cakes, you’re definitely welcome.” Gracie was still grinning as Emma headed off to the computer room.

  The name Livingston Grunewald brought up several hits. She worked her way through the earliest newspaper stories, which were references to other Grunewalds in which Livingston appeared as an afterthought. References to Livingston in both the King William and San Antonio newspapers were scant, yet the fact that he showed up in the guest lists for debutante balls and other King William social events seemed to give some weight to Gracie’s theory. He was definitely around the district during the teens and twenties after his family had moved to Alamo Heights.

  The newspaper references seemed to taper off in the mid-twenties, however. She wondered if Livingston had outgrown the debutante balls or if he’d married one of the debs. She scrolled to the end of the references, looking for his obituary. And found nothing.

  She frowned. Prominent local banker. Prominent son—or at least socially active son. Why wouldn’t he rate an obituary in the local paper? Possibly because he wasn’t local anymore.

  She went back to scrolling, making a few notes of dates, but not finding anything substantial until she reached the bottom of the second page and found the first book reference, published in the fifties. San Antonio Notorious—Murders and Scandals in the River City.

  Emma blinked. Murders? Scandals? Looked like Livingston really had been a hell-raiser. She made a quick note of the call number and headed for the stacks—and the un-air-conditioned third floor.

  San Antonio Notorious turned out to be the memoirs of one Victor Florette, a detective with the San Antonio Police Department for more than thirty years who’d become a writer after retiring. Detective Florette had a lot to say about notorious people in San Antonio—more than three hundred pages worth. He hadn’t, however, bothered to include an index.

  Emma massaged her temples. At least she’d moved back down to the air-conditioned second floor before she’d opened the book. She scanned the table of contents, hoping that the name Livingston Grunewald would be prominently displayed. Of course, it wasn’t.

  She flipped through the first few chapters. The detective had apparently worked around downtown, with occasional forays into the city’s west side. Each of the early chapters seemed to center around a single case. She skimmed the pages, trying to find a story that had something to do with King William.

  A few chapters later, she found what she’d been looking for—a chapter that seemed to be almost entirely about the district. It was called “Rich Man, Poor Man,” and it included a series of short vignettes, cases that Florette and his partners had handled among the rich and famous of the time. She read through the introduction, which gave a short history of the district and some of the notables Florette had encountered, although the introduction gave no indication of how Florette had met these men or what he’d done to or for them—it was just a list of names. One of the names was Livingston Grunewald.

  The vignettes were all anonymous, the protagonists referred to as “the young man” or “the distinguished individual.” She guessed that Florette was trying to avoid lawsuits from any of the men who were still around and powerful enough to contemplate revenge, but she figured the list of men in the introduction probably applied to the stories.

  Now she had to figure out which one was about Livingston. But that turned out to be fairly easy.

  May 1927

  The call came in shortly after midnight: a dead woman in the part of the King William District that was the home of the city’s crème de la crème. My partner and I drove up to a mansion a couple of blocks from the San Antonio River to find the distressed owner of the house hovering on the front gallery. His “good friend” was dead, he told us. He’d come home from a night with the boys to find her hanging in the bedroom, a suicide.

  We found the woman where he’d laid her on the floor after cutting the rope that she’d used to kill herself. She’d pinned a note to her dress where he’d be sure to find it, short and sweet. “Can’t live without you, my darling. Forgive me.”

  She’d been his girlfriend, he told us. Nothing serious. Just good times. We asked him how she’d gotten into the house, and he admitted she had her own key.

  We checked the bedroom closet then and found women’s clothes alongside the owner’s suits. The dressing table had crystal perfume bottles and a powder compact. A woman’s negligee hung on a hook in the bathroom.

  Nothing serious? When we asked him again, he finally admitted they’d been together for a couple of years. And yes, she did live in the house.

  “But I just told her I couldn’t let her stay here anymore,” he explained. “My pop told me he’d take back the house if I didn’t send her away.”

  My partner shook his head. The story was clear enough. He’d tried to push her out the door, but she didn’t want to go. So instead of leaving his way, she’d decided to leave on her own.

  Only now Junior was in a panic. If his old man found out about his girlfriend killing herself in his bedroom, he’d be out on the street. He begged us to hush it up for him.

  I told him no deal. Rich man, poor man, they all got the same treatment from me. Junior was ready to throw that girl out on the street, but she found a way to make him pay. Once his pop found out what had happened, it would be Junior out on the street. The girl got the best of him in the end.

  Emma stared down at the page, working out the details. Livingston’s mistress had committed suicide when he’d tried to break up with her. Simple, straightforward, sad. So was the mistress the ghost? And if she did haunt the house, why hadn’t any of the residents after 1927 mentioned her? She glanced at the list of owners again. No one had owned the place for less than five years, and some, like Hampton, had owned it for a decade or more. Surely if the place had a ghost like the one she and Ray had encountered, people wo
uld have moved out as quickly as they could. Getting your privates squeezed at the dinner table wouldn’t have been much fun for the average owner. It sure as hell hadn’t been fun for Emma.

  So had the ghost been hanging around the house since 1927 and only now begun to make trouble? Or had Gabrielle somehow called it up for the first time with her séance? Emma sighed. She couldn’t believe that, no matter how hard she tried. Gabrielle was about as much a medium as she was a ninja.

  At least they had a date now—May 1927. Time to do a little searching in the King William and San Antonio papers.

  She wasn’t sure where to look exactly. She’d already searched for Livingston Grunewald and gotten nothing for that year, but maybe his father had managed to keep his name out of it. She checked the local news for reports of suicides and checked the obituaries for young women who died under mysterious circumstances.

  The crime report showed up on May 18, and it was relatively short. A woman had committed suicide in a private residence. Her age was unknown. Her name was Amina Becker. It looked like Alexander or someone else had managed to keep Livingston’s involvement out of the news, or maybe the reporter was trying to protect Amina Becker—after all, she’d been living with Grunewald in a time and place where that wasn’t exactly encouraged. Probably a little of both. No matter what Florette claimed, Emma was willing to bet rich men didn’t get dragged into the news unless they’d done something really lurid.

  The obituary, when she finally found it, was very short and very uninformative. Amina Becker came from Castroville, where she was to be buried. She was twenty-two years old.

  Emma leaned back in her chair, staring at the computer screen. Twenty-two. And so hopelessly in love with Livingston Grunewald that she’d die rather than lose him. She sighed. Somehow she doubted that rat bastard Livingston was worth it.

  She glanced at her watch and was amazed to discover it was already two o’clock. Somehow she’d managed to work through lunch without noticing it. Her stomach promptly began to growl. She wondered if she should go by the house and check to see if Ray wanted to grab some food.