Dead Bolt

by Juliet Blackwell

  First I stopped by Cheshire House to see if Katenka had returned.

  No one was home in the Daleys’ basement apartment, but I found Raul in the main house, his arm in a sling, going over some paperwork.

  “Raul, what are you doing here? Go home and recuperate. The General commands it.”

  “I will, boss lady. I just wanted to make sure we’re ready for everything on Monday,” Raul said, then looked up from the paperwork and did a double take. “What happened to your face? Are you hurt?”

  The swelling on my cheekbone had gone down, but a quick glimpse in the mirror this morning revealed a bloom of color on my cheek: cherry red, greenish gray, blue. It wasn’t becoming.

  “Little accident. Nothing serious. And I already took care of everything for next week. Now please, go home and let your wife pamper you.”

  He smiled but looked troubled.

  “I want to show you something.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure out how I fell. The ladder was positioned well; Bertie did his job. And I know I didn’t lose my balance. So I got to thinking maybe something was wrong with the ladder.”

  “Wrong how?” This was worrisome. My dad was a stickler for properly maintaining equipment, and I had followed his example to the letter. At least, I thought I had.

  “I wondered if maybe the ladder had been tampered with. So I checked it out.”

  “And had it?”

  He shook his head. “No, not that I could tell. But look what I did find.”

  He led the way up the stairs, to the section of balustrade that collapsed when I fell against it the other day. “See this?”

  The railing had been sawed most of the way through, leaving a clean cut, not the jagged edges an accidental break would leave.

  “And here . . .” Raul showed me another spot on the third-floor catwalk.

  “Those cuts have been there awhile,” I said. A fresh wood cut is a bright, whitish yellow. Older cuts appear darker because wood oxidizes over time. Both of the cuts Raul showed me were a dark brown.

  Raul nodded. “I checked the entire railing carefully and didn’t find any other cuts. How did they get there? Who would do such a thing?”

  I had no answer for him.

  Raul’s phone rang. “My wife’s outside,” he said, looking sheepish. “She gave me a half-hour furlough while she ran to the store. Mel, I know you’re careful, but . . . This is serious. Be more cautious than ever.”

  “Thanks, Raul. I will.”

  I walked him out to the car and exchanged pleasantries with his wife, then retrieved my supplies from yesterday’s trip to the botanica and went back inside the house. It was time to stop the supernatural nonsense once and for all. Mounting the stairs, I wondered if it was wise to go into the attic by myself. I thought about waiting and trying to get Graham to go up with me, but I hesitated to subject him to possible danger. Besides, I wasn’t sure I wanted to allow these ghosts to reopen a romantic can of worms with Graham.

  Olivier had explained it was vital to be resolute before contacting the spirits. Last night’s attack had served to strengthen my conviction. I had been physically threatened by a human as well as by ghosts, my foreman had been injured, and my complicated relationship with Graham had been rendered still more complex.

  I’d had it with these spirits.

  With each step I climbed, I focused on banishing my fear, replacing it with determination and a sense of calm. I started chanting to myself, I am alive, a part of this world. You are not. The winged angels of death carved in the woodwork seemed to follow me with their eyes, as if mocking me. I am alive, a part of this world. You are not.

  On the top floor, I took a deep breath and released it slowly, caressing the warm gold of my grandmother’s wedding ring that I wore around my neck. I pulled open the hatch, brought down the stairs, and ascended into the darkness of the attic.

  Daylight streamed through the small vents, but otherwise the space was shadowy and forbidding. I switched on the overhead lightbulb and, using my flashlight, inspected the old dead bolt on the hidden door. I tried each key from the antique key ring. None worked.

  I turned away to grab my tools, but this time when I crouched down in front of the lock, the door was ajar.

  As I reached out toward it, it snapped shut.

  Something scurried past in my peripheral vision.

  A shadow hovered over my shoulder, dark and angry.

  My heart leapt to my throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, pondering fear cages. Could I be experiencing a biological response to electromagnetic stimuli? Or was I, in fact, communicating with the former inhabitants of Cheshire House? Inhabitants who had to be convinced to move along to the light, or the other side, or wherever it is that ghosts are supposed to go? Maybe I should have thought this through a little more thoroughly. . . .

  But for now, I had to try to speak to it . . . to them.

  “Is this Charles Carter?” Nothing. “Andre? Dominga? Luvitica?” I intoned one name after the other, concentrating on calling them, communicating with them. I clasped the band of gold, centering myself. I am alive, a part of this world. You are not. I am alive, a part of this world. You are not.

  Still nothing.

  Okay, plan B.

  Kneeling on the dusty floor, I laid out the items from the botanica: a bell, bundles of herbs, holy water, candles. I felt a little foolish, and wondered if I had become the sort of person I used to make fun of, the “Berkeley woo-woo type.” But if I had, did it matter?

  I lit the candles, then held the smudge bundle over the flame. As smoke arose from the herbs, I repeated aloud: “I am alive, a part of this world. You are not.”

  I heard something, a sound so low I wondered if I’d actually heard it, or if I’d imagined it. It reminded me of being awakened from a sound sleep by Caleb calling to me when he was younger. I couldn’t tell if it was real or a dream, so I would tiptoe into his room to find him fast asleep, chubby boy cheeks flushed with warmth, holding his plush rabbit close to his chest.

  After my marriage ended, I would still awaken, certain Caleb was calling me, only to realize that I was in my dad’s home, far from the little boy I loved so much, wondering if he was all right.

  This was that kind of sound. There, but not there.

  “What is it you want?”

  Silence.

  But now I could feel them, sense them along my skin, an engulfing sensation, like entering an air-conditioned store on a hot, humid afternoon.

  I felt anger, and desire. Longing. Lust. Need.

  I picked up the bell, then went to the far corner of the attic and rang it, intoning, “I am alive and you are not. I am part of this world; you are not. Leave this place.”

  A woman’s laughter rang out, as it had when I was in the basement. Malicious, immature. Once I got over the sinister shock of it all, I was reminded of girls snickering behind their lockers in high school.

  As I walked the perimeter of the attic, I noticed a neat stack of ancient newspapers, as though someone had pulled them from the walls and floor. Could someone have been up here, cleaning up?

  They were yellowed and brittle with age. The one on top contained a nuptial announcement, with a formal wedding sketch of Charles and Luvitica. She was beautiful and very young-looking; he was rather gaunt-looking, though not nearly so haggard as when I saw him in the bathroom mirror downstairs the other day. So the wet footprints did, indeed, belong to Charles.

  I lifted the paper, which fell apart in my hands. Below it was another, reporting Charles Carter’s demise from kidney failure while on a sea voyage to Chile. He was survived by his wife, Luvitica, his mother, Dominga, and his younger brother, Andre.

  I felt I was being watched. The next thing I knew, wet footprints appeared before me.

  “Charles? Can you tell me what happened?”

  I turned back to the papers. The next in the stack was dated two days later, and had been folded to display
a small article about Andre Carter going missing. Maybe Charles was communicating. He couldn’t speak to me, so was he trying to tell the story through the old papers?

  It dawned on me that Charles spit up liquid when he tried to talk. But the dead don’t breathe. How had liquid gotten into his lungs? Perhaps he hadn’t died of kidney failure, after all.

  Then I felt a blackness over my shoulder—it appeared to chase Charles away. The newspapers began to scatter, whirling through the attic, as though flung by invisible hands.

  I heard the woman’s laughter again, and I saw something in the shadows, shifting and growing.

  A newspaper landed on the burning candle and burst into flames.

  I ran to extinguish it, stomping on it with my booted foot. Papers were flying through the air now, the neat stack dispersed. I blew out the remainder of the candles, but turned on my flashlight. Daylight sifted in through the ventilation screens, but the place was still dim.

  I looked all around me, but Charles had disappeared.

  But the shadow loomed on one side of the attic, and a ghostly woman laughed on the other. Two different entities, then. And Charles. All in this house. I was hoping their unhappy trio was the extent of it.

  I stroked my grandmother’s wedding ring, and tried to regroup.

  “Luvitica?” I called.

  More laughter. And a faint, “Hmmmmm.”

  “Show yourself,” I said. Nothing. “This is no longer your house. Leave this place.”

  The candles began to fall over, one after the other. The bell rang of its own accord. I tried not to respond in fear to the eerie parlor tricks. I told myself to hold on to my resolution to rid this house of these ghosts, once and for all.

  “What do you want?” I demanded.

  Urgent whispers, unintelligible, from behind the hidden door.

  “Do you know what happened to Katenka?” I asked, taking another tack.

  More laughing.

  And then . . . an image of the horsehair settee popped into my mind—as if the ghosts had guided it there.

  “I am alive, a part of this world. You are not,” I said. I had to get control over them before they were able to manipulate me to do their will.

  I heard a high-pitched giggle, mocking, as if daring me. I felt rage building inside me, but pushed it away.

  “I am alive, a part of this world. You are not,” I repeated.

  There was sudden silence. I waited, opening my senses to further communication with them. I sensed nothing, heard nothing.

  Had it worked? Had I banished them? As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t quite believe it. That had been too easy. I held still, listening, feeling, but as minute followed minute and I still sensed nothing, I dared to hope.

  I descended the attic ladder to the third-floor hallway. The air seemed to shimmer, shadows hidden within shadows—it all seemed sinister. They were still here.

  An image flashed in my mind: the settee.

  I walked slowly down the stairs, pressing my back against the wall for safety, taking care to stay away from the railing. Each step seemed to squeak, and the wind rattling the windowpanes sounded like far-off laughter.

  In the dining room was the settee. The settee I had laid Katenka’s still form on after she fainted the other day. The settee Katenka intended to bring to Emile’s shop the day he was murdered. I had wondered at the time why she was focused on it when there were so many other things to worry about. As I approached, I fully expected to see indentations in the dusty horsehair cushions, as though the ghosts were sitting there, watching me. But I saw nothing. I took a seat.

  It was supremely uncomfortable. One area bulged out, the edging pulled up on one side. I looked closer. The upholstery was held down not with upholstery tacks but with staples, the kind used in a desk stapler. I snagged my fingernail under the staples and pulled them out, one by one, until I could fit a hand under the upholstery. I reached in. My fingertips felt something hard yet yielding, grasped it, and pulled it out.

  An envelope. Filled with cash.

  I counted it. One hundred twenty-dollar bills. Two thousand dollars.

  It was an odd way to pay for an upholstery job. Unless that wasn’t what the money was for.

  Had Katenka been paying Emile for something else? Had the Russian-speaking Emile known about her past and blackmailed her? Had Katenka killed Emile to put an end to the blackmail, and then fled, afraid she would be discovered?

  And if so, why had she waited so long?

  My phone rang. I glanced at the screen.

  Zach.

  “I got that information you wanted,” he said without preamble.

  The voices started up again around me, bickering now. Sniping at one another. It wasn’t as frightening as the nasty laughter in the attic, but it was much more annoying. It was like speaking over a phone with a bad connection, when you hear the echo of your voice and try to ignore it. They were giving me a headache, as well as a sincere appreciation for those poor souls afflicted with schizophrenia.

  “Did you find her?” I asked loudly, trying to drown out the voices.

  “No. But I found something else. Meet me at Caffe Trieste in twenty minutes. Why are you shouting?”

  “I’m sort of in the middle of something,” I said, lowering my voice. I tried plugging my free ear with my finger. “Just tell me what you found.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” I thought of all those movies where someone refuses to divulge a secret on the phone, saying instead: “I have critical information to solve the mystery; meet me in an abandoned warehouse down by the docks at midnight.” That never turned out well.

  “Because I want to buy you coffee. I’ve been trying to buy you coffee since we met.”

  “This isn’t a date, Zach, for heaven’s sake.” The whispering grew louder, snider. The ghosts were making fun of me. “Just tell me.”

  “You need caffeine. I can tell. If you can’t meet me right now, then how about this evening?”

  “No,” I said, rubbing my temples. I needed Olivier to do his miraculous headache cure. Or bigger hands to do it to myself. “Fine. I’ll meet you there in twenty. But if you wind up dead, don’t come whining to me.”

  “If I what?” Zach said. “Why would someone kill me for this information?”

  “Why not? That’s what always happens in the movies.”

  He laughed. “I’ll take my chances. Caffe Trieste is pretty mellow this time of day.”

  I snapped the cell phone shut and gathered my things.

  “I’ll be back,” I said to the ghosts, channeling my inner Terminator. As I slammed the door behind me I could have sworn I heard a ghostly Bronx cheer.

  A small part of me felt like a chicken for not finishing what I’d started with the ghosts, but the biggest part of me felt a palpable sense of relief as I stepped outside into the fresh air.

  Besides, my resolve had been seriously eroded. I needed time to recuperate, to decide where to go from here. And my now nagging headache should be helped by the caffeine.

  I noticed the homeless man sitting on the corner, singing “Jingle Bells.” He had attached a holiday wreath with a bedraggled red bow to the front of his shopping cart. It was nice to see somebody embracing the holiday spirit.

  As I passed by him, he stopped singing and shouted, “No, I don’t have any heroin, as a matter of fact. Why would you ask me that?”

  After my bizarre experience at Cheshire House, this made me wonder: Maybe he and the other talkative street folk weren’t mentally ill. Maybe they were conversing with invisible spirits. I stopped in front him and searched my peripheral vision. Nothing.

  “You okay, lady?” the man asked.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Hey, are you hungry? I almost forgot—I brought some lunch. My dad’s a good cook.”

  “Sure,” he said. I fetched a brown paper bag from my car and handed it to him. He peeked in.

  “Chicken and rice with broccoli,” I said.

  “I like
Thai better,” he replied.

  Only in San Francisco.

  “Sorry. It’s potluck at my house. I eat what my dad cooks.”

  “Okay, thanks,” he said. “I’m honored. Got a spoon?”

  “It’s in the bag.”

  I was about to turn back to my car when I noticed a couple of long, thin, brown cigarettes peeking out of his shirt pocket. Pricey, European cigarettes.

  Expensive habit already, and I get hooked on the imports.

  “Hey, you hang out here a lot, right?” I said. “You talked to the police about the fellow who was killed the other night?”

  “Didn’t mean to snitch on you,” he said, clutching the leftovers closer.

  “No, of course not,” I hastened to say. “I just wondered if anyone else went in, maybe someone you forgot to mention to the police?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes my memory’s not so good. Especially if it’s not jogged by a charitable donation.”

  What an operator, I thought, though I kind of admired him for it. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a ten. “How’s this?”

  He nodded and took the bill. His fingernails had that crusted, ground-in dirt that came from going too long without a shower.

  “Fellow came by, said he used to live here a long time ago, in the house across the street, back when it was a boardinghouse.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Latino guy, mustache. Gave me a twenty, some cigs. Good guy. But I guess he served time and he didn’t wanna talk to police.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dude had prison tats. You can tell ’cause they’re done with ink from ballpoint pens, not like regular tattoos.” He tapped his head. “I figured that’s why he asked me to keep the info on the down-low, if you know what I’m sayin’.”

  “Did you hear anything after he went into the upholstery shop? Did you hear a gunshot?”

  He shook his head. “Didn’t hear anything but them arguing. Then I left to go see a friend. I mind my own business, mostly.”

  “Could you hear what they were arguing about?”