His eyes slewed over to me again. “Are you Italian?”
“Sure—that’s why my family name is Turner. Seriously, no, I’m a hodgepodge of lots of things, but Italian isn’t one of them. But remember, you’re in the good ol’ U.S. of A. We enjoy all sorts of cuisines: Italian, Ethiopian, Thai, Vietnamese, French, Indian. It’s a veritable smorgasbord.”
“You’ll have to forgive me—I fear I’m a wee bit jet-lagged.”
He swayed again.
“When’s the last time you ate?”
He paused as if to consider. “It’s been a good while, I’m afraid. When the flight from London landed in New York there was a long wait to get through customs, and I had to run to catch my connection. There was no time to eat.”
“You’re gonna love my dad’s lasagna,” I said. “He’s quite a cook.”
“Really, I’d hate to trouble you. Why don’t you just take me to the hotel, if you would be so kind? I think I need to be alone for a while.”
“Suit yourself,” I said. “But if you change your mind on the way over sing out.”
Gabe screeched up to the curb and handed me my keys, and Landon and I climbed into the Scion. I had just started driving when my cell phone rang, so I put it on speakerphone. It was my foreman, Raul, wanting to discuss some rebar reinforcement at the retreat center in Marin.
Landon was looking at me funny as I finished up the call.
“Everything okay?” I asked as we headed for the Oakland Bay Bridge.
He nodded and checked his cell phone. A map on the phone’s screen suggested he was following our route.
“You’ve had quite a shock,” I said. “I’m so sorry about your sister. Have you ever seen a dead body before?”
He gave a humorless laugh and blew a long breath. His gaze shifted from the phone to the panoramic view: the Golden Gate Bridge over our shoulder, Alcatraz Island and Treasure Island on our left, the East Bay and Oakland hills ahead of us. “Nothing like this. It’s all so very . . . unexpected.”
“I understand. Are you British?”
“Pardon?”
“Your inflections are British, but you don’t have an accent.” I was trying to fit all this together with the fact that he was Chantelle’s brother. “And your name’s Demetrius—that sounds Greek?”
“Greek on my father’s side, but I was born in Britain, then brought to upstate New York when I was still an infant. But I left the States many years ago. Perhaps British culture has had an effect I’m not aware of.”
“I see. What do you teach?”
“Maths.”
“We say math, here. Singular.”
“Right-o.”
I started to laugh. “You can’t help it, can you?”
Landon seemed to relax a bit. “I guess not.”
“I’m surprised to hear your specialty is math. I would have guessed English literature, or perhaps history.”
“While I rather fancy that idea, what makes you think so?”
“You seem very . . . erudite.”
“Wouldn’t a maths—math—professor also be erudite?”
“I suppose so. It’s just . . . never mind.”
Traffic feeding onto the Bay Bridge did its usual rush hour stop-and-start tango, but once we made it onto the bridge itself we moved along at a good clip. Twenty minutes later we had arrived at the Claremont, a massive old hotel painted a pure white perched on the side of a hill in Oakland. Because it is located near the University of California many assume the Claremont is in Berkeley, but it is in fact a historic Oakland gem.
I pulled up in front of the main hotel entrance and turned off the engine, waving away a doorman who came to open my door.
“Do you want me to come in with you, help you get settled?” I cringed as the words left my mouth. Landon wasn’t a young foreign exchange student; he was a grown-up college professor.
“I’ll be quite fine,” he said as he got out of the car. “Thank you for the ride.”
“Landon,” I called, and he ducked his head back in the open door. “If I were you I would stay away from room four twenty-two. Just in case.”
“And why might that be?”
“Supposedly a ghost of a little girl hangs out in that room.”
He looked incredulous. “And you know this how, exactly?”
I shrugged. “I can neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the haunting, but I hear things. Might make it hard to sleep, is all I’m saying. You’ve already had one shock today.”
“Thank you, Ms. Turner. I shall take your words to heart. It has been . . . very interesting to meet you.”
And with that, Professor Landon Demetrius III hurried into the hotel.
• • •
I headed across town to Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, where I live with my father, my ex-stepson Caleb, and our old family friend Stan Tomassi in a big old farmhouse. It was by far the largest home on the block, and at one time was surrounded by orchards until, one by one, the fruit trees were forced to yield to developers. Small houses sprung up, closely packed together. It was the kind of neighborhood, rare in urban areas, where working people raised their families and knew their neighbors. On weekends Fruitvale’s old men—including my father, Bill Turner, the founder and erstwhile head of Turner Construction—hung out in their driveways fixing old cars and “shooting the breeze” with whoever passed by, while packs of kids played games in the street. People here hung their laundry out on clotheslines, mowed their own lawns—such as they were, given California’s drought—and looked after their own kids.
Fruitvale was a stark contrast to the neighborhoods Turner Construction typically worked in, where the only people visible on the street were the ones who couldn’t afford to live there: the gardeners, the nannies, and the housecleaners.
Living with my father hadn’t exactly been part of my life’s plan, and moving out remained one item on my very long to-do list. But there was no denying that this neighborhood, and this old farmhouse, welcomed me home with the warmth and comfort of a hug. Never was this more appreciated than on the days I stumbled upon dead bodies.
And most welcoming of all was the shaggy silhouette of Dog’s head in the living room window. I could hear him barking through the glass, which was his way of greeting his loved ones.
Dog was a stray I picked up from a jobsite, and in an effort not to further complicate my life I had refused to name him. As though that would help keep him from becoming a member of the family. That ship had long ago sailed, and Dad had decided it was high time we give Dog a real name. I had argued that since he now answered to Dog, and had a profoundly limited vocabulary—cookie, walk, Dog—it would be best not to confuse the poor canine any more than he already was.
So Dad alighted on the name Doug. “It’s close enough he won’t get confused.”
And in this Dad was right. The only ones confused by the name change were the humans: None of us could get used to the new name, so we started to say “Dog” and shifted to “Doug,” resulting in: “Come here, Daw-ugh.”
The neighbors had begun to make fun of us, asking, “How’s Daw-ugh?”
Aw, life in the ’hood.
Standing around in the kitchen were Stan, my teenage ex-stepson Caleb, and my best friend, Luz. Visitors at the table were not uncommon for the Turner household: Dad liked nothing better than to cook for a big crowd, and anyone passing by was likely to be invited to stay for dinner. The air was redolent with the aroma of oregano and tomato sauce; on tonight’s menu was something Dad liked to call “Turner special” lasagna, which included spinach for my sake—because according to him I’m a “health nut”—but also hamburger, because Dad is a big believer in beef.
I greeted the gang, petted Dog, poured myself a glass of the cheap red wine already open on the counter, and gave them the basic rundown of my day, including what
happened when I showed up at Chantelle’s apartment.
“Again?” Dad said, slathering butter and minced garlic onto a huge sourdough boule. “Again with the bodies? What goes on at these client meetings of yours?”
“It didn’t happen at the client meeting,” I said. “It was afterward. And there’s absolutely no connection to Crosswinds. Probably.”
“Wow, are you talking Chantelle Chantelle?” asked Luz. Luz was dark-haired and slender—but she ate like a linebacker, thereby ensuring her status as my dad’s favorite. Though she worked like a fiend and was a well-published professor of social work at San Francisco State, she still managed to maintain a finger on the pulse of popular culture.
“Um, I guess so,” I said. “She’s a psychic . . . ? Or, was a psychic, on Nob Hill?”
“You’ve never heard of her?” asked Luz. “Chantelle’s pretty well-known.”
“Yeah,” Caleb chimed in. Caleb had been only five years old when I married his father, and the only thing I regretted about the divorce was losing my status as his stepmother. Happily, Caleb was as loath to give me up, and we had stayed close. He was now almost a man, working on college applications and getting ready to graduate from high school. I was still stuck on how cute he used to be in his Batman underwear.
“Chantelle does these huge shows, like seminars?” Caleb continued. “People pay serious money to hear her talk, and hope she’ll pick them out of the crowd and do a reading. There are billboards and commercials. Even you must have noticed them.”
“I don’t know anything,” I said, unconsciously parroting my dad: nobody tells me anything around here. San Francisco—and the surrounding Bay Area—was the kind of place that hosted music/arts/food/wine festivals darn near every weekend, and Oakland had started a First Friday art walk that was hugely popular, with local restaurants offering canapés and happy hour drinks. There were museums galore: the DeYoung and the MOMA and the Legion of Honor. Cliffs enticed adventurous folks to hang glide, the waves were full of surfers, redwood glens beckoned hikers.
I took advantage of none of these things. All I did was my job. And talk to ghosts. One of these days I was really going to have to get a life.
Speaking of which, at that moment Graham Donovan walked in the door.
Graham was an attractive man, well muscled from years of working on construction sites. He now made his living as a green building consultant to rich people, and had recently become semifamous in the field due to his innovations at the Wakefield Retreat Center in Marin.
Over the past several months Graham and I had embarked on a full-fledged romance. It had gotten to the point where even I—who may have been a tad relationship-phobic after my marriage fell apart—had started referring to him as “my boyfriend” in public. Sure, we fought at times about certain green technologies—especially those that messed with my historic renovations—but on the whole it was a satisfying, comfortable relationship. Maybe too comfortable. My dad liked him, Stan liked him, Dog liked him (though, Dog liked most people, especially those who slipped him treats now and then), and Caleb liked him. Sometimes I wondered if I could extricate myself from this relationship even if I wanted to. It made me hyperventilate to think about it too much.
There were too many of us to fit at the small pine table in the kitchen, so we took our seats in the dining room. No sooner had we served ourselves generous hunks of steaming, gooey, fragrant lasagna, than Luz brought up what was on her mind.
“So Mel, I was hoping I could talk you into checking out an apartment—actually, it’s a small cottage. The place seemed too good to be true, and I guess it is. Nice place, reasonable rent, walking distance to campus.”
“I’m not really looking to move, Luz.” I glanced self-consciously at my father and then at Graham, who had been making noises about our moving in together. “Not yet.”
“That’s not why I wanted you to look at it. It might need your special help.”
“Uh-oh,” groused Dad with a roll of his eyes. “Here we go.”
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“The students say it’s haunted. They’re afraid to stay there.”
“You want me to get rid of the spooks?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know, Luz, my schedule’s pretty full these days. But there are people who do this professionally. Have the students call Olivier, see if he can help.”
Olivier Galopin was my ghost guru. He knew things. Not long ago he had opened a store catering to the spirit needs of San Franciscans, and could barely keep up with demand.
“Olivier charges money,” said Luz, taking another piece of garlic bread. “We’re more in a pro bono situation.”
“I already do construction work pro bono for good causes. I have to do ghost work for free, too?”
“Seriously? You’re going to charge me?”
“I would never charge you. I would, however, charge a bunch of college students.”
“These particular students are from my old neighborhood, Mel. East LA. They’re already on Pell Grants and maxed out on student loans.” Luz’s head started to waggle, a sure sign she was peeved. “You know what it took for them to scrape together first and last month’s rent, plus security deposit, in a city like San Francisco?”
“Aw, go on over there and check the place out,” Dad said. “It won’t take long.”
“I thought you hated the idea of me ‘mucking around with ghosts and whatnot,’” I said.
“I’m resigned,” he said with a shrug. “You’re gonna do it anyway, sooner or later. Can’t keep your nose out of something like this.”
“Yes, please, Mel, say you will,” said Stan. “Quick, before Luz brings out the index finger of doom.”
“All right.” I had to smile. Luz’s head waggle was one thing, but when she started waving her index finger in your face you were really in for it. “I am but your humble ghost-whispering servant, here to serve.”
“Thank you,” Luz said, shooting a pretend glare in Stan’s direction and helping herself to thirds of lasagna. My father beamed and pushed the bowl of parmesan cheese closer to her.
“What if you find another body?” asked Graham.
“Why would she find another body?” Dad demanded. “She already got her body for this go-round.”
“Graham’s got a point, though,” said Stan, thoughtfully. “Different haunting, could mean a different body. Then you’re gonna be running around after two entirely different murderers. Could get complicated.”
“Maybe you should find the first murderer,” said Caleb with a sage nod, “before you check out the college students’ apartment.”
“Come on, you guys. It’s really not that bad,” I protested. “I work on plenty of buildings without finding bodies.”
“Yeah,” said Caleb. “But the haunted ones lead to bodies, usually. And murderers, of course.”
“It’s settled, then. I can’t wait,” said Luz. “Semester starts next week, and in the meantime they’re so scared they’re sleeping on my floor.”
I laughed. “No wonder you’re so keen on justice for these kids. They’re cramping your style.”
“Better believe it,” Luz said. “I live alone for a reason. I’m a mean old thing, plus I have only one bathroom. So, Mel: Meet me there tomorrow, noonish? I’ll take you to lunch after.”
“A fancy-pants sit-down restaurant?” I asked.
“Only the best for you,” she confirmed, and winked.
Chapter Five
That evening, after doing the dishes—which was briefly interrupted by a dish towel fight with Caleb, during which the boy exhibited some truly impressive skills I’d like to believe were inherited from yours truly—Graham and I went into my home office and fired up the Internet to search for any references to Crosswinds mansion, as well as whatever we could find on the students’ apartment.
<
br /> The first thing to pop up was a Realtor Web site devoted to the Crosswinds sale, with a professional photograph of the mansion, complete with turret, on the front page. Asking price twenty-nine million dollars, boasting thirteen thousand, six hundred square feet of usable space. And there was also a photo of a beaming Karla Buhner, ready and oh so willing to hear offers from “qualified buyers.”
“What kind of financial resources would someone need to be considered a ‘qualified buyer’ at that price?” I wondered aloud.
“Excellent question,” said Graham. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t make the cut, though.”
He clicked on a local history Web site that mentioned Crosswinds had been built by Peregrine Summerton in 1892. He scrolled through a few other sites, but there were no rumors of ghosts at the address. There wasn’t much information at all about Crosswinds, actually.
“That seems odd,” I said to Graham, as I closed yet another Web site that had been a dead end. “Doesn’t that seem odd to you? It’s a gorgeous old house, from a time period that San Franciscans typically take a lot of interest in.”
“Lots of beautiful homes in the city; maybe it just got overlooked. If Crosswinds was owned by the same family for many years, there may not be a lot of public records for it.”
“That’s true, but still . . . All the local history buffs I’ve met have an almost obsessive interest in recording the minutiae of the city’s past. Crosswinds is a pretty prominent Pacific Heights home, you’d think there’d be something about it available.”
“Maybe a trip to the Historical Society is in order. You know, in all your free time. . . .”
We shared a smile.
“Are you saying I’m becoming obsessive, too?” I asked.
“But in a cute way. What about the apartment where Luz’s students live?”
I typed in the street address Luz had given me for the Mermaid Cove apartment complex, and before long we were able to confirm that the Internet offered almost nothing on the students’ apartment, or the complex as a whole, other than a building date of 1942.
Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery Page 4