Dead Bolt (33 page)

She started to sway, her arms up in front of her as though embracing a ghostly dance partner. Then I saw it. Barely there, a shadow figure hovering near her. Janet seemed like someone else, outside of herself, pleasure written all over her face. But she still had the gun in her hand.

I felt waves of desperate yearning, desire, anger, and jealousy. The energy of the spirits reached out to me and tried to overwhelm my resistance. I stroked my grandmother’s ring around my neck, concentrating on it, keeping myself grounded in the here and now. Reminding myself who I was, pushing away the rage and desire.

“Andre, Luvitica, you don’t belong here
,”
I said loudly, focusing on not giving in to the fear. “This house belongs to the living. We are alive, and you are not. Leave this place.”

Janet laughed again, her tone malicious. Luvitica-like.

“Mel?”
I heard Graham yell to me from below.

“Stay away, Graham!” I cried out, no longer wanting him here, at risk. The situation felt out of control, unpredictable.

Ignoring me, Graham hurried up the ladder. He took in the scene, his stance cautious but ready to fight. His gaze held mine: searching, questioning. If only I knew what to tell him.

As he stepped forward into the attic, the black cloud shifted, faded into the shadows. Janet faltered, falling to the floor.

The black cloud surged forward once more, and a new look came over Graham’s face. Remote, angry . . . cold.

“It’s
me
, Graham. We are alive, you and me; this is not Andre’s world. Do you understand me? Graham, stay with me.”

The shadow hovered just over his shoulder.

Desperate to make him connect with me, I flung myself into his arms and kissed him. Hard. I didn’t let go, willing myself—and Graham—to remain in the present, centered, bound to the here and now.

After what seemed like forever, I could feel Graham coming back to me. He deepened the kiss.

I saw flickering lights in my peripheral vision, sensed a black shadow over my shoulder, along with feelings of rage and jealousy and shame washing over me. But I wouldn’t let them in. They would not influence us. I forgot about them, losing myself in the kiss.

Unfortunately, in that moment I had the ghosts under control . . . but I hadn’t considered the living.

“No!” Janet shouted. “He’s
mine
!”

Graham shoved me to the floor just as the gun went off. He followed me down, then turned and tackled Janet’s legs, bringing her to the floor before she had a chance to aim again.

I scrambled up and jumped on her. She was vicious, large, and angry. But I’m no waif. She pulled my hair and shoved me, reaching for the gun, but I kicked it away. Together, Graham and I finally managed to wrestle her to the floor.

We flipped her over and I used a bundle of old twine to truss her up tighter than Katenka’s roast goose.

“Let me
go
!” she yelled, squirming. Then she started to cry while she raged. “You don’t understand! This is
real
!”

Now instead of organ music I could hear a commotion downstairs, raised voices, loud footsteps on the stairs. They had heard the gunshot.

Tying the last knot in our twine, I met Graham’s eyes.

“You okay?” he said, his voice low with concern.

I nodded. “You?”

“A little off my game. But I’ll live. Let’s get the hell out of this attic.”

A
n hour later Graham and I were sitting at the top of the stairs as the flurry of police activity died down. Inspector Crawford had taken our statements, put Janet under arrest, and told us she’d be in touch.

“Help me understand what happened,” Graham said.

I gave him the abbreviated version of what I’d figured out with Luz earlier.

“And the part where you kissed me?”

“It’s sort of hard to explain. . . . I think it focused our minds on the present reality, denied Andre his influence over you.”

“Interesting ghost-busting technique.”

“I’m still a novice.” I shrugged. “I sort of fly by the seat of my pants.”

He gave me a half smile, then reached out and touched my cheek, stroking the still-livid bruise softly. “Did you figure out who gave you this shiner?”

“Janet had an admirer on the bus she drove—a sweet fellow, but he probably would have done whatever she asked. I bet it was him,” I said. My nervousness made me talkative. “As for these ghosts . . . I think Dominga, feeling the family had been disgraced enough, covered up Andre’s death and entombed him in the attic. And Charles was already there as well. Maybe she planned to move their bodies somewhere more permanent later . . . Who knows?”

“And Janet got the idea of cutting the banister, hoping to kill her own mother, Hettie Banks?”

“It’s important to remember that Janet wasn’t entirely in her own head. She was a miserable child, an adolescent when she first started associating with the ghosts. That’s a very volatile time, often correlated with paranormal activity. I think she was influenced by them so strongly that she wasn’t completely in control of her actions.”

“That will be a tough sell when she’s talking to the judge. So who’s in the third casket?”

“Luvitica. She probably wanted to be with Andre. I’m guessing Junior didn’t adhere to the full disclosure rules when he sold the house. He told Hettie to stay out of the attic, and she did.”

“But Janet didn’t.”

I shook my head. “Janet must have found the key to that closet and stirred up the ghosts. Emile took the key from her, and maybe he or Hettie tried to seal up the closet, make it hard to find. Hettie sent Janet away to live with her father, but she returned to help chase down all the cats after her mother was arrested.”

“Why did she kill Emile? Just for that key?”

“I think she was angry at him for many things, including hiding the key from her. She was also angry at her mother for leaving the money from the sale of Cheshire House to the animal shelter, so she set up her own mother to take the fall for Emile’s death. Janet probably thought she would inherit the place from her mother if Hettie went off to prison.”

“I think I need a drink. Suppose there’s any good vodka to be had at a Russian Tree party?”

The Snow Maiden, Snegurochka, hurried over to us as we descended the stairs. Her hazel eyes were huge with worry—and with hope.

“You are all right?” Katenka asked.

I nodded.

“Good. The police talk to us, but I could not help with much. Please to join the party. Try the salads. Very traditional for Tree celebration.”

I’m not exactly a mayonnaise fan. But I helped myself to some goose and caviar, and had to admit that the
sbiten
wasn’t bad. Especially when spiked with vodka. I noticed a sign in front of the punch bowl alerting parents to the dangers of young children ingesting honey.

The parlor soon filled with neighbors and friends, some of whom spilled out into the entryway and dining room. The presence of the police had caused quite a ruckus, but Elena had managed to distract the children by suggesting they open the presents. Torn tissue paper littered the floor like multicolored confetti.

“It is our tradition to wrap the presents several times,” Katenka explained. “Each layer is marked with the name of a child. First child takes off first layer, and passes it to next child named. Until finally the name on the last layer is the one to receive gift.”

“That’s a lovely custom. This party turned out great, Elena,” I said as the party planner joined us. “You sure came through in a crunch.”

“Really?” She sounded breathless.

“Really. I’m impressed. A lot of my clients give big parties and events—if you give me a stack of your cards I’ll hand them out.”

“That’s so thoughtful, Mel. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Oh! I have to check in with the caterer, get the birthday cake ready,” said Elena. She hurried off toward the kitchen.

“What happened upstairs, Mel? Can you tell me?” asked Katenka.

“It’s sort of complicated.”

“I cannot believe that Janet, the cat-catcher . . .” She shrugged. “And the . . . entities?”

“I think they’re gone. I can’t promise—maybe we should get Olivier back out here with his machines to test things, just in case. But it feels different to me. It’s hard to describe, but the place feels benign now. Like a great old house full of metaphorical rather than real ghosts.”

“I don’t know this word, ‘metapharcal.’ ”

“Sorry. I just mean that the ghosts are gone, I think. Now it’s just a beautiful historic structure.”

“It is a home,” Katenka said. “Our beautiful home.”

“Yes it is.”

T
here were no further signs of ghostly activity in Cheshire House. Katenka and Jim had the caskets pulled out of the attic and buried. They asked us to seal off the entire attic, though, just in case. It was an easy fix—some sheetrock, a little mud on the edges, a little paint, and it was a done deal.

I kept the strange key to the secret closet and hung it on my own key chain as a reminder of death, and of life.
Memento mori.

Raul was driving his wife so crazy at home that she sent him back to work. The Daleys, true to Jim’s word, moved into an extended-stay hotel, so the Cheshire House renovation was progressing at a nice clip.

I was back on the job, and today was overseeing Jeremy, the talented carpenter, while he was creating ornate on-the-job scrollwork with a jigsaw. Meanwhile I was using a nail gun to build up a lush, multilayered gingerbread trim around the front door. The exertion of using the heavy nail gun, the smell of the fresh sawdust, and even the intermittent, deafening
rat-a-tat-tat
of the compressor calmed my nerves, letting me know I was back to my real work.

There was only one problem. Lately, in addition to being sensitive to ghosts, I seemed to be hypersensitive to at least one living, breathing man: Graham Donovan, green builder extraordinaire.

For instance, I didn’t have to turn around to know he had come to stand behind me while I nailed up the last wooden curlicue. I waved at Jeremy, and Graham and I descended the steps to escape the noise of the compressor.

“What’s up?” I asked, real casual-like, as we went to stand in the narrow alley at the side of the house.

“Stan tells me you’re in the ghost-busting business for real now.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But I do have a lead on a fascinating new renovation in the Castro. The owners are actually hoping their ghosts will stick around.”

Stan was still fielding calls from folks looking for help with their ghosts, and though I wasn’t about to start doing this sort of thing full-time, I had noticed one particularly intriguing job: an old colonial revival whose owners wanted to convert it into a bed-and-breakfast . . . a
haunted
bed-and-breakfast. Apparently the building came ready-made with ghosts, and the owners wanted me to take on the renovation while squaring it with the spectral residents.

“Uh-huh,” Graham said, his dark eyes searching my face. “If you’re going into this sort of thing for real, you and I might need to work on your new ghost-busting technique.”

“What technique would that be?”

“That mouth-to-mouth technique.”

“Ah. What about Elena?”

“Elena and I have decided we’re better friends than lovers.”

“Oh, I’m sorry . . .”

He grinned. “Liar.”

“Anyway, I already told you that new ghost-busting technique . . . that was sort of by the seat of my pants. An experimental type deal.”

“It might need some fine-tuning. If you’re going to go around chasing ghosts, we’ll definitely need to practice. Hone our skills.”

“I do love skilled labor.”

“I know you do, boss lady.”

 

The entirely fictional events in
Dead Bolt
were inspired by a true strange tale from San Francisco’s past. The Atherton Mansion, at 1990 California Street, was built by a rather dysfunctional family in the late 1800s. George Atherton lived there with his wife and mother, and, according to legend, tried to “escape” the women by boarding a ship bound for Chile. While at sea George died of kidney failure. His body was preserved in a keg of rum and sent back to San Francisco, where it was delivered to his family’s doorstep. The poor butler opened the mysterious keg to discover his former master pickled in rum. The women of the house came to believe George’s lingering spirit was haunting them. They sold the grand mansion, which changed hands several times before becoming a boardinghouse in the 1920s. Former tenants have complained of cold spots, mysterious knocking, and other strange events; some even claim to have seen actual apparitions.

I
’m not a necromancer, so I can’t see ghosts. Normally.

But tonight felt like a different story. The brightly lit streets of downtown Oakland were host to women seemingly from another era, in beaded flapper dresses, glamorous 1930s-era gowns, and vibrant swing costumes. Accompanying the feathered-and-spangled partygoers were men clad in tuxedos with tails, white bow ties, and shiny black shoes.

A black Model T Ford, polished and gleaming, glided to a stop in front of the magnificent Paramount Theatre, and the couple that emerged could have stepped out of the pages of
The Great Gatsby
.

Among these apparent spirits-from-another-time was a sprinkling of witches.

“The top hat is wrong,” murmured Aidan Rhodes, one such witch. His blue-eyed gaze flickered over the formally attired man who opened the theater door and welcomed us to the Art Deco Ball.