Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (16 page)

“Want to check it out?”

“How do you propose to do that?” Landon asked.

“Watch and learn, grasshopper,” I said as I grabbed a heavy mallet, swung, and hit the wall as hard as I could. A sizable gash opened up, sending dust into the air.

“You can just
do
that?” Landon looked stunned. “Take a wall down, just like that?”

“Didn’t win the handyman badge in Boy Scouts, huh?”

“I wasn’t so much a Boy Scout as a member of Special Forces.”

I smiled. “I’ll leave the terrorists to you, then. But walls I can handle. As long as you make sure there are no hidden pipes or wires, you can just bash on through. Modern wallboard is made of pressed gypsum, lined with very thin cardboard. This stuff will disintegrate and go back to the earth if you leave it outside in the rain. Very easy to break through.”

I grabbed a hunk of the ragged edge and pulled, peeling off a good foot of wallboard.

“Yes, I can see that,” said Landon. He grabbed a chunk and pulled, a pleased look coming to his face.

“Pretty fun once you get into it, isn’t it? Old-style lath and plaster is tough, but this sheetrock is for sissies.”

In fact, I thought, this might be one reason why Skip Buhner had simply gone up over old walls: It was simpler by far than completing the demo on tough old plaster. Simpler, and sloppier, and most likely not what Andrew Flynt thought he was paying for.

Once we had opened a big enough hole in the drywall, I squeezed through. The original wall was set a few feet back. Overhead were original acanthus-leaf and dentil moldings, and at my feet a thick baseboard with an ogee trim met the floorboards. I took note: I could have a knife cut to re-mill these moldings and reinstall them all over the house—though back in the day, different moldings were often applied to different rooms, with the public areas by far the most elaborate.

Then I turned my attention to the bookshelf. It stood about seven feet tall and five wide, and it was set back so the front of the shelves were flush with the wall. Made of what looked like solid mahogany, its ample shelves were
fronted with old brass trim. There were sconces on either side, graceful bronze arms holding handblown glass globes made of amber glass—though one was cracked.

Who puts a false wall up over a bookshelf?

The books themselves were caked with spider webs and the grime of age and neglect, in addition to the fine coating of white dust from our impromptu demo project. Many of the leather bindings were so old they were crumbling, leaving a chalky yellow residue on my fingers. A quick perusal revealed there were histories of the Americas, a social register of San Francisco, a few slim volumes of poetry. Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson. And old novels:
Ivanhoe
, and
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
. And Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
, which seemed somehow extremely appropriate.

Frankenstein made me think of my visit to Tempus, Ltd. I wasn’t wild about some of the side effects of aging I had witnessed in my own body, but trying to stop the hands of time just seemed wrong, somehow.

Behind me, I could hear Landon pulling off more of the wallboard, making a hole big enough for him to crawl through and join me.

I ran my hand along the spine of the ancient tomes. Sticking out from in between several of the books were more photos. I pulled one out. This time Flora was dressed as a peasant girl holding a water urn, her feet bare, her hair long and loose.

Her haunting gaze, though, was unmistakable.

Landon peered over my shoulder at the photograph. “She’s captivating, isn’t she?”

I nodded. When I continued to stare at the photo, Landon said, “Is she significant to the house, in some way?”

“I’m not positive, but I think so. Her name is Flora. Flora Summerton.”

“She once lived here?”

I nodded. “But the ghost I’ve seen in this house was an older man, probably in his sixties. I haven’t seen . . . her here. Flora.”

I was debating if to confide in Landon about last night’s interaction with Flora’s hitchhiking ghost, when I realized I heard the strains of an orchestra.

“Do you hear that?” I asked.

He nodded. “Lovely. I do adore a waltz.”

“Of course you do. But where’s it coming from? It sounds like it’s coming from . . . back here, doesn’t it? Behind the bookshelf? Is that possible? There can’t be another hidden wall behind this one, can there?” Skip Buhner was a lousy contractor, but even he wouldn’t be that lazy, would he?

Landon was examining the bookshelf, his broad hands searching the edges and joints of the wood.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“At Cambridge there’s a bookshelf set back into the wall like this, and it hides . . .”

“What?”

“The entrance to a secret passage.”

“A
secret passage? Seriously?”

“The students are fascinated by it. As are a few of the faculty, I must admit. I may have gone through it once or twice myself.”

I ran my flashlight beam along all the seams, looking for a trigger. “How do you get it to open?”

“With the one in Cambridge, if you remove the right book, there’s a mechanism behind it that allows the shelf to slide open.”

Our eyes met for a long moment. Then, as though of one mind, Landon and I started pulling out books. I went straight for
Frankenstein
, thinking it would be the most likely, but found nothing behind it.

“I suppose it’s unlikely, isn’t it?” Landon said when our search proved fruitless. “I mentioned it, of course, but it’s not as though I know anything about such things.”

“Of course it’s unlikely,” I said. “Just like chasing a ghost is unlikely, and the idea that your sister’s death was somehow connected to this house is unlikely.”

“Excellent point.”

The music continued, growing louder.
Ta da da dan, dan, daaaan. . . .

Landon started humming along, and I feared he might soon ask me to join him in a waltz.

“Shame about the broken lamp shade,” he said, reaching up to look at the cracked glass on the sconce. When he rotated the glass to inspect the crack, we both heard a loud
click
.

Our eyes met.

“What just happened?” I asked.

“To paraphrase the immortal Professor Higgins,
‘By jove, I think we’ve got it.’
Try pushing the bookshelf. Gently, gently.”

I pushed the bookshelf gently, and it moved, just a smidgen.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now let’s try pushing it not so gently.”

Landon and I lined up and put our shoulders against the bookshelf. “Ready on three? Ready, steady, go.”

The bookshelf resisted, and rusty hinges screeched.

“This thing needs a little WD-40,” I grunted.

“It probably hasn’t been opened for decades. Let’s try again.”

A few more moments of pressure and the bookshelf had budged enough to create an opening we could squeeze through.

The strains of the orchestra were louder now, clearly emanating from deeper in the dark passage.

“You wait here,” I said. “I’m going to check it out.”

“As if I would allow you to go in there by yourself,” Landon scoffed. “Pass me the torch so you can have your hands free to ‘check things out.’ I’ll be your backup.”

“I seem to recall you weren’t a Boy Scout. Sure you’re up for this?”

“You seem to forget I was in Special Forces. I’m up for this.”

I carry a head-mounted flashlight in my toolbox, so I handed Landon the “torch” and strapped the headlight on.

We went in.

The passage was narrow, only a couple of feet wide. Thick cobwebs, furry with dust, festooned every corner. The air was musty, sepulchral, as though the space hadn’t been opened for many years. The walls were unfinished and made of rough lumber—some of it, I imagined, old-growth redwood brought down from the Mendocino coast, in the decades following the Gold Rush when San Francisco was a boomtown.

Photographs were tacked to the wood here and there, the only decoration. They were all of the same young woman: Flora as a Grecian goddess, Flora as nymph . . . Flora as muse.

We made our way along the tiny passageway, following the sound of the orchestra. Despite my earlier bluster, I was grateful to have Landon at my back. I remained hypervigilant to ghosts or spirits of any kind, but apart from the music there was nothing otherworldly. Only the odd sensation of being in a secret passage that might well have been sealed up a century ago.

The passage ended in a T. Landon shone his flashlight down the passage to the right, then to the left. He shrugged.

“Eenie, meenie, miney, moe,” I chanted and went to the left.

We descended a narrow flight of stairs to a small landing, where the passage came to an abrupt end.

Landon cast his light around the walls and ceiling, but there didn’t seem to be any way out. I recalled the Flynts discussing their visit to the Winchester Mystery House,
in nearby San Jose. Sarah Winchester, in an effort to appease the spirits of those killed by her late husband’s rifles, had built onto the mansion incessantly. Stairways led to nowhere, doorways opened onto brick walls, and secret passages led to dead ends, just like this one. They were intended to confuse the spirits.

Could that be the case here?

While I was pondering this, Landon continued searching every inch of the passageway. At last he reached up to an overhead beam, and pulled a small brass lever.

The music stopped abruptly.

“What did you do?” I whispered.

“I pulled a lever. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

“Too late now.”

“Try pushing on the wall.”

I did as he suggested, pushing then pulling. Nothing. But I felt something give and tried sliding a section of wall to the left, and it finally budged, squeaking loudly.

It opened onto an empty storage closet. I tried the closet door.

We were in a huge room, the far wall covered in mirrors.

“Where are we?” Landon asked.

“The Pilates studio,” I answered, a little disappointed. It seemed only right that a secret passage lead to some fascinating hidden room or mysterious discovery. “Dog and I were here the other day.”

“Is Dog another of your helpers?”

“In a manner of speaking. He’s my dog.”

“You named your dog ‘Dog’?”

“Don’t ask.”

“So anyway, if this is where the music comes from,” said Landon, “might it have been a ballroom?”

“It’s certainly big enough.”

The line of arched windows along one wall were
echoed on the opposite wall by a series of double doors. I remembered what Egypt had said, that there used to be a stage in this house. The orchestra’s waltz was still playing in my mind in a constant loop:
ta da dan, dan daaaan. . . .
I could just imagine the couples whirling around the floor, liveried attendants at the doors, the cream of San Francisco’s society dressed in their finery. . . .

“I think you might be right.”

“But why would a secret passage lead from the foyer to the ballroom?” Landon asked.

“This storage closet might have been a wine cellar, or a small antechamber of some sort. . . . Maybe it was in case the host wanted to escape his own parties. Also, I think the main floor plan was significantly altered during the remodel—that bookcase upstairs was probably part of a library or parlor until the foyer was expanded.”

Landon and I walked around the Pilates studio/ballroom, but there wasn’t much to see.

“Waltzing would be a challenge on flooring like this,” Landon said, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.

The flooring had been replaced with a slightly spongy surface which, I supposed, was helpful to bones while exercising, but held little romance. There was no sign at all of the old stage.

I tried to imagine the angry man I’d seen when out on the roof escaping a party through the cobweb-strewn passageway. Of course, back in his day it might have been neat as a pin, if he’d allowed the servants to take care of it—of course, that would necessitate them knowing about it, in which case it wouldn’t have remained a secret for long.

And then Karla’s story came back to me, about the poor woman from Dubai hearing a man’s voice telling her to hit the floor. I remembered thinking I heard a man’s faraway voice calling
“Ooooooor!”

Could he have been crying out for Flora?

“According to my source, Flora Summerton has been seen wandering California Street, trying to get home.” For some reason I didn’t feel ready to share what had happened last night with me and the hitchhiking ghost. It felt private, somehow. “She wears a long gown; I suppose it could be a ball gown.”

“Who is your source?”

“A little old man named Dingo.”

“Ah.”

“I take it where I can get it.”

“Why do you suppose the ghost wanted us to see this, and led us here?”

“No idea. Although . . . it’s possible that the ghost isn’t orchestrating things, pardon the pun.” I thought, again, of Dingo. He had urged me to help Flora get home, but he didn’t say how. And frankly, I wasn’t convinced she
should
go home if Papa Peregrine was so out of sorts. Imagine living with that scowling, yelling man for all eternity. “What I mean is that the music might be independent. There are different kinds of hauntings: some are residual, just the energy of that time caught in the walls and replaying over time. Only some ghosts are independent actors.”

“I’m sorry, Mel, but it’s going to take me a while to get used to speaking of such things like this.”

“I understand. It took me a while, too, but I didn’t really have much choice. It was get with the program or go insane.”

He gave me an odd look, tinged with something like sympathy.

“I mean, it’s not all bad. It can be a privilege, and it certainly makes life interesting.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

We retraced our steps, closing the secret door behind
us and mounting the steps. Behind us, the ghostly orchestra started up again. We arrived back at the T.

“Are you up for a little more exploring?” I asked Landon. I was hyperaware that not everyone loved the grime and funk that necessarily went along with secret spaces in historic buildings.

“I am at your command, my General.”

I smiled, and turned down the passage leading off to the right.

The music swelled. I heard giggles, and whispers. The atmosphere shifted. The weathervane squeaked overhead, as though the wind had turned.

Anger pulsed through the air to confront us.

A sensation of rage and panic.

The smell of something strong and acrid.

And out of the corner of my eye I spotted the man I had seen through the skylight, dressed in a formal waistcoat, running through the passage behind us, yelling.

“Flora!
Floooooraaaaaa!”

I staggered and slammed back against the wall, a few splinters from the rough wood poking through my coveralls and embedding themselves in my skin.

Before I could catch my breath, the apparition was gone.

“
Mel.
Mel, are you quite all right?” Landon asked.

“Um . . . yes,” I said, trying to calm my wildly thudding heart. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

I looked up and down the passage. All was still: cobwebs and old lumber, dust and grime. “Did you hear anything? Anything at all?”

He shook his head, looking concerned.

“Sorry. I just . . .” I looked around, simultaneously wanting to see him again, and yet not. “You might not believe this, but I just saw a ghost. And he wasn’t happy.”

Landon frowned, then shone his light around the passage. “Where?”

“He was running from the Pilates room. The ballroom, I mean. Calling for Flora.”

“The young woman in the photographs?”

I nodded.

“Do you wish to get out of here? Or shall we carry on?”

His phrasing made me smile despite my fright. A few more deep breaths and my heart rate slowed to something approximating normal, and I reminded myself that as angry as this ghost was, he had yet to do anything to harm me. Other than nearly scaring me off the roof, but that was my fault more than his.

“Let’s carry on, by all means,” I said. “I want to know where this passage leads.”

A few yards down the hallway there was an open door.

Landon and I stood in the doorway and surveyed the small room, equipped with two large sinks, wide trays, and shelves full of very old jars and bottles and canisters, made of glass and clay and metal. Many of the containers sported handwritten labels. There were papers hanging from lengths of rope, and the walls were peppered with tacked-up photos. The air was rank with something noxious.

“Wasn’t there an old Frankenstein movie with a secret passage leading to the mad doctor’s laboratory?” I whispered. I couldn’t get my mind off Mary Shelley’s story. This whole thing—the secret passages and now a hidden laboratory—seemed almost manufactured. A theater student’s idea of a haunted house. Could someone—Egypt maybe?—really be screwing with us, as Skip had suggested?

“Yes, but this room is too small for a laboratory. . . .” Landon said. “Let’s check it out.”

Just then I saw an old man—the same man who had just appeared running through the passage—hunched over one of the trays, poking at something with long pincers.

He looked over his shoulder at us, and yelled.

“
Get out of here!
Leave me my photographs!”

I jumped back. Landon caught me and twirled around, as though to put himself between me and danger. In one smooth move he grabbed a metal rod leaning against the wall and held it up, as though to ward off an attacker.

But there was nothing to see.

“What was it?” he demanded.

“I—it was a ghost.”

“Another one?”

“Same one, actually.”

“It’s gone then? Do you see anything now?” He was still holding me, protectively, eyes still scanning the perimeter, then looking down and searching my face.

“No,” I croaked, then cleared my throat when I realized how husky my voice sounded. I pulled away from his arms, wondering whether my fluttering heart was due to the ghost or Landon’s closeness. I blew out a long breath.

“You seem upset,” Landon said. “What happened?”

“I was startled, that’s all. He yelled at me.”

“What did he say?”

“‘Get out of here.’”

“Did he really?” And with that, Landon walked into the room.

Impressed by his bravery—or was it stupidity?—I crept in behind him. I searched my peripheral vision for old grumpy-pants, but saw nothing.

“This is no laboratory,” Landon said, pointing to the rope from which hung a series of sepia-toned photographs, two ancient-looking cameras, and a tripod. “This is an old darkroom.”

He picked up a couple of bottles from the shelf and read off the labels, which meant nothing to me.

“A former owner must have been a photographer—an early photographer,” said Landon. “Some of this stuff is very old indeed. Fascinating.”