Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (19 page)

As she spoke, Trish carefully opened an archival box, which was full of large labeled folders. She removed one folder from the box, and set it on a square of felt on top of the table. “Here’s the deal: Manuscripts require special care and handling. The old paper is vulnerable to the oils on your hands, so do not touch the letters. To turn a letter over, lift it gently by one corner. Whatever you do, do not cough or sneeze on them. Take notes with a pencil and paper only; no ink of any kind is allowed. Deal?”

I nodded.

“It’s very likely the Rutherford family correspondence will include some mention of the Summertons. The Rutherford daughters went to school in Boston, and when they were gone Mrs. Rutherford wrote numerous letters to them, relaying all the local news. Remember, these were the days before telephones and text messages; when the only way to stay in touch across distances was through letters. Reading the entire collection would take quite a bit of time—the Rutherford women had decent handwriting, all things considered, but it can be slow going—but if you can narrow the search down by suggesting some dates that would be helpful.”

“1896.”

“Okay, let’s start with 1896.”

I
t took a while to get used to the slanted, stylized handwriting, but once I got the hang of it and started to figure out the cast of characters, the correspondence of the Rutherford family made for fascinating reading.

A lot of it concerned the minutiae of everyday life, the sort of thing that might seem tedious and expected at the time—the weather, favorite recipes, complaints about the difficulties of finding reliable servants—but the letters were a fascinating window into another time and way of life. Much like the sort of stuff I typically found behind walls in houses; everyday objects like newspapers with the ads for current movies playing or worker’s scrawl about where to splice wires.

The personalities of the letter writers shone through: Mrs. Rutherford was high-strung and a bit of a snob, but loved her daughters fiercely. The elder daughter, Beth, was quiet and devoted to her studies, and expressed a wish to pursue a career as a nurse that her mother quickly squelched as “unsuitable for a girl of your station.” The younger daughter, Virginia, was a riot: high-spirited and outgoing, she must have been a handful.
Every letter from Mrs. Rutherford to her daughters began with anxious inquiries into their health and home remedies to treat a cough or an ache. Rumors that an epidemic of typhoid fever or scarlet fever had appeared in Boston would prompt Mrs. Rutherford to barrage her daughters with maternal warnings about avoiding unhealthy miasmas and pestilential immigrant neighborhoods. I marveled at how little control even the immensely wealthy Rutherfords had over their world; in the years before antibiotics even a minor scrape or illness could result in death.

And then, just as Trish was standing over me, car keys in hand, telling me it was closing time and everyone else had gone home, I found a reference to Crosswinds and the Summertons.

. . . apply the mustard plaster and leave it on until the skin starts to blister. It will draw out the bad humours.

I have news of a delicate nature concerning the neighborhood. I cannot imagine how Mr. Summerton will be affected by it. I believe your dear father has spoken in the past of Mr. Summerton’s political ambitions, but though Mr. Summerton has many friends in the state legislature your father believes his election to the Senate is no longer a viable proposition. I am sure you remember Mr. Summerton’s daughter, Flora? She was two years behind you at Miss Smith’s School for Young Ladies, and I believe you were reunited with her at the tea hosted by the Remington ladies last summer. I always thought she was a lovely girl, though a bit headstrong, with a quick wit and a sharp tongue, and in this regard I am sorry to say I am proven right. Flora chose the occasion of the announcement of her engagement to
Mr. Caruthers (of the Caruthers copper fortune) to fly the coop—at exactly the stroke of midnight, which ushered in her 18th birthday!

It is said that in the weeks leading up to the ball, Flora was oft witnessed standing atop the widow’s walk, looking out to sea. Our neighbor Mrs. Landingham declares the object of Flora’s heart might well be a seaman! Just imagine, if you dare, how Mr. Summerton must regard such an association.

The betrothal ball was the event of the season, and I wore a beautiful velvet gown with garnet beads and Alençon lace made especially for the occasion. Mr. Summerton’s home looked splendid: the ballroom was decorated in garlands of evergreen and hydrangea, with cascades of bougainvillea and huge urns with bouquets of pink roses. A full string orchestra serenaded us! We were waited upon most solicitously by servants in proper livery offering imported French champagne, steamed shrimp and crab, and oysters in a wonderfully rich sauce called “Oysters Rockefeller” that I understand is all the rage these days. We were breathless from waltzing when all of a sudden we heard Mr. Summerton cry out, a mixture of agony and ire that made my blood run cold. I have since been led to understand that Flora rebelled against the fiancé her father had chosen for her, and decamped from her own ball in quite a dramatic fashion. She was there one moment, and gone the next, and no one can countenance how she accomplished it.

Your Aunt Helen will be arriving by steamship next week from Los Angeles for a nice visit; I do hope she will bring a crate or two of oranges with her. How lovely it must be to live in a land of endless orchards. . . .

“This is amazing. Trish, you’re a genius.”

“I’m sorry, Mel. I don’t mean to rush you but we officially closed twenty minutes ago, and I have plans with friends tonight.”

“Of course,” I said, though I was frustrated it had taken me so long to find the reference to Crosswinds, and now all I wanted to do was to read through the rest of the letters.

“We open tomorrow at ten, and I’ll keep the file for you right behind the counter.”

“Oh, great. I’ll be back . . .” As I said it I realized that tomorrow at eleven was the memorial service for Chantelle, in the East Bay. “I’ll be back tomorrow if I can, or the next day at the latest.”

“We’re closed on Sunday.”

Dammit.
“Of course. Okay, I’ll be sure to come back tomorrow.”

We walked out together, and I rescued my car from the garage and headed over the Bay Bridge in thick Friday evening traffic, pondering Flora fleeing her own engagement ball at the stroke of midnight, chased by a furious and politically ambitious amateur photographer father.

Where had she gone? What would an educated young woman have done on her own, back in the day? And the question that kept preying on my mind: Why was she trying to get back?

•   •   •

At home it was just the immediate family: Dog, Stan, Dad, Caleb. Stan was helping Caleb go over some college applications, and I washed greens for the salad. The kitchen was redolent with the aroma of roasted chicken, and Dog made sure he was underfoot at all times in case something good fell to the floor.

“So, Dad,” I said. “What do you think about providing temporary housing for some young people in need?”

“What goes on in that mind of yours?” he growled, basting the chicken.

“There are five of them. They seem quite responsible, and very nice. And they got chased out of their apartment by a ghost.”

“This is the ghost Luz was talking about the other evening?” Stan asked as he and Caleb joined us in the kitchen.

“Yeah, did you find another body there?” Caleb asked.

“No, I did
not
find a body, thank you very much,” I said with some pride. The moment it came out of my mouth I realized how twisted my sense of reality had become. “But the ghost is”—I searched for the word—“
active
, and they really can’t live there until I can get rid of her. I’m going to Chantelle’s memorial service at the Chapel of the Chimes tomorrow so it might be another day or two until I can try to put her to rest, presuming I can figure out how to do that. The students are sleeping on Luz’s floor but she only has one bathroom. . . .”

My father muttered something under his breath while he checked on the potatoes.

“Ah, go on, old man,” said Stan with a grin. “You know you can’t refuse the combined forces of Mel and Luz. They’re a formidable pair. You might as well give up gracefully.”

I didn’t think of myself as particularly formidable, but I appreciated the comment and gave him a wink.

“Huh,” said my dad, taking the chicken out of the oven with a grunt and setting it on the stove to rest.

“Anyway, may I tell them they can stay here?” I persisted. “Just for a few days, max.”

“I could move back to my dad’s if you need the room,” offered Caleb.

“No, Caleb,” I assured him. “I wouldn’t ask you to do
that. The guys can sleep in the living room, and the girls . . .”

“Or maybe I could sleep on the couch with the guys,” Caleb suggested. “And the girls could have my room.”

“That’s awfully nice of you, Caleb.”

“No problem,” he said.

My dad gave him the very slightest smile and nod, the kind that had motivated me to bend over backward to make him proud of me when I was a kid. Then, as a teenager, I’d gone through a rebellious phase, but now Dad and I got along just fine, as long as we avoided talking politics.

“Table needs setting,” Dad said, and Caleb hopped-to without having to be asked.

Then our unusual little family sat down to a dinner of roast chicken, tiny new potatoes in butter sauce with parsley, and asparagus.

“This looks great, Dad,” I said. “And you call
Stan
Martha Stewart? I think you might be giving him a run for his money.”

Dad grunted. “All the best chefs are men, you know.”

“I’m not going to get roped into this discussion,” I said, digging into the asparagus.

“So,” Stan changed the subject. “How goes the ghost busting in the other place, what is it, Crosswinds?”

“I saw him yesterday,” I said, and popped a tiny new potato in my mouth. The herbs and butter and salt were perfect.

“You
saw
him?” Caleb asked.

“Landon and I found a secret passage leading from the foyer to the Pilates studio.” As I said it I realized what I had read at the archive earlier: Flora must have used the secret passage to disappear from the ball, then went through it and upstairs to the main floor, and ran away.

“You and ‘Landon’? This the brother of the dead gal?” my dad asked.

“Chantelle,” Caleb put in.

“That’s right. Chantelle. So, Landon’s her brother? And he’s running through secret passages with you why, exactly?”

I shrugged and bit into the succulent chicken, which was juicy and perfect. “He wanted to look through the house. It seems . . .” I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be talking about this crime with civilians, but after all, this was family. “It seems Chantelle might have been blackmailing someone in relation to Crosswinds.”

“Someone in the owner’s family?”

“It’s hard to tell. And it might not have been blackmail per se, but maybe she came upon a secret, or something? There are a lot of suspects. And then it’s not even a given that the person being blackmailed was the one who killed her. But it’s not out of left field to think there might be a connection between Crosswinds and her death.”

Dad snorted. “Not if
you’re
involved.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“I still don’t see why this Landon person is running around secret passages with you.”

“First of all we weren’t ‘running around,’ he simply happened to be with me when I realized there was a gap behind a wall. Frankly, I was glad to have the backup.”

“A gap behind the wall?” Stan asked.

“There was a false wall, essentially.”

“What,” Dad said. “You mean the remodeler just went right up over the old one?”

“It gets better: He went right up over an entire bookcase, full of books.”

Everyone at the table, even Caleb—who had been around Turner Construction enough to understand some
of the basics of construction—gasped. Dog came to attention, hoping for food.

“We heard music that seemed to come from behind it,” I continued. “And Landon knew of a bookcase in Cambridge that covers up a secret passage, so that was how we found it.”

“I can’t believe anyone would build a wall over a
bookcase,
” said Stan. “That makes no sense at all.”

Dad just shook his head and passed around the Parker House rolls. The table was quiet, all of us lost in thought.

When it came to the folks at Turner Construction, ghosts and murders were one thing, but shoddy construction techniques were downright inexcusable.

S
aturday morning Luz had invited me to a yoga class, but I begged off. Since I was going to Chantelle’s memorial service at the Chapel of the Chimes at eleven, I decided to take a walk in Mountain View cemetery beforehand. The way you do.

I loved this cemetery. I hadn’t been kidding when I’d told Landon: It offered some of the best views from Oakland, hands down. The graves marched up the hill, and on “millionaire’s row” big names in Bay Area history, like Crocker and Merritt and Ghirardelli had commissioned elaborate crypts. Statuary included mournful angels and triumphant heralds and caryatids—female figures used as columns. The Crocker memorial featured a circular bench, which locals like me used for picnic lunches from time to time, looking out to the bay, Yerba Buena Island, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

I passed by one family plot and paused to read the names. Several of the gravestones held little ceramic cameos with a photo of the deceased. It seemed like an old-fashioned custom, but I noticed several
modern-looking ones as well. It was sort of nice to be able to put a face to the names.

Old photographs put me in mind of what Landon and I had found in the secret passage at Crosswinds. So Peregrine Summerton was a photographer. Judging by the darkroom and the quantity of photographs, it seemed he was pretty serious about it.

Was Flora his one and only muse? I thought of what Landon had told me about their uncle’s behavior toward Chantelle. Could Flora have run away from Crosswinds because her father had crossed the line? But how would I ever find out? Things like that weren’t talked about back then, were they?

I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined the popping sound as the flash went off, the explosion of the little glass bulb, the violence of the moment. Flora jumping.

At ten thirty I returned to my car on Piedmont Avenue to change into my one decent pair of dress shoes. Unsure of what to wear to a memorial service but pretty sure it didn’t include spangles, I had dressed in a simple blue dress but wore my athletic shoes for the cemetery walk. I refuse to walk in heels, even low ones.

Sitting in the open door of my car, I looked up to see Stephanie Flynt approaching.

“Isn’t it just
awful
?” she said. She wore a gauzy black dress and a hat with a black veil. I wondered if black was still de rigueur at funerals. It had been a long time since I’d attended one.

“Yes, very sad,” I said, wrenching my petty thoughts from my wardrobe to the reason we were here: a woman’s tragic death.

“Have the police made any progress on the case, do you know?” Stephanie asked. “That rather . . .
daunting
inspector came to speak with us. She wasn’t very accommodating.”

I presumed she was speaking about Annette, and the thought of Stephanie asking her to be “more accommodating” made me smile.

“I don’t think they’ve figured it out yet,” I said. “But I don’t actually know.”

“So sad that her
brother
found her. How very awful for him.”

I nodded.

“And you arrived soon after, you said?” Stephanie said.

“Yes, I went by the apartment and found Landon with Chantelle,” I said, trying to gauge just how invested she might be in my answer.

Mason and Lacey joined us. Both ran true to form: Lacey looked like she wished she were anywhere but here, and Mason looked just a tad too eager to please.

“Will Andrew be joining us?” I asked.

“He’s still out of town, unfortunately,” said Mason. “He sent flowers.”

“Cost a fortune,” said Lacey.

I stood, feeling awkward in my grown-up shoes—I really did prefer my boots for almost any occasion other than exercise and funerals—and locked the car.

The Flynts and I walked together into the building.

I loved Chapel of the Chimes even more than Mountain View cemetery. Famed local architect Julia Morgan had been commissioned to transform the old trolley station—at the end of the line of what used to be called Cemetery Avenue—into a columbarium, which is a mausoleum for cremated remains. She brought her special style to the place, creating a series of differently shaped arches leading down long hallways, mosaics and wall
paintings and quatrefoil windows and concrete tracery. It was stunning.

Probably it’s strange that I should so enjoy cemeteries and columbariums . . . though now that I’m a ghost specialist, it seemed rather fitting.

It dawned on me, however, that I’d never seen a ghost at Chapel of the Chimes. I was much more likely to find them in private houses than in the places most people associated with spirits: cemeteries and mausoleums. Still, I wouldn’t go sneaking around this place at midnight on Halloween. If an actual ghost didn’t scare the daylights out of me, my imagination surely would.

Within the columbarium were several chapels. Landon had told me he had reserved the small, intimate chapel on the third level of interior courtyards; it was my favorite, located beside a courtyard rife with plantings, lit by peaked sunroofs, and studded with fountains. But when the Flynts and I arrived we discovered the service had been moved to the largest chapel to accommodate an overflow crowd.

We had arrived twenty minutes early, but it was already standing room only. I had hoped to say hello to Landon before things began, but it was too much of a crush. Many of the people attending appeared to be paparazzi rather than mourners, and the management had to make an announcement asking everyone to cease snapping photos.

As we found a spot to stand at the side of the chapel, Stephanie slipped her arm through mine as though we were long lost pals united in grief for a good friend. What had Karla said, that she and Stephanie were “instant sorority sisters”? Stephanie had the open, easy friendliness I had noticed with a lot of people who practiced the kind of spiritual work common to Marin Country retreats. It
was appealing, but at the same time it was hard to know when they were being sincere.

Before I could give Stephanie much more thought, an older woman, short and round and wearing minister’s robes, went up to the dais and began a nondenominational, slightly New-Agey homily about embracing life and happiness while we have it, and not asking why unfair things are visited upon us from time to time.

Then Landon stepped up to the dais. He paused a moment, looking out at the crowd, his hands gripping the sides of the podium so tightly his knuckles went white.

“Many of you knew my sister, Chantelle, better than I. I”—he choked up, ducked his head and cleared his throat—“I am Chantelle’s brother, Landon Demetrius. And I, for one, am full of regret. Regret for the way in which Chantelle was taken from us. Regret for years of separation and time lost. Regret that I was not able to protect her. But I will make this vow: I will not rest until her killer is known. I owe her that much, at the very least. I will not rest.”

Now he looked directly at me. Or was he looking at the assorted Flynts standing with me? I heard Stephanie gasp, and caught Mason and Lacey exchanging a significant look.

After Landon stepped down, several others took the podium in turn and spoke about Chantelle as a friend and colleague, but primarily as a talented psychic who had brought solace to many by helping them to connect to their deceased loved ones, or by giving advice about major life decisions.

While they spoke, my gaze fixed on the blown-up photo of a smiling Chantelle on an easel next to the low stage. She really had been beautiful, and those ethereal eyes seemed to promise otherworldly insight.

Why couldn’t she communicate with me, if she had
been so talented with such things? Probably Olivier would tell me the supernatural lines of communication didn’t work that way, but I found it bewildering and frustrating.

What had she been after? Had she really tried to blackmail one of the Flynt clan? If so, it would stand to reason that it had to have been Andrew or Stephanie, right? Had Chantelle even known any of the others enough to know their secrets and threaten them?

On the other hand, Karla had mentioned the entire family was present at Chantelle’s reading of Crosswinds. Could she have discovered something on that night?

Egypt told me the kids didn’t have access to any significant amounts of money, so there would be no point to blackmailing them. But would Chantelle have known that? She was a psychic, but did that mean she would
know
everything? Did her obvious popularity mean that she was truly gifted, or simply that she was so attractive and intuitive that she was able to convince people she had special sight?

I wish I could have met her—when she was alive—so I would have a clearer sense of what I was dealing with.

My thoughts were brought back to the memorial service with a jolt when the massive pipe organ started playing, and the chapel was filled with muted chatter and shuffling sounds as the audience stood and slid out of the pews.

“I’m going to try to say hello to Landon,” I said, excusing myself from the Flynts.

“Please do give him our condolences,” said Stephanie. “I don’t feel up to braving the crowd, but I would like him to know we were here.”

“Of course, I’ll tell him.”

I slipped off and tried to find a way around the milling throng by scooting around the head of the chapel, but no
luck. Short of actually shoving my way through, I was stuck.

I scanned the crowd for Landon and found him on the opposite side of the chapel, surrounded by a flock of well-wishers.

When our gaze met, I read deep sadness in those extraordinary eyes of his, but there was something else, as well. A tingle of connection, even among such a crowd.

I held up a hand, and he gave me a sad smile and a nod.

I imagined Landon would be swamped for a while, so I would have plenty of time to use the restroom before finding him and giving him a big hug. Or . . . maybe a hearty handshake.

What
was
it about Landon? Was Luz right?

Please oh please don’t let him be the killer.
That would be just like me, wouldn’t it? To develop a crush on the bad guy. Talk about inappropriate.

The women’s room on the main floor—the relatively modern one with several stalls—already had a line out the door. But familiar as I was with the columbarium I knew there was another bathroom upstairs, tucked into a corner of one of the building’s endless interconnected chambers.

I went up to the third tier of the courtyards, then down the endless corridors lined with glass-fronted cabinets holding urns or bronze “books” of cremated remains, each fronted with a brass plaque.

The bathroom was two small adjoining rooms, one with a sink and mirror and a second with the single toilet. It was empty so I slipped into the toilet room and locked the door behind me.

Moments later I heard someone come into the outer room and rattle the knob on the toilet door—which went all the way to the floor—without knocking.

“It’s locked,” I heard Lacey’s distinctive sneer. “Told you I don’t think we’re supposed to use it. Besides, it’s so old and creepy it probably doesn’t even work. Let’s go back downstairs.”

“Oh! My hair,” came Stephanie’s voice. “I look a fright.”

“Told you not to wear that ridiculous hat. What are you, Jackie Kennedy? Now you have hat head.”

“May I borrow your lip balm?” Stephanie asked in a small voice. I heard a loud sniff, and the sound of the towel dispenser.

“Honestly, Mother, you’re
crying
? I don’t know why you even dragged me to this thing,” said Lacey. “I say she got what she deserved.”

“Don’t say that,” said Stephanie. She blew her nose and sniffed again. “It sounds terrible when you say that.”

“I notice Dad didn’t feel the need to come. And he’s the one who
should
be here. Or would that be Grandpop? What, did they take turns? It’s disgusting.”

No reply.

I remained frozen, afraid to breathe.

“Seriously, Mother, how can you stay so calm?”

“She’s
dead
,” came Stephanie’s voice in a surprisingly harsh tone. Gone was the breathy, dreamy quality. “It’s
over
, do you hear?
Over.
We will never speak of this again. We are Flynts, and Flynts stick together. No matter what. Understood?”

“Um . . . yeah. Understood. Sorry, Mom.”

“Now, may I
please
borrow your lip balm?”