Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (6 page)

Stage

My mind tripped over that last item. “Stage?”

“There used to be a stage in what is now the Pilates studio.”

“You mean like a
stage
, stage? For plays?”

“More like a raised platform, but it had velvet curtains and some really cool carvings around it.”

I nodded. “This is quite a list.”

“It was such a shame they took everything out. I know they wanted to modernize the place, but I never understood why they had to just gut it.”

“You were here throughout the renovation?”

“For most of it. Stephanie keeps busy with her spiritual work; we met on a retreat out at Green Gulch Farm, in fact. And Andrew is consumed with the business, and frankly I think he just didn’t really have the heart to deal with Crosswinds after a while. So I agreed to act as an intermediary, fielding phone calls, keeping lists of things to discuss, and once a week Andrew and I would meet with the contractor, Skip Buhner, go over everything.”

“And you lived on-site?”

“Not while the work was being done. I moved in once the construction was over. They were having trouble selling it so Karla suggested someone living here would make the place more welcoming. Do you know Karla Buhner, the Realtor?”

“Andrew mentioned her name.”

“Karla says potential buyers can tell when a house is unoccupied, says it makes a home feel abandoned and unwanted. Gives out sad vibes or something. So Andrew asked if I would be willing to move in.”

“Have you heard any of the strange sounds, or felt anything . . . odd?”

“I hate to admit it but I don’t think I’m particularly sensitive. Everyone else seems to pick up on sensations, but I go on my merry way. And I’m a heavy sleeper, take a little nonaddicting sleep aid that puts me out like a light. You ever have insomnia, I recommend it highly.”

“Thanks. I have plenty of problems, but so far that’s not one of them.” My schedule required me to get up at five a.m. every day, so falling asleep was rarely a problem. On the contrary, I was lucky to be conscious after nine at night, which put a little crimp in my social life.

“Anyway, sometimes I hear the weathervane squeaking—in fact, I think I’m the one who first mentioned it. Couldn’t figure out what the noise was. Thought maybe it was a loose pipe or something that the workers forgot, so I asked Skip to look around. I don’t know what happened next, but something scared him.”

I nodded. “Anything else you can think of?”

Egypt hesitated.

“Anything at all, no matter how bizarre or silly it sounds?”

“I thought I heard a man’s voice, calling out. Sort of like a moan, but more than that? For all I know it’s the neighbors, but it’s . . . eerie.”

“Can you describe the moaning?”

She shrugged. “Just sort of . . . a ghostly moaning. Or what I assume a ghost sounds like moaning. I’m getting all my information from the haunted house fund-raiser
we put on back in middle school. Haven’t heard any rattling chains, though.”

“So you hear the weathervane squeaking and a man moaning.”

She nodded. “But like I said, the moaning might have been one of the neighbors or someone on the street, something not in the least bit supernatural.”

“What else?” I felt like Annette Crawford, saying in her cop voice:
Even small things might be significant. Tell me everything.
To understand the world of spirits beyond the veil, small details that others didn’t find significant often mattered.

“I guess you’ve heard about the music.”

“Andrew mentioned that. Have you heard it?”

“I always sort of assumed it was a car passing by with a loud stereo system. . . .”

“Blasting a waltz with a thumping three-quarter beat?”

Egypt shrugged. “Now that you mention it, I guess that seems kind of unlikely. I’m sorry, I guess I’m not the best witness. Chantelle never really believed me, either. What can I say? Crosswinds just doesn’t seem creepy or haunted to me.”

I smiled. A little obtuseness was a handy quality in a haunted-house sitter. “Do any parts of the house seem unusually cold or drafty? Any lights that go on and off, or doors that open and close for no apparent reason? Maybe the smell of pipe smoke or flowers or perfume—anything unusual?”

She shook her head.

“Have you noticed objects being moved around?”

“It’d be kind of hard to tell—there’s not much in here to move. Andrew won’t pay to stage the house, so Karla and I brought in a few items, but . . .” She waved one hand. I had assumed it was a style choice, but she was right: The
home was virtually empty. “The only place that’s lived-in is my room on the fourth floor, and the bathroom up there, of course. I don’t cook so I barely use the kitchen. Just the fridge and the microwave. Oh, I do find old photographs from time to time. I’ve got a little collection going.”

“What kind of old photos?”

“Very old, sepia. Always of the same young woman, but in different costumes.”

“Could I see them?”

“They’re upstairs.”

“That reminds me, would it be all right if I took a peek in your room?”

She hesitated.

“It’s no big deal,” I said. “I’m just trying to get a feel for the place, see if there really is anything to this haunting.”

I
knew
there was something to it, since I could feel the vibrations, like an alarm clanging so far in the distance it was scarcely perceptible. But for the moment it was best to leave things open-ended.

“Could we do it another time?” Egypt asked, checking her phone. “Right now I have to run, and I’d like to tidy up first.”

“Oh Lord, you should see the places I’ve been,” I said, hoping to put her at ease. It didn’t work.

“Tomorrow, if you don’t mind.”

I decided Egypt excelled at dealing with difficult clients like Andrew Flynt and family: She was unfailingly pleasant and polite, and yet revealed very little.

“Sure. If you think of anything else, let me know, okay? And, this is probably going to sound weird, but would you mind if I brought my dog in, and we poked around a little?”

“Your dog?”

“He won’t hurt anything, though he might leave a few brown hairs. . . .”

She smiled, but the humor didn’t reach her troubled eyes. “It’s not a problem. Karla would probably say it would add to the lived-in look.”

“Until tomorrow, then.”

She nodded, opened her mouth as though to say something further, then shook her head and slipped out the front door.

D
og and I did some quick scouting through the lower floor, where the massive “Pilates studio”—still awaiting exercise equipment—must once have hosted stage-worthy events for the Summerton clan. There was also a Jacuzzi room, sauna, and bedroom with en suite bath. Two equipment rooms felt overheated and stuffy with a mechanical smell; they were full of big gray boxes featuring multicolored lights and hummed with the high-tech improvements Andrew Flynt had spent so much money to install.

Dog trotted along at my side, checking out corners, sniffing here and there. I imagined he was disappointed not to find anything putrid or disgusting in the underfurnished building, but as was his wont he was good-natured about it all. He did not, however, bark or mewl or crouch as he often did when in the presence of ghosts.

But as we passed from the Pilates room to the sauna, something caught my eye.

The wall seemed awfully thick. I prowled around looking for a closet door or something that would account for the missing space, but couldn’t find anything.

Every house has hidden chases, channels that hold heating vents, air returns, pipes, and electrical wires. Old buildings often had large voids between the walls that had once been filled with stovepipes or chimneys that were no longer necessary.

But a void in this location struck me as odd. There are reasons old houses were laid out a certain way, and this layout wasn’t making sense.

“Is it just me, or is this weird?” I asked Dog. He cocked his head, and I could tell he agreed with me. “Let’s go find those blueprints.”

We climbed the stairs to the main floor and I unrolled the heavy blueprints atop a shiny black granite kitchen counter.

Yep. There were areas left empty for no apparent reason. They did not contain electrical grids or vents, at least not according to the drawings. They were simply dead space. Worse, I realized as I examined the drawings closely, the blueprints did not match the actual building in some places. For instance, the blueprints called for a twenty-five-foot-long foyer, but the actual foyer wasn’t a full twenty-five feet. I would bet my steel-toed boots on it.

“The game is afoot, Dog,” I said. Dog, for his part, looked ready to figure things out. Or maybe he was hoping for a snack, it was hard to tell.

I unclipped a heavy tape measure from my belt. It was my favorite, the one I had nabbed from my dad when it became clear that his “temporary” hiatus as general director of Turner Construction had morphed into full-blown retirement, leaving me in charge. The tape was made of heavy metal and never crimped like the new ones tended to.

I took a few quick measurements, then consulted the drawings. It wasn’t my imagination: The blueprints did not match up with my measurements. Where was the
missing square footage? It was one thing to cover up existing moldings, quite another to hide entire rooms or hallways.

That couldn’t be what had happened. Must be my measurements. So I went out to my Scion and rummaged around until I found my latest gadget: a tool that measured with a beam of light instead of a tape.

Same result. There were definitely hidden spaces in this house.

And then, as I was trying to figure out what was going on, I heard the faraway strains of classical music. Without thinking, I started humming along:
Ta da tan, tan, tan . . .

Another waltz.

The music sounded as if it was coming from the foyer, but when I got there I realized the strains were coming from behind the wall, in the dead space. I put my ear up to the new wallboard.

Ta da tan, tan, tan . . . ta da tan, tan, toooon . . .

Whispers.

Giggles.

And overhead, the loud squeaking of the weathervane.

Then from very far away, a man’s anguished voice, calling out:
“Ooooooor!”

Dog started barking, and raced up the broad sweep of stairs before I could stop him.

I ran after him, past the second floor, then the third-floor landing. I was gasping for breath, but kept going, all the way up to the fourth floor where I could hear the clicking of Dog’s nails on the wood floor, then down the hall past Egypt’s room.

I found Dog at the end of the corridor, simultaneously barking and mewling and crouching, his attention fixed on a large window overlooking part of the roof.

Still trying to catch my breath, I approached slowly, listening, taking in deep breaths to try to catch any odd odors, trying to “feel” what I was dealing with, if something was off. I kept casting compulsive glances over my shoulders and searching my peripheral vision, where I habitually first saw ghosts.

Except I didn’t see or sense anything here. But Dog certainly did. And in this area, at least, he was the expert.

It was bright daylight, but contrary to ghost mythology the time of day was irrelevant to spectral activity. Nighttime made everything spookier, and it was easier for spirits to manifest more fully at night, but in my experience ghosts didn’t care much about the clock. When they wanted to reach out—and were
able
to—they did.

I reached around Dog and pushed up the sash window. Wonder of wonders, it was an original wood frame, not one of Andrew’s vinyl replacements. I stuck my head out the window and craned my neck, but saw nothing except the roof a few feet away.

“What is it, Dog? Do you see something?” I asked, sounding like a character from an old Lassie movie. Still, it made me feel better to talk to him. One of the many reasons Dog had become part of our family was because his ability to see ghosts made me feel less like a nut. And because he had saved my life more than once. And because he was just plain adorable.

“I’m not seeing anything,” I continued. Dog wagged his tail at the sound of my voice, but his hackles were up and he was growling, a deep, rumbling growl that he made only in the presence of ghosts.

“It’s like that, is it?” I don’t know what Dog was seeing or sensing, but if he said something was there, then something was there. “All righty, then. Looks like it’s the roof for me. Maybe that weathervane is trying to tell me something?”

At the far end of the hall was a rather rickety-looking set of metal spiral stairs that led to the roof of the turret, accessed through a skylight window.

“You stay here, okay? Stay.” It wasn’t as though Dog was big on English. But he would understand my tone, and I didn’t want him trying to follow me up those little metal stairs. “I’ll see you on the flip side.”

Then I mounted the spiral stairs, my boots clanging on the thin metal risers. Why in the world had Skip Buhner left the wooden window in the hall but yanked out the antique stairs to the roof, I wondered. The original spiral had no doubt been substantial, either wrought iron or wood, not cheap and rickety like these.

Still grumbling, I released the latches on the skylight and pushed it open.

One thing I’ll say for modern skylights: they’re easier to operate than the old hand-crank versions. I climbed through, and found myself on the roof of the turret.

Dog stuck his fool head out of the window below me and started to bark. Like a crazy canine.

I caught a whiff of something noxious and chemical-smelling, but couldn’t place it and it was soon replaced by the salt air breezes.

I took a moment to reassure Dog and to get my bearings. At the top of the cupola was a pole where the weather vane should have been, and encircling the turret was a blank space where the widow’s walk had once been. A ladder on the far side of the turret led to the rest of the roof.

The view was phenomenal, and while I didn’t agree with Flynt’s assessment that it was worth twenty-nine million dollars—was
any
private residence worth that much?—it was, indeed, impressive. I had a panoramic view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Presidio, Sausalito, the islands in the bay, and all of downtown. As much as
I loved Oakland, it was clear why tourists from around the globe sought out San Francisco and why folks were willing to pay so much to live here. It was simply gorgeous.

Maybe not twenty-nine million dollars’ worth of gorgeous, but still.

A bit of moisture blew in off the bay and nearby Pacific Ocean. A couple of big black birds glided by as though seeking their erstwhile perch on the widow’s walk, which now probably sat in the corner of some salvage yard or adorned some upscale urban garden, or had long ago been melted down at the scrap yard. Which was a depressing thought.

The day was sunny and bright, not what one would think of the right weather for a haunting.

And yet.

The wind shifted suddenly, and I sensed the weathervane spinning wildly.

The weathervane that didn’t exist. I
felt
it as much as heard it, the vibrations of its creaking and squeaking reverberating through the roof tiles. I turned to see where it would have once been.

A man was glowering at me through the skylight window.