Home For the Haunting: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (27 page)

I almost laughed; it seemed like such a bizarre thing to say under the circumstances.

“Well heck, no one will be of much use in the apocalypse. I think that’s why it’s called an apocalypse. In the meantime, your poetry is worth a great deal, Hugh. You have the power to touch perfect strangers with your words. Don’t you understand how rare and precious that is? Don’t put it all at risk now—you can’t be Ray’s judge, jury, and executioner. No one has that right.”

“Judge, jury, and executioner . . .” Hugh repeated in that vague way of his, and stared off in the direction of the window. I got the impression he felt a poem coming on.

I pressed the muzzle of my gun into Ray’s back, just in case he thought I was getting distracted. But he really did appear to be a broken man; the fight seemed to have drained out of him.

“Hugh, call 911, will you? And Ray, walk very, very slowly down the stairs.”

“Yes, right.” Hugh patted himself down, looking for a cell phone.

“Let’s go, Ray. Walk slowly down the stairs, one step at a time. No sudden moves, you understand?”

It happened so fast I couldn’t stop it. I would never know whether Ray’s bad knee gave out or if he purposefully threw himself down the stairs. But down he went.

He tumbled down with a series of violent grunts and thumps until he landed at the base of the stairs, right where the tile had been taken up. Exactly where he had killed Jean Lawrence, on the spot where he stood over her body while he looked back up at young Linda at the top of the stairs.

Ray landed on his back.

His eyes grew huge, and he reached above himself.

Then he started screaming.

I watched, horrified, as bluish figures surrounded him, one, two, three—and then a fourth joined in. They hovered over him, rose up in the air, and came back down as if performing a dance of death. The ghosts of Murder House, come to escort their killer to the next world?

Ray’s screams cut off with a sudden gurgle, and then he stopped breathing. His eyes remained open and fixed in an expression of sheer terror.

A
week later I was working in the Murder House, starving and caffeine-deprived, but I couldn’t stop thinking of that last scene at the bottom of the stairs.

The final autopsy report stated Ray died of a coronary obstruction: a heart attack, in laymen’s terms. I guessed when it came right down to it, it was the best outcome for everyone concerned. I wasn’t sure how Hugh would have fared through the long slog of a trial.

Somehow, the atrocities Ray had committed were made so much more terrible by his allowing Hugh and Linda to blame their father all these years. That he could have looked into their young, innocent faces and led them to think they were children of a monster . . . but there was no sense in going over this anymore.

Hugh was seeing a psychiatrist on a daily basis, and Simone told me he was coming to grips with everything that had happened, now that the truth was finally known. I was happy that at the very least he had reconciled with the memory of his father. When I stopped by their apartment earlier in the week, several family portraits hung on his walls, images of a happier time, quarter of a century ago, before death came a-knocking.

Hugh had decided to sell the house on Greenbrier Street after all. But first, he wanted to have it redone, renovated, and decorated in the style it deserved, Art Nouveau. And luckily, he happened to know a top-notch contractor who was perfect for the job. We had sold or given away all the usable furniture, clothing, and linens—much of which was snapped up by vintage shops—and now my demo crew was ripping up shag carpet, removing outdated appliances, and steaming off several layers of flowered and flocked wallpaper. It was deeply satisfying to see the vestiges of that terrible crime disappearing room by room.

Following the aftermath of Ray’s shocking dive down the stairs, there appeared to be no lingering ghostly presence in the house. No more pale faces in the windows, no more whistling in the shed. As far as I could tell, the spirits were quiet or had departed entirely. According to Olivier, a traumatic event connected to the death might silence spirits for a time, but they could return. So far, however, the demo work was going well, with nary a bump in the night
or
the day.

Or . . . maybe not. I jumped when I heard a loud sound.

Bam bam bam . . . bam!

I moved gingerly toward the front door, and looked out the peephole. Nothing. But as I swung the door wide, I could see it was Kobe, too short to be seen from the peephole.

“I seen your car outside,” he said. “You still willing to teach me how to build things?”

“You willing to work hard and not complain?”

He gave me the stinkeye; then, finally, with a twist of his mouth, he held his hand out to shake.

“Tell you what,” I said. “This is a professional job, but this weekend I was going to check on the progress at the youth center. I’ll bet they could use your help down there. My stepson Caleb’s going to be there.”

“Will they have snacks?”

“I’m pretty sure they will,” I said. “Plus, there’s a fraternity there, doing some community service. Maybe you could meet a big brother.”

“Okay. Plus, your dad said something about working on Mrs. Lee’s train set. That would be cool.”

“Look, there they are now.” Across the street Etta and my dad were out in her garden, chatting while my dad secured a rose vine to a trellis. “Let’s go say hi and see if my dad needs some help on that model train.”

Dad looked up from his task as Kobe and I approached. “Ah, there she is now. Etta, did I ever tell you my daughter thought that you might be a murderess?”

I felt my face flame as Etta and Kobe stared at me, surprise in their eyes.

“It was just that . . . Kobe mentioned Duct-Tape Dave sent you money, and I . . .” I trailed off with a shrug of embarrassment. “I was just trying to keep an open mind. Kobe seemed wary, and he’s a smart kid. And you had a gun, and . . . anyway . . . I apologize.”

Etta laughed, her blue eyes crinkling attractively. “Dave once sent me money because a few of his customers trampled one of my prizewinning rosebushes—I told you he was always a good boy down deep. And I believe Kobe’s wary because I know his mother, and he knows better than to act up around me. But please don’t be sorry—I do believe that’s the most interesting thing anyone’s assumed about me in quite some time.”

“Mel?”
I heard one of my workers calling me from across the street.

“I’d better get back to work,” I said. “But I believe Kobe wanted to volunteer his services with that train set.”

“Do you, now?” said my dad to Kobe, slapping him on the back. “Well, let’s go to the porch and take a look, shall we?”

“How lovely,” said Etta, trailing them into the house. “This is a dream come true. Two handsome men, working on my train set . . .”

“Smells like cookies in here. Do you have any snacks?” I heard Kobe ask as Etta closed the door behind them.

“Hey, boss lady.” I turned to see Graham had arrived. He pulled something out of the cab of his truck that looked suspiciously like a picnic basket. “Time for lunch?”

“Did you bring poetry?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in doubt.

“Nope. Just sushi. But I could try to come up with a limerick or two, if you like.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“Just thought it would be nice to have lunch with my favorite cranky contractor. And besides, I was hoping to convince you to meet with my Marin client. The obscenely rich one. We need you.”

“This is the corporate mogul set on importing an entire building from Scotland, to make it into a hotel?”

He nodded. “It’s several buildings, actually, all from an old monastery. We’re having a few problems with the architect, and the permits, and the building department. . . .”

“Code issues?”

“You know how historic buildings are. Nothing but trouble.”

“Sounds right up my alley. Besides, you had me at ‘obscenely rich.’”

“I thought so.”

I flipped open the top of the picnic basket to see Graham had filled it with enough takeout containers to form a sushi feast, everything from miso soup to dragon rolls. And best of all, there was a thermos of hot coffee.

I opened the thermos and took a deep whiff. Really good coffee.

“You, Mr. Graham Donovan, are a man after my own heart.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I just have to check in with my crew, and then I’m all yours.”

“No fair, making empty promises.”

“Speaking of empty promises, weren’t you supposed to be my boy toy?”

He ducked his head and smiled a slow, sexy smile. “That I was, boss lady. That I was.”

S
ometimes it’s hard to distinguish between an antiques dealer and a hoarder.

Sebastian’s Antiques was a tiny shop on a narrow side street off San Francisco’s Jackson Square. The place was so crammed with furniture, paintings, carvings, mirrors, rugs, dolls, miniatures, and tchotchkes that it was hard to know whether its proprietor, Sebastian Crowley, was the owner of a vast treasure trove or simply the unfortunate overseer of a musty, oversized closetful of junk.

Not that I was pointing any fingers. After all, my primary motive for opening Aunt Cora’s Closet, my vintage clothing store, was to indulge my love of fabulous old garments . . . some of which no doubt qualified as junk to those who didn’t share my passions.

“Course, the trunk alone is worth a fortune,” said Sebastian Crowley as we inspected a very old, very damaged wooden chest.

I was skeptical. The chest’s metal hinges were so corroded with rust that I doubted they could withstand repeated openings, while the wood sides, bottom, and lid were pitted and crumbling. “It came across the country on the overland route, all the way from Massachusetts. Back with the pioneers who came to settle the new land.”

“Was this during the gold rush?” Like many newcomers to the West Coast, I was a little fuzzy on California’s history. For such a young area of the country, it had a colorful and tumultuous past.

Crowley frowned. “Yeah, um . . . not sure ’bout that. As I was saying, the trunk’s a beaut, but it’s what’s
inside
that’s gonna knock your socks off.”

He heaved open the lid to reveal two neatly folded stacks of clothing.

I drew back as my nostrils were assailed by the intermingled odors of mothballs and cedar. One quick glance, and my heart sank. It didn’t take a close inspection to see these garments had fallen victim to the vicissitudes of age that combine to ruin cloth materials: rot, moths, and moisture. I keep a seamstress on retainer at Aunt Cora’s Closet to address the minor repairs needed by many of my vintage acquisitions—small tears, lost buttons, frayed cuffs—but at the end of the day I stay in business by selling clothes my customers can actually
wear
. The items in this chest should go to a museum-grade clothing conservator . . . or straight into the trash can.

Sebastian lifted a simple white shift and shook it open. The aged, yellowed cotton cracked and split along the folds, sending small poofs of dust into the musty air.

“Well, I’ll be
danged
,” Sebastian murmured, studying the shredded garment with a furrowed brow.

It was an expression I’d already grown familiar with. In the half hour we’d spent together Sebastian’s expression had been a mixture of surprise and confusion, so perhaps that was simply the way he viewed the world. Tall and gaunt, the antiques dealer was in his late sixties, with a weak chin and raised bushy eyebrows that reminded me of Ichabod Crane, a character in one of my favorite childhood books,
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
. He dressed well—I had to give him that: a nice white linen shirt under a tweed jacket. But his wire glasses had a tendency to slip down his large, hooked nose, and he had a habit of pushing them back up. Since everything in the shop was covered in dust, his nose was now covered in grey and brown smudges. I tried not to stare.

“They looked fine when I bought the trunk. . . . I didn’t think to inspect them. I’ll be
danged
.”

“Cloth is tricky,” I said sympathetically. “If it’s not preserved properly, it falls apart with age. Antique pieces were made of natural fibers like cotton, linen, wool, or silk. Eventually they break down and return to the earth. Dust to dust, and all that. It’s rather poetic, in a way.”

The sour expression on Sebastian’s face made it clear that he did not share my appreciation for poetry. He shook his head. “That pretty little thing sold me a trunk full of worthless clothes. Son of a
gun
.”

I wondered how much he had paid for the trunk and its contents, but refrained from asking. I’d been burned once or twice myself. It isn’t a pleasant feeling, but it happens in our line of business.

“Tell you what: How ’bout you give me seventy-five bucks for the whole kit ’n’ caboodle,” he suggested, his voice regaining a touch of the salesman’s swagger. “Get it out of my way.”

“I’m sorry, Sebastian,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’d like to help you out, but I can’t use these. The fabric is just too compromised.”

“Nip here, a tuck there, it’ll be right as rain. You’ll see.”

“It would take a lot more than a nip and a tuck, I’m afraid. Maybe a professional conservator could help . . . but for my purposes they’re beyond repair.”

“
Humpfh
. Try to do someone a favor, and what do I get for my trouble? Ripped off, is what.” Sebastian made a face as if smelling something unpleasant, and said in a falsetto: “
‘My uncle needs money. He’s selling off all his antiques. Can’t you help him out?’
Sweet young thing comes in here and twists me around her little finger. I’m just too nice a guy, is what.”

Next time, try thinking with your brain,
I thought but did not say. We stood for a moment, staring at the open trunk.

That’s when I felt it. Something emanating from beneath the stack of linens.

Vibrations. Strong vibrations.

I have a special affinity for clothing. For textiles of all kinds, actually. It’s hard to explain why or how—I’m not sensitive to what most psychics are, such as metal and stone, though maybe that’s because I’m not a psychic. I’m a witch. A powerful witch, too, though I’m not always on top of my magical abilities—I never finished my formal training in the craft, so I’m learning as I go along. I can brew with the best of them, but divination and most psychometrics escape me.

But clothes? Clothes, I can read. They absorb the vibrations of the people who have worn them and emit a wisp of that human energy. Before moving to San Francisco and finding a community of friends, I had lived a lonely and isolated life. The sensations I picked up from cast-off clothing had offered solace and connection to others, and old clothes had become not just a passion but a profession.

Even given my particular sensitivities, though, I wasn’t normally able to hear a piece
calling
to me.

Sebastian slammed the lid shut, muttering under his breath. “Worthless piece of—”

“
Wait
.”

His eyes flew to mine.

“Mind if I take another look?” I asked.

“Why, surely. You take all the time you need.” A calculating gleam entered Sebastian’s watery blue eyes as he lifted the trunk lid with a flourish. “Don’t see specimens like this every day, am I right? Work a bit of the ol’ magic on them, they’ll be good as new.”

I gave a start of surprise, which I turned into a shrug when I realized the “magic” he was referring to was just a turn of phrase. And frankly, I could have brewed for a week nonstop and still not have reconstituted those decaying threads. Even my strongest magic didn’t work that way.

But when Sebastian opened the trunk, I heard it again. Something was in the trunk, calling to me. I heard it,
felt
it, deep in my gut . . . and in a tingling in my fingertips.

“May I?” I asked.

“Just don’t hurt anything or you bought it. Like the sign says.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of a large sign, grimy with age, hanging above the register:
YOU BREAK IT, YOU BOUGHT IT.

It wouldn’t take much more than a gust of wind to damage these pieces, I thought. Gingerly, I lifted the top garments from the trunk and set them aside: men’s clothes in one pile, women’s in another. My practiced eye recognized that the yellowing white cotton shirts, petticoats, and bloomers had once been fine-quality garments, but now were all falling apart. The linens beneath them were in somewhat better condition, but still too far gone to sell. Taking care to disturb the clothes as little as possible, I dug a little deeper.

My fingers touched something soft and fine, like the coat of a baby bunny. I peeked in: Velvet.

“What’s this? Do you know?” I asked.

Sebastian shrugged. “I didn’t look through it, tell you the truth. The girl who brought it in said her uncle was desperate for cash, and the whole trunk came across from Boston back in the day, with the pioneers. Probably some cockamamie story. Tell you what: I have too big a heart—that’s my problem. She sold me a few decorative items that might be worth something, so I just took this as part of the deal.”

“Would you mind if I examined this velvet piece?”

Sebastian rubbed his hands together. “How ’bout you buy the lot, and it’s yours. Think about it—this trunk came from Boston with the pioneers! Just imagine the history, the stories it could tell. There’s bound to be something really great in there.”

“I thought you said that was a cockamamie story the seller made up.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

I shook my head. “So if the trunk came across the prairies all the way from Boston, how come it’s still packed? Why wasn’t it opened, and the clothes worn?”

“The owners died en route.”

I glanced up at him, surprised.

“Leastways, that’s what the gal said.” Sebastian stuck out his receding chin. “She said the way she heard the story, her relatives were in a party of wagon trains coming overland, and this trunk and a few other items belonged to a family who died before they got here. Buried somewhere along the way. I guess their stuff was picked up and carried the rest of the trip by other relatives and eventually ended up here in San Francisco. Listen, I tell you what I’m gonna do: seventy-five bucks and the trunk’s yours, contents included. You can’t beat that.”

I hesitated, calculating the available floor space at my store. The shop was already jammed with rack upon rack of dresses, coats, skirts, jackets, and blouses, and shelf upon shelf of hats, gloves, purses, and shoes. There were umbrellas and parasols, shawls and scarves, and a sizable selection of secondhand jewelry. I also had a weakness for antique kitchen gadgetry, which meant a growing collection of vintage cooking items now crowded a cupboard in one corner. Much of the inventory turned over quickly, but the quirkier items collected dust in nooks and crannies and display windows. So crowded had the shop become in the past few months that my friend and coworker, Bronwyn, had threatened to pack up her herbal stand and leave.

Which was why I sympathized with Sebastian Crowley. Honestly, if left to my own devices, my shop would look as bad as his.

“I can’t take the trunk, but I’ll take the clothes.” It was possible we would be able to salvage something from the shattered garments: a few buttons or bits of lace. We might even be able to copy some of the designs to make re-creations. And there was something about that velvet item. . . .

“Hundred bucks.”

“You said seventy-five!”

“That’s for the trunk and its contents. Contents
without
the trunk are a hundred.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Hey, you know how this works!” Sebastian was referring to auctions, where patrons bid on numbered “lots” that contained numerous items. If you wanted one particular item, you had to take the whole lot. Afterward, you were stuck figuring out what to do with the rest of the stuff. The problem was that few of us junk hounds were able to toss the worthless items into the nearest Dumpster. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” were words we lived by, which explained why so many of our shops resembled Sebastian’s Antiques.

“These clothes really aren’t worth anything, Sebastian. Let me give you fifty for the clothes, and you keep the trunk.”

“Seventy.”

“Fifty-five.”

“
Sixty
-five, and you help me carry this beautiful, historic trunk out to the curb. Tomorrow’s trash day.”

I studied the chest one more time. If it really had come across country on the overland route—and it certainly looked old enough—it seemed wrong for it to meet its end in the gutter.

“Oh, fine,” I said with a sigh. Giving in to the inevitable, I handed him three twenties. “Sixty, and you help me carry it out to my van.”

Sebastian beamed. “Pleasure doing business with you, Lily Ivory.”