If Walls Could Talk (10 page)

“You sure you’re all right?”

I nodded. “Thanks, I’ll be fine. I’m just tired. And a little . . . Finding Kenneth yesterday was pretty traumatic, I guess.”

“I can imagine.”

Our eyes met again.

“So, are you ready to give a statement?” Graham asked, back to business.

“Statement?”

Opening his briefcase, he brought out several detailed documents, and I spent the next forty-five minutes writing things down. Chief among them was that I had no idea how my name wound up on the permits and that I’d had nothing to do with the site, other than the original inspection, before yesterday’s gruesome discovery.

“That’ll do for now,” Graham said as he stashed the paperwork in a file, placed the materials neatly in his briefcase, and returned his pens to their case.

“I asked the officer earlier, but I was wondering, since you mentioned you’re in charge of the scene and all . . .” I thought I might as well try my luck with Graham. “Do you have any idea when the scene will be released? I’d like to be able to tell my client when we’ll be starting work.”

“I thought you just told me you weren’t in Addax’s employ?”

“I wasn’t. But he just hired me to take over.”

“This is the man up on murder charges?”

“I don’t believe they’ve issued any charges yet. Isn’t that partly up to you?”

He gave a curt nod.

“Matt Addax wouldn’t hurt a fly,” I said.

“That’s not for you to decide.”

“But you wouldn’t be here unless the police thought it was an accident, would you? They must be unsure that it’s murder, right?”

“I can’t discuss this with you, Mel. You should know that.”

Graham was just about as open and informative as that laugh riot Inspector Brice Lehner. But as he said himself, he wasn’t my buddy, much less my knight in shining armor.

Kenneth appeared behind Graham again. A sense of longing and need emanated from him. I felt a sudden, overwhelming desire to get as far away as possible.

“I’d better be going.”

Graham nodded again. I felt the heat of his eyes on my back as I crossed the street to my car and took off, grateful to be gone.

H
oping Matt’s architect would have a handle on what was going on with the building permit—and maybe even an insight into what had happened to Kenneth—I looked up his address on my BlackBerry and called ahead. Jason Wehr was in, and invited me to drop by his office downtown.

Unfortunately, I’m what my friends call “parking-challenged,” famous for pulling up to a space right behind the person who gets it. Finding a parking spot for my little Scion took me longer than the entire trip across town.

To my surprise, Jason Wehr’s Market Street address led me to a cavernous discount fabric and craft-item store, the kind that sells wholesale to other stores as well as to the public. When I asked whether I was in the right place to find the architect, a young Asian woman at the register pointed me to a set of stairs on the left of the main shop floor.

Upstairs, in what was essentially an open storage loft, with cardboard boxes stacked six high along the walls, I found Jason Wehr huddled over a large drafting table, studying drawings.

He was a small, scholarly-looking man in his early forties, with light brown hair graying at the temples, a neatly trimmed beard, and wire-rim glasses. He wore a tweed jacket over a crisp new pair of jeans. No surprise there. Architects are the academics of the construction world—for good and for ill. Often harboring artistic temperaments, they were known amongst builders for their flashes of brilliance right alongside unrealistic expectations and temper tantrums. They rarely knew the ins and outs of actual hands-on construction and tended to insist that their creations be built exactly as drawn, without checking in with the people responsible for bringing those designs to life: the builders.

“Melanie Turner, at last! Good to meet you,” Jason Wehr said as he stood and shook my hand.

“Call me Mel. Nice to meet you as well,” I said. “Matt can’t stop singing your praises. What’s all this?”

On a table to the side was an intricate model of a building and its surrounds, complete with miniature lichen trees and tiny little cars. Architects, especially the old-school type trained before the widespread use of computer-aided design programs, were expert model makers. Some verged on an almost maniacal attention to detail, along the lines of miniature railroad enthusiasts. The miniconstructions were often beautiful little worlds, and they offered clients a physical perspective that was lacking in a two-dimensional drawing.

“That’s my Eden,” said Jason.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Where are you building it?”

“In my mind, at the moment,” Jason said with a self-deprecating laugh. “It’s my dream, really. It’s a completely green building. Check this out.”

The building was built into the hill, with a sod roof.

“I would use sheep to mow the lawn. They’d keep it short, while providing essential nutrients to the soil with natural fertilizer.”

“So you could literally fall asleep counting the sheep overhead.”

“Oh, it’s so well insulated you’d never hear them,” Jason said, completely serious.

“I was just kidding, actually,” I said, but Jason had already moved on to show me the windmill, the passive solar potential, the cistern below the building, and the system of gutters to catch and divert the rain to fill it.

“Very impressive,” I said.

“You know, the thing about historic buildings,” Jason said, “is no matter how well-intentioned, you can’t go green the way you can in new construction.”

“I disagree,” I said, though I knew from experience that this argument was futile. I love the idea of green buildings, myself, but in my opinion their proponents overemphasize new construction over restoration. “What about embodied energy?”

“In what sense?”

“ ‘Embodied energy’—all the energy it takes to build a new building. Hauling things back and forth to the dump and the store, for example. The electricity used to run power tools. The manufacture of new products. A lot of people forget to take all that into consideration when they speak about building new ‘green’ homes. It takes thirty-five years for the average home to recover its carbon use from being built; historic homes have filled that bill long ago.”

“All I know is my Eden will allow its people to live off the grid entirely.” Wehr’s eyes shone as he stared at his creation.

I had to hand it to him: He was an artist, with a devoted passion to his design as great as any Renaissance painter’s to his portrait. Hanging on the wall near his desk was a brass plaque denoting Jason Wehr as winner of the AIA Design Award for Excellence in Architecture. It brought out my envious side: I coveted the AIA Award for Historic Preservation and Innovation in Rehabilitation. One of these days—soon, I promised myself. I just needed the right project. The perfect project. And the perfect architect to join forces with wouldn’t hurt, either. I had even entertained the notion that Jason Wehr might be that person, but after our green vs. green discussion I had the sense that Jason Wehr and I weren’t going to be creating award-winning projects together anytime in the near future.

“Speaking of Matt,” Wehr said as we both sat down in white molded-plastic chairs, “how is he? Do you know? What’s going on . . . ? Is he honestly being held for Kenneth’s death?”

“No charges have been filed yet,” I said. “But everything’s still up in the air. Have the police spoken with you?”

He shook his head.

“I take it you weren’t at the party?” I said.

“Actually I was, earlier in the evening. I left by ten or so. Things seemed to be getting rather out of hand, and as a professional I felt obligated either to put an end to it . . . or to leave.”

“And you chose the latter option?”

“I spoke to the bouncer at the door, and was under the impression that he would take care of it. Then I left.”

“What was going on?”

“Lots of drinking, people carousing . . . all in good fun but with the added element of power tools. . . . It’s a bit like that old saying about running with scissors: You’re bound to lose an eye eventually.” He shook his head and pushed his wire-rim glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “I guess poor Kenneth is a sign of what can happen when that sort of thing goes amok, right? I really can’t believe it.”

“Do you know anything about the house being for sale?”

“They were going to sell it after the remodel.”

“But not before, right?”

“Of course not. They were flipping it for a profit.”

“That’s what I thought. Ever heard of a man named Philip Singh?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“He said he had an agreement with Kenneth to buy the house.”

“That’s impossible, unless he had some informal agreement to buy it afterward. But as you know, we haven’t even started with construction. The design process ran over schedule.”

“Why’s that?”

“Matt and Kenneth had a hard time agreeing. They fought a lot. . . . There were times when, if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn Kenneth was delaying the project intentionally. Plus, we wanted to remain true to the original design. It’s a beautiful structure, with a lot of history. As you know. You did the original inspection, didn’t you?”

I nodded.

“I thought I recognized the name. You were the contractor listed on the permits, right?”

“Did Kenneth say that?”

He nodded. “He said you and Matt were old friends and you were giving them the friends’ and family discount.”

“Really.”

“It was all spelled out in the prospectus.”

“Prospectus?”

He opened a file cabinet and brought out a file, extracted a thin, bound sheaf of papers, and handed it to me. I’m not great at high finance, but this much was clear: It was an agreement to a private investment, a share of the final sale price of the house.

“You’re an investor in the project?”

“I am, yes. There were several of us. Kenneth didn’t want to use a bank to get a traditional mortgage, so he sold shares in the finished product instead.”

“He didn’t use a bank at all?”

Wehr shook his head. “I don’t believe so.”

I must have looked dubious.

“I assure you it’s perfectly legal.”

“Weren’t you concerned about their ability to flip such an expensive house?”

“On the contrary. The housing woes that hit everyone else don’t really apply to a neighborhood like Pacific Heights. Just as your high-end remodeling business is probably recession-proof, by and large—am I right?”

He
was
right. There was a whole stratum of very wealthy clients who were insulated from the swings in the markets. I had always been unclear on where their funds came from, frankly. Though my folks did okay, I was unfamiliar with the concept of family money. As my father always said, Turners work for a living.

“Bike messenger’s here,” came a woman’s voice from downstairs.

“Excuse me a moment,” Wehr said to me. “I just have to run these down to him.” He grabbed a large manila package and a roll of blueprints from atop his desk.

I looked over the little ledge and watched him hurry down the stairs. He handed the items to a strapping bald fellow wearing a messenger bag slung over broad shoulders. Bike messengers were usually lithe, with nerves—and
thighs
—of steel, especially in a hilly town like San Francisco. Then again, I imagined drivers would think twice before hitting such a beefy guy. I only saw him from the rear, but he seemed nearly as big as one of Nico’s nephews.

Which reminded me. I tried Nico again. Still no answer.

I’m now officially worried
, I thought as I watched the messenger pull on a red motorcycle helmet.

Oh,
that
kind of bike. That made more sense.

Now my mind went in yet another direction. Back in the day, Graham Donovan had a red-and-black motorcycle helmet—it matched his red Ducati. The other guys used to tease him: Construction workers rode in huge trucks, not on bikes . . . of any type. Graham bragged about the fuel efficiency, though I suspected he harbored Marlon Brando fantasies. He had been brash, confident to the point of arrogance, with the bold know-it-all stance of youth. Judging from even the brief nature of our recent interaction, though, he seemed to have mellowed with age. Was he married? Did he have children? Was there some way I could ask Dad or Stan without being too obvious? Maybe I could work the conversation around by asking about . . .

“. . . save a fortune on delivery.” I realized that Jason Wehr was talking to me.

I nodded as though I had been listening.

“So, where were we?” Jason asked as he sat down behind his desk again.

“Do you know who the other investors in the house project are?” I asked.

“No idea.”

“How much money are we talking here?” That house and lot were worth millions, remodel or no. “Do you mind my asking?”

“I don’t know about the others. . . . I was putting in my design time, waiving my normal fees, of course. And on top of that I put in two hundred fifty thousand.”

“A quarter of a million dollars?” I gasped. All wagered on a project coming in on time, on budget, and then selling the home for a sweet profit. No wonder Jason Wehr was conducting business out of the loft space rather than a proper office. Kenneth must have been one excellent fast-talker . . . or maybe I just didn’t share whatever vision it took for people to dump their fortunes into an uncertain situation. I was the safe, simple, savings-account type; if I got fancy, I might try an interest-bearing money market. I shopped at resale and consignment shops, put it down to my love of all things old and historical, and called it good. My tightwad attitude used to drive my ex-husband insane. He always told me it takes money to make money.