If Walls Could Talk (14 page)

“I met Manuel in his office last week for lunch,” Luz said, “and this woman practically forced her card on me. She’s a shameless self-promoter, but nice enough. Ah! Here it is.”

Luz handed me a glossy, full-color business card. It stated that the pretty blond woman pictured, Brittany Humm, specialized in “The Sale and Acquisition of Haunted Houses throughout the Bay Area.”

“Humm’s Haunted Houses,” I read aloud. “Cute.”

“Give her a call.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“This from the woman who spent the last ten minutes telling me about being stalked by a ghost. I’m just saying, maybe she could shed some light on this. Otherwise, I don’t know what to tell you,
amiga mia
. Ghosts scare me.”

“Nothing scares you.”

“Uh-huh. Nothing but ghosts.” She gave a little shiver. “Oh! And clowns.”

I smiled. “Luckily, I haven’t seen one of those. Anyway, I thought you just said you didn’t believe in ghosts.”

“Sure I do. I just don’t necessarily believe
you’ve
seen a ghost. As with most unusual events, best to weed out the logical explanations first. Like the fact that you’ve been working too hard for, like, a couple of years now. You need to sit on a beach somewhere and have some fine young man bring you drinks with umbrellas in them. For at least a month or two. As your best, most devoted friend, I volunteer to accompany you.”

She consulted a slim gold watch on her wrist and gestured for the waiter to bring the bill.

“It’s Tuesday, right?” Luz continued. “I’ve got an hour before my office hours. You wanna go by the house really quick?”

“Matt’s house? Seriously?”

“I’m thinking you’re probably feeling nervous about going back in. I’ll be your backup.”

“The investigating officer did call not long ago to say I could have access. As of yesterday it was still a closed crime scene.”

“Well, no time like the present, then,” Luz said. “Let’s go check it out.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t even known I was holding and paid the bill.

“Thanks, Luz.”

“Anytime.”

 

The stone stairway to the mansion’s front door was no longer roped off by crime scene tape. There were no police cars, no Cal-OSHA presence, and given the ramshackle appearance the house always sported it gave no indication of being the scene of a recent murder.

On the other hand, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine the neighborhood kids making up haunted house rumors about the place, à la the young Vincent Hutchins.

I dreaded going in. I hadn’t seen Kenneth all morning, so I was keeping my fingers crossed that he was, indeed, some figment of my imagination born of the stress of the last couple of days. Or weeks. Or years. Now, standing in front of the house, I was afraid that going back in might trigger yet another ghostly visitation.

Luz came around the car, noticed my hesitancy, and raised her eyebrow in mute challenge. We walked side by side up the front steps. I scrounged around in the bottom of my satchel to find the front-door key Matt had given me.

No need. The door was not only unlocked; it was slightly ajar. I pushed it in warily.

“Hello?” I called out.

Nothing.

“The cops probably forgot to lock up, that’s all,” said Luz.

I nodded and walked in. I felt a strong frisson upon entering, a feeling of déjà vu. I couldn’t help but think back to the day before yesterday, when I’d had no idea what lay in store for me besides a hungover ex-rock star.

Things looked much as they had last time I was here. Trash everywhere, walls bashed in here and there, dust, and broken windows.

“Check this out,” Luz said, immediately distracted by the architecture. She ran her finger along the edge of the chair rail in the dining room. “I love this kind of detail. What’s this called again?”

“Which part are you referring to? The dado, or the bullnose?”

Luz laughed. “Is it just me, or does the whole builders’ vocabulary sound just a little bit dirty?”

I joined her, laughing at myself as much as at her comment. Luz was right; there was nothing to be afraid of. This was a historic home, the kind I loved, a house that needed me. There was no sign of Kenneth, no sign of death. I was suddenly eager to get to work—I felt like grabbing a broom and starting right away. Without even thinking about it, I started composing a mental to-do list.

Luz wandered into the kitchen, and I followed. In marked contrast to Celia’s, this kitchen was essentially unchanged from its original layout. It was huge, and the walls were tiled up all the way to the ceiling in muted pistachio green four-by-fours. The cabinet for cold storage still had its little sliding door at the back that opened to the outside for the ice block. An aged refrigerator stuck out awkwardly into the room—traditional kitchens had no enclosures built for such things. A narrow, chipped gray marble counter along one wall had probably been used for making pastries and the like, back in the day. A massive wood-burning stove must have once stood against the wall where a cheap gas version now sat—the chimney for the old smokestack and flue was still evident. Someone had stuck an old coffee tin in the round opening to close it up. Open shelves had been emptied of their contents but not washed; they were grimy with grease and accumulated dust.

Luz opened the door of what looked like a small cabinet next to the refrigerator.

“Oh my God, a dumbwaiter! When’s the last time you saw one of these?”

“They’re not that uncommon in the old homes of this neighborhood,” I said.

“I wish
I
had a dumbwaiter. But then, I guess they’re not as cool without someone on the other end of it to cook stuff and send it on up.”

She started turning the crank. It squeaked in protest.

I was noticing that every wall in the place had been gouged open, not in a systematic way of replacing wallboard but more as though someone was opening walls, looking for something. . . .

“Um, Mel,” Luz said, her voice sounding hollow. “You might want to check this out.”

I came to stand next to her. On the little lift lay a revolver. A Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. My father had one just like it; we had fired it at the shooting range. I remembered him explaining that he didn’t like the rebound from the .357s, so instead he used .38 specials to load it.

Luz and I stared at it.

“A gun,” Luz said. “Why would there be a
gun
?”

A loud thump came from overhead.

Together we froze and looked at the ceiling, as though we might be able to see through it to the floor above. The kitchen was directly under the “den,” where the tools and equipment had been set up. Where Kenneth had lost his hand.

“What was
that
?” I whispered.
Please don’t be Kenneth please don’t be Kenneth please don’t be Kenneth.

“Maybe the cops are still here after all,” Luz suggested.

“Maybe so.”

Heavy footsteps.

Angry voices.

More thumping, a shout, and a crash.

Or maybe Kenneth wouldn’t be so bad after all
, I thought.
At least he didn’t seem bent on hurting anyone
.

“
Let’s get out of here
,” I whispered.

Luz looked at me with some disdain.

“Ghosts may scare me, but vandals I can handle.” She snatched up the gun, waving it in my general direction. “Does this thing work?”

“
Luz!
Put that
down
!” I said in an urgent whisper, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the kitchen.

“I’m not going to
shoot
anybody. I’m just going to scare them.”

“Because that philosophy worked so well during the arms race.”

“What do
you
suggest we do?”

“Run outside and call the police.”

“They’re probably just some kids fooling arou—”

I yanked Luz back behind the dining room wall just as a body tumbled down the circular stairs.

T
he grunting and thumping came to a halt with a sudden thud.

There was a brief moment of silence. In the distance we could hear the clatter of a fire escape.

Luz poked the barrel of the gun around the edge of the doorway. Gingerly, we both peeked out.

A young man sat on the landing, his back up against the wall, large hands massaging his ankle. His short-cropped golden brown hair was either intentionally tousled or attractively mussed from the fall. He had a lean, muscular swimmer’s build and wore a thigh-length black leather jacket over faded jeans and a black T-shirt. Low-heeled black boots topped off the coordinated outfit. Just a tad better dressed than your average vandal.

He spotted us, put his hands up, and smiled.

“
Whoa
, don’t shoot. I’m not armed, I . . .” He trailed off as he looked around him, patting his chest as though searching for his keys. A horrified look came over his handsome face.

Without saying another word, he scrambled back up the steps.

“Let’s go after him,” Luz whispered.

“We’re not going
after
him!” I exclaimed. “What are you, Wonder Woman all of a sudden?”

“I have a gun.”

“I realize that, Luz, but maybe he went back upstairs after
his
gun. Did you ever think of that? Let’s
go
!”

“Too late.”

We hunkered back behind the wall as the stranger began descending the steps, still favoring his right ankle. Hanging around his neck was a bulky black and silver camera with a huge lens. He inspected it with the tender concentration of a father checking his newborn for all ten toes.

I reached over, gingerly pried the heavy, cold Smith & Wesson from Luz’s hands, and flipped open the revolver to see if it was loaded. It was. Fully. Six chambers, six cartridges.

My father had taught me never to use a gun as a bluff; if you held it on someone, they had to know you were willing and able to use it. Though my heart fluttered, my hands were steady and I felt strangely centered. There’s nothing like standing in a house of horrors facing an unknown intruder, with a friend at my side, to clarify issues.

“Stop right there,” I ordered, stepping out from behind the wall and leveling the weapon at him. Assuming the stance.

“
Damn
, Mel, you’re a regular Charlie’s Angel,” murmured Luz as she rose to stand by my side.

The stranger froze on the second-to-last step. His gaze alighted on the barrel of the gun before rising to meet mine. He gave me a long, thoughtful look with light, sherry-colored eyes that seemed, somehow, too old for his face. Then he smiled again.

“Sorry about that. I had to go back for my camera.” Moving slowly, he lifted the massive specimen off his broad chest as evidence. “I’m a photographer. Zach Malinski. You don’t need that weapon.”

“Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?” The gun did not waver.

“A couple of kids broke in, I think. They were probably just looking around, but you never know.” Malinski spoke in a measured, oh-so-casual tone, as though he encountered gun-wielding women off their meds on a daily basis. “They went out the fire escape off the study.”

“Uh-huh.” Other than his eyes, he didn’t look much older than a kid himself. A really tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking kid. “And what—”

“This is private property, pal,” Luz interrupted. “We’re well within our rights to just shoot you here and now.”

“Actually, you’re not,” he said, not seeming particularly perturbed. “In California you’re not supposed to shoot people without provocation. Gotta love the Golden State.”

“You’re provoking us,” Luz snapped.

“
Luz
, enough already,” I said.

“The door was open,” mentioned the photographer.

“You walk right into every open door you find in the city?” I asked.

“I’m a friend of Matt’s. I was at the party the other night.”

What had Matt said? A new photographer from the paper . . . who looked like a young Antonio Banderas. Zach’s coloring was a little lighter than the movie star’s, but I guess I could see it.

“Look, I just wanted to capture the look of this place post-party, pre-remodel. I’m supposed to be documenting the thing for Kenneth and Matt. But I guess I was a little late. Looks like things were already cleaned up.”

“Cleaned up?”

“Just the workroom up on the second floor. Where they set up the saw and all the equipment.”

“Must be crime scene cleaners,” said Luz. “I saw that show on TV.”

“I didn’t call any crime scene cleaners,” I said.

“Crime scene?” Zach said, no recognition on his handsome face. “What kind of crime scene?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Hear what?”

I exchanged a quick glance with Luz.

“The police haven’t spoken with you?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“What time did you leave the party the other night?” I asked.

“About three in the morning.”

“Did you notice anything odd—?”

“Everything okay in here?” Graham Donovan interrupted, standing in the doorway. His calm eyes took in the gun in my hand, flickered over to the young man on the stairs, then came back to me.

“Everything’s fine.” I lowered the gun. “We were just . . . startled by Zach.”

“I take it you’re ‘Zach’?” Graham said.

“Zachary Malinski,” he said with a nod, moving across the entry toward Graham and holding out his hand to shake.

Graham did not take it.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was taking some pictures. Kenneth Kostow hired me to document the process of demolition.”

“Uh-huh. So you were here during the demolition party?”

He nodded.

“Have you given a statement to the police?”