If Walls Could Talk (23 page)

I pulled into the parking lot of Mill Valley’s small shopping area, watching self-consciously underdressed Marin folk carry out Save the Earth canvas bags filled with expensive artisan cheeses, free-range organic paté, and locally baked sourdough baguettes while I returned the latest round of work-related calls. Raul had phoned twice: There was a problem with the payroll checks, and the faux finishers at the Zaben house wanted me to check on their progress before they went any further. I talked to Stan and asked him to follow up with our payroll service, then spoke to Raul and promised to stop by this afternoon.

Then my thoughts turned back to the mystery at hand.

Presumably someone knew that Nico had removed items from Matt’s house, someone with enough muscle to shake the poor man down for information. They wanted something, badly. If they hadn’t found it in the storage locker, or hidden in the piano, could it be in the package that I just left at the historical society? Or were the historical documents just what they seemed: a fascinating glimpse into another time, essentially worthless in any monetary sense?

And why would a lien have been levied against the house? A goods-and-services lien was the ultimate weapon for contractors to use if a homeowner did not make good on payments; I had never had to file a lien against a client, but the threat was always in my arsenal—and included in every job contract. But as far as I could tell, the only official contractor involved in Matt’s Vallejo Street house was me. Who else might have done it?

A Realtor might know. And the right Realtor might have some pertinent information about the netherworld as well.

I fished the business card Luz had given me out of my bag.

Brittany Humm sounded excited to hear from me—Luz had sent her an e-mail message about my situation—and suggested we meet for a quick late lunch at the Artisan Bistro in Lafayette. Suddenly starving—those finger sandwiches didn’t quite do the job—I agreed. She gave me directions.

The area known as the East Bay changes radically once a person goes through a tunnel or over the mountains. The suburban towns out here seemed to meld together. I wasn’t the only one who thought so: Lafayette, Moraga, and Orinda were so similar they were referred to collectively as “Lamorinda.” But things got worse as one went on: Walnut Creek, Alamo, Danville . . . they evoked a well-heeled but mind-numbing, soul-crushing suburbanism that set my teeth on edge. Personally, I’d rather live in a trailer park. Of course, the people who lived in these areas pretty much equated living in Oakland—especially the section of Oakland where I lived—with residence in the worst sort of trashy trailer park, so I guessed we were even on that score. I tried my best to invoke my mother’s nonjudgmental motto: “To each their own.”

Luckily for me, since Turner Construction specialized in historic homes, we rarely worked over here.

The restaurant had been chosen for its cozy, quiet setting; on the outside it looked like a standard tract home, but on the inside it was charming. I found Brittany Humm waiting for me at a table on the garden patio. It was a sunny late-winter day, cool but perfect for sitting outside with the added warmth of standing gas heaters.

I disliked the Realtor on sight: She was young, thin, blond, pretty, well-dressed, and showing off a giant diamond on her left hand. Brittany was like my high school nightmare come to vivid, smiling life.

Why am I wasting my time on this sort of thing when I have work to do?
I thought, suddenly frustrated with myself for having come all the way out here to meet with someone who specialized in ghostly real estate. I mentally calculated how quickly I could leave.

As soon as I sat down and ordered coffee, Brittany Humm smiled and leaned toward me over the table, as though I were going to show her baby pictures.

“Luz tells me you’ve seen a
ghost
.”

I glanced around to be sure no one was listening in. I could feel my cheeks burn. “I believe so, yes.”

“How exciting!”

“You think?”

“Of course! I’ve never had the pleasure. It’s a real honor.”

“It is?”

She sat back and studied me, the smile never leaving her face. “You’re worried you’re crazy, right?”

“A little.”

“I can assure you, you’re not. This sort of thing happens more often than you know, but most people who are privileged enough to be conduits are too embarrassed to admit it. It’s sad, really. They go through their whole lives denying their special gifts.”

The waiter arrived. I felt in need of grease. Since there was no Reuben sandwich on the menu, I ordered a croque monsieur with French fries. Brittany asked for a marinated beet salad and another Diet Coke. No wonder she was thin.

I gave her the rundown of the incident at the house, and then of Kenneth’s appearances.

“Here’s something I don’t get,” I said. “Kenneth followed me home—in fact, he turns up all sorts of places. Aren’t ghosts supposed to . . . you know . . . stay attached to their real estate?”

“He wasn’t actually killed on the premises, though, right? You said he died at the hospital. Did you two have a serious kind of interaction beforehand?”

“He was injured,” I said, trying not to think of the intimacy I felt in the moments when Kenneth lay in my arms. “I held him until the ambulance came.”

“Gravely injured, I’m guessing.”

I nodded.

“That’s probably enough to explain it right there. He’s latched onto you instead of a building per se. A lot of people who die in hospitals seem to show up back in their homes, since that’s where they’re most attached. I think hospitals are too cold and clinical to hold all the ghosts of the people who’ve passed there.”

That made sense. I guessed.

“So, assuming he’s real, how do I get rid of him? Should I haul out my old Ouija board? Conduct a séance or something?” Maybe I should ask Celia Hutchins for help.

“I’m not sure it’s that easy. What has he asked of you?”

“Nothing specific, really. He’s pretty unclear. He seems confused.”

“Let me ask you something: Have you ever had any other similar experiences, with anyone other than Kenneth?”

I hesitated, sipping my coffee. Finally I decided on honesty. “Only with my mother. She passed a couple of years ago.”

“Were you close to her?”

“I was a pretty rebellious teenager, but in the last few years . . . yes. We had grown very close.” I was the middle sister, the one who never quite toed the line. Maybe that was why our recent closeness seemed so raw, so poignant to lose.

“And you’ve seen her?”

“Sort of. Only once, really. But I . . . I feel her from time to time. Do you think it’s the same thing?”

“Hard to say. This isn’t an exact science.”

“I didn’t think it was
any
sort of science, actually,” I muttered as the waiter brought our food and set it in front of us. In the way of so many trendy new restaurants, the French fries were served with aioli on the side rather than ketchup. I took a big greasy bite of my sandwich.

Only then did it dawn on me that I had just insulted Brittany.

“I’m sorry,” I said around the food in my mouth, my cheeks burning. “That was rude.”

Brittany tilted her head and studied me, but she did not look offended as much as perplexed.

“I’m always intrigued by people who ask me for advice about the beyond with one breath, then disdain it with the next.”

“You’re absolutely right. I apologize. I’ve been . . . cranky lately.” I munched on a French fry. “Actually, according to my friends and family, I’ve been cranky for the last couple of years.”

She reached across the table and patted my hand. Her ring glittered in the sunshine.

“Difficult divorce?”

“I thought you said you weren’t psychic.”

“I’m not. But it’s written all over you—and I should know. I’ve been through two myself.”

“Two? You hardly look old enough to drink.”

“I started early.” She smiled. “My advice is to move on, live your life.”

“I tried to escape to Paris.”

“What happened to that plan?”

What happened?
My mother died. My father fell apart. The business tanked. I couldn’t abandon Caleb.

I shrugged. “You know what they say about best-laid plans.”

She smiled again, the sympathy in her eyes shining through.

So much for snap judgments. I decided I liked Brittany Humm, lovely thin blonde or not.

“Did anything happen around your mother’s death that was . . . odd?” Brittany continued. “Besides just seeing her afterward, I mean. Something more recent? Something that might have had to do with transferring power?”

I blew on my coffee. Tiny ripples emanated out toward the ceramic walls of the mug, making me think of the water on Ralston Pond, where my sisters and I had sprinkled my mother’s cremated remains just a couple of weeks ago. My father had been too despondent to join us, instead going hunting with Stan and a few other friends; it was the only time I had ever known him to come back from a hunting trip empty-handed, making me think they went more to drink beer in the woods than to shoot anything.

I remembered the day was cool and still; even the frogs and birds seemed hushed. Fearing that we would feel too emotional to speak at the actual moment, my sisters, Charlotte and Daphne, and I had each written a private letter to Mom. We stood out at the end of the dock at dusk and burned the papers on top of Mom’s ashes, saying our silent, final, farewells.

As we stood there, a sudden gust of wind arose out of nowhere, blowing the embers and ashes directly up into the air, and right at me. They didn’t burn my skin, but they enveloped me for just a moment. Neither of my sisters; me, alone. After that, the wind died down immediately and the stillness returned.

So, yes, I guess you could say something odd happened.

“W
hat do you mean by ‘transferring’ power?”I asked.

“Sometimes, when there’s a fairly sudden increase in phenomena such as you’ve described, it can be related to the passing of a loved one who had similar abilities.”

Had my mother had such abilities? If so, she kept them secret. On the other hand, she often seemed to know things she had no way of knowing . . . but I always attributed that to the typical kind of maternal ESP familiar to offspring across all cultures. Mothers always had a sixth sense, didn’t they?

“Gorgeous ring,” I said in a blatant attempt to change the subject.

“Thank you. To tell you the truth, it seems a bit over-the-top for me. Don’t get me wrong—I love diamonds . . . but it’s just so huge! My soon-to-be father-in-law is in the business.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know—were diamonds ever mined in California?”

“I thought we were all about the gold.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” I said. “Okay, enough about ghosts. Could I ask you a couple of Realtor questions?”

“Of course.”

“Would you consider it legitimate for a group of investors to put money into a house with the intent to remodel and flip it, without using a traditional bank mortgage at all?”

“Sure, if they had the cash at hand. It’s not that common in the Bay Area because prices are so high, but in the old days there were people who bought homes with cash, just like you might a car.”

I nodded. “How about liens? I know contractors can place liens against homes, but what other kind might there be?”

“There are judgment liens—where a creditor seeks a court order—and tax liens, of course. As you know, the lien against the Vallejo Street house is the standard contractor’s lien for goods and services.”

“I think we should assume I don’t know anything. Who placed the lien against the house?”

Brittany gave me a quizzical look, playing with her salad. “According to the search I ran on the house, you yourself placed a lien against it, for goods and services.”

“
I
did?”

“Well, Turner Construction did.”

“
I’m
Turner Construction.”

“I know that. That’s why I assumed you placed the lien.”

Not again. Someone had forged my name on documents not once, but twice? “But a lien doesn’t mean the owners couldn’t sell the house, right?” I asked, seeking clarification.

“Not at all. It just means that if they sell, they have to pay the lien off. But it usually slows things down with a sale, because you have to get assurances that the seller will actually pay those liens. Also, you usually can’t get a mortgage for a house with liens against it. Unpaid liens pass on to the new owner of the house. They make things messy, and buyers don’t like messy. But that didn’t seem to stop the buyer for this house.”

“What buyer?”

“According to the search, the house was about to be sold. Didn’t you know?”

“Let me guess: to one Philip Singh?”

“That’s right. I assumed you knew.”

“What disturbs me is that Matt didn’t seem to know, and neither did at least one of the investors. The buyer came looking for Kenneth, though, the day after he died.”

“Really.”

“What could explain something like that?”

“Sounds to me like Kenneth Kostow was selling the house out from under the other investors.”

“Selling it?”

“He bought the property with other people’s money, no bank involved. Singh pays him for the house, and Kenneth keeps all the cash. He could have made millions off a deal like that, even if the house was in bad condition.”

“Could he pull that off without Matt and the others knowing?”

“If you’re willing to forge documents, maybe pay off a few people, it would be easy enough.”

I sat back, the croque monsieur roiling in my stomach.

“Listen,” Brittany continued, “I’ve only been in real estate for six years, but I’ve seen one case of renters who impersonated the owners and sold a house, and I know of another where someone stole an identity, bought a house with that person’s credit, then flipped it and disappeared with the profit. The worst, though, was a Realtor who acted as his own title company. He managed to sell the same house to three different people on the same day.”