Keeper of the Castle: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (21 page)

“And I just got a call from the police,” she continued. “Caleb was picked up in Golden Gate Park.”

“W
hat?”
Now she had my attention. “Where? What happened? Is he okay?”

“He and his little hoodlum friends were picked up for vandalism.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish. And Daniel’s out of town, and Caleb’s mother is AWOL, as
usual
.”

Angelica was a caring mother, though she was a big-wig financial type and did travel a lot for business. But unless I missed my guess, she had arranged for Caleb to stay with Daniel and Valerie while she was gone. Daniel, no doubt, had interpreted this as Caleb staying at the house, not as Caleb needing any active parenting. But Caleb was at an age ripe for screwing up.

“I’m a little busy, Valerie. I’m actually up in Marin on a job, in the hospital, and . . .”

“You’re in the hospital?”

“No, a friend of mine was hurt.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Anyway, if we don’t get Caleb by six, he’ll have to spend the whole night in jail.”

Valerie was fond of using the royal “we.” We both knew she meant if
I
didn’t get Caleb out, he’d be there all night. And she probably wasn’t all that worried about him staying the night with the cops. She was simply stating a fact. Picking up the phone to call and tell me about Caleb’s situation was as far as Valerie was willing to commit herself.

Why did I even try to fight this sort of thing?
I wondered.

I sighed and gave in to the inevitable. I quizzed Valerie until she coughed up all the pertinent information, and she accused me of being mean only once. Then I made a couple of phone calls and learned where to go and how to go about getting Caleb released into my custody. That led to the next question: What did I do with him once I got him? I called Dad to see if he’d be willing to have Caleb at the house for a bit, until his parents returned and came up with a plan.

When I got back to the ICU, I surprised Nurse Ratched standing by my chair, immersed in
Keeper of the Castle
. Probably the sexy bits.

She let it fall onto the chair, and blushed.

“I’m almost done with it—why don’t I leave it for you when I’m finished?”

“Oh, I don’t . . . Oh,” she stammered.

“You won’t believe how it ends,” I said. “It really is a darned good book.”

*   *   *

“Vandalism? Seriously?” I shook my head.
“Vandalism?”

“Why do you keep repeating the word?” asked the sullen teenager in the passenger’s seat, nursing a black eye.

“Because I really can’t believe you. I mean, at least with shoplifting, maybe you get a candy bar or something out of the deal. But what possible motive could you have to
vandalize
Golden Gate Park?”

Caleb just shrugged. He would be listening to his iPod except that I had confiscated it, so I knew he could hear me. Whether he was actually listening was another matter. The arresting officer at the station had been kind enough to pull me aside and suggest Caleb had gotten in over his head with a few guys who were known to be punks. They had spray-painted on some of the walls of the park, but when a couple of the guys started snapping off newly planted saplings, Caleb had intervened and received a black eye for his trouble.

Helping fuel my anger was the realization that I had driven straight to Oakland without stopping to pick up Dog. I had called Alicia, and she’d agreed to take him for a walk and feed him, but I still felt guilty.

“Did you tell Bill?” Caleb asked.

“Of course.”

“What did he say?” Caleb’s voice caught on the last word.

I glanced at him and caught the glint of tears in his eyes. My bluster left me just as soon as his left him.

“Well, you know my dad. He wanted to know how you intended to clean up the mess you made.”

Caleb looked out the window at the dark park and swiped at his eyes surreptitiously.

“Let’s swing by and see how bad it is. That way we can come up with a plan.”

“It’s a washable kind.”

“Washable spray paint?”

“I heard about it at the Garfield Lumber barbecue. It was my idea.”

“Defacing public property was your idea?”

“No, using the washable kind of paint.”

I couldn’t help but smile. The cop also told me that Caleb had apologized and offered to clean up the damage, which made the other punks he was with hoot in derision.

“Anyway, for now, Dad’s cooking dinner, and you’re staying with him,” I said. “I’ll bring you back tomorrow so you can start cleaning the place up.”

“And after that?”

“I don’t know yet. I imagine Dad will have some suggestions. It’s a good bet the phrase ‘elbow grease’ will be mentioned.”

“Hey, I heard about Graham. Is he going to be okay?”

“Yes, I think so. He has a very hard head. And he looks like a panda—check this out.” I showed him the photo on my phone.

He smiled for a moment; then his face fell.

“Mel, I’m . . .” His voice wavered again.

I reached over and tousled his rich brown hair. “I know. You screwed up. We all screw up from time to time. But you just used up your Get Out of Jail Free card. Next time, I’m telling them to go ahead and throw away the key.”

*   *   *

It felt great to be home, in the embrace of family. Dad was making chicken soup, and the scents of sage and marjoram wafted through the house, reminiscent of countless Thanksgiving Day aftermaths. The actual day of Thanksgiving celebration was always fun, what with the traditional roast turkey and as many friends as could crowd around the dining table. My mother had never believed in turning anyone away, so Thanksgiving Chez Turner was always an event. Half the workers of Turner
Construction joined us, bringing contributions of homemade tamales and guacamole and pies, many experiencing their first Thanksgiving since arriving in this country.

But it was the day
after
Thanksgiving I’d really cherished as a kid. My dad would get up early and fix some sort of elaborate breakfast of leftovers, then start the soup from the turkey carcass. The aromas would wake me up and wrap themselves around me like a warm hand-knitted shawl. The day would be spent hiking in the redwoods, or going to a matinee, or playing Monopoly. The Turners weren’t Black Friday shoppers, more like Black Friday hangers-out. My parents almost never just did nothing, so this was a magic day.

Today Dad was making beef stew for dinner; the chicken soup was merely an afterthought from last night’s leftovers. Dad liked to keep busy in the kitchen, multitasking while he listened to the radio.

Watching Caleb as he clumsily chopped carrots for a salad, I felt sad that he had no such memories. In many ways, he was incredibly lucky. His well-to-do parents could afford to give him the best of everything, including a first-rate education. He was healthy and had more than enough to eat. But he had never known the kind of consistent emotional warmth and support that I had enjoyed, the rock-solid certainty that I belonged and was wanted. Growing up, I had found it stifling at times and had to be out on my own for a while before I fully appreciated how good I had it, but still.

Vandalism?

I had a hard time accepting that Caleb had gone along with something as stupid and pointless as vandalism, washable spray paint or not. I didn’t need Luz’s social work expertise to tell me this was a cry for help, for attention, for guidance. Not for the first time, I wondered
how much to intervene. It wasn’t my place to tell Caleb’s parents what they should be doing, much less to suggest that he move in here with Dad and Stan and me. But unless something changed, and soon, Caleb could get himself into real trouble.

Conversation was a bit stilted as Stan, Dad, Caleb, and I studiously avoided a number of subjects: Graham’s injury, the state of my ghost-ridden job, and Caleb’s arrest. There were moments of long silence—a rare commodity in the Turner household—and while I was enjoying being back home, it was a little awkward.

“Your new client mentioned the Chapel of the Chimes the other day, didn’t he?” Dad said. “I see they’re playing jazz over there on the weekends.”

“We should go. Have you ever been?” I asked Caleb. “It’s an amazing place, not so much a columbarium as a work of art. Full of mosaics and fountains and concrete tracery . . . It was designed by Julia Morgan.”

Caleb barely refrained from rolling his eyes. He may have heard me go on about the underappreciated local architect and builder a time or two.

Dad met Caleb’s eyes and smiled as he peeled a bowl of pearl onions. “Mel may be a little obsessed with Julia Morgan. But with good reason. Morgan was talented, and smart, and kicked ass at a time when most women didn’t see a lot of options other than getting married and having babies. Not that there’s anything wrong with
that
,” he added with a significant glance at me. “Mel’s mother did pretty well for herself on that score. And they probably made their families very happy.”

I ignored that last bit. And, of course, because it was coming from Dad instead of from me, Caleb actually listened. The teenager nodded.

“You know what would really blow you away is Hearst Castle,” said Dad. “Down the coast. You ever been?”

Caleb shook his head.

“My wife and I took the girls there once, when you were, what, Mel? Eleven or twelve?”

“Something like that.” I nodded. It had been a memorable family vacation. A framed snapshot of the five of us on that trip still stood on the mantel in the living room. We had camped at a state park near the beach, then taken a guided tour of Hearst Castle, which wasn’t a castle so much as a grand estate atop a hill overlooking the ocean. My memories of the interior were vague, but I recalled sumptuous tapestries, Gothic archways, and of course the incredible cobalt-blue-and-gold underground pool, which fed into any number of childhood fantasies.

My sisters and I had played a game we called “Rosebud” for months afterward, in which one of our Barbie dolls always wound up being asked by a mysterious wealthy stranger to come stay as a guest in a castle suspiciously Hearst-like in nature, lounging by the pool. . . .

Wow
. I realized I was living out one of my childhood Barbie dreams, living as a guest at Ellis Elrich’s beautiful estate. But like so many dreams fulfilled, the experience was rather different in the adult world from what I had imagined as a child. I didn’t recall anyone dying in our Barbie scenario. And while the Ken doll had endured his share of abuse, he had never wound up in the hospital with panda eyes and a head injury.

“Hearst Castle is an example of what happens when you give a talented woman an unlimited checkbook,” continued Dad. “Like Mel here, on that Marin job.”

“Funny, I’ve been thinking about Hearst a lot lately, too,” I said. “I guess the comparison is inevitable. How
many filthy-rich people import entire buildings from Europe?”

“Speaking of Chapel of the Chimes,” said Stan, “did you know Morgan was doing that project around the same time as she was working with Hearst? She used some leftover pieces at the Chapel of the Chimes. I remember the docent saying that one of the staircases was originally intended for Hearst Castle.”

“Just imagine having ‘leftovers’ from a job like that,” I said.

Dad looked thoughtful as he stirred burgundy wine into the stew. Finally, he asked: “You suppose those ghosts would get mixed up?”

I nearly choked on my wine. “Excuse me?”

“Say you had two buildings, each with a resident ghost,” said Dad. “They each hitch a ride on over to America on the steamer, or whatever Hearst used to bring the buildings here. And then Morgan’s crew mixes and matches the buildings to create Hearst Castle, and before you know it, the ghosts don’t know where the heck they are, or who those
other
ghosts are. Can ghosts from different times and places even see one another?”

Well, color me impressed.
This was more than my father had ever deigned to say on the subject of ghosts. He had been aware of my mother’s ability to see spirits but had kept mum—and seemingly embarrassed—about it my entire childhood. When I started showing signs of having inherited her special sight, he had been just as uncomfortable, which he demonstrated by being generally annoyed and cantankerous whenever the subject arose.

Adding to my amazement, Dad had put his finger on something I had been wondering about with regards to Wakefield. Could my ghosts, Donnchadh and the Lady
in Red, have separate and distinct origins? Might this be why one group of stones, the ones with the bits of plaster still adhering to them, seemed so different from both the stones from Scotland and the newly quarried pieces from Texas?

“Well, Mel?” asked Caleb.

“Those are all great questions, Dad, to which I have absolutely no answers. I never really thought about it before. I’ll ask Olivier what he thinks when I take Caleb to the city tomorrow.”

Caleb assumed a hangdog expression, and I flashed him a
Don’t Even Start with Me
look. Dragging my almost-but-not-quite stepson to Golden Gate Park to repair his damage was not high on my list of good times. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do, like check in on Graham or build Wakefield or talk to ghosts or catch a killer. . . .