Murder on the House: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (Haunted Home Repair Mystery) (9 page)

“She was nuts.”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

Inspector Crawford straightened, fixed the crowd with her take-no-prisoners gaze, and then lowered—rather than raised—her voice. It had the effect of gaining everyone’s attention.

“Right
now
, if you don’t mind, I’d like to figure out who would have thrown a little old lady down a well. Let’s keep our focus, people.”

Chastened, everyone hushed.

She turned back to me, muttering, “In all my born days . . .” under her breath. Shaking her head, she led me to the front door, where we were clear of the crowd overhearing. “And you spent the night here, why?”

“The Propaks had planned to remodel the house to be a bed-and-breakfast. They were trying to decide which of two contractors to hire, Turner Construction or Avery Builders. So they asked me and Josh Avery to spend the night at the house.”

She quirked her head. “Is that normal behavior in the process of submitting a construction bid?”

“Normal, in terms of . . . ?”

“Is it typical? Have you ever done so before?”

“No, not exactly.”

“I’d rather not play twenty questions with you, Ms. Turner. Tell me what you were doing here.”

I took a deep breath and dove in. “The Propaks—and Mrs. Bernini, for that matter—believed this house was haunted. Kim Propak mentioned that other contractors had fled the building, scared, and she proposed that we try making it through a night here. If we failed, we would lose the bid.”

“It’s all coming flooding back to me now. You were the one working on the old Cheshire Inn on Union, and you thought it was haunted.”

“I believe what I told you at the time was that the
owner
thought it was haunted.”

The inspector raised one eyebrow and looked down her nose at me, in an incredulous, “you’re a nutcase and/or a liar” move that reminded me of my friend Luz’s natural suspicion. “You’re saying that you’ve been involved in two allegedly haunted houses now, by coincidence?”

“There are people who think I have certain . . . abilities. When it comes to ghosts.”

“And do you? I mean, is this part of your whole shtick?” She made a circular gesture with her hand. “I hire you to put in a new window and you drive my ghosts out of the attic at the same time? For a small fee, of course.”

I felt a surge of anger, and my cheeks burned. “I don’t have a
shtick
, no. And I’ve never accepted money for . . . for this sort of ‘ghost’ thing. But the fact is . . . well, I do seem to have some ability with the beyond. That is, sometimes I, well, hear things. And see things.”

Clearly I was going to have to work on my patter if I was going to stand up, open and proud, and embrace my ghost-talking abilities. But it still felt new to me. After the first incident several months ago, I had come clean to certain important people in my life: my dad; our housemate, Stan; my stepson, Caleb; Luz; even my maybe-sort-of boyfriend, Graham. And of course, now that it was splashed all over
Haunted House Quarterly
, which had been picked up by any number of Internet sites, my name was circulating in cyberspace. But all of that was nothing compared with fessing up to this no-nonsense woman, a woman who dealt with dead bodies—and the folks who made them dead—all the time.

Inspector Crawford was studying me with a cold stare that made me feel not only jumpy but unaccountably guilty. I got the feeling she was one of those human lie detectors, probably trained at Quantico. I told myself not to fidget, desperately trying to remember whether it was looking up, or glancing down, that indicated the suspect was a liar. Indecisive, I swiveled my eyes up, then down, then up again, in a repetitive motion that probably marked me not only as a liar but as an insane liar.

Finally, I forced myself to meet the inspector’s dark, skeptical gaze.

“So,” she said, “I guess all this leads us to the question: Did you see any ghosts?”

I nodded. “I saw Mrs. Bernini walking in the garden. But neither of my friends, Claire or Stephen, could see her. That’s when we realized she was . . . in the well.”

“What time was this?”

“It must have been, I don’t know, about ten? Maybe a little after.”

“What happened next?”

“All of us, Stephen, Claire, and I, looked in the well. But our phones didn’t work, and neither did the landline in the house.”

She nodded. “Line was cut. What made you look in the well in the first place? Did you hear something?”

“I thought I saw a . . . spirit standing over the well.”

“Uh-huh. The deceased, or a brand-new ghost?”

“A little girl. She lived here a long time ago. Named Anabelle; Anabelle Bowles. I had seen her in the house previously.”

Inspector Crawford studied me for a long moment, then looked down at her notepad and cleared her throat before speaking again.

“And before you found the body? Any other ghostly activity?”

“In the second-floor playroom, there were some strange interactions . . . with toys,” I said.

“Interactions?”

“Unusual behavior: moving by themselves, that sort of thing. And there’s a threatening message written on the wall.”

“Okay . . .” She pinched the bridge of her nose, as though fighting off a headache. “Let’s go over the whole evening, chronologically.”

I told her about arriving with Josh, getting settled in our room, exploring the house, sending out for pizza and eating with Mrs. Bernini, and then the strange noises emanating from the nursery. She asked me numerous pointed questions about the wine at dinner.

“I wasn’t
drunk
,” I insisted. “I happen to have a very high tolerance. And I didn’t drink that much to begin with.”

“Uh-huh,” she grunted. “And where is this Josh Avery person now?”

“I haven’t seen him since we were scared off by toys at the top of the stairs.”

She gave me the stink-eye again.

“It was worse than it sounds. You sort of had to be there. We heard noises in the playroom, but as we went upstairs to investigate . . . well, we all wound up running outside.” I noticed the curb was now full of emergency vehicles, Josh’s fancy truck nowhere in sight. “His truck’s gone. He must have gone home.”

“Make and model?”

“Big and black.” I’m not what you’d call a car person. “It looks like your average truck at a construction site, but new and shiny. With ‘Avery Builders’ written on the doors.”

The inspector wrote down the information, called an underling over to her, and handed it to him, instructing him to put out a call for the truck and its owner.

“According to your agreement with the owners, if Josh Avery fled the house first,” she said, looking back over her notes, “you win the contract?”

“Frankly, I hadn’t thought about it. Maybe, but since what happened . . . somehow I doubt the original agreement holds. The whole project is up in the air now, right?”

“At least until forensics clears out,” she said, taking a deep breath in through her nose and exhaling slowly. “Well, as always, interesting talking with you, Mel Turner. I’ve got your information here, and I’d appreciate you not leaving town for a few days. I have the feeling we’ll need to talk again.”

“May I go?” I asked. I had no idea what time it was, but I felt dead on my feet.

“I’m going to go ask your friends some questions, and I might have some more for you. Have a seat and stick around a while. These things take time. Lots of time.”

I nodded. As she walked away, she turned back and asked me, “How’s your father doing?”

She hadn’t remembered me, but she remembered my dad. Story of my life. “He’s great. Thank you for asking.”

“Give him my regards. He was a nice fellow.”

“I will.”

Chapter Nine

I
nspector Crawford didn’t l
ie. These things did, indeed, take time. Lots of time.

It was several more hours before we were allowed to leave. The inspector, and another officer, returned now and again to ask the same questions, in different ways, over and over. I kept falling asleep and waking again, so things took on a surreal, timeless cast. My eyelids had that scratchy, heavy feeling that comes with sheer exhaustion. And my heart ached for a sweet, elderly woman who had been brutally attacked—while we were somewhere nearby.

If only we had heard a struggle, or looked out to the garden at the right time, and been able to intervene.

“So what’s the deal? Now we’re all suspects?” asked Claire, smoking again as we waited for a police officer to move the cruiser blocking her truck in the driveway.

“I don’t think so, not really,” I said. “As my dad would point out, the police have a job to do and need to rule out all suspects. We were in the house when the crime occurred, so naturally they need to get the full story from each of us.”

“Wow. I’ve never been a suspect in a crime before. It’s kind of awesome, in a weird way.”

“A woman was killed tonight.”

“Okay, yeah, you’re totally right. That part is terrible. But other than
that
, it was quite a night. Ghosts, chasing around that old house, and getting interrogated. And here I thought it was going to be all about pizza.”

I gave a humorless laugh.

“C’mon, I’ll take you home,” Stephen said to me after Claire drove off.

“You don’t have to do that. You live in the opposite direction.”

“It’s four in the morning. What are you going to do, take the bus?”

As he had pointed out earlier, I wasn’t even packing heat.

“You’re right. Thanks. I’d love a lift.”

At this hour, it took only twenty minutes to reach my dad’s place in Oakland. Every other house on the street was a small stucco bungalow, but several years ago my parents bought the original large farmhouse dating from back when acres of orchards gave the neighborhood of Fruitvale its name. Even at this hour of night, even looming large in the silvery moonlight, the house looked warm and comforting. This was due, in large part, to the mellow glow of the porch light and the distinct, shaggy outline of a dog’s head in the front window. He must have awakened to check out who was parking outside his house.

As he pulled up to the curb, Stephen asked for the fourth time: “You sure you’re okay?”

I nodded. “How about you? Wasn’t this your first run-in with such things?”

“Oh, you know. There are ghosts of brokenhearted gamblers wandering the streets of Vegas, so it’s no big deal.” He gave me a crooked smile. “But yeah. It’s a lot to process. Poor Mrs. Bernini. And that it happened while we were right there. I wish we could have . . .” He shook his head. I could see a sheen of tears in his eyes.

The green glow of the clock on the dashboard indicated four thirty in the morning.

“Why don’t you come in?” I suggested. “My dad will cook us a huge breakfast.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Dad might well be up by now. He never got over early construction hours, and as he ages, it seems to be getting worse. Falls asleep in front of the TV by seven. Soon he’ll start to wake up before
The
Late Show
comes on.”

“I really couldn’t.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The man loves nothing more than to force-feed people huge traditional American breakfasts. He’s like a stereotypical Jewish grandmother, except with a five-o’clock shadow and a bad attitude. And he’s not Jewish. But other than that . . .”

“You really don’t think he’d mind? I actually . . . I think I could use some company. Not sure I’m ready to go home yet.”

“Great,” I said, patting him on the knee. “Let’s go.”

Stephen followed me in through the back door of the house, where we were greeted by a very sleepy brown mutt who snuffled and snorted while frantically wagging his tail. His whiskers stuck straight up on one side: doggy bedhead.

“Hey there, Dog,” I said, ruffling his coat and giving him a squeeze. The veterinarian’s best guess was that Dog was “some sort of lab mix.” Several months ago I had found him hanging around a construction site, miserable and starving. I tried to get rid of him, but after he helped save my life—and spent the night here at the house—he became part of the family. But we still hadn’t decided on a name for him, so for the moment he just went by the profoundly uninspired moniker of “Dog,” or “Brown Dog” when we got fancy.

Stephen was an animal lover, so he greeted the canine with some vigorous petting. After receiving his fill of attention, Dog turned tail and ran, woofing loudly, into the living room. Barking his fool head off was his canine way of saying hello.

Unfortunately, it was ear-piercing and well-nigh indistinguishable from his manner of going after intruders, or murderers for that matter.

“That ought to rouse the old man,” I muttered.

Sure enough, moments later Dad hustled halfway down the stairs. He was clad in his typical worn blue jeans, with a white T-shirt straining slightly over a small potbelly. His thinning gray hair was disheveled and his five-o’clock shadow was so heavy it was nearly a beard.

He held a Smith & Wesson in one hand, and looked mighty annoyed.

“It’s me, Dad,” I said in a hurry. His eyesight wasn’t as sharp as it used to be.

“What the hell? Who’s
that
?” He gestured vaguely with his gun.

“You remember my friend Stephen.” The aforementioned was looking like he wished he were safe at home right about now. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and he appeared to be speechless. “You’ve met.”

“Where the hell’s Graham?”

“Home in bed, like a sane person, I would guess.” Graham Donovan was a very sexy green builder, who used to work construction with my dad. Dad liked him. A lot. In particular, Dad liked the idea that Graham might “make an honest woman” out of me, which, in his mind, my ex, Daniel, had never managed to do. Maybe it was my cynicism talking, but it seemed ironic to imagine I might be made “honest” by virtue of a romantic association with a man. Seemed to me as if quite the opposite would be more likely.

I checked myself. Yep, pretty sure that was the cynicism talking.

“What are you two dressed like that for?” Dad asked, looking us up and down.