If Walls Could Talk (11 page)

Yet another reason to move to France, where, I’d been told, buying at flea markets and in thrift stores was considered chic and savvy . . . rather than just cheap.

“There’s a fortune in that house, and Matt seemed optimistic that we would get our money back, along with the profit, within six months,” Wehr added. He sat bolt upright. “Wait, with Kenneth gone—what does this mean for the project?”

“Matt asked me to keep working on it. As soon as the police release the scene I’ll shift my guys over from a project we’re wrapping up now in St. Francis Wood. We should be able to begin soon. In the meantime I can get up to speed on your drawings; and it’s never too early to start scouting salvage yards and the like.”

“Let me know when you’d like to meet. I’m happy to do a detailed walk-through with you, go over what we’ve worked out so far.”

“Do you happen to have a copy of the permits I could look at?”

“Afraid not. Kenneth had all that.”

“How about a copy of the blueprints to study?”

“Didn’t Kenneth give them to you already? He told me you were on the job.”

I shook my head. “I’m new to the whole thing. Trust me, that do-it-yourself demo party wasn’t exactly my style.”

He rummaged through a container of cardboard tubes until extracting one labeled KOSTOW/ADDAX and handing it to me. The tube was deceptively heavy, indicating a fat roll of blueprints within.

“How soon can you finish?” he asked.

“I haven’t even studied the drawings yet, Jason. And I can’t guarantee a turnaround in six months—that would be virtually impossible.” I bit my tongue before adding:
as you well know
. A professional in the building trades should understand that a project of this scale couldn’t be finished so quickly.

Yet another trait architects were known for amongst builders: Unrealistic Optimism.

“But I’ll do my best. Another project of mine has been delayed, so once I get the go-ahead from the police, I can get a lot of workers on the job and expedite things.”

“Thank heavens,” he breathed, relaxing back into his chair. It was only early afternoon, but Jason Wehr looked like a man who needed a drink. “I’ll need a return on that money soon, or I’m in trouble with a capital T.”

 

By the time I got back to my car and checked my phone, there were four calls to return, and Raul needed me back on the Zaben job. I phoned home to tell Dad I was going to work late to make up for the time I’d spent with Matt, and now the architect.

“I picked the boys up from BART an hour ago,” he said. “I’m making Turner Steak and baked potatoes for dinner.”

“Ah, your signature dish. Sorry I’m missing it. Hey, Dad . . . thanks for looking after the boys.”

He snorted. “By their age I was hitchhiking my way across the country, alone.”

“Yes, but they’re studying things like calculus and organic chemistry,” I pointed out. “Whereas you probably maxed out at geometry.”

“It would do them more good to learn how to swing a hammer,” he grumbled. “I should take ’em up to Stan’s cabin to help me build that wheelchair ramp.”

“By all means, put them to work. Just remind them to finish their homework first. You might offer to give them a hand with their quadratic equations.”

He groused some more, we hung up, and I went back to work at the placid, incident-free St. Francis Wood work site. The Zaben home was scrumptious; it was at that tipping point in a project where the home takes on its new—and, in the case of historic homes, its original—character. Saving beautiful structures from the ravages of time, nature, and bad previous remodels was addictive.

We were completing the final finishes: painting and staining and gilding. In addition to the housepainters, a small army of faux finishers had arrived. I double-checked their sample boards before giving them the go-ahead to begin re-creating a parchment surface with Venetian plaster in the living room, a Gauguin-inspired mural in the playroom, and clouds on the blue ceilings of the girls’ bedrooms.

Besides answering questions and giving instructions, I concentrated on helping Raul to whittle down the construction punch list. Wood can swell and shrink depending on the environment, and it wasn’t unusual for newly installed doors to stick or fail to close properly. I removed several doors from their frames, shaved a tiny bit of wood off the top and bottom to ensure a good fit, then rehung them. After that, I corrected a small tiling problem behind the toilet in the powder room—this was the sort of thing the subcontractor should do, but it wasn’t worth it to bring him all the way back here for a five-minute fix. Finally, Raul and I installed a dozen special-ordered wrought-iron heating vents in the baseboards throughout the house.

The work was absorbing, and given what had happened at Matt’s yesterday I was glad to be able to focus on the restoration of beauty and grace. My mother used to tell me that gardening was her way of connecting with simple, straightforward work—making things beautiful, feeling the earth in her hands and witnessing the miracle of growth. I felt that way about building: I orchestrated people coming together, giving of themselves and their skills, to create a structure that was much, much more than walls and a roof.

After all, a beautifully restored home was the stage for the play of life.

It was after nine by the time I headed east on the Bay Bridge toward Oakland. The route home was so familiar that I drove on autopilot. Unfortunately, this allowed my mind to pursue an annoying, repetitive loop: I fretted about Matt (
Will he be released? What will happen with poor Dylan?
), pondered what really had happened to Kenneth (
murder or accident?
), wondered what I should do about it (
if anything
)
. . .
and daydreamt about that long-ago kiss with Graham (
It seems like freaking forever since I’ve felt that way about a man. Does he still like me? Why did I wear this stupid outfit today of all days?).

Over and over and over.

“
Mel
. Can you hear me?”

Said the ghost sitting in the passenger seat of my car.

“H
oly crap!
” I yelled,careening slightly before recovering full control of my vehicle.

As soon as I glanced over, he disappeared.

“I
thought
you could!” Kenneth said, reappearing in my peripheral vision when I looked back at the road. “Hey, watch the driving, though, or you’ll be joining me in eternity, as they say.”

Resisting the urge to squeeze my eyes shut, I took a deep breath and counted to ten.

He was still there.

“
What
is going
on
?” I gasped.

“I was hoping you might be able to help me with that one. It’s been the damnedest experience,” Kenneth said, shaking his head and looking out at the lights of the tankers on the San Francisco Bay, shining through the darkness. Just an average everyday ghost out for a drive.

My heart pounded. If I hadn’t been driving, I would have covered my face for a moment to regroup. I couldn’t pull over on the bridge. . . . Should I exit at upcoming Yerba Buena Island?

Was this thing out to kill me? What did it want?

Did I even
believe
in ghosts?

I tried to force my academic sensibilities to kick in. My anthropological training taught that all human cultures, throughout time and across the globe, have developed a concept of the afterlife—and thus have theorized that spirits of the dead cross over to our earthbound existence from time to time. Sometimes to harm, sometimes to help, often to bring closure to unfinished business.

On the other hand, modern psychology would say that I must be suffering from some sort of mental break. . . . Maybe I really
did
have a form of PTSD.

Clearly I needed to talk to someone. Might as well start with the one at hand.

I swallowed, hard, and took another deep breath.

“Okay, you’re . . . Are you a spirit of some sort?”

“What the hell do you think I am? I
died
yesterday, remember? Or did it already slip your mind? Criminy, woman, you held me in your arms and everything. I thought we had a moment.”

“Of course I remember. It was a terrible tragedy. I’m so sorry, Kenneth.”
I’m consoling a ghost
, I thought.
Or I’m completely insane. Or both.
“Okay, so you’re a ghost because you died yesterday.”

He made an impatient motion with his hand, rolling it as if to say . . .
And then?
“
Yes
, I’m a ghost. Frankly, I always thought you were a little more on the ball than this.”

“Who
did
this to you?”

“That’s the problem. I have no idea.” He held up his injured arm. “And where the hell’s my hand?”

Good question. “In the trash, I would imagine.”

“The
trash
?”

“Biowaste.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“You’re telling me.”

“You’re saying I have to go through eternity without my right hand?”

“Like I would know the answer to something like that. Don’t
you
know?”

“How would
I
know?”

“You were there, after all.”

“I can’t remember a thing.”

“Aren’t there, like, spirit guides around you, or someone to give you a hand?” I winced at my unintentional pun. “So to speak?”

“That’s not funny.”

“Sorry. Is there someone—or some
thing
—to help you understand what’s going on?”

“I must have missed the orientation meeting. I really don’t know what the hell’s happening.”

“At the very least they should have a handbook.”

“Again with the sick jokes?”

When we drove through the tunnel at Yerba Buena Island, Kenneth’s image flickered like a weak broadcast signal.

“That’s interesting,” I said. “Like my cell phone.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“Okay, so why are you bugging
me
?” I cast about in my mind for some way to interpret this turn of events. “You can’t rest until you find justice?”

He snorted. “Like I know. I keep telling you, it’s not exactly clear.”

“You don’t remember who killed you?”

“I can’t remember a damned thing.”

“The cops said you told them it was an accident, at first.”

He held up his bloody arm. “You think
this
was an accident?”

“And then at the hospital you blamed Matt.”

“Matt?” Kenneth sounded genuinely bewildered. “Matt wouldn’t do something like this. Would he?”

“No. I can’t believe it of him.” We reached the foot of the bridge and I veered south toward 880. “But assuming this was no accident, what are you telling me? You’re a ghost and I’m supposed to find your killer to let you rest in peace?”

He shrugged and looked out the window.

“Kenneth?”

“I don’t know. I really . . . I haven’t known what in the world’s going on since I got here. The people here aren’t exactly friendly.”

“
Here
, as in where? There are other people with you?”

“It’s all pretty fuzzy. . . . Yeah, there are other people, other ghosts, I presume. But no one will talk to me.”

“Could be your sparkling personality.”

“Nice. I’m dead and that’s all the sympathy you can muster.”

“I’m just trying to wrap my mind around all of this.” I pondered for a moment. “Wait—if you’re a ghost, aren’t you supposed to haunt wherever you died?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. For some reason you’re the only thing that makes sense. I remember you were holding me. I remember that.” His voice dropped slightly. “You were talking to me. It was really . . . decent of you.”

I shrugged, not knowing what to say.

The freeway was miraculously light on traffic, so we zipped along until I took the Fruitvale exit. A few more blocks east and to the north, past bustling taquerias, check-cashing venues, and discount stores full of colorful piñatas, we pulled up in front of my dad’s old farmhouse.

“Listen, Kenneth, I have to go deal with real live people now. So could you . . . disappear, or go wherever it is you go?”

I got out of the car before he could respond. Or before my subconscious, or whatever it was that was making me see things, could come up with a response.

The cool night air hit me like a slap in the face. I hoped it would wake me up, snap me out of it. Could I have fallen asleep while still driving? I hadn’t slept well last night. . . . Could I be that tired?

I hurried into the house, blessedly ghost-free.

Dad and Stan were in the living room, watching a game on Dad’s new big-screen TV.

“Leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry.” Dad spoke without looking up.

“Thanks, I grabbed a burrito off the truck earlier.”

“That stuff’ll kill you one of these days.”

“ Night, Dad. Good night, Stan.”

“Night, babe.”

“Night, Mel,” said Stan.

I left before they thought to ask me about Matt. I wasn’t sure I was up to that discussion tonight, especially the part where Kenneth’s ghost followed me home.

The boys had set themselves up in Caleb’s room, each working—or more likely playing—on his notebook computer.

“Did you see my dad?” Dylan asked, not looking up from the screen. Seemed to be a male trait.

“I did. I saw him this morning. He said you should stay here for a few more days until they get things sorted out.”

Now he looked up at me, worried blue eyes of an old man in a young boy’s face. “Is everything gonna, like, be okay?”

“Your dad would never hurt anyone,” I said with conviction. “The police just need to figure a few things out. And no matter what happens, you’re going to be okay.”

He had already turned his attention back to the electronic device in front of him. I wanted to say more, but I wasn’t sure what. Besides, I doubted he was still hearing me. Unable to help myself, I embarrassed each boy by kissing him on his head, then did the mom thing, haranguing them about doing their homework and telling them to get to bed by ten.