If Walls Could Talk (16 page)

I took the flashlight out of my mouth.

“Hold my feet,” I said.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he said, reaching into the wall and grabbing my ankles.

I thought of my short skirt and hoped I wasn’t giving him an obscene show. At least I was wearing tights. Then again, they were only thigh-highs. At least I was wearing
underwear.
I nearly laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the situation. I haven’t seen the man for a decade, we snipe at each other over a crime scene, and now I’m flashing the poor guy.
Oh, well
, I thought,
what’s done is done
. No sense backing out before I grabbed what I was after.

I peered down into the well, stretched, and finally managed to grasp . . . a box.

“Mull nee ow,” I said around the flashlight.

He pulled.

I crawled backward the rest of the way, then handed him the treasure.

We both sat on our haunches and studied my find: a big wooden cigar box, nailed shut.

Graham pulled a blade out of a Swiss Army knife and pried open the top. A red leather-bound book and a sheaf of documents were tucked snugly inside, yellowed and brittle with age.

Graham gingerly pulled the papers apart.They looked like old-fashioned checks, but they were imprinted with an extravagant flowing script declaring them to be legal tender, issued by
The Imperial Government of Norton.
The stack of ten-dollar notes amounted to several hundred dollars.

“Have you ever heard of the government of Norton?” Graham asked.

“Never. But I studied anthropology, not history.”

“Surely we would have heard of an ‘Imperial Government of Norton,’ though, wouldn’t we?”

“Seems like. Unless it was one of those archipelago situations. I never could keep all those islands straight.” For a while it seemed every wealthy European adventurer and his brother were declaring themselves emperor of this or that island, handily ignoring the people already living there.

“Me neither,” Graham said.

I picked up the book and turned it over in my hands. The old leather cracked as I cautiously opened the cover to peek inside.

Feminine, delicate handwriting. There were lists and household accounts, plus intermittent stories about the antics of the writer’s two young sons. I flipped through quickly, giving it a cursory once-over—it would take some time to decipher all of the old-fashioned cursive handwriting. The woman noted how happy she was when her parents moved in next door, and she wrote of being proud of her husband, the banker. She recorded family visits, balls, and social events.

About three-quarters of the way through the journal, the handwriting changed. It became blockier, perhaps a man’s hand. This script started out hard to read before deteriorating to the point of illegibility.

I handed the journal to Graham, feeling vaguely disappointed. Normally I would have been beyond excited to dig such things out of the walls, to be able to hold and study the remnants of former inhabitants. But this time I had hoped to find some sort of explanation for what happened with Kenneth . . . a hidden treasure so profound that it would have inspired a person to torture and maim another human being. These papers were a fascinating relic from another time, but they were hardly an explanation for such brutality . . . were they?

“Do you think the Norton notes could be worth a fortune? Like early AT and T stocks?” I asked as I looked at the yellowing documents.

“Somehow I doubt it. They had a bunch of gold rush- era schemes back in the day, lots of investments in mines and the like. It probably pertains to something like that. Still, I’d feel better if we had an expert opinion. Don’t you know some folks down at the historical society?”

“I do, yes.”

“Why don’t you take them down there and have them take a look?”

I glanced at my watch. “They close in half an hour. Better make it tomorrow.”

He nodded.

“Or . . . do you think we should turn this stuff over to the police?”

Graham hesitated.

“There’s something strange about this case,” he said softly.

I turned to look at him but remained silent.

“First Kostow says it’s an accident; then he accuses Matt Addax? And it’s a supposed homicide investigation, but the house is left wide-open to crime scene cleanup and vandalism?”

“And they kept you on the case.”

He nodded. “That, too. If homicide is interested, they usually have us write up a report and leave. In this case, they seemed to
want
me to declare this either an accident or suicide. But even if Kostow was suicidal, what are the chances he’d make it all the way through bone and tendon? He’d just slice himself, not completely take the hand off. And then the nail gun on top of it? Please.”

“Then what could be going on?”

“I have no idea. The investigators are probably overwhelmed with other homicides and want to close this case as soon as possible. Apparently Kostow didn’t have any immediate family, no one to raise a stink about a less-than-thorough investigation. And there are always neighborhood pressures; it’s much nicer to say it was an accident, or even suicide, rather than murder. Different statistic.”

Graham replaced the notes and the diary in the box and handed it to me.

“Take it to the historical society, and find out whether there’s anything valuable. If so, we’ll contact the authorities. It’s doubtful, but I feel as though if we hand it to the police now, it will just get lost in the shuffle.”

“There’s something else. . . .”

“What?”

“We removed a crate from here the other day, things Matt had packed into a container and asked me to store out of the way.”

“Things? What kind of things?”

“He said they were valuables from the house, lampshades and the like that he wanted to keep safe. But I never looked inside.”

“Did you happen to mention this to the police?”

“Sort of. I told the responding police officer before I had it removed. He seemed to think it was fine.” I cringed at the dawning realization that I hadn’t thought to tell the homicide inspector. Did that make me look guilty somehow? This was the sort of thing that made me want to crawl into a pied-à-terre in Paris.

“Where is this crate now?”

“Out in Bayside Storage, near the Port of Oakland.”

I looked up to see Graham watching me, his dark eyes inscrutable. Was he concerned? Annoyed? It was hard to tell.

“Let’s lock things up here, and then I’ll follow you to the storage unit. I want to take a look inside that crate.”

 

“Is that your dog?” Graham asked as we emerged from the house.

The brown dog was lingering near the trash again. He gave me a quick wag of the tail, then hung his head.

“I think it’s a stray. Poor thing was here the other day as well.”

I approached him, holding my hand out to let him sniff me before I stroked his head. He seemed to accept my attention with patience, if not a lot of enthusiasm. His long snout and feathers were reminiscent of an Irish setter, but he was a pure chocolate brown with a single white patch on his chest. I glanced up and down the street. Could he belong to any of the nearby houses? His hair was matted in places, and with the ratty red bandanna around his neck, he didn’t look like he belonged in Pacific Heights any more than I did in my dusty black attire.

I felt under the bandanna for a collar, but the cop who first noticed him had been correct: no collar, no identification. When would people learn to put tags on their pets so they could be returned if lost? My family had dogs all through my youth—my dad’s last pound puppy, a springer spaniel, had passed away about six months ago after enjoying a very long life and rarely leaving my father’s side. I kept expecting Dad to bring another pooch home one day; this was the first time in my life I had known him to be without a canine companion.

I dug around in my satchel until I found an abused packet of shortbread cookies left over from my last plane trip. Ground mostly into dust, it was the best I could do. I tore open the bag and poured the contents into the palm of my hand, holding the crumbs out to the dog.

He gulped them down and looked eagerly for more. I splayed my hands and let him inspect—there was nothing edible left.

“Feeding him is as good as naming him, you know,” Graham said, patting the dog on the back. “He’s yours now.”

“Oh, no, he’s
not
. I’m not in the market for a dog.”

I opened the passenger-side door to set the box we’d found on the floor, and threw my bag in. The dog pushed past me, jumped in, and sat down in the passenger seat.

Behind me, I heard Graham chuckle. “Looks like the pooch has other plans.”

“C’mon, pup,” I said, patting my thigh and then pointing to the sidewalk. “Get out of there—now.”

He thumped his matted brown tail in response. Huge brown eyes lolled over toward me for a moment, then stared straight ahead through the windshield.

“I think you’ve got a new dog, whether you want one or not.”

“No way. A dog does
not
fit in with my game plan.”

“What’s your game plan?”

“I’m moving to Paris.”

“Really. What’s in Paris?”

“Solitude.”

“A lot of rude people and expensive food, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“True enough. So when is this move supposed to happen?”

“Two years ago. Or as soon as I can rid myself of the business. Which is why I don’t need any more baggage, such as a stray mutt. Come on, now.” I tried again, patting my thigh. “Out of there, dog.”

The dog yelped and jumped into the back of the car, huddling against the door on the driver’s side, as far as possible from the apparition that had just appeared in the front passenger seat.

Kenneth’s ghost.

“Y
ou’re giving my seat away to
dogs
now?”Kenneth demanded.

I glanced over my shoulder at Graham, who stood exactly where he had been before, giving no sign of seeing or hearing the phantom in the car.

“At least he’s in the back now,” Graham said with a half smile. “I think that’s the best you’re going to do. I’ll follow you.”

He climbed into his Cal-OSHA truck.

I blew out a breath, exasperated. Kenneth, Graham, and now a dog. Had I done something in a former life to deserve all these male interlopers in my current life?

Giving up on evicting the dog, I climbed in the car, started the engine, and headed toward the bay.

Careful to look straight ahead while speaking so Graham wouldn’t notice that I’d become mentally unhinged, I said to Kenneth, “I thought you’d gone away.”

“Where would I go?”

“
Away
. To wherever it is all the other spirits hang out. Did you find out . . . Do you know what you’re doing here yet?”

“Not really. I’m not exactly making inroads with these people.”

“What I don’t get is why you’re bugging
me
.” We traveled down Scott and turned left onto Bush Street, headed east. “Isn’t there someone else you could haunt? Someone you hated in life? Someone, you know, sort of obnoxious like you were?”

“I should have tried to scare the crap out of you. Maybe I’d get a little more respect.”

“Too late. Whining is a lot more annoying than scary.”

“Marlowe’s ghost never had to put up with this kind of thing.”

“As in Christopher Marlowe?”

“No. You know,
A Christmas Carol
. The ghost of Marlowe visits Scrooge.”

“Okay, first of all that was
Marley
, not Marlowe.”

“I thought Marley was a reggae singer?”

“That’s Bob Marley. But in
A Christmas Carol
, the ghost of Scrooge’s old business associate, Marley, comes back to haunt him.”

“Hey!” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kenneth sit up, excited. “Maybe I’m supposed to show you the ghosts of Christmases past, demonstrate how your life’s gone wrong!”

“You’d be a heck of a tour guide to show me how my life has gone wrong—as if I don’t know already. Anyway, it’s not Christmas, and apparently the other ghosts there won’t talk to you enough to cooperate with any sort of character-building exercise for either of us.”

Kenneth slumped back down in the seat and remained mute.

“I thought you couldn’t remember things,” I said. “How come you have such good recall of movies?”

He shrugged, still put out.

I glanced at the rearview mirror to make sure Graham was following in his OSHA truck. Then I shifted my gaze to look at the dog, huddled as far from Kenneth as possible.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “The
dog
saw you.”

“So?”

“So maybe I’m not crazy, after all.”

“Or maybe the dog’s a figment of your imagination, too—ever think of that?”

“Very comforting, Kenneth. Thank you.”

The thought actually took me aback for a moment until I realized that Graham had seen the dog as well.

The pup looked out the window and panted, long pink tongue drooping from the side of his mouth. I might as well face it: It was going to take a harder heart than mine to kick him out, especially since I now felt a certain camaraderie with the unkempt canine. He seemed to be the only living creature besides me who could see—or sense—Kenneth.

He really did look like the kind of dog that might belong to a construction worker. Maybe if I took him around to job sites and supply centers for a few days, somebody would recognize him.

“Are we going home already?” Kenneth asked.

“No. I need to check out something in my storage unit, and then I’m going back to work.”

“What about my case?”

“It’s not a ‘case,’ Kenneth. Or at least it’s not
my
case. Unless of course it’s a case of crazy, as in I’m nuts.”