If Walls Could Talk (32 page)

I felt just a tad queasy. Ghosts were plenty for me. Wearing jewelry made out of a dead person’s ashes . . . it was too much.

I glanced down at the tray of diamond rings sparkling in the afternoon sun streaming in through the front window. What with their weight of tradition and expectation, they made me nervous. I had given Daniel back his beautiful, expensive ring when I left him. It had weighed me down in more ways than one. I remembered thinking at the time that I would never wear another, and now that they were becoming so associated in my mind with death . . . I doubted I ever would.

W
hile we were on Union Street I had a key to Matt’s house made for Graham. He promised to see whether he could expedite proper treatment of the bones in the basement so that the project wouldn’t be put on hold for too long.

Meanwhile, I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon salvage-yard hunting. I still needed a few items for the Zaben job—including that leaded window—and it wasn’t too early to start looking for Matt’s project.

Before heading over the Bay Bridge to go “thrifting,” I called my dad.

“We’re in Jumpin’ Falls now, but there aren’t any falls. Just an old mine shaft and a big empty field. The hotel manager remembered the rock hounds coming into town, said they were digging around out here. Apparently it’s a pretty well-known site.”

“Did they ever find any real gems, do you know?”

“Nah,” said Dad. “There never were any, according to the locals. Apparently the whole thing was just a con. But every once in a while folks come across some of the poor-quality stones that the prospectors used to pepper the field. Guess some of these rock hounds get a kick out of that, maybe more than finding real gems, even. They’re a quirky bunch, those guys.”

“Okay, thanks, Dad. How are the boys?”

“Having a great time. We’re about to go check out the mine.”

“Be careful.” I had a sudden vivid memory of crawling through old abandoned gold mines with my dad when I was a kid. I loved the scary chill that hung in the musty air, the thrill of inching through the pitch-black shafts, never sure what lay around the next corner. My mother refused to go in, and used to wait in the car with my less adventurous sisters, telling my father and me that she’d call for rescue if we weren’t out by nightfall. I always thought she was a spoilsport; now I wondered whether she was avoiding the unhappy spirits of miners who’d lost their lives in search of precious minerals. Mining has always been a dangerous occupation.

I headed to the East Bay and dropped the sinks stowed in my car at the Sink Factory. There were some great architectural salvage yards in Berkeley, but they had been discovered long ago—which meant that they now knew how much their stuff was worth. I wanted a junk store, the kind of place where serendipity trumped supply and it was still possible to find treasures stuck underneath stacks of moldy magazines.

So I headed north on 580 to Richmond.

On the way I passed the Rosie the Riveter monument, which paid homage to the diverse workforce—including historic numbers of women and African Americans—who labored here in the Kaiser Shipyards during World War II. These days, Richmond was the kind of town that many Oaklanders were wary of, which was saying a lot. Their murder rate rivaled ours.

Even
I
had to admit that Uncle Joe’s Salvage, on Macdonald Avenue, was in a questionable part of town, not the kind of place I’d want to wander around in after dark. On the upside, there was a little place, Cj’s, right across the street that offered delectable barbecue. Even though I had eaten lunch not long ago, I had a Pavlovian response as I neared the salvage yard. I salivated as I smelled the meat grilling.

I bet Dog would love to gnaw on some rib bones
, I thought, already making plans for dinner.

My tires popped and crunched on loose gravel as I pulled in through the gate. It was almost closing time; only two other cars and one beat-up truck sat in the pot-holed parking lot. The entire yard was surrounded by a barbwire-topped chain-link fence, and the massive, hangarlike metal structure was secured with bars over high, grimy windows and roll-down metal security gates that blocked the huge doorways at night.

Outside, a good acre of land was strewn with bathtubs, sinks, toilets, slabs of limestone and marble, garden materials like statuary and birdbaths and stepping-stones. Inside was a maze of wooden building materials, furniture, tools, electronics, old LPs and cassette players, “vintage” clothing, doorknobs and hinges and mannequins and vintage roller skates complete with key. A giant plastic swan loomed over the register; below it, a rubber hand held a sign: SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE DISMEMBERED.

I felt my spirits lift. Other people went for spa treatments, or out to a nice dinner when they wanted to treat themselves. I poked around mildewy, funky places like this.

The young acne-scarred man at the register near the main entrance flipped through a glossy magazine of bling-covered rap stars, not even looking up as I passed by. “Uncle” Joe liked to take off fishing for days at a time, and in his stead he employed a succession of sullen, uninterested, barely awake young men and paid them minimum wage. As a result, it was pretty much a help-yourself situation, which I enjoyed. I liked being left alone to peruse the potential treasures.

I made a quick loop, circling the perimeter to make sure there weren’t any new acquisitions I just had to possess. Usually the good stuff had to be dug up, but every once in a while there would be something sitting out in plain view, an item that had just arrived, hadn’t yet been shoved back in a corner to be covered with flower pots and chrome kitchen organizers and a collection of
Tiger Beat
magazines, circa 1987. Last summer I had stumbled upon an old steamer trunk, complete with faded sage green velvet lining, the original hangers, and shelves. It now served as a de facto bookshelf in my bedroom.

Finally I ended up in the far corner of the building, looking through a wild assortment of doorknobs. The originals in Matt’s house had been glass, not faceted but big and round, like miniature crystal balls. I knew I could find reproductions online, but they weren’t the same. I wanted knobs that reflected the times.

People would buy an old Victorian somewhere like Richmond and West Oakland and immediately strip it of all the doorknobs, hinges, lighting fixtures, even built-in cabinets, in order to sell them for easy cash. Antique doorknobs could fetch twenty, maybe up to forty dollars each. By the time one stripped a whole house, it added up. The items were replaced by cheap reproductions from an inexpensive home improvement center, thereby leaving the house soulless and strangely offkilter, like a great old carriage without wheels. Naked. Undone. Unloved. And more likely than ever to be torn down with the next sale.

As I scavenged through the dusty knobs, I found lots of cut crystal, including some that had turned a pale lavender with time and exposure to the sun. I used to collect these naturally colored glass bottles and knobs when I was a kid, convinced that they were “amethysts” and I would be able to sell them for a fortune. My dad burst my bubble when he informed me that the lead in the crystal reacted to sunlight, whereas true amethyst was a type of quartz often found in geodes.

The lavender doorknobs might not be fit for jewels, but they were lovely nonetheless. I had seen the glass used in decorative mobiles and lamps, where the light shining through showed off the subtle light purple hues.

After some time I realized that the light streaming in through grimy windowpanes was turning orange with the early evening. Vaguely I wondered whether I was the last person here, whether the man at the register was waiting impatiently for me to depart. I assumed he would let me know, eager as he must be to get home.

I turned. A man stood in my path.

“Mel, what are you doing here?”

“Shopping. What are
you
doing here?”

“Taking some shots,” he said, gesturing to the heavy camera hanging around his neck, as though I could miss it. “Well, isn’t this a coincidence.”

Quite.

I didn’t believe a whole lot in coincidences. Especially lately. I tried to peer around Zach to check whether the young man was still at the register, but I couldn’t see past the endless row of doors. I cast a quick glance around the back of the building—no one. Just me and Zach.

“Well, I was just leaving anyway,” I said. “Thought I’d pick up some barbecue from Cj’s. Have you tried it?”

“Not yet. Smells great.”

There was a great clatter as the metal safety door at the front fell toward the ground. It reminded me of being nearly trapped in the storage facility with Graham. I made a move toward the exit. Zach stepped in front of me.

“We need to talk.”

“Sure—let’s talk over barbecue. My treat.” My heart was starting to pound, and it had nothing to do with Zach’s big sherry-colored eyes and sweet expression. I moved toward the front door again, and again he shifted to block my path.

“Let’s talk here, Mel. Have a seat.” He gestured toward a 1960s asymmetrical upholstered divan.

My eyes flew to the front doors.
“Oh my God!”

Zach whirled around to see what I was looking at.

I ran, knocking over a large ceramic pot holding dozens of wooden poles, hoping they would hinder his chase.

“Mel, stop!” Zach said, sounding close on my heels.

“
Help!
” I started yelling and pushing everything in my path I could lay my hands on—signs, corbels, small chairs. Finally, I started throwing doorknobs. I used to play softball in high school; I still had pretty good aim.

“I’m not going to hurt you!” Zach ducked behind a bunch of doors, swearing under his breath. “Just calm down and stop yelling. I gave the clerk twenty bucks to ignore us. It’s just you and me.”

The lights went out, plunging us into darkness. We both fell silent for a long moment.

Zach switched on a flashlight and cast the beam around.

“Listen to me, Mel. They think you have something.”

I crawled along the floor, hoping my eyes would adjust quickly to the lack of light. Besides Zach’s flashlight, the only illumination was from the streetlights outside.

Luckily I was in the tool section. I desperately tried to think of anything I could fabricate into some sort of rudimentary weapon. When would I start listening to my dad? Gun control be damned—my hands itched for a pistol. I remembered then that I did have a Glock with me, but it was in the satchel I had dropped while running from Zach. And in any case, I had no bullets, severely limiting the effectiveness of the weapon.

As silently as I could, I squeezed into a small tunnel behind a row of stained-glass windows.

“Did you take something from Matt’s house?” Zach continued, sounding closer. “A package of some sort?”

I flashed on the map and the journal, safe at the historical society.

“I told them you were clean, but they’re pretty sure you’ve got something. And I get the distinct impression they won’t stop until they get it.”

I watched as he walked down the corridor, beaming his light this way and that.

“What I’m worried about at this point is that they’re violent,” he said.

“You’ve got to believe me on this: I had nothing to do with Kenneth’s death. I didn’t even know about it until you told me the next day. They asked me to look around the house that day you found me there, that’s all. But at this point . . . I’m involved whether I want to be or not. And you might find this hard to believe, but I’m the one standing between you and them getting really nasty.”

Everything was gray and black shadow figures. Part of me really didn’t think Zach was out to hurt me, but a whole other part of my brain shouted at me:
You can’t trust men, no matter what you’re feeling. You’re no good at character assessment when it comes to the males of the species.
With an exception for Stephen. And Nico. My dad, of course. And Stan. And Caleb. And Matt. And . . . Graham?

Aha! My hands landed on a can of aerosol something. I had no idea what. But it would serve as a weapon. If I was sure Zach meant me harm, I wouldn’t hesitate to risk blinding him in self-defense. But as it was . . .

Feeling a bit calmer now that I had a weapon in hand, I inched my way behind cabinets holding artists’ frames and tried to think. What I really needed was some way of incapacitating Zach temporarily, just enough to get him tied up so I could escape and call the cops to come pick him up. Maybe he would be able to explain everything, tell us who killed Kenneth.

I felt around in the dark, and miracle of miracles, my hands alighted upon a piece of heavy twine used to bind several paintings together. I worked the knot out of it and carefully pulled it out from under the canvases.

I set about tying loops in the twine, doubling them for strength.

Crawling over to the steep aluminum stairs that led to the loft, I scrambled up them.

Zach ran toward me.

I stood just out of reach, my feet at the level of his head. I kicked out, and managed to land a good blow on the side of his head. He dropped, but he wasn’t knocked out. They never went down that easily in real life. Still, before he could catch his breath I jumped on top of him and slipped a loop of twine around one raised wrist, while threatening him with the aerosol.

“Mel, calm down!” Zach yelled.

“I feel very calm,” I said as I reached out to loop more twine around his other wrist. Before I knew what hit me, he grabbed me and flipped me. We rolled around, but Zach had the obvious advantage. He loomed above me, holding me by my wrists over my head. Our harsh breathing rang out loudly in the empty building.

“Chill
out
for a second,” he said, banging my wrists slightly against the floor for emphasis. “
Listen to me
. I’m trying to help you, believe it or not. Rory was sure there were gems somewhere in that house, and he thought maybe you had a bead on them. It’s not like he was going to keep them for himself or anything. He was going to split them with everybody, all the investors.”