If Walls Could Talk (35 page)

Together we gazed up at the twelve-foot-tall coffered ceiling of what would be an elegant dining room—once the walls and ceiling were painted, the old light fixtures rewired and remounted, and the inlaid wood floors sanded, stained, and polyurethaned. The Daley’s new home, an 1890s Queen Anne Victorian in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood, was structurally sound—a pleasant surprise, and rare for structures from that era—but decades of operating as a boarding house for drifters, down-at-the-heels bachelors, and homeless cats had left its mark. The home’s bones were exquisite, but the rest of it required plenty of renovation, repair, and ornamentation. Queen Anne Victorians were celebrated for their elaborate decorative designs and lavish “gingerbread” details.

Which is where I come in. Mel Turner, general contractor, Jill of all trades. I pride myself on tackling the historic renovations my competitors find too difficult or not worth their time.

I had been trying—and failing—to ignore or explain away the string of strange events that had plagued this particular project from its inception: lumber and dry-wall going missing and then showing up in the yard; work gloves and safety goggles
right there
one moment and gone the next; rusty old dead bolts locking and unlocking although the keys had long been lost; footsteps resonating overhead when no one was upstairs. Already a handful of my workers had walked off the job, unwilling to deal with the disturbances.

This wasn’t my first run-in with the unexplainable. Much to my shock, I had encountered the ghost of a former colleague some months ago. But since then, other than vague sensations of welcome—or of being decidedly unwelcome—in historic homes, I hadn’t had any other ghostly experiences. Perhaps I had lulled myself into a false sense of security. I wanted to believe it had been a one-time deal, like the measles. Once you had it, you were inoculated.

Looked as if I was getting a booster shot whether I wanted it or not.

“What’s on the ceiling? Are those . . . handprints?” the petite Carlotta asked in her heavy Russian accent, a frown marring her otherwise smooth brow. Dark, wavy hair hung halfway down her back; her big brown eyes were limpid, her posture languid. She had just celebrated her thirtieth birthday, but she appeared much younger. In part this was due to her penchant for wearing gauzy baby-doll dresses, a wardrobe choice completely unsuited to a foggy San Francisco December.

Since I was known for my own inappropriate outfits, I wasn’t about to cast any stones. Still, whenever I was in the same room as Carlotta, I had to stifle the entirely uncharacteristic urge to bundle her up in a big fluffy sweater.

If Carlotta inspired such protectiveness in someone as cynical as
me
, I could only imagine what havoc she wreaked within the average heterosexual man. Which might explain why Jim Daley, an affable guy, organized their lives so she never had to lift so much as a toilet brush.

“Yep, they look like handprints to me,” I said.

“Maybe from the painters?” Jim offered.

“Sure, that must be it,” I lied, hoping he didn’t notice there wasn’t a paint brush in sight. This project was nowhere near ready for the final decorative stages; we hadn’t even started with plaster repair and mud. “We’ll take care of it—don’t worry. You won’t even notice them once we’re done.”

“Great.” Jim was a typical thirtysomething Bay Area high-tech professional: He wore stylish eyewear, his hair was artfully tousled, and he spent what few leisure hours he had training for triathlons or bicycling up Mount Tamalpais. At least he had until his son was born. Lately he had thrown himself into parenthood. Which was a very good thing—Jim was better cut out for the role than Carlotta, who seemed bemused, if not outright discomfited, by her wriggling, demanding infant.

At the moment, Quinn was enthusiastically gumming Jim’s thumb, a long thread of drool marring the front of Jim’s shirt as if a giant snail had left a trail.

“He’s cutting a tooth,” Jim said with an indulgent chuckle.

I returned his smile. Jim was a sweet guy. A tad on the obsessive side, but nice enough. Plus, as a principal in a successful Internet start-up, his pockets were deep enough to return this Queen Anne to its former glory. As much as I hated to admit it, that was an important trait in a client.

“Is very dusty. Dust everywhere,” Carlotta commented, her nostrils flaring as she glanced around the dining room.

“Yes. That sort of thing’s hard to avoid on a construction site, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, by the way,” Jim said, “I’ve taken the liberty of calling in a green construction consultant.”

“An outside consultant?” I clamped down my annoyance and tried to keep a neutral expression on my face. I felt territorial about my construction site. When a general contractor was on The Job, they owned The Job. There was a reason my workers called me the General for short.

Besides, I was pretty knowledgeable about the green-building movement myself. I implemented a number of such building techniques whenever I could, salvaging as much as possible of the original moldings, hardware, and building materials not only for their historic value, but also to keep from filling our landfills with perfectly usable items.

Apparently my attempt to cover up my feelings was not entirely successful. No surprise there. I’m not great at diplomacy.

“No worries,” said Jim. “I’m sure you two will get along great. It just makes me feel better to have an expert on the job. And as a matter of fact, he mentioned that you know each other: Graham Donovan?”

“Oh, yes, I do know Graham,” I said, my emotions reeling even more. The sexy green contractor was an old friend of my father’s and used to be an official inspector for the state of California—in fact, he had helped shut down a job site of mine not too long ago. And ten years before that, Graham had made a romantic play for me, trying to dissuade me from marrying my now ex-husband, Daniel. Unfortunately, Graham had been right in his assessment of Daniel, which mortified me for a number of reasons.

Quinn’s adorable coos escalated into a fretful whimper. His chubby legs danced and his tiny arms flapped.

“I’d better go feed the baby,” Jim said. “Coming, honey?”

“You go. I come in a minute.” Carlotta’s mouth tightened and one side pulled down in a little grimace. I’d noticed that look before. It was usually directed at unpleasant tasks, or just about anything to do with her son. Still, in her big eyes was a mixture of eager concern and trepidation. I found Carlotta difficult to warm to, but a small part of my heart went out to this young woman, so far from her home and with a baby that she was finding hard to love. My maternal experience was limited to the ready-made stepson I’d acquired when I married his father. Caring for an infant would be tough for anyone.

“Take your time,” Jim said, kissing the top of her head. “Let’s order Thai tonight—what do you think?”

She shrugged.

“Indian?” The baby’s distress was spiraling, his whimpering ceding to crying.

“Is greasy.”

“Pizza?” Quinn started to wail for real.

“We decide
later
,” she said.

“Okay, sure. Just let me know when you’re getting hungry.” Jim headed down what was formerly a servant’s hall to a back staircase that descended to the garden-level apartment the family was inhabiting during construction.

It was tough to work around clients who insisted on remaining onsite during the renovation. Aside from the obvious comfort problems of the dust, the noise, and the early-to-rise hours of the construction crew, there were aspects of the job that clients really didn’t need to see. There were also the occasional, but inevitable, minidisasters: broken windows or fried wiring, and any number of “oopsie” moments that we would fix in time, but which I’d rather not have the clients witness.

My dad, the original Turner of Turner Construction, taught me never to allow clients in the home while it was being worked on. Maybe because I was a woman—not a gruff ex-Marine like Dad—or because I lacked sufficient backbone, I had a hard time enforcing this policy. Carlotta and Jim had insisted on remaining in the house in the one-bedroom “in-law” unit downstairs. As I got to know them a little, I learned the driving force behind their intransigence: Apparently Carlotta was terribly homesick for dear old Mother Russia. Personally, I didn’t see how an ornate Queen Anne Victorian in San Francisco’s crowded Cow Hollow neighborhood could possibly remind her of home—a country I knew mainly from repeated viewings of
Doctor Zhivago
—but what did I know?

They wanted to stay, and they were paying the bills. In the high-end construction business, the one with the checkbook rules. And until I could convince my father to take over the business again, I did the best I could.

I adored working on the historic structures. And my laborers, after some initial resistance to taking construction direction from a woman, had come to respect my knowledge and abilities, and their consistent paychecks. But the clients . . . the clients pushed my interpersonal skills to the brink. To be fair, I’d been in a bad mood since my marriage had gone down the drain, and all I really wanted to do was run away to Paris and lick my wounds in some fourth-floor Left Bank garret for a year or ten. But when my mom passed away unexpectedly, my dad needed my help. So I stepped in to run Turner Construction, fully intending to resume running away in a few months, as soon as Dad was back on his feet.

That was more than two years ago. I wasn’t a single step closer to sipping a café au lait while watching the sun rise over the Seine.

“Crazy,” Carlotta said, rolling her eyes. “He drive me crazy.”

“The baby or Jim?”

“Both. Mel, I must ask you some advice.”

“I’m not much good at advice, Carlotta. . . .” For reasons I have never been able to understand, a lot of clients sought my counsel. Maybe I sent out an unconscious “Ask me!” vibe. Maybe they thought a general contractor could fix anything, from a cracked foundation to a broken marriage. Maybe I had “Big Ol’ Softie” written across my forehead. Whatever it was, I was in fact the last person anyone should turn to for advice about their personal life. Got a leaky faucet? I’m your gal. Trying to expedite a construction permit down at city hall? I know who to talk to. Problems with your love life? You’d be better off soliciting marital advice from Elizabeth Taylor.

“I think we have uninvited guests here in this house.” Her fingers played with the filigreed crucifix that hung on a chain of fine silver around her swanlike neck.

“I’m sorry?”

“Spirits. Ghosts. The souls of the dead who are still with us.”

Offering marital advice was sounding easier all the time. “I . . . uh, why would you think that?”

“At night, I hear knocking. And footsteps.”

“There could be any number of expla—”

Carlotta gazed at me intently. “Please, Mel. I did research. It is said the spirits of the departed do not like to have their surroundings disturbed. And the renovation work, it disturbs surroundings, no?”

“Well, sure, that’s sort of the point. . . .” I couldn’t dismiss Carlotta’s fears out of hand, especially with everything that had been going wrong on the job site. Still, I didn’t want my clients getting caught up in the vortex of fear and confusion that the crossover of spirits could cause. What I really should concentrate on, I thought with sudden resolve, was getting them to move out while I brought in some ghost busters. Or whatever it was they called themselves. I was
not
in the mood to go through this again.

“And when I go . . . when I go into Quinn’s room, sometimes there is a black cloud.”

“A black cloud? In the baby’s room?”

“No, following me. I can feel it over my shoulder. As though it is trying to get in the room.”

I swallowed, hard. The one ghost I’d gotten to know well was annoying, but at least he never lurked over my shoulder in the form of a black cloud. That was just plain scary.

“I put up amulets,” said Carlotta. Her voice started to shake, and tears welled in her huge eyes. “And sprinkle the holy water. I try to tell the ghosts to leave. I was very forceful, but it makes things worse. Now they are worse.”

This would explain the smudge bundle I had noticed earlier lying amidst bits of wood and wallboard. The scent of burnt sage reminded me of walking down the street in nearby Berkeley, but I never did understand what it had to do with cleansing homes of bad vibrations.

“You know, it’s always unsettling to live in a home while we’re doing construction,” I said. “The knocking could be a twig against a windowpane or the sound of old pipes. And the creaking in the walls—”

My attempt to explain the unexplainable was interrupted by the high-pitched whine of an electric drill. The power tool started to spin atop a temporary plywood worktable. No one was near it.

Carlotta and I stared at the spinning contraption.

“Must be an electrical short,” I lied again as I hit the “off” switch and unplugged it. “Happens all the time in these old houses—”

“Is no short,” Carlotta said, her tone fatalistic. “Is ghost. Maybe more than one. Have you found history of the house?”

I shook my head. Restoring a historic structure properly meant thorough research on its past. But a trip to the California Historical Society hadn’t turned up anything on the Daleys’ Queen Anne Victorian or on the family that originally built it. Nothing at all. And that was odd. As cities go, San Francisco isn’t that old, or that large. It’s usually easy to find paper trails left behind by its well-to-do citizens, whether through articles in the newspaper’s society section, or tax records, or architectural blueprints. But not this time. It wasn’t that the history of the place was sketchy. It was nonexistent.

“You know the lady who used to live here?” Carlotta asked.

“The Cat Lady? I’ve heard of her.”

“Yes. The Cat Lady. I saw her yesterday. She ran away but I made her to talk to me. She admit to me she leave this house because of the ghosts. She say they try to kill her.”