Death at a Fixer-Upper (3 page)

I looked away hastily and focused on a banner stretched between the two tall palms at the Plaza's northeast corner; it proclaimed that the twenty-third annual Kinetic Sculpture Race would be held on Memorial Day weekend, which happened to be this weekend. Thousands of tourists flocked to town to watch the race kick off from this very location, to drink beer and smoke dope and to cheer on their favorites. I'd been a dedicated spectator of the off-beat, oftentimes bizarre event for as long as I could remember—but never so much as this year, because Max was racing.

Arlinda's a funky little seaside town of fifteen thousand people, less than a third of whom supplement their income by growing marijuana in their garages. I'd spent my formative years here, with what could only be described as mixed results. Sometimes my personality seemed mirrored in the character of the town: independent, eccentric, and a little off-putting until you get used to it. I'd earned a degree from Redwood State, and somewhere at the bottom of a moving box had the diploma to prove it. I'd also met a man, married him, had a baby, and been abandoned by the guy, all in the space of a few short years Not what I'd expected from life, but one adapts.

I took a bite of muffin. It was moist and rich. Until recently, I thought I had the single-parenting thing handled. But a few weeks ago Wayne, Max's father, had shown up at my door after an absence of thirteen-plus years. And I hadn't told Max. Yet. What was I waiting for? I suppose, for starters, I wanted to be sure I hadn't imagined the whole thing. I'd been under a lot of stress at the time. A psychotic break, or whatever they called it these days, could happen to anyone. Just look at Biddie.

Moodily I finished my second breakfast, brushing the crumbs from my jacket and thinking of my exchange with the chief of police. A little cautionary bell was going off in my head about Bernie Aguilar. It had been a long time—thirteen years, in fact—since I'd let down my guard. I was too careful, too wounded to make that mistake again. Now I had a dinner date. Better I should have my head examined.

On top of that was the family connection. There was something positively Oedipal about dallying with your sister's ex-husband. Then again, Stacy'd cut him loose with relatively little fuss. She'd always had a short attention span when it came to men: the four years she'd been married to Bernie, before she found her soulmate in her Pilates instructor, was an eternity by her standards. Still, there was history there, messy and indisputable. I didn't need the complications.

The orange-and-yellow city bus rumbled down Ninth Street toward the Plaza. Five minutes after the hour, right on time. It made its ponderous right turn to head to the university and points north. I watched the faces flash by, framed in the big Plexiglas windows down the length of the bus. Most bent their heads over laptops or talked into their phones, but others gazed back at me incuriously, like a woman with a round pasty face, and that man in the…was it…Wayne?

In a flash, I was on my feet and running. The bus growled its way up the hill, belching a cloud of exhaust from the vent on top. I was gaining, even in my clogs, which were not ideal pursuit footwear. But, goddammit, I needed some answers. I shouted and waved, trying to catch the attention of the driver. There was a bus stop outside Wanda's Waffle Emporium and I heard a grinding of gears as the bus slowed down, preparing to pull over. The signal flashed. I was going to catch it.

Inexplicably, the bus surged back into traffic and picked up speed.
No!
It was pulling away from me. I put everything I had into a last, frantic sprint. My left shoe flew off and landed in the street. The bus crested the hill and was gone.

My cell phone rang as I gulped in air like a stranded fish and retrieved my clog before some rude driver ran it over. I yanked my phone out of my bag and didn't recognize the number. Punching a button, I snapped, “Hello!”

“Oh. Sorry. I must have dialed the wrong number. I was looking for a real estate agent.”

Oops. “You got one. Sorry. Hold on just a second.” I held the phone away from my ear and took a deep, calming breath, then blew it out. “Sam Turner here, Home Sweet Home Realty.”

“Oh, good.” A man's voice, a pleasant bland tenor that still somehow impressed me negatively. “I apologize if I've caught you at a bad time.”

“Not at all. This is perfect. How can I help you?”

“My name is Richard—Richard Ravello, with Eastside Builders. It happens I'll be in town tomorrow for a day or two. Our firm is based in Redding. Quite a contrast in climates, wouldn't you agree?”

“Definitely.” The temperature in Redding often hit triple digits, with such searing dryness that it hurt to breathe. Arlinda enjoyed a more temperate climate ideal for the cultivation of mold and fungi.

“I'm sure time is valuable, so let me get to the point. I got the green light from Eastside to investigate a piece of land that's ripe for development. Plus it would give us a toehold on the coast. The Redding area is somewhat overbuilt at present. Interest in new homes is stagnant.”

I read between the lines and decided no one wanted to live there. And who could blame them? “Did you have a particular property in mind?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Just came on the market this morning. The address is 13 Aster Lane.”

My eyebrows climbed. Talk about coincidence. “You realize, Mr. Ravello—”

“Richard, please.”

“—that this isn't a vacant parcel? There's a house there.”

“In very poor repair, from what I understand. There's no question in my mind that razing it and building a planned community of up to twenty-four semi-attached homes, each with its own square of lawn and access to a central play area for the kids, will represent a significant benefit to Arlinda's economic well-being.”

“Wow! That many homes?”

“We reduce the footprint of each home and build vertically to create a higher-density, more intimate living environment,” he said smoothly.

“I think you'd have to clear that with the Planning Department.”

“I trust I can leave that up to you,” he said. “I'll be in Arlinda tomorrow morning. Shall we say eleven o'clock at the site?”

I gave myself a brisk rap on the head. What did I care what a buyer did with a property? My job was to make the deal and deposit a big fat commission check in the bank, not lecture potential clients on local building codes.

“I'll set it up,” I said. “Can I call you at this number if there's an issue?”

“Absolutely. I look forward to meeting you.” He hung up.

I folded up my phone and stuck it in my bag. The brief exchange had left a bad taste in my mouth. There was something off-putting about Richard Ravello. He was too glib, too slick. Or maybe I had a prejudice against out-of-towners. It couldn't be any fondness for the derelict old mansion. The place was a wreck. Demolition was surely the only cure. An image of the wishing well and its backdrop of sweet-smelling roses being scraped away by a bulldozer's blade made me wriggle with discomfort.

I chided myself for being a sentimental fool and checked my watch. I needed to make the appointment with the listing agent in order to meet the twenty-four hours' notice required, so I hauled out my phone again and punched in Lois Hartshorne's number, resting my spine against the façade of Art's Printing and T-Shirt Screening. The phone rang four times before a gravelly tenor said, “Hartshorne and Associates.”

“Lois Hartshorne, please.”

“Speaking.”

“Oh. Hello. This is Sam Turner. I'm with Home Sweet Home Realty.”

“Good for you. How can I help you?”

“I have a client who's interested in looking at your Aster Lane listing—”

“What for?”

I blinked at the phone. “To, ah, build there. He's a developer.”

“Not gonna happen. There's issues. Don't waste your time or mine.”

“What kind of issues?”

“The kind that require you to do your homework. You remember ‘due diligence' from whatever online real estate school you studied at? Or did you skip that chapter?”

My mouth dropped open a little. In my limited experience, agents were gracious, even fawning, when contacted by other agents who might have a buyer for their listings. Lois Hartshorne bordered on the openly hostile. But maybe that was her style.

She went on in her grating voice, “There's a tenant in possession. She agreed to vacate the better part of the day tomorrow to allow showings. So I don't have a slot to waste on some looky-loo.”

“I met the tenant this morning. She seems nice.”

“How'd you manage that? No showings until tomorrow. I can have you up for disciplinary action.”

This was too much. “Just a minute. I was with Biddie from our office. She told me you okayed a preview.” My heart thumped in my chest at the thought of facing a disciplinary board.

She made a noise in her throat. A chuckle? “Don't get your undies in a twist. I guess you could see the place at noon tomorrow.”

“My client requested eleven o'clock.”

“Christ. Fine. You're down for eleven. Don't forget to leave me a signed, dated business card. And double-check all the doors.”

I drew in my breath to tell her I wasn't that much of a goddamned rookie, but she'd hung up. Sheesh. I waited for my pulse to slow down, then pushed myself off my perch and headed to the office.

Home Sweet Home Realty was a boxy ex-Laundromat on the corner of Fifth and Sunset. Its stucco exterior was painted a creamy yellow, diluted to a drab tan by the morning's haze of fog. My broker, Everett Sweet, had purchased the building for a song about five years back and converted it to office space. It was positioned on a high-traffic corner—good visibility, as we say in the trade—and smelled as springtime fresh as Bounce fabric sheets.

I used the rear entrance, jogging up a couple of wooden steps and crossing an expanse of redwood decking to reach the door. The deck was a pleasant little oasis for lunch and a quick and discreet way to exit the office should it become necessary. In fact, just recently—but that's a story for another time.

I passed the old computer-and-printer combo squatting on a long counter at the back of the building, next to a canister vacuum and a mop in a bucket. Everett didn't believe in a lot of frills, but he'd grown on me over the months I'd worked for him. His real estate knowledge was extensive and his understanding of human nature instinctual. Plus he didn't take any shit, something I'm known for as well. We got along all right.

Small shifts in the air current inside the building told me I wasn't alone. I walked past the kitchenette to my own little cubbyhole and found my colleague Gail Kelly at the desk we shared. Gail was another rookie, slowly finding her footing in the business. Today her hair was lavender, styled in a soft bird's nest of curls on top of her head. She had a stack of marketing postcards in front of her and her cell phone in her hand. When she saw me, she put it down.

“I was just about to call you,” she said. “There's a woman waiting for you in the lobby.”

“No kidding. What's she want?”

“I didn't ask. To buy real estate, I suppose.”

I picked up a trace of doubt in her voice, and it made me curious. Pointing to the cards, I said, “You know that's a waste of time.”

“Busywork.” She peeled an address label from a sheet of about five hundred and pasted it somewhat off-center on a card. Then she tossed the card on the desk, creating a new stack. Four hundred and ninety-nine to go.

I took a few quick steps down the hall and ducked into the bathroom to scrub the grease off my hands and check my appearance. I'd seared my hair with a blow-dryer this morning in an attempt to give it more “lift,” making the dark brown strands stand out from my head like the stiff bristles of a toilet brush. My eyes were green and startled-looking; my nose, which used to tilt a bit to the left, seemed curiously straighter following an incident a few weeks back where it had gotten in the way of someone's fist. I adjusted the little black tee that I'd bought to give me something dark to wear that didn't advertise Welkie's Green Waste and Compost, and polished some traces of chocolate from my teeth until they shone pearly white. Could a career as a supermodel be far off?

A few steps down the hall took me through the kitchenette and into the lobby. My visitor was seated on the rattan love seat. Immediately I regretted not taking a bit more care with my appearance. She was reclined against the floral cushions with her legs crossed above the knee. Her hair was a glossy brunette, worn shoulder length and styled by a professional, not a lick and a promise. Flawless makeup emphasized a creamy complexion and dark, languid eyes. She wore a white knit top that displayed an immodest amount of cleavage, easily twice what I could muster even with duct tape. A clingy black knit skirt rode high on her thigh, revealing legs that were long, lean, and elegant; strappy sandals encased her feet. Her toes were lacquered a deep blood red.

She leaned forward when she saw me, almost spilling out of her stretchy top. “Sam Turner?”

“That's right.”

She rose to her feet in a graceful coordination of body parts and proffered her hand. Her nails matched her toes. We gripped hands briefly. In a passing fancy, I imagined that her fingers were dripping fresh blood.

“Loretta Sacchi, PNI, Inc.,” she said. “Do you have a minute?”

“Of course. Would you like to go back to my office?” I said, wondering what PNI, Inc. was.

“This is fine.” She eased herself back down on the love seat, pinning her skirt to her thighs with her palms to keep it from riding up. She crossed her ankles demurely and rested her right hand on the armrest, her fingers extended as if holding an invisible cigarette. I settled into one of Everett's cheap wicker chairs that made embarrassing noises under my cheeks and forced my spine into an osteoarthritic curve. Glancing down at my shoes, I saw traces of potting soil from Merrit's greenhouse. “What can I do for you, Ms. Sacchi?”

“Please, call me Loretta. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're not familiar with our company.”

“Well, no…not exactly.”

“Paranormal Investigations Incorporated,” she said crisply. “Let me assure you right up front that we're not ghostbusters or publicity seekers. We're a reputable Bay Area company dedicated to investigating and documenting paranormal activity. We have an array of sophisticated, state-of-the-art equipment we use to validate claims of a variety of phenomena. These things, Ms. Turner, can't always be explained rationally.”

“Sam,” I said automatically. “I—well, that's really interesting.”

She smiled. “I can see you're a skeptic. This is a relatively new field of study in the scientific community. It's only been in the last decade or so that equipment for isolating and recording paranormal activity has been available. These are exciting times for those of us in the spirit business, if I may call it that.”

She could call it whatever she wanted, but I couldn't foresee a paycheck in my future. “I guess I don't understand what brings you to my office, Ms.—uh, Loretta.”

“Ah.” She leveled a blood-red nail at me. “Let me explain. There's a property on the market that's of particular interest to my firm. We'd like to conduct a series of investigations there. Perhaps even base a documentary on our findings.”

“Isn't there already a cable show with a similar premise?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Charlatans. Manipulated data. Staged phenomena. Preying on the public's desire to believe in something they can't see.”

I twitched a little at her words, which seemed especially apt, given the morning's events. With a sense of inevitability, I said, “Which property is your firm interested in?”

She consulted a slip of paper. “The address is 13 Aster Lane. Unsubstantiated reports of astronomical EMF readings—that's electromagnetic fields—”

“Of course,” I murmured.

“—have spread even as far as San Francisco. This could break the field wide open.”

“Even if that's so, you realize gaining access to the house for your experiments is not something I can do in my role as a real estate agent. You'd have to go through the owner of the property, or possibly the probate attorney.”

“You don't understand. We don't just want to film there; we want to buy the place.”

My eyebrows must have climbed almost to my hairline, because she added, “An opportunity such as this one doesn't come along often. Once in a blue moon, you might say.” She allowed herself a slight smile. “We want the exclusive right to conduct our studies there. Perhaps we'd even make it our headquarters.”

“You want to cut out the competition.”

“I'm glad you understand. Strip away the supernatural trappings and ours is a business like any other. You've got to stay one step ahead of the wannabes.” She flashed a hundred-watt smile, her teeth nearly blinding me. “So when can you show me the house?”

“I—”

“Is noon tomorrow available?”

“Yes. That is, I'll find out and let you know.” The thought of another call to Lois Hartshorne made my lips hurt.

“Here's my card,” she said, pressing a rectangle of paper into my hand. “You go ahead and set it up. Call me if there's any problem. That's my cell right on top.”

I almost suggested I contact her psychically, but decided against it. She rose and gave my hand a quick clasp.

“I'll see you tomorrow at the property,” she said.

The door closed behind her and I sat for a minute, bemused. This day was shaping up to be one of the strangest in my short career.

Finally, I rose and returned to my desk. Gail still occupied the lone chair. Her eyes were closed and her lips moved as if in silent prayer. At the same time, she tapped the very top of her head briskly with the tips of her fingers.

“What on earth are you doing?” I said.

She moved her fingers to her forehead, eyes still closed, tapping away. “Affirmations. I'm accessing positive energy and releasing stress and tension.”

“Oh, for God's sake. By smacking yourself?”

“It's called tapping. There's a whole movement around it.”

“You're joking.”

“Nope. Real estate is a high-stress occupation. Studies have shown that tapping promotes relaxation and increases productivity. You want me to show you how it's done?” She tapped on either side of her nose until the skin turned red.

“I'll pass. But thanks. Everett around?”

“Lunching with his accountant. What'd the lady want?”

“Get this.” I sat down at the desk of another agent, Carl Stopowitz, who shared our office but came out only at night. “She wants to see the Harrington estate. She's with a firm that may want to buy it for paranormal studies.”

Gail's eyes popped open. “I've heard about those people,” she said excitedly. “Don't they have a show on cable?”

“Not these folks. Honestly, Gail, it all sounded so screwy.”

“I've always wanted to see the old house.”

“Why don't we tag-team? Noon tomorrow.”

“Shoot. I'll be at the dentist. One of my old fillings came out over dinner last night. I don't understand it. I wasn't crunching hard toffees, for heaven's sake. Only scrambled eggs.” Her eyes grew wide. “You think it's really haunted? Rumors have been flying around for years.”

Yesterday I would have scoffed. I shook my head. “Not for me to say. I just want to sell the place.”

“Now you're talking like a real estate agent.”

“God forbid,” I said, and we both laughed.

Gail left for home a few minutes later. I moved back over to my desk and picked up the phone. Lois Hartshorne answered in her rough voice, and I explained that I needed a second appointment at Aster Lane. “Noon, if that's available,” I put in helpfully. Maybe if I sucked up a little she wouldn't yell at me.

“Tell me about your client. Another developer?”

“No-o-o—more of, uh, a professional person. A scientist.”

“What field?”

I racked my brain to come up with something good, but my mouth didn't cooperate. “Paranormal studies.”

“Ye gods and little fishes. Look up the word ‘gullible' in the dictionary, honey. Bet there's a picture of you.”

“Can I show the place at noon or what?”

“Sure you can. Oh, that reminds me—there's already an offer in. A strong one. I probably should have mentioned it earlier, but it slipped my mind.”

Damn! I bit my lip. “Has it been accepted?”

“Not yet. Just a matter of time.” She sounded even more cranky, if that was possible.

“Then we'll take the noon appointment.”

Big sigh. “You're penciled in. Say hello to Casper for me.” She hung up.

I slammed the phone down and gave it the finger. Right on cue, it rang again. Lois, calling me back for another round of insults?

“Home Sweet Home,” I said curtly.

“I say. Is this the real estate office?” The voice was pleasant, male, and slightly affected in style.

“It is.” I grabbed a pen and adopted my professional demeanor. “Sam Turner speaking. How can I help you?”

“Are you an agent, Ms. Turner?”

I resisted the urge to say, “That depends.” “Yes, I am.”

“Because a very strange thing has happened to me. I really am at a loss to explain it.”

I rolled my eyes and braced for another journey into the paranormal.

“I opened my morning paper,” he went on. “Right there on page one was a story about Arlinda and its Kinetic Sculptures. I can't explain the effect it's had on me. Arlinda sounds utterly charming. Tell me, have you seen the race? Can you describe it to me?”

“Well, sure. I never miss it. It's, well…” I searched my vocabulary. “Eccentric, I guess you could say. Downright crazy, to be honest. Lots of fun. The course is about forty miles long and takes place over three days.”

“And the machines themselves? They're human-powered, is that right?”

“Right. No fossil fuels or electricity. Usually they're built from bicycle frames welded together and then decorated with all kinds of junk. But they have to be road-worthy. There's a sand stage out in the Martin's Crossing dunes on the first day. Second day is the water stage, in Grovedale, so the contraptions need to float, too. And then a road stage down to Bovington on the final day, finishing up in the middle of town. Basically, they need to be designed for every kind of terrain you might find out here.”

He breathed into the phone heavily. “How absolutely wonderful. Well, I've made up my mind. I want to assure you, Ms. Turner, I'm a completely rational man in all other respects.”

Here it comes, I thought.

“But I saw that story and said to myself, ‘That's a place I'd like to live.' And then I thought, Why not? I have no close ties to bind me to the Sacramento area. I'm comfortably off, with more than enough savings for a down payment. Small-town life by the sea holds a great deal of appeal for me. The air is bracing, I imagine?”

“Straight off the Pacific. Never breathed by man.”

He sighed. “Sounds like paradise. Well, Ms. Turner, I'll be driving up tomorrow. Perhaps we could meet.”