Keeper of the Castle: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (6 page)

A
fter a day of soul-searching, I told Stan to cash Elrich’s check.

We needed the money. But, as usual, it was more than that. The chance to work on this kind of historical building didn’t come around every day. I’d worked with a few eccentric billionaires in my time, but this was the only one who had decided to import an entire monastery. It was extraordinary, and despite its echoing sadness—or could it be because of it?—Wakefield fascinated me.

In any case, I made arrangements for Raul to oversee our existing San Francisco projects, packed my bags—with my bathing suit—and Dog’s food, bowl, and leash, put a Pink Martini disk in the CD player, and headed for bucolic Marin County, north of San Francisco.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of driving up to Elrich’s decorative wrought-iron front gate instead of the far more utilitarian construction entrance a quarter mile down the road.

A dozen picketers lined the way, carrying signs and shouting at me to turn back.

As I waited for the gates to open, I had to fight the urge to explain myself to the protesters; normally, I respected picket lines. Most of the signs appeared to be about employment issues with one of Elrich’s smaller subsidiary companies. A few apparently didn’t like his contributions to particular political causes.

But there was one protester who stuck out: He was wearing a kilt with a thick leather belt, boots with tassels at the top, and a tartan cloth flung over one shoulder. He had the sandy-haired good looks of a poet, with romantic bright blue eyes and a boyish face.

His sign demanded R
EPATRIATION OF THE
W
AKEFIELD
S
TONES
.

Huh
.

“What do you think, Dog?”

Dog’s head lolled over toward me. He thumped his tail, and then his head rolled back toward the protesters.

“I’m only asking because one of them appears to be in costume. You don’t see
that
every day.”

The gates swung open, and I started to edge my car through the crowd. One pretty young woman banged on my hood.

“Hey!” My boxy Scion was a working car and was hardly pristine, but physical contact seemed over the line. “Back off.”

“Why are you crossing the picket line?” she demanded.

“I don’t work for Elrich Enterprises,” I said. “I have nothing to do with his company.”

“What are you doing here, then?”

“That’s really none of your business.”

“She’s working on the new construction,” said the man in the Scottish costume. “Let her be.”

“She is? How do you know?” demanded the young woman.

Their attention diverted, I drove through the gates, which swung shut behind me. A glance in the rearview mirror told me the protesters did not try to follow.

My tires crunched and popped as I proceeded slowly along the long, yellow, crushed-granite drive. After nearly a quarter of a mile, the drive formed a loop around a fountain in front of Elrich’s beautiful two-story grand Victorian home.

Painted in various shades of cream with gold gilt trim, the massive Victorian was fronted by an ample porch. The building formed a U shape around a courtyard, at the center of which was a melodious fountain. A round turret was accessed by winding stairs, and a balcony featured a finely crafted wrought-iron railing.

I looked down toward the building site for the soon-to-be Elrich retreat center. The way Wakefield was situated on the hill, it really did seem like Ellis Elrich fancied himself a modern-day reincarnation of the famous but controversial newspaperman William Randolph Hearst.

It was hard not to draw the comparison: Like Elrich, the newspaper magnate lived in a grand home high on a hill overlooking the ocean—though Hearst’s Castle down the coast at San Simeon was much larger and grander than Elrich’s house. But it was the circumstances of the construction that really brought home the similarities. Hearst was in the habit of buying entire buildings, having them disassembled, and shipping them to the United States to be reassembled for his various interests. It was the sort of outrageous yet inspired thing only the extremely wealthy and rather flamboyant could pull off.

“I was thinking about taking a vacation at a Club
Med,” I mumbled to my canine companion. “But I guess this is pretty close.”

Dog agreed. He didn’t talk or anything, but I could tell by the way his head lolled.

The home was gorgeous and seemed welcoming, but as I parked, I had second thoughts about being here without Graham.

And in fact, he hadn’t been pleased when I called to tell him I’d had a change of heart. How ironic that in the end, the one most opposed to my getting involved in the Wakefield project was the one who had tried to entangle me in the first place.

“I don’t like it,” Graham had said on the phone last night.

“Which part?”

“The part where you’re working for Elrich.”

“I thought that was your grand plan when you introduced me to him. Now you’re changing your mind?”

“That was before a man was killed.”

“You don’t seriously think Elrich did it?”

“No, but I’m not convinced
Nolan
did it.”

“Okay . . . but why should I be worried? I mean, McCall was a building inspector. No one likes building inspectors.”

Graham, a former building inspector for California Office of Safety and Health, or OSHA, didn’t deign to reply.

“Seriously, though, maybe it was an accident. McCall seemed like the type to poke his nose into everything. Who’s to say the bag of mortar didn’t slip off that big pile?”

“That seem logical to you?”

Not really. “I’m just saying that since we don’t know
what
happened to McCall, there’s no reason to let it affect my business decisions.”

“Listen, Mel, at least wait until I get back to town. We’ll move into Elrich’s place together.”

“There’s a meeting tomorrow with Florian Libole, and I don’t want to miss it. It’s just one night, Graham. Even
I
don’t manage to attract problems that quickly. It’s like I was telling Dad and Stan: This place has already experienced one murder, so I figure we’re safe for a while.”

“I’m beginning to worry about you.”

“This is why you like me so much, though, right? I keep you guessing.”

“No, actually, that’s not why. Not even close.”

I was too smart to take that bait. I thought about telling Graham that I had borrowed my dad’s Glock, but rejected that on the theory that in this case, discretion would be the better part of valor. Somehow I didn’t think knowing I was armed—without a license or carry permit—would make Graham feel better.

I left my car in the shade, rolled down the windows halfway, and told Dog to be a good boy. I would come back for him after I checked out the scene.

My suitcase banged as I rolled it up the steps to the porch, the noise mingling with the cheerful splash of the water in the fountain.

I knocked on the large wooden door, checking out the architecture. Given decorative details like the fan light over the front door and the carved crests and angels along the roofline, I estimated the house was built around the turn of the twentieth century. The house’s aesthetics were well-done, but there were some visible issues: The wood siding was sagging and warped in spots, and there were cracks along the joints of the window
lintels and sills. No big deal, but such issues needed to be addressed before they led to water damage and dry rot. Even with environmental risks like termites and carpenter ants, wood-frame buildings held up well in California’s temperate climate, but all aged structures required maintenance and repair from time to time.

“Yes?” The woman who opened the door frowned, looking me over as if I were a trick-or-treater on the day after Halloween. She held a massive key ring in one hand, a large notebook in another.

She was tall, strong-looking, and tanned a rich mocha brown, which was unusual in the SPF-soaked Bay Area. Her auburn hair was cut in an attractive style that brushed the tops of her shoulders with a feminine élan yet still managed to seem businesslike. A small scar under her right eye, and another that split her top lip, somehow highlighted her appearance. Her dress—short, chic, and cocoa brown with bright blue piping—reminded me of a chocolate Easter egg.

But then again, I’m a little food-fixated. Dog and I have that in common.

“Hi. I’m Mel Turner.”

“
You
are Mel Turner?” she demanded, unsmiling.

I nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Alicia Withers, Mr. Elrich’s personal assistant. He informed me you would be arriving and asked me to help you settle in.”

“Oh, great. Thanks.”

“I expected you to be a man.”

“I . . . um . . .” I’m never sure how to respond to this sort of thing. I’m clearly not a man—at least, I hope it’s clear; otherwise I’d best get me to a beauty parlor—but my nickname and the fact that I’m in the trades tend to lead to these kinds of assumptions. However, upon visual
confirmation, I would think people would figure it out without further explanation. “Sorry. I’m . . . not.”

“So I see.” Clearly perturbed by this turn of events, Alicia looked me over once again.

I glanced down surreptitiously. I endured a good amount of ribbing over my usual wardrobe, which included any number of spangled and fringed outfits not normally seen on construction sites. Or, really, anywhere outside of Mardi Gras or a costume party. But I’d spent so many years unhappily encased in proper, respectable (read: boring) clothes that upon my divorce I had embraced my sartorial freedom. I did have limits, though, and since I was arriving at an extremely wealthy client’s home, I hadn’t worn one of my offbeat outfits. Today I was wearing a simple patterned skirt, camisole, and cardigan sweater. I even wore sandals; I had been feeling a mite frisky-free—and
feminine
—without my usual steel-toed work boots.

“So.” Alicia’s eyes narrowed and her mouth pressed tighter. “You’re with Graham Donovan?”

“I, uh, we’re . . . Well, when you say ‘with,’ I mean . . .”

“That explains a lot.” She let out an exasperated sigh, closed the door, and started off. “This way.”

As I entered the tiled foyer and looked around, I experienced a kind of architectural dissonance. Elrich had mentioned that the interior and exterior didn’t match, but the significance of this hadn’t fully registered until the moment I walked in.

The interior was right out of a Spanish Revival home: white stucco walls, beehive fireplaces, tiled floors. The heavy furniture was dark carved woods upholstered in rich brocades. I love Victorian architecture, and I adore the Spanish Revival style. But together . . . ? It made me think of going to the Gilroy Garlic Festival and trying
their famous garlic ice cream. Separately, I’m a big fan of both. Together . . . they make me feel a little queasy.

Amazingly enough, however, Elrich had not hired me to work on this house beyond making a few small repairs. I was here to finish building Wakefield.

I followed Alicia past a lovely sitting room that overlooked a sparkling pool and the meadow leading down to the worksite, and down a spacious corridor. The key ring jingled as she walked.

“Since I thought you were a man and a professional colleague, I assigned you your own room, here.”

Alicia paused outside an open door made of heavy dark-stained wood, the hinges pounded iron.

The room was decorated in a classic Spanish style: Heavy, carved dark woods stood in stark contrast to the snowy white stucco walls. In one corner was a raised beehive fireplace, its hearth doubling as a small bench. Colorful painted tiles covered the hood and hearth and made for a brilliant display. The bed was a large four-poster, adorned with a mound of satin pillows in a rainbow of deep hues. Hefty wooden candelabra in graduated heights marched along in front of the windows, topped with tangerine and ruby pillared candles. An antique trunk sat at the foot of the bed.

I walked slowly around the room, taking it in. Dad was a big fan of old Westerns, and this house could have been a set for one of those movies. Except in reality, those old haciendas had probably smelled a lot like beans, livestock, and sweat. Here in Ellis Elrich’s house, everything was potpourri, scented candles, and oranges. And as long as I ignored the fact that it was all wrapped up in a classical Victorian exterior, I could appreciate it.

“This is beautiful,” I said.

“I decorated it.”

“It’s gorgeous. You’ve got a great eye.”

Alicia shrugged. My compliment was sincere, but either she didn’t believe me, or she didn’t care. I was getting the distinct impression that Alicia and I were not destined to be besties.

“Anyway,” she continued, “this was the room assigned to you. But if you’d rather share with Graham—”

“
No
, no. Thank you,” I said. Whether or not Ellis Elrich was aware of my personal relationship with Graham, I preferred to separate business and pleasure. A jobsite romance had never been on my bucket list.

She fixed me with a stern dorm-mother look. “It would be best if there is no late-night sneaking around. It’s very disruptive to the household.”