Home for the Haunting(24)

Cookie had left Kyle before, but she had always brought the kids with her, and the crises had blown over as soon as Kyle caved in to whatever it was she wanted. This time, though, she had come alone. Did this mean the problem was more serious? But if so, why would she leave the kids? Cookie had a lot of faults—I had a mental list of them that I had started when I was eight years old and updated occasionally—but she was a loving mother. Then again, for all I knew, she was in town for a few days to make sure a new couch was upholstered in the perfect raw silk or to buy a trousseau for the renewal of her wedding vows. Or something innocuous like that.

It was hard for me to fathom Cookie’s world, to imagine what she did with her days. Like many of the well-to-do women I worked for, Cookie was too intelligent and energetic to just sit around looking pretty, but with a gardener and a maid and a nanny to do the household chores, and no job outside the home, she had lots of empty hours to fill. Kyle was gone all day and the kids were now in school. That much free time could be a burden, and was likely to lead to trouble or to depression.

As I zoomed through the tollbooth and started across the bridge, I realized that just as I had no idea what Cookie thought or did all day, neither did she understand who I was or how I passed the time.

For example, one thing I did not do was mani-pedis. I work with my hands, so fingernail polish was immediately ruined, and in any event my nails needed to be kept short. Pedicures were even more useless, since my feet were almost always clad in steel-toed boots. Also, thanks to Cookie, I had learned to hate that kind of girlish fussiness. Four years my senior, Cookie had treated me like a human doll when we were children, dressing me up in ribbons and bows and makeup, and staging elaborate tea parties when all I wanted was to put on my OshKosh B’gosh overalls and play in the yard with my Hot Wheels. Even now I wasn’t very girly, despite my tendency to wear sparkles and feathers. Come to think of it, maybe those years as Cookie’s fashion mannequin were why I dressed so absurdly now. Certainly, she no longer dressed this way. Cookie’s love of bows and ruffles and gewgaws had long since given way to cool linen and elegant silks in simple, classical designs. Cookie always looked fabulous. I glanced at what I was wearing today—yup, unsuited for my profession as usual—and pondered. Was I only now going through an adolescent phase of fashion experimentation? If so, could I blame it on my sister?

Speaking of awkward adolescence and fashion choices, I was reminded of Kobe’s remarks upon my dress when I emerged from the shed last night.

I still hadn’t been able to come up with any rational explanation for why someone would have pushed me in. And who would have done so? Had the banging on the door been a sign from the spirits, or were Kobe and his gang having fun with the crazy construction lady? Or could it have been a local drug gang, as I’d first thought, or . . . ? I suppose it could have been the spirits themselves, somehow, desperate to communicate with me?

I wondered who owned the vacant Murder House. The yard was maintained—more or less—and the lights appeared to be on timers, and even the heater was working . . . so someone must be in charge of the place. I imagined the police had already been in touch with the owner, asking the pertinent questions. And as I’d told myself repeatedly since Saturday’s discovery, the situation didn’t have anything to do with me or mine.

Still, after checking on Matt’s project, I had to head to the city offices to expedite some building permits. . . . While I was there, what could it hurt to look up the owner of the house? I was pretty sure Inspector Crawford already knew who it was, but despite our newly cozy-ish relationship, I didn’t feel comfortable asking her, especially since I could find out for myself easily enough. Most folks don’t realize just how accessible property ownership information was. In fact, if I’d thought of it at home I could easily have looked it up on a public website.

I was just curious. No harm in that, right? And I was proclaiming a moratorium on snooping around the crime scene. So this was just . . . information.

I drove past San Francisco’s City Hall, a domed Beaux Arts building so large and ornate that when I was a little girl, I thought it housed the President of the United States. It was built in 1915 by architect Arthur Brown, Jr., to replace the building toppled by the 1906 earthquake; Brown was so fastidious that he specified which doorknobs to use, as well as the typeface for signage. City Hall’s dome was the fifth largest in the world, bigger than that of the U.S. capitol. Inside the central rotunda, a sweep of marble stairs led to catwalks that overlooked the courtyards. It was beautiful, a crown perfect for a world-class city like San Francisco.