Home for the Haunting(27)

“Right. And you’re moving to Paris any minute now.”

“This is different from the Paris thing. I can’t have a boyfriend. I don’t like men enough.”

“You adore men. You live with them and work with them, and have great respect for them.”

“Okay, let me amend my previous statement: I like men as people. But not as romantic partners.”

Luz snorted.

“Plus,” I continued, ignoring her. “I don’t live a normal life. Every time I turn around I find a body, not to mention I’m plagued by ghosts. I wouldn’t wish that on any man.”

“What’s this about being plagued by ghosts?” Luz had a knack for zeroing in on what was important and ignoring my bluster. “Did you see something at Monty’s place?”

I paused for a fraction of a second before telling her. Knowing Luz, she’d get it out of me sooner or later anyway.

“No, next door. The big house.”

“The Murder House?”

“That’s the one. But really, they have nothing to do with me, I swear. Not this time.”

I heard Luz blow out a long breath.

“Okay, chica, one more piece of free advice, and then I’ve got to run to a faculty meeting: Finish up the work at Monty’s, and get the hell out of Dodge before the next-door-neighbor ghosts, I dunno, decide to come a-knocking, wanting to borrow a cup of sugar.”

“I was thinking along those very same lines.”





Chapter Eight




I got back to work. Today, that involved going by the jobsite for a bed-and-breakfast in the Castro district. A haunted bed-and-breakfast, to be more precise. I had managed to spend the night in the place, and broker a deal with the ghosts, and catch me a murderer—sort of—several months ago, so Turner Construction won the bid on the project.

This was not what one might call an “industry standard” for how to go about winning renovation bids . . . but whatever it took.

Unlike the typical San Francisco Victorian, the Bernini B&B, as it was now called, was a Greek Revival with Italianate flourishes. We were painting the entire exterior in several different shades of cream, in keeping with the traditional monochromatic palette. Inside, it was fabulous: the new owners were committed to restoring the house and converting it into a charming inn without updating it cavalierly so as to strip it of its historic charm. We were modernizing things inside the walls: central vacuum, internet wiring, modern piping, heating, insulation, and electricity. And we were revamping some of the historic methods that still worked well and were, in fact, “green,” such as passive ventilation and the natural insulating effects of series of chambers that could be closed off from one another.

But the real show was in the interior details. We had removed all the ancient plumbing fixtures and hardware, cleaned them up, fixed them, and brought them up to code. For those items that were missing, I scoured junk shops and salvage yards—and occasionally found things on the internet—from the same era. We had removed broken tiles and had them reproduced by an Arts and Crafts Revival tile factory. Warped oak floors were patched and repaired where possible, or replaced where necessary. Original lamps and sconces were removed and taken to an old man who worked out of his garage and could fix anything made before 1950.

I knew if we worked hard enough, we had a shot at the AIA award for historic renovation. But, more important, I could feel the house coming back to life, blossoming under our care and attention.

Long before I was introduced to the concept of ghosts, I had come to believe that historic homes—some much more than others—held whispers from the past, tiny wisps of energy from all the souls who had passed through their doors. I used to think I was just being silly, superstitious. Now that I knew about spirits . . . I still felt superstitious. And I was even more confused. Was it the houses that whispered to me, or the ghosts within?

Not that it really mattered. Once I had accepted that I am, for better or worse, some sort of ghost talker, I was trying my best to roll with it. That was one factor that led to my signing up for my friend Olivier’s ghost-busting class. I felt like a fool, but I was learning a whole heck of a lot about things like electromagnetic waves and, believe it or not, theoretical physics.

“Mel, good to see you. How’d that project go this weekend?” asked Raul, our lead foreman.

Raul had volunteered to work with me on the community service project, but I wouldn’t let him. He and his wife were already busy with helping to run a food pantry and afterschool tutoring activities through their church. He worked too hard as it was, and I needed him on site. A good foreman could make or break a project, and his presence on a job as complex as the Bernini B&B meant I didn’t have to be here every second myself. He felt so guilty about not helping out, however, that he and his wife had brought over tamales for the volunteers.