Home for the Haunting(38)
“You and a million others in this city.”
“So. To what do I owe this pleasure?” I asked, as though having coffee with a homicide inspector were an everyday occurrence. Whether or not this was an “official inquiry,” I was braced for some sort of grilling as well as the suggestion—implied, never stated—that I knew more than I was admitting. It was our usual MO. Still, the café smelled of dark-roasted coffee, an intense aroma that I loved, and my body was having a Pavlovian response to the promise of caffeine. I glanced around to see how soon Stephen would deliver my cappuccino.
“I can’t believe I’m asking you this,” the inspector said as her eyes scanned the room, as though to make sure that the caffeine-deprived ranks at the café this early in the morning on a Tuesday weren’t going to blow her cover. “But . . . I’d like your help.”
“My help? What kind of help?”
She cleared her throat and brushed an invisible something from the mosaic tabletop.
Finally, still not meeting my eyes, she spoke quickly, as though afraid to allow the words to linger on her lips: “Ghost help.”
Well, knock me over with a feather.
“Beg pardon?”
“You heard me.”
True, I had heard her. But Inspector Annette Crawford of the San Francisco Police Department—doubting, cynical, imperious Inspector Crawford—was looking chagrined, and I found myself enjoying it. It was the flip side of my discomfort with authority.
“Ghosts, you say?” I queried in an oh-so-innocent voice. “Surely not. An esteemed policewoman of my acquaintance informed me on more than one occasion that there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
More clearing of the throat, more obsession with invisible dust motes. Finally she blew out a long breath and met my eyes.
“Hubert Lawrence says there are ghosts in his house.”
“The Murder House?”
“I wish everyone would stop calling it that. But yes. That house.”
Newsflash, Inspector, I thought; there were ghosts in that house. But before I could say anything, Stephen brought my coffee, and after taking a sip, I decided that, discretion being the better half of valor, I should concentrate on my drink.
My eyes wandered over to Cookie, who appeared to have encountered some technical difficulties that required the assistance of three men. They hovered over her table and the computer, discussing their options, chuckling at Cookie’s comments. I couldn’t make out the words, but I got the gist.
I turned my attention back to the homicide inspector.
“I feel as though we’re switching roles here,” I said, “so I guess it’s my turn to ask: What do ghosts in the house next door have to do with your crime scene?”
“The victim’s name was Linda Lawrence. She was Hubert’s older sister.”
“‘Victim’? It’s not a suicide? Hugh said she had tried to kill herself before.”
“Mmm,” the inspector said. Or maybe she was just enjoying the latte. “Linda Lawrence appears to have been troubled for some time. Problems with substance abuse, mostly pills and alcohol.”
“But you don’t think she purposefully killed herself? Could it have been an accidental overdose?”
“I don’t know what to think. But the whole thing seems . . . fishy to me.”
“Enough to make you believe in ghosts?” That must be quite a fish.
“I didn’t say I believed in ghosts,” she replied, a touch defensively. “I’m checking out possibilities, that’s all,” she said.
“Like a good cop should,” I said solemnly.
“Like a good cop should,” she agreed, and relaxed a bit. “Here’s the thing: Hubert Lawrence really believes what he’s saying. He and Linda had visited the house last Friday, and Linda thought she saw something.”
“Something being a ghost?”
She nodded.
“Hugh mentioned that she thought she saw the ghost of her father at the bottom of the stairs. Turned out it was Hugh. He looks a lot like his father.”
“When did you speak to Hubert Lawrence?” she asked me.
“Yesterday. He called and asked to meet with me about renovating the house for him. And . . . I think he wants me to communicate with the ghosts as well.”
“Really?” We were back to the relationship I was more familiar with: the one where she thought I was snooping around in her homicide investigation.
“He called me,” I said. “Not the other way around. There’s no law against meeting with a potential client, is there?”
“Huh,” she grunted. “Anyway, after the walk-through of the house, Linda never made it back to the halfway house. The medical examiner puts her time of death as later that night.”