“Where to next?” asked Zach.
“Have you ever been to a frat house?”
“Of course. I lived in a frat house when I was in a frat.”
“You were a frat boy? Where was this?”
He smiled. “Oh, the things we don’t know about each other. Let’s grab some lunch, and I’ll teach you the Greek alphabet.”
• • •
I went to University of California, Santa Cruz, which was founded in 1968, and in an attempt to be progressive and nontraditional, the school had done away with things like competitive sports and the Greek system. In fact, prior to my lunch with Zach, I had been so unfamiliar with fraternity/sorority life that when I was studying anthropology in graduate school and was invited to a Greek party, I showed up in a toga.
But the University of California, Berkeley, wore its Greekness with pride. Several fraternity and sorority houses sat on one of the main streets through campus. What had once been beautiful homes for prominent families now sported huge wooden Greek letters and the occasional ratty couch on the front porches or bras hanging in the trees. Despite myself, I’d always wanted to check them out.
“I thought you saw the body yourself,” Zach said. “Why question this guy about it?”
“I did, sort of. But to tell you the truth, I can’t remember much. Weird, huh? It’s like I couldn’t hear, either. My ears were roaring . . . I think I may have been in shock. But this frat boy discovered her, and I just thought maybe he could remember something, or it would jostle my own memory . . .”
“Besides, you want to check out the building.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
Parking is at a premium anywhere near the campus, so we were on our third loop around the block.
“I was thinking,” said Zach. “Maybe you could develop some spirit pals on the other side, the kind who might make sure we have a parking space wherever we go. That would be mighty helpful.”
“I’m not sure there are a lot of parking-valet ghosts. For that matter, it’s not like they’re just hanging around, waiting to do our bidding.”
He shrugged. “I’m just saying . . . it could be helpful. You could probably make money off the service.”
I urged Zach to take over looking for parking and meet me later.
“No way,” he said with a chuckle. “I can only imagine what havoc you might wreak unattended in a fraternity house.”
“What do you mean by that? I’ve got my steel-toed boots on; I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t doubt that when it comes to the boys. But knowing you, you’ll accidentally attract some devilish spirit of a long-dead frat boy, and by the time I show up you’ll already be embroiled in some kind of undead hazing. And you don’t even have your ghost-busting stuff with you.”
“Undead hazing?” I had to smile. “I didn’t think you were much of one for hyperbole.”
“If only it were hyperbole. Let’s just call it an educated guess. And look, here’s a parking space.”
So a few minutes later, accompanied by Zach, I climbed the wooden steps up to the porch of the frat.
“Hello,” I said to the young man who appeared to be asleep in a hammock. “Sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Jefferson Caster?”
“Yeah,” he said, not opening his eyes or moving a muscle. “Inside. Upstairs, first room on the right.”
Inside, the woodwork and original lines were still intact, demonstrating what a lovely house it must once have been. But at least it was being put to good use now, I supposed. Probably no one but the wealthiest would be able to live here if it weren’t owned by the fraternity, and that wasn’t fair. One of the problems with my profession: I wanted people to restore and live in beautiful historic buildings, but those people tended to be rich. And I didn’t want to deal with only the rich. Why couldn’t the rest of the world enjoy beauty as well?
“After you,” said Zach, disturbing my reverie and sweeping his arm toward the stair in a gentlemanly gesture. But I wasn’t fooled.
“Scared to go first?”
He grinned. I mounted the stairs, and he took up the rear.
The first door on the right was covered in posters and notes, many of which extolled the virtues of women’s bodies and the like. There was also a whiteboard with various messages, including a rather ingenious dirty limerick.
“Look at that,” said Zach. “This guy could give your poet laureate a run for his money. I didn’t think anything rhymed with orange.”
I tapped on the door. No response. Zach reached around me and banged caveman-style.