Free Dead Bolt by juliet blackwell Page B

Banks, who continued to operate it as a boardinghouse, though she liked to call it a ‘bed-and-breakfast.’ ”
    “I take it you quibble with that term as applied to Cheshire House?”
    “There were beds, and I guess there was breakfast, but with all those cats . . . It doesn’t sound much like what one expects from a San Francisco bed-and-breakfast. But you know how men are—they’ll live anywhere and never notice the toilet needs cleaning.”
    I smiled and thought about my dad, who’d become a rather fussy housekeeper.
    “And Jim and Katenka bought it from Hettie Banks,” I said, and did the math. “So we’re looking at nearly a century of being used as a boardinghouse. That’s a lot of souls coming and going.”
    “But as far as we know, only one body,” said Brittany.
    “What are you saying? That Charles Carter is haunting Cheshire House?”
    Brittany leaned back in her chair and shrugged. “I don’t know, Mel. I just do research, remember? But it makes for a great story, doesn’t it?”
    I wondered if a rum-pickled ghost would look different from any other. I could imagine that. It would explain the bare feet, perhaps. What I couldn’t fathom was how or why it might wander around in the form of black smoke. But were the footprints connected to the black figure? They had seemed like two distinct entities, to the extent I could tell.
    As Brittany signaled the waiter for our check, I glanced around the restaurant. Brittany worked in Walnut Creek, on the other side of the dreaded Caldecott Tunnel, so we had split the difference and met in Oakland at the Den at the Fox, a new restaurant in one corner of the old Fox Theater building, an incredible Moroccan-themed single-screen venue that dated to the 1920s, the heyday of historic theaters. The restaurant was done up with holiday decorations Bay Area–style, which meant lots of red and green garlands, a few nods to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, but nothing explicitly about baby Jesus, as though Christmas were a sparkly winter holiday consisting primarily of lights and tinsel. I wondered if this was why Halloween was taking over as the locals’ favorite: There weren’t many folks who couldn’t get behind a costume- and candy-fueled good time.
    “I think what I need is a ghost buster. Do you have a recommendation?”
    Brittany gave me a peculiar look. “With your third eye, or ability to see, you’re the kind of expert other people bring in.”
    “I might be able to sense ghosts—sometimes—but I don’t have the first idea how to get rid of them.”
    “You did a pretty good job at the Vallejo Street house.”
    When the ghost of a man killed on the job site at a Beaux Arts mansion started following me around, I wound up tracking down his killer and digging up—literally—evidence of an old murder, as well. By the time all was said and done, I had laid to rest at least a couple of the old mansion’s ghosts.
    “That was mostly accidental,” I said. “Once I figured out what had happened, the ghosts left.”
    “It works that way sometimes. Oh, I should tell you, your fame is growing.”
    “I have fame?”
    “Somebody wrote up the story and named names.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    “It wasn’t me,” she said, holding her hands up in innocence. “You asked me to keep it quiet, and I did. But I kept hearing rumors, and recently I came across this article about you.”
    She pulled another photocopy from the folder, and I read it with dismay. The only sort of fame I was interested in was Turner Construction winning the American Institute of Architects’ award for historical renovation. I didn’t like people talking about me, much less seeking me out to answer questions about ghosts.
    The article wasn’t long, but gave the basic rundown of what had happened at the Vallejo Street house, a project Turner Construction was still finishing up:
    Melanie (Mel) Turner of Turner Construction was able to make contact with the ghost of the