Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery Read Online Free PDF

for the rent, someone delivering takeout to any of the residents, or a repairman here to fix the plumbing. Chantelle’s untimely death could as easily—no,
more
easily—have been due to being at the wrong place at the wrong time than to anything supernatural.
    Probably it had nothing at all to do with Crosswinds and its ghostly weathervane.
    “Turner!”
    “Here!” I said, snapping-to without thinking. Then I regrouped. “You missed your calling as a drill sergeant, Inspector.”
    “Funny,” Annette said, her notebook and pen ready. “Speaking of drills, you know this one by now. Tell me what you saw, what you did, and what you think. Add nothing in, and leave nothing out.”
    I told her my very short story, including my earlier visit to the haunted Crosswinds. Her patented cop look suggested she thought I was holding something back. Which, this time at least, I wasn’t. But I didn’t take it personally. I could only imagine how often she was lied to in the course of a single day.
    “You know, it’s downright eerie how often I find you at murder scenes,” the Inspector said. “I’m going to assume we’ll find some sort of connection between your latest haunted house and this situation.”
    “Well, there
is
a connection—that’s why I’m here. Chantelle did a reading of the haunted house I’ve just been hired to renovate.”
    “Her brother says she did readings of a lot of places, has done so for years. But she didn’t get dead until you arrived on the scene.”
    “When you put it like that, it really is eerie.”
    We both took a moment.
    “Okay,” she said with a sigh. “That about it?”
    I nodded.
    “You can go. I know where to find you for follow-up.”
    “Annette, do you have any idea when Chantelle was killed?”
    “That’s up to the medical examiner to determine. And it’s none of your business. You be sure to let meknow if anything comes up over at Crosswinds that might be related to this, you hear?”
    “Will do.”
    She went back into the apartment, and I headed for the elevator.
    “Turner.”
    I turned around and saw the inspector with Landon Demetrius. He was wiping his fingertips with a wet cloth, presumably to remove fingerprint ink.
    “Take this one with you,” Annette said. “Please.”
    “I won’t stand for this,” Landon protested. “Surely I can help. My bags—”
    “Will stay right where they are. Everything in the apartment is potential evidence until further notice,” Crawford said in her don’t-even-think-of-arguing-with-me voice. “Forensics has to process everything, I’m sorry to say. You’ll get your things back when they’re finished. On behalf of the San Francisco Police Department, please accept our apologies for the inconvenience this may cause you, as well as our sincere condolences on the loss of your sister.”
    “But surely, Inspector—”
    “C’mon, Landon,” I said. “I’ll give you a ride. There’s no use arguing with the SFPD, I guarantee you.”
    As I guided Landon toward the elevator, I read the thanks in Annette’s silent nod.

Chapter Four
    O n the way down in the elevator, I glanced at my watch: I was due home for dinner in an hour. Landon stumbled next to me and I reached out a hand to steady him. He looked stunned, almost bewildered. Grief was a strange thing. Everyone has their own way of processing it, and none of us knows what that will entail until we’re faced with it.
    “Where to?” I asked gently. “Were you . . . Were you planning to stay with your sister?”
    “No, I have reservations at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. I’m a visiting professor at the university for the upcoming semester. I’ll be subletting an apartment but can’t move in until Monday. Until then, I’m in the hotel. But I dropped my suitcase and other things at Cheryl’s—I mean, Chantelle’s—apartment. We had planned to spend the evening together, and she was going to take me to the hotel after dinner.”
    “Listen, how about