Home For the Haunting: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery by juliet blackwell Page B

would give him some further detail about the situation. “That’s exactly what we said.”
    In the hustle and bustle of Monty’s worksite, I had barely noticed Hubert, and now I understood why. He seemed vague, barely there. Ghostlike, in fact. He had sandy hair and eyebrows that were an almost exact match with his fair skin, and his irises were so pale, they seemed to fade into the whites. He stood so still, he seemed almost ethereal.
    It was kind of disturbing, to tell the truth. For a moment, my mind flashed on the possibility that he might be a spirit, but then I realized everyone else on the jobsite saw him, too. But I supposed that the life of the mind might make a person seem like he was living on a different plane.
    “It’s nice to meet you again,” I said, holding out my hand to shake. “I’m sorry we didn’t have more time to talk on Saturday. I get so busy on jobsites, and it was a little overwhelming with all those volunteers. I didn’t get the opportunity to speak with everyone one-on-one.”
    He nodded in acknowledgment but gazed down at my hand as if he wasn’t sure how to respond. Back when I was an anthropologist, I learned to be careful about approaching people from different cultures. It was easy to offend someone entirely by accident by pressing one’s customs upon them. But Hubert looked at me as though I were presenting him with a fistful of fermented fish heads.
    Which actually happened to me once. But even then I wasn’t as rude as he.
    After a moment, I let my hand fall. We were still standing awkwardly in the doorway.
    “Could I come in and sit down?” I suggested. “You wanted to talk about redoing your house?”
    “Yes, yes, I did.” He turned around and wandered into the apartment. “I couldn’t believe when Simone told me
you
, the house captain for the Neighbors Together project right next door to my house, were named ‘California’s most promising up-and-coming ghost buster.’ She read it in
Haunted Home Quarterly
.”
    I closed the door and trailed him down a book-lined hall and around the corner, which opened onto a room that served as an office. The place reminded me of an upscale version of Monty’s front room, everything lined with bookshelves, though these were neatly arranged and only a single book deep. Nice to know there were still booklovers in the world.
    In the center of what must have officially been the living room sat a utilitarian beige office desk paired with a standard-issue desk chair. And on the desk sat a pad of heavy stock paper—the expensive kind—and half a dozen new, sharpened number-two pencils. A black mesh wastepaper basket sat by the desk, and a series of framed photographs sat on the table in an arc. What looked like a vintage eight-millimeter camera sat on a tripod in one corner. A huge fresh floral arrangement sat in a crystal vase on a marble-topped display table.
    That was it. No computer. No stacks of papers. No Post-it notes, crumpled papers, or pencil holder in which half the pens were dried up, like on my crammed desk in Turner Construction’s home office. And no dust. Anywhere. On the contrary, it smelled of lemon polish and scented candles and lilies.
    It was a shrine to poetry.
    Hubert took a seat behind the desk, placed his hands palm-down on the laminate wood top, and stared at me.
    I haven’t known a lot of poets in my time. Nothing beyond the high school boys who thought their words were deep and mournful, rather than just simplistic rhymes. I still didn’t really
get
poetry. What made one set of sentences great, while others were just silly or self-indulgent?
    But this guy was a poet laureate. That counted for something. That counted for a
lot
.
    Also, he had lived through the events at the Murder House, so my heart went out to him.
    And far too late, I wondered whether Ray had been right—was the woman we found in fact Linda, Hubert’s sister? And if so, had her brother been informed?
    “Hubert, I—”
    “Please,