Before There Were Angels Read Free

likely to be about as dear to her heart as it was to be detrimental to mine. Whenever Belle got really excited about houses, somebody had died there, memorably and violently, and now she was talking about a home.
    “Tell me,” I replied, forcing a smile.
    “You don’t have to even consider it …” she repeated with an expression between beseeching and excitement.
    “All right, then.”
    The expression changed to seductive begging. “But you could.”
    “Who died?”
    “Well …”
    So lots of people died. “Well?”
    “It’s a classic Victorian,” she started.
    “Where?”
    “In Haight Ashbury.”
    “And?”
    “It’s very beautiful.”
    She showed me a picture. It really w as. But what was all that scene-of-the-crime police tape doing there?
    “And?”
    “It’s haunted,” she announced triumphantly.
    “Who is haunting it?”
    “Will you come and look at it, without being prejudiced?”
    “Or even informed?”
    A sweet smile. “I’ll tell you about it afterwards.”
    “And the boys?”
    “Yeah, they can come and look at it too.”
    “And George? I have a feeling we are going to need George.”
    George was our alcoholic Old English Sheepdog, just like the other two alcoholic Old English Sheepdogs Belle had owned. High end alcoholics at that - Bombay Blue Sapphire gin, Speyside 12 year aged single malts, and Fat Tire to get the day started. Still, he could hold his drink, and after obviously his hair-of-the-dog kick-starter, he was amenable enough and hopefully up to identifying any ghost loitering in the house who would be too mean to handle.
    And Belle had always threatened me that, if I were to get involved with her, I would have to accommodate a few ghosts in the closets, although she had started me slowly in an ordinary mid-San Francisco apartment with shouting outside in the street but no wailing from the bathroom.
    “OK, when do we go to see this house?”
    Belle leaned over the bed where I was watching a You Tube trailer for a movie we were considering seeing that evening, and kissed me. “Thank you.”
    “ Mmmm,” I said cagily.
    She bounced on the bed. “You’ll love it, you’ll see.”
    “During daylight,” I added.
    “During daylight,” she emphasiz ed.
     
    *  *  *
     
    So there we were standing outside Belle’s Victorian in Haight Ashbury, all five of us - Belle, me, the twins Zack and Stevie, and George the dog. Positively ‘Famous Five’ on the cusp of their latest adventure.
    The police tape had gone and the front of the house looked gorgeous with its gold and sky-blue detailing.
    The realtor came running up, which is not a sight you usually see in San Francisco - anyone in a hurry. I guessed that she might be leaving the house twice as fast after the viewing.
    “Hello,” she said. “Sandra Bullock.” Not the one I had seen. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? And quite a bargain.” Well, we all knew why, but not enough of why yet; that Belle was keeping to herself.
    The twins were already wrestling and calling each other identically ugly as Sandra keyed open the door and we all burst in. It is going to be something of a stand-off , I told myself as I watched the boys. The ghostly resident of the house might already be more scared of the new occupants than we would ever be of him.
    “The main room,” Sandra said, indicating the room to the right. It was large, light, high-ceilinged and friendly.
    “Very nice,” I said.
    Sandra didn’t agree quite as quickly as a realtor normally would.
    “The dining room is through h ere,” she said, leading us on and moving fast.
    That was great too. I could certainly see us living here, but there was something I needed to know first …
    “It has a really welcoming atmosphere,” I observed, to be greeted with a false smile.
    “Y-e-s.”
    I knew that inflection on the word ‘Yes’.
    We saw a kitchen and another all-purpose room, then Sandra suggested that we explore the upstairs ourselves, no need for her to join us.