I exited the house, puzzling over the mood I’d just walked in on in the kitchen after such a satisfying meeting with the larger group. Had they been arguing? Was I imagining the tension in the air? Carroll was standing out front, looking at the orange sun beginning to drift beyond the hill. Without speaking, we both began to walk and moved not toward my car but into the mansion’s backyard, admiring the tall grass and various native wildflowers taking over the lawn in absence of a caretaker. We reached the back of the house, and Carroll went on ahead, looking down at the ground where the rows of the old orchard might have been. I stood alone, breathing the cooler evening air, thinking over the day’s events. Then I heard a voice. Muffled from some distance, but a raised voice. A man’s voice. I looked around. No one was nearby. I realized it was coming from inside the house.
I turned and walked to the back entrance and stood just below the short stoop leading up to the kitchen door. I thought I could make out two voices, probably male. A white linen curtain over the back door’s glass panel kept me mostly out of view, even if someone happened to glance my way. I leaned in as far as I dared, hoping to catch the gist of the conversation without interrupting it.
Bethany’s higher-pitched voice cut through the rumblings, and I could make out most of what she was saying. I stepped closer.
“Get over yourself, Steve. Morgan’s in charge. If you don’t want to work under him, you can quit. I’m sure he can find someone to replace you.”
“You won’t get rid of me that easily,” the other voice growled. Steve, no doubt. I thought Bethany had a point: there were probably a few other plumbers in the area who would appreciate a substantial job for the coming weeks or months. Steve had no right to complain, I thought. Had he been mistreated somehow? Was there a history between them I hadn’t been informed of? I hadn’t seen Morgan behave toward anyone as a despot, or even a pedant, just an interested party charged with leading a small team. I’d hired Morgan based on our conversations, and Steve had mostly rubbed me the wrong way so far. If it came down to a choice between the two, I knew where my sympathies lay. The other male voice, which must have been Morgan’s, cut in. It was louder, angrier than before.
“Steve, I gave you an assignment. We need that ADA information if we’re going to open to the public—it’s basic consideration—and you didn’t even bother to look up the statute.”
“It’s a historic building, Wheeler,” Steve shot back. “Doesn’t matter. There’s an exception. We don’t need a wheelchair ramp anyway, so why bother?”
“That’s really nice, Steve,” Bethany replied. “Just because we don’t legally have to do it, you’re not going to make any effort at all?”
“Oh, Mr. High-and-Mighty Wheeler, you know so much better, do you?” Steve said, ignoring Bethany’s response. “Just like your daddy. I don’t need this from you. I can do the work just fine on my own. You’ll see.”
Bethany wasn’t going to be ignored. “Stop it with the ancient history, Steve. Whatever you think about Morgan’s family is not what we’re doing here. Can you work on the team or not?”
When Steve answered, I heard him pick out his words as if he were plucking fruit, one at a time, just as he had done in our conversation that morning. “I intend to work on this house,” he said, rather ominously. “But there is no need for a ramp.”
“Did you even cost it out? It’s not as much work as you might think, and it really helps people. This back entrance would work fine, actually—it’s pretty wide already…” For a moment I didn’t hear anything, and then the door swung wide open, with Bethany behind it. She continued talking until she saw me. “Look, you wouldn’t even have to take down the—oh … Kate. Hi. Do you—”
“Hello, Bethany.” I felt a little sheepish being caught eavesdropping, but I reminded myself that I was the boss lady and had every right to be here. Carroll had evidently heard what was going on, because from the corner of my eye I saw her approach and stop just behind me on the lawn. I went on, speaking to Bethany, along with the others behind her, all of them looking a little shocked to find me there. “Is there a problem here, Morgan?”
“A small disagreement. Nothing you need to worry about.” Morgan spoke calmly enough, but I found myself wondering if his teeth were clenched. Should I trust this man’s assurance over the evidence of my own senses? I let the silence hang between us for a long beat.
“Carroll and I are heading home. Morgan, why don’t you and I talk about this in the morning?” I looked pointedly at him as I spoke. I wanted to trust him, but it was hard to read this room.
“Of course,” he said, looking crestfallen. “I’m actually going to take off for a spell—the wife expects me at the dinner table—but the others have some work to do. I’ll come back and lock up at the end of the night, if that’s all right with you.” He looked at me with uncertainty on his face.
“I guess that will have to do.” The silence between us returned in full force. Then Steve spoke up.
“Say, Wheeler, if you’re heading through town, can you drop Lars here at the train station? He’s going into the city to see his girlie for a couple of days.” He turned to me. “That’s why we had to move our meeting up earlier. This one’s got dates to keep, you see.” He gestured with his head toward Lars, who turned red in the face.
“That’s not…,” Lars said, but he trailed off without finishing his protest.
“Sure,” Morgan said curtly. “Lars, pack up your things, and I’ll meet you at the truck in five minutes.”
Lars, Bethany, and Steve turned and exited the kitchen toward the front of the house. Morgan turned and stepped carefully into the kitchen doorway to face me. “Kate … I’m sorry. There will be no problem with the team, really. Just a negotiation of terms, you might say. Different temperaments … But we’re working through it. I think we’ll get a good sense of what we need to do tonight.”
I stared at him, his kind face framed by shaggy hair going white at the temples, tamped down under his old cap. His eyebrows furrowed in concern.
“All right,” I said finally, releasing a breath. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
I descended the back stoop and walked around the house with Carroll, neither of us speaking. I started up my car as a fine seed of worry germinated in the corner of my mind. We drove in silence for a few minutes, heading toward the grocery store before we returned to the B&B for the evening. She spoke first.
“That was kind of weird, right? I didn’t hear what they were saying, but you could cut the tension in there with a knife!”
“Yes, that was … something.” I chose my words carefully, not wanting to gossip about what we had just witnessed, but also hoping to make some sense of it. Carroll was ten years younger than I was, but I considered her a peer, and she seemed to have a good sense about people. “Let me ask you this, and please answer as honestly as you can. What’s your feeling about Steve?”
“Steve the plumber? Honestly? I just met the guy, but … I don’t know. He seems a little—what’s the word?—handsy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you, me, and Bethany are the only women on the crew, you know? Lisbeth was there today too, come to think of it, but I didn’t really see them interacting. You’re the boss, so Steve was careful around you, probably on best behavior. I don’t know Bethany’s story, but she’s a woman in a trade, so she’s probably seen it all, and I don’t think she’d put up with any funny stuff. Which left me. He kept following close behind me while we looked at the house, and he would brush up against me more than necessary. Like when you’re on a crowded train—but we weren’t on a train. He was just … too close. And I wasn’t encouraging him or anything—I was hardly looking at him, and we were definitely not having a conversation at the time. He just seemed, like, sure that his presence was welcome. But it wasn’t.”
“Ugh. I’m sorry that happened. What about Lars?”
“I didn’t really get a vibe off Lars. He seems fine. Quiet.” She was less effusive than her usual self, looking out the window as she spoke in short bursts.
“I thought so too. It’s probably hard to be a little brother to a guy who’s, well, kind of a blowhard, if you ask me. But I don’t want you to feel unsafe in the house while Steve’s working there. Is he going to be a problem?”
“No … I don’t know. I wasn’t planning to spend much time at the mansion anyway. I’ve still got plenty of archival work to do at the library—on our house servants especially. We don’t even have names for them yet.”
“That’s true,” I replied, weighing my words. “It’s just … I don’t know Steve yet, and I’m not sure what to make of him myself. Let me know if anything else happens, okay? I’m sure we can find another plumber if we need to.”
“Yeah, okay,” Carroll said, staring out the window at the low houses and lush trees flying by just beyond the glass.
I gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead at the narrow local highway. As much as I was glad to have Carroll at the library doing her research, I didn’t want her to be avoiding the mansion—the heart of this project—because one of the workers made her uncomfortable. But Morgan had said it would be fine, hadn’t he? I felt stuck. Were things falling apart so early? We pulled into the grocery store parking lot, and I put the car in park just as a light rain began to fall on the windshield. Carroll and I looked at each other, and I smiled, still uncertain what to do, but resolved to eat a good meal, sleep on it, and see what I thought in the morning. I handed Carroll a sheaf of newspaper from the car’s back seat, took another for myself, and we held them like small tents over our heads as we dashed across the lot toward the brightly lit store.