Pushing complicated catering thoughts out of my head, I settled in the kitchen to wait for the first contractor. I was glad I had installed an intercom for the front gate so I knew when someone was arriving and could activate the mechanism to let them in. When a man called, his voice over the intercom a hash of approximate syllables, I pressed the buzzer that would slide open the long electric gate, and directed him to follow the driveway and meet me at the front door.
I opened the door to find not one but two guys, who both seemed immediately stunned by the opulence of the house’s interior. Both of them—one young, one middle-aged; both blond and pink-faced, perhaps father and son, or uncle and nephew—stopped dead in the front parlor, wordlessly looking around them. Well, at least they’ve got good taste. It took some persuasion to get them down the hall to the kitchen, but I couldn’t fault them for being impressed.
“So, what do you want to do with this space?” the older one asked.
“I want to make this a working kitchen, while still retaining the Victorian appearance to fit with the rest of the house. Can you do that?”
“What’s the state of the wiring? Plumbing?” he asked.
“Assume the worst. This place was last remodeled in the later 1800s—the original owner was an early advocate of electrical power, and he ran a few lines through the house himself. I think a caretaker in the ’50s might have made some updates, but not many. So, the technology was probably state-of-the-art when it was put in, but I imagine it’s in pretty rough shape by now. As far as plumbing goes, that’s above my pay grade. See what you can figure out.”
“Huh. I can already say, it’s going to cost you,” he said, and blew a short stream of air out through his front teeth as if to punctuate his point.
“I know that,” I said, swallowing a spark of annoyance. I wanted someone working on this space because he wanted a challenge, and appreciated my goals. “Can you make it work?”
“Yeah, but we might have to take it down to the studs to fit everything in. Gotta be up to code, you know.”
“I’ve handled bigger projects in Baltimore. I know what it takes. Have you worked on other Victorian buildings?”
“Not a lot,” he admitted. “Mostly, people want to modernize, not retrofit. It’s faster and easier.”
“I’m not interested in getting it done over a weekend, and certainly not if it means destroying the details. It’s important that it look right. I know we’re going to have to rewire the building, and I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts about that. Keeping in mind that we want to preserve as much as possible of the original. But I wanted to consider the kitchen first.”
“Got it. Mind if I poke around a bit?”
“Go right ahead,” I told him.
He and the younger man conferred briefly, then split up and started inspecting the kitchen—the ancient appliances, the lone overhead light fixture with its single bulb. I kept reminding myself that a simple farmhouse had formed the core of this building. Had Henry torn it down, or maintained the original elements and built around them? The boundaries of the old house’s walls were visible in the basement, but I didn’t know much more than that.
The older guy interrupted my thoughts. “Basement under here?” he asked. When I nodded, he said, “Mind if we take a look?”
“Go ahead.” I showed him where the door to the basement was located, but remained upstairs and let him and his younger colleague explore on their own. I couldn’t tell them much of anything about it anyway. When I went back to the kitchen, I could hear low muttering coming from the two men beneath my feet.
I wasn’t very impressed by them. Maybe they were good at their jobs if they were presented with a modern site, or even a twentieth-century one, but they showed no enthusiasm for the handsome old Barton kitchen, even if they did respond to the velvet-filled opulence of the parlor. Maybe I was kidding myself, but I knew I didn’t want a bunch of guys to come in and rip things out and slap drywall over the studs, add a few store-bought moldings, and call it done. These guys didn’t have the right attitude. I sighed. But this was only the first team—I hoped numbers two and three would be better.
When the two men emerged from the basement, I made polite noises, and they promised to send a plan and an estimate of costs. I said I’d look forward to seeing it and shepherded them out the front door. The younger man tipped his baseball cap to me as they exited, taking one last backward look at the parlor. When I returned to the kitchen, I found Carroll there.
“Oh, you’re here!” I said, pleasantly surprised.
“I am. I hope that’s okay. I got a good start at the library, but I realized I was daydreaming about this place. I parked out front and walked around back, and then just … stared at the backyard for a while. I love all the possibilities! Mind if I poke around the upper floors for a bit?”
“Go right ahead.”
“Were those guys who just left contractors?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“Any good?”
“No. I’m sure they’d be fine for a modern home, but not for this place. They’re going to send an estimate, so at least we’ll have something to compare other contractors’ estimates to. Am I being unreasonable? I mean, trying to make this one room look the way it did more than a century ago, and still work today?”
“Maybe. It can take a lot to bring places up to code, especially if there’s any chance you’ll be serving food to the public. I understand why you want to do it, but I can’t say whether it will work—or if this group can afford it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I told her. “And I’ll have blown a large part of the budget on one small part of the project, when there’s so much else to be done. I just want it—the whole house, I mean—to be memorable, and to make people really see what life was like back then.”
“I hear you. The kitchen is the center of the house—and it can tell us a lot. So what’s next on your schedule?”
“I’ve got two more contractors coming, and I’ll see how that goes. Ryan gave me three names, but I can go farther afield if I have to. Or I can just give up and hang pictures of Victorian kitchens around the room and tell visitors to use their imaginations.”
“Hey, don’t give up so easily!”
“I’ll try not to. I just want everything to work out. What have you been up to?” I asked.
“Mostly poking around, looking for secrets. I keep wondering why Henry and Mary Barton were so reclusive. They didn’t come from money, so I don’t think they were snobs. He seemed energetic, from what we know. He certainly did a lot in his time. Maybe she was hideously ugly, or had a terrible disease and didn’t want to be seen in public—or she was insane? So far, I don’t have a lot to work with.”
“That’s a pretty grisly list of options you’ve come up with, Carroll. What if she was just extremely introverted, or both of them were? I guess we’ll learn more as we go anyway.” I checked my watch. “Still half an hour to kill before the next contractor is due. Maybe I’ll take a walk.”
It was a warm early afternoon, and the bright sun shone starkly against my rather pale skin. I felt better just being outside. It was such a lovely piece of land. Hard to imagine these grounds as a working farm—there were no traces of that left. If there had once been a barn, it was long gone. It might have sat where the carriage house was now, but that building dated from Henry’s remodeling of the place. I sat on the back steps outside the kitchen and wondered idly if I should plan for a parking lot. I quickly vetoed the idea. I couldn’t abide the thought of paving over any of this open land just now—and besides, I was going to provide carriages departing from the center of town, right? Another pie-in-the-sky idea on a list that was long and still growing. But if we could arrange for carriage transport, modern visitors would arrive at the mansion and see it the way Henry had, in his day. I liked that thought.
The sound of a truck pulling up to the front signaled the arrival of Contractor Number Two. I reentered through the back door and walked the length of the house’s main hall to let him—and not one but two assistants—in by the front door. The leader of the crew was fastidiously clean, with an expensive-looking fountain pen protruding from his shirt pocket and a faint Polish accent. His assistants—both baby-faced young men with neat haircuts—never said a word, but took in every detail matter-of-factly, nodding and typing occasionally on their phones. Our discussion followed much the same outline as the one I’d had with the first candidates, although this man was not as dismissive, and actually seemed interested in the structure of the building itself. That was good. But his face fell when he looked around the kitchen.
“Plumbing and wiring are original?”
“If you mean later nineteenth century, yes. I want to preserve as much of the building in its Victorian condition as possible.”
“That would be expensive, you know,” the man said. “And time-consuming as well.”
“I realize that,” I told him, “but this is one of the more interesting rooms in the house, and I want visitors to see what living here would have been like after the Civil War. That’s the whole point. Have you done anything like this before?”
“Only in pieces—a stove here, a sink there. Mind if we look at the basement? I need to see the wiring and pipes.”
“No problem.” Once again, I led the way into the hall and pointed to the cellar door. The group descended, and I rocked back and forth on my heels for a few minutes, hearing their shuffling footsteps and murmured conversation drifting up from below.
Then Number Two and crew came trudging up the cellar stairs, shaking their heads collectively. When the leader saw me waiting, he said, “You’d be better off replacing all the plumbing and wiring, and that will be messy. We could subcontract for the other trades, but the layout in your kitchen doesn’t work for modern appliances, even if they’re made to look old. You don’t want an electric stove, do you?”
“No, absolutely not. What did people use for cooking in 1880? Wood? Coal?”
“Both, probably. And you’ll have to put in ventilation, so whoever cooks there doesn’t suffocate. I admire your idea, but it would be a lot of work. Not so easy. Summer is our busy season, and I don’t think we’re the right guys for this job.”
I was glad for his honesty. “I understand. I appreciate your coming out to take a look.” I shook his hand and led the crew back out the front entrance.
Two down, one to go. I was a little surprised that the first two outfits hadn’t appeared very interested, since I had kind of assumed that the people around Asheboro would be eager to get some work. Apparently, construction wasn’t in that category. Maybe the locals were only looking to spruce up their homes to sell them and move on. Maybe I shouldn’t have started with the kitchen in a building that most people in town didn’t even know existed. Maybe I should have chosen a more visible structure in the community to whet the appetites of local builders and convince them that the project wasn’t just a crazy plan dreamed up by an equally crazy lady … Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Carroll appeared from upstairs, looking for something to drink. While we had a classic icebox in the kitchen, it was just a box set into the wall, and not cold. I made a mental note to get a cooler and fill it with ice and cold drinks for whoever was working in the house. “No luck with Number Two?” Carroll asked, having apparently given up her search for secret drawers in pieces of furniture upstairs.
“Nothing there either. He seemed interested, but on further inspection downstairs, it was a hard no. I guess I’m too used to working in a big city, where people expect elaborate renovations. Or maybe nobody around here likes Victoriana. Or maybe I’m just insane.”
Carroll made a snorting noise. “Seriously? You’re giving up after talking to all of two people? I expect more from you, Kate. Whoever told you this would be easy?”
“Apparently, my imagination,” I said glumly.
“Chin up, kid. Maybe Number Three will be the charm.”
“I hope so.”
“Anyway, I’m parched. I’m going into town for refreshments. Be back soon. You want something?”
“Yes, please, anything.” I was fighting off an encroaching foul mood, a result of two rounds of disappointing conversations. Maybe I expected too much of people. I went out front to see if there was any sign of Number Three and was surprised to see a truck with a company logo on it, but no sign of the driver. Where was he? I walked up to the truck: nobody snoozing in the front seat—or in a pile of hay in the bed, for that matter. That was a good sign. I walked around the side of the house to find a middle-aged man standing on the grass and staring up at the side of the building with a half-smile on his face. He wore overalls over a red button-down shirt and seemed to be counting something high above with an extended finger. I called out to him.
“Mr. Wheeler?”
He turned at the sound of my voice. “Oh, hello there. Call me Morgan. You must be Kate Hamilton.” He pulled a small spiral notebook and a square carpenter’s pencil from the front pocket of his overalls and jotted a few notes as he spoke. “I’m sorry—I got distracted. Those shingles on the second level—three different shapes! Wow. You don’t see that anymore. What an incredible building!”
“It is, isn’t it? Shows what you could do back in the day if you had all the money you could ever want. You’ve never seen this place before?”
“Oh, not by daylight.” He chuckled. “Not at all, actually—I’ve heard a few stories. No doubt you’ve heard tell of some of the other activities that took place here, since I understand you went to high school locally.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Anyone who’d once been a bored teen in the area knew about the habit of sneaking onto the property at night. “My, you’ve done your homework. And yes, I knew about the … other activities, although I don’t think they involved admiring vintage architecture. Are you ready to see the kitchen?”
“I am. I must say I was surprised to hear that was your first priority.”
“So am I, in hindsight,” I told him. “But I think it might be the most challenging part of the project, and I want to get it out of the way. It could really add value to this place as a teaching institution, if we can get it working. Have you worked on old houses before?”
“Whenever I can—which is not very often. A lot of folks these days just want to tear down and start over. Lead the way.”
I winced at the mental image of a wrecking ball ripping into this glorious structure, realizing that this had been the fate of many like it in this area and all over the country. This house, which had stood stalwart on the edge of town for a hundred years, suddenly seemed fragile, precarious, in need of protection. But protect it was what I aimed to do. I shrugged off the image and led Morgan in through the back door, since I was afraid I would lose him in rapt admiration of all the other wonders of the house if we took the main entrance. Then I stepped back and let him explore on his own. He took his time and seemed to absorb the details. After a few minutes, I asked, “Do you want to see the basement? In other words, the out-of-date utilities?”
“I think I can guess what they look like. Right now, I’m a bit perplexed by the proportions of this room.”
“Really? As I understand it, the core of the building was an old farmhouse, so maybe the owner just built around it when he remodeled.”
Morgan nodded. “That would make sense. But this wall—it looks to be in the wrong place. Why waste space?” He started moving slowly around the perimeter of the room, apparently feeling for joints in the walls, or maybe changes in material. Occasionally, he knocked on part of a wall, and eventually he came to one area on the inside wall that sounded hollow. He briefly walked out to look at the adjoining room, then returned. “Is there any access to this side? Upstairs? Downstairs?”
“Not that I know of, but I haven’t been looking that closely. There’s a small spiral staircase that runs up the back of the house, probably for servants to use back in the day, but I don’t think it has any secret doors that would connect here. You think there’s a space behind the wall?”
“Sounds like it. Wait a minute—I have something in the truck that might tell us more. I’ll be right back.” As he left, I found myself staring at the blank wall he’d just been knocking on. It seemed like an ordinary wall to me. He returned a minute later with an odd machine, like a video game controller outfitted with a miniature screen, and a scope attached to one end. I had never seen anything like it before.
“What is that?” I asked.
Morgan grinned. “It’s kind of a spy cam. It’s got a lens at the end of this tube here, and you can view what it sees on this little screen. I saw something like it on CSI and thought it might be useful for looking inside walls, to figure out where the pipes and wires went, or could go. Besides, I love new toys. My wife thinks it’s ridiculous, but hey, it keeps me happy. Do you mind if I make a very small hole so I can look inside this wall? I promise I won’t damage anything.”
“Sure, I guess. You can fix it afterward, right? And now you’ve got me curious.”
I stood and waited while he went back out and retrieved a small power drill from the truck, then tapped on the wall some more before making a tidy hole, no more than half an inch wide. Then he inserted the tube into the hole and turned on the machine, rotating it carefully so he could see the full image of whatever was behind the wall.
And then he stopped moving. He fiddled with the dials on the machine. His easy smile dropped away, and his expression became somber. He looked again, and finally turned to me. “I think you need to see this.”
A few random thoughts flitted through my head. What had he seen? A nest of tarantulas? A colony of rats? Fifty years of garbage? “Don’t move the lens,” he instructed. “Just look at the screen.”
I looked. And I looked again. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said to myself. I turned back to Morgan. “Will you hand me my phone, on the table over there? We need to call the police.”