Chapter 1

 

“Knick-knack, Paddy- WHACK, give your dog a bone,” I sang, thumping the rubber bone on the rug. The large Irish setter named Patrick, nicknamed Paddy, lunged for his toy, but I pulled it out of his reach, and sang the line again, this time thumping the bone on the other side of the overgrown puppy. Paddy wasn’t my dog. He belonged to my second cousin, Vic, who was on a trip to Egypt, doing research for the University of Chicago. Since I was the one family member with lots of space, and a house that could stand the dirt, I agreed to keep Paddy for all of July, and part of August.

My name is Anastasia Joy Raven, and I live at the end of East South River Road, at the edge of Dead Mule Swamp. I’ve been here in Forest County since early spring. Most of my time has been spent trying to revitalize an old house that I bought with money from my divorce settlement. My ex, Roger, and his new friend, Brian, now occupy my former home in the Chicago suburbs, so I moved north and moved on. At least, I’m trying to move on. Some parts of that are going well, renovating the house, for instance.

The building is a basic L-shaped farmstead with a two-story section at right angles to a single-story. I finished the living room project in June, and the result is a large cheerful space. I painted the walls in two shades of blue with white board-and-bead wainscoting and trim, then sanded and varnished the wide pine flooring. The revitalized room is clean and inviting. So far, the furnishings consist of a few secondhand pieces from the thrift store, set on a cheap area rug, but I have dreams of a country-comfortable look. When July began, I was still hunting for the right fabric to make curtains, but without close neighbors, having the windows covered didn’t matter very much.

I stood up and tucked my light brown pageboy behind my ears, then tried to convince Paddy that his play time was over. He was just over a year old, full of energy, and large. He shed hair like a yak and shook mud balls from the swamp all over the house, including on my new wainscoting. But I couldn’t resist his cheerful disposition and deep, love-filled gazes. Paddy-WHACK seemed to be his favorite game, but he’d only been here a few days.

That morning I faced the first real problem that Paddy brought to my life. I didn’t know what to do with him when I needed to go out, and I had a commitment to drive out to Hammer Bridge Town and meet Corliss Leonard. I expected to be gone for hours. I didn’t think Paddy would tolerate being tied in the yard, and there was no fenced area of any kind on my property. I supposed I’d have to take him with me.

As soon as I opened the front door and stepped onto the porch, the neat and finished look disappeared into apparent disorder. The entire yard was covered with piles—piles of lumber and plywood, a stack of new shingle bundles, a dumpster full of old shingles, gray two-by-fours that could be salvaged, a stack of pre-fab trusses, and a row of new window sashes leaned against a tree covered with plastic sheeting. The porch was littered with tools not currently in use, and walkways made of damaged plywood snaked across the yard between the piles.

This spring I had gotten an itch to add an upstairs screened porch off my bedroom. I wanted to watch the sunlight play over the swamp in the mornings and evenings, and listen to the bird songs and the frog voices. Since the roof was also in bad shape, I decided to roll all my dreams into one huge project. Thus, the mess around my house was impressive. Somehow, my upstairs porch project had grown into a full second story over the living room. I had to borrow some money to do it and put off a kitchen makeover for a while, but the roof couldn’t wait.

I wove carefully between saws and containers of supplies. Paddy simply waded through, tipping over a carton of nails on the way. While I was scooping nails back into the box, he began to drag a strip of the plywood walkway across the yard. The dog certainly brought an extra level of chaos to the mess.

I’d continued to employ Gorlowski Construction for projects I couldn’t do myself. I’m quite handy, but some work is beyond my abilities. Robert Gorlowski and crew had ripped off my old roof, and the trusses from the single-story. So far, the framing for the new second story had been put in place, and I already liked how much bigger it made the house look. The enclosed porch would provide a cover for the lower slab terrace, and the porch would have access doors from the new large room and from my bedroom. The terrace would also become a more useful outdoor space as a result.

I had to endure a couple of lectures from Robert about why this should have been done before I finished the living room. However, no one who owns a construction business in an underemployed county was going to turn down a chance to do a major overhaul on an old building, knowing that the bank had already approved the loan.

I smiled as I recalled that day. Gilbert Messler, Vice-President of the locally owned State Bank, had beamed as brightly as fresh-minted coins when he escorted me into his paneled office. His philosophy was that newcomers to the county were easy to welcome when they were low-risk and wanted to borrow money. When he heard the particulars of my settlement with Roger, it took less than thirty minutes until papers and a pen were set before me. I signed, and became even more financially committed to the community of Cherry Hill.

Paddy barked as two Gorlowski Construction trucks pulled into the yard, and five men spilled from the doors. One truck was pulling a trailer carrying a large hog hoe. The pup bounded over to them and planted his front feet on Robert’s chest.

“Down, Paddy!” I ordered. But the dog ignored me. Robert gently pushed Paddy aside, as he had every morning this week.

He laughed. “Good morning. I think you are going to have to work a little harder on Paddy’s training before he gets as big as a pony.”

“I know. He’s quite a handful, and it’s been a long time since I had to deal with a puppy.”

Robert’s tone became more serious. “We’re going to set the trusses today, and it won’t be good for him to be running around loose. That’s a dangerous enough job as it is. I’d rather not have to watch out for him all the time.”

That settled it. “I’ll just get his leash and take him with me for the day. I need to find out how he behaves in the car, so we might as well give it a try.”

“Sounds good. Take your time. You should really be able to see the shape of your ‘new’ house by the end of the day.”