The Appleseed Creek Historical Society was in a centennial home close to the square, much like the house in which Becky and I lived. The home was a narrow mint green Queen Anne with a tower and wide front porch. Bungee cords held forest green tarps over the wicker furniture.
Timothy rapped the horse-shaped knocker. The door flew open a half second later and a five-foot-nothing elderly women peered up at us. She wore a blue and white Scandinavian print sweater that hung to her denim-clad knees, and her hair was set in white pin curls. A smile broke across her face. “She’s here!” The woman called over her shoulder. “I told you if Tyler said she’d come, she’d come. Tyler is a good boy and hasn’t let me down yet.” Her head swung back toward us. “Don’t stand there and let all of the heat out.”
The front door of the Victorian led into an arched foyer, which opened into a large sitting room. Antique chairs and waist-high display cases dotted the space, and floor-to-ceiling bookcases circled the room. An elderly man with a white handlebar mustache peered at a yellowed document with a magnifying glass. He had white gloves on his hands that reminded me of the ones the bell choir at my small home church in Cleveland wore when playing the bells. “Tyler’s a lawyer,” he said without looking up. “How can he be a good boy?”
“You used to be a banker,” she shot back. “You have no room to talk.” She walked into the room with the man. “Max, this is Chloe Humphrey. She’s the girl Tyler was telling us about, who lives in the old Tanner place on Grover Lane.”
“I know who she is.” Max straightened his back with a groan. “Tyler left no more than a half hour ago. You think I forgot what he said?”
“Your memory isn’t as reliable as it used to be. You forgot what year Appleseed Creek was established.” She whispered to Timothy and me. “It’s 1808. Max said 1807.”
Max glared at her. “You always throw that back in my face.” He eyed Timothy. “Who’s the Ken doll?”
Timothy’s brow wrinkled, which made me smile. I suspected he had no idea who Ken, not to mention Barbie, was.
The older man pointed his magnifying glass at me. “If he’s Ken, I guess that makes you Skipper.”
I frowned, no longer finding the comparison amusing.
Still looking confused, he said, “I’m Timothy.”
“Silly me! I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Minerva Hammer, the president of the Appleseed Creek Historical Society.” She stood a little straighter as she recited her title, then she pointed a thumb in Max’s direction. “Max Dudley’s the secretary-treasurer.”
Max’s mustache shook. “The secretary-treasurer is an important job.”
“Did I say it wasn’t?”
“You implied it.” He chewed on his mustache.
She waved a dismissive hand at her cohort. “Sit, sit, you two.”
Timothy and I each sat in a flower-patterned wingback chair.
“We haven’t had this many visitors in years. The Tanner boy, Tyler, and now you two. We are going to be spoiled by all the attention.” She perched on a blue velvet settee.
I folded my scarf in my lap. “When was Dylan here?”
Max tucked the magnifying glass in the breast pocket of his button-down shirt. “About three weeks ago.”
“He was here about the house on Grover?” I unzipped my coat. The home was unbearably warm. Both Minerva and Max wore short sleeves.
Minerva nodded. “He said he bought the Old Tanner place on Grover and planned to restore it. He wanted blueprints of the house’s original plans.”
He bought it over three weeks ago and never thought to mention it to me. We work at the same college. Our offices are in the same building.
Timothy removed his winter coat and a sheen of sweat gathered on his forehead.
“Are you hot?” Minerva asked. “Max, go turn on the floor fan.”
A stand-up fan was in the corner of the room. Max grumbled under his breath but followed her directions. The oscillated air came as a relief.
“Our thermostat is stuck at eighty. It’s been broken all weekend. We haven’t been able to get the furnace man out because of Thanksgiving. He was supposed to be here this morning but hasn’t shown up. We’ve called four times.”
Max’s mustache wiggled like a caterpillar. “It wouldn’t be that way if you hadn’t cranked it up in the first place.”
She glared at him. “It was so cold in here, it felt like a tomb. I had to take the chill off.”
Max moved the fan as close to us as the cord would allow.
“I can take a look at it if you want,” Timothy said.
Minerva brightened. “Would you?”
Max wasn’t nearly as thrilled. “Are you licensed in HVAC repair?”
“No,” Timothy admitted. “But I’m a contractor and have worked on heating and cooling before. I still recommend that you have your regular guy out, but at least I can stop the furnace. Your heating bill will be astronomical.”
“I say we do it, Max, and since I’m the president, what I say goes. We’ll show you where everything is right after we finish our little visit.”
Max’s white eyebrows knit together. “As I was saying, Dylan Tanner visited three weeks ago. I was mighty impressed with his knowledge of local history. It’s nice to see young people taking an interest.”
Timothy pushed the sleeves up on his flannel shirt. “What is the history on the house?” Minerva opened her mouth, but Max was faster. “Gerald Tanner, Dylan’s great-great grandfather, built the house in 1910. He lived there until he died in 1945. He was seventy-five when he passed. He was a local boy and by the time he retired was a vice president of the largest bank in the county. Really, though, he was a frustrated architect. He designed and drew up the plans of the house himself.” Max tapped the document on the glass top with his white-gloved finger. “Come take a look. I have the original drawing right here.”
Timothy and I walked across the room. Max stood closer to the fan and it ruffled his mustache. The paper, yellowed with age, had an ink drawing of the interior of my rented house. The plan was rough, however, it did show the location of the walls. The wall in the living room that Dylan marked with an X wasn’t in the rendering.
Timothy leaned over the drawings. “Those don’t look like any blueprints I’ve ever seen. It’s not even to scale.”
“This was Gerald’s first rough sketch of the plans. The real one, the one the workmen and contractor must have used to build the home, is lost. It’s possible the village was never given a copy.”
“It could have been misplaced too,” Minerva chimed in. “The historical society wasn’t formed until 1940. Before that no one really kept track of these pieces of history.”
“This is all you have? You didn’t give Dylan the blueprint?” I asked.
Max’s eyebrow shot way up. “Certainly not. Nothing in the historical society is available to loan. Artifacts may only be viewed in house under the supervision of a board member.”
“So Dylan doesn’t have a copy?” Timothy asked.
“He does,” Max said. “He took a picture with his camera.”
“May I take a photograph with my phone?” I asked.
“Yes,” Max said. “But no flash.”
I retrieved my smartphone from my purse, turned off the flash, and snapped two photos of the blueprint. Within seconds I e-mailed them to my personal and work accounts.
I slipped the phone into my pocket. “When Dylan saw the blueprints of the house, did he know that his great-great grandfather once owned the house?”
“Oh yes.” Minerva nodded. “He knew and asked us to find whatever we had on Gerald. We were more than happy to help.”
“Did you find anything else?” I asked.
“Not much. If the family doesn’t donate to us, we don’t have much record other than what we found in the village newspapers—Appleseed Creek used to have two papers, one English and one Amish—and town photos.”
“Anything in the newspaper?”
“His retirement was announced from the bank in 1928. Close call for him. Had he stayed one year longer he would have lost everything in the crash.”
Timothy’s brows knit together. “The crash?”
“The Great Depression. The stock market crashed in 1929,” I said, surprised Timothy didn’t know about it.
Max gave Timothy a skeptical look. “They aren’t covering the Great Depression in school anymore? This is a travesty. How is the country supposed to move forward if we don’t learn from our mistakes?”
“They didn’t cover it in my school,” Timothy said, leaving it at that.
I tried to steer the conversation back to Gerald. “Wasn’t Gerald’s money in the bank? Wouldn’t he still lose money even if he didn’t work there?”
“He would have if his money was in the bank. Look at these photos.” He pulled three black-and-white photographs from a white acid-free envelope and lined them up on the glass top.
Timothy traced a finger along one of the pictures. Max slapped Timothy’s hand away with his white-gloved hand. “Don’t touch that! You’ll ruin it.”
Timothy retracted his hand. “I wasn’t going to rip it or anything.”
“The oils from your hand will get on the photograph and make it degenerate faster. Only the person with the white gloves can touch the artifacts.” Max held up his hands to show us. “I’m the only one with white gloves. I’m the only one who can touch.”
Minerva rolled her eyes. “Max, don’t be such a fussbudget.”
Timothy glanced at me as if wanting me to translate “fussbudget.” I shook my head.
Max gave us each a beady look. “Now that we have set the ground rules. Look at the second photograph.” He handed me the magnifying glass because the picture was tiny. It was about six inches tall and four inches across. I leaned over the photo holding the glass, taking care not to touch it. The image was grainy but showed an elderly man in a bow tie and full beard looking down at something on a tabletop. I leaned closer. A cloth-padded tray of coins sat in the foreground of the picture. Understanding settled over me. “This was how he preserved his money. Coins.”
I straightened up and felt a twinge in my back. If he leaned over tiny pictures like this all day every day, I could see why Max had a slight arch to his back.
Minerva beamed at me. “That’s right. She’s a bright one.” She winked at Timothy. “I’d keep her if I were you.”
My cheeks flushed. If anyone asked, I planned to blame it on oppressive heat.
“Was he a collector?” I asked.
Max nodded. “Yes. The money he didn’t spend building his home, he spent on coins.” He walked across the room and removed a file from the small writing desk in the corner. He opened the folder on the glass-topped case to an old newspaper clipping inside. “The English paper wrote a feature on the coin collection. The date on this is March 1, 1931.”
The clipping had a photograph of Gerald in front of the house on Grover. It looked much the same from the outside, but clearly the one in the picture was in much better repair than the house falling down around Becky and me. “That date is right in the middle of the Depression,” I said. “Can I take a photo of this too?”
Max nodded, and I snapped another picture. In addition to the photograph of Gerald Tanner and the house, there were three close-ups of coins.
“Look at all those old coins.” Timothy’s finger hovered over the picture. He was careful not to touch it so he wouldn’t get smacked by Max a second time.
“They’re from the Civil War.” Minerva squeezed in between Timothy and me. “Some are Northern and some are Southern.”
“Did he specialize in Civil War coins?” I asked.
Max stepped back. “No. He was an equal opportunity collector. The only criterion was that the coin was valuable. He didn’t waste his time on pennies. His collection would be worth a bundle nowadays, especially with the dollar going into the tanker.”
Timothy rocked back onto his heels. “Dylan knew about the coin collection before he came here.”
“Oh, yes,” Minerva said. “He said the family frequently talked about Gerald and his coins.” She clapped her hands. “Max, take this handsome man downstairs to take a look at Big Bertha.”
Timothy squinted. “Big Bertha?”
“That’s what we named the furnace.”
Max smoothed his mustache with a white-gloved hand. “That’s what Minerva named the furnace.”
Minerva sniffed. “I figured with all the trouble she’s causing, she earned a name.”
It was Max’s turn to roll his eyes. “Come on, Ken. I’ll show you where the furnace is.”
“My name is Timothy.” He sounded confused again. I would have to explain Ken and Barbie to Timothy later, but I would leave Skipper out of it.
Max shook a wrinkled finger at Timothy. “And know that I’ll be watching you like a hawk every minute to make sure you don’t break anything.”
Timothy glanced over his shoulder and gave me a pleading look as Max led him from the room.
I mouthed, You’ll be fine.
While Timothy and Max went to see about Big Bertha, I scanned the books on the shelves. Most were local and Ohio history. Did Dylan want to restore the house in memory of his great grandfather? Then, why didn’t he just say that? Why give me the story about wanting to restore the house to flip it?
Minerva sat in the wingback chair Timothy had abandoned. “You might as well take a seat. They’re not coming back any time soon.”
I sat on the matching chair.
Her eyes sparkled. “So tell me about that delicious man.”
My face flushed.
A knowing smiled crossed her face.
I scooted as far away from Minerva as I could without actually standing up and leaving my chair. “He’s a friend.”
She tsked. “What a waste. I can tell by the way he watched you that he doesn’t want to be just a friend.” She wiggled in her seat. “He’s a keeper. I can always tell. Good man stock comes from the farm. He’s a farm boy, isn’t he?”
I nodded.
She tapped her teeth with a hot pink fingernail. “And you’re a city girl. There lies the issue. You think the two of you are too different.”
We were different. And there was the whole Amish thing, but I wasn’t going to explain that to Minerva.
“How are you going to snatch him up? Do you have a plan?”
“A plan?”
“Oh yes,” she said seriously. “I’m positive you aren’t the only girl with your eye on him.”
I grimaced, thinking of Hannah. Tomorrow was Sunday, which meant I would see her at church again.
“I see from your sourpuss face, I’m right. You need to tell that boy how you feel before he thinks you don’t care and looks elsewhere. I bet your competition doesn’t have any reservations about making her feelings known.”
Hannah certainly didn’t have any qualms about that. Everyone knew how she felt about Timothy—even Timothy. I wished he’d discourage her more.
Suddenly, there was silence. The constant hum of the furnace, which I hadn’t noticed before, had stopped.
Minerva clapped her hands. “He did it. We are saved.” She winked at me. “Told you, he’s a keeper. If you can find a man who can fix things, string a complete sentence together, and is as easy on the eyes as your Timothy, I say snap that boy up.” A small smile curled her lips. “Trust me, if I was forty years younger, I’d give you some competition.”
Much to my relief, Timothy and Max reentered the room. “Call the furnace man as soon as you can,” Timothy told Max. “He still needs to come and look at it. All I did was turn it off. If you turn the furnace on, it might jump to eighty once again.”
Max nodded. “I will.” Then, grudgingly, he added, “Thank you.”
Timothy smiled.
I jumped out of my chair. “Are you ready to go?”
Timothy’s eyebrows shot up. “I guess you are.”
I nodded and grabbed our coats from the chairs. We thanked Max and Minerva for their time.
“Remember what I said,” Minerva called out the front door behind us.
The cold wind felt good on my overheated skin, so I left my coat off and enjoyed the cool air while we walked to the truck.
Timothy tossed his coat into the back of the pickup, waking Mabel in the process. She opened one eye and closed it again. “What did Minerva mean by that last comment?”
I climbed into the truck. “Nothing important,” I mumbled, even though the opposite was true.