The House on Tradd Street (10 page)

My chest felt like a deflated balloon. I’d somehow forgotten about that little gem. I looked around me again at the mildew and plaster damage. “Assuming the walls don’t crumble down around me first, I guess I’m going to have to.” I sighed, blowing out the air through full cheeks. “Go ahead and call your friend. Guess I’ve got to start spending that sack of money somewhere. Might as well be an alarm system. Maybe we’ll be able to salvage it after the house crumbles down around our ears.”

I turned to leave.

“So, this was Nevin’s room.”

I faced Jack again and found him studying the framed pictures on the bedside table. He picked up the photo of Louisa and her son, which I had knocked over and left facedown. Jack looked at me with an accusing glance before studying it. “They must have been close.”

I recalled Christmas card photos of me as a young girl with both my parents, beaming at the photographer with bright smiles and frigid poses. “I think that would be a hard thing to judge from just a picture.”

He didn’t saying anything as he put the frame gently on the table and looked around at the furniture. “My parents would have a fit if they could get their hands on some of this stuff for their store. Have you had a chance to go through anything yet?”

I had to remind myself that he had a reason to be so nosy about the house and its previous inhabitants. “No. I had thought to get started this morning but I ended up working for a bit in the garden instead.”

“I didn’t picture you to be a gardener type.”

“I’m not.” I shrugged. “Nor have I ever had an interest in owning an old house, much less restoring one. Go figure.”

“Melanie? Are you here?” Sophie’s voice called up from the foyer. “You left the door open, so I’m letting myself in.”

I shot Jack an annoyed look. “If you’re so concerned about people breaking in, maybe you should try closing the door behind you.”

He looked surprised. “But I did. I made sure of it. I even slid the dead bolt from the inside to make sure it worked.”

My eyes met his briefly before I looked away. “The door must not have been latched before you slid the dead bolt,” I explained as I exited the room and made my way to the staircase, convinced that Jack didn’t believe my explanation any more than I did.

Sophie stood at the bottom of the staircase, examining the Chinese wallpaper that sagged off the wall at the seams, too tired to cling to the house any longer. She wore her ubiquitous Birkenstocks and, defying all logic or fashion sense, striped knee socks and a tie-dyed shirtdress. Her curly hair was piled on top of her head, exposing her slim white neck—the only part of her that could remotely be called vulnerable. I think it was this contrast between hard and soft that men seemed to find so attractive about Sophie. It certainly couldn’t have been her sense of style.

She didn’t look up as we approached, seemingly mesmerized by the wall. “This stuff is all handpainted and probably imported from China. Just look at that technique! Reminds me of the time I took up painting in the nude art class—wow, that was an experience. You should try it sometime, Melanie. Release some of that pent-up sexual tension you wear like a chastity belt . . .” Her voice trailed away as she looked up and realized I wasn’t alone. A knowing smile lit her lips as she watched Jack come down the stairs behind me. “Well, well,” she said with a smirk.

I gave her a look that any normal person would have taken to mean “back off ” but which Sophie completely ignored. As Jack approached her, she stuck out her hand. “Dr. Sophie Wallen. Pleased to meet you. . . .”

He took her hand in both of his, and I thought I saw her melt a little as he smiled down at her. “Jack Trenholm. And the pleasure is all mine. I’m very aware of your work with the Historic Preservation Society. Very impressive.”

I could have sworn that Sophie blushed, something I’d never seen her do before. “Thank you. And I must admit I’m a huge fan of your work. I absolutely loved
Suicide or Murder: The Death of Napoleon
. When you postulated that it was the arsenic in his wallpaper that had killed him, I was blown away. It was totally conceivable, considering there was no evidence to support suicide or murder.” She beamed up at him. “And even your Alamo book, despite what happened on
Nightline,
had a lot of merit. The media shouldn’t have trashed you the way they did without looking at all the facts.”

“Thank you,” he said, his voice tight. Jack finally dropped her hands as a shadow crossed his face. I could tell that Sophie saw it, too, because she beamed back up at him before turning to me and changing the subject. “So, how do you two know each other?”

“New friends,” Jack said.

“Practically strangers,” I said simultaneously.

Sophie’s brows furrowed for a moment before she began nodding knowingly. “Ah. A little anonymous sex in the afternoon.”

“No!” I shouted.

“Count me in,” Jack said at the same time.

I glowered at both of them. “Mr. Trenholm—Jack—is writing a book about the disappearance of Louisa Vanderhorst, the late Mr. Vanderhorst’s mother. I said I would give him access to the house in exchange for a little help with the restoration and the sharing of information.”

Sophie wrinkled her nose and I held my breath, waiting for her to impart the next bombshell and leave me with no dignity whatsoever. “Perfect,” she said simply. “Like yin and yang.” She smiled. “Did Mel happen to mention why she wants to find out what happened to Louisa?”

“She mentioned a letter that Mr. Vanderhorst left her. How he thought she might be the one to answer that question.”

She wrinkled her nose again, a habit I was beginning to hate. “Well, that’s part of it anyway. Maybe she’ll tell you the rest of it once she gets to know you better. Now
that
would make an interesting book.”

I glowered at her as Jack raised his eyebrow. “I’ll look forward to that.” His voice sent little chill bumps down my spine as his words conjured up all sorts of hidden meanings.

I squared my shoulders, determined to be impervious to his cheap charms. “Don’t hold your breath.” I pretended to think a moment. “Better yet, please do.” I turned to Sophie, eyeing the loose-leaf notebook in her hands. Regardless of how flaky she could be at times, she was always the consummate teacher: always prepared.

She blew a loose strand of hair out of her face. “I thought we could sort of start by inventorying everything structural that requires fixing so that we can prioritize what needs to be done first.”

As if in agreement, a small chip of paint chose that moment to dislodge itself from the ceiling and float down to earth, settling in Sophie’s nest of hair. She eagerly pulled it out from the tangled curls and smiled. “How perfect! Now we won’t have to worry about damaging the wall to get a paint chip to match the paint color in here—the house gave me one!”

Her enthusiasm seemed so misplaced that I couldn’t do more than grimace back at her. “Yippee,” I said, reaching for her notebook. I unclipped the pen that had been stuck to the cover, flipped open to the first page and wrote number one:
Match decrepit paint color from ceiling. See if it can be ordered by the boatload
.

I pressed the notebook to my chest as soon as I became aware of Jack peering over my shoulder.

“Maybe while you two are doing that, I can start in the attic cataloging personal effects and furniture. I brought a Polaroid camera in my car to take pictures for the record. If I get stuck identifying anything, I can get my parents to take a look.”

Sophie’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute—Trenholm Antiques on King? Is that your parents’?”

“Yep. Sure is. You familiar with it?”

“I can’t afford anything in there, but I certainly know it. You can’t be an architecture scholar without understanding the furniture and accessories of the period, you know?”

“I’ve always thought the same thing,” Jack said, his “holy cow” grin making me want to throw up. “Great minds think alike, huh?”

Sophie smiled brightly. “Absolutely.” She turned back to me. “I thought you wanted to start working in the garden today.”

“I have. I got here early and started clearing the weeds in the rose garden. I was thinking that pulling everything up and just laying down Astroturf would be a great low-maintenance solution. . . .” My words trailed off as I noticed a look passing between Jack and Sophie.

“What?” I asked.

Sophie cleared her throat. “You were planning on working outside in the yard and you wore that?”

I looked down at my Lily Pulitzer pink-and-white gingham halter with matching white capris and pale pink Keds. “What’s wrong with my outfit?”

Jack’s gaze started at the strand of pearls around my neck, then traveled slowly down my body, making me squirm. “Nothing. If you’re going to a garden party.”

Sophie stepped forward. “Come on, Mel. Don’t you have some old T-shirts and cutoff jeans? Restoring an old house and garden is dirty, messy work. You might even chip a nail.”

I looked down at my broken thumbnail, snagged that morning on the weeds outside. “I have no intention of lowering my personal standards just to do a little bit of manual work. And it wouldn’t hurt you to follow my example, Sophie,” I added, looking pointedly at her striped socks tucked into ratty brown Birkenstocks.

She was saved from answering by a knock on the front door. I slid the dead bolt and chain, then unlocked the door handle. “Soph, this isn’t Fort Knox. One lock is sufficient.”

“But I didn’t . . .”

I didn’t allow her to answer, knowing what she was going to say. I opened the door, then wished I hadn’t. My father, in a cleaned and pressed golf shirt and khaki pants, stood in front of me, his hair still wet as if he’d just stepped out of the shower.

I looked at my watch. “It’s a little early for you to be out of bed, isn’t it? It’s not yet noon.”

He looked at me with eyes the same color as mine—hazel eyes my mother once told me made her fall in love with him. “I haven’t been drinking.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard him say that. “Yeah, well, it’s still early.” I stood rigidly in the doorway, blocking his entrance. “What are you doing here?”

Jack spoke from behind me. “I invited him. I figured since he holds the purse strings, he should be with us to inspect the damage so that when we ask for money he’ll know what for.”

I stared at him for a long moment, angrier than I remembered being for a long time. I didn’t really allow myself to get angry; my life was much too controlled to let in extraneous people and events that might shift my world off-kilter. Until the last week, anyway.

“Who the hell are you to invite people to my house without my permission? And why are you so damned anxious to get the ball rolling on this restoration, anyway? I’m sure all the information you’ll need for your book is up in the attic and won’t take you more than a day or two to find. Unless there’s some treasure map hidden in the walls that you’re not telling me about, I expect you to keep a backseat and let me deal with everything, okay?”

He hesitated for a moment, and an odd look I couldn’t identify crossed his face. But then he smiled and said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. You call the shots from here on out. But since your father is already here, we might as well let him inside. It’s hot out there.”

Reluctantly, I stepped back as Jack extended his hand to my father. “Colonel Middleton, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

My dad shook Jack’s hand and smiled. “Thanks for the drive home the other night. Don’t think I could have managed it on my own.”

“Glad I could help. How was your meeting last night?”

Dad slid a furtive glance in my direction. “Fine. Just fine.”

Sophie stepped up and gave my father a kiss on the cheek. “How are you, Colonel?”

He seemed to glow under Sophie’s gaze, and I rolled my eyes, wondering once again how she did it and if any male, of any age, was immune. “I’m doing real good, darlin’. Real good. A kiss from you can cure a thousand ills.”

She reached up and gave him a kiss on his other cheek. “There. That should be even better, then.” She squeezed his hand. “You went to a meeting, huh? That’s great news.”

I knew then what Julius Caesar must have felt like that last time in the senate.
“Et tu, Brute?”
I said under my breath as Sophie stepped back to allow Jack to close the door. I figured my dad had been to an AA meeting, and I didn’t want to speculate as to how Jack knew about it. Nor did I want to give it any credence at all. I had lost count of the number of times my dad had gone to a first meeting and then to a bar instead for the second. Dwelling in disappointment was an exercise I had long since given up.

I crossed my arms over my chest, wondering yet again how my tightly controlled life had managed to become a kite pulled from its string in strong wind. Any moment it could plummet down to earth, and I’d be left to pick up the pieces. Again. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I had already experienced the worst and that from there on out it could only get better.

My dad approached me, his eyes and mouth holding something back, and I started to doubt my surety about the “things only getting better” part.

“Hello, Melanie.” He didn’t move to touch me and I was glad. He cleared his throat. “Your mother called yesterday. She would like to talk to you.”

I stared into his eyes, and felt the kite slowly spiraling down to a crash landing.