Wilmington, NC 04 - Murder At Wrightsville Beach

Habitat for Humanity is coming to take the items you said you don't want to keep."
    "I went through the personal stuff over the weekend like you asked, Ashley. That's what all those bags are out there at the curb. And I packed up some things and they are being shipped to New York to mother and dad's apartment. But here," and she moved into the library, "here are some things I'd like you to keep at your house for me. I just glanced at this stuff, but I want to go through it slowly when I have time. Do you mind storing them for me at your house? It's just temporary."
    "Not at all, Kelly. There's really not much here. I'll put them away for you till you're ready. Looks like photo albums."
    Kelly picked up an album. "Old pictures." She flipped through the black pages. Black and white photographs were mounted with tiny corner tabs onto black paper. Captions were written in white ink. "Here's a picture of the POWs who worked the farm that I was telling you about Ashley."
    I peered at a photograph of about a dozen young men, all with closely cropped hair, dressed alike in work shirts and dark trousers, and wearing some sort of identity tags. Under the photo, someone had written their names with white ink. The handwriting was perfect schoolgirl penmanship.
    "I think my grandmother Peggy made these albums. I don't want to part with them. I want to go through them with mother. She may be able to tell me who some of these people are."
    She lifted a second box. "And this is full of Grandpa Joe's personal correspondence and I want to read through everything."
    I took the box from her and carried it out to my van. Jon carried the box of photo albums and shoved it in the back. "I'll put them in a safe place," I told Kelly. "You can come look through them any time you want."
    We said goodbye and she drove off. "Is it my imagination or does that girl seem a mite frail to you?" Jon asked.
    I considered the question. "For a New Yorker, and for a super model, yes I do. Wonder if this tendency toward melancholia is inherited."

    When I opened the door to my house a wall of heat hit me. I set the boxes on the floor, then tapped in my code on the alarm system pad and the red light stopped flashing. The next thing I did was lower the thermostat. Oh for blessed air conditioning. However had the people of Wilmington survived their summers before air conditioning?
    It was a little past four and check-in time at The Verandas Bed & Breakfast down the street had begun. The three-story structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the "Benjamin W. Beery House." During the Civil War, Captain Beery had constructed a monitor on top of the roof where, with the aid of a telescope, he spied the Cape Fear River for Yankee ironclads.
    As I sipped iced tea and watched from behind the lace panel at my parlor window, a steady stream of cars pulled up in front of the beautifully restored Italianate mansion.
    I turned around and savored the wonderful feeling of being at home. I'd been gone for less than the week and being back made me realize how much I missed my cozy house. And how much I missed my husband who had moved into my house after we were married.
    I'd bought it two years ago from a reclusive woman who'd been transferred to the nursing home where my mother had been a patient. I have a master's degree in historic preservation from the Savannah School of Art and Design. My undergraduate degree, a Bachelor of Fine Arts, had been earned at Parsons School of Design in New York.
    After college, I'd formed a partnership with Jon to restore old houses. He'd worked with me to restore my own back to its Victorian condition and the effort had been a true labor of love and very satisfying.
    My colorful house, with its equally colorful history, was one of the oldest on Nun Street, built in 1860, two years before the Civil War. A plaque next to the front door, issued by the Historic Wilmington Foundation, identified it as the "Reverend Israel Barton House." Reverend Barton, a Quaker minister, had been the first owner, and he'd had a secret room constructed where he'd hidden runaway slaves. The pastor and Mrs. Barton had raised nine children in this house and it defied logic for me to figure out where they had put them all with only three bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs.
    I'd had my house blessed by Father Andrew and when the work on the Lauder house was finished I intended to suggest to Kelly that she do the same. Although her house exuded