Wilmington, NC 05 - Murder On The ICW

indicated he was somewhere on the property although I did not see him. But renovation work was underway, with ladders extended to the roof and scaffolding spanning the exterior walls. There was an electronic lift stacked with roofing tiles.
    Willie Hudson came out to greet me as I stepped down from the van. "Hey, Miz Wilkes, good to have you home."
    "Hi, Willie," I said. "It's good to be home. How are things going here?"
    "Good. Good. Now what's this I hear about you finding that man stabbed to death and your sister being attacked by the killer? All over the papers, it was. Lordy , lordy , Miz Wilkes, you do have a talent for turning up them dead bodies."
    His words stung and I winced but I knew that Willie did not intend to offend. In fact, he was one of the kindest souls I knew. Meticulous in his work and proud of the results, with deep roots in the black community and a steadfast commitment to his family and friends, to his church. Another man who had his priorities in order.
    "And how is the other Miz Wilkes?" he asked kindly.
    "Melanie's going to be all right," I answered. "She has a concussion but she's mending. The hard part will be keeping her down."
    "Know about that, I do," Willie said, nodding his head vigorously. "And what about you, Miz Wilkes? You okay? Must have been a real shock for you, finding them that way. Paper say there was blood all over."
    "It was dreadful, Willie." Then I asked about his wife, his sons and grandsons, many of whom were now up on the roof, patching holes, working with the Italians to replace broken and missing terracotta tiles.
    "Looks like they made good progress while I was away," I said.
    " Goin ' good, Miz Wilkes. We've been lucky with this nice dry weather. If it holds long enough for us to get that roof repaired, we'll be in good shape. When the winter rains set in, we can be working inside. Come here, I want to show you something."
    Willie led me to an exterior wall under the scaffolding where his crew had succeeded in removing almost all of the crumbling stucco. "Good solid brick walls under that stucco. See, they're a foot deep. They've held up well over the years. Sure, there's some damage but nothing we can't repair. We'll start applying the stucco this afternoon. Make hay while the sun does shine, I always say. Get that done and the roof repaired and the inside will be snug as a bug over the winter months."
    Of course Jon and I had discovered that the outside walls were a foot in depth when we'd make our initial survey of the lodge. But I refrained from telling Willie that; let him think it was his discovery and that he was offering me good news.
    "The windows have been on order for a month, Willie," I said. "They should be delivered any day now." The original window frames had rotted and fallen out, leaving tall, narrow apertures in the exterior walls through which rain and wind had entered the structure causing considerable damage inside. Jon had designed the window frames and they were being custom built, a rush order, but we gave the firm a lot of solid business so they were accommodating.
    "The same company has a cast-iron and press-metal workshop. They are making the brackets and cornices from the impressions we took from the few remaining decorative elements." Most of the exterior trim was missing. "But there's no rush on that," I continued. "We can install them later after the structural repairs have been made." Willie knew all this but we liked to discuss things, bring each other up to date.
    With our semi-tropical climate we were able to work outside almost year round. About January we'd go into a cold, rainy season and it would be good if all of our exterior work was completed by then.
    "There's a lot missing from the inside," Willie said, as we walked into the shadowy interior.
    "Yes," I agreed. "There have been vandals, and people have been helping themselves to anything they could pry loose and haul out of here for years."
    Willie indicated a door. "No doorknobs. No key plates. All gone. Every door in this house. Looters," he said and looked disgusted.
    I brightened. "As it happens, Willie, I have a collection of antique doorknobs and key plates that I've been buying from Architectural Salvage over the years."
    Architectural Salvage was run by the Historic Wilmington Foundation to raise money and to recycle architectural artifacts, saving them from ending up as landfill.
    "I think they'll fit and do nicely here." I lifted my head and looked upward to