Wilmington, NC 10 - Much Ado About Murder

stairs. “I’m late for rehearsal,” he called over his shoulder.
    “What a darlin ’ man,” Melanie said, her antennae quivering.
    “Okay, sister mine ,” I said, “to you all men are darlin ’. Weren’t you just telling me your man is performing like a Greek god? Anyway, what’s his name? Greg? Greg is probably as poor as the proverbial church mouse. And your tastes run to the expensive. Besides, he’s a little old for you.”
    “I was just looking,” she protested.
    “Yeah, I know you well, sister mine. I know what your ‘just looking’ has led to in the past.”
    “Not since I’ve been married,” she protested.
    “If you do anything to hurt dear Cam, I will personally strangle you.”
    “Never,” she said sweetly. “Cross my heart.”
    As we continued our exploration of the second floor, I counted six tiny bathrooms, with dingy outdated plumbing fixtures.
    “What will I do with all of these bathrooms?” I wondered out loud. “And I counted two downstairs. Eight bathrooms! Give me a break.”
    “Come on, Ashley, give the house a chance. You’re the restorationist . You know you’ll have to take sections of the house down to the studs. You’ve done this before. Why is this house any different? You expand two or three of the bathrooms for your family’s use, upgrade to walk-in showers and big soaking tubs. Add closets, maybe even a dressing room. Wouldn’t that be nice? The rest, you use as space – space to create spacious bedrooms, the way the house was originally built.”
    She stopped and turned to face me, placing both hands on my shoulders. “You’re just nervous because this is going to be ‘your’ house. Don’t think of it that way. Think of this project as if you are working for a client. And you are going to do your best job for your client. You can do it, Ashley.”
    “Yes, I suppose I can. If I want to. But I haven’t decided if I want to or not. And Jon hasn’t even seen it. I hear music.”
    I moved down the hallway to the back of the house. On a rear second floor porch, a man of about twenty was sitting and playing a tune on a guitar. The guitar was a beauty, made of satiny maple, and looked very much like one I’d seen appraised for $30,000 on a recent episode of Antiques Roadshow . The song he sang was new to me, something about Love is Mighty . Something original? His own composition? I was about to inquire when the view caught my eye and I stopped, frozen - the music, the guitar, and the guitarist forgotten.
    “Melanie! This is fabulous!”
    Melanie gave me a big smile. “Didn’t I tell you? Now you’re sold, aren’t you?”
    “I just might be.”
    We descended a long flight of stairs to the rear of the property where we stood high on a bluff. Below us flowed the wide blue Cape Fear River. Memorial Bridge, newly painted pale green, spanned the water. The rear yard was enclosed by a high stone wall. Peeping over the wall, I looked down at the small development of townhouses known as Governor’s Landing.
    In the far corner of the yard, stood a gazebo, badly in need of repair. I started toward it but my access was blocked by a large fallen branch. I looked up into an ancient oak tree with dead and broken branches.
    “Uh oh, Mel. This tree is dying. It’ll have to come down.”
    Our historic district has been experiencing the loss of some of our oldest magnificent oaks. “The City had to take down two big oaks across the street from my house, directly in front of The Verandas. The innkeepers are heart broken.”
    “So you’ll plant another one,” Melanie said cavalierly. “It won’t take long to grow another.”
    “Like this?” I said, pointing up into the enormous tree. “Only about two hundred years!”

3

    As Melanie and I stepped into my front reception hall, voices flowed out to us from the library. There was Jon’s deep manly voice, the twin’s “ dada’s ”, plus Binkie’s distinct, almost pedantic, style of speech, and a female voice, as Southern and smooth as warm maple syrup.
    I turned to Melanie. “They’re back!” And rushed into the library with her at my heels.
    “Aunt Ruby,” I cried. “ Binkie ! You’re home.”
    Aunt Ruby is my deceased mother’s older sister, a Chastain from Savannah, who lives here in Wilmington now with her husband, Binkie , my best friend next to Jon. Benjamin “ Binkie ” Higgins is a history professor emeritus at UNCW. As children Ruby and Binkie had fallen in love but of course they