Читать книгу Haunting at Remington House - Laura V. Keegan - Страница 8

Except for the crackling of the fire, the house was silent. Tom lay on the couch watching the flames die down. Here he was. In Remington House. He’d actually done it, he’d left Jamestown! Chilled, he got up and put another log on the fire; the hungry flames engulfed the dry tinder, shooting brilliant orange spikes high into the firebox. Tom was worn-out. Not wanting to make the effort to go upstairs, he pulled a heavy, blue afghan from the back of the couch. He lay down and covered himself; within minutes he was asleep.

Tom slept soundly and, mercifully, did not dream. He woke the next morning when a sliver of light coming through a slit in the curtain shone brightly across his eyes. Disoriented, he looked around the room, not knowing where he was at first.

It was freezing in the house! The fire had died to a few glowing coals. Shivering he got up, and threw some small kindling and a crumpled up piece of newspaper on the coals, managing to get the fire burning. He lay back down, pulled the blanket up under his chin. Quite contented, he drifted back to sleep. A few hours later the sound of a car coming down the gravel drive woke him. He went out onto the front porch to greet Joe. “Joe, I didn’t expect to see you so early. Come on in, I’ll make some coffee.”

“Don’t go to any trouble, Mr. Gardner.”

“Call me Tom.”

“Have a good night?” Joe asked.

“Slept like a baby!”

“Ocean air’ll do the trick. I dropped a few fares off in the area, so thought I’d stop by—see if you needed anything. Won’t be another train until late this afternoon—no passengers to pick up, so my day’s pretty much free now.” Joe followed Tom through the living room, into the dining room, through the swinging door into the kitchen.

Tom soon had a pot of coffee brewing, the rich, pungent aroma filled the air. He found mugs and spoons, creamer and sugar while he and Joe waited patiently for the coffee to finish. “So, Joe, tell me what kind of work you’d be willing to do around here? I haven’t had a chance to look around yet, but after we have our coffee we can check the place out. I think you said last night that you’d done some work here?

“Yeah, I did. For the Lindemans. Some painting, removed a few trees, cleaned up dead vegetation. A few years ago, the last summer they were here, I rebuilt the dock and did some repairs on their boathouse. I did a little plumbing work in one of the upstairs bathrooms, and a few odd jobs around the house. Every few months they’d have something for me to fix. Nothing very extensive. Typical handyman stuff.”

“Sounds like you know your stuff.” Tom nodded his approval.

“Yeah. Not much to it. There was a lot more I’d like to have done, but the Lindemans didn’t really like anyone around. I always thought it was a great house,” Joe said. “It definitely needs some upgrades. A lot of the wiring is probably outdated, even dangerous. The furnace is almost obsolete; it’s getting almost impossible to find parts for it unless you special order them. We don’t have a major hardware store in town, so it can take a week or more to get parts here.”

“We better look around then. See what you think needs to be dealt with right away. I need to find out what the delay is with the telephone. I’d like to get that taken care of before I do much, then we can look around. I haven’t even been upstairs yet. Odd, huh? I was too tired last night. Slept on the couch. After you left, I found out the power was out in part of the house. Once it came back on, and Mary Stevens left, the girl who is helping out here, all I wanted was to get some sleep.” Tom poured them both another cup of coffee, added cream to his.

“Oh, yeah. I heard Mary was going to be helping out here, getting the place ready for you. Nice kid. Her great-granddad helped build this house.” Joe stirred three spoons of sugar into his coffee, then topped his mug off with cream. “So you lost the power, but only in part of the house?”

“Yeah, but the fuses were all okay. The power went on and off a few times. Mary said it was on part of the time she was here. Funny thing, she was down in the basement hunting for the fuse box when you and I got here. Poor kid. She lost her way in the dark basement.”

“Bet that scared the crap out of her. Creepy old basement—especially in the dark! I’ll check the outside wires. This time of year we get a lot the gale force winds blowing in from the Atlantic. Might be a loose connection. Or could be some wires shorting out. I’ll get right on it, wouldn’t want to take any chances of a fire.”

Tom rummaged through the cupboards. Finding a bag of blueberry bagels, he handed one to Joe. Through a mouthful of bagel he said, “I need to make a few calls; I left my cell phone in the living room. Have another cup of coffee. I’ll be right back.”