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CHAPTER4
Igaped at the Hessler house.
Like many of the other houses in the historic Presidential neighborhood in Deadwood, the place was a nineteenth-century Victorian with a multi-gabled roof and two-plus stories. However, unlike the surrounding houses, it suffered from loneliness—evident by the peeling paint, missing roof shingles, and rusting front gate. It was going to take some serious nursing to remove the Norman Bates curb appeal.
My right eye began to twitch.
The front gate’s hinges screamed at me as I opened it. Scraggly patches of shin-high grass drooped over the walkway, snagging at my nylons. The paint-starved floor boards groaned underfoot when I climbed the steps onto the veranda-style porch.
No doorbell to be found, I pulled open the wooden, gingerbread-style screen door and yelped when the whole thing broke off its rusty hinges. If I were a believer in omens, this one would be up there with croaking crows and howling hounds. Now all I needed was a black cat.
I laid the screen against the wall, wiped my hands on my soft suede skirt, and knocked on the front door.
Thunder boomed, low and distant. I peeked around the porch’s roof. Cumulus clouds billowed in the western sky. The hills were thirsty, but in a land littered with dry tinder, lightning kindled nightmares.
Footfalls thumped toward me from inside the house. I turned to the door as it swung wide.
“Miss Parker, welcome to my humble abode.” Wolfgang’s smile could have charmed the stockings off a preacher’s wife. Lucky for me, my pantyhose were control-top.
I tried to crack a grin in return, but my cheeks would have none of it. Denial was a defense mechanism on which I couldn’t waste time. I had to accept fact—there was no way in hell I could flip this house in three weeks. “Hi,” I said around the sob swelling in my throat.
“Are you okay?” Wolfgang asked.
His question snapped me out of my poor-me party. The last thing I needed was to bawl all over a potential client.
“Yes, but I broke your screen door.”
He shrugged off my admission. “I’m just glad the whole house hasn’t fallen down yet.”
Oddly enough, his words weren’t exactly the wind beneath my wings—more like a baseball bat to my knees.
He stepped back so I could slip by him. Which I did, in spite of an urge to run back to my Bronco, race to the Candy Corral, and bury my head in a vat of dark chocolate.
Musty with stale varnish and dust bunnies, the vestibule’s warmth made it hard to breathe. Or maybe it was just grim reality tightening its choke hold, I couldn’t be sure.
Wolfgang closed the door behind me, throwing us into shadow. “Let’s start with lunch. Then I’ll drag you through the rest of the house.”
I’d be kicking and screaming the whole way if the inside was as bad as the outside.
He slid open a set of rolling doors to my left, and shafts of light beckoned. I followed after him, my heels echoing on the mosaic tiles.
We crossed a formal sitting room with a hardwood floor. Sheets covered everything, filling the room with ghosts of all shapes and sizes. The walls might have been green or tan—the drawn blinds made it tough to tell. A rolled-up rug lay along one wall, in front of a boarded-up fireplace. The hippo sitting on my chest shifted at the sight of an ornate marble mantel.
Through another set of rolling doors was a dining room, the table and chairs also under wraps. A chandelier trimmed with spider webs hung cockeyed. To my right, a narrow door blended in with the wainscoting. The air smelled fresher in here. The light was brighter, too, thanks to a pair of French doors to my left. The end of the tunnel drew near.
“Here we are.” Wolfgang opened the French doors.
I stepped into a screened-in breakfast nook. Shafts of sunlight splayed across the floral-covered bench seat lining the southern wall. A small round table held a bowl overflowing with salad, shrimp, orange slices, and croûtons. Lemon wedges filled a saucer next to it, and two empty salad plates accompanied by silverware sat across from each other.
“Make yourself comfortable.” Wolfgang pulled out a white wicker chair for me. “I’ll be right back with something to drink.” He disappeared through the French doors and I heard the creak of another door opening.
I dropped my purse on the bench seat, then grimaced at the dust that poofed up. The chair looked rickety, but was sturdy as I lowered into it.
Outside the screened windows, a battered cedar fence imprisoned the backyard. Waves of dry grass bristled in the slight breeze. A gnarled oak filled the southeastern corner, the remains of a swing dangling from one of its limbs. The rusty skeleton of a trellis leaned at a 45-degree angle over a stone bench. Next to the detached garage, a blood-red water pump and handle protruded up through the weeds.
Sighing, I shoved a loose curl behind my ear. It was a regular Eden back there, the broken concrete birdbath a fitting centerpiece.
The ceiling creaked overhead, as if someone was walking around upstairs. I looked up, expecting paint chips to sprinkle onto my face, happy to be disappointed for once.
