Night of the Living Deed

by E. J. Copperman

  “That’s how it works. I’ve only been teaching here three years, and some of the kids I used to teach are already taller than me.”

  “You’re a history teacher,” I reminded him, because clearly he thought he was a philosopher. “You’re supposed to understand the march of time.”

  “Speaking of history,” he said, “I’ve been doing a little research into your house and George Washington’s interest in your property.”

  That brought me out of my melancholic reverie. “Ooh, tell me!” I said.

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Whaddaya mean, uh-uh?” I asked.

  Ned smiled a smile that made me warm in a number of interesting places. “I’ll tell you over dinner tonight.”

  “Tonight? I thought we were going out Tuesday night.”

  “We are,” Ned said, “but this information can’t wait. Besides, my car’s back, and I want to see what you’ve been doing with that house.”

  It was a tough choice: sanding floors versus dinner with a very cute guy who could tell me mysterious things about the house I lived in. I’d have to think that one over.

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  We decided to meet at the house so Ned could finally see it, and then he headed into the school and I pointed my station wagon in the direction of said enormous-drain-on-my-bank-account-that-everybody-seemed-interested-in-but-appeared-to-be-decreasing-in-value-by-the-minute. It was an interesting, if frustrating, contradiction.

  I spent some of the morning preparing the floors for sanding and putting up plastic sheeting in the dining room, since I’d be doing that floor first. Maxie watched with mild interest for a while, complaining that she’d prefer a darker stain than the one I was preparing to use, then left to do the research Mom had assigned to her, grumbling all the way.

  Paul appeared up through the floor almost immediately after Maxie left. I think they might have been getting on each other’s nerves after so much time cooped up together; they rarely showed up in the same room at the same time anymore.

  “Maxie’s been researching Adam Morris on the Internet,” he said as soon as his head was all the way into the room.

  “Good morning to you, too,” I responded. “What has she found out?”

  “We don’t know why he didn’t buy the house from the Prestons,” Paul said. He was showing an atypical lack of charm this morning. “Maxie says he made an offer to her right after she moved in, but she was adamant, and he didn’t bother again. With the Prestons, we only know what David Preston said, and he’s not a trustworthy witness.”

  “So what’s our plan from here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” That was it?

  “What’s bugging your deceased butt this morning?” I asked Paul, but he just scowled and remained silent. Fine.

  “Nothing,” he said after a very long pause.

  “You sound like Melissa.”

  “No, I don’t.” Wow, he was going to be a lot of fun today. But I’d learned by now that Paul abhorred silence, and if I waited long enough, he’d eventually say whatever it was on his mind.

  “All right,” he finally spit out. “I don’t think you should see this Barnes fellow anymore.”

  I spent a good long moment blinking. It didn’t do any good, but I couldn’t think of any other reaction to that outburst. “I’m sorry?” I asked.

  “I don’t think he’s trustworthy,” Paul continued. “He seems to be interested in you only because you own this house, and we know that whoever is threatening you has an unusual fixation on this house.”

  That was even more preposterous. “You’re saying you think Ned is the person behind the threats? You think he killed you and Maxie? Did either of you even know him when you were alive?”

  Paul turned his head away. “No,” he said. “But I don’t trust his motives.”

  Suddenly it dawned on me, and I grinned without meaning to. “You’re jealous,” I told him.

  “I am not.” But Paul still wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  “You are—you’re jealous of Ned. You don’t want me to be interested in him because . . . It’s flattering, really, Paul, but you have to understand, I have my daughter to think about. It’s important that the only men I date are the ones with a pulse.”

  “Mark my words,” Paul said, and then he vanished without a sound.

  Mark what words?

  Thirty

  Melissa refused to come downstairs when Ned arrived to take the tour of the house and pick me up for our date. She was of the opinion that her mother dating her history teacher was, and I’m quoting now, “creepy.”

  But while she was upstairs, no doubt playing the Game of Death with her designated babysitter (and preparing to be dropped off at Tony and Jeannie’s since, despite what my mother thought, I felt that leaving my nine-year-old daughter in a house that appeared completely devoid of supervision would be at best suspicious and at worst illegal), Ned was drinking in the house with his eyes and, from all indications, finding it astonishing.

  I was amazed he wasn’t dead on his feet after shepherding twenty-two fourth graders through Edison’s lab, but history seemed to invigorate Ned. When I was in school, it had usually had the opposite effect on me.

  “This place is marvelous!” he gushed. “There’s so much history here.”

  Sure, history, but what about all I’d done? “It’s only been here a hundred years. There are houses in this county that go back to before the Revolution, you know.”

  “Oh, I know,” Ned answered, moving from the living room to the dining room. “But this one has so much character.”

  From upstairs I could hear Maxie complaining to Melissa that a person always got to go twice when they rolled doubles, something that I could be sure wasn’t true in whatever game they were playing. “Yeah,” I muttered to myself. “It has a whole cast of characters. Are you ready to go?”

  Ned stopped in his tracks. “Go? But I haven’t seen the whole house yet.”

  “Well, you’ve seen the whole downstairs, and the upstairs wouldn’t interest you,” I told him. “I’m modernizing up there, adding a powder room.”

  He grinned a knowing grin. “I’m not giving you enough credit for all the incredible work you’ve done here.” He held out his arm, gesturing for me to come closer. “Alison. It’s beautiful, and I think you have done truly amazing things in this house.”

  Okay, so then I did walk over and let him put his arm around my shoulders. “A girl shouldn’t have to fish so hard for compliments, Ned,” I admonished him.

  “It won’t happen again,” he promised. And then he leaned over and kissed me.

  I’m not going to say it changed my life, or that kissing Ned was an experience so intense that it defied description. That said: The man could kiss. Seriously.

  But then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and broke off the lip-lock in fear that Melissa would catch us and proclaim the sight “gross.” I turned to see her just starting down toward us. She hadn’t witnessed the horrible offense.

  “Hi, Mr. Barnes,” she singsonged, as little kids will do when prompted to be civil no matter what or they’ll never get another piece of chocolate cake. For example.

  “Hi, Melissa,” Ned answered, smiling something other than the plastic, unconvincing smile teachers paste on their faces when seeing a student outside class.

  From the look on her face, I could see it was best to get out of here as quickly as possible.

  “Are we ready to go?” I asked.

  “If you’re sure I can’t see the upstairs . . .” Ned began.

  “Maybe next time,” I said, before I realized the implications of what I’d said.

  I’d been thinking more about getting him the hell out of the house before Maxie cast her technically not-present eyes upon him. I had threatened to “walk off the case” if either Paul or Maxie dared show up when Ned was around, but I didn’t trust Maxie under any circumstances. “When it’s done,” I continued. “I don’t want to show off a
work in progress.”

  Melissa glanced around the living room, with its partially sanded floors, half-detailed walls and access to a lovely hallway with a hole in it, and I could tell she was about to mention that the room we were in fit the “work in progress” category. But she thought better of it. Besides, if I let Ned come upstairs, she’d have to hang around with her teacher for a longer period of time.

  “Okay,” Ned agreed, and gestured Melissa and me toward the front door. I locked up when we got outside, and we all piled into Ned’s Acura. Ned accidentally annoyed Liss by asking about her Halloween costume, which I hadn’t helped assemble yet, so she scowled and was silent all the way to Jeannie and Tony’s house.

  Jeannie clearly approved of Ned with her eyes, while Tony took me to the side. I thought it would be his usual warning about what guys really want (Tony apparently thought that A. I was fifteen years old, and B. he was my father), but he had another purpose in mind.

  “I think I’ve got an idea for the hole in the wall,” he started, absolutely giddy with anticipation. “We do another mold, like the first one, but with predrilled holes for screws to attach it directly to the studs when we install it. Then, once it dries, all you have to do is smooth out the seams and cover the screw holes. Good as new.”

  “It sounds great!” I gushed. “When can we try it?”

  “Give me a couple of days to work out the kinks.”

  I hugged him. “You know I love you,” I told Tony.

  Ned came around the corner at that moment and smiled. “Should I be worried?” he asked.

  “Depends,” I told him. “Can you plaster?”

  “I don’t know,” Ned answered. “I’ve never plasted.” I groaned, and Ned reminded me we had reservations at a restaurant. “We have a lot to talk about,” he added.

  Ned and I drove toward Manahawkin, where the restaurant he had chosen was located (I had not been consulted, which was just as well, since my idea of an elegant night out is to take the paper wrappings all the way off the sub sandwich and use a real plate underneath it). “So,” he began. “George Washington.”

  “Father of our country, first president, first in the hearts of his countrymen, could not tell a lie, defeated Cornwallis and had wooden teeth,” I said. “How am I doing?”

  “Almost as well as my fourth graders,” Ned answered. “But at least you knew about Cornwallis.”

  “Flatterer.”

  “May I go on?” I gestured that he should continue, and mimed locking my mouth shut. That always impressed the guys.

  “In the summer of 1778, Washington went ahead and sent a letter to his wife, Martha, about finding some property in the area. And there were documents drawn up that would indicate he was interested in purchasing the parcel of land that included the lot where your house sits today. Maps from the time, which I looked up at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton, confirm most of this, and the rest I got from a friend at Princeton.”

  I gestured toward my mouth, and Ned waved a hand to indicate it was all right if I spoke. “Cool,” I said, and then mimed a zipper reclosing my mouth. It’s good to have some variety in your comedy arsenal.

  “But here’s where it gets interesting,” Ned said while executing a hairpin right turn that normally would have made me throw up, but which he handled smoothly. The man could drive and he could kiss. Two good things, one better than the other. “I’ve been looking into the purchase, and there’s no existing record of the sale ever going through, except one. In the records dating back to when this was part of Monmouth County, there is a record of the transaction from Mr. Junius R. Smith to General George Washington, a parcel of land that included sixty acres on the shore, two of which are now yours.”

  “So why is that so unusual?” I asked, having forgotten my miming.

  “Because the records from the time indicate a deed was drawn up and signed by all parties involved. Story was, the deed was written on your property and then lost for decades. It was found when they were taking down a barn, and eventually ended up in the house someplace. No one since has been able to find that deed in over a century, dating almost precisely to the beginning of construction on your house.” Ned smoothly pulled into a parking space in front of a restaurant called Barnacles. Oh no. I hadn’t told him I detest all seafood. I felt a cold sweat start behind my neck.

  “Well, that doesn’t matter, does it?” I asked to cover up my anxiety. “It’s not like George is going to drop by and demand his land back, is it?” Of course, given the people currently “living” in my house, anything was possible, but the general had managed to stay away so far, I was pretty sure.

  “You’re not getting the picture,” Ned said as he walked around the car and put his arm around my shoulder, leading me toward my fishy downfall. Most of these places have steak and salads on the menu, don’t they? “The document was signed by all the parties to the transaction.”

  “So?”

  “So, do you have any idea how much an original document hand-signed by George Washington would be worth today?” Ned’s eyes almost glowed. I couldn’t tell if it was the historical find that excited him, or his having an arm around my shoulder.

  “Quite a bit, I’m guessing, but my house wasn’t built until more than a hundred years after the president died,” I said. “What’s this got to do with me?”

  He opened the door of the restaurant for me, and the smell of fish hit me full in the face. This was going to be a tough evening. “Alison. The deed disappeared just as your house was being built. A search made by a local historian sixty years ago turned up nothing, but local rumor has it that the people who built your house inherited the deed and hid it somewhere while the place was being constructed.”

  “You mean there’s an original George Washington in my house?” I asked.

  “I cannot tell a lie,” Ned answered.

  Thirty-one

  The rest of the evening had been a contest between my inability to eat any seafood and the fact that Ned was a truly charming companion who kept giving me electric jolts whenever he looked at me the right way.

  He’d laughed, initially, when I told him I didn’t eat fish, but once he realized I was serious, he immediately offered to go to a different restaurant. I looked at the menu and saw a good number of selections I’d be happy with, so we sat down anyway.

  Ned scolded me for not having mentioned my dislike for seafood (“How can you live near the ocean and not eat fish?”), but we got past our dietary differences quickly and had a lovely evening.

  Except.

  That man couldn’t stop talking about history. Even when we’d get off topic for a moment, his enthusiasm for the American Revolution and George Washington—apparently a hero of Ned’s—was a little disconcerting. By dessert, I felt like I’d actually had dinner with George, and wondered what had happened to that Ned guy who’d picked me up for a date. That deed, supposedly stashed away in my house somewhere, was a real source of fascination for him.

  “Do you think that’s what this is all about?” I asked Paul the next afternoon. “Somebody’s after an old deed signed by George Washington?”

  There wasn’t anything Paul liked better than being consulted about what he had begun referring to as “The Case.” He got to show off his private-eye expertise without fear of argument, since he knew I didn’t have a clue how one went about investigating anything.

  He stroked his chin and paced a little, although his feet weren’t exactly touching the floor. And then he looked at me and said, “It’s certainly possible. I’m not sure how much such a document would be worth, but I’m sure it’s quite valuable.”

  “Ned said similar documents signed by Washington have gone at auction for almost half a million dollars,” I told him.

  “That’s motive enough for murder, I’d think,” he said.

  Maxie, literally poking her head in from the library (I was quite proud that I’d managed to install all those the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in a single day), asked, “Y
ou know why they killed us?” So she did care after all.

  I let Paul tell her about the deed and its possible value, and then I asked Maxie if she’d seen anything like that around the house.

  “I saw some old papers in a closet when I moved in, but that’s all,” she said. “They were all about the furnace and the roof on the porch, things like that. I scanned them and threw the originals away. They had to be thirty years old.”

  “But not two hundred and thirty years old,” Paul said, mostly to himself.

  “No.”

  “So then,” Paul went on, his face brightening, “where would you put a document like that in this house if you wanted to hide it?”

  “Why would they want to hide it?” I asked. “This house was built more than a hundred years ago, but way more than a hundred years after Washington signed the lease. Why not sell it then, or donate it to a museum or something?”

  “Maybe they thought it would continue to appreciate in value if they waited long enough. But that’s speculation. It’s a good question,” Paul admitted.

  “You think any question you can’t answer is a good one,” Maxie retorted. “Like why we’re dead.”

  Paul chose to let this taunt go by; he seemed much less grumpy today than he had been the day before. “Can you find out what the name of the original owner of this house might be, and the exact date of its construction?”

  There was a long pause, and then Maxie said, “You mean me?”

  “Of course, I mean you. You’re in charge of research.”

  She made a noise with her lips that I won’t try to describe. “No way, private dick. This one never got my laptop back from the cops, and that thing she calls a computer takes, like, an hour just to boot up.”

  I pointed a knowing glance in Maxie’s direction. “I’ll tell my mother on you,” I said quietly.

  Maxie actually made a huffing-and-puffing noise, muttered something about not having to put up with this crap, and vanished back into the library, from whence she had come. My mother’s disapproval was becoming a very valuable weapon.