Read The House on Tradd Street for Free Online Page A

morning?”
    “Sorry. I thought you’d be up by now.”
    “No, you didn’t. I’m going to hang up now and you can call me around noon.”
    “Wait! Okay, I’m sorry. But this is really important.”
    There was another pause and I pictured Sophie rolling her eyes. “All right. Tell me what this is about.”
    “It seems I’ve inherited a house.”
    “Okay,” she said slowly. “And this warrants you calling me at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning because . . . ?”
    “Well, it’s an old house. South of Broad.”
    I knew I had her attention now. I could hear the rustling of the bedsheets as she sat up.
    “What’s the address?”
    “Fifty-five Tradd.”
    “The Vanderhorst house?” She was nearly screeching in my ear. “You’ve inherited the Vanderhorst house?”
    “Well, yes. But I wouldn’t get so excited about it. If you could see the condition of it inside—”
    “I’ll meet you at the front gate at eight o’clock.”
    I smiled as I heard the click on the other end and hung up the phone. Her excitement had me a bit worried, but I was also relieved. I would be getting a professional and unbiased opinion on the merits of the house so I could make a sound choice in deciding whether to accept it.
     
 
“No matter what this house looks like on the inside, even if the roof’s caving in, you’ve got to keep it.”
    So much for a professional, unbiased opinion. Sophie stood next to me on the sidewalk with her hands on her hips, staring at my albatross. I’d been waiting in my car with the radio turned up until she’d appeared, eleven minutes late.
    I eyed her now. She wore brown suede clogs, a long, gauzelike skirt with embroidered iguanas racing along the hem, and a tie-dyed T-shirt tucked into the elastic waist of the skirt. Her long, curly black hair was pulled into a straggly bun at the back of her head and held in place by what looked like two chopsticks—complete with the name of the Chinese restaurant they had come from.
    “Your outfit alone is a strong case against tenure, you know.”
    She ignored me. “This house appears in just about every textbook on architecture that I’ve ever read. I mean, it’s the quintessential classic Charleston single house. Look at that fan window—still has all the original glass. See how the front door is really on the side of the house? It’s to catch the river breezes in the summer. And look at the gorgeous piazza—and with Tower-of-the-Wind pediments, no less. It’s perfect.”
    Annoyed, I said, “I do know about old houses, Sophie. I sell them, remember?”
    “You know enough bluster to sell them, but you don’t actually know anything about them.” She pushed on the gate to enter the garden, and it swung open without resistance. I looked at it in surprise and was about to test the hinges when Sophie said, “I thought you said the house was empty.”
    “It’s supposed to be.” I followed her gaze to the front window in the room with the growth chart on the wall and felt the skittering of gooseflesh on the back of my neck and caught the unmistakable scent of roses. “Why?”
    “I thought I saw a curtain move.”
    “Probably just the wind blowing through one of the cracks in the walls.”
    She frowned at me, then turned back to the house. “I know about ten people who would give their left eyeballs to own this place.”
    “Great. Keep that list handy.”
    Ignoring me, she climbed the steps to the piazza and I followed her. She studied the leaded-glass window in the door and sidelights, her hands brushing against the window with reverence. “This is probably a Tiffany—not original to the house, of course, but still quite valuable. Do you know how rare it is to find one of his windows stilt intact in the house it was designed for? Truly amazing, especially considering how long it’s been here.”
    I looked at the windows again, trying to see them with her eyes. But where she saw a work of art and painstaking skill, I saw only an old