Free The House at Royal Oak by Carol Eron Rizzoli

until I finished.
    â€œCeilings or floors. Otherwise we can’t get in to run the pipes. Some might run the pipes right up the inside walls, but I won’t do that. You wouldn’t like it either.”
    â€œHow much?”
    â€œTen thousand, maybe. Can’t really tell until we get into it.”
    Like the foundation contractor, he worked on “time and materials,” meaning no contract, no set price. If you don’t like the local system, you can bring in your own workers from the Western Shore, put them up at a motel, as some people did. Even if you can afford a work crew’s living expenses, other come-heres cautioned, outsiders can have a slow time getting their construction permits approved. Worse yet, you won’t have anyone to call in an emergency.
    Territoriality is the issue. If they haven’t worked at your place, forget calling them in an emergency. They take care of their own.
    I called up the other plumber for a comparative bid. The following week he arrived, spent five minutes looking around and said maybe he could start before the end of the year but would charge $20,000.
    I called George back to tell him the job was his, but couldn’t reach him. Two calls a week for four weeks. The office staff always promised to give him my message. Something was fishy.
    With the foundation work finished and the new bathrooms framed up, time would soon be wasting. Slowly it dawned on me that the two plumbers talked over breakfast at the café and were not pleased I had contacted both of them, taking up their time.
    I decided to try a ploy that sometimes worked at my day job. Call very early, before the office staff arrives, and you might find the head of the company there working alone, even answering the phone.
    George probably got up around five-thirty, got to the Bull Crap by six, to the office by six-thirty. I set my alarm for six.
    Sitting down at the kitchen table with coffee, paper, and pencil, I jotted notes. I knew what to say, it was how to say it. At six-thirty-five, I dialed.
    On the first ring, he answered. There was no mistaking his voice.
    â€œGeorge?”
    â€œYes.” It was a wary yes.
    I started to identify myself but he remembered. The bed-and-breakfast.
    â€œWe would like you to do the work if you are still willing.”
    Silence.
    â€œWe would like you to do the work because of your outstanding reputation.”
    More silence.
    â€œAnd of course we will follow your advice,” I added in a rush. “Would you prefer ceilings or floors removed?”
    â€œCeilings.”
    I thanked him and offered to send a deposit. Not necessary, he said. I assured him we would take the ceilings down right away, no problem. Hugo, I didn’t say, had never taken down a ceiling in his life, but maybe he could learn fast.
    â€œOne more thing.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œYou need a new well, more capacity. Might as well get a new hot water heater while you’re at it. Don’t want guests at that B&B of yours running out of hot water. Call me when the well’s in and we’ll start.”
    Hugo came into the kitchen as I was hanging up and headed for the coffeepot. I waited until he sat down at the table.
    â€œSo?”
    â€œGreat news. George will do the work. All you have to do is take down the front and back hall ceilings and the kitchen ceiling first, and we need a new well.”
    â€œGreat,” he said, matching my upbeat denial of the bad news.
    It was a bad news time. A few days later Hugo and Rick measured out the old shed. The new well required a larger well tank, and with the larger hot water heater it would all be impossibly tight in the small space. Poking around, theyalso discovered that powder post beetles (who ever heard of them?) had finished off the lower third of the vertical supports for the structure. It was more or less resting on nothing.
    When George dropped by, he pointed out that the oil furnace was likely to quit