Squatter's Rights Read online

  “This is outrageous,” Grace said as she scanned the document.

  “What’s outrageous is the condition of your property. You put a tenant…”

  “He isn’t a tenant!”

  “Lots of folks have seen him here, including me. You put a tenant and first responders at risk and now you’ll have to deal with the consequences of your actions.”

  Banks started in on another form, checking box after box. He signed it with a flourish and handed it to her. “This one you’ll need to take to the town office for your construction permits.”

  “Wait! If you won’t let me on the property, how can I make repairs?”

  Banks smiled for the first time.

  Grace didn't have a lot of patience on a good day and she hadn’t had a good day in a long time. Pulling a notebook and pen out of her tote bag, she said, “Your name is Aidan Banks, right?”

  “It is.”

  “Is your supervisor here?”

  “My commanding officer is not, no.”

  “Your supervisor’s name is?”

  The anger rolling off Banks was almost palpable. “Sorry if I offended you, ma’am. But I don’t like walking into deathtraps because a property owner was too cheap or lazy to prevent a dangerous situation from developing.”

  He had a point and Grace told him so, politely. “You’ll need to call Cyrus Mosley. You seem to know him. He’s responsible for this property, so you’ll need to question him about the condition. He was the seller’s agent, but I retained him to manage the property and I haven’t released him from his contract yet. Here's his contact information.” She fished Mosley’s card out of her shoulder bag and gave it to the momentarily silent Banks.

  Turning her attention to Cutter, she said. “Who is the injured man?”

  “Oh, please,” Banks muttered as he began punching numbers into his phone.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Reagan, Grace.” Cutter took her arm and guided her down the steps and away from Banks. “His name is Winston Delaney.”

  “Delaney? So he was related to…” Grace let the question trail off as the information sunk in.

  “Emma Delaney was his grandmother,” Bryce said. “Winnie’s your cousin.”

  May 22, 1952

  Dearest Mother,

  You’ll note this letter isn’t addressed to Papa. It’s going to be full of girl talk and you know how he hates it, so read him the parts you think he can take and tell him the rest concerns ‘womanly troubles’. When you go out to the mountain to see Nanny, let her read this while Papa is out checking the farm. I don’t want to write everything twice.

  Mother, I know our call last night was full of amazing stories and you surely thought after talking to us that Ford and I are the happiest couple in the world, and at times we are happy, but I’m beginning to see things that bother me and I need your perspective and Nanny’s too.

  First, forget everything Ford told you about our honeymoon trip. It was a disaster. We drove for four days, and the trip was grueling. The Eastern Shore of Maryland may as well be at the end of the earth. Asheville certainly feels that far away from me now. As soon as the mountains fell behind us, I began to have a bad feeling and by the time we drove into the congestion of Washington, I wanted to run home so badly; it was hard not to cry.

  I kept reminding myself I was a married woman and home was ahead of me. I thought we were staying in Washington a few days. I wanted to see the nation’s capital, for goodness sakes! Ford allowed me a whole 12 hours. I had exactly one dinner and a cup of coffee before he had the car packed and us back on the road again.

  Before you ask, let me say up front that having Clancy with us didn’t cause Ford’s bad temper. My sweet boy was the best behaved dog you’ve ever seen, and since his Mama knows the power of a well-placed tip, we had no problems traveling with him. Thank goodness he’s only six months old. A full-grown Great Dane could have been hard to handle, especially with Ford being so difficult.

  So, it wasn’t Clancy, and it wasn’t the drive. Not entirely, anyway. Ford was irritable almost from the moment we left Asheville. He was rude to hotel managers and valets throughout the trip. I couldn’t believe someone with his breeding would treat staff in such a manner.

  Now, you know he’s high strung, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Ever since his father wired the money for our wedding present and didn’t call or even write when he got the news his only child had gotten married, Ford has been moody and became more so as we got closer to Mallard Bay.

  Of course, it was cold not to acknowledge our wedding, but Mr. Delaney has certainly been generous in more ways than one. Twenty-thousand dollars and a new job as first vice-president of Mallard Bay Bank and Trust are substantial wedding gifts. But Ford says he earned this job at his father’s bank by graduating cum laude from Duke and getting his first job at Sunset Bank in Asheville without any help from Mr. Delaney. He also insists the money his father sent wasn’t a wedding present but the last of a trust his grandparents left for him in his father’s safe-keeping. He says he’s next in line to inherit Delaney House, so even the keys to this magnificent place didn’t pacify him. Ford says we don’t have the deed to the property, so the house doesn’t count as a wedding present, either.

  That’s all my husband seems to do. Count. Mostly flaws in other people, and it’s growing tiresome. I’m hoping this mood is temporary and will pass as our lives settle down. He may still be upset by his father’s recent marriage to a (much) younger woman and their globetrotting year-long honeymoon.

  Had to take a break yesterday and get dinner ready. I’m writing fast to get this in the mail before Ford comes home today. If he ever got hold of this letter and saw what I wrote, we’d have the first divorce in the Anders family. (Not really, Mother. Don’t faint.)

  Anyway, Ford’s temper. The drive from Washington to the ferry dock outside of Annapolis should have been enjoyable, but Ford just got more and more nervous. The snappishness I attributed to post wedding jitters at the beginning of the trip got much worse. The charming and eloquent man I married turned short-tempered and critical. You can stop smiling! I know you think me guilty of the same attributes.

  Really, it was amazing he didn’t end up in the Chesapeake Bay. The ferry crew would have had numerous witnesses to testify that my husband needed drowning. He was insufferable and didn’t seem to care who witnessed his lack of self-control.

  Ford’s bad temper and my (admittedly limited) forbearance reached their respective breaking points at the end of our journey when we arrived and found workmen crawling all over the roof of Delaney House. (Yes, they really do call it that. And yes, it is enormous. Not Biltmore House enormous, but very grand.) Anyway, Ford had been building up our arrival as if footmen and servants would line up to greet us. When all we got was a lot of laborers still working on the house, Ford yelled a word he had no reason to believe I’d ever heard. The work on the house was supposed to be finished a week before we arrived. You’d have assumed the world was ending the way Ford carried on. He startled Clancy so badly, the poor dog set to barking. For an instant, I entertained the idea of siccing him on Ford but dismissed the thought for the useless notion it was. A bite of Ford right then might have poisoned my puppy.

  Now do you see why I need to talk and Ford can’t overhear? How do I live with a man in turmoil? What do I say to him when he behaves badly? Taking a hard line with him isn’t working well. Mother, if you’re laughing at me, stop it. This isn’t funny. Yes, I know I can be a little irritable myself at times, but this is different. Dealing with Ford’s temper is exhausting! We’re newlyweds! We’re supposed to be happy and we are a lot of the time. I just never know when he’s going to erupt.

  I’ll write again soon. Call me and tell me what you think I should do. Make sure you call while Ford’s at work so we can talk.

  Start working on Papa to bring both of you to see my grand new house! This place is a palace. You have to come soon. Pictures won’t do it justice. Here’s a tease… gu
ess what hangs over the mantel in the front parlor? Here’s a hint: Museums and famous water lilies.

  Love,

  Emma

  Chapter Three

  Mosley gave Grace a wide smile of unnaturally white dentures. “Excellent! Bryce has filled you in and you’ve made all the connections. That makes things easier.”

  Grace didn’t know if he was delusional or just thought she was.

  As if on cue, the old lawyer had returned to the property minutes after Corporal Banks and the emergency workers left. Seeing Grace’s face when Mosley’s gold Lexus pulled up in front of the house, Bryce Cutter left quickly, but not before promising to call Grace about the job. “We can take care of everything,” he’d assured her.

  Grace doubted that, but agreed to meet Bryce and his partner the next day. Now she regarded the hopeful expression on Mosley’s face and shook her head. It wasn’t her - everyone in this place was crazy.

  She said, “Cutter made excuses for you and told me the guy under the tub was Winston Delaney. He also told me Delaney is my cousin. That’s all I know.” Mosley’s smile faded a bit. “I want some answers,” she went on. “I bought a house you represented to be in decent condition. I bought a vacant house, paid you to oversee the property and arrived to find myself in a police investigation.” Mosley’s smile disappeared completely when she added, “I hope you have insurance to cover the damage.”

  “Hard to say what’s ‘damage’," he made exaggerated air quotes with arthritic fingers. “You bought the property in As-Is condition.”

  “I think it’s very easy to say what the damage consists of. I have photos of the house, remember? No tub in the parlor. Intact ceiling.” She took a breath before adding, “No tenant.”

  Mosley closed his rheumy eyes for a moment before saying, “I’ll pay for the cleanup from the, ah, accident.”

  “Yes, you will. And all the repairs to the parlor and the rooms above it.”

  He threw his hands up. “Done! Now, if we could get past this morning, would you like to see the rest of the place?”

  Grace kept her poker face, but her stomach relaxed a bit. “I would, but that obnoxious police officer -”

  “Aidan Banks was here?”

  “So you know him. He seemed fond of you, too.”

  Mosley made a ‘no matter’ wave of his hands. “No, no. We don’t have a problem. It just isn’t a stretch to guess who you talked to. We only have one officer and a chief. Don’t mind Aidan. Come on. We’ll stay out of the front parlor and it’ll be fine.”

  Grace didn’t trust Mosley’s assessment of anything, but curiosity got the better of her and she followed him up the front steps.

  “We’ll start over. Isn’t this wonderful?” Mosley clapped his hands as they crossed the threshold and walked into the large entry hall.

  Grace had seen the cantilevered staircase and stained-glass turret windows earlier, but now she studied them with growing excitement. She was captivated by the staircase which wound upward along the walls, seemingly without support. The center of the hall was open all the way to a domed ceiling at least thirty feet above. When she finally turned her attention to Mosley, she saw he was studying her as intently as she had absorbed the room’s details. The back of her neck prickled. She needed to watch herself.

  She said, “As Mrs. Delaney’s personal representative, this property became your responsibility upon her incapacitation, correct?”

  This clearly wasn’t the reaction Mosley had expected, but he recovered quickly. “Correct.”

  “And, I believe I’m right in saying you had power of attorney to act for her in the sale of the house, which included the negotiation of the contract. My offer to purchase the house specified the property would be in your care until I took possession, a task for which I paid a premium.”

  “Pardon?” The pink polo shirt and lime green golf pants screamed ‘retired’, but Cyrus Mosley was a warrior and today, decrepitude was his weapon. “Haven’t we been over this?” he asked, this time tilting his left ear in her direction.

  Grace wanted to remind him he’d already pulled this trick once, but she only rolled her eyes and raised her voice. “How long did you let Winston Delaney stay here?”

  “Oh. I thought we could talk about that later.”

  So he had allowed Delaney to stay in her house. Grace felt her blood pressure rise. “How long?” she demanded.

  Mosley rubbed both ears before answering. “It’s a complicated story. Winston was living here last spring. He didn’t take the eviction notice especially well.” Mosley gestured toward the back of the house. “In the kitchen, you’ll find some artwork that expresses his displeasure. I’m afraid your purchase of the house shocked most of the family, but Winston’s reaction was the worst. Impossible to predict or prevent that kind of behavior, you know.”

  “Why would he care?” Grace asked. She’d assumed if any of the family had wanted the house, they’d had an opportunity to buy it.

  Mosley took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his forehead. It occurred to her he could fall out in the hot, smelly house. Just as she started to suggest they go outside, he straightened up and adjusted the waistband of his slacks under his slight paunch while rocking back on the heels of his loafers. She decided this was his go-to move when there was no tie to straighten or suit coat to button up: a symbolic girding of the loins.

  “I can assure you, my dear, everything was handled properly,” he said in a prim tone.

  Odd answer. Grace folded her arms and waited.

  “Let’s see the rest of the house.”

  “It can wait,” she said. “The damage in there,” she gestured to the parlor behind them. “Are you telling me Winston Delaney was so angry he broke in, vandalized the place and flooded the upstairs until the floor was weak enough to collapse?”

  “Let’s just say he was extremely careless where a leak in the master bathroom was concerned. Winston has certain proprietary feelings about the house and when he learned it had been sold, he became even more difficult.”

  “More difficult than what? And what do you mean by proprietary feelings?”

  Mosley, it seemed, had run out of delaying tactics. He mopped his face again before tucking the handkerchief away and looking her in the eyes. “Your cousin Winston insists his grandmother, your grandmother, gave the house to him.”

  Chapter Four

  Buy the Delaney family home, restore it to its former glory and sell it in a record-breaking deal for Reagan Realty and Renovations, Inc. It had seemed possible when her mother was alive. Even as Julia Reagan lay tethered to life by an oxygen line and feeding tubes, she’d talked about restoring Delaney House. Restoring and selling it. “This time when I give it up, it will be on my terms,” she’d said.

  Grace had made sure her mother was able to hold the deed in her hands before she died, and now she was paying the price for that indulgence. “Does Winston have any proof his grandmother gave him the house?” she asked Mosley.

  “Not a bit and I can assure you it never happened. Emma wanted the house sold and out of the family’s hands. ‘Off their backs’’ was the way she put it. The proceeds from the sale were to be divided between her children, your mother and her brother. Of course, your poor mother…” Mosley’s voice wavered. “Julia’s death coming so terribly soon after Emma’s meant Julia’s portion went to you.”

  “I didn’t know anything about Emma Delaney’s will or her promises when I made the purchase offer,” Grace said and regretted the words immediately. She didn’t owe Cyrus Mosley, or anyone else, an explanation of her actions.

  “O’Hara Properties’ bid was the only one I received on the house,” Mosley said as if that answered some question. “Stark, your uncle? Well, you wouldn’t remember him, would you? Anyway, your mother’s brother, Stark, said the offer was too low and didn’t want to accept it. But Emma insisted on accepting the highest bid, the only bid as it turned out. She was still lucid then and quite capable of ordering all
of us around.” A brief smile softened his face and his words. “Receiving half of a below-market selling price upset Stark, but finding out you would end up with the house and would get it for a fraction of its worth was a real blow to him. He feels it’s unfair, to say the least.”

  Grace nodded to the destruction in the parlor and said, “‘Below market’ is debatable, Mr. Mosley.”

  She had done her homework before making her offer. Mallard Bay was a hard real estate market to quantify. On the Chesapeake Bay side of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, it sat to the north of wealthy Talbot County and south of Kent Island and the commuter communities of Annapolis. Tourism and the vacation home market had given the small village a new lease on life, but a derelict property the size of a small hotel was a hard sell in any economy.

  “Value, as well as beauty, is always in the eye of the beholder,” Mosley said, but he sounded doubtful. Beauty was in short supply at Delaney House.

  Grace decided not to press the point. “So,” she said, “Stark Delaney is mad because I paid too little for the house and his son is mad because he thinks he’s the rightful owner. And you think the son, this Winston, vandalized the house. Did you call the police?”

  “I told you, I saw the damage to the front parlor for the first time with you, today. Winston promised he’d repaired the leak. I suppose you could call the paint in the kitchen vandalism, but really, when you take the condition of the house into consideration, graffiti is the least of your worries. I did send you photos.”

  “The photos on your firm’s website showed a run-down house. The ones you emailed to me showed a dirty run-down house. In the pictures I saw, the parlor was intact and without a tub.”

  “As it was when I was here two days ago.” The waistband tugging resumed and Mosley looked like he was trying to remember which ear he was playing deaf with. Finally, he said, “You need to understand the sequence of events. I never expected Emma to sell the house, let alone do it so quickly. Now that I think back, it’s clear to me she wanted to dispose of the property before she died. But I couldn’t see that at the time. She was my… my friend.”