Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts

had driven others away, they were only locking him in.
    He could live with ghosts, Declan thought as he ran his hand over the side of his first completed cabinet. But he wouldn’t rest until he knew them.
    But when he finally called it a day and went to bed, he left the lights on.
    F or the next few days, he was too busy to think about ghosts or sleepwalking, or even those nights out he’d promised himself. The electrician and plumber he’d hired were hard at work with their crews. The house was too full of noise and people for ghosts.
    Frank and Frankie, who were as alike as their names, with beefy shoulders and mud-colored hair, trudged around his gardens, made mouth noises that may have been approval or disgust. Little Frankie seemed to be the brains of the operation, and after an hour’s survey gave Declan a bid for clearing out underbrush and weeds. Though he wondered if they intended to retire on the profit from the job, Declan trusted Remy and hired them.
    They came armed with shovels, pickaxes and mile-long clippers. From the dining room where he worked on cabinets, Declan could hear the lazy rise and fall of their voices, the occasional thump and tumble.
    When he glanced out, he noticed that the tangle was disappearing.
    The plasterer Miss Odette sent him was a rail-thin black man whose name was Tibald, and his great-grandpappy, so Declan was told, once worked as a field hand for the Manets.
    They toured the house with Tibald scribbling in a tiny, dog-eared notepad. When they reached the ballroom, Tibald looked up at the ceiling with a dreamy expression.
    “I always think I’ve put a picture in my head that isn’t there,” he said. “Don’t think I’d ever get used to seeing this kind of work.”
    “You’ve been in here before.”
    “Have. The Rudickers took a bid for me on plasterwork. They’d be the people you bought the Hall from. They had big, fine ideas, the Rudickers. But they never did much about them. Anyhow, they were going to hire someone from Savannah. So I heard.”
    “Why?”
    Tibald just kept smiling at the ceiling. “They had those big, fine ideas, and didn’t see how locals could put a polish on them. Seems to me they figured the more money they spent, the higher the gloss. If you know what I mean.”
    “Yeah, I get it. The way I look at it, you hire local, you’re liable to get people who’re more invested in the job. Can you repair and duplicate this kind of work?”
    “I did the plasterwork in the Harvest House down on the River Road. I got pictures out in my truck, like a reference. You maybe want to take a look at them, maybe go on down to Harvest House and take a study. They give public tours and hold fancy events there now. Do some work in New Orleans, in Baton Rouge and Metairie. Can give you names.”
    “Let’s take a look at the pictures.”
    One look at the before and after shots of various cornices, walls, medallions, showed Declan his man was an artist. For form, he asked for a bid, and after promising to have one written up by the end of the week, Tibald offered his hand.
    “I admit, I’d love to get my hands on that ballroom.” Tibald glanced back over at the house. “You doing any work on the third floor?”
    “Eventually.”
    “Maybe you want to talk to my sister, Lucy. She cleans houses.”
    “I’m a long way from needing a housekeeper.”
    Tibald laughed, took out a pack of Big Red chewing gum. “No, sir, I don’t mean that kind of clean.” He offered Declan a stick before taking one himself, folding it in half, and sliding it into his mouth. “Spirit clean. You got some strong spirits in that place.” He chewed contemplatively. “ ’Specially on the third floor.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Feel it breathing on my neck. Can’t you? When the Rudickers were working on the place, they lost two laborers. Those men just hightailed it out and kept on going. Never went back. Could be one of the reasons they looked farther afield for workers