The Book of Old Houses by Sarah Graves

hair, milky-white skin, and a bluish five o’clock shadow always present on his stubborn jaw.
    â€œYes,” Dave said, again looking gratified.
    Around here, George was your man if you needed a trench dug, a skunk trapped, a chimney repaired, or crows discouraged from having a noisy confab outside your bedroom window at the crack of dawn every morning.
    But nothing about his looks suggested that he might also be interested in antique manuscripts; I glanced at him, surprised.
    â€œThe Greenland map,” Dave explained for the benefit of the rest of us, “purported to demonstrate that the Vikings reached our shores from Europe, decades before Columbus.”
    â€œThey did,” said George, his jaw jutting out stubbornly. “A whole settlement of ’em. In Newfoundland.”
    â€œIndeed,” replied Dave energetically. His enthusiasm was clearly rising now that he’d identified a fellow history buff. “But that doesn’t authenticate the map. In fact . . .”
    While the two argued amiably I stole looks at Sam, still eating his dinner. He wanted a drink, I could tell by his face, which wore the expression of a man crossing a river by creeping along an extremely slippery log. He caught me watching and in reply gave me the first fully adult look of comprehension I’d ever seen on him.
    â€œ. . . so that in the end, the Greenland map did indeed turn out to be ancient parchment,” Dave DiMaio was saying.
    He, too, was watching Sam. “But with a modern surface put on it,” he continued, casually meeting my own gaze.
    â€œSomeone had acquired parchment from Viking times. You can’t buy it on eBay , but it’s not that hard to get hold of if you know how to look for it,” he added. “They took off the old surface. You don’t write directly on parchment, you see. And they put a fake map onto a new surface. Not a particularly difficult trick, either, if you know how.”
    George looked reluctantly convinced; facts trump feelings, he always maintained, which was why he believed that not only my old bathroom but also the whole inside of my house ought to be torn out and Sheetrocked, and all the windows replaced. But it made him a fine handyman, that lack of sentimentality.
    Meanwhile my husband, Wade Sorenson, put his fork down, murmuring thanks to Bella for filling his coffee cup. He was a tall, solidly built man with blue eyes in a square-jawed face, brush-cut blond hair, and the kind of easy smile that when I first saw it, I thought I couldn’t possibly be so lucky.
    But I had been. We’d been married for a couple of years, now.
    â€œHow’d you know Horace Robotham didn’t have Jake’s old book anymore?” Wade asked.
    A shadow crossed Dave’s face. “Well, it’s like this. When I got home last night, there was a call on my machine. I’d been out of touch for a couple of weeks after the summer term,” he added with another glance at Sam, whose answering look was unreadable.
    Bella filled the rest of the cups and brought out the cobbler. She was wearing a flowered housedress, a frilly apron, and an enormous amount of natural dignity, her usual ensemble when we had guests.
    â€œLovely,” I whispered to her, and her lips twitched in a tiny smile of domestic pride. But the smile vanished as her gaze fell on my father, who studied his hands.
    â€œThe call was from Horace’s longtime partner, Lang Cabell,” Dave DiMaio explained. “Lang’s in Minnesota now, caring for some elderly aunts of his. He and Horace had been extremely close to them for years—it’s all the family either of them had.”
    â€œSo Lang Cabell told you the book had been stolen?” Ellie asked.
    Sam excused himself and took his plate to the kitchen, where I heard him bantering with Bella. But I hadn’t missed his wordless glance at DiMaio as he went.
    Later,
it said, and DiMaio had nodded in reply. I