CHAPTER SIX: A HOUSE FULL OF SMALL THINGS
Megan worked from home as a product photographer, which meant she knew how readily a polished image could hide a cheap construction.
She brought Helen into her studio only after the older woman handed over the spare spade.
The room was full of lights, paper backdrops, and samples waiting to be photographed.
Megan placed the workshop letter beneath a lamp and took clear photographs of every page.
She was not trying to produce evidence for a courtroom.
She wanted to understand what the conservators had actually asked Helen to do.
The invitation described a free public demonstration at five, followed by a private buyers’ preview at six.
It also listed a restoration contact named Sabine Ortiz.
Megan phoned the number printed in the letter.
Sabine answered at a noisy exhibition hall.
“I’ve been trying to reach Mrs. Brooks,” she said.
“Is she with you?”
Megan put the call on speaker.
“I’m here,” Helen said.
Sabine breathed out audibly.
“Please tell me you haven’t surrendered anything to Mr. Sloan.”
“We haven’t dug up the tin,” Megan answered.
“Good,” Sabine said.
“Our office had no idea he was approaching you directly.”
The conservator explained that her team had been hired to inspect the touring theater, not to endorse its advertised history.
Everett had borrowed the workshop name in conversations with former company members as though the conservators were sponsoring his sale.
Sabine had sent the letter because she wanted to see whether Helen would help compare surviving components.
“I didn’t ask you to excavate your property,
” she told Megan.
“I asked Mrs. Brooks whether she remembered the timing assembly.”
“Why contact her so suddenly?” Megan asked.
“Because the organizers moved the preview forward by a month.”
The event sponsor wanted the miniature to open a new entertainment collection by the weekend.
Sabine had already found several discrepancies between the painted scenery and surviving publicity photographs.
The exhibition organizers resisted delaying the sale.
“The owner says our job is to clean it,” Sabine said.
“Not to debate who built it.”
Helen leaned toward the phone.
“Is the lighthouse red?”
“Very red.”
“There should be a thin blue stripe beneath the roof.”
“There isn’t.”
“Then he replaced the upper panel.”
“That’s what I suspect,” Sabine said.
“But the owner insists nothing visible has been altered.”
Megan looked at Helen.
For the first time all day, she saw the older woman’s skill rather than her panic.
“Can we meet you before the preview?” Megan asked.
“Come through the loading entrance at four thirty,” Sabine replied.
“I’ll arrange a quiet room, and you can inspect the piece without Everett standing over us.”
After the call, Helen crossed to Megan’s shelf of photography props.
A tiny wooden chair caught her attention.
“You made this?” Helen asked.
“It’s a sample from a client.”
Helen lifted it, checked the joints, and smiled.
“Whoever made it knew that a small object must still behave like a real one.”
“What does that mean?”
“A doll’s chair can look right but fall over because the back is too heavy.”
She balanced it on a finger.
“A stage model has to survive movement, not just a photograph.”
Megan took the chair and tried the same trick.
It balanced exactly where Helen said it would.
“Show me the lighthouse,” Megan said.
Helen found a piece of cardboard and sketched a narrow tower with a rotating lantern chamber.
Her hands moved quickly now.
She marked a small notch beneath the roof.
“That let the light swing toward the audience at precisely the moment the painted boats returned.”
“Like a real lighthouse?”
“Only if you ignored the fact that the harbor was inside a suitcase.”
Megan laughed, and Helen unexpectedly laughed with her.
The moment ended when a truck stopped outside.
A man wearing a green work vest approached the damaged maple.
“Rowan Pike,” he said when Megan opened the door.
His face darkened as he examined the axe cuts.
“Who did this?”
Helen stepped forward.
“I did.”
Rowan looked at her, then at the tree.
“You need to understand that this isn’t a fence post,” he said.
“A maple this size can survive a lot, but repeated cuts open a route for decay.”
He inspected the trunk and the upper branches without digging into the root area.
Megan asked whether the tree was in immediate danger.
“Not from falling today,” he said.
“But it needs proper wound assessment and long-term care.”
He advised them not to cut into the roots or disturb soil close to the trunk.
Helen’s face fell.
“There may be a tin under there.”
“Then it stays there until a responsible plan is made,” Rowan replied.
He looked toward the street.
“And if anyone tells you they can remove this maple cheaply this afternoon, ask why they’re so eager.”
Megan told him about Everett’s call.
Rowan pulled a folded work order from his pocket.
“He represented himself as the person arranging access,” he said.
“We never confirmed that he owned the property.”
“Can you cancel it?”
“Already done.”
Before leaving, Rowan placed a temporary protective wrap over the most exposed part of the trunk and wrote down a follow-up care plan.
Helen offered to pay for the work.
Megan accepted the offer, but she did not forgive the attack.
“Money repairs some things,” she said.
“Not all of them.”
Helen nodded.
“I know.”
