Karen Pullen is the author of the Stella Lavender Mystery series as well
as numerous award-winning short stories. She also runs a bed & breakfast in
Pittsboro, North Carolina. Learn more about her and her books at her website.
Fern’s Old House
My new book, Cold Heart, finds Stella Lavender, State Bureau of Investigation
Special Agent, continuing to work nights, buying drugs from paranoid drug
dealers. But the physical danger and necessary betrayals are getting to her.
When she sees a chance to work homicide, she’ll always take it. One afternoon
she gives a hitchhiking teenager a ride to her babysitting job and together
they find a gruesome murder scene. Stella joins the investigation, of course.
But that’s as much as I’ll reveal, since this post is meant to have a decorating theme. Let’s put the “mystery” story aside and give
you a peek into a subplot.
Stella’s grandmother Fern needs
help. Fern’s house is falling down.
Small white farmhouses with tin
roofs dot the North Carolina countryside wherever remorseless development
hasn’t yet razed, paved, and commercialized. Functional, never showy, they’re often
dilapidated, with a sagging porch and rusty roof. Such is the house that Stella
was raised in by Fern, a free-spirited artist with male admirers wrapped around
every one of her paint-stained fingers. Fern did her best. But fine art doesn’t
command high prices in central North Carolina, and so Stella grew up in
poverty, and she still can’t afford the expensive repairs Fern’s house needs.
Stella knows Fern’s porch steps are
soft and the balusters rickety. Indoors, she sees the strategically placed
buckets. But it takes a plumber who’s helping with a collapsed sewer line to
insist something needs to be done, pronto.
Somehow (read the book!) Fern comes
up with the money for repairs. Stella and Fern hire a contractor (a high school
crush of Stella’s) who turns the old farmhouse into a beautiful place:
… my car
rolled smoothly down Fern’s long lane, now evenly graded and covered with a
layer of gravel. Someone had whacked down the brambly blackberry bushes but
left the azaleas, blooming profusely in every hue of scarlet, pink, and purple.
The lane curved around a stand of black walnut trees. And there was the new
porch. Gone were the two-by-four barricades blocking off rotted steps, the
buckets to catch leaks. The once-sagging floor was level and painted dark
green. The porch rail and balusters gleamed shiny white, and two fans swirled
lazily from a sky-blue ceiling, pushing a breeze down onto white rocking
chairs. Pots of red geraniums decorated the steps. The scene lacked only a dog
and a pitcher of lemonade, and I had brought the dog.
The lemonade
was inside on a new red countertop. Fern spun with open arms. “Ta da!” She’d
sewn herself a sundress in the same apple green as the kitchen walls. Tied
round her waist was a black and white scarf in a checkerboard pattern matching
the new vinyl floor. But the most amazing sight was the new stove, an ordinary
four-burner gas stove. I felt like kneeling and kissing the little glass
rectangle in the oven door, caressing its knobs, fondling each burner.
“I know, I
know,” Fern said. “You like the stove.”
“I want to
marry that stove.” I gave her a long hug, ignoring the complaints from my
aching rib… “Show me the rest,” I said.
I oohed and
aahed over the smooth, golden boards of the refinished pine floor in the living
room, admired the gas-log fireplace. Fern pointed out the floor vents that
would carry cool air into the room come July. “Of all the changes, that’s my
favorite,” she said. “No more noisy window units!”
The
second-floor bedroom used to be mine. I’d spent my childhood there, dreaming,
dozing, peeling away layers of floral wallpaper. At fourteen, in a decorating
frenzy, I’d painted over the entire mess in bubblegum pink, found a remnant of
black carpet for the floor, and tacked an Indian bedspread to the ceiling to
hide water stains. Pink, black, and batik.
Now, I
couldn’t believe it was the same room. The walls were smooth and pale blue,
with creamy white paint on the trim and beaded-board ceiling. Sunshine poured
through newly glazed windows. Above the bed hung Fern’s painting of my old
toys.
... Money can buy
happiness. The improvements had entirely changed my perspective on Fern’s
living out here by herself. No longer would I worry about Old Ironsides blowing
up, or an AC window unit frying the knob-and-tube wiring, or food poisoning
from egg salad stored in the old refrigerator that shuddered at the end of each
cooling cycle. Fern wouldn’t step through a rotten porch floorboard and snap
her ankle. She would be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. For a few
moments I forgot about my case and savored a rare peace of mind, purchased for
only twenty-eight thousand dollars.
 |
| Rosemary House Bed & Breakfast |
I love the idea of renovation,
modernizing an old home, restoring it to beauty and comfort yet keeping its
original features. My love for old houses was one of the primary reasons I
bought an old house in Pittsboro, NC and turned it into a five-room bed & breakfast. Some of the problems with Fern’s house were exactly those my B&B
house had: blocked sewer line, space heaters and window units; rotten porch
floor; leaks in the roof. Repairing those problems didn’t make it pretty, but
they had to be fixed before we painted and decorated.
As Stella’s creator, I wanted to
give her problems like those we all have–money, family, relationships. So,
writing what I know, I created a falling-down farmhouse and worries about her
grandmother, but then, taking pity, I gave her and Fern the resources to
improve their lives. You’ll have to tell me whether it’s a satisfactory home
reno! How about the color scheme? What’s your favorite part?
Giveaway: A
randomly selected commenter will receive a signed proof of Cold Heart. Be sure to check back next Wednesday night to see if
you won, as I will need contact information.
Cold Heart
Stella
Lavender returns in a darkly delightful page-turner. As an undercover drug
agent, Stella works nights, buying drugs from paranoid drug dealers. But the
physical danger and necessary betrayals are getting to her. When she sees a
chance to work homicide, she'll always take it.
One
afternoon Stella gives a hitchhiking teenager a ride to her babysitting job in
a wealthy neighborhood. Horror awaits them—the father lies dead in a pool of
blood, and his toddler is missing. The puzzle quickly grows when a dizzying
array of suspects provides more questions than answers.
Cold
Heart draws the reader into
Stella's dangerous world as she rummages through every strata of society in her
relentless and sometimes unconventional pursuit of a cold-hearted murderer who
won’t stop at just one victim.
