Chapter 18

"So, that's the general idea," Randy summed up to Nicole over lunch a couple of hours later. "I don't have to do it and we still could ask Ruth to go. But Dad wants to keep Mom from getting too involved, at least just yet, and he doesn't think that Ruth would keep what she learned from Mom. Besides, it'll give me a good chance to look at graders, talk to the reps and see what's happening."

"As long as you're planning on going pretty soon, it seems like a reasonable idea," Nicole said. "There's something fishy going on there, and you might pick up a lead or two. My due date isn't for a month yet, so there's not a big risk. Everybody tells me that first babies tend to come a little late, anyway."

"Yeah, but you know I don't like to leave you behind, and that's especially true this time," Randy told her. "I'm guessing I'd be gone maybe four days, and part of that will be to look at graders. Really, that shouldn't take more than a day, but I'll lose parts of a couple of days in the air. The show is this coming weekend, so if I'm going to do it I'm going to have to make up my mind pretty quick."

"Oh, why don't you just go ahead and do it? I know you and your father are worried about this, and from the way Jared acted when they were here in January I think there might be some reason for it. I can get along without you for four days now if I have to, but I wouldn't want to try it a month from now."

"All right," he sighed. "I'll figure on getting out of here Thursday if I can get on a plane. That'll give me Thursday afternoon and Friday to poke around Rachel and Joel, Saturday to hit the show and Sunday to fly back. I might be able to cut a day out of it if I had to, depending on how things go with Rachel and Joel."

"Take your time," she counseled. "You might learn something. I don't know if you'll find out what you're hoping to find out, but... " she broke off as the phone rang. Since she was sitting next to the phone, she picked it up. "Clark's," she said, and listened for a moment. "It's for you," she said.

Randy got up and walked over to the phone. The call proved to be from Binky, who lived across Hannegan's Cove from them. "Randy, are you busy?" she asked. "I tried to call you at your office but they said you were home for lunch. I might have a job for you."

"Not terribly busy," he told her, "and I'm always ready to talk about a job."

"Great, if it's no trouble we can be over there in ten minutes. The people I have here want to see your house, anyway."

Randy glanced around; the house seemed in its normal neat condition. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and asked Nicole if they would be ready for visitors in ten minutes, and she indicated there would be no problem. He told Binky to bring the people over, and Nicole went into a fury of picking up things that Randy didn't necessarily see as being a mess.

Sure enough, in ten minutes Binky and the visitors were at his door. Binky was a middle-aged Vietnamese woman who had barely escaped a communist Vietnam thirty years before on a leaky fishing boat; only she and one other person had survived the journey. After marrying Steve, she'd gotten a job as a receptionist in a real estate agency; she now owned the agency, and had been considered to hold the hot hand in real estate for years.

She brought with her a couple who Randy estimated to be in their fifties or early sixties, showing hair with flecks of gray; it only took Randy one look to guess that they had money. Binky introduced them as David and Stacy Newton. As first-time visitors to Randy and Nicole's house often did, Stacy spoke up and said, "This is quite a house."

"It's a little overstated in my opinion," Randy said. "But among other things we wanted something that's a sample of the work Clark Construction can do. It's a little over four years old now, and we're starting to get used to it."

"I'll be honest," David said. "Binky tells us that Clark Construction is the best construction company in the area and the most likely to be able to give us what we're looking for, which is a little on the off-the-wall side, I have to admit."

"We don't mind doing something different once in a while," Randy said. "It keeps life interesting. I suppose this house is a little off the wall, but we like it."

"Just from a quick look, it looks like great workmanship, and that's one of the things we're looking for," Dave told him. "What we have in mind is a little more extreme, so we're really concerned that a contractor is going to balk at it and want to do something a little more conventional."

"Well, we're open to unconventional, within the restrictions that it has to meet code in every respect," Randy said. "But really, that's detail stuff. I mean, if you want to build a tree house, that's fine with me, but I'd want to make sure that the electrical service, for example, is up to what a building inspector would insist on. There are places around that don't have local building codes, but we feel in the long run building to BOCA code is the best way to avoid problems. We are a little conservative that way, and it's with good reason."

"Yes, and I can understand your position," Dave agreed. "It's the design of the house that's a little different and the location that's a little different, too. The paperwork hasn't been signed yet, but we've been able to purchase a small island in Chandler Lake, to the west of here. Are you familiar with it?"

"A little," Randy said, realizing that these were the people who had agreed to fork over two and a half million for that little patch of rock. He figured that it might not be the worst idea in the world to keep his mouth shut about his involvement with the project from the Clark Plywood side. "I suppose it would be possible to build a pretty interesting house there, but it strikes me that there would be some complex problems in doing it."

"We're aware that there are going to be problems," Dave replied. "But a problem can be an opportunity, as well, especially an opportunity to do something different. Stacy and I have talked about this house for over thirty years, and now that we're getting close to retiring we'd like to see how it turns out and what it would be like to live there. We're aware that what we have in mind is likely to be expensive, but we have the money and are able to do it."

"You're getting me more curious about what you're planning," Randy said.

"Well, to give you a little background," Stacy spoke up, "both Dave and I have wanted to live on a small island away from everything ever since we were in college. We camped on an island much like the one in Chandler Lake for weeks one summer back when we were undergrads, and it may have been one of the most memorable experiences of our lives. Then, the following summer we visited Dave's grandfather in England. He used to be a miller, and when he'd been younger he worked for a while in the last operational wind-powered grist mill in the country. I mean, not a restoration or anything, an honest-to-Pete working windmill. We went through the place and got very interested in wind power."

"That might not be the dumbest idea I ever heard," Randy replied, getting ahead of them a little. "On that island, you're going to be way off the grid, and it would cost a ton to get a line run in there. A fairly big wind generator and being a little conservative with power use would make a lot of sense and save a lot of money."

"We think so," Dave nodded. "I doubt you're old enough to remember the energy crisis in the seventies, but at the time we got very interested in alternative power, and we've stayed interested. We also have been interested for a long time in other green-friendly ways to have a house at an isolated location, and we've put a lot of work into our plans. We've built models, we've built a small scale operating prototype of the mechanical side, and have the key mechanical pieces for the house already under construction. We've just been looking for a small island to put it on."

"And now we have it, or at least we will when we have the paperwork signed," Stacy smiled, as she opened a briefcase and handed Randy a slim folder. "Here's some renderings of the house," she told him. "The full prints are completed, and they're out in the car. It's not a huge house, but you'll see that it has some unique features."

Randy glanced at the folder; it had "Robertson, Newton and Gilhouse, Civil Engineers and Architects" on the cover. "You're the Newton in this, right?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, "although I haven't done much of the work on this on the firm's time. Go ahead, take a look."

Randy opened the folder, and the first rendering cause his jaw to drop. The lowest part of the house was pretty conventional, even simple, a rectangular building perhaps fifty feet long by half that wide, with a single-peak roof, but that was where conventionality ended. Jutting up out of the center of the building was a tall conical tower with a widow's walk around the bottom, but on top... "You're asking me to build you a Dutch windmill?" he asked in disbelief when he could finally manage to say something.

"Not so much Dutch as English," Dave explained. "There are subtle differences but you have to be an expert to see them. Believe me, we've looked at a lot of them in both England and Holland and tried to use the best ideas from both. English windmills, at least the later ones, are a little more automated than the Dutch ones, although not what we think of as automated today."

"Yeah, but... " Randy shook his head, reaching for words. "When we were talking about wind generators, I thought we were talking about modern ones. You know, something up on top of a pole."

"Nope," Dave grinned. "First off, you have to understand that we like traditional windmills. That's reason enough to want to do something like this. We've talked to people who grew up living in drainage mills in Holland, and they say it's quite a life. Most of them are pretty old now; they don't do it that way anymore. We've even stayed in one a few nights, and it was intensely interesting. In fact, that was when we decided to build one for ourselves, years ago. Moreover, we think there are some good reasons to try to update the old technology. Modern wind generators work best at a higher average wind speed than we can anticipate around here. The old mills work better at lower wind speeds, so we think there are some advantages there, along with the romantic aspects."