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route, and Julie had screeched for him to stop when she saw the for-sale sign swinging in the breeze.
    “Oh…my…God! I love this place.” She urged him to go up the winding driveway. It was steep and narrow, made more for horses and carriages. They got to the top of the hill, and Julie leaped out of the car.
    “Jules, stop!” he called to his five-foot-nothing wife as she casually jumped the short iron fence. “You can’t go—”
    “Come on. This place is amazing.” She waded through the overgrown yard and got up on the porch to peer through a window.
    It was big, a genuine Victorian, with dirty white shingles and a dilapidated porch that wrapped around the house, supported by postsdecorated with gingerbread woodwork at the top. He admitted to himself, it did have a certain charm, if you liked fussy details.
    “It’s Second Empire,” his wife informed him, looking at the flat-topped mansard roof. “Oh, it has a cupola.”
    “A what?” he asked.
    She pointed to an onion-shaped blob on the top of a tower, its gold paint tarnished and peeling off in large strips.
    “It’s ugly,” he told her plainly.
    “I think we’ll go gray and white with red accents.” Julie ignored him as she stared into the gloom of the interior through the wavy glass. “Look at the size of that entry. Brad,” shewhispered in awe, “the staircase looks like it’s never been touched.”
    “Yeah, Julie, I don’t think anything’s been touched here. Besides, we’re trespassing. It’s probably over our budget.” Brad only saw mountains of work. “The pipes would have to be pulled out. They’re probably lead. Look, Jules.” He pressed his work boot down on the warped wood. “The whole place is rotted. This will be too hard for us.” He scanned the dilapidated roof, slates broken and missing in spots. The shingles sagged in the center portion of the house. “It looks like the Addams family lived here,” he told her wryly, but he knew her mind was made up. “Lurch?” He cupped a hand to his face and called loudly, “Hey, buddy. Lurch. Trick or treat.”
    Julie nodded absently and, smiling with the determination of a Sherman tank, pulled out her phone. “Please,” she pleaded. “Maybe it’s a great buy and we’ll make a ton. I mean, just look at this place.” She held up her arm expansively. It was at least three stories, with a widow’s walk facing the calm waters of Cold Spring Harbor. It was nestled in a tangle of overgrown foliage, roots breaking through the floorboards of the porch. The house had a round tower on the side, shaped like a witch’s hat. He silently counted the windows. There were forty just on the side he could see. It was too much, he knew—way beyond their capabilities as flippers—but he knew her mind was made up.
    Brad shrugged, turning away as Juliepunched in the Realtor’s number. He didn’t see her green eyes light up, but he heard her squeal with delight at the price. Three weeks and a construction loan later, they were the proud owners of Bedlam House, built in 1859 and owned by one of the prominent families of Cold Spring Harbor. It was named for the street near which it was built. Bedlam Street was the main artery of the tiny harbor town, which was now a picturesque village filled with quaint shops. The house was built by Frank Hemmings, a land and railroad baron, and inherited by his daughter after he died. Over the years, it had housed one of the secretaries of Teddy Roosevelt when he was president, a World War I fighter pilot now buried in the fields of France, and a sinister spinster. It had never left the Hemmings family until the lateseventies, when the last descendant died, alone and childless. It was a reformatory for about twenty years until funding stopped. It later had a stint as a failed bed-and-breakfast for a New York minute. Foreclosed by a bank that didn’t want it, it was abandoned, deserted and run-down, filled with mice and who knew what else. Lastly, it had