The following morning Harry stopped his truck at the entrance to the Coopers’ farm and parked next to Bertie’s SUV. She came around the corner of the house just as he opened the truck door and stepped out.
“Follow me,” she said in her no-nonsense way.
“Good morning to you, too,” he said, grinning as he followed her around the corner.
“Good morning. There’s the shed.” She pointed to a small building, perhaps about twelve feet wide and maybe ten feet from front to back, where Alice was standing in the open doorway. “I told you he’d be here early,” Bertie said.
“Good morning, Mr. Hogan. Nice of you to come.”
“Happy to help out. Good morning, Mr. Cooper,” he added as Jim appeared in the doorway behind his wife.
“Morning, Mr. Hogan. Sorry to bother you like this but, until I can lose the crutches, my balance is way off on one foot,” Jim replied.
“It’s no bother. How’s the knee coming along?”
“Good as can be expected, I guess. I’m hoping to start therapy within another week. In the meantime, I can only hobble around and give advice.”
“Give orders, you mean,” Alice said under her breath.
The two men laughed. “Okay,” Harry said. “Bertie said you want a door opened, but it’s blocked.”
“Come on in,” Jim said as he and Alice moved aside. “Back there in the end.”
Harry walked across and looked at the door. He took a small flashlight from his pocket and used it to look inside. “It’s jammed alright. Looks like maybe a door or a piece of plywood, something of that nature. It may have been stuck up on the other side and now has fallen against the door.”
“Is there any way to move it?” Jim asked.
Harry shook his head. “I think your best bet is to remove the door. And I don’t think there’s much hope of removing the screws in the hinges… too much rust. The hinges will have to be pried off from either the door or the frame.”
“I’d like to keep the old door intact if possible,” Alice said.
“Then we’ll pry the hinges off from the frame,” Harry said. “I’ll need a crowbar.”
“A what?” Bertie and Alice echoed.
The men laughed and while Jim hobbled off to get one, Harry said, “More commonly known as a wrecking bar these days.”
“Oh. Well, why didn’t you just say that?” Alice asked.
“Because he’s still a bit old-fashioned,” Bertie said. “In some ways.”
Jim returned with the crowbar and handed it to Harry. In less than a minute, the door was free. The old screws were so rusty that it was easy to pry them away from the wood.
Harry leaned the old door up by the wall, next to the doorway. “It’s narrow, maybe four feet wide at most but it seems to have been used as an office of sorts. Let me get this out of the way.”
“An old piece of plywood,” Jim said. “Looks to be in good shape too, so it might be useful at some point.”
