“By chance,” he says, “we had a neighbor who had relatives up north here that passed away a while ago.  All of the property had been sold except for the house.  That was . . . oh, about four years ago.  This place has been abandoned since then, so we took our chances.”

“How in the world did you ever get him up here?”

“Made up a bullshit story about him saving my uncle’s farm.  Since he worked in estate law, he probably had clients that fit the bill.  We begged and pleaded for him to come up north here, and it wasn’t until we told him he could bill us for the entire trip that he consented.”