Two men promised a $1.1 million 3D printer could fix Cairo, Illinois’ housing crisis. More than a year later, the one duplex it printed still isn’t finished. And the more we asked questions, the weirder things got.

But then the work stopped before the duplex was finished. The owners would later say cracks — dozens of them — had begun running through the walls and that they needed to make sure the structure was sound. The printer disappeared.

A year later, no one had moved into the duplex. It stood alone in a wide lot along a sun-bleached road.

As I began to examine what happened, the story grew complicated.