Past & Present

by Judy Penz Sheluk

  But here’s what most people don’t know. In spite of it all, Chantelle is wildly insecure. Getting dumped and divorced for an adolescent—her words, not mine, but quite accurate nonetheless—will do that to you. Trust me, I know. Not about the divorce part, I’ve never been married, but the getting dumped part, that I’m all too familiar with.

  Anyway, I’ve decided to stay in Marketville for the time being, although not in this house, which is filled with far too many memories. Besides, it’s time to start over. I’ve spent enough of the last year digging through the past.

  With Royce’s help, and some money from my father’s estate, I’ve done enough renovations to get the house ready for resale without going into debt. My realtor, Poppy Spencer, a referral from Arabella, assures me that I’ll get top dollar, if not into a bidding war. In the meantime, it’s time to figure out where I’m going to live and what I’m going to do to earn a living.

  2

  Poppy Spencer slid her tablet toward me. “This Victorian detached on Edward Street ticks all the boxes.”

  Poppy is a successful-looking businesswoman in her late forties, with steel-gray eyes partially hidden behind dark designer frames. Her short brown hair had been artfully highlighted with glints of copper and gold and I suspected she paid more for one haircut and color than I paid my hairstylist in an entire year. Probably more on manicures, too, judging by her perfectly polished French-tipped fingernails. I leaned across the granite-topped island in my newly renovated kitchen to review the listing. Edward Street was in the heart of Marketville, the town’s original main street which had, over the years, morphed into a trendy destination spot filled with independently-owned ethnic restaurants, trendy cafés and bistros, and upscale clothiers. Despite its mostly Victorian architecture, Edward Street had long since abandoned the historic vibe that Main Street in Lount’s Landing embraced. This was where the smart suburban shopper went to get wined, dined, and decked out. In other words, a good location for a residence-based business.

  From the multimedia slideshow on Realtor.ca, 300 Edward Street looked charming, but it was getting close to the outer fringe of the street, a less desirable section of Edward. It was also currently home to a physiotherapist’s residence and practice, and I wondered how much it would need in renovations. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go through the dust and debris again, not to mention the expense. It always cost more than you thought, as Royce had warned me before we got started on the Snapdragon house. I should have listened to him, but you know what they say: experience is the best teacher.

  Then there was the part of me that yearned for one of the many new builds popping up on every farmer’s field from Marketville to Lount’s Landing to Lakeside. Of course, those homes wouldn’t be ready for a year or longer, which was hardly helpful given my decision to move out sooner rather than later.

  “I was thinking of something more contemporary.”

  “We can certainly look for something more modern, but the reality is you won’t find anything like that on Edward. Are you willing to consider houses in a subdivision?”

  A resale in one of the newer subdivisions might be a good compromise. “Possibly.”

  “That’s not a problem if you just plan to live in the home. However, you mentioned starting your own business. There are almost always restrictions regarding the operation of a business in a residential subdivision. A home office wouldn’t be an issue, but there are bound to be complaints from neighbors if you plan to entertain clients. We’d have to check the town’s zoning bylaw to see what’s allowed before putting in an offer. The nice thing about Edward Street is that it’s zoned residential-commercial.”

  I hadn’t thought about entertaining clients, which probably didn’t bode well for my business planning acumen. Then again, I hadn’t quite come up with a concept. “I suppose I could go and look at it during the open house on the weekend.” I could ask Royce and Chantelle to come with me.

  Poppy was already on the phone to the listing broker. “Perfect,” she was saying, “my client and I will see you in an hour.”

  “An hour? What happened to going during the open house?”

  “It’s a seller’s market,” Poppy said. “Which will be good for you, when we sell your property. But it works both ways. We’ve got to get in there before the open house this weekend.” She tapped her French-manicured fingernails on the granite. “Do you want to bring anyone with you?”

  It would take ten minutes to drive there, which didn’t leave a lot of advance notice. But I knew that if I didn’t bring someone along, Poppy would have me signing on the dotted line before I’d properly thought things through.

  “Let me try Chantelle and Royce.”

  Chantelle was at home and thrilled to be asked along. The news wasn’t as positive when it came to Royce, who was out on a job, but he did promise to do a home inspection should I decide to put in an offer. That made me feel better, and a small part of me secretly hoped he was stalling because he didn’t want me to move away.

  Three Hundred Edward Street was a red brick Victorian with gingerbread trim painted a pale shade of buttercream yellow, and a wraparound front porch that welcomed visitors. The front door opened to a narrow reception room on the left side, a kitchen at the rear, visible from a pass-through window, and a polished wooden stairway to the right, leading to a second floor.

  “There can’t be more than six hundred square feet of living space on the main level,” I said, fishing around in my purse for my cocoa butter lip balm. I’d been weaning myself of the habit, but every now and again I found myself reaching for it like a baby with a pacifier.

  “Six-hundred and fifty, to be exact,” Poppy said, consulting the listing, “but plenty of space for an office and reception room.”

  “Did you notice the baseboards?” Chantelle asked. “They have to be eight inches high and all original oak. So are the staircase and the floors. Gorgeous. Someone took good care of this home.”

  We made our way into the kitchen. It was what my father would have called a one-bum kitchen; there was barely space for a refrigerator and stove, and a dishwasher had been bypassed to increase the modest cupboard space. But the white cupboards were cheery, the countertops gold-veined black quartz, and a window looked out over a small backyard filled with perennials in various stages of bloom. There was even a door leading out to a stone patio. I could imagine having tea out there in the morning, a glass of wine at dusk. I glanced at Chantelle and knew she was thinking the same thing.

  There were two bedrooms upstairs, about equal size, one facing the street, and the other the backyard. Both were being used as current owner’s treatment rooms. “The closets are really tiny,” I said. “I’m not looking for a walk-in, but these are miniscule.”

  “Any closets at all are a find,” Poppy said. “A lot of older homes don’t have closets. People used wardrobes to hang their clothes. Of course, they owned fewer clothes.”

  “You can get one of those space saver systems,” Chantelle said. “I’m sure Royce would install it for you.”

  I wasn’t convinced. “Let’s check out the bathroom.”

  It had been updated, with cedar walls and a large walk-in shower in place of a bathtub. The idea of clients using it didn’t thrill me.

  “I don’t know. It’s not really what I had in mind. I was thinking of something with a bit more privacy. At least another bathroom.”

  “There’s another bathroom in the lower level,” Poppy said. “That’s the one your clients would use. This upper level would be your private living space and the main level would be your office and kitchen area. Come on, let’s go check out the basement.”

  The basement, or should I say the finished lower level, had seven-foot ceilings, which should have made the space feel claustrophobic, but the walls had been painted off-white and, though small and narrow, there were plenty of windows. Along with a generous powder room, there was a laundry room and furnace area. A separate, windowless, room had been blocked off
for storage. I don’t love basements, but as basements went, this one wasn’t too bad.

  “The shelving and file cabinets stay,” Poppy said, consulting the listing again.

  That would save me some money and add storage, but I still wasn’t convinced. “I’ve got to think about it.”

  “It won’t last,” Poppy said. “Not in this market. Of course, you have to be comfortable with your decision. There are other properties.”

  “Not like this,” Chantelle said. “You can’t let this house go. It ticks all the boxes.”

  “I admire your enthusiasm,” I said, “but you’re not the one buying it.”

  “Then I’ll go in with you.”

  “You want to buy a house with me?”

  Chantelle shook her head. “Not the house. The business. You can do your investigative thing, and I can supplement it with my knowledge of genealogy. It will be perfect.”

  And that’s how we started Past & Present Investigations.

  3

  I’ve never purchased a house, but Arabella Carpenter had steered me right. When it came to real estate, Poppy left no stone unturned. After reviewing comparable properties on the market—a challenge given the uniqueness of every property on Edward Street—and after Royce determined the amount and cost of work required to suit my needs, Poppy wrote up an aggressive offer.

  The dollar amount of the offer terrified me, but Poppy assured me that after the sale of Snapdragon Circle, I’d pretty much break even. I hoped she was right. I had some savings from the sale of my late father’s heavily mortgaged townhouse in Toronto, but I figured I’d need that to live on while I got my business going.

  A saner person might have gone back to working nine-to-five, but having had a taste of freedom this past year, the thought made me shudder. Surely I could earn enough to pay for food, taxes, and the occasional night out.

  Besides, I wanted to resolve the issue of my father’s untimely death. I’d never bought into the verdict of occupational accident, but I’d been too busy trying to solve the mystery of my mother to do much about it. Now I’d have the time to look into it properly. Maybe I wouldn’t be successful, but I owed it to my father to try.

  Selling Snapdragon Circle turned out to be a snap, pun fully intended. Poppy and Chantelle helped me stage the house, and I had to admit it looked amazing. All my hard work had paid off, from painting every single wall and ceiling to stripping the carpets to expose the original hardwood. Getting a new roof and hiring Royce’s company to renovate the kitchen had also proved worthwhile; Poppy predicted almost a doubling of my investment. In the meantime, the house was listed with “offers accepted in five days,” and Ella Cole, my nosey sixty-something next-door neighbor, kept me from wandering the streets by providing endless cups of tea, coffee, cookies, and gossip while the showings continued unabated. The hours leading up to offer day were stressful to the max. What if no one bid on the property? What if the offers were insultingly low? I didn’t have to worry. At the end of an exhausting day, I’d turned down a half dozen offers and accepted one for more money than I’d dreamed possible. Poppy Spencer virtually preened at the results, but I didn’t fault her for it. She’d earned her commission and then some.

  Then reality came crashing down on me. I was planning to start a business investigating missing persons from the past, cases that either A) no one else was interested in or B) everyone had given up on. I wasn’t a private eye. I didn’t even have any qualifications beyond what I’d learned searching for my own mother.

  What the hell had I been thinking?

  Chantelle calmed me down with generous pours of Australian Chardonnay and take-out rapini and artichoke pizza from Benvenuto, a local Italian restaurant. To assuage her guilt—you don’t stay a size two by chowing down pizza on a regular basis, no matter what your genetics are or how hard you work out—she’d brought a large tossed salad to go with it, balsamic vinaigrette on the side.

  “The first thing we have to do is to get business cards and a website,” she said, nibbling on a slice and somehow managing to keep rapini from stringing her teeth.

  I’d been planning to order business cards and had been working on a website. I wasn’t an internet guru, but the template I’d selected from my web host seemed easy enough to navigate, and I considered it a work in progress.

  “If you approve the logo I designed, and we decide on our titles, I can order the business cards. I’m just not sure whether to go with Calamity or Callie.”

  “Hmm… I know you don’t like to be called Calamity but it does have a ring to it. How about Calamity with Callie in parentheses?”

  It was a good compromise. I showed Chantelle what I’d come up with, an intertwined pair of Ps for Past & Present, tucked inside a magnifying glass. I thought it had a sort of Sherlock Holmes feel to it. At least that’s what I was going for.

  “It’s fantastic,” Chantelle said. “As for titles, how does ‘Partner’ sound?”

  “Partner.” It felt right on my lips. “I like it. As for the website, it’s in the works. There’s nothing yet in the way of content, but we can go live at any time. I thought we might start by writing up bios. Yours should be relatively easy because of your genealogy credentials. I’m struggling a bit with mine. There’s embellishing the truth, and then there’s being an outright liar.”

  “I can help you with your bio. I’m good at that sort of thing. I’ve also got a friend who’s a decent photographer. I’m sure she’ll give us a break on the cost.”

  I hadn’t thought about photos, but Chantelle was right. We needed to show our faces. “Okay. That should do it then, as a start.”

  Chantelle shook her head. “I don’t think so. What about the rest of our team?”

  “The rest of our team?” I picked off an artichoke, wishing Chantelle had gone with something less exotic. When it came to pizza, I preferred double cheese with hot peppers, maybe some extra sauce if I was feeling adventurous. I didn’t mind artichokes, but I preferred to eat them mashed up in a hot spinach dip, with some nacho chips on the side. The thin black corn ones that made you believe you were eating something healthy.

  “Our team,” Chantelle said again, taking my mind off the nachos.

  “Go on.”

  “Here’s what I’m thinking. I’ll be the point person for the genealogical side.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “Glad you agree. Now, as for our resident psychic—”

  “Resident psychic?”

  “An absolute must, to my mind, and I’m thinking Misty Rivers is just the ticket. She could pull a tarot card each week, post a message on the website.” Chantelle waved her hands as if to say, “Details, details.”

  “What sort of post?”

  “It needs to allude to looking into the past. Misty’s Messages or Reflections, something along those lines. ”

  I’d grown to accept Misty over time, but despite her claims to mystical ability, I suspected she was about as psychic as I was.

  “I don’t know. It seems a bit gimmicky.”

  “Every business has some sort of gimmick.”

  Did they? I was mulling that over when Chantelle spoke again.

  “I’ve already run the idea by Misty.”

  I felt my spine stiffen. “You’ve already discussed this with her?”

  “Yes, and before you get all bent out of shape, she’s excited to be part of it.”

  I’m sure she is. “And just how will we pay Misty for her psychic prowess?” I knew I sounded bitchy and attempted to soften my words with a smile. It must have worked, because Chantelle smiled back.

  “Easy peasy. If one of her posts brings in a client, we’ll pay her a finder’s fee.”

  “A finder’s fee. I suppose that could work.”

  “Of course it will work. If we decide to make Misty an administrator on the website, she can even enter the posts herself.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted Misty having admin privileges, but this was no time to squabble, an
d I certainly didn’t want the website to become my full-time job.

  “Anyone else for this ‘team’ of ours?”

  “Shirley Harrington.”

  Despite my reservations on the team approach, I had to admit Shirley would make a good addition. As head librarian in charge of archives at the Cedar County Reference Library, she’d been invaluable in my search for information about my mother’s disappearance. “I like the idea of bringing Shirley on board, but the last time I spoke to her, she had retired from the library and was doing the snowbird thing in Tampa. I don’t think she’s planning to come home until mid-April. She promised to call me when she comes back. I do know she’s planning to join a couple of golf leagues. I don’t know how much free time she’ll have.”

  “I’m sure she’ll appreciate being considered, regardless. Spending the winter in Florida is one thing, but when she gets back to Marketville, retirement may not look as rosy, even with lots of golf thrown into the mix.”

  “I hate to admit it, but you have a point. Anything, or should I say, anyone else?”

  Chantelle beamed. “I thought you’d never ask. Arabella would make a terrific resource. I was in Lount’s Landing yesterday on another matter, so I popped into the Glass Dolphin and chatted with her about it.”

  I couldn’t imagine why Chantelle was in Lount’s Landing, and while I took her at her word, I couldn’t help but feel slighted. This was supposed to be my business and Chantelle was already running the show. “What did she say?” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice and didn’t quite succeed.