Over the course of my years selling homes, I have found there are two upgrades that actually improve a marriage: double sinks in the bathroom and two separate studies, so both partners have a room of their own, so to speak. Katherine admitted that she and her husband have separate bedrooms too, but that didn’t sound romantic to me.
She told me, just wait.
“Did Penny offer to help you plan the house as well?” It wasn’t difficult to picture the two of them, circling around each other in Penny’s spacious house, leaning over blueprints, laughing and drinking wine.
“She has great taste.” He said unabashedly.
“Oh fine, we can be neighbors, that’s a lovely idea. We can have a potluck every Friday.” I said sarcastically.
Ben grinned. “You are jealous. That is such a compliment. I wouldn’t worry about it, Penny was fine, a little scattered and the problems she needed fixing weren’t that serious. I think she’s nervous about the event. She was fussing over every detail. She swept and scrubbed the fireplace twice while I was there. I heard her order the flowers, then she remembered she needed vases so she hunted all over the house and only found two she liked, you know that kind of thing. She’s a little brittle.”
“Okay.” I said grudgingly.
“I love you, you know.”
“I know.” I pouted.
“I’m your fiancé, you know.”
I glanced at my left hand; he didn’t miss the gesture, but didn’t comment either.
“I’m going back right before the event just to make sure everything works.” He admitted.
I took a breath and struggled to act like an adult. It took all my concentration. We headed out of the apartment sharing an umbrella for the quick walk to the kitchen.
“Okay, be nice to her.” I finally conceeded. “She probably needs a friend. But why is she doing this at all? Summer cancelled a show right in the middle of the production. Why don’t they just cancel this as well? Her father just died for heaven’s sake, people will understand.”
“I asked that question myself. They sold too many tickets to out of towners, with no way to get hold of them to pass along the news. Plus, they don’t want to return the ticket sale cash. Summer and Penny are adamant that Lucky would want the tour to go on as planned.” He pulled out a flyer from his jacket pocket and handed to me as we entered the warm kitchen.
Beautiful home custom built by Lucky Masters himself. I read. Designed by famous local artists. 380-degree views of the valley and mountains. State of the art kitchen, seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, pool and waterfall. Gardens were featured in May 2008 issue of Sunset magazine.
“Impressive.” Tickets sold for $50 each and included a champagne reception hosted by the Penny herself.
“Especially the view.” Ben pointed out.
“What? Oh yes, I remember when Lucky built on the side of the hill. He denuded a couple of acres of forest to do it, people were not happy. My grandfather was part of the protest group.”
Prue looked up at the mention of grandpa’s name.
“No, not that. Look at the flyer again.”
I looked again. 380-degree view.
“That’s very good.” I said happily.
“Isn’t her office like in a loft surrounded by windows?” Prue asked.
“I don’t know; I was under the house looking at pipes.”
“We must go on the tour.”
“It’s for a good cause.” Prue said.
“Everything done in Claim Jump is for a good cause.” I intoned.
Ben glanced at his phone. “I’ll get this in the front room.” He disappeared from the table.
Carrie gave me a quizzical look; I shrugged my shoulders. I do not monitor Ben’s business.
“I need to go back up to Penny’s this morning.” Ben returned to the kitchen. “She’s having trouble with her pressure.”
“I bet she is.” Prue reached out for the flyer.
“She has no one else to call?” I asked archly.
“Apparently she doesn’t have many friends.”
Prue snorted. “She doesn’t have many friends because she’s a bitch.”
“If you kept bitches out of the Brotherhood, there’d be no one to attend the meetings.” Far from aggravating her, she laughed.
“Point well taken. She’s an odd duck that girl, rarely leaves that huge house except to drop off quilts to Summer who dutifully auctions them off, then Lucky ends up buying them and keeps them at the theater.”
“Or library.”
“Or library.” Prue agreed, she rubbed her eyes.
I should be upset with Ben for leaving again to take care of another woman, especially when I should be the one who was nurtured and cosseted, oh, hell, that’s not me at all. I encouraged Prue to take a nap, I instructed Carrie to call Patrick and just start apologizing for everything and when she was done with the real stuff, apologize for imaginary stuff. I waved Ben off to help yet another damsel in distress. It would be idiotic to try to change him now.
“I love you.” He kissed the top of my head.
“I love you too. Bundle up, it’s getting colder.”
“Will do. I’ll buy tickets for Saturday while I’m up there.”
“Four.” Carried snapped her phone shut. “I left a message for Patrick to come up for the weekend.”
“Good.”
Carrie twisted her ring. “I hope so.”
“You should marry him.” Carrie said after Ben slammed the door behind him.
“Eventually. I don’t know; will I be the second wife? Or even the third wife? His first wife didn’t meet a very good end.”
“That had nothing to do with Ben.” Carrie protested.
“You’re right, it’s just, I don’t know how many marriages he’s had, or how many relationships. Or how many women he’s helped. He’s very closed mouth about it.”
Carrie rolled her eyes. Being the better friend, I ignored the implicit sarcasm.
“And now he’s busy with another woman’s pipes.” I rubbed at a sticky spot on the table. “It’s going to get complicated, you can picture it - his people, my people, pre nups, my mother, his mother … “
Carrie furrowed her brow and focused on the ceiling.
My inch of the table clean, I looked up. “Oh lord, you signed a pre-nup didn’t you? I told you I’d hire a lawyer, why didn’t you take me up on it?”
“I don’t want to be that way.” Carrie insisted. “I don’t want to be the woman who married Patrick for his money and his lifestyle.”
“But you ARE marrying him for his money and his lifestyle.” I protested. Did she not remember her plan? Had she forgotten how focused she had been? How she had cut Patrick out of the herd as if he was a wounded calf? Was she unaware that her plan completely and utterly worked? It had worked to a certain extent, then she honestly fell in love with the boy, which oddly, meant all previous bets were off.
The good news? Patrick was so in love with Carrie he can’t even think straight when she’s around. I know; I saw it myself. He flew up here didn’t he?
“What are the terms?”
“If we ever divorce, all I’ll get is ten million.”
“You are one of the few women I know who could actually get by on ten million.”
“It’s not even a real number. I keep the ring too,” she added. “I know you don’t approve, but it was worth it to see the sheer relief on the Furies’s faces when Patrick announced that I signed.”
Carrie refers to Patrick’s two older sisters as the Furies.
“Okay then, it’s your life.” I conceded.
“It could stop before it starts!” She moaned.
“Have you called?”
“Every hour.”
“Have your parents called?”
“Every half hour, they have nothing better to do.”
“Are they calling Patrick?”
“He promised to screen his calls, that’s a start. He’s met them, he now knows what they
are capable of.”
“I don’t see the problem.”
“He’s screening my calls too.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I really do think they are dying.” Sarah whispered into the phone receiver.
Her grandparents would not hear her over the blast of the 6:00 news, but she kept her voice low anyway. The commentary on the broadcast rankled, but her grandfather loved the hysterical conservative views that Sarah found repugnant. But since Sarah insisted on helping her grandparents fill out their absentee ballots, her liberally inclined conscience was clear. Grandpa could rant all he liked; he had voted Democrat in the last three elections.
“Honey, haven’t they been dying for years now?” Her mother’s voice was both weary and indifferent.
Sarah glanced into the living room. Her grandparents had sunk so thoroughly into the sprung confines of their matching recliners, she couldn’t tell where the chairs ended and their collapsed bodies began. She could hear her grandfather’s labored breathing from where she stood in the kitchen.
Sarah sensed her mother rolling her eyes. The few hours her mother wasn’t high, she was cynical and angry, especially when the discussion focused on her parents. The only reason Sarah ever called was to deliver an update on those very parents. The conversations were rarely cheerful.
“Come on, do I have to? Didn’t I see them at Christmas?” Her mother whined like a teenage girl.
“No, you did not see them at Christmas, you had an emergency and couldn’t come down.” An emergency for her mother was running out of gas so she couldn’t drive down to visit, and by the time Sarah sent up the money for gas, her mother had run out of drugs and subsequently used the gas money for more drugs. And then had no money for gas.
It was an effective system for avoiding the parents.
Sarah rubbed her eyes and leaned against the doorframe. Dorothy Gale had a whole village of people to take care of her, watch after her. Sarah relished that role, the role of the girl who had people willing to help her: The Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow. Dorothy had friends, even at the end of her adventure. What did Sarah have?
“Don’t do it for them.” Sarah said, her last ditch effort to actually be the adult even if her mother, and grandparents for that matter, refused to co-operate. “Do it for yourself. You can’t afford the amount of drugs it will take to wipe out the guilt you’ll feel if you don’t visit one last time.”
She knew what it was like to miss the good-byes. She liked Danny Timmons and his friend Jimmy. Even though they were much older than she, they had always been nice to her. And suddenly they were gone, just like that. No final words, no good bye. If you can, say good-bye. Sarah knew that.
“Just for the afternoon, I think it’s important.” She begged her mother.
“I could probably fit in something during an afternoon. I’ll have to check my schedule.”
“Oh sure, your schedule.” Sarah did not bother tempering the sarcasm in her tone.
“Sarah, we can’t hear the TV, they got all quiet on us again! These men need to speak up.”
She hung up the phone. “I’ll be right there.”
Tom stopped by right after Ben left.
Prue offered him coffee and a place at the table whichTom gratefully accepted.
“Help me out here. What did Mattie Timmons mean when she said Lucky killed Danny?”
“The insulation in those homes is flammable.” Someone had to say it out loud, but Tom did not seem particularly surprised.
He nodded. “We think so too, but since the proof went up in flames as well, there’s little to go on. No records, Lucky destroyed all his records prior to 1995.”
“Mattie has proof, from Danny.” I offered.
“I also heard rumors he started the fire.”
I thought so too, but I also knew Danny had raced back into the conflagration to save someone who was at least more innocent than Ben, or me, and lost his life in the effort. However that fact was tempered by the fact that Danny was also willing to sacrifice Ben in that same fire. In my own book of dastardly deeds, Danny was about even.
“I don’t have anything to say about that.” I said virtuously.
“That’s fine, don’t. Penny filed a restraining order against Mattie Timmons. She was up at the house this morning.”
“Mattie was? Was she threatening Penny?”
He nodded. “Mattie Timmons is also a member of the shooting range. She was a crack shot in high school; they started a High School team just because she was so good. I talked to George out at the range. He said she came there a lot right after the divorce. It’s a great way to let off steam.”
“So I hear.”
“How about recently?” Prue asked. Tom nodded in her direction.
“I asked too. A couple times this month.”
“Who monitors the sign in sheet?”
“Honor system.”
“Of course.”
“Is Mattie a suspect then?”
“She makes a great suspect.” Tom admitted. “But we have no proof and I can’t arrest someone on rumor.”
For which we all should be very grateful. I glanced at Prue, who looked as pious and innocent as she could, which is to say, not very.
“Lucky organized the range so there was a membership fee and more control. He used to bring Penny out here, a real father/daughter activity.”
“Was Penny a good shot?”
“Not really, she wasn’t as enthusiastic about the sport as Lucky. Since her mother died, they really didn’t get along.”
“That’s why she had that house on the hill and Lucky lived in town,” Prue commented. “Lucky always liked being in the center of things. The new house was too far away for him.”
“Still is.” I agreed.
Tom took his leave. Carrie helped Prue upstairs for a nap and I started calling local real estate agents. For the right price, people will sell their homes, even if the home is not officially for sale.
“Anything can be had for the right price.” I pressed the keypad on my phone.
Carrie appeared downstairs. “What about love?”
After a gratifying short time, Ben returned. “Are you up for a social call?”
I was alone in the kitchen, Carrie followed Prue’s example and was upstairs resting with her eyes closed. An hour earlier I checked on both of them and covered each with an extra quilt.
“Sure. Who are we calling upon?”
“Mattie Timmons. I just cannot believe that she is as bad as Penny says.”
“Penny was ranting about Mattie? I would think Mattie would be too small a fish in Penny’s pond to even merit notice.”
“Nothing is too small for Penny’s consideration.” Ben closed his eyes. “No wonder the woman never married, I don’t think I could get through even a whole dinner with her.”
His admission cheered me no end. “Sure, I’ll come with you, but, full disclosure, I am not her favorite person.”
“I know,” he agreed. “She must realize by now that you and Danny were a long time ago.”
“I hope so.”
Mattie lived in one of the suburban tract developments popular in the sixties, before historic homes became all the rage in Claim Jump. The house had been well cared for at some point in the past. Danny must have come by even after the divorce. But now that he was gone, the house was started to fray at the edges. The grass was uncut, the windows were dusty and a number of roof tiles were missing.
Mattie answered the door looking much calmer and dryer than when we last saw her. Her crinkly blond hair was well fluffed; the black strands underneath contrasted starkly against the blond.
“Oh, it’s you.” She frowned, her expression falling into well-grooved lines on her face. “Come in then.” We followed her past the kitchen to a living room decorated in bold beige that overlooked a bedraggled lawn. Red dirt showed through where the grass had worn away. A wooden swing set stood forlornly in one corner.
“I’m sorr
y about the funeral, but no one was saying it.” Mattie perched on the edge of the beige sectional. We chose to sit on the two remaining beige chairs.
“Saying what?”
“That Lucky Masters was a first rate bastard.”
“That is exactly why he donated heavily to the community, so no one would say it out loud.” I pointed out.
“Then why didn’t he buy me out?” She whined, suddenly petulant. “Danny was almost killed twice by Lucky’s shortcuts.”
“Did you know what the shortcuts were?” Ben asked quickly.
She crumpled and slumped over the ottoman. Some of her self-righteousness and thank goodness, whining, stopped. “It wasn’t until after the divorce. We didn’t talk much, and Danny kept to himself, I suppose I don’t blame him for that. Lucky promised him job after job and that was enough to keep the poor bastard quiet. But it’s not right, Lucky owes me and now Penny owes me.”
She was right; Danny had tried to tell me. The insulation Lucky used for his tract homes was cheap, but not safe. It was in fact, flammable; one small kitchen fire hitting a wall, any wall, and the whole house would go up like a firebomb target. Most communities had banned the product, but no one here knew about the insulation in the first place. Plus, Lucky’s work was never that closely monitored. Danny discovered it and was killed before he could bring it to anyone’s attention. But Danny was not killed by Lucky directly. Mattie was wrong about that.
“Do you have any proof?” Ben asked.
She slumped even further forward, her raw rough hands dangled between her knees. “Danny didn’t share that much with me. He always gave me child support; he was good about that. But now? Nothing. I had to go back to work …” she trailed off. “I hate Penny.”
“That’s understandable but it doesn’t sound like much of a case.”
“Now you sound like Tom Marten.”
“Tom Marten is right, you may want to keep your distance from Penny.” Ben counseled.
I glanced at him, he was more than serious; he was warning her.
But I could not tell if Mattie was really listening.
We returned to the car and I threw it in second to climb Mattie’s steep driveway.
Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 05 - A 380 Degree View Page 13
