Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 04 - Frozen Assets

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “Why did she do that?”

  “To see what I was doing with my Realtor.” Karina picked her mug of coffee up from the side table.

  “How did she know we would be there? Karina, I feel like I am missing something. How did she know we would be there, and what did she think she would learn and who is that man outside of Livia’s house?”

  Karina frowned. “Jason? That’s her son.”

  “But back to Deanna. How did she know where we would be?”

  “Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was a coincidence. But I think Zachary has been following me, Zachary and Deanna both, ever since his father died.” She shuddered. “No matter what the truth is, Zachary will always think it was my fault. Just like with his brother.”

  “Whoa. Hold on Karina. Important little facts are flying at me too fast now. Why does Zachary think you were responsible for his brother’s death from cancer?”

  Karina held two fingers to her lips as though she had a cigarette. “His whole childhood. And he would be the one to get sick. Not me, not his father. Just him.” She brushed a tear from her eye. “He was a nice boy. I miss him so much.”

  “I’ll call Zachary.” Mitzy stood. Karina was a hot mess. She was self-centered, played favorites, and was greedy. She didn’t need the extra cash from a full-priced home sale any more than Zachary needed to save a few bucks. None of them needed it. The squatter house flashed into her mind. She wished, for a moment, that she could open the doors of this house and let Portland’s homeless warm up for the winter. The condition of the squatter house made her reconsider the first flash of compassion. This house didn’t deserve that no matter how irritated she was with Karina at the moment.

  “Thank you.” Karina didn’t stand. “There are several other things we need to discuss.”

  “We’ll have to do it later.” Mitzy let herself out.

  Jason was no longer outside, so she went to the door and knocked.

  The man himself answered. “Yeah?”

  “Hi.” Mitzy plastered her professional smile on her face. “Is Livia in?”

  “No.”

  “Could you let her know Mitzy stopped by for a chat?” She handed him a business card.

  He looked at her, looked at the card, and then looked at the house across the street. “You’re Karina’s Realtor?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Huh.”

  “Do you now the English family?”

  “Sure.” He set the card on a half-round table near the door.

  “The death of Arnold must have been such a shock.”

  “Seriously.” He ran his hand through his bushy black hair. “Do you have a message or anything?”

  “No. We just met the other day, and since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d say hi.”

  Jason yawned. “Okay.”

  “So…” She shifted her weight so that the toe of one boot was on the threshold of the door. She didn’t want him to shut her out just yet. “Did you know Arnold’s kids growing up?”

  “Yeah. Zack and I played softball together. Arn was our coach.”

  “Oh, man, then it must have been a real blow to lose him.” She offered him a look of sympathy. She meant it, of course, but she was tingling all over. This huge beast of a young man knew Arnold well enough to shorten his name. No one else had done that. And he lived just across the street. “Had you seen him recently? I mean… you know.”

  Jason frowned. “Nah. He hasn’t been around in ages. A year, maybe.”

  “A year?” Mitzy took a step back, surprised. “But Livia said he’d been by last week.”

  “Maybe, but I haven’t see him in a year.” He pushed the door closer to shut. “I’ll tell my mom you came by.”

  “Wait—one more quick question…”

  Jason lifted an eyebrow.

  “I, uh, a year? You really haven’t seen him in a year?”

  “It could have been less. I don’t really know.” His face slowly turned red. “I’ll tell Mom you came by.” He pushed the door shut with a click.

  Mitzy drummed her fingers on the wall. She had flubbed her last question. She hadn’t been able to figure out a smooth way to ask if Jason liked Arnold or not. So, she’d have to ask Zachary instead.

  She drove around the block and then down the hill. Clouds had rolled in that threatened to dump the slick snow she didn’t want to drive on. Once safely at the bottom of the hill, she pulled over and called Zachary.

  “This is Mitzy Neuhaus,” she said when he answered.

  “Oh, hello.” His voice was dull.

  “Do you have a minute to talk about the house?” And your old buddy, Jason.

  “I have a few minutes.”

  “I was hoping we’d get an offer from you.”

  “Listen, Mitzy, I don’t mean to be rude, but I was raised in the business. I really don’t need an agent to buy a house from my step-mom.”

  “She’s hurting, Zachary.”

  “Of course she is, but that’s no reason to make things difficult.”

  “I know. But listen, I don’t have to take commission from this.” The handshake deal with her husband popped into her head. If she didn’t get the commission from this sale, she lost the moral victory that would let her move to a better house. “All she asks is a fair market offer. If I tell her I don’t need a percentage…”

  “That’s not what this is about. I don’t need a discount. I want to work with her because that’s what family does. There’s no reason to put a middle man between us.”

  Mitzy ran her fingers through her hair, untangling her curls. She took a deep breath. “I can understand that. But it seems like you both let some distance grow between you in the last couple of years.”

  “Some distance?” He snorted. “That woman divorced my father and walked out of my life as though I had never existed.”

  “That sounds familiar.”

  “I’m telling you this because apparently that’s how I get to talk to her: through you. She divorced Dad and dumped me. I was a man with a dad, a mom and step-dad, a step-mom and a brother, and then one day I had nothing. You tell her that.”

  Mitzy had about had it with the English family and their friends. No one told the same story about anything. Not about when people starting seeing each other, or who filed for the divorce, or who had called last.

  It made her sick.

  She would not let that happen to her family. And she wasn’t going to take it from this one any longer, either. “Listen. Your dad cheated on Karina and left her for a younger woman. How is that her fault? And when was the last time you called her? It looked to me like she didn’t even know you guys were having a baby. I mean, come on. This is hardly all her fault.”

  On the other end of the line, Zachary English sniffled. “I ought to just hang up on you. What right do you have to talk to me like that? You’re her frigging real estate agent.”

  She was glad he didn’t use real swear words, but the heat behind his silly, fake curse was bad enough. “You’re right. I am way out of line. I shouldn’t have said any of that. On the other hand, Karina is my friend, and she is in a rough place right now, and I don’t think you are making it any easier. And I don’t like being lied to.”

  “Yeah, Dad walked. But she signed the papers. Didn’t even put up a fight. Some kind of mom she was.”

  Mitzy had a feeling she was about to get an earful of mommy issues.

  “I’ll call her.” His voice broke.

  Maybe he was having sympathy pregnancy hormone issues. Alonzo’s sister, swore her husband had had them.

  “But you need to stay out of this. Stay out of the whole mess.” He hung up.

  Mitzy stared at her phone. Definitely a case of sympathy-pregnancy hormones.

  She started her car back up and headed home. She needed to snuggle her big, loyal, handsome, not-weepy, no-mommy-issues husband. And they had to figure out their Christmas plans, which was best done while snuggling.

  ***

 
; Alonzo nuzzled Mitzy’s ear. She pulled the down comforter up to their chins and snuggled closer. The house, with its ridiculous baseboard electric heaters, was freezing, but their little love nest was next to perfect. She rubbed her bare foot on his calf and spoke in whispers, since her lips were so close to his ear. “I’m tired of the English murder.”

  “Good.” Alonzo turned his head and caught her lips in a kiss.

  “I don’t want to solve it anymore.”

  Alonzo replied with more kissing.

  “But I’ve got to sell that house, if we ever want to live somewhere warm.”

  Alonzo wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I’m not cold.” He nibbled her neck.

  “We should spend Christmas at the farm with my family.” Mitzy kissed his neck between each word.

  “Okay,” he murmured.

  Mitzy smiled. She was learning about marriage, after all. If only she had brought up moving that first time, on a cold winter night in bed.

  She sat up on her elbow. “The thing I don’t understand about the English family is all of the lying.”

  Alonzo rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. “I thought you didn’t want to play detective anymore.”

  “I don’t want to.” She stroked his chest while she spoke. He was pretty fit for an old man. “But I don’t understand why everyone I meet has a different story about what Arnold was doing and when.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘who’?”

  “That, too.” Mitzy scooched closer again. “The current girlfriend, the ex-girlfriend, the ex-wife, the son—they all have different stories.”

  “Kind of like they all saw it from a different perspective.”

  “Yeah, like the story of the blind monks and the elephant. One felt the trunk and thought it was a snake, one felt the leg and thought it was a tree, that kind of thing.”

  “You’ve talked to everyone. What do you see when you put their stories together?”

  Mitzy scratched the back of her neck. “Nothing. I see a jerky guy who wanted what he wanted no matter what.”

  “And what do they see?” Alonzo yawned again.

  “Kind of the same thing, I guess.”

  “So you’re all right.”

  “We’re all right about his character, but none of us knows why he was at Karina’s house that night.”

  “Karina probably knows.”

  Mitzy frowned. “She swears she doesn’t.”

  “Didn’t you just say they were all liars?” His voice was beginning to fade. Far from marriage being one long slumber party, Alonzo was a man, so he had a habit of falling asleep rather than talking all night.

  “But not Karina. She’s the truthful one.”

  “Because she found her dead ex-husband at her house? I don’t know that I would say that automatically makes her the honest one.” He rolled onto his side, back to Mitzy.

  “Well, goodnight, then,” Mitzy said.

  “Hmm, goodnight.”

  Mitzy rolled over to spoon with her husband, glad to have him despite his lack of interest in all-night gab sessions. He felt solid and good in her arms, but it didn’t help her sleep. She turned the problem of Karina over and over in her head. She was the honest one, in all of this. And really, only Jason seemed like a big, fat liar. A quick chat with Zachary about the hulking man across the street wasn’t likely, so she’d have to ask Karina and hope she was feeling up for a chat.

  Around two in the morning, Mitzy finally fell asleep.

  At five, her cell phone rang with the Neuhaus New Homes jingle.

  She shot up, and reached blindly behind her, looking for her phone.

  She knocked the bedside lamp over, and something shattered.

  She rubbed her eyes.

  The phone had stopped.

  She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Who? Why?

  Alonzo was already up for the morning.

  She flopped back down on her pillow, but the phone rang again. This time she reached slowly to the table next to her bed and picked up her phone.

  It was her mom.

  At five in the morning.

  Teachers’ hours stunk.

  “Good morning, sweetie!” her mom chirped.

  “It is five. In the morning.”

  “Well, you’re an early riser, always have been.”

  Mitzy yawned. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Oh, you newly-weds.” Her mom snickered.

  Mitzy pulled the pillow over her face and groaned.

  “I just got off the phone with your grandma.”

  “At five in the morning?”

  “Older folks don’t sleep late like you kids do. She’s really hoping you and Alonzo will stay the whole weekend for Christmas. I know you told me you’d call and talk later, but you hadn’t yet.”

  Mitzy threw her pillow across the room. “You’re in luck. We talked it over last night and we’ll be there.”

  “Oh! You’re a good granddaughter. Okay, well, that was all really. I’ll call Grandma and tell her. And you guys can bring the salad.”

  “Fine.”

  “Enough for all of us for the whole weekend, okay? We don’t want your cousin to have to do all of that cooking while we are there.”

  “Yes, yes. Fine.”

  “Don’t forget.”

  “How could I?”

  “Okay, well, have a good day. Love you, Mitz.”

  “Wait, one more thing.” Mitzy yawned. “Will you email me the days and times and stuff? And don’t call Grandma until I talk to Al about what time we can get there. We agreed we’d go, but we haven’t hammered out the details yet.”

  Alonzo walked into the bedroom with a cup of coffee. “I heard the phone,” he whispered.

  Mitzy took the mug, but she wasn’t happy about it. She had sort of liked the idea of going back to sleep after her mom hung up.

  “What, Mom? Alonzo was talking. I didn’t catch that.”

  “I’ll email everything,” her mom said.

  “If you know when everyone else is showing up, let me know that too, so we can try our best to be there at the same time.”

  “Be where?” Alonzo stretched across the bed.

  “At the farm for Christmas.” Mitzy put her finger to her mouth to hush him.

  “Okay, I will. I’ve got to run, sweetie. Days are short in the winter!” Her mom hung up.

  The “day” hadn’t started yet and wouldn’t for a few more hours. The sky was as dark as night still.

  “I did agree to that, didn’t I?” Alonzo rested his coffee mug on his chest.

  “I hope you don’t regret it.”

  “Nah. It will kill my mom, but it will be fine.”

  “Well, that’s something.” Mitzy tugged at the blanket. Al had it pinned down so it wouldn’t pull up.

  “What happened to the lamp?”

  Mitzy sighed. “I did. I guess I’d better get up, after all.” She threw the blanket off and stepped around the glass from the broken lampshade.

  “How far is this farm again?”

  “Not too far.”

  “So we could still do the day after Christmas with my folks.”

  Mitzy stepped on a piece of glass. “Ouch!” She picked it out of her big toe, a little red dot of blood the only evidence of what she had done to herself.

  “Or not. Sorry.” Alonzo took another drink from his coffee.

  Mitzy cleared up the pieces of broken lampshade.

  “So, what are we going to do tonight?” he asked.

  She tossed the shards of glass in the garbage can, wondering vaguely if she was supposed to recycle them instead. “What’s tonight?”

  “Nothing big, just our first anniversary.”

  13

  Mitzy floated through her morning. The wedding, just a year ago, the Baptist convention, the fight at the courthouse, the way her old buddy Ben’s girlfriend suddenly stood up for her despite at least a year of animosity. It was a memorable day, if not a picture-perfect
one.

  She headed to her Portland-Metro Realtors Association meeting with a light heart. Alonzo hadn’t forgotten the anniversary. Alonzo had a surprise plan. Alonzo may well be the perfect husband.

  Mitzy took the Ross Island Bridge across the river to the Portland State University Urban Planning building where the Realtors were meeting. Today’s topic: Short Sales: Fast and Sweet. Mitzy grimaced. Earlier in the year, they had asked her to teach it, but she had declined. It was her anniversary, and you shouldn’t be asked to teach false hope on your anniversary.

  Her anniversary.

  She smiled. Even a worthless lecture wouldn’t ruin her day.

  The room was packed. Apparently everyone was sick of sales that took a year to process. If there was a secret to getting it done fast, people wanted to know. Mitzy grabbed a coffee and reached for a donut. Voo Doo. She gagged a little. Though the box didn’t have any of Voo Doo Donuts’ more… anatomical… offerings, it did have the “blunts,” and the thought of eating a donut shaped like a giant marijuana cigarette wasn’t appealing.

  Mitzy sat next to an older woman eating a pink bubble gum donut and a tall balding man with a “blunt.”

  “Mitzy.” He nodded.

  “Hi.” She smiled, but she didn’t know him.

  “Roy.” He had a look on his face that said she really should know him.

  “Good morning.” She took a sip of her coffee.

  The woman next to Mitzy didn’t look up from her phone.

  “I’ve got two clients who have been waiting on a short sale for over eight months,” Roy said. “If this class can show me how to speed it up, it will be well worth the price of parking.”

  “Agreed.” Mitzy scrolled through texts on her phone. Alonzo had sent several since he had left… counting down the hours until their date.

  “How about you?” Roy asked. “Have any offers stuck in the system?”

  “Who doesn’t?” Mitzy went with vague. She didn’t. She always strongly discouraged her clients from sitting on a short sale offer. She found it was the very rare family who could handle the stress of waiting. Yeah, she did help some of her clients buy short sales, but it wasn’t for everybody.

  Roy sighed. “You going to the PMRA Zoo Lights thing?”