Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 02 - Eminent Domain

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “I don’t think we should let the complaints of a real estate agent get in the way of our plan.”

  “Have you really not seen this?” From the file folder Martin produced a formal letter of complaint for Geo.

  “The Grey to Green Initiative opposes it. Mitch signed it himself. And the Johnson Creek Watershed Restoration Committee and the folks behind the Huddington Community Center and the Historical Society. People the Mayor takes seriously oppose this plan,” Martin said.

  “Why does the Huddington Center care?” Geo asked, wiping more cream off of his lip.

  “They want the Tram for themselves.”

  “Come on. Don’t they realize these things take years of civic planning? We can’t just alter a tram route.”

  “We did last time,” Martin said.

  “We’re not sending the tram all the way out to Huddington. That’s ridiculous. They’ve got a light rail line anyway.”

  “They don’t have one going this direction. And there are a few people on the Huddington association who remember that the light rail extension was supposed to be out there in the first place. It wouldn’t be difficult for them to pull up the old plans.”

  “Those plans must be ancient,” Geo said.

  “Your ancient and my ancient are not the same thing. The plans are only about 15 years old.”

  “You sound like you want the change.” Geo said frowning.

  “I am trying to work with the tide of sentiment,” Martin said.

  “That is not the job of the city council.”

  “It is if you want to get a job done.”

  “I don’t know what you are thinking about, but Walter won’t like it at all. He’s invested quite a lot in this plan,” Geo said.

  “And I hope no one figures that out,” Martin said. “We need to decide what to present at tonight’s meeting.”

  “Well we can’t tell them everything. Just tell them we are working on it,” Geo said.

  Martin heaved a sigh and shook his head. “We’ve got to tell them everything. It’s the only way to work through this muddle.”

  “Say what you want to say. I don’t support it but I won’t stop you.” Geo got up, turned and dumped his cooling drink in the garbage. “I’ll be there, but I’ll be silent. You see how well you can handle Walter.” Geo’s phone rang. He answered it, tipped his head in Martin’s direction, and left.

  Martin took out a blank paper and began to outline what needed to be said at the next city council meeting. He only wished that Geo would be silent at the meeting. But it wasn’t likely.

  At the meeting Martin laid things out in as positive a light as was possible but Walter immediately stonewalled. Drawing on memories of patience he used to have before he got into politics, Martin took his time, yet again. “Walter,” he said. “This is a closed door meeting so let’s be as frank as possible. If you fight for this plan it will be the end of you. It won’t take half a second for radio news to check the tax records and find you have a property at stake.”

  “It’s a sacrifice for the good of the city. I’ll lose a lot of money on that house,” Walter said, settling his heavy weight into his chair and pressing his arms down hard on the table in front of him. “We all stand to lose money really. I don’t see how this situation should affect the plans.”

  “Yes, erm, uh. Well,” Martin hesitated. “In many years it would seem that the city buying a property would be a loss. But at this juncture, you see, uh, ah, well. Everyone knows…” Martin took a deep breath, “No one can unload a property right now. No one.” Martin squared his shoulders and looked Walter in the eye. “It would be very obvious that you would get out of an underwater mortgage if this plan went through. I think it is in the best interest of the city council for you to keep your mouth firmly shut.” Martin let out a deep sigh.

  Another council member spoke, “Can we please get on to the problem of the children?” Her big cow eyes were already wet with tears for whatever children’s problem she was about to address.

  “Just one minute,” Geo said.

  “Yes?” Martin said, and then clamped his mouth shut in a thin line.

  “We can’t just give up now. This is a really cool idea that we need to protect.” Geo flashed a brilliant smile around the room.

  The woman with the wet cow eyes glared at him. “It’s a tram. Get over it. We need to feed the children.”

  “Hey, hey, just a tram?” Geo said turning to her.

  “Yes,” she said. “Just a tram. I motion we table the discussion for an indefinite period.”

  “I second,” Martin said, a gust of relief filling him like a breeze from the window. But it wasn’t a breeze. Outside a thick grey rain had descended. Discussion about feeding these children would take over the meeting. It could be a month before the problems with the tram got top billing again.

  Walter Reynolds heaved himself out of his chair and left the room, his heavy footfall shaking the table.

  “Now we don’t have a quorum,” the cow-eyed woman whined.

  It was hot and Ben was getting a cramp in his leg. “I’m too young to get cramp!” he said. He twitched his foot but it was no use. He was going to get a cramp and it was going to hurt. His thumbs were twitchy. He hadn’t gone this long without texting since he met Jenny. He needed to text her. She probably thought he hated her. She was probably crying. He really needed to text her. And he should probably text the police as well.

  Ben was tied to what felt like a ladder back chair. His hands were behind his back. Ropes were tied around his chest and twisted through the rungs on the chair, pinning his arms behind him before they came back down and bound him by the wrist. It was a hard wooden chair, not the kind with a cushion. “A cushion would have been a nice gesture,” he said.

  He was sitting on his iPhone. It almost broke his heart. Between the idea of Jenny waiting all that time for him at the cake shop and having his phone so close but impossible to reach, he had to blink his eyes a lot. He couldn’t check the time since he was sitting on his only clock, but the sun seemed to be rising at last. The room was lit from the light that was on in the hall, but the bit of window that showed where the blinds didn’t reach the sill was grey. He had passed a long, crampy, achy, night in the chair.

  He had been trying to make a butt call for quite a while. He wiggled and then listened for a ring. He talked out loud just in case a call had gone through and he didn’t know it. “I was minding my own business like always when some guy came in and grabbed me!” he said, hoping somewhere someone was receiving the call from the cell phone he was sitting on. “This guy grabbed me and hit me and threw me in the car. I think I have a black eye!”

  He was talking as loud as he could, though it made him shake. He wasn’t sure what was worse, the idea that no one could hear him or the idea that the guy was still downstairs and could hear him and would figure out what he was trying to do and take his phone.

  He heard steps on the stairs and shut up.

  “I heard you talking,” the man with the broken nose said. “Did you have something to tell me?”

  “No.” Ben shook his head back and forth.

  “You’re sure? Nothing about a nice little box that my boss wants?” the man asked again, in a thick eastern accent.

  “No nothing about a box. I told you everything I know,” Ben said.

  “I do not think so.” The man went back down the stairs with heavy slow steps that reverberated up to Ben.

  Ben felt very alone when the footsteps subsided.

  Ben had told him everything he knew. He had told him the names of the detectives. He had told them where all the furniture was headed. He told them about the copies Mitzy had made of all of the papers she had found. He would have loved to tell them about a box, except that he had no idea what they were talking about.

  He wiggled in his seat again and listened for the sound of his phone calling. A quiet sound, but he was sure he would know if his phone put a call through. But then, maybe he had ju
st hung up on a call that was already there. Maybe he had hung up on Jenny. He shivered.

  He knew he was upstairs and that the house was an early ‘90’s house with ample closet space and newer windows. Mitzy would also point out that it had central air. If it was for sale. But it didn’t seem to be for sale. The room he was in was furnished, a bed and a dresser against one wall, but he couldn’t tell if someone really lived there. It had one closet with sliding mirrored doors but no bathroom. He wished he knew where the bathroom was. He lifted himself off of his seat as much as he could and attempted a hop. Maybe he could hop to freedom. Or to a bathroom. Maybe he could holler and they would come up and let him go to the bathroom. He had had a lot of coffee the day before.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” a short man with ashy blonde hair and a sneer on his face said. He was standing in the doorway cracking his fingers.

  Ben hadn’t heard him come up the stairs. This man had been particularly mean when they interrogated Ben. “Didn’t Sergei tell you to stay put?”

  Ben didn’t answer but couldn’t look away.

  “I think you don’t know about any boxes. But I have something here that you might know about.” He tossed a well-used fil-o-fax at Ben, laughing as it hit the floor by his feet. “Someone in there knows about it. Why don’t you look through that phone book and tell us who we should go visit next?”

  Ben stared at the fil-o-fax at his feet, his heart banging in his chest. Mitzy hadn’t used that in years. But it was her purple pleather covered day runner thingy that people used to use a long time ago. He had seen it enough times. It had the company logo on the cover.

  He stretched out his legs and grabbed at the book with his Vans but couldn’t reach it. The man with the ashy blond hair laughed again. He walked in the room and picked it up. He opened it carefully and ripped a page out. He tossed it to Ben and it fluttered to the floor. “How about them? Do they have the information we need?” He repeated himself again and again, outdated pages from the old calendar and phone book landing on Ben’s lap and on the floor. “Who should we call Ben? Is it really only Mitzy who knows? We can get Mitzy you know. Whenever we want to.” He dropped the book and kicked it across the room.

  The man with the ash blonde hair hadn’t been pleased when Sergei showed up with Ben. Ben was not who he had been told to get. But perhaps people would worry about Ben and that could be useful in its own way.

  Enid dragged Frankie into Mitzy’s office in a way that made you think she had him by the ear. No one would have thought that he had begged for the meeting himself.

  “Mitzy, we’ve been calling you all morning,” Enid said.

  Mitzy slipped the myrtle wood box back into her Birken bag. “I have been preoccupied this morning. I’m sorry. But you’re here now, so please have a seat.”

  Ben was still gone and they had the office to themselves.

  Enid sat gingerly in Sabrina’s swivel chair. Frankie stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his chest puffed out.

  “You aren’t doing enough to save your property,” he began.

  “We aren’t spending nights behind the hedges at the homes of the city council members hoping to catch them doing something stupid, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That was just one idea. And it’s not a bad one. One of the easiest ways to change a public official’s mind is to offer him an embarrassing alternative.”

  “You’ve found that successful in the past, have you?” Mitzy said.

  “I’ve never tried it, no. But I’m sure it would work. Alternatively, have you worked on connecting with your allies yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And I have a number of important people on my side. What the City is planning for this street is in exact opposition to their Grey to Green Initiative,” Mitzy said, sitting taller in her chair. “Instead of improving a watershed it would cause serious damage. I think that is where we need to start from. And we offer them the alternative of Huddington Community Center. They don’t have to use it of course, but they can’t tell us there is no better location for a tram if we come to them with an alternative plan.”

  “Great,” Frankie said. “I’m glad you have some serious allies. But what about the neighbors? Have you connected with all of them yet?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “You need to. Even if you have to hide in the bushes,” Frankie said.

  “I’ll get to it when I’m done hiding behind the city council persons bushes, okay?” Mitzy said.

  “Two birds with one stone, Mitzy. You never answered the question, ‘Why Baltimore?’ That was the most important question to answer. And that was why I wanted you guys getting information about the council members.”

  “Get on with it Frankie, she doesn’t have all day,” Enid said.

  “Walter Reynolds owns # 11311 Baltimore Street. Did you know that?”

  “Of the Reynolds Wrap fame or ReynoldsHigh School?” Mitzy asked.

  “Of the city council. Why would a council member be pressing for his home to get foreclosed? Perhaps he was denied a refinance and needs to unload his property? Have you thought of that?”

  “I have not thought of that. I wish he would have called me instead. My solution to his problem would have been much simpler than this solution,” Mitzy said.

  “Green is as green does, Mitzy, I’m sure that they can justify a tram even at the cost of habitat. You are fighting a man who is protecting his family and livelihood. Not just a faceless city council.” Frankie took a deep breath.

  Mitzy had a difficult time taking the greasy little lawyer seriously. She wanted him to finish up and leave so she could get back to work. She stood up and began pacing. “How do you know that this is true?” Mitzy asked.

  “Really?” Frankie grinned. “I didn’t think I’d have to explain doing a title search to the Mitzy Neuhaus.”

  “Obviously I know how to do a title search. But I didn’t know that you knew. And how do you know that he tried to refinance and was denied? How do you know he is desperate to unload? How do you know he is an enemy in fight or flight mode? Before I attempt to take any of this information out of this room, I want to know how you know it.”

  “Instinct.”

  “P’shaw. You’re wasting my time.”

  “Why else would he do this? Name one reason that a person would offer their home up to be condemned by the city?” Frankie asked.

  “Was the Baltimore Street location his idea?” Mitzy asked.

  “Instinct Mitzy. Of course it was. Otherwise he would have put his foot down.”

  “Your instinct is delightfully entertaining, Frankie. But it isn’t useful. Mitchell is useful. He implements Grey to Green projects on behalf of the city. He is someone the City Council listens to. They do not listen to your instinct.”

  “Have you thought of any more questions for me?” Enid asked.

  Mitzy turned to her slightly off topic elderly friend. “Yes, I have. I want to know more about the family that lived in the house while you were a member of the WCTU.”

  “It was the Simonite family. James and Harriet and their daughter Jane. Jane is about your mother’s age, I’d guess.” Enid said, with a close look at Mitzy.

  Two names that began with J. Who had initialed the receipt for “Pieces” from the “DoC?”

  “When did they move out?” Mitzy asked.

  “James and Harriet moved out in the 1980’s to live in a nursing home. They were quite old. Jane stayed on a few years longer with her husband and kids, but eventually they moved out. That Mikhaylechenko lived there the whole time with them. I think Jane had a hand in raising him, though she’s not that much older. She was friends a bit with my Frida. Mikhaylechenko was the one they foreclosed on, so I think he must have bought it at some point.”

  “He did. And it sounds like he owned it while they all lived in it together. I wonder why.”

  Enid sniffed loudly. “I’m sure if Maxim owned the house it
was because the family had run out of money. He seemed a handy young man. He always had work of some kind. But you know James and Harriet and Jane never did work. I’m sure they just plain ran out of money. Can’t remember though what Jane’s husband did. They divorced.”

  “I see. So our Mikhaylechenko who we know was in the Mafia and is now in prison owned the house for many years and lived there with his cousins, I’d say. He might have even paid for their nursing care. A lot of people came and went. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union met there and the Mayor came by and spoke. The Mayor left a list of addresses at the house and there was another list of names…” Mitzy trailed off, lost in thought.

  “A list of addresses? What types of addresses?” Enid asked.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just thinking out loud. I saw a list of addresses that was typed on paper from the Mayor’s office and had her initials on it. Most were churches so I assume that they were bingo games she was shutting down.”

  “She did do that. That’s true. Can you remember any of the locations?”

  “One was Old Church,” Mitzy said.

  “Oh, the Old Church never had bingo games. They were Reformed Presbyterians. I think that must have been a list of half way houses.” She nodded sagely as she thought about it.

  “No, it was churches, I’m sure of it,” Mitzy said with a frown.

  “Yes dear. I heard you. But the churches were our first line of defense. We needed the beds for when people came in. Ah! That must have been what you meant when you asked if people were frequently coming and going. You should speak more plainly my dear.”

  “So people were coming and going?” Mitzy asked.

  “They weren’t staying in the house, which is what I thought you had meant. But one of the things our little temperance union did was sponsor refugees.”

  “Was that legal?” Mitzy asked, surprised.

  “Of course it was legal. Still is,” Frankie said.

  “Instinct again, Frankie?” Mitzy asked.