Foreclosed: A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery (A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery, a Cozy Christian Collection)

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  The phone rang again. They all jumped this time.

  “Pathetic,” Ben said.

  In their office the phones used to ring more than they were silent. In fact, they had more phone lines than people. Managing the phones was a point of pride for Sabrina. No one could handle eight callers at once like her.

  “Good afternoon, Neuhaus New Homes, this is Sabrina speaking. How can I help you? Oh, I see, Just a moment.” She put the caller on hold. “Mitzy, it’s the renter at your Baltimore Street house.”

  Mitzy nodded and picked up her extension. “This is Mitzy, how are things, Deb? Umm hmm…yes. Really?” Mitzy’s voice rose with excitement. “That’s terrific, thanks. No, I think I’ll get over there right away. Thanks for calling. Talk to you soon.”

  All eyes were on Mitzy. It had been a while since a promising call came in.

  “Well?” Sabrina said.

  “The Victorian is going into foreclosure!” Mitzy’s big blue eyes sparkled with excitement.

  “The Baltimore Victorian?” Joan asked.

  “Deb said movers were there last night, late. This morning all of the cars were gone and the house was dark.”

  “No kidding? We’ve wanted that house for ages.” Joan and Mitzy had longed for the old house on Baltimore Street. The perfect bones of a Queen Anne Victorian mansion were like chocolate to Joan—irresistible. The investment potential of that property was almost too much for Mitzy.

  Mitzy dreamed of restoring it to its historic glory and selling it to someone with old money. There was always a market for the historically minded, since the best locations were so rarely for sale.

  It was a great investment for Mitzy personally as well. The street was zoned commercial/residential. The big Victorian would make as great an office building as it would a home. But an office would not protect the value of Mitzy’s other Baltimore Street property. A restored vintage mansion, preferably on the historic register, would protect her property values nicely.

  “I knew this market had to be good for somebody,” Ben moaned. Rehabbing an old house didn’t involve him until the very end.

  “Pause the proposal, Sabrina. We need to take a trip to Baltimore Street.”

  “It’s not listed yet.” Sabrina scanned the multiple-listing service for the address.

  “No, but it’s vacant. Let’s get to it before the no trespassing signs go up. Who knows what condition it’s in after all this time?”

  “Baltimore Street needs a bed and breakfast. This house would be perfect for it,” Sabrina said.

  “It would be, but I don’t want to be the one who sets that precedent on Baltimore. Imagine instead, what it would be like if one of Aerin and Brett’s foundation friends moved in. They’d keep an immaculate garden. They’d keep the house painted. It could be a showpiece to the right family.”

  Mitzy hadn’t quite broken into her sister-in-law’s grant giving set yet. One big sale like this would open up a world of future sellers and buyers. The granting-grants set lived in a different part of town and tended to handle real estate through their lawyers, but Mitzy was confident that, if she had the right property, she could gain their confidence. Old money called her name. She would love to sell to old money.

  “It would be a coup, Mitzy, but really, would it be that much better than scones and biscuits and gravy and hash browns? And fresh fruit? And gourmet coffee? And fluffy, soft, satin comforters and gas fireplaces in every room? And newspapers at your door…and cable TV? Cable is always better when you are staying somewhere else.” Sabrina gazed into the far distant future as she described her dream getaway.

  “And a handsome young Jorge to do turn-down service?” Mitzy beeped her Miata open. It was red. She often thought of having it repainted purple, but that could wait until it showed its age a little more. They kept talking as they slipped in and zipped away.

  “That wouldn’t hurt.” It had been a couple of years since Sabrina had been out, handsome Jorge or not.

  “It is a great idea. And if I didn’t already own a Baltimore property, I’d consider it. I know the neighborhood pretty well. The neighbors keep it up. They haven’t aged out yet. Most aren’t even baby boomers. They have kids in school and seem to want to stay put. I’d hate to be the first person that put a business on their street. Find yourself a different dream vacation, please. Let’s rescue this mansion and sell it to some lovely snobby couple who will never let it run to ruin.”

  “Maybe, if they can be lovely, not snobby people.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Mitzy had her mind on the upcoming Dinner with Degas event at the museum. She had been invited to the annual fundraiser, as usual. And, as usual, was expected to politely decline. In fact, she was usually offered two tickets to whatever event was up and coming and was always expected to give them to her parents. She was trying to remember why this had become the expectation. She supposed it was because she didn’t have anyone to bring. She drove less carefully than Sabrina liked, as she tried to remember the slip of conversation about this year’s event…what had it been…?

  Oh, yes. Perfect.

  They pulled into the driveway of Mitzy’s Baltimore rental. The Victorian was set back from the road with a tree lined drive that had a turn around. The home had sat alone on the road once, with acres around it. At some point the land had been parceled out and sold for ranch homes to accommodate young, not so rich, families.

  There was some work that needed doing on the outside. The landscaping, forget about it. It was a wreck. She’d call Martin and his crew for a bid. The exterior needed painting, and probably needed shingles replaced. The house could do with new cedar shakes on the roof as well. Not so bad, she was sure, compared to what it needed inside. Considering the worn down exterior, she imagined it had been a few decades since the interior had been redone.

  The girls slipped out of the car and waved to Deb, who was watching them from her picture window. Sabrina had an easier time on the mud and gravel driveway in her Birkenstocks than Mitzy, in her heels, did. Mitzy didn’t mind running back and forth to work in her heels, but the sticking mud wasn’t her idea of fun. She scraped them off on the edge of the concrete steps.

  “Stamped concrete or pavers?” she asked Sabrina.

  “Pavers. It’s more true to the original.”

  “You’re right. I just like my concrete supplier too much to admit it.” She put her shoes back on and joined Sabrina in window peeping. She did like her concrete supplier. Too bad he was married. Johnny at the radio station wasn’t married. Was he really as obnoxious as he seemed? Was he really interested in her?

  “Ooh! Look at the parquet entry! It’s so shiny!” It was hard to see beyond the entry. The entry itself, however, was well lit from the foyer windows. The shine on the floor made her think it had been restored and maintained. They snuck around to the side windows next.

  “The kitchen must be on this side,” Mitzy said.

  “Sure is. My lands!” Sabrina was on her tiptoes trying to get a good view into the house.

  Mitzy peeked in the same window. “Is that a professional, stainless steel range?”

  “I’m sure it is,” Sabrina said. “But what on earth is it doing in this house?”

  “Apparently being a matched set with the rest of the stainless appliances and—it cannot be.” Mitzy stopped short, amazed at what she saw.

  “I think it is.” Sabrina’s voice was reverently quiet.

  The sun was shining just right to glance off the countertops with an appealing sparkle.

  “That is a quartz countertop,” Sabrina said.

  “Acres and acres of quartz countertop. Well, we know why they were foreclosed now, I guess. Just plain ran out of money. Let’s get back to the office. You get the tax records on the house and I’ll call James at the stoneworks and see what he knows.”

  They risked a ticket as they sped back to the office. They were out of sight before you could read MIT-Z on the Miata’s vanity plates.

  Alonzo paced
back and forth in his office. His stride was long, which frustrated his pacing in the small room. He bumped his secretary’s desk every time he passed it.

  His secretary cursed him under her breath. Every bump of the desk tipped her coffee cup. Cleaning the mess was a bother, but at this rate she’d have to make another pot before she could really wake up for the day.

  “How is the Steinfeld’s project?”

  “Finished, sir.”

  “I know that. But how do they feel about it? What kind of message are they sending future clients? What do you think we can make out of it?” His thick black eyebrows were drawn in concentration. His hands moved nervously through his black hair, making it stand on end.

  “It was months ago, sir. I think if we were going to get any residual business from the pickle job, we would have heard by now.”

  “Nonsense. This is a slow economy, all the processes slow down. Put some feelers out, will you?”

  Marge made a note on the pad next to her phone and nodded vigorously as though she intended to do just that with her feelers.

  Alonzo had given most of his staff a lengthy vacation the week before, so all of his pent up energies were being spent on poor Marge, who wanted nothing more than to drink her coffee and read celeb gossip online.

  “Al, why don’t you move forward with your plans for the office? You have the time and the men now.” Marge cradled her coffee cup under her nose as she spoke. She didn’t want to ruin everything on her desk just because her boss was restless.

  “Harrumph,” was all Alonzo offered in reply.

  “Haven’t you been talking to those Neuhaus people? I bet you could snap that office suite up in a second. We could be renovated and moved in by mid-summer.”

  “I wouldn’t share space with that Realtor if it was the last building in town.” He abandoned his secretary and his office, and slammed the door behind him.

  Marge sighed with satisfaction. She settled down in her chair with her mug and opened Firefox. “Men,” she muttered.

  He jumped into his Hummer and hit the road—action being preferable to inaction.

  He pulled his Hummer out into traffic and swung into the far lane.

  He made a wide left turn.

  Horns blared as he weaved into the far lane again.

  He was seeing red—seeing nothing else but the unendurable frustration of stupid people and women who wouldn’t be reasonable. His head slammed into the windshield— “What the?” The world went black.

  Two blocks back, two women in a red Miata sat, tapping their toes anxiously, thinking up alternate routes back to work. Sabrina pulled her Blackberry out of her knapsack and started typing.

  “I don’t know why I always forget about this thing.”

  “We’re getting old, Brinsie. We don’t think of using a telephone to pull up tax records. You do that and I’ll call James while we wait. I suppose we could have done this at the property. We might have even gotten inside if we had stayed there.” Mitzy shook her head. Slow business made her careless.

  No one answered at the stoneworks place. As soon as she had inched forward far enough, Mitzy turned right into an alley. She didn’t care to know what the accident ahead was about. It seemed to her that a stop off at Annie’s Donuts was in order. Guys that work with stones like to eat donuts, And, she bet, they would be happy to answer questions about recent jobs over a friendly cup of coffee and those same donuts.

  “Here it is, Mitzy. It says here that the house is owned by a guy called Laurence Mills. He must have wanted to be a flipper. He bought it earlier this year from someone called Maxim Mikhaylichenko. I wonder why Maxim sold without remodeling it first.”

  “Sabrina, really. Not all Russians are builders.”

  “I’m not being rude, Mitzy, I swear. I know not all Russians are builders. But all Russians know Russian builders. It just seems odd that someone with connections would sell a property in bad condition.”

  “Sabrina! Connections? Listen to yourself,” Mitzy said.

  “For Heaven’s sake, I didn’t mean like the Godfather.” Sabrina tapped the screen of her Blackberry, looking for more information.

  “Anyway, he might not be Russian, he might not know any builders, or he might not have had any money. There are plenty of reasons why Maxim Whatshisname might not have fixed the house up before he sold it.” Mitzy had seen everything in this business and wasn’t ready to pigeonhole the previous owner because of his name.

  “Or…it could be a Soprano’s thing. Maybe the sale was a cover of some sort,” Sabrina said with a grin.

  Mitzy pulled into a parking spot in front of Annie’s Donuts. “Run inside and buy a dozen of the best.” Mitzy handed Sabrina her wallet with a grin. “We’ll find out what we need to know.”

  The two beautiful women and their box of donuts received a warm welcome from their hungry male friends inside the stoneworks shop.

  “Victorian on Baltimore?” James said with a mouth full of donut. “I don’t recall. Did you work on that one, Bruce?” Bruce was negotiating his donut into his coffee and offered a grunt.

  “What kind of work did they get done?’ James washed his maple bar down with a swallow of coffee.

  “We saw quartz counters in the kitchen. There may have been bathroom work done as well. It looked like there was nothing doing for landscaping though.” Mitzy leaned forward, elbows on the table, unconsciously giving the impression that she hung on their every word. It was disarming to the men and when combined with the donuts, a powerful tool for their memory.

  “We did a quartz job about a month ago, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah,” Bruce offered. He helped himself to a crueller.

  “Did we do the install?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was it in the Eastside?”

  “Yeah, over on Baltimore.” Their buddy Tony wiped his hands on his blue jeans and grabbed a donut as he passed the table.

  Mitzy leaned in a little closer. “Will you be doing more work at that property?”

  “No.” That was from Bruce.

  “The guy didn’t pay, of course. And now he’s in bankruptcy. A real pain in the, well. A real pain. That was an awesome slab of rock he bought and it’s gonna sit in the house and rot until the bank does something about it. Probably next year.” James seemed to remember the whole thing now.

  “Oh dear,” Sabrina murmured with a half frown. She let her gaze drop to her coffee as Bruce looked her way.

  “Unless there was a buyer for the house.” Mitzy was already planning how to fix this for her friend and his business.

  “You all have a lien on the property. If a traditional sale goes through on it you’d be paid first.”

  “You got some buyers hiding upstairs at Neuhaus?” Bruce asked with a laugh.

  Mitzy was thinking about the Dinner with Degas. It was definitely time to buy an evening gown and find a date for the upcoming event. “Where my buyers are hiding is a secret I won’t even tell you friends.”

  She nodded goodbye and walked out of the stoneworks office, pleased with a job well done. She was sure that this was a failed flip job and an upcoming foreclosure. If she could get along with Aerin for one evening…or possibly two, she could fix it all.

  Sabrina gave one last longing look at the donut box and then followed her boss out.

  Alonzo sat in the emergency room on his bed getting madder by the moment.

  Concussion.

  Whiplash.

  A bleeding traffic ticket.

  The ticket was the last thing he needed. His car was likely totaled. Why drive a Hummer if it can get totaled by a…what had that been? Oh. An armored car from the US treasury. A ticket for reckless driving was probably getting off lightly. He came to pretty quickly, though his head still hurt like well, like hell. He was trying to cut out the swearing but some things were just too much. And if Pastor Hank could say hell, so could Alonzo. Especially after totaling his car two months before it was paid off.

  The hospital
didn’t seem in any hurry to let him out. Sitting in this room was making him livid, and the madder he got the worse his head hurt. He pressed his nurse call button three more times. Where the…had his nurse gone? Not much better than actually swearing, he thought. Sorry, Lord.

  Thinking with God in mind had been an easier habit to develop than on his knees praying, which he never did much of. He didn’t do much of anything formally now that he was a Christian. But maybe he’d better.

  The hope he had that God would help him get control over his anger had been a big selling point for the born-again thing. He caught a glance of himself in the mirror. Both his forehead and his cheek were purple with bruises. He was lucky his head hadn’t gone through the windshield.

  The nurse came in, looking as annoyed as he felt. “Yes?” she said without making eye contact.

  “Am I getting out of here?” He spoke through gritted teeth, but at least he spoke and didn’t yell.

  “Not likely. Is that all?”

  “No it is not all. Where is the doctor and why am I not getting out of here?”

  “The doctor is with emergency patients, sir.” Sir sounded like an insult when she said it. “He will see you as soon as he is able. In the meantime, he would like you to lie down and rest, but try not to fall asleep. Would you like the television on?” She picked up the remote and turned on the TV. The noise hit him like a wall; he doubled up and barfed all over the floor.

  He was pretty sure if he sat up his head would fall off, but he heard the nurse pull the curtain around his bed as she left. He closed his eyes and hoped the janitor would come quickly, or the smell of the vomit would make him do it again.

  After clean up and much consultation with the doctor on rotation and the regular doctor, he was given the bed for the afternoon, some pain medication and the same caution against falling asleep.

  The television was just too much for him so he turned on the radio.