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

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  So House Hunters was coming. But in the meantime she had work to do.

  It took a few telephone transfers to get to the person who knew anything about it, but apparently there was a decent offer on the Victorian on Baltimore Street. No, she couldn’t know what the offer was. Yes, the owner of the home wanted to accept it and the bank was deciding if they would approve a short sale.

  Mitzy made a call. “Alonzo Miramontes, you are already buying that Victorian. You made it sound like I still had a chance. You lied to me.” Her voice was icy. Whatever she had thought about him at church the day before was a distant memory.

  “I said I was going to talk to the bank. I didn’t need to run it by you for approval. It’s not your listing.” He said with a growl.

  “This weekend at the gala, you sat and chewed the fat with me for four hours and made like you hadn’t started the process of buying the house. But in reality the bank is already processing the short sale.”

  “What makes you think they are working on my offer?” His voice relaxed, more false innocence and less angry growl.

  “It is you. Who else wants that old dump besides me and you? I want to know—did you offer enough that the lien holders will get their money? Did you?” Mitzy was storming up and down the office. Ben had himself tucked into his desk as close as he could get.

  “That is for the bank to decide, isn’t it?” He was brisk and almost professional now.

  “I have friends who have—oh never mind. I thought you understood these things. At the gala when you talked about work for your crew, I thought you were a decent guy.”

  “Neuhaus, I am a decent guy. And if I want to buy an inn for my sister to run and to give my guys a job to work then I am going to buy it. I don’t really care if you approve.” He paused.

  Mitzy wondered if he was distracted by something or drinking coffee. Then she wondered if he took cream in his coffee.

  “I’ve got work to do. I hope you find something to occupy yourself with.” Alonzo hung up.

  Mitzy squeezed in a response that indicated she was done, so he hadn’t actually hung up on her, but it was close.

  She was fuming. Steaming. The puppy made some whining noises, so she grabbed him up and hustled into the cold spring morning. She put him into the planter box. “Do your business, will you?”

  Sabrina beat the carpet cleaners back to the office. She had the spray, the puppy pads, an assortment of chic dog accessories, and a crate.

  They crated Gilbert and gave him some very soft treats. They took him to the box every twenty minutes. Even Ben had to admit that it was nice to see the girls with something to do.

  After a long day of trying to reconnect with Joan, Mitzy gave up. Joan was clearly in her groove shopping, arranging and creating atmosphere. After the meeting with the House Hunters execs, which was rather uneventful, Mitzy declined dinner with Curt.

  “Don’t say that. You need to eat, I need to eat. I won’t even make you go to the Olive Garden.” Curt gave her a winning grin. That had been his favorite restaurant while they were together.

  “I’ve got this puppy see…” she said, as she cuddled the soft pup.

  “Where can we eat with the puppy? This is Portland, I’m sure we could go almost anywhere.”

  “If you won’t take it as a come on, I’d just as well take you back to the condo and eat some Chinese.”

  “That sounds great. And I won’t take it as a come on. If anyone knows you are not that kind of girl, I know it.” He picked through Sabrina’s collection of doggy goodies and pulled out a strange sack like contraption. Sabrina had left them all behind when she went home. There was a strict no pets policy at her apartment. “Use this. You’ll love it.” He tossed her a thing that seemed to be a baby sling for puppies.

  “Lovely.” Mitzy was surprised at how easy it was to put on. She nestled the puppy into the pocket of the sling and found that really, she did love it. It would only be better if the puppy could purr.

  They sat on her patio, eating Chinese from Safeway off of plastic plates with chopsticks. It was chilly still, in early spring, so she had her little patio heater on, making a warm orange glow. They watched as dusk rolled in and the families around the condo community called their kids in and turned on their patio lights.

  “So you are in show business now too?” Curt asked.

  “Sort of. I’ve got a radio segment that seems to have gotten away from me.” Mitzy was feeling a bit annoyed by the way the radio station seemed to think she wanted to give them free entertainment. They acted like she should be grateful for the advertising. Once her Wednesday morning segment had morphed into a daily morning chat fest with Johnny who had gotten only slightly less obnoxious, she felt like the balance had altered and she was now providing for them. It was something she planned to renegotiate in the next day or two.

  “Gotten away from you, like you lost it, or like it exploded in popularity?”

  “I wouldn’t say exploded in popularity. But I had a…scene…with the co-host that had listeners listening and so they sort of upped me from my weekly spot to a daily. I think I am using it well, but they think they are giving me free advertising. You know?”

  “The relationship between the advertisers and the entertainers has always been tricky. Do you get lots of free stuff from the station?”

  She laughed, and nearly spilled her coke. “As a matter of fact I do. I have seen every show in town this season, which has been fun. But there have been times I would have sworn the only people at the theater were comp tickets.” Mitzy set her soda on the side table. She rubbed her cold hands together. “It’s a hard time right now. I don’t see the way out of it. I mean, I see a number of roads out, but they are all hard and leave a lot of people hurting for a long time. Back to free stuff, that heater was a comp. Pretty great, no? I don’t know how the radio got their hands on patio furniture, but it was delivered to the office with a note with love from the Station. It’s been very handy.”

  “And footy,” Curt said, stretching his long legs out to the warm glow. “I could get used to lying around. I bet this is what you do all day long, lounging around resting on your laurels, plenty comfy until someone is ready to buy a house.” Curt grinned.

  “Yeah, right. That’s so me, isn’t it? I’ve got employees to feed. I can’t just sit around. I can pay them, but they have this funny thing called pride and don’t want to sit around the office doing nothing all day. I can appreciate it, but making work for them is getting to be a lot of work for me.” She chuckled softly and Curt joined her. She had the sick feeling that their hard times were just beginning.

  “I bet you do, too. I bet you make up things to keep them busy all day so they can feel like they’ve earned it.”

  “We’re a team. The success we’ve had that makes the business able to pay their checks is due in large part to their hard work. Why do you think I applied to be on TV?”

  “Because you are star struck? Fame obsessed? Desperate to reconnect with old flames?”

  “Because it gave my assistant something to do for the afternoon. I’ve got an idea for a local TV show. On the one hand developing the proposal gives my assistant something to do. On the other hand once it is accepted it gives most of the staff more weekly tasks to get done and educates the public—to help them get through the crisis. We’ve got to revitalize real estate if we ever want to get out of this recession.”

  “You should have your own show. A real one, on HGTV. You’d be fantastic.”

  “But of course.” She laughed again, but it felt hollow. He used to tell her that all the time, back when they had been in love. But she knew she was too tall, gangly, and goofy looking to be on TV. “Not my own show, just a segment on the local morning show. The show that people watch while they get ready for work, or after they take their kids to school. Pardon me, but people watch HGTV to lose themselves in a fantasy or to figure out a way to fix a house problem. People watch morning shows to keep up on what’s going on in the neighbor
hood.”

  “You’ve got this business all figured out, don’t you? You always have.” He smiled ruefully. He’d fallen in love a few times since Mitzy but it was never with someone he wanted to marry.

  “I love the business. I have to know it.”

  They cleaned up their plates in relative quiet. He talked about life on the road with the show. She talked about the Victorian.

  “It sounds like you really love the house,” he said, leaning on the wall by the door.

  “I don’t know. I think I love what it represents. Or what it could represent. If I could get the authorities to take this kind of crime seriously, and if I could get the right person to buy the house…I just want everything to get better.” Mitzy sighed. Such dreams. What could one house really fix? What could one Realtor really fix? She knew the answer, but she hated it. “I guess the house is kind of symbolic to me. If I can make this one thing right, and all of us try to make one thing right, we can get out of this. I know I didn’t cause the house bubble to burst, but Realtors, mortgage brokers, people without a clue to reality did, and I am a part of them.” She looked past Curt, into what she wished and hoped for, but was beginning to doubt.

  She was lost for the night. She needed to get down on her knees and pray, and she knew it. Whenever she thought she was capable of saving the world, it was time to get down on her knees and talk to the One who really was.

  “I’ll try and get the house on TV, Mitz. Maybe that will help.” They shook hands in a friendly way and he left.

  The next day dawned a bright, crisp spring morning and Mitzy was feeling optimistic. A night of prayer had a way of doing that. Nothing material had changed, but inside she remembered, at least for now, that the fate of the world wasn’t in her hands.

  A few things on her agenda were looking up too. She was getting calls in the office—mostly fans of her extended radio spot, but also people with genuine real estate questions.

  Some of them insisted on talking to her, but others were willing to take advice from her staff. A ringing phone gave everyone pep.

  Ben had even gotten a few design jobs from people who liked her stuff at the gala.

  She did a few deep breathing stretches and limbered up for what looked to be a fun, exciting day.

  She had to pop into the radio station early this morning. Ostensibly, she provided twenty minutes of morning chatter with Johnny, but it often went longer and no one complained. So long as traffic and weather got their time and no commercials were shorted, she was considered a welcome guest.

  Listeners seemed to like it when she put Johnny in his place, which she tried to do as little as possible.

  She liked it when she could give peppy encouraging talk to families about money, real estate and keeping on in the down turn.

  She always forwarded her office calls to her cell when the office was closed. It wasn’t unusual to have at least one call on the way into the station.

  When her phone rang, she was flying down the highway in her Miata with the top down. She had her blue tooth head set on so she took the call. “Mitzy Neuhaus, good morning.”

  The good morning came screeching to a halt.

  She raced to her rental unit on Baltimore. She had just enough time to drive by and see the extent of the damage before she hit the radio station. She pulled into the driveway and gawked at what was before her.

  The walls on the front and one side were charred and she could see in through spots. The fire fighters had put it out before it hit the roof or took down a wall in its entirety.

  The fire had started the night before, while Debbie was out having dinner so she was safe, but her cat was missing.

  She was a wreck when she called Mitzy. She had no idea how it had started. She felt terrible, was scared and embarrassed. She didn’t smoke or light candles, hadn’t been ironing or making coffee. She just had no idea. There was an inquiry and until then she was moving in with her sister.

  Mitzy spoke to her in calm, low tones and said obviously, with no house to live in she wasn’t expected to pay the rent. She offered several platitudes about how glad she was that Debbie was safe.

  But was Debbie safe?

  Was it just faulty wiring, or was someone trying to hurt her?

  Mitzy was hoping it was a wiring issue. Debbie worked for the Red Cross and was highly regarded as a good, kind woman. Who would want to burn her house down?

  Mitzy wasn’t permitted in the house yet and didn’t have time anyway, so she drove from Baltimore Street to the radio station, ready for war.

  She didn’t know who she’d be in war with, but pretty much everyone had better toe the line. She wasn’t ready to kick the puppy or anything that drastic. But his soft, warm, fuzziness in the sling across her chest was incongruous to her mood, so she dumped him in the dog carrier.

  She would definitely be talking about stupid people who purchase and then immediately abandon pets during her time on the radio this morning. Who does that kind of thing?

  The image of her burned out rental was seared in her mind’s eye. What kind of person burned up someone’s home?

  It crossed her mind that someone who wanted her off of his tail about a certain house next door, might do this kind of thing.

  The day didn’t get better from there. Her time on the radio dragged and she felt like a big complainer.

  Johnny made a comment to the effect of ‘Mitzy the grouch’ and her cousin Oscar. But her worst moment was when she said, “It’s just too stupid for words, Johnny. People are just too stupid for words.” That was not an endearing or uplifting sentiment to be sharing on the radio.

  The calls that came in to the office indicated she was right—people were stupid, but they hated to have it pointed out. Worse, the puppy piddled on the carpet in the radio booth. It stunk. She left the mess for the radio janitorial staff (if there was such a thing) to take care of.

  Sabrina was annoyed at having to take grouchy radio listener calls and Joan still couldn’t be found to collect the puppy.

  Everyone was on pins and needles waiting to hear back from Curt.

  Mitzy wanted to go back in time to before the trip to her rental and start the day over.

  But she couldn’t and things just didn’t get better. The police stopped by a little after lunch.

  “Mitzy Neuhaus?” a tall, tan officer asked, flipping open his badge.

  “No, I’m sorry, I’m her assistant Sabrina,” Sabrina said politely.

  “I’m Mitzy Neuhaus.” Mitzy turned from her desk, which was against the wall.

  “We’d like to talk to you about the auction you attended last weekend. Would you like to talk here or come down to the station?”

  The officer was young and being very polite, so she couldn’t possibly be in trouble, she hoped.

  “We can speak privately in the office here. Sabrina was also at the auction, should she join us?”

  “We’ll talk to you both separately,” the officer said.

  Mitzy led the officers into the small private office and took a chair. They both remained standing.

  “At the auction you bid on some jewelry items. Can you describe them for us?”

  “One of them was…I think it was platinum with diamonds and sapphires. I mean, it had larger sapphires and small, accent diamonds. It was locally made about a hundred years ago. It was very pretty, a sort of bow shape.” She didn’t ask any questions, but waited with nervous tension while they took their notes.

  “Did you win this auction item?”

  “No.”

  “Can you recall who won it?” they asked, eyeing her closely.

  “Alonzo Miramontes.”

  “Do you know Mr. Alonzo Miramontes?”

  “Yes.”

  “How well do you know him, Ms. Neuhaus?”

  “We are acquainted through business.”

  “And how did you feel about his winning the item?” Their posture was stiff, polite yet unyielding. She had no idea why they were questioning her and was beg
inning to feel nervous.

  “I felt like…like he paid too much. But that it was sweet because he said he was giving it to his mother.”

  “You heard him say this?”

  “Yes.” Mitzy tapped the toe of her boot against the leg of the table.

  “And how did you hear him say this?”

  “We were seated at the same table.”

  “And the other pieces you bid on?” His voice maintained an even tone that Mitzy was beginning to find very intimidating.

  “Just one—the Romanov pendant.”

  “Did you win this item?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Do you know who won the item?”

  “Yes, my sister-in-law did.” Mitzy drummed her fingers in time to her tapping toe. It felt like the officer had a wire tap to all of her little jealousies.

  “And what did you think about that?”

  “I thought that she had won a beautiful piece of jewelry and made a generous donation.” Mitzy stood and pressed the palms of her hands together to make them stop shaking. “What is this about?”

  “The night of the auction the museum was robbed and the jewelry that had been sold at auction was stolen. We are talking to everyone who bid on the pieces.” They shut their little notebooks and led Mitzy out the door of her small office. Then they ushered Sabrina in.

  Before they left, they stopped at the reception desk. “We’re talking to everyone who bid at the auction and really appreciate your cooperation. We will call you if we need to speak to you further.”

  Mitzy spoke carefully, hoping her voice wouldn’t shake. “We will be allowed to have our lawyers present next time?” The line of questions did not make her comfortable or happy. And Sabrina had looked downright scared when she exited the little room.

  The officer leaned on the reception desk. “Ms. Neuhaus, you really aren’t a suspect, I swear. We do have someone in mind but have to sort of ‘eliminate’ everyone else. The event was a real ‘Who’s Who’ in Portland kind of night, so we want to cross all of our Ts and dot our Is especially since your brother is involved. We want everything above board.”