Mitzy had a number of questions. Her friends were right. As much as she and the Smythes loved the house on 72nd street, a family with cash could get many much better homes right now, for about the same price.
“Dead set on this house, huh?” Mitzy asked, callously ignoring the baby story, which in the back of her mind rang out as untrue.
“Absolutely. They just love the homey neighborhood and want to raise a family there.”
Mitzy could hear the smile in the Realtor’s voice. She sounded professional. But she also sounded a little like she was lying.
“Really? It’s got fairly significant traffic and no nearby parks. I would think they could get something much more family friendly somewhere else.” Mitzy wondered if the Realtor would take the bait. The situation with the house wasn’t that dire. In truth there was a park a long walk/short drive away. But not necessarily ‘near.’
“Oh, I know, Mitzy, I know. But you know how people get when the find ‘the one.’ I believe he works, or has a number of clients around this area. Something like that and if you have a good reason to live in that part of town, then 72nd is a pretty family friendly area.” Her voice was getting a little tenser.
“Indeed. Of course. If it’s the one, it’s the one, isn’t it? She probably already has the kitchen unpacked in her mind. I am going to talk to the sellers, but I tell you what, they are going to want it a little different this time. I will be there for one thing, the whole time. Buyer’s closing and seller’s closing. They will pick the location. And between you and me, whatever the buyers want they get.”
“Within reason, Mitzy.”
“I think you will find us reasonable, but it will be at their time and in their time. No more next-thing-in-the-morning business. And before I let you go, I want every number possible for getting in touch with you. We aren’t having anyone disappear off of the face of the earth this time.”
Which is exactly what Mitzy assumed would happen. Her plan this time was to be present, with her brother, representing her client. They were going to find out what the scheme was and nail the criminals.
She sighed.
She was getting tired of hunting for criminals.
What would she really like to ask these frustrating so-called buyers to do for her?
House Hunters.
The day had been long, depressing, and slow for the whole team and the spring evenings got dark quickly. They spent most of it cleaning papers and trying to get a sense of calm and ownership back, but it hadn’t worked well.
They hadn’t heard from Joan in a few days.
Ben had taken off for home at lunch.
Mitzy wanted to get Gilbert from her mom’s house before she went home. Her mom was pretty in love with the fuzz ball, but Mitzy was thinking she’d like to keep him herself. She said her goodbyes and left Sabrina at the desk.
Sabrina had been thinking a great deal about the housing market. She wasn’t completely penniless. And the rumors of awesome houses going for a song had started to get to her.
She was digging deep into the multiple listing service to find herself a home. It was a great time to invest and frankly, with the gala over there was nothing else to do. She looked at the stacks of sorted papers that crowded her desk. No other happy work, at any rate.
She read well past her working hours. It was almost eight when she left the office. The street was deserted. She had driven, but her car was parked around back by the stoneworks. She smiled to herself, a lot of big manly men worked at the stoneworks.
The parking lot was dark.
She squinted into the distance as she turned the corner.
A light was still on at the stoneworks office, but she doubted anyone there could see her.
She turned towards her car and something hit her on the head, a quick thump, hard like iron.
She fell sideways into the building wall.
Her hands flew to her head, but she pulled herself together fast. Her car key was clutched between her fist and her thumb and she jabbed it out towards the attacker’s face.
She felt her wrist twist where the attacker grabbed her.
“Help!” she screamed as loud as she could.
The attacker dropped her wrist and grabbed for her laptop case.
She let it drop. “Help!” she yelled louder.
She stomped the bridge of his foot as hard as she could.
He jerked back, but bent down to grab the laptop.
She kneed him in the chin as he looked up.
He looked over her shoulder, turned and ran.
She looked behind her.
Bruce was running across the parking lot about as fast as a man who lifted rocks for a living could be expected to.
He had his cell phone to his ears.
Sabrina hoped he was on the phone with the cops.
He stopped, panting for breath, when he got to Sabrina.
“Are you okay?” He grabbed her by the shoulders and sort of shook her as he took a good look at her.
“I—I’m not sure.” She wished he wouldn’t shake her. Her head really hurt. She put her hands up to her head and he seemed to get the point.
“I called the cops, do you need an ambulance?”
“My head, where he hit me…and my wrist.” She held up her wrist which was red from the twisting.
He put his thick, strong, arm around her shoulders and led her down to the office in the shop. “Come on, kiddo,” he said, even though they were about the same age. You need to sit down.”
She sat in the stoneworks office, drank the glass of water he gave her and waited, trying desperately to think of a description for the attacker. She pictured herself jabbing at him with her key, but all she could see was his fist twisting her arm.
She remembered his shoe as she stomped on it and his back as he ran away. It wasn’t much.
After she made her report, Bruce took her to the urgent care clinic and hung out with her until she had her pain pills and orders to rest at home. Then he took her home.
She lay down on the couch and Bruce stayed with her, pacing awkwardly in the kitchen until her dad showed up. He wasn’t going to see her left alone. He shook hands with her father, accepted his thanks and left with very few words.
Sabrina stayed home the next morning. The office was quiet without her. Her innocuous chatter and constant typing were sorely missed as Ben and Mitzy considered the newest problem.
They sat with their own thoughts, only interrupted by the phone calls from radio listeners, which were few this morning. People had been disturbed, disheartened to hear about Sabrina’s incident.
Sad, low down Mitzy on the radio was not the crowd pleaser that up beat or on fire Mitzy was. And there was no way around it—her friend getting mugged for a laptop behind the office made her sad.
After a long measure of silence she spoke again. “But what possible use would someone have for Sabrina’s laptop? And how would they know she had it?” She held her coffee cup up to her mouth and let the warmth attempt to comfort her.
“Tweekers,” Ben said.
“Really?”
“Probably. Homeless drug users down by the river. They just grabbed the first thing they saw. She doesn’t need to bring her laptop here anyway. I don’t know why she does it.” Ben was slouching in his chair, doing nothing.
“She didn’t think he was homeless,” Mitzy said.
“She didn’t really get a good look at him. ‘He’ could have been a ‘her’ for all Sabrina knows. I shouldn’t have gone home at lunch. She would never have stayed so late if I had been here to kick her butt out of her chair.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. How could we know she’d stay late? And why should we have expected someone to be lurking around? Tabby has never been messed with, neither have I, or the receptionist at the music studio.”
“I’d like to see the man who’d mess with you or Denise at Music Mania.” Ben snorted. He was a good four inches shorter than Mitzy. And Denise was a woman that no one would
mess with, in general. She’d have made a great school secretary.
“Do you think it might not be a coincidence?” Mitzy kept an eye on the front window, looking for any sign of trouble on her busy street.
“Do you have a crack pot theory?” Ben asked in return.
“Not crack pot. But someone broke into Brett’s house, the museum, and this office. Someone burnt up my rental, and now Sabrina has been mugged.”
“Who did you insult at that gala, girl? If that’s all related, you’ve been causing some trouble.”
“I didn’t insult anybody. But I have been threatening Laurence Mills on the radio. What if he’s behind all of this?”
“And what if he’s the missing cash buyer?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Why not? It’s kept you distracted, hasn’t it? You want to get a hold of that guy but when was the last time you had any time to do serious spy work? Between missing buyers, talking to cops and your little foray into HGTV land.”
Ben was making fun of her, but he was also making her think. And at the moment she thought he was stupid.
“Yes, Laurence Mills who can’t afford to keep his own house has gotten me a gig on House Hunters so that I won’t have time to um…get him a good price on the property he needs to unload? Interesting theory.”
“Or, he has been putting extra effort into keeping you from finding him and making a precedent of his case, getting him hefty fines and possibly jail time into the bargain. I’m sure selling his house from under him only adds insult to the injury.”
“Okay, so I haven’t been acting with a completely generous spirit. I still wonder how well he knew the folks he bought the house from. That Maxim fellow. He seems much more likely to have a hand in this.” She had been chewing on the link between the previous owner and the missing jewelry for a while now. A name like Mikhaylichenko showing up twice couldn’t be an accident.
“Are you making a comment about Russians, Mitzy?”
“I’m making a comment about someone who has the same last name as some famous and now stolen jewels.”
“So now all Russians are thieves?” he asked, baiting her.
“I think I preferred the deafening silence, thank you.” It was a good thing Ben was a talented graphic designer, because in all other respects, he was a real pain.
They sat in silence for quite a bit longer, Mitzy mindlessly scrolling through the multiple listing service and thinking about her troubles and Ben playing minesweeper.
Mitzy saw Bruce through the front window. She waved him in.
“Hey,” he said.
“It’s good to see you, Bruce.” She had never thought of Bruce as a gentle giant before, but after yesterday he seemed something of that sort. A gentle giant meets Clint Eastwood’s silent Man with No Name. “I don’t know what we would have all done if you hadn’t heard Sabrina yesterday. I really can’t thank you enough for saving her like that.”
“No prob.”
“I know her parents were really grateful as well. They called me this morning and told me the whole story.”
Mitzy knew she was gushing but she felt that way, so that’s the way it was.
“So,” Bruce began but took his time getting the rest of the thought out. “I’ve seen this guy around. I think I know who he is.”
“You do?!” Mitzy was amazed.
“Yeah.”
Ben even turned in his chair to join the conversation.
“I’m going down to the station to do an ID. But I don’t think they’ve got him.”
“Why don’t you think so?” Ben asked.
Bruce shrugged, then said, “Just call over if you see a black Nissan pickup parked around here. If you girls are alone, and you see the pickup, just call down to us, okay?”
Mitzy nodded her head vigorously. “Thanks, Bruce, really. Is there anything else I should know? Who do you think it is?”
Bruce shrugged again and left.
Ben swiveled back to his computer, his manhood wounded by the idea that he wasn’t man enough to protect the office. He’d be watching monster trucks tonight, that was for sure.
And now Mitzy had to wonder, why did Bruce know who the attacker was and she didn’t? She felt as though she was getting careless.
The rest of the day was long and tense. She couldn’t find anyone interested in buying a house on House Hunters. What she really needed was someone just a couple of weeks from closing on their house who’d go on TV and pick it again. Someone who owed her something.
She was back to the cash buyers.
She wondered how they would feel about going on TV. She called the contact numbers for the Realtor and got the busy signal, again and again and again.
Ridiculous.
She Googled the Realtor’s name with ‘complaints’ and got nothing.
Maybe it was time for someone to make a complaint about this lady. The Realtor had very little web presence, but she did find a local White Pages listing with her name. Mitzy wrote the address down and decided it was time to go for a drive.
The address she had found was across town, but traffic was good. She drove fast and made good time. She wasn’t familiar with this side of town so she paid close attention to the Google map she had printed. She meandered through a mixed use neighborhood.
There were a number of apartment buildings and some very rundown ranch homes. She drove past two half empty and dreadfully dilapidated mini-malls. One boasted an off brand cigarette and beer type ‘grocery store’ as an anchor and the other was lacking an anchor all together, but had a payday loan place and an ‘adult and family’ movie rental place. Not the best part of the city. Not where a successful Realtor would be living.
She began to feel sorry for her professional peer instead of mad at her. She ought to help her out of her misery, teach her a few things. She couldn’t help it if her client was a flake, or a fraud or a criminal. But someone ought to help her learn how to tell the difference.
Mitzy was on the right street now. It wasn’t a completely worthless neighborhood. The homes were probably fairly nice about twenty years ago. They had just had fallen into the rental trap. There were too many cars parked per home and an air of temporary about them all. More than one home had sheets in the windows instead of curtains and two had for rent signs out front. Mitzy pulled her little Miata into the home with the right house number.
The rain had turned into a soaking mist, but she got out of the car, stood on the unsheltered front step and gave the knocker a few hard raps.
A very small, elderly woman answered the door. She looked sweet.
“Is Helen Berry available?” Mitzy asked gently.
“This is she,” the sweet little lady chirped.
“I see.” Mitzy tried to keep smiling. “I don’t suppose you are Helen Berry, the Realtor I spoke to recently?”
“Goodness no,” the sweet little lady said.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a daughter who is in real estate?” she asked, grasping for straws.
“No, my dear, I do not. Is there anything else I can do for you? It’s a bit drafty in the door.” The poor lady was shivering in a house coat and slippers.
“Not at all. Thank you for your time. I’m sorry for bothering you.” Mitzy nodded goodbye and returned to her car. Obviously she had the wrong Helen Berry, but had there ever been another one?
Before she drove off, Mitzy used her Blackberry to Google Helen Berry in Portland and again, this address was the only one which came up.
The whole thing was giving her a headache.
Curt liked the idea. Buying a house for cash was kind of fun and unusual. Viewers also liked watching families with new babies find their perfect house. He was all over it, in fact, and got a hold of the elusive Helen Berry himself.
It impressed Mitzy all over again with the power of media.
Curt secured a meeting for all of them in neutral territory, at a Starbucks. They dominated the little seating area in the back with the sofa
and arm chairs, in hopes of privacy and comfort.
The couple was striking, Curt thought. Perfect for TV. The baby was brand new, so she’d be the perfect chubby coo-ing age for the follow up shots at the end of the show.
He liked them. He even found the new dad’s heavy Russian accent perfect. Anything out of the ordinary way made for a good show.
Mitzy was very wary.
Helen Berry was a short, blond, middle-aged lady in a business suit and sneakers who seemed to be a legitimate buyer’s representative.
The missing cash buyers had appeared at last, but they made her incredibly suspicious.
They were at most twenty-five years old and very obviously from Eastern Europe. They had heavy accents, bright blue eyes, and Roman noses. The young mom’s hair was up in a bun and she was wearing a long denim skirt.
They drove a two door Acura and wore leather jackets. The wife shifted in her seat and kept her eye on her baby
All Mitzy could think about as she spoke with Martin and Katya were her Romanov-Mikhaylichenko Victorian Mansion-Missing jewel-troubles. She tried not to think of Martin and Katya as a plant by her mysterious nemesis. She tried to get them excited about buying a house via a television show. But it wasn’t working.
Curt had his charm on high velocity, but that wasn’t working either.
“Tell me what you love about this house,” he requested. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table.
“It is very nice,” Katya said.
“Great,” Curt said. “What is nice about it?”
“It has a big kitchen and very nice yard,” Katya responded again. Martin stared hard at Helen, arms crossed on his chest.
“What is the kitchen like?” Curt asked.
“It has…a nice order.” Katya worked her jaw back and forth as though she had struggled for the right words.
“You like the layout?” Curt suggested.
“Yes,” she said.
“That’s great. So when you go on the show, try to talk about all the things you want in your kitchen, and as we look at other houses, you can compare and contrast the kitchens, okay?”
Foreclosed: A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery (A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery, a Cozy Christian Collection) Page 11
