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

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  Martin turned his stare to Curt. “We aren’t so sure,” he said.

  “Don’t let the cameras make you nervous,” Curt said. “You’ll get used to them very quickly. Just ignore them—pretend they aren’t there. Everyone forgets about them after the first few minutes.” Curt nodded while he spoke.

  Martin stared at Helen again.

  “Purchasing the home via the show is the seller’s requirement, Mitzy? That doesn’t seem reasonable.” Helen laughed, a high, nervous sound.

  “You know how people are about their homes, Helen,” Mitzy said with a chuckle. “They heard they had a chance to see their home on House Hunters and they just couldn’t pass it up. Really, they would rather have it on the show than get it sold fast.”

  “We do not want to be notorious,” Martin said with some heat. He looked from side to side.

  “I think he means…celebrities. Is that what you mean, Martin?” Helen suggested with a crooked smile.

  “We don’t want people…watching what we are doing,” Katya said, her eyes fixed on her baby.

  Curt looked to Mitzy but she just shrugged. Notorious people who want to keep what they are doing quiet didn’t really calm her suspicions.

  Helen spoke quietly to her clients in Russian for a few moments.

  Curt and Mitzy attempted to discuss other aspects of the show.

  Martin cleared his throat. “Katya wants me to build her a house,” he said. “We are changing our minds about this house.”

  While the young couple gathered their jackets and the baby in her car seat, Helen apologized to Mitzy. “I am so sorry to have taken up so much of your time. Young people really are hard to pin down. I thought this was such a great opportunity for your sellers. But I guess if they insist on making a show of their house they will have to find buyers with money and a bit of…a show business kind of attitude.” She shook hands absently with Mitzy and followed her clients out.

  “Curt, I think we’ve been had. I think someone has been trying to keep me busy. But I am not going to let it keep happening.”

  “These guys sure have been pulling you around. Couldn’t tell you why myself. But if you run across another rich couple with as much screen appeal let me know right away. That is totally the show I want to produce.”

  Mitzy left the coffee shop convinced that the couple was related to the jewels and the break-ins. The timing was off though. Their first call had come before the auction.

  She tried to piece her last weeks together. What had happened right before she got the call about the house?

  Ben was still seething about Bruce’s implications on his manhood. Who was this Bruce character to imply that Ben couldn’t look after his women?

  Ridiculous.

  So he used computers as an artist—strike that—as a designer—as an engineer (better though not quite accurate) instead of playing with rocks all day. Probably Bruce never had a Nintendo when he was a kid and got used to playing with rocks all day. That didn’t mean Bruce was manly and Ben wasn’t. Ben had to leave work early that day. He had a hair appointment. But none of his thinking was making him feel better. Now was the time for action.

  Ben was yet again alone in the office, so there wasn’t much protecting to be done.

  Mostly just dusting.

  And vacuuming.

  He vacuumed like a man, with lots of grunting and banging.

  Then he swept the front step, sort of futile in the rain, but he did it anyway. He swept the front of the whole block.

  He didn’t see anyone from the music studio out in the rain keeping an eye on things.

  He scanned the road up and down and didn’t see any black pickups.

  Bruce was probably fabricating the whole thing.

  Bruce the hero, who mysteriously knew who the bad guy was. Bruce the hero, who had mysterious clues about mystery trucks. Stupid Bruce.

  Ben went back to the office, put his broom away and took a seat at Sabrina’s desk. He could see quite a stretch of parking lot and street from the reception desk. Nothing much was happening, but if any black trucks came by, Ben would know well before Bruce did.

  Bruce was eating a meatball sandwich and thinking.

  He had been to the ID. He was right. They did not have the suspect and didn’t really have a clue who the suspect was. The cops were disappointed.

  They had caught a guy running in the general area with the same colored jacket. The guy they caught happened to have a rap sheet. It was win-win as far as the cops were concerned. But he wasn’t the right guy.

  Bruce had seen him clearly, and knew exactly who he was. He told the cops who they were looking for but didn’t figure it would help much.

  He tossed the sandwich wrapper across the room into the waste basket.

  He was pretty well useless in this fight himself, but someone ought to be looking out for Mitzy and Sabrina, poor kids.

  What about that guy on the radio, Johnny? He seemed to be vested in Mitzy. But no, he was a sorry excuse for a man. He’d be worse than useless. Bruce wanted a man of action who knew people.

  He thought of Brett, the lawyer brother Mitzy talked about. But he seemed too important and likely to know the wrong people.

  Bruce wanted someone who knew people in the building trades who could keep their eyes out for their man.

  The attacker was likely to be hanging around, trying to get work but under a different name. He wasn’t a man with a lot of friends left, but he only had one skill to fall back on.

  Renovations.

  He was bound to be looking for work, just not with the people he’d worked for in the past.

  Bruce needed to call his buddy Alonzo. Alonzo would know if Laurence Mills was hunting for work, and where. If Alonzo couldn’t find the man who mugged Sabrina, no one could.

  Ben found himself alternating between the sky-cam traffic cameras on his computer, watching the nearest freeway exits and watching the street.

  There was nothing else to do anyway, he told himself.

  There it was! No—that wasn’t a Nissan. It was a Toyota, and a navy one. He was looking for a black Nissan.

  Maybe the bum wouldn’t come back. But maybe…maybe he hadn’t gotten what he was after.

  Ben’s eyes flicked back and forth. He thought he saw a black Nissan stopped just off of the freeway exit. He watched to see where it turned.

  He lost it in the sea of traffic lights and turned his eyes back to the front window. That particular truck might not have been a Nissan and it might not have been black, though he thought it was. But it had been headed straight which meant in less than five minutes, it would be pulling past. He started another game of minesweeper while he waited.

  Before he had emptied his coffee cup, but after two losses and one win (expert level), he saw his man. Not as big as he had seemed (in his imagination, since he hadn’t actually been there), but short sandy hair, broad shoulders. From the profile, the man was sort of effeminate.

  Ben snickered. Bruce couldn’t catch this girly man. But what had made him (if it was really the same guy) come back?

  Ben only half believed what he was seeing when the truck pulled into their parking lot.

  His heart thundered in his chest and his palms were sweaty. For a moment he thought he was going to puke. He took a deep breath, stood up, squared his shoulders and thought—Oh crap, what am I doing?!

  He stood in his doorway and tried to look intimidating. The truck had parked just in front of the ceramics studio. Ben couldn’t see inside of it from this angle, so he opened the door (slowly) and stepped out.

  The driver was just exiting the car.

  A surge of adrenaline flooded Ben. He ran up behind the driver and grabbed for him.

  Then he felt a blinding pain in his eye. His hand flew to his face as a knee drove into his chest. As he doubled over his foot was crushed beneath a heavy foot.

  Ben wobbled and got a knee to his stomach. As he fell over he heard a woman screaming, “Help! Help!”

 
He tried to stand up, but found it difficult. His hands were over his eyes and he was on his knees panting.

  “This man tried to attack me!” a frenzied female voice cried out.

  “What?!” Tabby asked incredulously. “Ben? What on earth are you doing on the ground?”

  “Black truck—” was all he managed to get out.

  “Are you hurt?” Tabby asked.

  “Ye-es,” he whimpered.

  “Not you,” Tabby said sharply. “Maggie, are you hurt? Is the rest of your party on the way? Do you want to postpone your painting party or are you going to be okay?”

  “I think I’m okay, but I’m going to call the police. That young man ran up right behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders. I think he wanted to mug me.”

  “I don’t think so. This is my friend Ben. I think he has MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE and wants to APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW.”

  Ben sat up more fully, one hand over his eye still. “I am so sorry, ma’am. I am so sorry. I—we—well—my friend was, was attacked here by someone in a in a black truck and, and…”

  “And I look like some kind of attacker to you? Thank you so much. Thank you so very much. Tabby. I need a coffee. I’ll be right back.” She huffed off across the parking lot to Bean Me Up Scotty’s.

  “Ben, you’re a right idiot, did you know that?”

  “She looks like a dude.”

  “No, she does not. Don’t be an idiot. Let me see your eye.” Tabby pulled Ben’s hand off his eye and looked close. “She got you good, must have been her key. But it was kind of off to the side and didn’t poke any holes. I think it will be black though. Very manly. What else did she do, get you in the boys?” Tabby was laughing pretty loud.

  He stood up (slowly) and shook himself off. “All right. I’m fine.” He limped back to his office and nursed his wounds, both physical and psychological, with another cuppa and some quality time with his Facebook friends.

  “Get your courage together. I have a job for us.” Mitzy stood in Sabrina’s living room, her hands on her hips. She exuded a confidence she didn’t exactly feel, but knew that Sabrina needed.

  Sabrina was lying on her living room sofa still nursing her new found sense of fear and insecurity. Mitzy wasn’t going to let her keep doing it.

  “Let me guess, karate lessons?”

  “Not at all. We need to go have a chat with a sweet old lady.” Mitzy took Sabrina’s long wool jacket out of the closet. “Go put something on that looks fabulous with this jacket. Our sweet old lady is rich and expects us to be dressed for tea.”

  Sabrina rolled over, her back to the television.

  “Don’t say no.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Sabrina mumbled.

  “Do you have a long skirt? If not wool slacks will work.” Mitzy let herself into the bedroom and started rummaging through the closet.

  “Where is your cream silk blouse? The one with the pearls at the neckline? Wear that one.”

  “It’s at the cleaners,” Sabrina called from the couch.

  “No, it’s right here. You know that I’ll drag you up myself, right? We’ve only got half an hour to get there. Wear your glasses. They make you look smart.”

  Sabrina dragged herself off the couch and slumped onto her bed. “Why should I go have tea with an old lady?”

  “Because this old lady is greatly interested in the missing jewels. And because when I called her and asked her nicely if we could talk about a property that used to be in her family, she kindly invited us over to tea.” Mitzy tossed the blouse and a pair of tan slacks to her friend. “Get dressed quick.” Mitzy went back to the living room and waited.

  Despite her strong inclination to bury herself in her blankets and never come out again, Sabrina found that Mitzy made a compelling case for having tea. And of course, she was Sabrina’s boss.

  Mrs. Evangeline Simonite-Wilber had the tea table laid in the formal sitting room of her large Craftsman home on the Westside. Mitzy took note of the immaculate woodwork and the original features, such as the buzzers near the door frames to summon the help. The house was three thousand square feet if it was an inch and she was almost certain that there would be a ballroom on the top floor. The whole street was lined with venerable mansions of a by gone era.

  Mrs. Wilber, or Evy as she asked to be called, was every bit as chatty and pleasant as she had been at the gala.

  “Aren’t you young things sweet to come and have tea with me? I was just tickled when you called about the old house in East County. I haven’t thought about it in ages.” Evy sat in a velvet wing back chair pulled up to the tea table. “Did you know that part of town used to be countryside? Many families had their summer cottages out that way.” She said ‘families’ in a way that left no questions in your mind that she meant important families who had parts of town named after them.

  “I was so sad to see it going into foreclosure.” Mitzy sipped her tea.

  “That is sad. People seem so careless with their property these days.” Evy tut-tutted in a mother hen sort of way. “In my day one did not lose one’s property.”

  “It is such a great old house. It could use some fixing up though. I thought it would make a neat bed and breakfast,” Sabrina said.

  “Oh, you’re probably right. It’s certainly big enough. I haven’t been in it in years. You girls probably weren’t even born yet the last time I was in that old pile.”

  “Old pile? Did the family not keep it up well?” Mitzy asked casually.

  “It’s certainly a big old house, and I don’t remember that that family had enough money to keep it up. It seemed like there was never enough staff and things always looked a bit down at the heels. It is on the Eastside though. I don’t imagine one could expect anything else.”

  Sabrina’s back stiffened. Her family had been East-siders for generations. Mitzy kicked her shin under the table cloth.

  “I wonder that it got out of the family in the first place,” Mitzy mused quietly. She was eager to find out if the ‘family’ knew anything about Laurence Mills. Or about Maxim Mikhaylichenko.

  “It wasn’t exactly a family place,” Evy said sharply. “Aunty Irene was related to someone who lived there, but I don’t think we were. It was always thought of as a bit of a strange place.” Evy’s back stiffened, ever so slightly. She shifted her shoulders back and her chin out and passed a tray of scones to Sabrina.

  “Not family? I’m sorry. I thought I had heard that it was related in some way to the family that donated the jewels to the museum…” Mitzy trailed off.

  She didn’t know much about Evangeline Simonite-Wilber. She knew that she wanted her old family jewels back. She knew that when she had called asking about the old house, she had casually mentioned the stolen jewels and was invited to tea.

  She didn’t know how old Evy was or if she was suffering from any kind of dementia. She didn’t know how far to trust any information she was gathering. And she didn’t know what good the information would do her once she had gathered it.

  “Oh, I suppose they were some kind of relation, but it is all so far back. You know, I never knew Aunty Irene. She was mother’s aunty. She had all those jewels and gave them all away. She was a princess you know.”

  “Really?” Sabrina set her cup down and leaned forward.

  “Oh yes. She was a Russian princess. Her father immigrated when he lost his lands. I think he lost his lands. You know over in Russia you must have lands if you want to live comfortably. But it might have been his home in town that he lost. I remember a story about a fire.”

  “Your aunty was a princess who lost her property to a fire?” Sabrina’s eyes were wide. “How romantic and Tolstoyian.”

  “Tolstoyian? Maybe so. Maybe I was remembering a book.” Evy held her small, white fist to her mouth and cleared her throat. “There was a fire though, and the family wasn’t able to fully recover, so they immigrated to America. I think they came out by way of Alaska.” Evy seemed to be gazing at the wall behind Mitzy. “
That seems right. They were in Alaska for a while before they came here. I think Aunty Irene had the jewels and had to pass them off to her nieces and nephews. She never had her own children you know. And she never learned English, I’m sure of that.”

  “She must have been so lonely.” Mitzy tried to steal a glance at the wall that held Evy’s gaze. Several oil portraits hung over a low bookcase. Was Evy thinking of the people, or the stories?

  “Oh, rather not, I’d think. We’re a big family. I think some of them somewhere still speak the language. Funny thing that, probably all sorts of new money folks are related to us and don’t even know it.” She smiled, but only with her thin lips. Her watery blue eyes were hooded.

  “New money?” Mitzy asked.

  “Oh, probably. I really don’t keep up with those people. My charities take up so much of my time you know. That museum, now that is something.” Evy began to ramble on about the museum and the jewelry collection and how the women in her family had always wanted to get back their jewelry, but considered it quite impossible.

  “Were you terribly disappointed to not get it in the auction?” Mitzy asked.

  “Indeed. I had intended to buy it from Ms. Flint-Neuhaus privately after the auction. You can only imagine my disappointment when I heard that it had been stolen.” She sighed and her thin shoulders shuddered. A real sadness suffused her features.

  “It is a great loss. I hope that they can retrieve it quickly,” Mitzy said.

  “I’m afraid that the piece will be broken up and the jewels themselves sold. I’m sure they are lost forever now. If mother had known this would happen she would have gotten them back herself.”

  “Did no one ever try to get the jewels back?” Sabrina asked.

  “Never. My husband would say things at times about people and treasure and the lost treasure. You know he has always been a very important man. I think he did a lot to help my family many years ago.”

  “What kind of help did your family need?” Mitzy was getting lost in the rambling memories and fishing for a straight narrative.