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

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  The floors weren’t restored in this room. They were scuffed and covered in plaster dust.

  One wall, the one they had noticed through the window, had a large hole. The dead black of the hole sent a shiver up Mitzy’s spine.

  She wrapped her arms around the warm puppy and took a deep breath. She didn’t have time to be scared.

  Mitzy made her way to the wall.

  She dropped to her knees and peered into the hole.

  She poked her hand into it, but found only the scratchy edges of horsehair plaster and lath. The hole in the wall was deep—the old house had thick walls. But it was empty.

  Mitzy stood up and dusted the knees of her jeans.

  The remains of a ceiling medallion clung to the plaster ceiling. She squinted at it. It looked like the rays of a sun, perhaps. She had never seen a design like it before.

  The light fixture was gone as was most of the center of the medallion. She stood on her tip toes and reached for the hole, but the ceiling was very high. She couldn’t reach the hole, or see inside.

  Along the outside wall there was a marble fire place that seemed almost cheery in the empty room,

  She gave it a thorough once over. The dust was thick all over it, but there wasn’t much inside.

  There were ashes, and a cold draft blew down through the chimney.

  There were no marks in the dust which was chalky white, even in the dusky half light of the unlit room she could tell it was coated in clean, new construction dust, most likely from damage to the ceiling, and possibly from the walls.

  She went back into the foyer, which was still brighter.

  Her eyes followed the staircases. The banisters came down to grand posts, shaped like arrows, another design element she had never seen. Her heart fluttered. This was what she had read about in the magazine, the special designs the retired Indian Tracker had insisted on.

  The arrow wasn’t straight up and down, but sort of set at an angle. She studied the staircase a bit longer. The smaller posts on the railing were all arrowheads and all at an angle.

  She traced the carved arrowhead with her finger. You would never find custom work like this in a modern home. She worked her jaw back and forth to keep from crying. This home deserved better than what it had received from life.

  Mitzy followed the arrows up the stairs.

  From the mezzanine she scanned the foyer below. The compass was the only thing obviously unusual at the front of the house. And from here, it seemed to be pointing most directly at the base of the staircase and not the formal parlor.

  Mitzy turned and gave her attention to the mezzanine.

  The woodwork was in disrepair, but she could see the ghost of its former glory in what remained.

  Two carpenters who would love to get their tools on it came to mind. She imagined it gleaming and golden. It deserved that.

  The mezzanine was like a long hall that stretched the length of the foyer. There were four doors, two to the left of the staircase and two to the right.

  Straight back from where the two branches of the stairs met was a large deep room, or sitting area.

  The sitting area was flanked with more doors.

  She tried to remember how many bedrooms the house was listed as having, but couldn’t pin it down.

  She walked slowly into the sitting area, taking note of anything out of the ordinary. A huge leaded glass window dominated the back wall, and the skeleton of a deep, long window seat, with built-in book shelves on either side stretched the length of the room. The panels and the bench had been removed from it.

  The supporting structure of the seat showed damage, as though the wood had been ripped off with violence. Mitzy’s stomach turned. She knew they’d never find the missing pieces.

  There was very little furniture in the house, but a buffet or bar of some sort was still in the sitting room. With the view over the back property this must have been a place the Victorians who build the house had loved to sit and entertain. She could imagine the bar filled with shiny bottles and glassware.

  She hated to admit it, but the house would make a lovely little inn.

  Dark had set in fully now and Mitzy could see the moon from the large window, but it didn’t shine brightly enough to light the room.

  She pulled a small flashlight from her purse (a Realtor has to be prepared). She wondered if it would be worth it to run back out to her car and grab the Maglite, but decided against it, both because it was so dark out, and because she didn’t want to stop.

  She pushed open the door to the room closest to her instead. She swept the room with her little flashlight. It was papered in something vintage, possibly original.

  From the glow of her flashlight it seemed in good condition. She sighed. If Evy Simonite-Wilber had loved the old jewelry so much, how much more would she love the house, if only she could see it again?

  The paper was a toile pattern, but in a Native American design of hills and ponies and tee pees, a deep maroon pattern set against yellowing cream.

  She touched it gingerly, just with her fingertips. It wasn’t paper, but silk.

  The room, true to its era, had no closet but was of a decent size and must have been a bedroom. She was sure it could fit the standard four poster bed, a wash stand and a wardrobe of the era. Those few pieces would fit perfectly and be all that was expected, even in a home of this quality.

  The fixtures were missing from the wall—gas light fixtures. There was no switch for electric, so possibly when electric had been added it had been added only for rooms that a smaller family with less money had been using.

  She knew just the electrician she would hire if she could buy the house from the bank.

  There was a hole in the wall where the gas fixture had been. Mitzy lit it up with her flashlight but there was nothing to see, just thin gas piping.

  It would be impossible to clean and restore the silk wall coverings with such a large hole cut out.

  What a waste.

  The condition of the next room was similar, though there was an electric light switch. Mitzy tried it but wasn’t surprised to find it did nothing.

  The electricity had surely been turned off when the bank took ownership.

  She let her flashlight shine on the walls. They were papered in something from the 1970s; eagles and flags. She looked around for any fixtures, but there were none, though there were wires hanging from the ceiling where an electric light fixture had been previously.

  In this room there was no obvious damage. She wondered about the selectivity of the person who had sliced up the house. What did he already know as he tore it apart? Did he have a treasure map or just an eye for what could be resold most easily?

  The next bedroom had been stripped bare to the plaster. There was no paper, no silk, no wood trim, no electric outlets or switches and no gas fixtures. The floor was even stripped of its wood, leaving the wide old planks of sub floor exposed. On the other hand, there were no large holes cut into any wall or ceiling or floor and no damage done to what was left behind.

  In fact, it looked almost like this room had been cleared quite a few years ago by someone who was careful.

  She was learning a bit about the house, but the information so far was scattered and didn’t fill any of the holes she had in her story.

  She moved on to the rooms across the way, hoping to find something more useful.

  The first room had its original toile silk, but this pattern was of an Eastern, or Russian look with thatched roof villages and onion roofed churches.

  There were no switches or outlets, so apparently it hadn’t been used as a bedroom in the last seventy years. The gas fixtures had been removed, but nothing had been cut up.

  Or had it? She swung her light into a dark corner and looked more closely. There was a fairly large hole, but it seemed more like a critter nest than her treasure.

  She shook her head. Was she a fool? She was hunting treasure in an old empty house—and expected to find it. The other house hunter wa
s too. They both wanted to find the rest of the lost Mikhaylichenko-Romanov jewels.

  But he seemed to have a treasure map, and all she had was her wits.

  Her heart beat pounded in her chest.

  Why was the compass off of due North and why did the balustrade have arrows? Was she supposed to follow the arrows? The compass led her first to the parlor where the most extensive digging had been done. She surmised the other treasure hunter had followed the arrows there as well.

  The staircase arrows led her upstairs, but so far only the rooms on the side where the compass was pointing had been damaged. Another point in favor of the compass being a clue.

  Mitzy slipped the door shut quietly and moved on to the next door.

  It was locked.

  Alonzo pulled his pickup truck into the driveway of the Victorian but not all the way to the front. In one upstairs window he saw a spot of light, like a small flashlight. What on earth does she think she is doing? He had seen Mitzy’s Miata in the driveway next door. Didn’t that burned up house scare her at all? He turned off his engine shaking his head. It was beyond him how a woman like her could make it in the world. The more he thought about her the more she seemed like a child. An incredibly lucky (and pretty) child.

  He had a Realtor’s lockbox code as well as she did. So he opened the house and slipped inside.

  He was torn between calling out her name so he could get her out of this place fast and sneaking up on her.

  He would love to see her jump.

  He chuckled, but decided against it.

  Knowing a little about the house he stopped to admire the once famous compass. It was set at an odd angle and seemed to point to the stairs, or maybe the parlor, or maybe even to the narrow wall between the two.

  The little wall wasn’t about two feet wide, not large enough for a closet. He ran his hand over the wall paper and felt something odd, like a panel or a door. He looked up to the mezzanine. There was a straight line of boxed-in space, the whole way up.

  His first thought was disused dumbwaiter, but there was no door at the top, unless it had been papered over as well.

  They were on the wrong side of the house for a kitchen dumbwaiter. Perhaps this one led to the laundry. He crossed the foyer and checked the other wall. This wall didn’t seem to have anything hiding behind the paper, but it was the same size as the opposite wall and adjacent to the kitchen.

  Mitzy was probably safe upstairs for a few more minutes. And anyway, if someone wanted to join the party, he’d hear them come in.

  He entered the kitchen and found the door for the right hand dumbwaiter. He figured it probably led from the kitchen up to the ballroom floor just under the servants’ hall.

  There was no mystery to Alonzo about the destroyed kitchen. A desperate man would do anything he could when everything he owned was on the line. Of course he had sold off the kitchen improvements.

  Alonzo walked through the kitchen and into the butler’s pantry where things were a little more interesting.

  The doors were off of the built-in cabinets and the shelves were stacked against the walls. There was shattered glass on the floor, likely from damage to the glass fronted doors.

  There was a large square hole cut in the ceiling above him. He tipped his Maglite up to the ceiling but it didn’t help. He hoisted himself up onto the counter and leaned towards the hole. He could almost reach inside of it and could see fairly clearly. The empty space between the upstairs sub floor and the ceiling had been used for hiding something.

  Mitzy fished a hairpin out of her handbag. The lock was a hundred years old; surely a hairpin could open it. She fiddled with it for quite sometime, until it finally clicked and she pushed the door open.

  The room was packed with antique furniture, full from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.

  She stroked the nearest piece. The wood had texture, and history. She wondered if any of it was original to the Romanov Princess.

  She flashed her little light all around the room. The light flashed on glass and a pair of bright blue eyes stared out at her. Her heart caught in her throat; it was a moment before she realized it was her own face in a mirror.

  The light bounced around from gilded frames to brass drawer knobs, and more small mirrors.

  She inched into the room and tried a drawer. With the puppy strapped to her chest there was barely enough room for her to stand between the wall and the furniture.

  The drawer she tried slid opened. It was empty.

  She would need daylight and a team of strong men to sort through all of this. She inched her way out of the room again and shut the door.

  It was full dark in the house now. Her Indiglo watch said it was 9 pm.

  All of her nerves were on edge. She tapped a fast staccato with her foot and tried to gather her thoughts. Were the missing Romanov jewels hidden in this house? Jewels that left the old country long before the Romanovs lost their lives? Or had they been given out as gifts by an otherwise impoverished old woman who relied on the kindness of relatives for her living?

  Or had that rumor been invented by someone who wanted to keep the jewels a secret?

  And what did she know about the house that people who had lived here for generations would not have known? She had to have some advantage or there was no point in being here.

  Someone had handled all of the furniture that was locked away. If jewels were hidden in any of the pieces of furniture, it was likely it had been done in the day of the person who lived with the furniture. Perhaps, she thought, this was where the things that had already been searched were being stored. She had only seen one piece of furniture not in that room—the bar.

  She pulled open the drawers and ran her long slender hands over their bottoms. She turned them over and felt their backs, looking for any irregularities. She shined her light into the cavities that held the drawers. She searched every inch of the shelves as well.

  Then she ran her hands under the bottom of the piece of furniture.

  A long, thin piece of metal was taped to the bottom. She peeled the crinkly tape off, her hands shaking and her breath coming fast.

  The metal rod had a circle at one end and was bent a bit at the other. It reminded her of something you’d use to turn the water on in the yard. Like a key. But you wouldn’t tape a sprinkler system key to the bottom of a bar.

  She needed to get into the basement.

  Alonzo found three empty boxes inside the ceiling crawl space. They were fairly old and mouse gnawed. A stack of mouse-chewed papers had spilled across the interior of the plaster ceiling as well.

  Alonzo scooped them out and shoved them into his jacket.

  He reached as far as he could into the ceiling, and then thought it might be a good idea to get a ladder.

  He heard Mitzy running down the stairs. He drummed his fingers on the ceiling. If he could just get the last of this out of the hole before she ran off, he’d call it good.

  He hopped to the floor.

  Glass shattered at his feet, slicing his shin. Warm blood dripped down his leg.

  He had landed on one of the unbroken glass doors, crushing it and slicing his leg in the process. He slipped off his jacket, the papers fluttered to the floor.

  He leaned against the cupboard and picked bits of glass out of his leg. He bit his tongue to keep from cursing. He’d find Mitzy in a minute.

  Mitzy made her way through the parlor into a sunroom at the back of the house. A door led from there to the cellar. She was on the second step when she heard a crash on the kitchen side of the house.

  She gripped the stair rail. And paused, mid step.

  Then she ran down the rest of the stairs, her hand hovering over Gilbert’s head.

  Alonzo had caught up with her.

  At the bottom of the stairs she illuminated the room in small circles.

  Dirt floor.

  Shelves.

  Some stainless steel something or other—oh yes, that was the missing stove.

  Pipes. />
  Bricks.

  Legs, in work boots.

  “Hello, Mitzy Neuhaus. I see you’ve made your way to the basement at last.”

  Alonzo had picked the glass shards from his leg and wrapped the wounds with the lining from his jacket. Forgetting the papers, he limped into the foyer.

  Mitzy was long gone.

  He hadn’t heard the front door open, so he headed to the parlor. But it was empty too, so he went through to the sunroom.

  As he looked around he heard the distinctive whine of a small puppy.

  A puppy?

  Why could he hear a puppy?

  He flashed his heavy light back into the parlor.

  He wasn’t sure where the puppy noises were coming from but it gnawed at him. The house had been closed for a long time, in puppy years. If there was a puppy in here it had to be starving to death.

  “It could use a coat of paint. And some new lighting.” Mitzy was rigid with fear, dripping with sweat, and seconds from panic.

  “What?”

  In the moment of pause she had her long, thin metal rod pointed out and up.

  She moved her small light around trying to see the whole man. Mid height. Sandy brown, to brownish hair. Round, sort of square face. A low, heavy brow.

  “You’re not Alonzo.” She took a step backwards, towards the stairs. Gilbert was whining. A warm spot developed on her silk blouse.

  “Indeed. And you are not where a good girl should be.” He lunged forward.

  Mitzy jabbed the rod into his chest.

  “Ouch!” Even his holler of pain had an accent.

  “Are there jewels down here, or just appliances?” Mitzy took another small step backwards, her heels hitting the bottom step.

  “Now why would there be jewels in an old dump like this?” he asked with a sneer.

  “It depends, I suppose, on if Aunty Irene really gave them all away as gifts or not, doesn’t it?” She leveled her key at him. He put his hand to his chest, instinctively.

  “Our Great Aunt Irene left it all to her nephew.”