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

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “I had a small flashlight and looked around. I saw a man I didn’t know. He addressed me and then attacked me. Alonzo Miramontes came down the stairs shortly after and was also attacked.” She told him as many details of the attack as she could recall, right down to the dog piddling on her shirt.

  “And you didn’t know that Maxim Mikhaylichenko or Alonzo Miramontes would be in the house this evening?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mitzy. That will be all. We’ll contact you at a later date.”

  “I can go now?” Her head spun. She had expected him to put her in a cell, not send her home.

  “Yup. We have your statement and that you want to press charges against him for the attack. We will get a hold of you. If you think of anything new that we need to know, please call in.” He stood and motioned to the door. Mitzy exited and sat in the waiting room, waiting for the puppy and for Alonzo.

  Alonzo came out of another room, similar to the one Mitzy had been in. He carried out the dog carrier and offered Mitzy his arm.

  They left the police station in silence.

  Alonzo handed Mitzy into the taxi and then sat beside her. “Did they make the house a crime scene?” she asked him after a while.

  “I don’t think so. Unless Maxim says he was there to steal the missing jewels.” Alonzo stretched his arm across the back of the bench seat.

  “I had to tell them I was there for the jewels.” She tipped her head back onto his arm. “What did you tell them?”

  “I told them that I thought you had gone to the house and I was worried for your safety. I told them that a number of things had happened, such as the attack on Sabrina. I told them I drove by the property, saw your car, and went in to make sure you were okay.”

  “You did? You told them that?” She was still wrapping her mind around the idea of Alonzo being on her side.

  “I had to tell them the truth.”

  “Are you still going to buy the house for Carmella?”

  “Are you going to sell it to the Wilbers?”

  “I don’t know. It seems like the missing jewels should be theirs. But then, if they are found they might need to be returned to the Russian Government.” She watched the line of apple trees, with white blossoms shining under the street lights as they drove down the road. “How did you know that Laurence Mills was Maxim Mikhaylichenko?”

  “I’ve worked with Laurence on a few jobs. He knew everybody and everybody knew him. But he wasn’t a ‘Mills.’ For starters, he had that heavy accent. Plus he knew a lot of people in the building trades that had bad reputations.”

  “And you just put two and two together?”

  “Nope. I called one of my more disreputable friends. He looked into it.”

  “It wasn’t Bruce was it?”

  “Bruce was very helpful. But Bruce is solid gold. Disreputable is the last word for him. I don’t think you need to know who I called. Probably not safe.”

  “I’ve had enough of not safe for right now.”

  “You buy the house, Mitzy. Buy it for cash. Then decide what to do, if you happen to find something of value in the house.”

  “Would that be safe? And could I really afford it right now?” She guessed at the price the bank would ask and knew it was a bigger chunk than she wanted to take out of her cash reserve.

  “I think Maxim was working alone on the jewels job.”

  “So the house is safe?”

  “Probably.”

  They sat quietly for a bit longer.

  At Mitzy’s parents’ house, he opened the door for her. “We can afford it together. We could own it tomorrow.”

  Mitzy took his arm and walked up to her parents’ door. She had the puppy carrier in one hand and her purse over her shoulder. She needed a shower and a cry on her mom’s shoulder. “Give it the overnight test, Alonzo. Don’t decide right now.”

  He wrapped his arms around her thin shoulders and held her, urine soaked shirt and all, for a few moments. As soon as she was safe in the house he took the taxi back home.

  Wednesday morning, with deeply depleted cash reserves and afraid they had just made a huge mistake, Mitzy and Alonzo met on the front porch of their new house.

  He opened the door with the key and let Mitzy in first. She didn’t have her purple Birken bag today or her smart purple business suit. They both wore boots and blue jeans and clothes you could hunt for treasure in.

  She had her cell phone in her pocket, though Maxim was locked up at least until his trial. She also had her personal tool chest, in purple. Alonzo had his as well.

  They both went straight to the parlor side dumbwaiter and began pulling off wallpaper. It was tedious and took a straight edge, mineral spirits and a scraper. But the door appeared eventually.

  Mitzy took the box knife and sliced into the layers of paint that had glued the door shut.

  She was shaking as she loosened three sides of the panel.

  “You’re going to slice yourself, give me that.” Alonzo took the knife from her. He worked with a steady hand.

  They pulled together on the door until it popped open.

  The small box for delivering things up and down the height of the house was made of perfect walnut. It was stained a deep brown and had clear wood grain. It had been sealed up and unused for so many years that it looked new.

  But it was empty.

  Alonzo pressed on all sides of the box, looking for a secret panel.

  “Move over. I want to see.” Mitzy nudged with her hip.

  Alonzo pressed on the top of the dumbwaiter and it lifted on a hinge.

  Then he turned to Mitzy and kissed her full on the mouth.

  Her head spun. Her heart beat like thunder.

  She wrapped her arms around him, letting her fingers thread through his thick, black hair.

  Then she pulled away.

  He wrapped his arm around her waist. “It doesn’t matter what’s in here, Mitzy.”

  “No. It doesn’t.” The warmth of his hand on her waist was worth whatever she would find behind the secret door.

  It was everything.

  He reached in again, held the trap door up.

  She slipped her hand inside.

  She felt something soft, like velvet. It was hard to grasp with one hand, but she managed to pull the object down into the dumbwaiter.

  A heavy purple velvet bag landed with a thud and a poof of dust.

  She stepped back. “There it is.”

  He urged her forward with a little push.

  She picked up the bag carefully, weighing it in her hands and then spilled the contents onto the floor of the dumbwaiter.

  The remains of a once great jewelry collection lay before her. Two rings, two small pendants on thick gold chains, and a broach of deep blue sapphires. Mitzy exhaled, speechless.

  Alonzo eyed Mitzy, her lean body in casual clothes, hair pulled back into a soft, loose pony tail. Her eyes were brilliant blue and her cheeks were flushed with excitement. He wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug, lifting her a little off of her feet.

  She every inch of her body shivered.

  A tap sounded at the front door.

  Alonzo dropped his arms and Mitzy slipped down to her feet again.

  The door opened.

  “You made it.” Mitzy stepped forward and extended her hand.

  A man in a sharp black suit shook her hand and nodded.

  “Ambassador?” Alonzo asked.

  “Yes, yes. I’m here from the embassy. Call me Eduard.”

  “Eduard Ivanovich?” Mitzy held out her hand for his ID.

  “Of course.” He held out an ID badge and looked around the room. “Have you had any success yet?”

  “We have.” Mitzy passed him the jewelry, nestled on top of the velvet bag.

  “You’ve done the right thing,” Eduard said. “You wouldn’t believe the trouble we’ve had repatriating the national treasure.”

  Alonzo snorted. “We just might.”

  �
��Well, yes. I suppose you would.” He cleared his throat and looked over the collection. Then he set his titanium briefcase on the floor and knelt down beside it.

  He laid the pieces in the case one at a time. Then he pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He compared the jewelry with the list. He cleared his throat again. “This looks like what we were hoping for.” He snapped the case shut and locked it.

  He stood up and brushed the knees of his slacks with his hand. After he straightened out he pulled a card out of his pocket and passed it to Alonzo. “If anything else comes up you need to let me know.”

  Mitzy reached across for the card. “Of course. If anything else shows up. We will get a receipt for all of this, right?”

  Eduard heaved a dramatic sigh. “Yes, of course.” He mumbled something about American paperwork as he opened his case again. He took out a carbon form and filled it in.

  Mitzy tapped her toe while he wrote.

  Eduard pulled the form apart and handed the top sheet to Alonzo.

  Alonzo smiled and passed it to Mitzy.

  Eduard folded the remaining sheets and tucked them back in the case. He gave one last look around the front of the house, shook his head, and left.

  “Maxim Mikhaylichenko is in prison now,” Mitzy said. “And the jewels are on their way back to Russia. That’s the end of it.”

  “The museum had to give back the money, didn’t they?” Alonzo asked.

  “They didn’t collect any, actually. But it’s no matter. They could sell half a painting and make more than they did from the jewelry.”

  “They got a lot of press though,” Alonzo said.

  “And any press is good press. They’ll recover.” Mitzy looked up to the top of the staircase. Handing the jewelry over like that had dampened her spirit.

  “And you will recover?” Alonzo asked, his voice hushed and concerned.

  Mitzy took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I got knocked around a little. But what’s that in light of the grand scheme? What I want to know is will the economy recover?”

  Alonzo nodded in agreement. He knocked on the wall nearest to him. “It’s got good bones,” he said.

  “It’s a beautiful home.” She sighed a little, but smiled. “It will make a great little inn.”

  “You won’t be sorry.” Alonzo leaned his elbow on the wall and looked Mitzy over again with a smile.

  “You’re right. I won’t be. We’ve started this now. We have to be a success.”

  The floorboard crumbled under Mitzy’s first step. She extracted her boot, ignoring the scratches on the new leather and said, “Replace floor.”

  Alonzo Miramontes offered Mitzy his hand and directed her to a firmer spot in the upper attic room they were touring. “Replace floor,” he repeated, making a note on his iPhone.

  The mansion on Baltimore Street had hooked Mitzy earlier in the year. As a Realtor she knew the broke-down mansion was a great commission waiting to happen. She also saw potential every time she looked at it. It could be a magnificent building with a little work. And since she owned the little rental house next door, potential for the mansion was potential property value for her as well. As icing on the cake, all that renovation work would mean jobs for her friends.

  But Mitzy was realizing the word ‘renovation’ was insufficient. An argument could be made for just tearing the old house down. The untamed acres of property and ramshackle house that had consumed her mind were now consuming all of her capital as she, her new boyfriend Alonzo, and his sister Carmella converted it into an inn.

  Buying the house had been the action of a heated moment. Alonzo and Mitzy had tried to buy it out from under each other, but found that the Mafia didn’t want either of them to have it. There was a little secret in the house, earlier that spring—a stash of missing jewels, from the Russian royal family, the Romanovs.

  Mitzy was the best Realtor in Portland. A millionaire by 30. She didn’t get to the top by making mistakes. But in the thrill of the battle for the jewels, the house, and their lives, she and Alonzo had skimped on a few home buying technicalities. In fact, she had broken her favorite rule as a Realtor: Due Diligence. Mitzy took her job as a Realtor seriously. She wore her purple blazer with the company logo with pride. She wore her matching purple fingernails with pride too.

  But being a Realtor was more than just owning a business to Mitzy. It was her life’s blood. The due diligence she had forgotten was the inspection. A mortgage requires an inspection, but cash can move mountains. Who needs an inspection when you are hunting for missing jewels? This was the first time Mitzy had discovered a whole floor of living space in a building after purchasing it.

  Turning the property into an inn was Carmella and Alonzo’s dream. Since falling in love with Alonzo she had fallen in with this dream. But really, the love part only complicated the business start up. Mitzy fully intended to get beyond the drama of the mansion and the jewels and the Mafia and get back to selling homes as soon as the inn was up and running.

  The business partners were dealing with the servants’ quarters on the top floor of the house today. The floor that had been a complete surprise. Mitzy was becoming convinced as she sketched plans yet again for the rooms upstairs, that some mountains should just stay put.

  The Victorian mansion had five bed rooms right below the storage attic. It was enough space to house a butler, cook, and a few maids. Also on that floor was a larger room that must have been a school room or nursery.

  “We need one large suite with extensive private accommodations, bath, sauna, living room, and big screen TV,” Carmella, Alonzo’s sister and future inn manager said.

  “No,” Alonzo said.

  “It’s the top floor. It needs to be posh,” Carmella said.

  “Can we even get a spa up here?” Mitzy asked eyeing the narrow stairs and low ceilings.

  “Lift it in through the window. It doesn’t matter how we do it; it just needs to be done.” Carmella drew a line across the window with her pointer finger.

  “We are not plumbing a spa up here. It’s too expensive. We’d have to reinforce all the floor joists. Can’t do it. We’d have to get new permits. These rooms should be offices and storage,” Alonzo said.

  “No,” Carmella said, shaking her head. “I am the inn manager and the design consultant. We can’t waste all of this space on storage and offices. The more rooms open, the more money we make.”

  Mitzy was measuring windows with her keychain measuring tape and responded without thinking. “The more we advertise the more money we make.”

  “Focus, Mitzy,” Alonzo said. “And you,” he said to his sister, “are not our design consultant. You had better not expect to be paid for design consulting. You are not a designer.”

  “You invited me here for my opinion. I assume it is my opinion on design and not on what to have for lunch.” She tossed her thick black pony tail and turned her head to the window. “This is the best room in the house because it is the top room. The offices need to be downstairs so I am available to our guests,” Carmella said.

  “We’re turning the staff staircase into an elevator,” Mitzy said.

  “Focus,” Alonzo snapped.

  “I am focused. Don’t be such a jerk. We are putting an elevator here, so guest access to the top floor wouldn’t be a problem.” She walked through the doorway into the hall, looking up and down its length. “But fitting out a suite would be.” She raised her voice to be heard. “If this is opened to guests at all it needs two washrooms. But if we don’t have sleeping space it wouldn’t have to be full on-suite baths. For two toilets and two sinks we wouldn’t have to reinforce floor joists, etc. The nursery is large and we could open up into the other small rooms.” Mitzy walked back into the room with her partners.

  Alonzo shook his head, eyes lowered to a paper he was holding. “We have all of our estimates,” he said.

  “We left the servants’ quarters ‘to be decided,’” Mitzy said. “We might as well decide now.”
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br />   “Because we don’t have enough to do?” Alonzo said.

  “I have two ideas,” Mitzy began. “The first is the best. We could turn this into a banquet room. We would just need two bathrooms. The ceilings are low so it wouldn’t be very grand, but we could make it stylish and offer it as part of our wedding packages.” She paused and looked at Alonzo to see how he liked it. “Or we could turn it into a business conference room and fit it out like a smoking room or library, or that kind of manly thing.”

  “We do need to add those bathrooms, no matter what we do,” Alonzo said, thumping the floor boards with his booted foot. “Do you know what it costs to reinforce these old beams?”

  “We could get a lot more money for it as a honeymoon suite,” Carmella said.

  Mitzy observed Carmella. Her peevish expression was so exactly like her brother’s. Her lips were pursed and her thick eyebrows drawn over her big black eyes. Her shoulders were thrown back and she stood with her feet planted shoulder width apart.

  “We’ll keep that idea in mind, Carmella. But as far as we can tell off hand, it isn’t in the budget.” Mitzy patted her fluffy blond curls as she thought. Top floor was top floor. But these spaces had been servant’s quarters. Small rooms, small windows, low ceilings. Even converting them to a conference room would require larger windows and disturb the historic integrity of the façade.

  “Carmella,” Mitzy asked, “what would you charge per night for your top floor honeymoon suite?”

  “At minimum, $400 a night,” Carmella said.

  “And what would you charge for your smallest room?” Mitzy asked.

  “Nothing in this hotel will be less than $175 a night.”

  Mitzy pointed as she counted the rooms. “Then one, two, three, four, five, junior-rooms with shared baths off the hall and continental breakfast in the nursery at $100 dollars a night, would be more profitable than one large suite at four hundred.” Mitzy smiled. This new plan was her favorite by far. “If you had the large suite rented every weekend in June and half of July and August the inn would make $3200 a year on this space. If we averaged renting half these rooms half of the weekends for the year this space would bring in $5250 a year. What do you think?”