Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 04 - Trash Out (38 page)

Ben’s step was heavy.  “Beth moved all the paperwork and took it down to O’Reilly’s office to sort it out.”

“I imagine there was quite a bit to sort out.”

“She
kept promising Beth
the
paper work, that she’d sign this form or that form. O’Reilly and I didn’t know.”

“And Mark?”

“He came in late, they met at a party here in the States.  He gave her some money for the barrels and a tank, but apparently he wasn’t much of a hands on guy.”  He glanced at me.

“What else?”  I didn’t respond to
Ben’s look
.
I knew Mark was in this for the contacts, to l
everage the next big deal, as if
start ups were his drug of choice
,
t
hat
,
and women. He loved
women,
he just didn’t like them very much.

“Come
.”
Jose gestured to the back.
The warehouse was empty
.  Jose flipped on a set of overhead lights creating the same effect as when poor Fred died.
I shu
ddered. 
Two deaths,
one
injury.
“Cassandra didn’t build this on an Indian burial ground did she?”

Jose shook his head.
“Just bad luck, a lot of bad luck.”

“Your
crew is
new
,
” Ben commented
. A pile of spent pallets sagged in a far corner.  All the tubing was neatly draped over the cat walk struts. The floor was washed clean, as clean as I had ever seen it.  

“
All
new except me
,
”
Jose
confirmed
. “She fired everyone three weeks ago, all
the new crew
had to do was bri
ng in these last two tons and,”
he rubbed his eyes.  “You know what happened. You wanted to take a look?”

Jose gestured to the stacked barrels off in
the
corner.  Ben was already heading there, I just followed, not sure what my role was.  One always wishes for an enemy to die, but not in such a horrible way. And now that Cassandra was gone, I was becoming rather fond of her.  I glanced around at the gleaming tanks, barrels and fermenting bins. What would happen to all this without Cassandra
?
  Did Ben suddenly own a winery with the unspeakable Mark Cincet?  God, what a horrible
situation
that would be, like sharing child custody with the worst ex in the world.

“Last two tons?”  Ben paused
and looked up at the bar
r
els of red wine
.  “But she just ha
d
enough
in
the barrels here.”

“I’m just crushing
,
”
Jose
opened his hands in supplication
.  “She insisted, and there was no one to ask. 
That other
owner
, Mark?
  He said to go ahead and do it.”

“He’s an idiot.”
Ben
regarded the stack
of barrels only for a moment.  Before
I
could
suggest
anything
, he
stepped
up
on the end of
the
rack
using it as a
makeshift ladder.  It swayed under his weight.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, even though I really didn’t have to be quiet, no one was here.

“I don’t think
we’re
insured for that
,
”
Jose called up in a
moment
of black humor.

Ben
balanced on the metal
barrel rack and
leaned over
to wiggle
the bung
out
of
the
closest barrel
. He
tired to
peer
down the hole
,
but
apparently
couldn’t see
anything
.

“Flashlight?”

Jose fet
ched one and tossed it up.  Ben
caught it single handed and
shined it into the hole
.  He swore.  Loudly.

He pushed the barrel next to the one he was so
precariously
balanced against
, it rocked on its curved stand. He
swore again.  I watched the barrel move, as much as it would during a tremor.

Ben climbed down and I let out my breath. 
If a person stuffed her hands into her pockets and just tipped over, she could crack her head open
on the cement
and die.  All it took was a distance of five feet, eight inches, more if she’s wearing
Manalo Blahnik
pumps
.
A fall from
the top of the barrels
would
certainly
be fatal.  I glanced over at what was left of the wine cases shipped from Australia.
They
had been reconfigured and were not stacked as high as before.

“What?”

“They’re empty.”
He handed the flashlight to Jose.

“
She was going to fill them with the new wine.” I said.  It seemed sensible to me.

“They were already ful
l.  Or suppose to be full.”  

We both turned to Jose, the only man left standing.  He opened his mouth,
and then
closed it.

“It probably doesn’t matter now.”

“
Everything matters.”
Ben’s affect was flat, colorless.  How could she do that to him?  I felt my blood pressure rise on his behalf.  The bitch.

Jose hesitated
,
his shoulders slumped
.
“She dropped too much metabite sulphite into the
first
batch, killed it all.”

That’s why I didn’t smell fermenting when I came with Carrie on our inspection. “
I was
sworn to secrecy
and she fired everyone else.  Fred knew because he
had discovered the mistake.

You knew he worked for Wind Runner before he came here?
”

  Jose glanced up at the empty barrels.  “
Mrs. G
au
lt didn’t think Cassandra ha
d it in her to be a wine maker.
Maybe she was right.  But every one makes mistakes.”

Ben considered the empty barrels,
then
suddenly strode to the cases of white.  He pulled out a bottle.  He flicked at the edges of the purple label,
then
began to tear at it in earnest.

“What are you doing?”  I was still hungry.  I needed food and he was messing around with wine labels.

The
labels peeled off and under it was
nothing but smooth glass.  “
Are you
looking for
the golden ticket?
”
 

“Someone else’s wine.”  He dropped the bottle back into the case.  “I don’t think this is hers at all.  I think she bought the wine in Australia, slapped on her own labels here and is passing it off as hers.”

“Why?”

“Why did she do any of this?  It will take a while to sort it out.”

I put my hand on his arm. “Come on, you can treat me to dinner.”  I glanced at poor Jose
.
H
e was scowling at the cases.  “
C
ome with us,
we can’t figure out what to do if we’re hungry.”

If I wasn’t convinced I looked like a fire truck in my red dress, Robert
’s
expression did.

“Oh
.
My
.
God.” 
Robert
pushed me into his chair and deftly
smothered as much of the dress as possible with
one of
his largest
grey drape
s
.

“I know.” I carefully
settled
in
to
the chair
, the crunch of the
  stiff
tulle
rattled through the salon
.  “I know.”

“Well, you won’t be
overlooked
, that’s for sure.”  He pulled out the band holding my hair.

“This is the wedding of the year isn’t it?”

I glanced at my watch, I had two hours, was that long enough
for Robert to work his magic?

“So
,
I hear your ex
-
fiancé is in town
.
” Robert’s
expression had faded from horrified to studiously neutral.

“Now
,
how the hell did you
know
that?”

He brandished a comb, then went back to teasing innocent hair shafts.  “I hear everything
, he
was at the Flamingo picking up girls, he was very smooth, invited every girl he met to a wedding.”

“Who took them up on it?”

“Just one I heard,
pretty and vivacious, of course.
”

He paused studied the effect and then went back to work.

He ratted back the hair and wielded a deadly hot curling iron a little too close to my sensitive skin. He whirled me
around and
assaulted
me
from the
other
side.  “Anyway, I know the type, they are always looking for the next big thing, tak
ing huge risks then getting mad
when the risks turn out to be risky.”

“What do they do when they are mad?”

Robert sighed and shoved some
hair pins
into my head.

“They get even.”

Hair
now
in place,
my
dress mostly unwrinkled, I still had to stop
by the office on my way to the wedding to retrieve
a
damn fax
,
sign
it
and return
it
to damn
, damn, damn,
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia
, who apparently hadn’t hea
r
d of electronic signatures and if she had, did not care
.
If I didn’t
return this last piece of paper now
, I’d be fielding
her
calls during the ceremony.
I didn’t even bother to tell Marcia I was in a wedding, she would see that not only as a weakness but
also
another example of my
inability to focus on what was truly important: work. 

I was resplendent
as
I rustled
into the office
steeling myself for the comments and asides that Patricia, Rosemary and Katherine were famous for
.   Rosemary
almost
smacked me against the receptionist desk in her hurry to get out. 

“Do you have the number for Chris Conner?”  She was
so
breathless,
she
barely got the words out.

“Of course,
” I
didn’t say why.

“Call her, the
Christophers
found out about the house, they are on their way. We want this in the paper.”

Editorial
coverage
is so much more effective
than
advertisement
.
I dutifully
found the number.  While
I waited for Chris Conner to pick up, I glanced at Patricia who looked
increasingly
gaunt
every time I saw her
.
She didn’t look up at me.

“Chris?” 
O
h yes, the damn fax.  I moved to my in box.
“
There is an incident you may be interested in, on the corner of
Beach and Sea Side
.  Of course it’s exclusive.  I know you don’t have time, neither do they.”

I glanced at my in box as Chris signed off.  It was empty.
I checked the fax machine. A dozen papers littered the floor.  I scooped them up and distributed them into the correct
In
boxes as I searched for mine.  It was of course, the last one.

I signed it and punched in the fax
number
.

“Patricia, what were all the faxes doing on the floor?”

“Oh, sorry about that.” 

The fax beeped and sucked in the paper.
I didn’t dare leave it until the transaction was complete.  As I hurried out, Patricia whispered, “I let the listing slide a day too long, the Christopher’s caught it.”  

“They were bound to find out eventually, it was only a matter of time. I wasn’t able to stand the suspense anyway
,
”
I assured her.

Like a traffic accident, I didn’t want to watch, but I wanted to peek.
I glanced at my watch. I had some time, just enough.
I jumped in my car and sped to the scene of the crime so to speak.

I arrived in time to see t
he bewildered couple in question,
along
with
their three
children
,
assembled
on the sidewalk in front
of the house.  They blinked in the morning light.  One child wore Elmo
slippers,
another clutched her mother’s hand.
Paul and Pam
Christopher
,
dressed
to enjoy 18 holes of
golf
,
raged around
the
family
yelling and waving their arms. 
The Christopher’s
were
infuriated
, as well they should be, and it only got worse when the paper and the TV news vans pulled up, ready for quotes and video.

“
Trespassers
!”  Paul Christopher howled.  “How dare you take advantage of an abandoned
house!
 
Trespassers
, I will have you arrested!”

Katherine video
ed
the
process with
her phone.
I couldn’t tell who was yelling at whom but that was possibly immaterial, the point was, the
family was
found out. The story could go either way.  Katherine
obviously was there to make sure it w
e
nt her way. 

“A sacred trust
!
”
Rosemary
bellowed into the TV
mike. “We
are charged to care for the property of another group, Bank of America in this case, and sell that property to the best of our ability.  This property was neglected, and ignored to such an extent that the
Christophers
either knew nothing about the squatters or they were illegally pocketing their rent.” 

“You can’t prove that
!
”  Paul Christopher howled.  “They are vile
trespassers
.
Is there no decency left in the world!
”

One
little girl started to cry.

Paul Christopher, who looks much younger on his brochure
,
web site and billboards, grabbed the
mike
from Rosemary and began to berate the
trespassing
family. 
The youngest
girl clutched a
stuffed teddy bear that was
probably
purchased for this event
and sniffed dramatically
. It was a nice touch.

Paul Christopher
claimed that
h
eads would
roll;
someone would get to the bottom of this. Which they would
,
but it
would be his
karma that the bottom
of the
story would
rise
to
the top of the news. 

“This would make a gre
at reality show.” Chris Connor strolled up and stood
next to me. 

“I thought you were
n’t
covering the story
?
”

She shrugged, “
I’m not, it’s
their turn. “ She nodded to the film crew.  A young man behind the main camera
opera
tor
held up his cell
,
replicating the video work.

“Great way to go viral
,
”
Chris continued.  “This is gold.  Wait till it hits You Tube.”  Just as she
mouthed
“
close up
”
, the young man finally focused on the little girl with the bear
and moved
in.  Paul Christopher could not block him as he was still on camera defending
his actions with the charge of
willful
neglect.

The young
camera
operator
moved in and asked a question
. The
little girl, with her huge brown eyes and beribbon
e
d pigtails (
another n
ice touch)
answered with just the right amount of bewilderment and pathos.  She’d be a hit. 
Or many hits.
  Satisfied
,
the young man backed off and left the real reporting to the news camera team as he furiously
worked to
upstage his own company by posting the video and the story as we stood in the street.

“
I’m sure they
trashed the place.” 
Peter
Christopher
began warming up for
his upcoming justification circuit. 
“Thousands of dollars in damages!”

“Well, let’s just
take a look
,
” Rosemary bellowed.  The young man hopped along, phone at the ready
. T
he camera crew
obligingly
followed mostly
because
Katherine took
up a position at
the back end
of the parade
and shooed them
forward
.

There was nothing the
Christophers
could do.  It was
magnificent
.  I couldn’t have done better myself.

The
two event
tents billowed and sucked in air like a
nother
Christo project
:
Wedding Wrap.  The caterers from San Francisco were already
hustling back and forth
carrying
covered dishes and serving platters
. Three vans from the florist parked to one side, the women carried
armloads
of low
floral
arrangements and
dozens of
three feet tall
glass vases
barely containing a riot of
fuchsia
s
and red roses.

I do
d
ged both a low
arrangement
and a tall
vase
.  I peeked in
to one of the tents
.
T
hree workers
finished
stringing the tiny lights along every ridge in the tent. 
I knew from seven different text streams that a minute after Carrie and Patrick finished their
vows, the tent sides would
roll
up to reveal the perfect reception space.  

A motorcycle roared behind me.   I glanced at my watch.  Two hours to go.
Two huge bikers dressed in leather vests and chaps hurried by
,
their boots raised puffs
of dust as they strode to the patio.

I watched them for a second.  Okay, that’s it.  Unless they were Patrick’s rich eccentric uncles,
they were about to be forcibly removed from the scene
.

“Hey!”  I yelled.

The
second one
paused.  He called to his partner and they both stopped.  I bustled up as fast as my
scarlet
stiletto
heels would allow.

“
Weren’t you just in
Claim Jump
?
And
last
night you were hovering around 
The Barn.
” I accused.  I planted my feet firmly and tried to make sure my ankles didn’t wobble, I was as tall as he, but alas, did not out
-
weigh him.

He turned to me and pulled off his aviator style
sunglasses
. 

“What the hell are you doing here?”
  I repeated belligerently.

“Protecting the
b
ride
,
”
h
e said succinctly.

“Yes, from the bride’s parents,
but
what were you doing in the foothills?”