Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 04 - Frozen Assets (3 page)

Mitzy tilted her head sympathetically. “When was the last time you spoke with him?”

“It’s been… a while. I just don’t know what I’m going to say when I get hold of him.”

“You don’t have to call this minute. You can wait. Presumably he has caller ID and can see that you called him. Let it rest for a moment.” Mitzy sipped her coffee. She still wasn’t sure what she could do for Karina, but she’d do her best to figure it out. “Why were Zachary and Arnold not speaking?”

“Business or money. What is it ever? They haven’t been on good terms for years because Arnold wanted to sell the business and Zachary wanted to inherit it.” Karina picked up her own cup for the first time, but she did nothing more than wrap her fingers around it.

“Did Arnold eventually sell it?”

“Yes.” Karina moved the cup to her lips.

“And was that when Zachary cut his father out of his life?”

“Yes. Zachary didn’t understand. Arnold sold it because it was too big—it was going to fail. I can’t explain it. He couldn’t afford to grow his staff more, I think he said, but he couldn’t keep up with the workload any longer. I don’t really know what it all entailed. He was at a crossroads: invest more in the business to hire people and do the work better or take fewer contracts so that they could do the jobs they had at a better quality. He wanted to sell and start over. Let a big business absorb his small one and start something new. He wanted to start something that wouldn’t fail, something for both of the boys, but Zachary just wanted this business. Nothing else.”

“This was English Architecture, right?”

“Yes. And when Arnold sold it, he opened English Cottages, the small house company. Todd understood what his dad was doing.” Karina’s face blanched.

“But Todd didn’t live to see it succeed, did he?”

Karina shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

Mitzy remembered the death of Todd English well. Leukemia had taken him just a month after he graduated university, about four years ago. The family had set up the Todd English Fund for design scholarships. It had been in the news. “And after that, the divorce?”

“Arnold and the boy’s mother became very close after we lost Todd. It really shook Arnold up, and he saw that he didn’t need me anymore.”

“But he didn’t leave you for her, did he?”

“No, he didn’t leave for her in the end, but she was the first one he cheated with. At least, the first one I knew of.”

“Have the police spoken with her yet?”

“I don’t think so, but she couldn’t have killed him. She’s older than I am, and not in great health. She had a fling with Arnold, I know. But she’s been remarried almost as long as Arnold and I had been, and I don’t think she intended to leave her current husband for her ex-husband.”

Mitzy’s head was swimming with the number of husbands and wives in the conversation. How did they all keep track of each other?

“Do you have anyone else now? Someone I can call to stay with you?”

“No. I really am alone now.”

Karina was only fifty. She had spent the last twenty years trying to be important in the lives of two boys who had visited her every other weekend. She wasn’t their mother. She wasn’t their friend. And now, the father of the family was dead, she wasn’t even the step-mother anymore.

“You were counting on the sale of this house, weren’t you?” Mitzy looked out the window at her own husband sitting in his truck. The window was foggy, so she could just make out his silhouette.

“I couldn’t move on and keep the house. There wasn’t enough money for that after the divorce. And I couldn’t stay here.”

“You needed to start over.”

Karina nodded. “I needed to get away from Arnold’s lover.”

Mitzy lifted her eyebrow. “You what?” That little fact hadn’t come up when they listed the house.

“Livia, across the street. She doesn’t know I know, but she’s been sleeping with Arnold since before he moved out. As soon as he had finished with his first wife, he moved on to her.”

“Is that who he left you for?”

“No, he finally left to be with his assistant, a twenty-five-year-old Swedish girl he met on an airplane.”

“That dog.” Mitzy scratched an X into the corrugated sleeve on her mug with her fingernail.

“But now, even she can’t have him.” Karina pressed her hand to her forehead.

“Have you called this assistant? Or Livia?”

Karina jerked her head up. “Are you kidding? Let the police call them. I don’t have anything to say to those women.”

Mitzy sipped her coffee and considered the situation. Karina knew Mitzy’s sister-in- law, Aerin, via their fundraising connections. Karina had picked up the Neuhaus New Homes contact information at the ill-fated museum gala a couple of years back.

When Karina decided to sell her house, she called Mitzy.

Mitzy knew the English family because she kept an eye on well-designed homes. Arnold English always had a house on the Fantasy Homes Tour, and the English Cottages small house business had made some waves in the Portland design community. The scholarship he had established had received its share of media attention as well. When Arnold’s youngest son died, the family, business, and scholarship were all over the news.

But she didn’t know much about Karina. Who was she before she became Arnold’s first trophy wife? Had she been the other woman once? Did she have a bigger grudge against her ex-husband than she admitted?

And what about this Zachary? How badly did he hate his father?

“Take me back home.” Karina straightened up. She set her full cup of coffee back on the table. “I’m sorry I bothered you. I don’t really know what to do next, but I need to get home.”

“It’s not a problem. Do you want me to stay with you at the house for a while?”

“No. I need to get dressed and figure out what the police need me to do—where I need to go. Thank you anyway.” Each word seemed an effort for Karina.

“Have you called your lawyer yet?”

Karina frowned. “No, I’ve been so confused. I spoke with the police for so long, and then they suggested I call someone. I just picked up my phone, and your number caught my eye. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“It’s not a bother, Karina, but please, call your lawyer now.”

Karina lay her hands on the table, palms up.

Mitzy tried to smile. “Use my phone. It’s all right.” She passed Karina her purple smart phone. “You can even look up the number if you need to. I don’t mind.”

Karina chewed her bottom lip and started tapping the screen.

Mitzy watched the slushy rain fall outside while she waited. Down here, at the bottom of Karina’s hill, the snow still fell in wet, slick, sleet, hitting the ground only to create dirty puddles that would freeze in the night. Nothing like the pure white fluff falling a thousand feet or so above them.

Mitzy tried to zone out while Karina spoke on the phone, but it was obvious that she had reached the secretary.

Karina hung up.

“My lawyer is… he is not going to represent me. His assistant said he was Arnold’s lawyer after the divorce and so he…” Her voice trailed off. She put one hand over her eyes and took a deep breath.

“So he won’t help you with Arnold’s murder?”

Karina didn’t speak.

The phone was on the table between them. Mitzy picked it up and tapped the back of it with her acrylic nails, the clicking in rhythm with the music playing in the background.

“Don’t say anything else to the police until you get a lawyer, okay?” Mitzy’s heart was beating against her ribcage. She’d have to help. Someone on the police force, Officer McConnell, or maybe one of the other guys she’d worked with before, could give her advice. She’d call her brother Brett to find Karina the best lawyer in town. She stopped her clicking and looked at Karina again.

Gray roots were beginning to show in Karina’s once-perfect golden hair. How
was
Karina doing financially? Could she afford the best lawyer?

“I have a kind of delicate question… I know you needed to sell the house so you could move on with your life. But do you have enough money right now? I mean, for a lawyer?”

Karina lifted her head and smoothed back her hair with her thin, pale hand. “I should be all right now,” she said. “I’ll have the insurance money to see me through.”

“Life insurance?”

“Yes. I had a two-million-dollar policy on Arnold.”

Mitzy sucked a little breath through her teeth. She was sure this tiny woman hadn’t shoved her stocky ex-husband off of the Juliet balcony… but two million dollars was a pretty good motive. She could feel a frown forming on her face, so she pulled it back to a look of concern as quickly as she could.

Karina noted the look on Mitzy’s face and looked down at her cup. “But Arnold had one on me as well, for just as much. We bought them before the divorce. No one would expect anything less of us, surely. It’s perfectly normal.” She looked up at Mitzy again, her eyes wide and full of fear.

Mitzy had no answer for that. It may well have been perfectly normal in Karina’s set, but she didn’t want to be the one to try and convince a jury of that. She decided to turn the conversation. “Please call me and tell me where you are staying tonight. I want to know that you will be okay.”

A smile wavered on Karina’s face. “Thank you.”

Mitzy walked back to the truck with Karina. The snow had stopped falling, and the wan sun had begun to melt it. “I’ll help anyway I can.” The oily-machine-man smell of Alonzo’s truck was a comfort—something solid in a cold, confusing world.

Alonzo drove them back up the hill to the crime scene and dropped Karina off.

“Is she going to be okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t see how she can get through this alone.”

Alonzo draped his arm over Mitzy’s shoulder. “She doesn’t have to. You won’t let her go through this alone.”

Mitzy took a deep breath. “I won’t. But I don’t know how much help I can be. That family is very messed up.”

They drove the rest of the way home in silence.

When they pulled onto their street, Mitzy surveyed the homes. All single story ranch style. What kind of renovation could you do on a street like that?

Alonzo opened the car door for her and offered his arm. Compared to infidelity and murder, what was a house, really? It wasn’t the same thing as family, and she had the family thing nailed.

By five that evening, dark had already fallen, and Mitzy was tucked into her Snuggie with her laptop open to RealtorblogUSA. Her phone rang, jarring her out of her reading.

“This is Mitzy.” She stretched one arm over her head. Maybe she’d get a new house to list.

“It’s me.” Karina’s voice shook with fear, but Mitzy recognized her.

“How are you holding up?”

“They’ve arrested me. What am I going to do?”

3

“This is horrible!” Mitzy sat up with a bolt. “But why did you call me? Don’t you need to call a lawyer?”

“Hold on.” The sound from the phone muffled. Mitzy looked around for Alonzo. He sat at the table with a blueprint spread out in front of him. “Karina’s been arrested,” she whispered.

Alonzo looked up. “What?”

Karina came back on the line. Mitzy held a finger up to pause the conversation with Alonzo. “They aren’t charging me with anything, but they’ve taken me to the station, and I’m in a little room, and I really don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t say anything, okay? Not a thing. The only thing you should say is that you want a lawyer.”

“Okay, but who do I get?”

Mitzy rattled off her brother’s number. “Call Brett Neuhaus. Tell him you are my friend. He will help you find the right lawyer. But keep quiet until you get someone there to protect your rights, okay?”

“Will your brother be my lawyer?”

“He isn’t a defense attorney, but call him, and he will help you find the right person, I promise. Call him now, okay?”

Karina choked back a sob as she said goodbye.

Mitzy hung up and stared at the screen. Brett would find Karina a lawyer, of course, but if the police had Karina down at the station, would they ever find the real killer?

She wanted to tell Karina to tell the truth. Everyone knows the truth will set you free, but with that two-million-dollar insurance policy nagging at the back of her mind, Mitzy was afraid the truth would cause more trouble this time.

“Alonzo, what do you think the best way to help Karina would be?” Mitzy turned to her husband. She leaned over the arm of the sofa, perching her chin on her fist.

“Pray.” Alonzo didn’t look up.

“Obviously, but what else?”

“You just gave her Brett’s number. Why don’t you wait until she calls you again. She seems to need someone who can listen.” Alonzo laid a small notepad on top of his blueprints and began to scratch in it with a stubby pencil.

“Maybe I could talk to her neighbors, find out what they saw.”

“Or you could just wait for her to call.”

“Do you think any of them have security cameras?” Mitzy stood up and moved to the picture window. All was dark outside. If someone were lying dead on her front lawn, she wouldn’t have been able to see it.

“Do you hear me talking to you?” Alonzo raised his voice on the last word.

“I should go talk to that lady across the street, Arnold’s girlfriend. I bet she knows something.” Mitzy pulled the curtains shut.

“Did you mean to say my name a few seconds go? Because I think you were just talking to yourself.”

Mitzy turned back to Alonzo. “I’m not talking to myself. I’m brainstorming. If you have an idea, I will respond to you.”

“My idea is to wait for her to call you.” Alonzo set his pencil down.

“That won’t help her.”

“It won’t make anything worse, either, Mitzy”

“I’ll go talk to her neighbor first thing tomorrow.”

“The dead guy’s lover?” Alonzo laid his pencil on the notebook.

“Yes.” Mitzy straightened the folds of her velvet curtains. She ran her fingers back and forth over the soft pile, watching the color change.

“Seems like that could make things worse.”

“If you aren’t going to make useful suggestions, I am going to keep ignoring you.”

“Mitzy, stop and listen to yourself for just a minute, please. You are a Realtor. You sell houses. You do not solve murders.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Did. Once.”

“Can do again. If I can help an innocent person avoid jail, don’t you think I should?” Mitzy grabbed her laptop from the couch and rested it on the back of the recliner. She began to search for the Google street view of Karina’s neighborhood.

“Of course I think you should help an innocent person avoid jail, in theory, but I think you already did by giving her your brother’s number. Please let the professionals handle this.”

“How about I just talk to this one neighbor and then let it rest?”

“This isn’t a negotiation. I’m not going to counter. You know my opinion.” Alonzo crossed the room. He paused at the front door. “I’ve got to run back to my office. I won’t be long.” He let himself out, pulling the door shut with a bang.

Mitzy listened to the sound of his truck revving up and pulling away. Alonzo didn’t want trouble. That was understandable. Karina didn’t want to go to jail, and the pull of her need was stronger than the desire to keep her husband’s life simple.

Arnold’s lover lived across the street from the crime scene. She would know more about what was going on in Arnold’s life than anyone else.

Tomorrow morning, Mitzy and Arnold’s lover were going to have a chat.

***

The weather was mercifully clear the following morning, and the streets were almost dry. Mitzy threw the chains in the back seat of her Miata and headed back up to Concord Street. According to the forecast, she shouldn’t need the chains, but she’d hate to be stuck on the hill without them.

She parked her little red car two houses down from the crime scene. The place was quiet now, but still cordoned off.

Livia’s house across the street from the crime scene was also a custom 1970s home. The front had the modest appearance of an extra-long, split-level ranch, but it was built into the hillside, and Mitzy knew the back of the house was three stories tall with wrap-around decks and a view that stretched all the way to Lake Oswego. She estimated the value, given the upgraded windows and siding, to still be in the high seven-hundred-thousands. Not that it was for sale.

Mitzy rang the doorbell.

A tall woman with thick chestnut hair and a long nose opened the door. She was wrapped in an oversized wool cardigan and had a steaming mug in one hand. Her eyes were red and swollen. “Yes?” Her voice sounded raw, as though she was coming down with something or had been crying.

“Livia?” Mitzy held out her hand. “I’m Mitzy Neuhaus, a friend of Karina English. Can we talk?”

Livia lifted an eyebrow but opened the door wider. “What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping we could talk about Arnold.”

Livia nodded. “I expected as much. What can I say about him?” Livia opened the door the rest of the way and stepped aside to let Mitzy in.

However unenthusiastic the welcome, Mitzy took it. She stamped her boots on the concrete steps to shake off the clinging slush and stepped inside. “I was hoping maybe you had seen something. Anything.”

“Do you drink coffee?” Livia asked. “Because I think we could be here awhile.”

“Always, thanks. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Livia led Mitzy into a vast marble kitchen with long, low windows that framed the view of the city. The cupboards were white-washed country chic, about ten years out of style, and the kitchen smelled like cold frying oil.

“My loss? Arnold was hardly my loss. He had quit me months ago, but thank you. I admit this is really hard.”

“Were you in love?” Mitzy took a stool at the kitchen island and sat down.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I was certainly infatuated. Arnold was a charming man.”

Mitzy nodded, but kept her opinion of his charms to herself.

“I wanted to be in love, if that counts, but obviously he wasn’t. Classic narcissist, if you ask me. Only in love with himself.” Livia passed a tall mug of coffee to Mitzy.

“Did he come by and see Karina often?” Mitzy poured cream from a small ceramic cow into her cup and then stirred, watching the cream swirl into the brown.

“No, hardly at all, in fact.” Livia picked up the ceramic cow and then set it back down. Then she lifted the sugar bowl and moved it as well. She shook her hand a little and picked up her coffee mug. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Take your time.” Mitzy took a drink of her coffee. It was strong and rich with cream. Perfect. “Had he been by to see you recently?”

“He hadn’t been by in a week. You know he was living downtown with Ulrike. He was mostly through with me.”

“Mostly?”

“Narcissist. He was through with me, but he came last week, just to check… to be sure I wasn’t through with him. I sent him back to his girlfriend. I don’t want to be the other woman.”

Mitzy took another drink and withheld comment again.

“I wasn’t the other woman, no matter what Karina may have said. We didn’t start seeing each other until after the divorce.”

Clearly, Livia wanted to get her side of the story in, but was it true? And did it matter? It was the way the world seemed to work anymore. Grown adults moving on from lover to lover, leaving behind broken hearts. She silently thanked God that she wasn’t stuck in that world.

“When he came by last week, did he mention wanting to talk to Karina? Or needing something at the house?”

“No, he talked about himself, about the English Cottage business, and about some award he was up for, but he didn’t talk about Karina. I didn’t let him stay long.”

Mitzy picked up her cup and swirled the coffee. “Do you think he would have gone over there for the same reason—to make sure he was still on her mind and to talk about himself?”

“If he did, it was the first time, but I suppose he could have.”

“Do you know what time he got there? Or what the estimated time of death was?”

Livia shook her head. “I don’t know. It had to be pretty early, though.”

A small flat-screen monitor hanging on the wall next to the pantry caught Mitzy’s eye. “Does that monitor connect to security cameras?”

“No, just the Internet.” Livia picked up her coffee cup and moved to a small living room off the kitchen.

Mitzy followed her. “Does Karina, or any of the neighbors, have a video security system?”

“If Karina did, then she’d know that I didn’t have an affair with her husband while she was still married, wouldn’t she?” Livia sat down on an overstuffed sofa that faced a window that stared at the English house.

The windows were dark, and there were no cars in the driveway. The only movement was the yellow police tape that fluttered in a light breeze.

“You have great windows in this place. Haven’t you seen anything unusual in the neighborhood?”

“Just the caravan.”

“Caravan? What do you mean?”

“An old RV was parked a few doors down for the last three days. But it was gone yesterday morning.”

Mitzy sat on the edge of the matching overstuffed armchair. “Whose was it?”

“I thought someone was visiting the gray house, where it was parked, but the day before yesterday, Enrique, who does their yard, was fighting with the man who was staying in the caravan, so I don’t think they could have been guests.”

“What were they fighting about?”

“Got me. I was walking the dog. When I passed by they were fighting. I didn’t stop to listen.”

“Tell me more about this RV anyway. You think they were strangers to the neighborhood?”

“I’d never seen them before, and the caravan wasn’t in great condition.”

“Was it broken down?”

“No, it seemed to drive fine, but it was old and grimy. The one guy I saw wasn’t looking too sharp, either.”

“Old and sick? Down on his luck? What do you mean not looking too sharp?”

Livia took a long drink of coffee and looked over her shoulder to the back windows and their sweeping views of Portland. “How do I say this without sounding like a horrible person?” She smiled a wry little smile though her eyes stayed sad. “If I had to guess, I’d say he was a gypsy.”

Mitzy nodded. She’d lived in Portland long enough to know who Livia meant. “Can you be a little more specific?”

“He was about my height, narrow shoulders, brown hair. He had that kind of sallow color to him that olive-toned skin people get in the winter, like he’d be tan again as soon as it was summer. His hair was kind of shaggy, or stringy, and hung in his eyes. Other than that, I’m just guessing. His clothes looked a little like gypsy clothes, but I don’t know exactly what they were.”