Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 04 - Frozen Assets (5 page)

“It’s as green as their homes but with more floor space. It’s really perfect.” Dirk reached up and grazed his knuckles on the finished plywood ceiling that was also the floor of the loft. “Plenty of room,” he said.

“But how much does it cost, again?” Bonnie asked.

Mitzy shivered. She hadn’t figured out how the small house was heated, but with three bodies shoved in four hundred square feet, she-half expected they could have warmed it up.

“This model is $199,000, but if we don’t get all of the upgrades, it could be less.”

“Upgrades? What are the upgrades?” Bonnie turned 360 degrees, trying to figure out what in this small place was considered an upgrade.

“This model has a dishwasher drawer, a built in microwave, and it has a shed attached to the back.” Dirk grinned ear to ear.

“That’s quite a bit less than what they started out at.” Mitzy rapped on the wall. It sounded solid. “If I owned one already, I’d be pretty mad that they were selling the upgraded units for that little.” In complete honesty, she would never have called $500 a square foot “little” money, but the company had dropped the price from $270,000 when they first opened. It was another sign of Arnold’s serious financial difficulties. “There may be a long wait to get one of these,” Mitzy said. “The owner of the company passed away unexpectedly. I don’t know how that will effect getting the units sold.”

“He died?” Bonnie asked. “It’s like every house we want has been cursed.” She shuddered.

“You’d think this was Halloween, not Christmas.”

Mitzy stepped outside. Bonnie and Dirk followed. “So, guys, it feels a little bit like you don’t really know what you want yet. You all ought to go home and have a long, serious talk about your future. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m pretty sure neither of these houses are, either. Just give me a call when you are ready.”

“I thought we were ready now.” Bonnie gave Dirk a look like a sad puppy.

“So did I, until you saw that big house online.”

“Mitzy sent me the link.”

“It was in your price range, and such a great bang for the buck.” Mitzy chewed on her cheek. Bonnie had mentioned they’d look at big houses if the price was right. “I’m sorry if it threw a wrench in the works.”

“It’s not like we told you we were only interested in the tiny houses,” Bonnie said. “I guess I was until we started looking. It would just be so nice to not feel like we had to move right away again.” Bonnie’s attitude towards the tiny house seemed to be softening.

“If you want more info on these cottages, I will get it for you.” Mitzy wouldn’t be sorry to head up to the office and see what she could learn about Arnold English’s old business. It might help Karina as well as Bonnie and Dirk.

“I would love that,” Dirk said. “Can you call us as soon as you know where the company stands with selling the units? I think we can have a better idea of what we want in a day or two.” He caught Bonnie’s eye and smiled, one eyebrow quirked expectantly. Bonnie blushed and looked away. They didn’t agree, but they seemed to want to agree, which was a good place to start.

“Okay. We’ll stop looking for today. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know more about English Cottages.” As soon as Mitzy finished talking, a tall, blonde woman with full red lips, and huge blue eyes stepped onto the tiny porch.

“I am so sorry to keep you waiting. I saw you come, but was on the phone.” Her voice sounded vaguely British. She had the clear, pale skin and piercing eyes of a Scandinavian beauty queen. “I’m Ulrike Lingren. Can I answer any questions for you about the Cottages?” Ulrike’s eyes were bloodshot, the only mar to her untouchable beauty.

“We were just leaving.” Mitzy wanted to ask Ulrike a million questions, but not in front of her clients.

Dirk and Bonnie stepped off the front porch. “We’ll talk soon, Mitzy?” Bonnie asked.

“Definitely.”

Mitzy and Ulrike were alone.

“I can answer questions for you, perhaps?” Ulrike said.

“I would be very grateful if you did.” Mitzy smiled.

5

Ulrike took Mitzy to her office down by the bike shed.

“I am very sorry to hear about the loss of your boss.” Mitzy kept a close eye on Ulrike as she took her seat.

“It is very tragic.” Ulrike pulled a flier out of a wall organizer and handed it to Mitzy.

“How will his death affect the business? If my clients decide they want to buy, will they be able to?”

“Of course. We are all terribly sad, terribly sad, but we want to be able to continue serving the community.”

From the look of things, fewer than half of the homes had sold. Portland didn’t seem to care if English Cottages could keep “serving” them.

“That’s good news.” Mitzy wanted to transition to Ulrike’s personal life with Arnold, but she didn’t want to seem too obvious. “I’m sure my clients will be glad to hear it.” She looked around the office. There were dozens of pictures of the small houses in the spring, but nothing personal, no pictures of Ulrike and Arnold together, no pictures of any family or friends.

“How is Karina?” Ulrike asked.

Mitzy’s mouth popped open.

“You are selling her house, are you not?” Ulrike’s eyes were wide and innocent.

“Yes, I am. She is not doing well at all.”

“I am very sorry for her. I know she didn’t kill Arnold. How could she have?” Ulrike looked down at her fingernails. “I think she would have killed me before Arnold.”

“Do you know why Arnold was at Karina’s home that night?”

Ulrike looked up again, her eyes filled with tears. “He was at home all evening, like usual, but he left sometime while I was asleep, and then he just never came home again.” Tears rolled down her pale cheeks.

Mitzy felt bad for her, just a girl really, in a country very far from home. “Do you need anything, Ulrike? Can I help you at all? This can’t be easy for you.”

Ulrike shook her head. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “No, I don’t need anything.”

Arnold English had left behind three grieving widows, in a way—a fact that made Mitzy feel sick to her stomach. “Thank you for your time. I’ll get back to you if my clients are interested.”

Ulrike stood as well. “Thank you.”

Ulrike’s manners were impeccable, Mitzy thought, as she drove away. She appeared professional, but sad at the same time. Could the stunning young woman have summoned up the passion to push Arnold to his death? And if she had, would she have gained anything from it?

***

“We just haven’t talked about it yet.” Mitzy sat at her kitchen table, trolling through the Internet for comps on home sales with recent murders. The homey aroma of onions and garlic coming from the spaghetti in the slow-cooker was making her hungry. It was several hours until dinner still, but the afternoon sun was almost gone. “I promise I’ll tell you our Christmas plans as soon as I know them.”

“Your grandmother is expecting us this year.” Susan, Mitzy’s mother, sounded irritated.

“I know that, Mom. As soon as I talk to Alonzo, I will let you know.”

“You went to his family for Christmas last year.”

“It’s not exactly like that, Mom. We were completely beat from our… trouble… last winter. We were home on Christmas day. We just happened to go have dinner with his mom because it was easier than cooking for ourselves. And we had presents for his nephew.” Mitzy clicked the link to an article from 2005. The deaths in the home were caused by a fire, but if Arnold’s death appeared to be more of an accident than a murder, the story could be applicable.

“It doesn’t matter how you ended up there. You should come with us this year.”

“You’ll have Aerin and Brett again, won’t you?”

“Again? Last year they were with Aerin’s family in Cabo. This year we are all going down to the farm to be with your eighty-year-old Grandmother. You should be there.”

“What can I say? I promised I’d talk to him about it and get back to you. I can’t just tell him ‘this is what we are doing’ and demand he agree with it.”

“I don’t know why not. That’s how Aerin treats Brett.”

“I’m not Aerin.”

“Well, we have that at least.”

“Indeed. Listen, Mom, can I call you back? I’m trying to wrap my mind around a new marketing plan for a house.”

“Is that code for you are trying to solve the English murder?” Susan’s voice had the teacher tone to it, as though Mitzy were one of Susan’s many students who had gotten caught with a cell phone at school.

“It’s not code. I really do need to figure out how to sell that one now that it’s been in the news.” The other open tab on Mitzy’s lap top screen was a website about the murder investigation process, but her mom didn’t need to know that. She just wanted to know where Karina stood at the moment, as she hadn’t heard from her recently. She didn’t know if Karina had been let go on bail or was still waiting for her time before the judge. She just didn’t know how those things worked. It wasn’t exactly the same thing as trying to solve the murder. Mitzy laid her hand over the piece of scratch paper next to her keyboard. It was covered in notes on potential motives for each of Arnold’s recent lady friends.

“Fine, I’ll let you go, but please try to remember what your business in all of this is. You need to sell her house, nothing more.”

“You sound like you’ve been talking to Alonzo.” Mitzy sighed. He still hadn’t come around to her idea of helping Karina.

“He’s a reasonable man, then. Don’t forget to discuss Christmas with him. It will be here before you know it.”

“Yes, Mom. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

The call ended. Mitzy looked out the window to the softly falling snow. It was the second year in a row that it had snowed like she remembered from her childhood. None of the persistent, soul-drowning rain of the usual Portland winter. She liked watching the bright snow, but the constant fear of icy roads made her edgy. If she could manage, she’d work from home until it started raining again.

All of the news on “murder houses” was depressing. Basically, everyone had had to take the home off the market, and then bring it back at fire-sale prices long after the news of the murder was out of the headlines.

Mitzy googled Zachary English. As far as Karina had been concerned, Zachary had dropped off the map years ago. He couldn’t be much younger than Mitzy, though, so unless he had moved out of town, someone should know what he had been up to.

Mitzy found his Linkedin and Facebook pages on the first page of hits. She wasn’t ready to draw attention to herself yet, so she didn’t request friendships or connections with him.

An academic paper, recently published, was also on the first page of hits. She opened it. Zachary had done a study on green building in Portland and how each builder did or did not live up to his claims. Though written in cold, academic jargon, the study seemed particularly down on the tiny home trend. It didn’t mention English Cottages by name. Mitzy checked the publication date—the article was four years old. She’d have to go back and see when English Cottages had opened their doors to homeowners.

Had Zachary left his father’s business out of the study because it wasn’t complete yet, because he was being a gracious son, or because he was afraid that including family would skew reader perception of his conclusions? It was hard to say. No one in the article came away with a perfect analysis, but the tiny homes in particular came off looking bad. Mitzy bookmarked the page. She would like to have a conversation with Zachary about that. According to the article he was, at least at the time of publication, an instructor at Portland Community College’s Department of Urban Planning. All she’d have to do is find out which campus held that department.

She hoped it wasn’t the West Hills Campus. The idea of negotiating those narrow, icy streets in her Miata sent a shiver down her spine.

***

At dinner, Alonzo helped himself to a heaping plate of spaghetti.

“Before you say that this is almost as good as your mom’s spaghetti, I want you to know it
is
your mom’s spaghetti. She brought it over this afternoon.”

Alonzo shoveled a forkful into his mouth. He grinned in approval.

Mitzy closed her eyes and prayed a silent blessing. When she opened them again, Alonzo had his head bowed.

“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot.”

“No biggy.”

Alonzo’s twenty years as a bachelor and non-practicing Catholic were the source of most of their cultural differences. Despite being a newly born-again Christian, old habits like digging into dinner without a blessing first were hard to break.

“So… Christmas.” Mitzy smiled brightly at Alonzo. “We had dinner at your Mom’s last year.”

“Yeah, that worked pretty well. Want to do it again?”

The image of an irritable Christmas with her sister-in-law Aerin flooded her mind. The honest truth was that she did want to spend Christmas with the Miramontes clan.

“Yes, but I guess we have to go to my family this year.”

“Why?” Alonzo shoveled in another mouthful.

“Because they love us, too. Everyone is driving down to Sweet Home to spend Christmas on the farm with Grandma this year.”

“Your Grandma farms?”

“No, it’s my uncle’s farm now, but he’s hosting Christmas. Every few years, he does.”

“We could do Christmas breakfast with my parents and then go to the farm.” Alonzo didn’t slow down in his eating.

“It’s a weekend thing. Uncle Dave and his wife June, my cousin Jerrod and his wife, Mom, Dad, Grandma. A big family thing.”

“You left out Brett and Aerin.”

“Yeah. Wishful thinking I guess.”

“We could do the weekend thing and then come up and see my family late on Christmas day,” Alonzo said. “Mom is expecting us to be there.”

“So’s my mom. She’s expecting us to stay the whole time.”

“Sweet Home isn’t that far away. We can get from there back here in time for pie and presents.” Alonzo grabbed his phone. “I have to make a call. I’ll be right back.”

Alonzo was technically right, but they hadn’t gone from his mom’s house to her parents’ last year. Why did they have to fit his family in on her year? Even though she would rather spend the whole time with his family, it didn’t seem fair.

Mitzy twirled the noodles around her fork. She was being childish, but it was just because she was hungry, and she wasn’t in the mood for spaghetti.

Alonzo returned with a stormy face. He yanked his chair away from the table and sat down without a word.

“Trouble with the job?” Mitzy tried to catch his eye.

He only grunted in response.

Mitzy stood up. “Whatever. I’m not your secretary. You don’t get to grunt at me when you’re mad about work. I’ll be in my office if you decide to talk again tonight.”

“Sorry.” Alonzo got the whole word out, but it was almost a grunt.

Mitzy kissed the top of his head as she left the room. Whatever sub-contractor had screwed up on whatever part of his remodel wasn’t any of Mitzy’s business… unless Al got so annoyed the fired them all and bought her the house. But her hopes for buying her dream house had been pushed aside in concern for Karina. The deal was, sell Karina’s house and then buy the dream house. With the recent death, Mitzy had to admit defeat.