Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 04 - Frozen Assets (4 page)

“And the caravan moved off before the murder?”

“I guess that depends on when the murder happened. They were certainly gone by the time I got up.”

“Had you ever seen the man or the RV before?”

“We had a caravan come through a few years back. They stayed so long that eventually the cops had to come to get them to move on. They were gypsies. I know because everyone was talking about it. I think that was the first and only time I’d spoken with half of my neighbors.”

“What did Arnold do about the gypsies that time?”

“He’s the one who called the police.”

“Is there any chance this was the same caravan?”

“Who could say?” Livia said. “Old RVs all look the same, don’t they? Yellow like plastic that has been in the sun too long. Brown or green writing.”

“There’s nothing you remember? Not one thing?” Mitzy chewed on her lip.

“No, let me think. It had a name on the back of it. Sierra, or Shasta. You know, one of those mountain names, but I think it was just the name of the model. You know how they do those things.”

Mitzy nodded. Perhaps having a home in Felony Flats would be good for something. She certainly knew where to find gypsies in her neighborhood. “You said that we would be here a while, but I feel like I’m still missing something. Am I not asking the right questions? What do I need to know?”

“Ulrike. What would a young thing like her, far away from home, want with an old man like him?”

“His money?”

“She had a job before she met him. Stewardess or something. He’s just not rich enough to attract women like that anymore.” Livia stared out the front window, her eyes lingering on Karina’s house.

“Had something happened to his business? I thought you said he was going to win an award.”

“Awards don’t pay the rent. He builds homes. He builds five-hundred-square-foot homes with no parking in Southeast Portland and charges almost $300,000 for them even though no one in this town has a job. He’s not only broke, he’s stupid.”

A dozen other broke builders came to Mitzy’s mind. Not stupid business people, but all broke. A part of Mitzy’s usually optimistic heart wondered if her industry would ever recover from the long recession. “Did Ulrike have a life insurance policy on him?”

“Like a black widow kind of thing?” A small smile made its way onto Livia’s face. “Now, that would be something. That perfect body, those ice-cold features, traveling around the world, meeting losers like Arnold and then pushing them off rooftops.”

Mitzy frowned. There was that. If a young lover was going to kill Arnold, she’d probably not lure him to the balcony of his ex-wife’s house and push him onto a fence. “If you don’t think she killed him, what do I have to know about her?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just don’t trust her. Maybe she had a lover who did it? Why not?”

“Location, location, location,” Mitzy muttered. “It’s going to keep coming back to the balcony of the house. Whoever killed him was someone he was willing to climb up to the balcony with.”

“Maybe he was going up to fix the roof for Karina with one of his builder friends and the builder did it.”

“Because of Ulrike?”

“Maybe the friend was in love with Ulrike.”

“But Karina said she didn’t know why Arnold was there.”

“That is a problem.” Livia stood up again. “I have to get ready for work. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t be more help, but I’m glad you’re there for Karina. She really doesn’t have anyone else in the world.”

“Why?” Mitzy asked. “Why does a woman of privilege, well known in the community, have no one but her Realtor, who she has just met, to walk with her through this?”

“That is a question you will have to ask her.” Livia looked at her watch. “If I had to guess, I’d say it was because she and Ulrike had more in common than just Arnold.”

“Thank you for all of your help.” Mitzy shrugged into her winter coat. “Can I call you again if I need help with anything?”

“Of course you can. Please do, in fact. I really would like to keep up with what’s happening. I might have been disgusted with him recently,” Livia choked back a sob, “but we did have a lovely romance while it lasted.”

Mitzy drove home in a fog of depression. So many lives were upset by the loss of Arnold, but in truth, more lives had been wrecked while he was alive.

4

The next day, Mitzy puttered around her office. She wanted to have a word with Karina’s lawyer, but until Karina called again, she was going to try her best to keep in the background, digging for whatever helpful information she could find.

Her office was cold and smelled like dust. She needed to hire a new assistant. She had gone more than a year doing it all herself, and it was miserable. She spent too much time on the computer and the phone, and too little time showing houses. She missed her old assistant Sabrina too much to hire just anyone to replace her. In fact, she still held on to the hope that Sabrina would get tired of school and come back to work for her. It hadn’t happened yet.

The first phone message was from Mitzy’s mom. “Hey, hon, we’re just firming up our Christmas plans. You will be coming here this year, right?” Mitzy scrunched her mouth to the side. She and Alonzo hadn’t discussed it yet. Last year, Christmas had come so quickly after their wedding that they had just sort of fallen into going to his mom’s house. It had been loud but fun. The fair thing would be to spend this year with her parents, but she had to admit, she’d rather stay at Timberline Lodge. They hadn’t had a honeymoon, or even a weekend away, after their slapdash elopement.

The next message was from a client. Could she show them one of the houses she had emailed? Of course she could. It was what she lived for. She called the young wife back and made plans to meet the couple at the empty house, another victim of foreclosure, right after lunch.

The current asking price was only thirty dollars a square foot. It was almost a crime to buy it at that price. Mitzy printed a contract out, fairly sure that the couple would bite.

***

The house had all of the earmarks of a bad breakup between the homeowner and the bank. All of the appliances were gone, down to the heat pump and bathroom fans. The doorknobs were gone and every spot that should have been a light fixture was a tangle of wires instead. Most telling, the house smelled badly of urine.

But Bonnie and Dirk, the couple who met Mitzy at the house, were undaunted. They were full of youthful enthusiasm and a sort of grim determination to get a deal.

“If I rip the carpets out, the smell will go away,” Bonnie said. “If there is any damage to the floor boards underneath we can just put in some replacement patches. It’s really not so bad.”

Dirk raised his eyebrow. “It is bad, but that doesn’t bother me. I’m not sure I like this neighborhood.” He looked out the front window to the innocent street full of picket fences and sidewalks. “Too many front porches.”

“You may be my first client ever to complain that there are too many front porches.” Mitzy liked Bonnie and Dirk. They seemed to be able to tell the difference between things they could fix and things they couldn’t. “What worries me, to be honest, is the amount of money that you would have to put into this place. I know it’s priced to sell, but do you have the kind of cash to replace all of the missing fixtures? The heat pump alone could cost almost ten thousand dollars.

Dirk shrugged. “If it turns out we can’t afford a heat pump, there are other alternatives.”

“An electric furnace would cost more to run.” Mitzy said.

“True, but we could get wall heaters in each room and only heat what we use until we’ve saved up enough again. We’re pretty handy.”

Bonnie stood on the threshold to the kitchen. “We can get used appliances. The cupboards and counters are in really great condition.”

Mitzy agreed, but not every client would have. The kitchen, including laminate counters, was original to the house, built in 2001. These days, most clients wanted to rip out any kitchen older than five years and not built with the most expensive materials.

“Let me show you the bedrooms upstairs, and then we can talk more about the expense of putting this place back together.” Mitzy gave them a bright smile and led them up the stairs. They’d be crazy not to snatch it up, and she was pretty sure they knew it.

“Four bedrooms and this open loft.” Mitzy stood in the center of a communal space.

“Is it me, or does it smell worse up here?” Bonnie asked.

“It smells a whole heck of a lot worse.” Dirk said.

“Do you think they left their cat here after they moved out?”

Mitzy shuddered. “Oh, I hope not! How horrible would that be?” She opened the door to the first bedroom. A cold blast of air hit them. The window was wide open. The carpet under the window was black with mildew.

“How long has this place been empty?” Dirk asked.

“Since September.” Mitzy sighed. That mildew was a terrible sign. The carpet, subfloor, and sheet rock would all need to be replaced.

“That’s a lot of rain and snow,” Dirk muttered. He prodded the mildewing patch of carpet with the toe of his boot. His foot dipped. The subfloor was clearly toast.

“It is a big room.” Bonnie said, eyebrows raised in hope

“It’s not the master, is it?” Dirk asked.

“No, so you wouldn’t have to move into this room until you had it all fixed.”

“So, that’s not too bad, then.” Bonnie’s smile was bright still, but her eyes were looking a little worried.

“If I were you, I’d rip out everything that was damaged before you moved in and then rebuild the room when you had the time and money.” Mitzy bit her lip. She was beginning to doubt that this house was right for this couple. They wanted a house for the New Year, she could tell. They hadn’t said it specifically, but it fit what she had seen of their type before. Young and enthusiastic, they had money and brains and knew that they could get a screaming deal in the dead of winter.

“The master is this way.” Mitzy opened the door for them. She gagged on the earthy stink that rose out of the master bedroom.

“Oh!” Bonnie put her hand over her mouth.

Mitzy held her hand to her mouth and turned away. It smelled like a port-a-potty on a hot day.

Dirk stepped through the doorway. “What happened here?”

The carpets were muddied and garbage sacks, plastic, paper, whatever, were piled against the four falls. The walls were grimy to about shoulder height. The closet doors were off of their hinges, and propped against one wall like a lean-to.

“It looks like someone’s camping here.” Bonnie chewed on her bottom lip.

Mitzy closed her eyes, afraid of what they would see next, because she agreed. It looked exactly like someone—more than one someone—was camping out in the house.

Dirk stepped into the master bathroom. “Don’t come in here, Bonnie.” His young voice was commanding, and Bonnie froze.

Mitzy joined Dirk at the doorway. The toilet, floor, shower stall, even the sink, were full of human waste. The water had been off in the house for ages, but that hadn’t stopped someone from using the room as their toilet.

Bile rose in her throat again. She had to get outside. She ran out of the bathroom, grabbing Bonnie by the elbow as she passed her. “You do not want to go in there.” Mitzy didn’t stop until she reached the sidewalk, in the icy but fresh December air. Dirk was about a half a second behind them.

“I’m so sorry about that. I had no idea there were squatters in the house. Please forgive me,” Mitzy said.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Bonnie tilted her head in concern. “Are you going to be okay?”

Mitzy took a deep breath. “Yes, but if you will give me just a moment, I need to call the police. They’ve got to get those people out of there. Squatters are one of the worst parts of this housing crisis.”

Dirk worked his jaw back and forth, his eyes narrow slits.

Mitzy reported the situation to the police while Dirk and Bonnie stood a few feet away discussing the relative merits of the house.

When they paused, Mitzy joined them again. “The police said we should go, and I agree. I don’t want to be here when the squatters get back. Again, I am so sorry about this house. I can only imagine that it is off the list now.”

Bonnie looked over her shoulder at the white painted front door. “Maybe, but we’re not sure. We were just talking about how we could put our bed in the office downstairs and gut the entire upper floor.”

“But …” Mitzy shook her head. There were mountains of poop in the bathroom. How could they see past that?

Bonnie looked at the front door again. “It’s a really big house for the price, but with this squatters thing… we thought maybe the bank could knock a little bit more off.”

Mitzy stepped forward and looked through the front window. The house was already less than half of the comp value, but this couple had a point. The bank might just give the thing away considering the smell and destruction the squatters had caused. Since it had been empty for so long and they were the first ones to see it was… occupied… the house didn’t seem to have been getting much interest from other buyers. “Are you
sure
you’re still interested?”

Dirk cleared his throat. “I’m not entirely sold, but it isn’t because of that bathroom.”

Bonnie rolled her eyes.

“What are you thinking?” Mitzy looked at each of her clients in turn.

Dirk stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest, his eyebrows drawn, and his mouth a firm line. Whatever he wanted, he was having difficulty convincing Bonnie.

Bonnie was looking across the street at a home almost identical to the one they were at. Its dormers and porch twinkled with icicle lights. “He wants to see a really small house.”

“How small?” Mitzy asked.

“I’d like us to consider a tiny house.”

Mitzy almost laughed. Dirk was so broad, he could fill one of the ninety-square-foot “tiny houses” all by himself.

“This one is as far from a tiny house as you can get.” Mitzy looked from one end of the three-thousand-square-foot traditional style suburban home to the other. “And now you want to see something that you could tow with a bike?”

Dirk exhaled loudly. “Not one of those trailer things where you have to use a bucket for a bathroom. I mean one of those right near the light rail. The English Country house things.”

“The English Cottages?”

“Yeah, those.”

“Those are a little bit bigger than the other ones, but not much. Bonnie, how interested are you?”

“Oh, I guess I’m interested.”

“You used to really want one,” Dirk said.

“I know, but it costs more than this one does, and we could live our whole lives in this house.”

Mitzy’s internal alarm went off. Dirk wanted a house for the Now and Bonnie wanted a house for Forever. This couple wasn’t nearly as ready to buy as she had thought they were.

“Why don’t I take you to tour the English Cottages? They aren’t too far from here, and the model home is always open.”

“Fine.” Bonnie stomped down the porch steps. If Mitzy had to guess, this couple had at least one more year or apartment living ahead of them.

The English Cottage development looked gloomy. Mitzy and the young couple both had to park their cars on the street, more than a block away, in a regular neighborhood, as the development fronted the light rail and had no alley access. Where a traditional row house development might have had a parking lot for guests and residents, this development had a covered bike shed with a long, half-empty row of locked bike cages.

Mitzy stamped her feet to shake the dirty gray snow off before she stepped into the model cottage. The house was a four-hundred-square-foot open floor plan. The only parts that resembled a traditional room were the bathroom, which was closed off with a frosted plastic pocket door, and the loft that functioned as a bedroom, though it wasn’t tall enough to stand in. Mitzy stood back and let Bonnie look around. Dirk immersed himself in the company pamphlet.

“It’s just so small.” Bonnie lifted the stainless cutting board off of the counter to reveal a hidden sink. “They made room for a big TV on the wall, but the sink would hardly fit a coffee cup. And look, only one burner on the stove.”

“It is a lot more like the Tiny House Company designs than I had expected.” Mitzy ran a finger along the plastic of the bathroom door. It buckled when she put pressure on it.