Foreclosed: A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery (A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery, a Cozy Christian Collection) (11 page)

“And you tried to clean it with air deodorizer?” Mitzy pressed the dog closer to her chest and let out a slow breath. She could keep calm, if she tried.

“It said disinfecting…” Sabrina chewed her bottom lip and looked up at Mitzy.

“It smells horrible.” A warm spot began to develop on Mitzy’s blouse. Mitzy scratched Gilbert behind his ear and then placed him in his carrier gently.

Ben snorted.

Sabrina offered a little smile.

Mitzy exhaled slowly, through her mouth. “Sabrina, take the puppy and your sweater home. Then go to the pet shop. Buy disposable puppy pads and enzyme floor spray. I’m going to change my blouse, put it to soak, and that would be why I have the baby shampoo, Ben. Then I am going to beg the carpet cleaners to get here immediately.” Mitzy took her change of clothes out of the closet.

Her phone rang.

Sabrina flew out of the office as quick as she could. She did not seem to notice that she had left the puppy under her desk.

Mitzy took her cell phone into the bathroom with her to change.

“Mitzy, baby!” the caller said.

“Yes, Curt?” Mitzy pulled one sleeve off.

“We made it to town and I want to see you today.” Curt sounded like he was eating something.

“That will be wonderful. I was hoping it would work out.” She slipped the other arm out of the other sleeve.

“We are going to see three other applicants today—but they are the buyers. The market is crazy right now and we wanted to secure four episodes while we are here. No point in coming this far out and not getting something done.” In fact, it sounded like Curt was eating and in a car. Or more hopefully eating somewhere outside where there was traffic.

“I think that sounds like a wise idea. This is the best time of year to be filming in
Portland
.” Mitzy got three buttons undone, which was harder with a tiny cell phone pinned between her shoulder and her ear than she had thought it would be. She was wishing she had done the buttons first, and then the sleeves.

“Can your client meet up with us today as well?” Curt asked.

What with the gala and her Victorian obsession, Mitzy hadn’t taken the time to line up her client. And they had no buyers waiting. “Curt…” She was determined to be completely truthful, even if she felt like a fool. “I don’t have anyone lined up. My stager has a client and I was hoping to talk to them about the show, but I don’t have any buyers right now.”

“That’s okay, babe.” He had called her baby and babe more working together for House Hunters than he had in the two years they dated. “We’ve got our people and we’ll find a match for you. You work on your client. We’ll try and get you in two episodes, okay? We’ll talk about the wrap up shoot when we sign papers.” There was honking, rather loud honking.

It would be like Curt, Mitzy thought, to be eating, talking on the phone and driving a rented convertible at the same time. “When would you like to meet?” she asked, slipping her shirt off and catching it with her free hand.

“Let’s do this after lunch.” 

“Can we go even later?” she asked as she unfolded her v-neck sweater.

“You have something in mind?” Curt said around a mouthful of food.

“Let’s meet here at the office at five.” She held the phone away from her head for a moment, while she quickly pulled the sweater over her head.

She caught back up with Curt mid-sentence. “Then afterwards we can come right over. Five sounds fine. Want to do dinner when we are done with business?”

“I’d love to. We’ll see you at five, Curt.” 

“Five it is.” Curt hung up and Mitzy followed.

Curt and the House Hunters team were coming at five.

Mitzy got Chem-Dry on the phone. She begged and pleaded and now they were coming at
noon
to clean the floors, promising to be done by two at the latest.

So House Hunters was coming. But in the meantime she had work to do.

It took a few telephone transfers to get to the person who knew anything about it, but apparently there was a decent offer on the Victorian on
Baltimore Street
. No, she couldn’t know what the offer was. Yes, the owner of the home wanted to accept it and the bank was deciding if they would approve a short sale.

Mitzy made a call. “Alonzo Miramontes, you are already buying that Victorian. You made it sound like I still had a chance. You lied to
me.
” Her voice was icy. Whatever she had thought about him at church the day before was a distant memory.

“I said I was going to talk to the bank. I didn’t need to run it by you for approval. It’s not your listing.” He said with a growl.

“This weekend at the gala, you sat and chewed the fat with me for four hours and made like you hadn’t started the process of buying the house. But in reality the bank is already processing the short sale.”

“What makes you think they are working on my offer?” His voice relaxed, more false innocence and less angry growl.

“It is you. Who else wants that old dump besides me and you? I want to know—did you offer enough that the lien holders will get their money? Did you?” Mitzy was storming up and down the office. Ben had himself tucked into his desk as close as he could get.

“That is for the bank to decide, isn’t it?” He was brisk and almost professional now.

“I have friends who have—oh never mind. I thought you understood these things. At the gala when you talked about work for your crew, I thought you were a decent guy.”

“Neuhaus, I am a decent guy. And if I want to buy an inn for my sister to run and to give my guys a job to work then I am going to buy it. I don’t really care if you approve.” He paused.

Mitzy wondered if he was distracted by something or drinking coffee. Then she wondered if he took cream in his coffee.

“I’ve got work to do. I hope you find something to occupy yourself with.” Alonzo hung up.

Mitzy squeezed in a response that indicated she was done, so he hadn’t actually hung up on her, but it was close.

She was fuming. Steaming. The puppy made some whining noises, so she grabbed him up and hustled into the cold spring morning. She put him into the planter box. “Do your business, will you?”

Sabrina beat the carpet cleaners back to the office. She had the spray, the puppy pads, an assortment of chic dog accessories, and a crate.

They crated Gilbert and gave him some very soft treats. They took him to the box every twenty minutes. Even Ben had to admit that it was nice to see the girls with something to do.

After a long day of trying to reconnect with Joan, Mitzy gave up. Joan was clearly in her groove shopping, arranging and creating atmosphere. After the meeting with the House Hunters execs, which was rather uneventful, Mitzy declined dinner with Curt.

“Don’t say that. You need to eat, I need to eat. I won’t even make you go to the Olive Garden.” Curt gave her a winning grin. That had been his favorite restaurant while they were together.

“I’ve got this puppy see…” she said, as she cuddled the soft pup.

“Where can we eat with the puppy? This is
Portland
, I’m sure we could go almost anywhere.”

“If you won’t take it as a come on, I’d just as well take you back to the condo and eat some Chinese.” 

“That sounds great. And I won’t take it as a come on. If anyone knows you are not that kind of girl, I know it.” He picked through Sabrina’s collection of doggy goodies and pulled out a strange sack like contraption. Sabrina had left them all behind when she went home. There was a strict no pets policy at her apartment. “Use this. You’ll love it.” He tossed her a thing that seemed to be a baby sling for puppies.

“Lovely.” Mitzy was surprised at how easy it was to put on. She nestled the puppy into the pocket of the sling and found that really, she did love it. It would only be better if the puppy could purr.

They sat on her patio, eating Chinese from Safeway off of plastic plates with chopsticks. It was chilly still, in early spring, so she had her little patio heater on, making a warm orange glow. They watched as dusk rolled in and the families around the condo community called their kids in and turned on their patio lights.

“So you are in show business now too?” Curt asked.

“Sort of. I’ve got a radio segment that seems to have gotten away from me.” Mitzy was feeling a bit annoyed by the way the radio station seemed to think she wanted to give them free entertainment. They acted like she should be grateful for the advertising. Once her Wednesday morning segment had morphed into a daily morning chat fest with Johnny who had gotten only slightly less obnoxious, she felt like the balance had altered and she was now providing for them. It was something she planned to renegotiate in the next day or two.

“Gotten away from you, like you lost it, or like it exploded in popularity?”

“I wouldn’t say exploded in popularity. But I had a…scene…with the co-host that had listeners listening and so they sort of upped me from my weekly spot to a daily. I think I am using it well, but they think they are giving me free advertising. You know?”

“The relationship between the advertisers and the entertainers has always been tricky. Do you get lots of free stuff from the station?”

She laughed, and nearly spilled her coke. “As a matter of fact I do. I have seen every show in town this season, which has been fun. But there have been times I would have sworn the only people at the theater were comp tickets.” Mitzy set her soda on the side table. She rubbed her cold hands together. “It’s a hard time right now. I don’t see the way out of it. I mean, I see a number of roads out, but they are all hard and leave a lot of people hurting for a long time. Back to free stuff, that heater was a comp. Pretty great, no? I don’t know how the radio got their hands on patio furniture, but it was delivered to the office with a note with love from the Station. It’s been very handy.”

“And footy,” Curt said, stretching his long legs out to the warm glow. “I could get used to lying around. I bet this is what you do all day long, lounging around resting on your laurels, plenty comfy until someone is ready to buy a house.” Curt grinned.

“Yeah, right. That’s so me, isn’t it? I’ve got employees to feed. I can’t just sit around. I can pay them, but they have this funny thing called pride and don’t want to sit around the office doing nothing all day. I can appreciate it, but making work for them is getting to be a lot of work for me.” She chuckled softly and Curt joined her. She had the sick feeling that their hard times were just beginning.

“I bet you do, too. I bet you make up things to keep them busy all day so they can feel like they’ve earned it.”

“We’re a team. The success we’ve had that makes the business able to pay their checks is due in large part to their hard work. Why do you think I applied to be on TV?”

“Because you are star struck? Fame obsessed? Desperate to reconnect with old flames?”

“Because it gave my assistant something to do for the afternoon. I’ve got an idea for a local TV show. On the one hand developing the proposal gives my assistant something to do. On the other hand once it is accepted it gives most of the staff more weekly tasks to get done and educates the public—to help them get through the crisis. We’ve got to revitalize real estate if we ever want to get out of this recession.”

“You should have your own show. A real one, on HGTV. You’d be fantastic.”