I'll Protect You (Clueless Resolutions Book 1) (10 page)

Following an uneventful weekend, Maggie was relaxed and hoping to get back to work with some semblance of normalcy.  The weather on this sunny Monday was clear and almost balmy.
Very comforting,
she thought as she drove to her workplace.

“Good morning Francine” she sang when she went into the Stanley Realty office. Francine waved while picking up the ringing phone.

Maggie checked through her messages, looked at her day-planner and scanned her list of lender associates.

She decided it was time for some TLC with her contacts, since calls and leads had dropped off lately.  Just to make sure that she was on their A list, she put together an agenda for two days of “glad handing.”

Aggie Moran and Sheena Green both came into the Realty office at the same time. Neither of them ever knew how to deal with Maggie.  As usual, they nodded in her direction and checked their mail boxes. They went into Francine’s office and Maggie could see Francine hanging up the phone as they closed the door behind them.

They’re probably getting their asses chewed out for not producing any listings or sales lately
, she thought.
If they were as awkward dealing with customers as they were with me, it’s no freaking wonder!
  For some reason Maggie couldn’t help feeling amused by that thought. Smiling at no one in particular, she left for a day of schmoozing with her customer base.

Her day went well.  The weather was fantastic, her reception at every visit was good, as usual, and if there were any repercussions from the rash of homicides it wasn’t apparent.

She had met with her contacts at one commercial bank, one residential mortgage company and one savings and loan association.  Most were currently tabulating their monthly mortgage delinquency files to identify problem properties and seemed to think that the mortgage failure problem was intensifying.  This would indicate that Maggie would be busier in the near future.

The mortgage company clients didn’t sense a great threat to their operation since most of them periodically sold their outstanding mortgage loans to major banks and financial holding companies and retained only the servicing and collection for a fee.  This made available new funds for them to lend.

The commercial banks and credit unions held most of their loans internally.

The savings and loan associations had typically sold off their large bundled-packages of loans, which were backed by a guarantee from FDMC, an acronym for the semi-governmental agency known as “Freddie Mac.”  So generally, Maggie’s lender clients were in a ‘business-as-usual’ mode.  The only prevailing negative, however, was that the volume of new loan applications was declining.  This was somewhat disconcerting to the lenders but it was really threatening to the real estate brokers and salespersons that brought the buyers to the banks.  In this New England region, spring and summer real estate transactions traditionally made up the bulk of the annual total of residential sales.

Maggie had two more clients to see, a credit union and another mortgage company.  By 4:30 in the afternoon she decided to quit for the day and pick up where she left off on Tuesday.  It had been a beautiful southern New England summer day and she was very satisfied with her results.

Three of Maggie’s contacts, females who had known her and dealt with her for a few years, and who were aware of the fact that much of her service involved Max, had asked about him during Maggie’s visits.  She planned to dine together Tuesday evening with Max but couldn’t wait to tease the hell out of him about the ladies’ inquiries as to his ‘well-being’.  She decided to give him a call.

Tuesday morning turned out to be cloudy and damp and that condition gradually downgraded.  Maggie had problems with her washing machine and got off to a late start.  She had two more lender contacts to visit and decided to go directly to the credit union first.

When she arrived she was shocked to hear that her contact there, an older gentleman on the board of directors, had been hospitalized with a serious illness.  After passing along her regrets and best wishes, she continued on to the last stop on her list.

Maggie’s contact at this mortgage company was the manager, a young man of Hispanic heritage, probably in his late twenties.  He was glad to see her and was, as usual, full of flattery.  This was part of his persona when dealing with females.

He wondered why, however, that during the previous week he had left a message for her at Stanley Realty and had not heard back from her.  The problem was urgent and he gave the lead to an attorney that he knew.

Maggie was puzzled and a little disappointed at missing out on the lead.  She promised to check with her office to determine what the problem was.  The manager did have another lead to give her and had called the previous day.  He left the message with Francine.  He assumed that Maggie had stopped in on this morning to pick up the information in person.

“
Oh yeah, I just love to stop by and get the phony flattery treatment, don’t kid yourself Romeo”,
she said silently, while maintaining her smile and without blinking an eye.

His name actually wasn’t Romeo.  He was a nice guy, went a little heavy on the cologne, but otherwise just a good business contact to her.  Maggie thanked him, put the contact information in her attaché case and bid him a farewell.

Maggie’s day was going quite the opposite from the day before. The weather was lousy today, she may have lost her long time contact at the credit union, and she missed out on a lead from the previous week.  Maggie was accumulating quite a negative thought process as she drove through the rain to her office.

Usually, if Maggie hadn’t picked up the message within a few hours after a call came in from one of her contacts, Francine, or whoever was on phone duty, would contact her by cell phone.  In these cases the lenders had to have a workable solution underway as soon as possible, and Maggie had been made aware that the timing was critical.

“That’s two leads called in to me that I didn’t get.  By luck, I picked up the second one!”
She
fumed, to herself.

Maggie pulled into the Stanley Realty parking lot and stormed in through the office door dripping from a sudden downpour which came down like a small waterfall just as she got out of her car.

“Just freaking great” Maggie said loudly as Carrie, the sales trainee looked blankly up from painting her fingernails at her desk.

“Is it raining?” Carrie asked without thinking to hard.

“No, I just poured water all over myself, what the hell do you think!? Or
do
you think?” shouted Maggie.  Carrie just lowered her head and continued her fingernail work.

At the sound of the loud voice, Francine came rushing out of her office with obvious concern.  Maggie composed herself and turned to Carrie’s desk.

“I’m sorry, Carrie, I’m not having a good day.  You understand, don’t you?  Don’t you have those days every once in a while?” asked Maggie, feeling a bit guilty.

Carrie looked up from her fingernail painting, blinked her large false eye lashes twice and after a moment of thought, replied;  “I don’t know, I guess so, but I don’t think about the weather that much.”

Maggie was speechless.  She looked at Francine and then back at Carrie.  Francine seemed a bit embarrassed for Carrie. 

“
Good lord,”
Maggie thought, “
this one is somewhere out in space. What is she high on, sniffing the nail polish?”

At that, Maggie asked Francine for a few minutes in private.  Francine nodded as she waved Maggie into her office and closed the door behind them.

Maggie then went at Francine with an earnest, passionate tone about the leads she missed.  As she went on with her complaint Maggie remembered that when she left the office on the day before, Francine was having a private meeting with her two salespersons.

“Oh, Maggie, I’m, sorry. I took the message as I was starting to talk to the other girls yesterday morning.  When we finished you had left.  I forgot to call you.  I have it right here.” Francine said as she handed Maggie the note.  “I’ll make it up to you.” she continued.

“Okay, but there was a call last week that I didn’t get either.” said Maggie, not ready to let Francine off the hook. “Were you on phone duty last Wednesday morning? She asked.  Francine looked down at her large desk calendar where she noted day-to-day assignments.

“Oh, that was Carrie; I had to step out and asked her to take messages.” Francine explained.

“Great, that one is gone.  I found out about it an hour ago.” Maggie said with authority.

The discussion was over.  As she left Francine’s office Maggie knew that Francine didn’t have to, nor would she, indicate what action she would take with Carrie so she didn’t bother to ask.

Maggie went to her mail box to check for any other messages and, shifting her blouse from the dampness and shaking out her hair, she went to her desk to plan the next day’s work.

Realizing that the usual perfume cloud surrounding Carrie was missing, Maggie thought;
Thank God we don’t need the gas mask today.
 
Maybe a certain someone ran out of ‘Au de La Dead Skunk’ musk.  It would be one bright spot on this shitty day.”
Within fifteen minutes she had finished planning her agenda for the next day.

“Have a good one” she flipped at Carrie on the way past her desk.

“Good night Francine”, she put forward as a peace offering, “Catch you tomorrow.” Without waiting for a response she left the office, got into her car and left for her apartment.

Carrie was watching as Maggie went out to her car.  “
She really got on my case today. I wonder what has her so jacked up.”
she queried to herself.

In actuality, Carrie admired Maggie for her self-assuredness and for her seemingly secure, successful lifestyle.

While Maggie was trudging through her not-so-great day, Max had spent the day commuting to northern Connecticut and back.  He was working as part of a team along with a property appraiser local to that area, and a local antiques expert.  They were collaborating on valuing a sizeable former-tobacco plantation which was slated for auction.  It was a sixteen-room, 1880s Gothic style house, with a horse stable and two tobacco-drying barns, resting on thirty-two acres of land.

The entire estate was under contract for auction with Jenson and Associates.  Max was evaluating the house, house lot and buildings.  The local property appraiser was valuing the former tobacco field acreage and the antique expert was listing and estimating the value of some old farming equipment and the interior furnishings of the house.

The furnishings and the old farm equipment would be sold immediately.  The house and outbuildings on two acres, to be separated as a zone-compliant house lot, would be auctioned separately from the remaining farmland.  The land and building components had to have separate minimum bids established prior to the auction date in ten days’ time.

At 6:15 PM on this rainy Tuesday evening Max was driving on Rt. I-91 back to East Wayford when his cell phone bleeped.

“Hey Max, you poor, hard driving, hardworking dude” Maggie said in an obviously fun loving mood, “I’m cooking up some chicken cacciatore for two. How about coming directly to my place on your way back?”

Max was more than a little hungry. He had skipped lunch hoping that he could wrap up his assignment.  The effort was wasted, however, since he had no choice but to return Wednesday, after all.

“It sounds good to me, you fox, you.  That’s the best offer I’ve had today.  Chill the glasses and I’ll pick up the joy-juice at Fred’s Vodka Mart.” Max said with a frivolous tone, “If you want to time it perfectly, I should be pulling into your driveway at 7:05.” he added.

“Okay smart ass”, Maggie responded, “I’m just in a zany mood, but you sound like you’re half-way to being blitzed already.”

“Not a drop today Mag,” he replied in a serious tone, “In fact, I totally skipped lunch.  I’ll call you when I’m twenty minutes out if it’ll help.” offered Max.

“You are a charmer, you devil.  Do that, I’ll see you then.” finished Maggie.

Max pulled up at Maggie’s apartment at 7:10. She spotted him driving up and met him at the front door.

“You’re late, what happened?” Maggie called out. Max, striding up the walkway responded.

“Sorry, I squeezed in an unscheduled stop along the way” he said through the rain as he pulled a small bouquet of mixed wild flowers from under his raincoat.

As Maggie stepped aside to allow his entry she said with feigned coyness, “Oh Max,” you shouldn’t have.”

“Don’t get too emotional,” he kidded, “It was a promotional thing Fred’s Vodka was doing.  They’re using left over flowers from the holiday parade.” he confessed.

“I still love the flowers, thanks.” she said generously, going easy on him.  “Pour the martinis,” she continued, “I’m setting the table.”

“I hope you didn’t forget the candles” Max said semi-seriously.  Maggie just gave him a look of faked annoyance.

During the meal Max told Maggie about his rather difficult out-of- town assignment and expressed his disappointment at having to go back the next day. The reason was because there was a potential zoning defect with the house lot which would require a correction.  Otherwise it could affect the overall value.  He wasn’t able to get an answer because both the tax assessor and the zoning officer were part time.  They didn’t work on Tuesdays.

“But enough about me,” he said jokingly, “what about you?  Did any more of your lady friends ask for me today?”  Maggie shot a faked scowl at Max.

“No, and don’t let what I told you yesterday go to your big head.  As far as how my day went, on a scale of one to ten, my day started out around minus three and then went lower than whale shit!” she said flatly.  “It went so bad it made me giddy, that’s why I called you, so that I could end it on an upswing.”

She went on to tell Max about the days’ events.  Max was shaking his head and listening with concern.  He wasn’t sure just how down she really had become.  It wasn’t like her to let people affect her attitude.

“Honest-to-God, Max, you should have seen Francine when I went off on her.  She was as pale as a ghost, I mean white!  It even showed through that patriotic make up that she uses.”  Max’s left eyebrow went up.

“Patriotic make up?” he asked.

“Yeah, you know,” she quipped, “Red, White and Blue. The big-red cheeks, the shockingly-white teeth and the neon-blue eyelids.”  Max was just taking a sip of his second martini and he choked, trying to stifle a laugh as he visualized the scene Maggie had just painted, and, with his face red and his cheeks puffed out he couldn’t hold it any longer. He sprayed the mouthful all over his sleeve.  Most of his drink was spilled.  He pushed back from the table with a napkin against his mouth, laughing so hard that his eyes were welling up with tears.

At the sight of Max, Maggie couldn’t hold it in any longer either.  They both let it out until they were breathless.

They enjoyed finishing the meal and, after cleaning up the dinner table, they were relaxed in the living room.

Maggie lit the gas fireplace to mitigate the cool, late-spring dampness and they sat watching it cast a flickering, cozy glow through the room.  The CD player was turned down low, murmuring soothing mood music.

“You got me good with that one.” Max said finishing the replenished martini as he referenced cracking up at the table,

“Did you think I was going off the deep end?” asked Maggie.

“I’ve been so wrapped up in my stuff, I didn’t know what to think”, he answered, “I was wondering if I had missed some signals from you, I guess,” he said seriously.

“Well, I do have a good grip on you, don’t I.” she said softly with a smile.

They sat there reflecting for a while slouched shoulder-to-shoulder on her plush, Corinthian leather sofa.

The wind driven rain could be heard against the window panes. For both of them the day was ending much better than it had begun.