STAGING WARS

by Grace Topping

  “Okay, but don’t go wild spreading Ian Becker’s name.”

  I rolled my eyes, something I frequently reminded my young assistant and myself not to do. Childish I knew, but Detective Spangler always brought out the worst in me.

  I left the room wondering who had wanted Ian Becker dead.

  Chapter 3

  Staging your home with touches of luxury will help buyers view your house as special.

  Outside the funeral home, I took several deep breaths to relieve the stress I’d felt building. The warm summer day was glorious, and I took a moment to enjoy the view of the Allegheny Mountains in the distance. Seeing the green, rolling mountains always calmed me. It was a beautiful time of year in Pennsylvania—but Pennsylvania was beautiful any time of the year.

  I went back to our table in the town square, glad that only our team was there at the moment. The thought of how close Nita had come to danger had shaken me, and I hugged her. Close friends since second grade, and without sisters, we had become more like siblings and worried about each other.

  Tyrone Webster had arrived to help and was sitting with the others. His dark good looks and outgoing personality would help attract people to our table. Tyrone was Mrs. Webster’s grandson, and I’d known him since he was young. Now a design student at nearby Fischer College, he assisted me part-time in my staging business.

  “Hey, Tyrone. I’m guessing Nita and your grandmother filled you in on what happened this morning.” I reached for one of the unopened bottles of water on the table and gulped down half of it before I came up for air.

  “Man, that was terrible. When I saw the emergency vehicles and then didn’t see any of you here, I freaked out.”

  Since his grandmother was his only family, I knew how alarmed he must have been. “I’m sorry. One of us should have come out to tell you what was going on, but everything was happening so fast.”

  “Not to worry. A policeman outside the funeral home told me you all were inside and okay. So I came back here. The crowd came down to this end of the square to see what was going on, so I got to talk to a lot of people about the business.”

  Nita fanned herself with a handful of the pamphlets we’d been handing out. “Emergency vehicles outside a funeral home were bound to attract attention.”

  “It sure attracted the ghouls,” Tyrone said. “I overheard some guy say that maybe one of the bodies brought in hadn’t been quite dead.”

  “Ridiculous. We’re not living in the dark ages.” Mrs. Webster took off her hat and swatted the bees buzzing around the drinks we’d left on the table.

  It was getting hotter as the day went by. Tyrone reached for a fresh bottle of water, opened it, and tossed the lid into a nearby bag of trash. “Thanks to the big crowd at this end of the square, I handed out lots of pamphlets. Nita, your before and after photos in the pamphlet impressed people.”

  During the past few months, Tyrone and I had staged a nineteenth-century mansion, making it more attractive to buyers. It sold for far more than expected. The new owners had bought the mansion and all the furniture and turned it into a fantastic bed and breakfast. It was our first staging job and helped establish our reputation in Louiston. Since then, we’d completed a few more places. Nita joined us, first taking photos of our progress, and now completing online classes to become a certified home stager.

  Mrs. Webster helped when we needed her skillful needlework or on occasions like the fair today. She enjoyed being able to spend more time with Tyrone—and to keep an eye on him. Having raised him since he was orphaned at five years old, she was quite protective of him.

  Nita didn’t respond to Tyrone’s comments about her photos. It was most unusual, since she was thrilled to be using her photography skills. Could she be thinking the same thing I thought earlier—that she might have missed the killer by minutes or even seconds?

  “How did your interview with Detective Spangler go?” I asked her. Having been questioned by him before and how uncomfortable it could be, I worried he might have intimidated her. I always found him intimidating.

  Nita expelled a long breath. “He asked me several questions, often the same ones over and over but worded differently.”

  “The police do that. It must be an interrogation technique to see if your story stays consistent. How about you, Mrs. Webster?” I asked.

  “Don’t you worry about me, girl. I didn’t let him intimidate me. I stared him right in the eye and told him everything I knew.” She sniffed. “I nursed his grandmother in his family’s home when he was a youngster. He knows I’m not going to let him scare me into saying something I shouldn’t.”

  Nita fanned herself faster now. Her face was flushed and her shoulders slumped. With the sun directly overhead, the heat had become intense, and the nearby trees no longer shaded us. Mrs. Webster handed Nita a bottle of water and a tube of sunblock. “Put some of this on, and tomorrow, bring a hat. You young people need to be more careful. In my career, I’ve seen some terrible cases of skin cancer. Tyrone’s already lathered up.”

  Tyrone and Mrs. Webster, with their dark brown skin, showed no effects from the sun, but Nita’s face was reddening, either from the sun or from the earlier stress of finding a body. The hat Mrs. Webster was never without helped protect her skin. I planned to bring one of my straw hats tomorrow when we would again be at the square. The two-day fair was enabling us to educate homeowners about what a home stager could do to prepare their homes for sale. And it was helping to promote our fledgling business.

  Tyrone reached into a box on the ground and placed more pamphlets on the table. “What I can’t understand is why someone would want to kill somebody at a funeral home? But if you are going to get killed, a funeral home sure would be a convenient place for it to happen.”

  “Young man.” Mrs. Webster swatted him with a pamphlet.

  “Sorry, Gran.”

  It was sometimes easy to forget how young Tyrone was. Even at nineteen, the boy in him still came out.

  I studied Nita again. Earlier in the day she had been cracking jokes and now she was subdued. Not surprising after the terrible experience of finding a body. It had affected all of us but especially her.

  “Nita, why don’t you go home? We can handle this. And if you don’t feel better, stay home tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be okay. Tyrone is picking up lunch for us soon. Once I’ve eaten something, I should feel better.”

  To Italian-American families, good food helps in any situation. It’s like the British and a soothing cup of tea. I wasn’t convinced food would help Nita right now, but I decided to let it go for the moment. I felt quite shaken by the experience myself and longed to call it a day, but I had to hold it together for my business. The fair was held only once a year, and it was too good an opportunity to miss.

  Tyrone walked away from the table, talking into his cell phone. When he returned, the uncharacteristic frown on his face was a dead giveaway I wouldn’t like whatever news he had.

  “Laura, did you cancel the rental truck we reserved for Monday? I just called to confirm the rental, and they said someone canceled it. I told them they must have mixed us up with someone else, but they said the caller specifically said to cancel the reservation for Staging for You. Worse than that, they don’t have another truck available for Monday.”

  “What? I didn’t. Nita, did you cancel it?” I couldn’t imagine why she would have. We needed that truck. We’d reserved it to transfer furnishings to stage an unoccupied house that was soon going on the market. Nita shook her head and looked as puzzled as I felt.

  That was strange—this happening right after someone had anonymously left us a bad review online and some other things that I was beginning to wonder about. It was starting to unnerve me. “It’s too late now to wonder how it happened. Let’s work at getting another truck—that is if we can find one at this late date. Tyrone, can you work on that?”
<
br />   Nita sat up in her chair. “If you can’t locate one, let me know and I’ll check with the family about borrowing a vehicle.” Nita’s father and five brothers owned a construction company, and they had often come to my aid.

  “Thanks for checking on the truck, Tyrone. If you hadn’t, we would have been in a real fix on Monday.” I’d known Tyrone since he was a youngster, and he had proven himself time and again to be an asset to our small team. Not only did he provide the brawn we needed to move furniture, but he also had an excellent eye for good décor and design. He designed stage sets for the Louiston Players, the local community theater group, and could do a lot with very little.

  I pondered who else could have a truck we could rent or borrow. “We could call Ernie Phillips. If he doesn’t have any window cleaning scheduled for Monday, perhaps we could rent his truck. In fact, I’ll check with the homeowner to see if they can work window cleaning into their home staging budget. That will help make it worth his while.” Houses for sale with sparkling clean windows help them stand out from other houses on the market.

  As the number of people attending the fair dwindled, we began packing our promotional materials to place in my car overnight. After church in the morning, we would start again. Closing the back door of my car, I let out a big sigh.

  “Was that a sigh of relief, or are you tired? Nita asked.

  “Neither. I was thinking about Aunt Kit’s arrival this evening. She’s coming to town to attend the Louiston Arts Festival and is staying with me for a few days.” Aunt Kit was my mother’s older sister who had moved away from Louiston several years ago to take a job. She had never married, and was, to my knowledge, my only living relative. Her outlook on life was about as grim as my mother’s had been.

  Nita laughed, a sound I was glad to hear coming from her. “You mean Aunt Kit with the glass-half-empty-smudged-and-cracked outlook? That will sure help lift your spirits after the depressing events today.”

  “It must be genetic. She’s as dour as my mom used to be. I hope I didn’t inherit the same genes.” With the bearing of a stern mother superior, Aunt Kit had missed her calling.

  “Give her a small glass of the Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry she likes. Then she’ll be halfway pleasant.”

  “She doesn’t drink often.” Maybe that was just as well. Cream sherry sounded innocuous, but the potent sweet drink could provide a real punch to an unsuspecting imbiber.

  “Then serve her some sherry trifle—with an extra dose of sherry.”

  “That reminds me, I need to pick up a bottle of it. If Aunt Kit becomes too much to deal with, I’ll have it to drink.”

  “Glad you mentioned that Aunt Kit was coming into town for the arts festival. Don’t forget you’re helping with the art intake on Tuesday. Come prepared for an interesting session. If we don’t hang the artists’ works where they want them, they can get pretty upset.”

  Chapter 4

  Most homebuyers form an opinion fifteen seconds after entering a home. Stage your home to ensure their first impression is a good one.

  After a draining day, I happily returned to my craftsman bungalow and was greeted by my tiny black cat, Inky. Unlike many cats who only tolerated their owners, Inky was affectionate and curled around my ankles, displaying how happy he was to see me. He was even more so when I put clean water in his bowl, with two ice cubes, which he loved, and fed him his favorite salmon dinner. It smelled awful to me, but he loved it—it pays to have a happy pet. I’d heard too many horror stories from pet owners about how their pets had taken revenge on them for minor infractions.

  After tending to Inky, I stepped in the shower, wishing the hot water pouring over me could wash away memories from earlier that day. I hadn’t realized how stressed I had become. The water helped relax my stiff muscles and reminded me again how wonderful it was to have a shower. My father frequently talked about how much he appreciated a shower. As a Marine, who had served in both the jungle and the desert and frequently had only cold water to bathe with; he viewed a hot shower as pure luxury. Memories of him caused a sharp pain to hit. Even after so many years, I still missed him. After my parents’ divorce when I was young, he gradually disappeared from my life, and I didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.

  I dressed quickly and went about preparing dinner so Aunt Kit could have something to eat following her long ride. It didn’t matter what I fixed. She would pick at whatever it was and say she wasn’t hungry. But she always had room for dessert.

  The doorbell sounded just as I slid a frozen pizza into the oven. I had doctored it with red peppers, onions, mushrooms, and olives to make it healthier.

  Aunt Kit stood at the door, a tall, erect figure, holding two large cases that would have weighed down anyone far stronger. She hadn’t even bothered to rest them on the porch floor while waiting for me to come to the door. It always amazed me that someone who ate so little could be so strong.

  “Well, you took your time,” she said, every bit as imperious as Maggie Smith in Downton Abby.

  Lovely greeting. “Hello, Aunt Kit.” She was so much like my late mother it was like having her there—just when I thought I had exorcized her disgruntled spirit from the house I had grown up in. My mother resisted any bit of happiness that tried to fight its way into our lives. Fortunately, I’d had Nita’s family to show me how good life could be. As a result, I had a much better outlook on life than I would have had without them.

  “Here, let me give you a hand with your cases.” I made the mistake of reaching for one of them.

  She pulled back. “I can still manage on my own, thank you very much.”

  I shrugged and led the way to the guest room.

  Inky scooted around us and launched himself onto the bed. I held my breath, wondering how Aunt Kit would react, but I needn’t have worried. She was fond of me in her gruff way, but she loved Inky. And for some inexplicable reason, he loved her too. He would be her constant companion while she was there.

  I was ravenous, but as I expected, Aunt Kit toyed with the pizza I placed in front of her. As I cleared our plates away, I told her about Nita finding the body in the funeral home. I knew if I didn’t, someone would tell her about our involvement. She had grown up in Louiston and still knew lots of people in town who were bound to tell her.

  “How do you get yourself involved in things like that?” She stated it as though I went looking for trouble.

  There was no explanation for it, so I ignored her question.

  Aunt Kit continued. “How is that little business of yours going?”

  Hearing people use the term little in that way had the same effect on me as hearing fingernails scrape across a blackboard. It was as though they were dismissing the subject as having little value.

  “It’s growing. Nita is working with me now. Also Tyrone, when he isn’t at school or one of his other part-time jobs. We have enough work that I’ll occasionally call in Will Parker to help. Do you remember Will? He’s the retired rodeo star who was hit by a car this past spring, but he’s doing a lot better now.”

  “I remember you telling me about that, but I don’t think I’ve ever met him.”

  “He’s a real character, but I like him a lot. He lives with his daughter and her big family up near the B&B.”

  “I’m glad he helps you out, but how you could give up a well-paying job in IT to go into a business moving furniture about is beyond me. I can’t imagine what your mother would think if she were alive.”

  I knew how my mother would think—exactly like Aunt Kit. As young women, neither of them had any sense of adventure. It made me wonder what their parents had been like with both their daughters viewing the world so glumly. Maybe it was just as well I didn’t know.

  “Working in IT bored me. Home staging allows me to use my talents for decorating. And there’s a lot to be said about being my own boss. But best of all, I’m doing work that
makes me happy. And I’m doing it while still young enough to try it.

  “What does being happy have to do with making a living? You’ll never be able to make the money you made in IT. I wasn’t happy in my work, but it’s given me a good retirement that I can depend on. Derrick wouldn’t have approved of you chucking your job.”

  Uh, oh. She’d used the D-word. My late husband, Derrick, had never had time for anything I wanted. Everything had always been about him. I was elated that I no longer had to worry about what Derrick thought.

  “Frankly, Aunt Kit, I’ve reached the stage in my life where I’m doing what I want to do—even if I go broke doing it.” Entering a new field, that was always a possibility, but I wasn’t going to let a fear of failing stop me from trying. “You don’t have to worry about my finances. The home staging field is growing, and the more people recognize its value, the more they’ll be turning to businesses like mine.”

  And then she softened. “Just take care, dear. I worry about you.”

  That statement deserved a reward. I opened the freezer and surveyed the two containers of ice cream stored there. Should I give her butter pecan to butter her up, or rocky road, which seemed to hold a warning? Decision made, I placed a bowl of butter pecan ice cream in front of her. Her face broke out in a wide smile. Dessert always put a smile on her face.

  I scooped up a bowl for myself. Maybe after the day I’d had it would put a smile on my face—and help me prepare for whatever tomorrow held.

  Chapter 5

  A home stager knows what helps to get a house sold fast.

  The next morning after church, I waited for Nita at Vocaro’s Coffee Bar, where we met most mornings and she read our horoscopes. None of the horoscopes came true, but since she enjoyed reading them, I listened and attempted to sound interested. She was running late that morning. I’d asked Aunt Kit if she wanted to join us, but she said she planned to relax in my hammock and read a new release by Cindy Brown, whose humorous mysteries featured a different Broadway play.