STAGING WARS

by Grace Topping

  The grand old Victorian house had seen better days. The shrubbery was overgrown, the paint was chipping off, and one piece of decorative grillwork around the top of the porch was barely hanging on. “The house could use some work.” I wondered what it looked like inside.

  “That’s another reason I’m anxious to sell soon. The more neglected that place becomes, the harder it’ll be to sell. And it’ll affect prices around here.”

  As I drove back home, I used my cell phone to check in with Kimberly, Monica’s assistant, and made arrangements to see her tomorrow about another project. Just as I hung up, I received a call from Nita.

  “Did you schedule an appointment to meet with someone this afternoon?” Nita asked.

  “I don’t believe so. Or if I did, I don’t remember it. Everything has been so chaotic. Why?”

  “We received a message on our website confirming your appointment with an M. Cassatt at two.”

  “Oh, dear.” Great for business, but not great for my schedule. I pulled over to the side of the road and entered the address Nita gave me into my phone. Looking at my watch, I had just enough time to get there.

  “Thanks, Nita. It would have been embarrassing if I’d missed that one. I’ll check in with you when I’ve finished there.”

  I drove to the address Nita had given me and parked in front of the mid-century modern home with a large For Sale sign hanging out front. M. Cassatt must be a real estate agent I didn’t know. Thank you, Nita, for alerting me. I didn’t want to miss an appointment with an agent since they referred work to us. Finding a better method for keeping track of appointments needed to go on my to-do list.

  No other cars were parked nearby, so thankfully, I wasn’t late and had arrived before Mr. or Ms. Cassatt. That would give me time to evaluate what attention the outside of the house might need. As I got out of my car, I looked toward the house and saw the front door was open. That was strange. Perhaps M. Cassatt had parked in the back.

  I knocked on the door, and receiving no response, pushed it open further. “Hello, anyone here?” Still no response. Perhaps the agent had left the door open for me to get in and would be back. Well, if nothing else, it would enable me to look at the house and be better prepared to discuss a staging approach. I pulled a notebook from my canvas tote bag ready to make notes.

  The home was empty, so we wouldn’t have to deal with furniture that might not be in good shape or attractive—or with furniture not in keeping with a mid-century modern home. Homeowners frequently selected furniture so out of character with the style of their homes. I could never understand why someone would buy a modern home and then fill it with Victorian furniture.

  I noted the terrazzo floors in the living and dining rooms and then headed down a long hall toward the bedrooms. I scrunched up my nose at the musty smell that permeated the house and pointed to a need for a good airing—or maybe something more drastic. I made a note about needing some charcoal air filter bags to help with the musty odor.

  I turned into the first bedroom and gave it a quick look. The carpet was a bit worse for wear and would need to be replaced or pulled up. With any luck, terrazzo flooring would be under the carpeting.

  The master bedroom was a good size. As I stepped into the room, suddenly something dark flapped over my head and strong arms wrapped around my middle. Before I could react, I felt myself being pushed forward into the nearby closet. I hit the closet wall and felt pain shoot across my shoulder and down my arm. My knees buckled and I collapsed onto the floor with a thud.

  The door slammed behind me, and I found myself enveloped in darkness. Once I had gotten over the shock, I realized that I still had some type of cloth or blanket covering my head. I struggled with it and once I got it off, I could see a thin band of light at the bottom of the door.

  When I could get my wits about me, I stood and tried the door handle. It turned easily, but when I pushed against it, it wouldn’t budge. I pounded on the door. “Help. Let me out.” A lot of good that was going to do. Whoever had locked me in wasn’t going to respond to my pleas for help.

  In the struggle, I’d dropped my bag and along with it my cell phone. All I could do was hope the person who’d locked me in the closet was satisfied to leave me there and that was all. I shuddered to think for what purpose?

  Chapter 39

  Packed closets will give the appearance of limited storage space.

  Hours later, or what seemed like hours, I was hoarse from yelling for help, thirsty, and desperate to use a bathroom. The air conditioner was running in the house, but not enough to reach the confined area of the closet. I was dripping with perspiration.

  Each time I heard a car drive by, I shouted for help, but to no avail. My hands ached from pounding on the door. Then I thought of my little Inky and hoped Aunt Kit was home and would feed him.

  I couldn’t believe I was locked in a closet. What would possess someone to do that? Did that person plan to come back later to let me out, or worse? I took in several deep breaths and let them out slowly, trying to stave off a panic attack. I tried to center myself as I had learned to do taking Yoga.

  At the last house I’d visited, I thought it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go alone to houses unless there was a woman there. Now I’d have to take someone with me to empty houses. Was there any place safe for women these days?

  A car door slammed. I pounded on the door and shouted, “Help! Help me!” Then it occurred to me that it could be the person who imprisoned me who had come back, and I started to shiver all over. Still, I shouted.

  I heard a faint voice calling my name. I kept shouting for help, but being inside a closet, it would be difficult for someone to hear me. Fortunately, the house was a rambler, and the bedroom was on the ground floor and faced the street.

  “Laura? Are you in there?” It was Tyrone. Thank God.

  “Yes, yes. I’m in here.” I shouted as loud as I could and pounded on the door. “I’m locked in a closet.”

  Tyrone’s voice got louder. “Hold on, I’ll try the front door.”

  “Forget the front door. Break the window.” Mrs. Webster was there with him. I sent up a double thank you.

  “Okay, Laura, stand back. I’m going to throw a rock through the window,” Tyrone called.

  Since I wasn’t anywhere near a window, that made me laugh. It felt good to laugh considering how desperate my situation had been.

  I heard a crash and then the sound of glass falling—followed by another crash. Mrs. Webster must have thrown a rock too.

  “I’ve got it, hold on,” Tyrone called out. “It’s a crank out window.”

  Seconds later, the door opened and Tyrone stood in the opening. Fresh air filled the closet and helped revive me. “Hold on Tyrone. I’ll hug you once I’ve gone down the hall.”

  I finished in the bathroom and when I came out, Tyrone and Mrs. Webster were waiting for me. I hugged each of them. “I don’t know what brought you here, but thank you.”

  “It was Nita,” Tyrone said. “When you didn’t call her back or answer your cell phone, she got concerned. She called to ask me if I had heard from you.”

  “Girl, you had us good and worried, especially when we pulled up and saw your car parked in front and everything locked up.” As strong as Mrs. Webster usually appeared, she looked shaken. “We decided to circle the house and heard your cry. If the bedroom had been on the second floor, we probably wouldn’t have heard you.”

  “But how did you decide to look here?”

  “Nita said you had an appointment at two at this address. I had just picked Gran up from one of her church group meetings and was heading home. I told Nita we would drive by here on our way. We thought maybe your meeting had taken longer than expected, and with your history of not having a cell phone that always gets reception, we figured you might not have thought to or been able to call Nita to check in as you’d said
you would.”

  “That was my old phone. My new one gets good reception, but I dropped my bag with my phone in it when someone grabbed me.”

  “Who was the rascal that locked you in there? Are you hurt?” Mrs. Webster picked up my bag from the floor and handed it to me. I was thankful it was still there.

  “I never saw anyone. I found the house unlocked and went in thinking the agent had left it open for me to view and would be back. I thought perhaps the agent had gone for coffee or something. If I had been smart, when I saw that no one was here, I would have called the agent listed on the For Sale sign. Life learned the hard way.”

  Tyrone’s face was creased in anger. “I can’t believe someone locked you in that closet. How’d that happen without you seeing who it was?”

  “After I walked into the master bedroom, I no sooner entered when someone pulled a blanket over my head and grabbed me. Before I could react, he shoved me into the closet. It all happened so fast.” I rubbed my shoulder.

  “Let me see that.” Mrs. Webster gently extended my arm and rotated it. “Does that pain you?”

  “It’s sore from where my shoulder hit the wall, but I can move my arm okay.”

  Sirens sounded in the distance and kept getting closer. When they stopped in front of the house, I turned to Mrs. Webster and Tyrone. “Are the police coming here?”

  Mrs. Webster held up her cell phone, which I didn’t even know she owned. “As soon as we realized you were locked in that closet, I called 911. We didn’t know how we would find you, and we needed to report this crime.”

  Tyrone had opened the door from the inside after he had climbed in through the window and let Mrs. Webster in, so the door was open when the police officer and EMTs arrived.

  An officer I didn’t know came in. “Are you hurt, ma’am?”

  “No, I’m just banged up a bit.”

  “But what about that?” He pointed to drops of blood that had landed on the floor near our feet.

  I looked at it puzzled.

  “Oh, that’s me.” Tyrone held up his right hand. “I cut it on the glass when I put my hand through the window to unlock it and crank it open. It’s just a scratch. Sorry, I forgot about it.”

  Mrs. Webster, always the nurse, grabbed his hand and examined it. “I think you may need a few stitches there.” She reached into her large purse and pulled out a wad of tissues and pressed it against the wound. “Hold this against it until we can get you to the emergency room.”

  “Oh, Tyrone. I’m so sorry you were hurt,” I said.

  I looked up to see Detective Spangler coming through the doorway. “We meet again, Detective.” I spoke with more bravado than I was feeling. Anger began to build up in me the longer I thought about the person who had locked me up and because Tyrone had been injured as a result of it.

  Detective Spangler studied me closely. “Are you okay? When I heard the call go out, I followed, not knowing what we’d find.”

  “My shoulder is a bit sore, but other than that, I’m okay.” I told him everything that happened.

  “It sounds like someone purposely lured you here. You have nothing to go on except for an email from an M. Cassatt?”

  “That’s all. I thought it was strange that we received a reminder for an appointment that none of us remembered making, but at the time I figured one of us forgot to mark it down.” I paused. “Sorry, one second. Mrs. Webster, could you please let Nita know that I’m okay.”

  “I already have. She’s madder than a wet hornet.”

  I followed Detective Spangler down the hall to the master bedroom and stood aside as he perused the empty room. Empty except for a pole-like device lying on the floor. He took out a white cloth handkerchief and used it to pick it up. “It’s one of those devices you put under a door handle to secure it when you don’t have a door lock or you want additional security in a door with a lock. People frequently use them when staying in hotel rooms.”

  “Since the house is empty, someone brought it to lock me in that closet?”

  “Afraid so.” His expression was grim. “The question is who did you rile up enough to do that. The fact somebody contacted you to get you out here shows that it wasn’t a random act—someone seeing you enter an empty place and taking advantage of the situation.”

  “But there was nobody here, or I didn’t think anyone was here.”

  “Obviously someone was waiting for you behind the door. But the question is who and why? I’ll have an officer visit the other houses on this street to see if anyone saw someone going into the house. But since it was midday, no one may have been home.”

  “Detective?” We looked up to see a uniform office standing there.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “The back door was jimmied open.”

  Tyrone jumped from where he had been sitting on the floor. “You mean I went through that window when the back door was open the whole time?”

  When the detective walked away with the officer to investigate the back door, Tyrone leaned toward me and whispered. “Do you think I could be charged for breaking that window and entering?”

  “I don’t think so. Not in an emergency.” But given Tyrone’s experience with the police when he had been charged with murdering a homeowner, I could well understand his concern.

  Detective Spangler came back into the front room. “Looks like whoever attacked you got into the house through the back door. It was definitely a setup. I’ve called the real estate agent who will notify the homeowner. The agent said he’d be right over to secure the place.”

  I suddenly felt weary. “Can we go now? We’d like to get Tyrone to the emergency room. Mrs. Webster said his hand might need stitches, and the EMTs who were here confirmed it.”

  Mrs. Webster, who had been sitting on the floor as well, stood and came over to where we were standing. “I’ll go with Tyrone to the hospital. You go on ahead home.”

  Detective Spangler looked up from the notebook he was making notes in. “Wait a few minutes and I’ll drop you at your place. You may not want to drive after your experience.”

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate that. Aunt Kit and I can come back for my car tomorrow.”

  I said goodbye to Mrs. Webster and thanked Tyrone again for his heroic effort in rescuing me. I didn’t know what I’d do without the people in my life who frequently came to my aid.

  Now I had to face a ride to my home with Detective Spangler.

  Chapter 40

  Shine a light on dark areas of the house. Increase light by replacing dim light bulbs with high-wattage or LED bulbs.

  Being enclosed in a vehicle with Detective Spangler proved to be awkward. He vibrated with anger, and I could almost feel it bouncing off me. The vein on the side of his neck began to pulse.

  After minutes of stony silence, he cleared his throat and finally spoke. “I don’t know what to make of you. I know you want to help your friend, but don’t you realize when you start asking questions of people who could be connected to a murder victim or involved in the crime you could be endangering yourself?” His carefully controlled tone said more than if he had shouted at me.

  “Do you have any idea how lucky you were? If the person who attacked you had been involved in one of the murders, you could now be dead. Why that person only locked you in a closet, I’ll never know. Perhaps it was a warning. But whoever it was took a big chance giving you that warning. Next time you may not be so fortunate.”

  “We don’t know for sure what happened today was connected to my asking questions. It could simply have been someone who was looking for an easy target.” Even as I said those words, I didn’t believe them myself.

  I shrank further into my side of the front seat, duly chastised. Abruptly I sat up. “Wait a minute. If someone was giving me a warning, that means that person could’ve been the one who killed Ian or Damian, or both of them.�
��

  “If you’ve been asking around about Ian Becker’s murder, perhaps so.”

  Several more minutes went by without either of us saying anything. Then we both started speaking at the same time.

  “Ms. Bishop—”

  “Detective—”

  “You first,” he said.

  “Thank you for coming to my aid.”

  “I’m glad I was available to respond to the call. Can you think of anything, anything at all you remember from the attack? I know it might be painful to mentally relive it, but take your time and think about it. A good technique is to think about it using your five senses.”

  I thought about it for a few minutes related to my senses. “I didn’t see anything when I went into the bedroom. And once the blanket came down over my head, I absolutely didn’t see anything. As to my other senses, I can’t remember feeling anything other than the roughness of the blanket and the strong arms of my attacker.

  “I didn’t taste anything.” Except maybe fear. “The door slamming behind me was the only sound I heard. That leaves the sense of smell. The blanket smelled old and musty. That I remember, especially since it took me a while to get it off my head.

  “Wait. When I walked into the room, I vaguely remember smelling a light scent—spicy like aftershave lotion or cologne. Very light as though the person had applied it hours before and the scent had faded.” I tried to remember anything else. “Sorry, that’s all I remember.”

  “Sleep on it. When you’re rested, something else may occur to you.” He continued staring straight ahead as though trying to avoid eye contact with me.

  We lapsed into silence again. When we pulled up in front of my house, I looked up to see Aunt Kit standing in the doorway.

  He finally turned toward me. “For your safety, stay out of this. Next time you may not be so lucky.”

  “That’s why we have to find that person—so there isn’t a next time.”