Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 04 - Trash Out

by Catharine Bramkamp

  “The new assistant is apparently helping, I’m working on convincing Cassandra to attend poor Fred’s memorial service, but she doesn’t want to, she says she needs to oversee this Beth. If anything, I’ll go.”

  “Tell her to put on her big girl panties and go herself,” I regretfully channeled my mother, but the voice in my head was right, you do the right thing: that was a rule.

  “I’ll tell her,” Ben chuckled. “Miss you. Let’s meet in the same town one of these days.”

  As I walked back and forth between the car and the Main Street house, moving another dozen boxes of books, I could hear the rising chatter of a crowd gathering in front of the library.

  Prue circled around the house to my driveway. “Are you going to come to the meeting?”

  I nodded to the library. “Emergency Brotherhood of Cornish Men meeting?”

  “We are brainstorming on who saw Debbie last and where she could be now.”

  “Did anyone call her house?”

  My grandmother harrumphed and marched back around the block to join her cohort.

  I considered attending, but those ladies are intimidating. And even though I was armed with an engagement ring, they would still quiz me about my next plans.

  My plan, my plan. I wandered around the house envisioning the placement of the furniture Pat and Mike ordered. It would arrive well after Carrie’s wedding, but that was okay, by then I’ll be able to focus on something as pleasant and mundane as decorating.

  We already had a bed, but little else, so in the end, my grandmother triumphed and I accepted a couple of antique chairs from Prue, just in case someone needed to sit down in the front rooms. Our house still smelled vaguely of sage but I felt lighter as I moved from room to room. I reached for my phone. A little cleansing may be exactly what I needed to help along Penny’s house sale. Not even the plastic statue of Saint Joseph buried upside down in the back yard was helping.

  My phone buzzed before I could find Donna’s number. “Did you hear the news?” Carrie demanded. What happened to hello? How are you? I am fine, thank you. No? We are an impatient society.

  “Do the Furies want to change all the colors to blue? They don’t like the napkins after all? They want to start completely over? No, no, even more incredible, they want our caterer after all.”

  “It’s not all about the shower,” she said severely.

  “Everything feels like it’s all about the shower.”

  “Trisha Gault regained consciousness.”

  “That’s it? That’s your news?”

  “It’s better than death.”

  “True,” I mused. “Did she say anything?”

  “No one’s allowed to talk to her yet. Chris Connor our favorite reporter, is foaming at the mouth and won’t leave the hospital but Trisha’s family and her staff take turns protecting her from any visitors, wanted or unwanted. She won’t even see Patrick.” She paused, “when are you coming back?”

  I was dying to find out what the members of the Brotherhood decided to do about Debbie’s disappearance. I wanted to check in with Penny’s house as well as Sarah’s property. I was a coward and wanted to stay up here, safe, until the morning of the shower.

  “Do you need me?” I finally asked.

  “We have our final fittings Friday, you have to be there.”

  “I’ll be there.” My reprieve was short lived after all. I sighed and gazed outside at Main Street. The late afternoon was quiet and welcoming. I promised Prue I’d join her for dinner. For once I’d walk.

  I turned off the phone and headed down Main Street determined to focus on appreciating the town and the weather but I was interrupted before I could take a breath and just be, or be in the moment, or something like that.

  “Allison? Allison Little?”

  I turned at my name. “Yes?” I was being hailed by a tall woman, meaning she was taller than me, with short dark hair framing a pleasant face. She wasn’t a great beauty, but probably had been pretty enough to win the title of Prom Queen in high school.

  “Allison Little. I recognized you from your ads.”

  Ah. “Yes, I’m listing Penny Master’s house.” I said automatically. Please need a house, a new house, a house built to take advantage of the view. A long sweeping view.

  “And Sarah Miller’s,” she nodded.

  I must have looked a little blank.

  “I’m sorry, I’m Sheldon Sisley. You don’t know me, we weren’t in the same class in high school, but I feel I know you, your grandmother speaks so highly of you.”

  I forestalled saying once again that I did not attend high school here. I smiled and rolled with it, she could be a potential client after all. “So where do you live now?”

  Sheldon hesitated as if she had to think about where she lived. I understood. “I live in the city, but my parents aren’t well, so I’m up here more. I just attended my first Brotherhood meeting.” She glanced back at the library as if the group may have followed her out. “You know Debbie don’t you?”

  “We’re acquainted.” I automatically distanced myself from my grandmother’s bête noir.

  “She’s missing, no one knows where she is. She doesn’t answer her phone. And did you hear? The co-housing unit may have to close, something about unsafe practices and code violations.”

  “Wow, didn’t they get all that covered before they built?”

  Sheldon nodded, then considered. “You know, I grew up here, but I didn’t spend much of my adult life here.”

  A line of motorcycles rolled by in a sonic wave of ear splitting sound. I wasn’t fooled by their noisy bravado. Those guys dress tough but they are just as likely accountants and CPAs than serious bad asses.

  I nodded, because she couldn’t hear me if I spoke.

  “But it seems pretty coincidental that just when Debbie is finally getting close to the number of people she needs to file the class action suit against Lucky Masters, this is filed against the co-housing. She’s president this year, she is personally liable, that’s how they set it up. And now no one knows where she is. And they all met to discuss it.” Her voice was filled with both wonder and awe.

  We both glanced up at the library, there was movement inside, but the bulk of the Brotherhood had yet to emerge. I wondered how Sheldon had escaped so early. Suzanne Chatterhill had a reputation for running her meetings long and tight. She never allowed anyone to leave before she said so.

  “Congratulations on getting out early.” I complimented her.

  “I have to get back to my mother.”

  What do you do in a small town to make friends? Is it still possible to acquire new friends? I contemplated the problem as I trudged up the hill to Grandma’s. I know, up the hill to grandma’s house - it sounds like the Christmas carol.

  “I just met Sheldon Something on the street.” I walked in through the kitchen as Prue opened the front door. She got a ride up the hill and I did not.

  “Her last name is Something?” Prue limped into the kitchen. I had already lined up the vodka and olives. She passed by me and fished out a small package of chicken.

  “Very funny. You know, even though you insisted that I’d like her, I kind of like her.” I shook up the first martini.

  “Don’t you hate it when I’m right?” Prue waved a large butcher knife over a small chicken breast.

  I handed her a martini and started to create my own. “Where are the boys?”

  “Symphony meeting.”

  I was still chewing on the friend idea. “So what do I do? Do I invite her for dinner? Do we text? Friend her? Do we do lunch?”

  “Invite her for coffee,” she wacked the chicken. “Don’t over tax yourself on your first friendship try.”

  Sometimes Grandma is very sarcastic.

  And while we’re issuing kudos, no one can dry out a chicken breast like my grandmother. Fortunately I managed to drink two martinis before facing dinner. I cleared enough magazines from the kitchen table to make a spot for plates and glasses. Even
surrounded by an abundance of words and color pictures, it was not enough to distract me from the meal. I gazed mournfully at the desiccated fowl breast, chewed down two halfhearted bites then conceded defeat and resorted to choking down the microwaved string beans.

  “I have a new tenant.” Prue announced cheerfully. She cut her chicken into tiny pieces and then failed to eat them. Ah, that was her diet secret.

  I automatically looked around for Raul and Brick, but they had made good their promise a few months ago and had moved to the relative safety of San Francisco’s Castro district.

  “Her name is Melissa, she stayed here before, in your apartment. It was a good place until Dick found her there.” Since Ben and I stayed in the apartment above the barn, Prue calls it “my apartment” even though I now had “my own house” just down the street.

  I scooped up my plate and spirited it off to the kitchen. I didn’t even want to inflict the meat on the compost collection fermenting in a cut down gallon milk jug by the sink. I dumped the stuff directly into the garbage.

  Prue picked up her own plate and scrapped the contents into the compost collection.

  I pulled out a container of mint-chip ice cream – Cooper brand - and wondered if I had really thought the move to Claim Jump all the way through. How many dinners like this would I be asked to eat? One a week? Two a week? Would I be known as Prue’s granddaughter rather than me, Allison Little?

  “Anyway, Dick is somewhat of a challenge. He’s in jail now but not for long. But that doesn’t explain where Melissa is, she was suppose to call me and check in. Did you happen to see her downtown? No, of course not, you don’t even know what she looks like. Pretty girl. She usually stays at the homes of her patients but she currently has just day jobs.”

  “You told me she didn’t show up for those.”

  Prue glanced out the kitchen window that offers a clear view of the guest house. “First Debbie and now Melissa. Could they be connected? Why would someone kidnap Melissa?”

  “Are we kidnapping nurses now? Why would they be connected?”

  “In mystery novels these things are always connected,” Prue declared darkly. “Suzanne Chatterhill thinks someone did away with Debbie.”

  “Only because someone conveniently did away with Lucky Masters,” I pointed out.

  I enjoyed spending the night in our almost finished house. The hole had been repaired, I could place a throw rug at the foot of the stairs to hide the lighter stain on the flooring. I should be perfectly content, but instead I puzzled over this Melissa. Debbie must be hiding – from the counter suit against the co-op housing. I was confident Debbie would appear at the last minute and triumphantly complete her law suit. I wondered what Tom Marten thought?

  I woke determined to discover what Debbie was up to, but the Furies texted me first thing in the morning as if the icing coloring on the fourth rose to the right on the shower cake was a matter of life and death. In between their texts, I answered Carrie’s call reminding me of the fitting in three hours and then Ben called explaining he needed to help Cassandra at the winery. How lovely to be so needed.

  “Have you heard the latest?” Sarah caught me just as I was picking up nails out of the front yard before driving back down to the Bay Area. The sky was blue and the air was calm, a perfect fall morning. I desperately wanted to stay and breath in the fresh air, sit down and watch the sun float higher into the sky. But I had too much to finish up in River’s Bend. And I hoped a few sub-contractors would appear today to finish up the wainscoting, the windows and refinish the now oddly colored patch job at the foot of the stairs.

  Sarah leaned on the fence, the picture of small town life that only existed in our collective imaginations.

  “No,” I made a small pile of nails on the porch, in case they could be re-used. “Tell me the latest.”

  “Debbie Smith is suing Hank and Hank’s Roadhouse.” Sarah couldn’t stay still, she jiggled as she spoke, dancing on the balls of her feet. “She claims she tripped on his cracked sidewalk and hurt her knee and is suing him for negligence or something like that.”

  “If we all sued for negligence we wouldn’t have any businesses left on Main Street.”

  “I agree.” Sarah tightened her pony tail because it bounced with her every move. “Everyone knows about the tree root pushing up the sidewalk in front of his place, even Debbie.”

  “What do people think about this new law suit?”

  “It hasn’t helped her campaign to sue Lucky’s estate.”

  I knew Sarah was a member of the Brotherhood, she inherited the position after her grandparents passed away. “Debbie only has a few more days left on her extension. She complained once that her witnesses kept disappearing after they agreed to sign. You know, they said sure, then probably reconsidered, it’s not good to call attention to yourself if you’re illegally growing pot.”

  That sounded ominous and I said so. “Oh, no,” Sarah clarified noticing my expression. “Not like that, all those former residents disappeared further up the mountain so she had to travel up to the Ridge or hunt around Rough and Ready or Downieville to find possible former owners. Debbie called it tracking them down. You know, lots of the fire victims didn’t really own the property that was destroyed.”

  “I am aware of that.” The forest fire in question had not only destroyed many legitimate homes, but also more than 20 squatters. And these were not people like the nice couple in the Christophers’ REO who paid for their utilities. These squatters devoted their lives to sticking it to the man. What they didn’t count on was that the man also powered the fire department. And if you choose to live down a narrow road in a shack made of cast off lumber, sheetrock and blue tarp, and if you don’t have a street sign, you can hardly publically complain when the fire truck cannot reach you.

  “And now Debbie is traipsing up along the ridge looking for the former owners of illegal housing? Who is going to admit to squatting on property?”

  Sarah flicked off a paint chip from the fence. I flinched. “That’s why she can’t find enough plaintiffs. The legitimate homeowners had insurance, and they are just rebuilding with that money. They aren’t interested in suing.”

  “That’s surprising,” I commented.

  Sarah bounced and focused for a minute on Main Street. “Yes it is. I thought the lot of them would go for the money.”

  “And they aren’t.”

  “Debbie says a number of them think it will hurt the town infrastructure and won’t do it.”

  “It will.” I mused. I had heard that much from people deeply embedded into the system, like the Chief of Police and Summer. Without Lucky’s legacy gifts, much of what was charming or even safe about Claim Jump would disappear. And no one really wanted that.

  I liked the picture of self righteous, litigious Debbie, wiry gray hair flying as she worked diligently to lure disinclined Ridge residents out of their tee pees and lean-tos and into the County courthouse in Nevada City. Sounded like a plan doomed from the beginning. They all lived up there for a reason, and if they had retreated there after the fire, that was an even better reason not to appear anywhere near a state official, police officer or a county jail.

  “Is suing Hanks Roadhouse part of the plan as well?” I couldn’t see how that would help her cause at all. But maybe she was feeling desperate for attention, like Donna had mentioned.

  “Hey Sarah, where do we keep the tape?” Scott called from the stoop of the library.

  “No, that’s just a bonus.” Sarah bounced a bit at the fence, to warm up. Then she bounced back up the street to the library. “It’s in the third drawer to the left.”

  I arrived at the bridal shop in San Rafael just in time.

  “You are twitching,” Carrie observed as the dress designer cinched her dress another inch tighter. Since she is petite and slender a full skirted princess dress complete with a real diamond tiara (borrowed, but still), actually looked good on her, even appropriate.

  “No,” I pressed a finger to
my eyelid, just to make sure it wasn’t firing off like the inspector in the Pink Panther films. “No, I am not twitching and you look lovely.”

  Carried waved away the woman and stepped off the viewing platform (really, there is no other word). She sunk down before me and looked like the center of a flower petal, or a Cabbage Patch doll.

  “If this is too hard, I understand.” She took my cold hands in hers. “Just say the word.”

  “If your wedding is difficult, how am I supposed to face my own marriage? Again?” I sounded bleaker than I intended.

  She considered that. “You’ll have to trust Ben, won’t you?”

  “I trusted Mark.” I pointed out.

  “You did. He just wasn’t all that trustworthy. I could tell.”

  Mark and I met at a frat house party and bonded over a garbage can filled to the brim with the appropriately named drink, Red Death. I fell for him hard. He was tall, slender, handsome and looked like the perfect fraternity man he was. He was a great fraternity president, he was great in bed, he was skilled at saying the right words at the right time. And he wanted me, ME! Allison Little who, according to my mother and sisters-in-law, was doomed to be single and childless all her life. Oh sure, just because I didn’t get pregnant at eighteen like every other woman in my family, just because I managed to graduate from college (first of the Singleton women to do so, did I get a party? I did not). I was convinced Mark would save me from all the censures of my family.

  It wasn’t difficult to get married. All we did was mention our engagement and the juggernaut that was my mother, swept in. My wedding had it all: the country club, the rose covered arch, the view of well-irrigated green hills. We even found a preacher who wasn’t too new age, but not too traditional. Mark let me have everything my own way, or rather, everything my mother’s way. At the time I thought he was courteous and understanding.

  The day of the wedding, I dressed up like a replica of the seven layer cake already holding court in the club dining room; both of us smothered in roses and netting. I trailed down the aisle behind five of my closest sorority sisters. And arrived at the end of the aisle to no one but a sympathetic preacher and sheepish best man who had assured everyone minutes before my parade that Mark was on his way.