“Do you have an idea of an asking price?” Char asked.
“Yes, I do. I’d like to ask for at least two hundred and fifty thousand.”
Char thought about it for a few minutes. Since it was in an wealthy area, that seemed like a fair asking price, considering the quality of the neighborhood. “That seems reasonable. Let me do some research on the homes in your area, and draft up a contract. I can stop by for a look through, take some pictures, and then we’ll finalize everything and get the ball rolling. How does that sound?”
“That sounds good to me. When would you like to come over?” Mrs. Jones asked.
“How about either later today or tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow would work best for me. Say, about ten in the morning?”
“That works for me,” Char said as she flipped her calendar notebook open and jotted down the time and place.
Char walked Mrs. Jones out to the main lobby area and out the door. As she came back to her cubicle, she heard one of the agents say, “You’d think with her big boobs she’d get more of the male population coming in to list their houses with her.” Several guys laughed and sneered.
Char straightened her shoulders and kept on walking as if she didn’t hear them. She sat down at her desk, turned on the computer, and started her research.
“How the hell did you manage to get someone from a rich neighborhood to list their house with you?” Mike asked in a pissed-off demeanor.
“Anyone could have had her as a client. She was standing at the counter waiting for someone to talk to. Obviously, no one else around here wants to work,” Char said loudly enough for everyone to hear.
It got very quiet in the room, and then Mike said something else, but she ignored him. She was searching and checking out her resources on the computer.
* * * *
When Char left work she stopped at the mall to shop for a dress to wear to the wedding. She went to her favorite store where she usually got her suits and found several dresses she thought would work. She tried one on that was a chiffon material, with soft flowers in orange and yellow, and green leaves flowing through them. It had a built-in bra and spaghetti straps. The bottom was layered and the hem came to six points at her calves. The neckline was low in the front and her back was almost bare. She found a perfect pair of orange stilettos and a purse to match.
Satisfied with her purchase, she went home and fixed herself some dinner. After she ate and put the dishes in the dishwasher, she received a call from her father.
“Charlene, how are you?” Her father’s voice boomed through the cellphone.
“I’m fine, Dad, and you?” she said, lacking enthusiasm.
“Charlene, you’re talking to a rich, old man now. I just won the progressive slot machine at Firegate Casino. I won $3,649,197.00. I’m going to send you $500,000 of it so you can sit back and enjoy your life for a change.”
“Really? That’s great, Dad,” Char said, feeling downhearted about her father.
“So, Charlene, what is your address?”
Char could hear voices and machines in the background so she knew he was still at the casino.
She gave her father her address, for the umpteenth time, knowing he wasn’t going to send her anything. She found that just agreeing with him and going along with him kept him from losing his temper and yelling at her.
“When I get this money to you, how about you coming back to Michigan?” he asked hopefully.
“No, I’m not coming back to Michigan.”
“Why not?”
“Because the housing market sucks there. I wouldn’t be able to find a job.” Char was holding her impatience in check, so as not to get her dad irritated.
“Charlene, you don’t have to worry about money ever again! I’m rich, and I’ll take care of you.”
“No offense, Dad, but I like to work for my living.”
“Charlene, I’d like this opportunity to give something back to you. You’re the only one who talks to me. Your sister Kathleen won’t even talk to me at all,” he said sullenly.
“If you’d really like to give something back to me, then go to Gamblers Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous and stop drinking and gambling.”
“I can’t,” he said, disappointment clear in his voice.
“Why not?”
“I’d have nothing, no reason to get up in the morning, no reason to go on if I gave it all up.”
When Char ended the call with her father, she thought about her life as a child. Her father had never been a part of her life, and it seemed like he had been a gambler and alcoholic since he was old enough to start drinking and gambling. When he married her mom, he took off every weekend gambling and spent all his money so there wasn’t any left to buy food or pay the bills. Her mom and dad fought bitterly all the time, and finally, her mother had filed for divorced.
He would never pay child support. Her mother had to go through the Friend of the Court and have it taken out of his paycheck before he got paid and gambled his money away.
He was never around for any of the milestones in her life. Every so often he called her to report a winning, and always promised to send her something and never did. This call is just like all the others.
Char felt mentally and physically drained every time she talked to her father. His answer to her question left her feeling even more heartbroken. He was caught up in a vicious cycle that he couldn’t break away from. That night she awoke from a nightmare of her mother calling her to tell her that her father had died in his sleep.
Chapter 4
A night of restless sleep had left Char exhausted. She put on more makeup than usual, trying to hide the dark circles under her eyes.
She met with Mrs. Jones promptly at ten o’clock. Mrs. Jones introduced her husband Tom Jones, and they gave Char a tour of the house. She took the necessary pictures and they answered her questions. They then sat down and Char presented them with a contract.
“I’d like to list the price of the house for two hundred and seventy thousand, if that’s okay with you. Then if we have to negotiate the price, you could still get what you actually want, which is two hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Yes, that would be good,” Mrs. Jones said.
“The house is in excellent condition, and doesn’t need any work on it. Hopefully, we’ll find the right buyer for it quickly. Do you have any restrictions or conditions you’d like to make with the potential buyer?” Char asked.
“We’re moving out of state, so we’d like at least thirty days from the day of closing to pack and vacate the premises,” Mr. Jones said.
“Okay, that can certainly be arranged and agreed upon.” Char made a note of it on the check-off list.
After her meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Char went back to the office. As she walked by Don Stillwater’s office, he came out and said, “Char, come in here a second.”
“Okay, boss.” Char walked into his office.
“I hear you got another listing.”
“Yes, I did, in the Shangri-La subdivision.”
“Pretty classy neighborhood. How much is the house worth?” Don asked.
“We’re asking two hundred and seventy thousand, but the sellers will take two hundred and fifty.”
“Good, that’s good. What about the other house you just listed?” he asked.
“I’m taking a man out to see the house on Monday.”
“Really? That quick, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s a fixer-upper type of house. I think he’s really interested.”
“Do you have a closing today?” Don asked.
“Yes, at two. I’m going to Hobbs State Bank.” Char wondered why he was even asking her. He didn’t usually talk about closings.
“Do you have everything in order?”
“Yes, I do,” Char said.
“Nothing amiss or missing or anything like that?”
“No. Why do you ask?” Char wrapped her arms around herself.
“I want to make su
re someone isn’t messing with your papers like they have been with Mike’s.”
“I see. Mr. Stillwater, I don’t leave my stuff here at the office and I don’t leave stuff on my desk. I don’t trust anyone around here.”
That should have told him something about the environment in the workplace, but he didn’t appeared to have caught on to what she’d said.
“Also, Mr. Stillwater, I got a call from American One Banking and they have a house they foreclosed on that they want me to go through. I’m going to see what needs to be done to bring it to code and then they want me to sell it.”
Don sat there looking at Char for a few minutes. “There’s not a lot of money to be made on foreclosures.”
“I know that.” Char grimaced.
“Okay. Well, keep at it,” Don said, giving her a small, tight smile.
Char started to walk back to her office when she heard one of the guys say, “Maybe she should shorten her skirt a bit and show some leg along with those boobs.” The men all had a quiet chuckle.
Char shook her head and didn’t say anything. She had never worked with such a bunch of morons. When she worked for a realtor in Michigan, the men all showed her respect and treated her like part of the team. That’s not the case here, Char thought ruefully as sat down at her desk and started to work.
Mike popped his head over her cubicle. “Hey, doll. I’d like to take you out for dinner some night.”
Char didn’t even look up at him. “Ain’t never going to happen, Mike, and I’m not your doll.” She kept on working. She listed the house in Shangri-La, checked the title, and added the house to several magazines.
“Why not?” He acted like he was hurt by her rejection.
“For starters, I don’t like you,” Char replied. Turning off her computer, she put her papers in her briefcase and got up to leave.
“I’m really a nice guy, you know. You’d be surprised at how much fun we could have together.”
“Uh-huh. Never going to happen,” Char said on her way out of the office. She couldn’t work in this atmosphere and would do better working at home.
* * * *
Char stopped by American One Banking and went up to Anita Bakerfield’s office. The receptionist looked up at Char and said, “Hello, can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m here to see Anita Bakerfield.” Char looked at the pretty blonde receptionist, wondering how she could work with such long, fake nails.
“I’ll see if she’s available. Your name is?”
“I’m Char Johnson, from Stillwater Realty.” Char smiled.
The receptionist punched in some numbers in the phone. “Hi, Anita. There is a Char Johnson from Stillwater Realty here to see you.” After a moment’s pause, she said, “Okay, thank you.” She put the phone back down in the cradle and looked up at Char. “She’ll be right out.”
“Okay, thank you.” Char turned and walked over to the window and looked out, watching a construction crew work on the building next to the bank.
Anita Bakerfield walked out and came up to Char. She was an older woman, in her mid-forties, with gray at the temples of her dark brown hair. She was as short as Char, but had lower heeled shoes on. “Good afternoon, Char. How are you?” Anita shook her hand.
“I’m doing fine, and you?” Char looked into her gray eyes.
“I’m doing very well, thank you. Come on in my office and we’ll talk about this house.” Anita walked ahead and Char followed her into her office. “Have a seat.” Anita motioned to the chair in front of her desk. Char sat down and pulled out her clipboard to take notes.
“Thank you.”
Anita grabbed a file folder from the stack on her desk, and opened it. “I think we’re going to lose a lot of money on this house. For starters, it’s an old house, from the 1920s. It had an outhouse for a bathroom for a number of years before the owners had a bathroom built into the kitchen area. In the 1940s the owners added a family room and two bedrooms upstairs. It has a basement, but it’s a dank, stone basement with a cellar door going outside. It’s been through four owners, and none really took care of the house as it should have been maintained. The last couple that we just foreclosed on took out a second mortgage with intentions to modernize the house, but we’re thinking they took the money and ran with it and didn’t do the work that they promised to do on it.”
“Do you know of anything specific that they were going to do on the house to improve it?” Char asked.
“Let’s see, I have here that they were going to update the wiring, replace the plastered walls with drywall, modernize the bathroom, but like I said, I don’t think they did that.”
“No one here at the bank has been in the house?” Char looked up from her clipboard at Anita.
“No, we just went over there to change the locks.”
“Okay, so you’ll need pictures of everything to show what needs to be done,” Char said more to herself than to Anita.
“Yes, we’ll need to have pictures of everything that needs work so we can justify spending the money on the house and getting it fixed up to sell.”
“Have you thought about just letting it go cheaply and classifying it as a fixer-upper so the new owner can assume the cost to upgrade?” Char asked.
“Yes, we thought about that, but not only do the former owners owe on a mortgage, but they also owe on a line of credit loan that added to that. Altogether, they owe in excess of seventy thousand.”
“Oh, wow. In that particular neighborhood, you’d be lucky to get fifty to sixty thousand for any of those homes,” Char said.
“Yes, we’re aware of that. We took a chance on this one, and we got burned on it. If we could get sixty thousand we would be really happy with it, unless the cost to upgrade or update it exceeds ten thousand.”
“Okay. Let me go over there and take a look around. You may want to think about getting a housing or city inspector to come in and give an analysis of the house as well, so that we are addressing the correct or most urgent problems.”
Anita nodded. “I will get ahold of the city inspector’s office today and arrange for one to come out. Thank you. Here are the keys.”Anita handed her the keys. “I look forward to hearing back from you on what you have found.”
* * * *
Char drove to the other side of Hobbs, in the lower income housing. The neighborhood was dangerous even during the day, with drug peddlers at each street corner. Most of the homes were dilapidated and lawns were not maintained. Char pulled up to the house that she was to look at. Right away she saw that someone had broken the window next to the door.
After glancing around to see if there was any potential danger lurking nearby, she got out of the car and locked the doors. She walked up the sidewalk to the house with her camera, clipboard, and purse clutched close to her. As she got closer to the house, she started to smell something putrid. The smell got worse when she walked up the steps and stood at the front door.
She took the keys out of her pocket and opened the door. The stench was horrible, the putrid smell now combined with a sweet smell, and Char nearly gagged. She looked around then walked through the living room going toward the dining room off to the right.
Inside the dining room, Char found a horrifying scene. A partially decomposed body was lying on the floor, with maggots eating the flesh, and dried blood had pooled at a couple of locations around the body. It looked like flesh and bone had been splattered all over the walls. She looked at the face, and a flash of an image of who the person was went through Char’s mind. She quickly turned around and ran out the front door. She got to the car and called the sheriff.
“Sheriff’s Department, what is your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.
“Um, yes, I’m a realtor looking at a house and when I went inside, I found a dead body in there.”
“Are you sure it’s a dead body?”
“Yes, it’s badly decomposed.” Char cringed as she remembered it.
“Is there anyone else around the body?�
�� the dispatcher asked.
“No, no one is around but me.”
“Do you recognize the body as anyone you know?”
“Uh…no,” Char said. She wasn’t sure if the victim was someone she knew or not. She thought it would be best to not guess.
“Okay, where are you in relation to where the body is?”
“I’m outside, by my car. I couldn’t handle the smell.” Char was still trying to keep the bile down and not throw up.
“I understand. What is the address where this body is at?”
“It’s 326 Francis Street.”
“The sheriff is on his way and will be there in just a few minutes. Will you be okay until he gets to you or do you need to stay on the line with me?” the dispatcher asked.
“No, I’ll be okay. Thank you.” Char walked over by a tree and threw up. After she lost all the contents of her stomach, she walked back to the side of the car and waited until the sheriff arrived. She was shaking uncontrollably as she pictured in her mind what she had just seen in the house.
The sheriff arrived at the house, got out of the cruiser, and came up to Char. “Are you the person who reported finding a body in a house?”
“Yes, I am. It’s in the dining room,” she answered, shivering.
“Why don’t you get in the cruiser and wait there while I go in and take a look at the scene? Is the door locked?” he asked.
“No.”
She went and sat in the sheriff’s cruiser as he’d requested. Pulling out her cellphone, she selected the number for American One Banking.
“Anita Bakerfield,” Anita answered.
“This is Char. I’m at the house, and you’re not going to believe what I walked into. There’s a dead body in there.”
“A what?” Anita asked in disbelief.
“Yep, a dead body. I’m in the sheriff’s cruiser right now, and he’s in the house investigating.”
“Oh my God. Do you know who it is?”
“No.” Char gulped. Her stomach was still churning as she wondered if she had indeed recognized the person. She thought about it and then decided that she didn’t because the person she first thought of lived in Michigan.
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