“When I was a child, my mother had a clock that had been in her family for generations. It played Brahms’ Lullaby every hour for one full minute. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and listen to the song before I fell asleep again. I thought it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.” This was the first comment that Kris had made since Melissa had greeted her at the door.
“How interesting,” replied Melissa, who clearly did not find Kris’ comment interesting at all but was delighted to show off her house and possessions. “Would you like to see our clock?”
“I would love to,” answered Kris.
Melissa opened the door to the sitting room. A sofa and coffee table much too large for the room had been crowded into what was meant to be a small, intimate space. In one corner of the room stood the stately, ornate clock. Kris was amazed to see how much it resembled her mother’s clock—the same heavy mahogany wood, the same carefully carved top with tiny smiling baby cherubim flanking the edges—one on each side of the face. The same large brass pendulum swung evenly behind the beveled glass that protected it from the elements—the edges had been meticulously hand-painted with gold. Her mother’s clock had been imported from Germany and had been in her family for generations; how had the Scotts managed to find a clock so similar in Arizona? As she stooped to look at it, she ran her fingers across the base and felt a familiar scratch mark. She pulled back to study it and saw two letters, “KM”, scratched by a small child’s hand into the base of that clock thirty-five years before—an innocent child’s brand on a prized possession.
As Kris rose she felt a chill run down her spine and encase her entire body. This was not a clock just like hers—it was hers. She had traded away her inheritance in exchange for some security, and now she had found it again in the home of a man she despised. She had never thought about what happened to possessions she inventoried from the houses that were signed over to the FMPD. Armed with her new knowledge she examined the room more closely. The oversized furniture that engulfed this room—did that come out of the living room of some resident of W who was now living with pressed, recycled furniture? Every week she inventoried hundreds of items—cutlery, kitchen items, dishes, furniture, linens. She had assumed that they were stored in warehouses and then sold at some government auction and that the funds were used to pay down the national debt. Now she had the distinct feeling that those warehouses might actually just be the private storage facilities for the Leonard Scotts of the world.
Melissa Scott seemed totally oblivious to the emotions raging inside Kris. She continued the tour, but Kris was no longer listening to her. Now as she passed each item she asked herself, “Who did that originally belong to?” She did not particularly recognize anything else, but overall she was deeply aware that there was no way that Leonard Scott could afford this house with these furnishings on his salary.
And that realization brought her back to the house itself. Was this house signed over to FMPD as part of Smart Seniors? She tried to remember the borrowers she had represented—it was odd that after so many years working in real estate Kris could often remember the properties more easily than the people. She had sold this house to a doctor—she could not remember his name, although she could see his face. He was a tall, broad man with sandy brown hair and a sandy brown mustache. But she did remember his wife—Luisa, a diminutive, pretty blonde woman with bright blue eyes and a foreign accent. Kris tried to remember her country of origin—Croatia…Slovenia…Albania—one of those Balkan countries. But she did remember how much Luisa had loved this house—from the moment Kris had shown it to her and her husband, Luisa had talked endlessly about how she would decorate it and how much she would enjoy entertaining in it. Kris had even attended their open house after they moved in—Luisa’s taste in furniture was decidedly better than Melissa Scott’s, but then again Luisa had the income to actually go shopping at real furniture stores rather than just having to pick through other people’s possessions.
Luisa and her husband were much too young for the Smart Seniors’ program. He was a successful doctor—Kris recalled that he owned several pieces of real estate and had a growing practice. What had happened? Why had they abandoned a house they had loved so much after only six years? And why had they abandoned it cheaply enough so that Leonard Scott could afford to buy it? Did Leonard Scott buy it? Or was it simply deeded to FMPD and then he merely took it, just as he had taken the clock and probably most of the other possessions showcased here?
Kris could no longer enjoy the party. If Michael were there, she did not notice; she was not aware of any of the other guests. After the rest of the tour had gone downstairs, she stole back up to the sitting room to have another look at her clock. And as she stood looking at it she felt anger and betrayal rising up inside her. Everything had been a lie. Lena was right; FMPD was not about creating a sustainable future—it was only about taking other people’s stuff. Kris must be the biggest fool who had ever lived.
By the time she slipped back downstairs, the first shuttle was waiting out front to transport back to FE those visitors who wished to leave early. Kris said goodbye to Melissa and Leonard and boarded it without another word.
She did not sleep more than an hour the whole night. She could not stop thinking about the clock—and the house. She knew how the Scotts had gotten the clock, but she needed to know how they had gotten the house, and she could answer that question only by finding out what had happened to the owners. She still could not remember the husband’s name, even after trying all night. Before she left for lunch she logged onto the Maricopa County Central Appraisal District and clicking the “Advanced Search Tab,” she entered 246 Monte Alegre. The CAD records showed that the house had been transferred to the Federal Municipal Planning Division at the end of July 2014. That was just a little over six weeks ago. She searched “previous” and found Ron and Luisa Edmonton. They had purchased the home in 2008 from Hollywood Hotties, LLC and had been the owners of record on the tax rolls until July of 2014. The problem was that the CAD did not show how the ownership had been transferred. Kris could not tell whether the property had been sold or had been lost to a bankruptcy or foreclosure. Ron Edmonton was a pain management doctor—perhaps he had been sued and had lost the house as part of a judgment. But she could not be sure unless she could see the instrument of transfer.
She had to stop her search and leave the office for a community meeting, and her afternoon was filled with phone calls and paperwork, but at 4:30 she put all of that aside to start searching again. Now that she had the Edmontons’ names, it would be much easier to find out what had become of their house. She could not find a record of the sale—she still had her old multiple listings service ID code which, incredibly, had not been deactivated. She could not find an expired listing or closed sale for the house. Whatever had happened to the property, it did not appear to have resulted from a desire on the part of the Edmontons to let it go.
She went to the Maricopa County Official Public Records’ website and searched the Edmontons’ history, but she found nothing—no bankruptcy, no judgments, nothing. A search of the property address revealed only a copy of the warranty deed transferring ownership of 246 Monte Alegre to FMPD. Kris had no more answers than she had the night before at the party.
“What happened?” she asked as she stared at the copy of the warranty deed on the screen in front of her.
She was so engrossed in this new mystery that she did not hear her phone until it had rung three times. She picked it up and heard Pat’s voice on the other end of the line, “I need to see you in my office, immediately.” Pat was never friendly, but she could tell from her tone that this call was definitely not good news. Rising, she walked straight into Pat’s office and shut the door. Ten minutes later, she walked out again. No one was on the floor except Cindy when Kris re-emerged. Cindy was going to say goodbye in her usual perky tones, but she stopped short when she saw the look on Kris’ face. The last words she heard were Kris saying, “I
’ll kill him,” just before she walked out the double doors and headed to the stairs.
Chapter 13
“What part of ‘YOU MAY NOT CARRY A GUN ON THESE PREMISES’ did you not understand?” Kris was standing in her parents’ unit shouting at Jim so loudly that her voice echoed down the hallway even though the door was shut.
“Lower your voice, Kris,” her father said quietly.
“No, I won’t lower my voice. You have no concept whatsoever of the mess you’ve made. And what’s worse, you don’t care. What’s wrong with you? For once in your life, why can’t you just follow the rules?”
“Krissy, don’t speak to your father that way. And stop yelling. Everybody can hear you.”
Kris turned and faced her mother. “Everybody might as well hear me,” she was still loud but not as loud as she had been. “Did you know about this? Did you hide this from me?”
“I have the right to carry a gun, Kris. It’s in the second amendment in a little document called the Constitution. Of course, you and your communist friends have forgotten all about that. Maybe you need to enroll in a history class in the evenings….”
Kris was so enraged she felt hot, and her father’s patronizing tone of voice and attitude just made her madder. “Don’t start this with me. And don’t give me that junk about the Constitution. The second amendment does not cover your right to carry a gun on private property. You don’t have a second amendment right to carry a gun in a liquor store, or in a bar, or in an airport. And you don’t have the right to carry a gun here.”
“The second amendment gives me the right to keep and bear arms. KEEP AND BEAR. That means, for your information, that I can have a gun in my possession in my home, and I can carry it with me.”
“First of all, this is not your home. This is government housing. You have a life-lease for this unit, but you don’t own it. The federal government owns it. That makes them your landlord. Have you ever noticed those huge signs on the entrance gates to this place? ‘No Firearms or Weapons of any type are allowed on this property?’ Those aren’t there for decoration. But even with all of that, I might be able to chalk this up to you just being you, except that you and I had this conversation. I stood outside by the pool and told you before you ever set foot in this place that you had to get rid of your guns. And now, I find out that you have been hiding them here in this apartment. You sneaked them in here and lied to me about it, and now you’re just standing there with your arms folded smirking.” Now she was back to yelling.
“First of all,” her father mimicked, “this IS my home. I gave my home and everything I owned to the government in exchange for this little hellhole. I wish now I hadn’t; I should have locked you out of the house the first day you came over with this crap. I can see now that my own child was just there to steal everything I owned and put me in prison.
“But I’ll tell you this, dearie; I still have rights. You know what else I have the right to? I have the right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Those little deadbeats who pretend to maintain this dump had no right to come in here and search through our things. That’s a violation of my rights too. I’m not going to stand for this. I have already called the television stations about it. I’m going straight to the press.”
“Oh, really,” as mad as she was, Kris could not help laughing at the ridiculousness of this conversation. “Good luck with that. Let me know how it works out for you. I realize that you have never lived in multi-family housing, but in multi-family units, the landlord is always allowed to have access to the units and to search the units. The documents you signed when you moved in here explained that, if you had bothered to read them. Those same documents stated very clearly that maintenance workers have the right to immediately confiscate any substances, materials or items that are in violation of your life-lease agreement. And the life-lease agreement contains a paragraph, in all caps, which says, ‘NO FIREARMS’.”
“So what are they going to do about it?” Jim was standing with his arms folded and that same defiant look on his face she had seen her whole life when he was backed into a corner. Kris had always hated that look and the superior, smart aleck attitude that accompanied it, but today she hated it more than ever, “They’ve taken everything away from your mother and me. Everything we worked for, everything we saved, everything we collected over the years—every dime in the bank, every stick of furniture, everything. Are they going to chain me up outside and beat me with whips? Are they going to put us in front of a firing squad and kill us both with my own gun? Are they going to throw us out in the street after stealing everything we own? What exactly are they going to do?”
“Actually, I don’t know,” Kris matched her father’s complete lack of remorse with a defiance of her own. “I have to go in tomorrow to the director of our Division and find out what is going to happen to you and the rest of your little gang in here. They do have the right to evict you. I am going to try to keep that from happening, but I don’t know if I can.”
“Well don’t do us any favors, Kris. You’ve done more than enough already.” His tone oozed with sarcasm.
“You know, for once you could think about somebody other than just yourself. It’s not just your neck on the line for this. I could get fired tomorrow. And, by the way, you’re not the only one who’s had to give up stuff. It took me two years to land this job. Finally, I was down to either this or going to work waiting tables at the Greatest Steak. I have had to give up my car and my freedom, and I’ve worked like a slave, even though you clearly don’t appreciate any of it. And now, I could actually get fired and have no place to go at all just because you can’t be bothered to follow the rules.”
As she finished her father began to pretend to play a tiny violin. Rage rose up in her again. “You have got to be the most selfish person I have ever met,” she vented. “You’ve never cared about anything except getting your own way. You don’t care what happens to anybody else.”
“Krissy,” her mother stopped her. Janine had stayed out of the conversation until now, but when Kris looked into her face, she was surprised to see such genuine anger. Jim was being belligerent, but Janine was truly furious. “You need to take a good long look at your life and how you are choosing to live it. You’re so worried about losing your job—maybe you need to start thinking about what your job really is. You are helping the government steal everything from everybody. You spend your days talking people into signing over all of their possessions to the government and coming to live in this prison—and that’s what it actually is, Kris. It’s a prison for old people after the government takes everything and leaves them with nothing. We worked hard our whole lives and never asked anyone for anything. We paid taxes, we gave to charity, we saved money; we did everything we were supposed to do only to end up here in this awful little cell with nothing—no money, no freedom, no rights. And all you can think about is what the people who sent us here might think about you.” Janine’s huge brown eyes had filled with tears as she spoke, and now those tears splashed down onto her cheeks, embarrassing her. She turned hastily toward the bathroom and slammed the door, leaving Kris with her dad, who was still standing with his arms folded and that same annoying smirk on his face.
Kris stood there for a minute, and then without another word, walked out of their unit letting the door slam behind her and leaving Jim standing alone in the tiny room.
That night she could barely sleep. Jim’s sarcasm had infuriated Kris, but it was Janine’s words and the pain in her mother’s face that really haunted her. Over and over in her mind she kept hearing her mother’s voice, “You need to take a good long look at your life, and how you are choosing to live it….this is a prison.” After tossing and turning for hours, she finally got up at 5:30 to watch the sun rise, only to feel the guilt and sadness caused by her mother’s remarks replaced by the dread of the meeting with the director.
Kris’ head ached terribly at 9:00 A.M. when she walked into Scott’s office. Pat Kilmer was alread
y seated; apparently she and Leonard Scott had been talking for a while in advance of their meeting with Kris. As she stiffly took her seat, she found confirmation in their faces of what she had suspected for two days—she was in a lot of trouble.
“You know, Kris, when we hired you for this job we thought we made your duties very clear to you,” Scott began. “A primary responsibility is that you communicate the rules of the W Section clearly and concisely to each of the residents. One of the most important rules is the one banning firearms and weapons. So how is it that six residents of Division 1 were found with firearms among their possessions? Two of them were small automatic weapons. And one of the offenders turns out to be your own father. Do you have anything you want to say?”
“I realize how this looks, Director Scott,” Kris was so nervous that it took every ounce of energy to keep from shaking. This was like being on trial for murder. She folded her hands in her lap and tried to keep her voice steady. “I actually did inform everyone of the ban on firearms, both in the written literature and in the signage. And I know that having five households plus my father caught with weapons is completely unacceptable. However, if you could just bear in mind that we are dealing with senior citizens here, many of whom have always lived in their own homes and are having some trouble making the transition to their new circumstances, and some, probably all, of these people are under the impression that the Constitution protects their right to own guns….”
W: The Planner, The Chosen Page 19