Death Revokes The Offer

by Catharine Bramkamp

  I couldn’t stand it. “I’m sorry, but are you looking for something?”

  She cautiously lifted herself up from the floor where she had been peering under the green couch “No, no, not looking for anything.” She daintily swiped at the knees of her Capri’s.

  I wasn’t getting very far with her, which is unusual, I usually have to ask people to stop blurting out details about their personal life, like when the waitress told me all about her second marriage, or the woman at the dress shop who told me all about her husband’s virility problems and how long Viagra lasts. Too long, apparently.

  But Hillary was a woman of few words. She moved into the kitchen and began opening cupboards again. “Oreo cookies? Oh Dad.” I heard her mutter to herself.

  I hesitated, but then decided to exit. Her father was dead and there was a murder investigation, but after 24 hours the police had no leads and I was exonerated because the time of death was two hours before I arrived and I had made a number of phone calls while I was sitting in traffic, so I had proof that I was nowhere near the body at the time of death.

  There you go, case closed. And maybe the prowling Hillary was looking for her father. People deal with these shocks differently.

  But of course there was something wrong. For some reason I liked Mr. Smith. I liked that he sneaked food on the side. I liked that his children, at least this one, probably deserved to be screwed out of the house and their inheritance. Hillary clearly didn’t like the art, so she wouldn’t take care of it. And would the art have gone with the house? I looked at the three foot figure crouched in the hall. If it were my listing, the statue would definitely not go with the house. It may not even make it through the first open house.

  I left Hillary to her own devises and passed the Doors and More van on my way out.

  Here’s what I hate, tiny petite women who don’t eat. Here’s what my best friend is like, she’s a tiny petite woman who eats nothing.

  We lunch together on a regular basis. In my life, it’s all about lunch, the one trait I did inherit from my mother.

  “Order the fries.” I pursued the menu; maybe I’d have a salad like Carrie and my mother. A big salad. Ranch dressing. Extra bacon.

  “Again?”

  “Come on,” I purred. “Who loves you?”

  Carrie sighed and dutifully ordered her salad. And a side of fries. The waiter was well trained enough so he didn’t make much of a face. I demurely ordered a cobb salad.

  “Your customer is dead and you’re out a beautiful commission.” Carrie summed up.

  “I’m doomed, I only have seven other listings, but they’re all in the half-million range, I so could have used the hit from that Marin house.”

  She nodded with sincere sympathy. Which is why I love her so much.

  The salads arrived along with a gleaming, golden, crispy plate of perfectly cut and fried potatoes. Never underestimate the glory of fried food. Carrie set the plate between us and began to pick at her salad.

  I quickly demolished the fries to take the edge off my hunger, then regarded the salad. I hate salads.

  The waiter swooped by, took a look at the empty plate of fries, looked at Carrie who is about a size 4 soaking wet, raised his eye brow just a little and whisked off the empty plate.

  “They think I’m some kind of freak,” she whispered.

  “At least with you they have to wonder, me, it’s pretty clear,” I whispered back.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  The paper had mentioned my name, just as the listing agent for the house, and unfortunately, that I discovered the body. The paper also revealed the man had been shot. Shot. I had five messages I needed to return. Apparently that old adage that if your name is spelled correctly - it’s all good - is correct.

  “Work.”

  “Maybe you’ll get another 4.5 million listing.”

  That’s what I love about Carrie; she’s an optimist. Women as beautiful as she usually are.

  Buoyed by my friend’s optimism and anesthetized by the fries I was ready to face my evening alone.

  No, I do not live in a trailer park and my house is not filled with depressingly dark antiques or hand-me-downs. I own a lovely home in the hills of River’s Bend. I bought low, 3,000 square feet to myself. I do not own a cat.

  Carrie volunteers for Forgotten Felines and Abandon Kittens. Of course she volunteers to save kittens. One good look at Carrie and you would say, now there’s a girl who rescues cute little kittens.

  I myself am working on compiling a cookbook featuring recipes for baking, frying and skewering the endangered California Tiger Salamander. Mostly because saving the silly things has ballooned into a hugely annoying and suffocating project, development-wise. As you can see Carrie and I probably should belong to different and completely separate non-profit organizations.

  I thought about Hillary stomping through her father’s house, complaining about the caliber of kitchen appliances. Should I have a sub zero refrigerator? A Wolf range? Would those things make me happier? Since the only thing in my freezer are five cartons of Ben and Jerry’s, for emergency purposes only, and three cartons of Cooper’s ice cream – for guests, a sub zero freezer seems a bit like over kill.

  Over kill.

  Since salad is never enough, I was already hungry by the time I got home. I pulled out a carton of Phish Food and thought about the murder. Why? Why would anyone shoot Mr. Smith and then just walk away? Well, they walked away, so they wouldn’t be caught, I know that. But nothing had been taken or even disturbed. Hillary did more destruction just in her brief search around the house. And what was Hilary looking for?

  And why not let the children inherit? Why sell? I mean Hillary wasn’t all that lovely and nice, but that’s no reason to cheat the kids from a considerable tax break. Well, okay, maybe that was a good enough reason.

  As far as Mom knew, Mr. Smith had no other assets. Had he given it all away? Had he been blackmailed over those paintings? Had the blackmailer killed him when he couldn’t pay? No, that sounded like a badly plotted movie and blackmailers don’t kill; I know that from TV, they want the cash flow to continue.

  The Ben & Jerry’s finished, I fixed some dinner.

  Like you’ve never gone through a whole carton of Phish food in one sitting, or in my case, standing.

  Chapter 2

  But the next morning it still nagged at me. The questions, not the ice cream. So I called around.

  I called my favorite mortgage broker. Not the one strung out over the car purchase, for that deal, the less we spoke, the better for us both.

  “Hey girlfriend,” Kathy Jo greeted me.

  “Hey girlfriend yourself.” I answered. Kathy Jo and I have a very professional relationship, we’re long time drinking buddies, which can be very beneficial to a working partnership. I have a lot on her; she had a lot on me. We will never part. Our working relationship has lasted longer than some marriages. “Can you look up Mortimer Smith? I need to know what he’s worth.”

  “Isn’t he dead?” She asked.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Honey, I read the papers, you should try it someday.”

  “Too depressing. What did they say about Mr. Smith?

  “Died suddenly.”

  “That would be about right.”

  I was impressed that Hillary was able to suppress the story. Maybe there was more to this woman that I thought. Except for a willful disregard for her father’s life and lifestyle, then again, I rant on my own mother all the time. It’s difficult to imagine parents as full-blown individuals; they mostly spring into our consciousness fully-grown and devoted to our welfare. That’s because when we meet, they are fully-grown and we did just spring from them (spring, according to my mother, is not the right word at all) so what do we really know about our parents?

  Damn little.

  And I, personally, would like to keep it that way. We may have a great deal in common, Hillary and me. Except she’s a bitch and I’m no
t.

  Armed with the information from Kathy Jo, I called Emily at North Country Title, and she ran a search as well.

  “Major remodel about ten years ago,” Emily reported. “Gave him another half million in value, appraised at three. He took out a second on the house a couple of weeks ago, it should be posted about now, but those amounts sometimes take some time. Why are you asking?”

  Three. Well at least I wouldn’t have to explain a low appraisal to an overheated buyer.

  “How much on the second?”

  “About a million, almost the full amount of his equity.” Emily replied.

  “A million dollars,” I mused. “What would he do with that?”

  “Car? Boat? Strippers? Use your imagination woman.”

  “Thanks Emily.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Three days and cancelled escrow later, I got a call from Hillary Smith- Rodriguez

  “Uh, hello. Allison?”

  I acknowledged yes, this is she.

  “We’d like to sell the house after all. Can you help us?”

  Her voice at least sounded more contrite than when we met, and that warmed my heart. A little.

  “Sure, I can,” I assured her. “Would you like to meet at the house?”

  “Do you still have the buyers?”

  “No, they moved on, but we can talk about the listing and the price. I’m sure I’ll find some other buyers.”

  The commission was still enough to cover that Costa Rica trip, perhaps not in style, but still, I’d be covered. But my happy visions of eventual success were countered by the prospect of working with Hillary and her siblings who, I imagined, were not any more generous or kind than their sister. And I was pretty sure they were not aware how little equity there was left in the house.

  A few hours later I found out for myself. Hillary wanted to convene at the family home. Family home. Her father’s home, they were all too old to have lived there for very long. The three Smith siblings trooped into their father’s house without looking around and aligned themselves around the dining room table, one empty chair in between each sibling. Hillary positioned herself at the head of the table. I positioned myself at the foot with the two brothers on either side.

  The older brother was the same Mark Smith who had scattered early campaign billboards around Marin. The in-person Mark possessed the same face I had seen on the billboard. He was just as broad and bland as his ten-foot photo turned to the morning traffic. It was an effective demeanor for an inscrutable politician or a lawyer, neither being members of my favorite category. But, I reminded myself as he gripped my hand in a great-to-meet-you-vote-for-me-because-I –have-a-powerful-handshake shake, it is not my job to worry about how a client makes their money. It is not my job to worry about their new monthly payments and it’s not my job to wonder how the siblings will distribute the paltry amount of cash this sale will engender.

  I am just the sales person. Innocent, on the fringe, not involved.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I lied.

  “It’s nice to meet you too,” he lied back. Strangely, his bold-face lie made me feel better about him.

  “I’m Stephen.” The second brother leaned over the thick corner of the dining table to shake my hand. He was more sincere, but looked enough like his older siblings to make me think that he probably couldn’t be trusted either.

  We sat down.

  “We cleaned.” Hillary pointed out unnecessarily. She folded her hands on the table – the left one held down the right as if she was keeping them still so they wouldn’t accidentally dance around and emphasis her words, or embarrass her.

  “New doors,” Stephen, patted his head carefully. He sat up straight; his back did not touch the back of the chair.

  “With a double bolt and lock.” Mark pointed out, “So now the house is secure.”

  There is no such thing as secure, but I didn’t want to go into that with them.

  “We want a quick sale.” Hillary pointed out, still trapping her hands on the table. A finger jumped, she pressed it down.

  “Why now?” I asked, “Are you selling because this is what your father wanted?”

  It was part sarcasm by me and part necessary information. I always want to know why someone is selling. For fun? For profit? Was the house inadvertently built on an Indian burial ground, or maybe the neighbors held strange rituals well into the early hours of the morning?

  Selling for reasons like company transfers and a sudden inheritance work best for me, easier to explain to the buyers. If the sellers are hightailing it out of California in favor of a move to the mythical land of Oregon that, with every passing year, becomes more and more idyllic in the imagination of beleaguered Californians – is not something I mention to potential buyers. I don’t want any buyer to feel like a sucker for staying in my home state and paying outrageous prices for the privilege of doing so.

  So why is a good question. I waited to hear that Mr. Smith had decided to haunt the place, the children had heard funny noises, or that the blood on the kitchen floor was reappearing regularly at midnight despite repeated cleanings, that kind of thing. Because from their faces, the news wasn’t good.

  I also like to make sure that a seller is serious about selling and not just checking out the market to “see what they’re offered.” Because more often than not, after I’ve worked myself into a frenzy, fronted thousands of dollars in advertising, signs, open homes, contests and give-aways, the sellers, after three months, change their minds and pull the house off the market.

  I truly work to avoid that. I’d rather deal with reappearing bloodstains than work with a seller who’s not on the up and up.

  Hillary’s hands trembled, the brothers shifted slightly in their seats.

  “We think,” Stephen cleared his throat. “That one of us taking on the full burden of the house would be too much.”

  Mark glanced at Hillary, who nodded. Mark nodded too.

  “I agree, that a house this size is quite a project.” I said as kindly as I could. “Have you decided on how to divide up the furniture? Or can we keep the house furnished while we show?”

  “Does that make a difference?” Hillary looked around at the inadequate tables and chairs in the kitchen, and at the over-adequate dining room table that seats 14 even before pulling out the extension leaves. Her glance traveled to the two-story foyer, at least what she could see from the dining room.

  “Yes, it does. Once we sell the house, we can move the furniture out and you can put this,” I gestured to the table. “In your own house.”

  She shuddered at the very thought. “I don’t have room. I live in a little place up in the hills. No room at all.” She looked at her smooth-faced brother, but he shook his head. “We’re all modern, that monstrosity would never go with my Bauhaus.”

  I kept my expression neutral and realized I should not have opened this discussion this early in the game. The furniture stays for the showing, always good. I don’t care what happens to it after the sale. But I know from experience, the sellers do.

  “Nope,” Stephen patted his head – oh, he had new hair plugs, well good for him. “I can’t take it, Candy would have a fit.”

  “How about if we offer to include the dining room table with the house?” I suggested. “It may be a good selling point.”

  “How much should we increase the price?” Hillary immediately asked.

  “We should reduce it if they take it.” Mark pointed out. I smiled at him gratefully.

  “No, we don’t want to give anything away.” Stephen countered.

  “But we want a quick sale,” Hillary reminded him.

  “But I don’t want to devalue the home.” Stephen argued back.

  I leaned back and let them debate. A decision to sell something this big, for a price in the millions, can be derailed by a mere few thousand dollars. I didn’t feel I needed to intervene just yet. I knew they were just warming up.

  “And what about this art?” Hillary fire
d the next shot.

  “What about it? We sell it.” Mark said definitely. I agreed.

  “Dad would have hated that, it was here so people wouldn’t see it.” Hair plugs pointed out.

  “Since when did you become the defender of the public sensibilities?” His brother snarled.

  “I’m not,” he backed off. “I’m just saying that selling would be directly against Dad’s wishes.

  “Good.” Hillary said.

  Mark sighed and looked at me again. “Dad,” he explained. “Was funny about art.”

  “Funny? He loved his paintings more than he loved us.” Hillary’s hands strained against her own version of decorum. A person didn’t smack one’s brothers in front of a stranger at least not physically. I certainly could relate to that. I’ve probably been saved many times by that unwritten rule. My own brothers have never hit me in public. Mom credited them with self-restraint, I credited them with being smart enough not to get caught.

  “When we were kids,” Mark continued. “Dad dragged us to all these shows and museums and that counted as time with Dad.”

  “It wasn’t really, but that’s what he counted it as,” Stephen added.

  “Maybe that was the best he could do.” I pointed out, always generous with the failings of other people’s parents.

  “Yeah, sure. He avoided the draft you know, he enrolled in school out here, must have been the only boy in the place.” Mark mused. “I always wondered about that, but we didn’t find anything unusual in his papers. He must have had a disability or something.”

  “Dad was in perfect health.” Stephen countered. “He always watched his weight and heart and cholesterol levels. Samantha was always watching over him, remember that Christmas? She brought that tofu salad.”

  Hillary snorted. But surprisingly, said nothing.

  “We’re not talking about Samantha,” Mark barked. He turned to me and in a more civil tone explained, “she was Dad’s second wife after Mom died. Thank god she didn’t have children.”