Chapter 1
The first thing you should know about me is that I do not cut my own hair with a nail scissors. Please. Robert would kill me if I even considered touching my hair with my own two hands.
I’m not a doctor and I never know exactly why a body is dead, I only know that when you find a dead body in the kitchen, it makes it that much more difficult to sell the house, what with all the hysteria about full disclosure now–a-days.
Difficult, but not impossible.
I am not a national park ranger. I do not work while also caring for adorable children or difficult teens. In fact I completely forgot to have children. Some where in my past, the word children was written on some long ago goal list along with items like white wedding at the Marin Country Club and Lose 50 pounds by Christmas penciled in just below that.
I am not a sheriff for a small town in the Deep South.
I also know that some people will look to the author and say, “Oh, is that YOU?” Of course it’s not her. I have twice the listings she does and better hair. I’m here to tell you, I am myself. For some people like my best friend Carrie, that is enough. For others like my long-suffering broker on record, Inez; it’s too much.
“Can’t you just tone it down a little?” Inez asks on a weekly basis.
Nope, I answer.
Sometimes I think I should get a little dog.
That body in the kitchen. You are probably wondering about that, like is it some kind of metaphor? No, the dead man was the former Mr. Mortimer Maximilian Smith. He had two interesting first names to make up for the third and by the time I discovered him he was already quite dead, sprawled out on the kitchen floor of his strenuously decorated home in Southern Marin.
I wasn’t really supposed to be there at all. I don’t usually sell homes in Marin, my beat is the River’s Bend area of Sonoma County, but my mother knew Mr. Smith from her exercise class. He told her that he wanted to sell his house quickly and needed someone he could trust.
I can appreciate his concern. Especially since, according to my mother, Mr. Smith’s children don’t exude trustworthiness (although she later admitted that she had not, in fact, met any of the Smith children, so you can see I began this project using only cold hard conjecture). But, since the children had apparently announced last week that they thought it was better for dad to move out of his huge home and into a more suitable location, Dad, in response to this new threat to his lifestyle, needed to counter fairly quickly.
I love adult children of a certain age. Suitable location translates to a retirement community that was just far enough away from said children to relieve them of the obligatory weekly visit. From the sound of it, the children were probably considering one of the active senior communities currently proliferating across the country.
I can hardly wait to see how Boomers manage to spin death. In Mr. Smith’s case, he already knows.
Here’s another fact: the children weren’t planning to sell the house; that was Mr. Smith’s idea. And it made no sense at all.
Enter, me Allison Little – a Little Goes a Long Way - with New Century Realty. I had a dead man on the Spanish tile floor, survivors who did not want to sell, and the police on the phone. Or was it the fire department? Whomever. I was personally hoping I was calling within the county limits, but there is no guarantee. I could be talking to some nice young thing in Sacramento or LA, or Bangladesh.
“There’s a dead body in the kitchen.” I calmly announced.
“How dead?”
“Very. Can some one come out and, you know, get him?”
“There’s no hurry ma’am if the body is already dead. Are you in a safe place?”
I hadn’t even considered that. Really, I don’t consider my own safety that often– over confidence coupled with having read too many magazine articles with titles like Take Back the Night when I was a teenager. Anyway, who would want to take me on? Most desperate junkies weigh maybe a third of what I do. I could sit on them and crush them. It seems that enough junkies have spread the word to that effect. I’m never accosted when I’m in the City.
I would judge where I was standing was reasonably secure, although not entirely. Any place my mother recommends has the potential to become instantly dangerous, if only because she may show up unannounced. In fact, it was her fault I was standing here in the first place.
My mother’s phone call had interrupted me just in time. I was languishing in one of those interminable information meetings that realtors must endure on a depressingly regular basis. Sometimes we attend the meeting because of peer pressure, sometimes because we need the credits to continue our license. And sometimes we can acquire actual, useful information. This was not a meeting that covered the latter. This meeting was entirely devoted to beating the dead horse of 1031-exchange subject. We had been flaying the horse since 9:00 AM. I knew there was only 45 days to identify the new property; I understood that before I came in. Inez made me attend.
It was two o’clock when a rescue call came in. The phone buzzed and danced across the Formica topped table, I blinked, trying to focus on the phone. My eyeballs were about to fall out because they were so dry. Before the call, what was left of my eyes kept straying to the picture of the beautiful waterfall on my water bottle. The bottle was empty except for the picture. The guy next to me, who just recently won the Mr. River’s Bend contest (ticket sales to fund a worthy cause, I think it was the Homeless Prevention League or Seniors, something like that) and looked it, guzzled the last of his water bottle emblazoned with the simple command Refresh! I would love to refresh him. And I would love to know less about 1031 exchanges.
So I did not care who was calling. I murmured “a client,” picked up my eyeballs (that was a metaphor) and escaped to the women’s room. The acoustics in the ladies room are excellent.
My mother calls any time, for any reason. For the most part, her calls go directly to voice mail in my futile attempt to convince her that I work and am often busy. But this was an exception. I answered.
She had an idea that could only be discussed over lunch.
I’m all about a free lunch, so I agreed.
I think I’ll name my first child Liz Pendens.
“Mr. Smith is such a nice man,” my mother insisted. “He should be able to sell his own house if he wants.”
My mother sat on the edge of her padded chair at her usual table at the Marin County Club. She was dressed in her “casual” uniform; pressed tan slacks and a pressed cashmere sweater. How her dry cleaners manage to press cashmere I’ll never know.
My mother always wears pearls. They are more refined than diamonds.
She daintily cuts her tiny side salad that she claims is enough for a full lunch. She eats the lettuce bite by bite.
She chews carefully
I too, chew carefully.
But I’m chewing a double-decker cheeseburger with a side order of fries. I don’t know why I always crave something like a double cheeseburger with fries every time I go out with my mother, but I do. And the club chef does a passable job with burgers; I assume a better job with a dinner salad because mom always orders the salad, and to drink, black coffee.
My mother likes to think she looks younger, slimmer and prettier than me, which, for the most part is true, especially the thinner part. Mom is still embroiled in that ancient rivalry between wife and daughter for the love of the father/husband. And I was not clever enough to mitigate the competition by tossing a granddaughter between us. My bad.
“You say Mr. Smith is a nice man.” I repeat between dainty bites of my burger.
She swallowed and took a sip of ice water. “A very nice man, he’s been in the area for years. He loves modern art, is a patron to the arts both here and in San Francisco. I think he even donated a considerable amount of money to some organization down there. Anyway, he’s lovely, and his kids want to move him out of the house and I suppose, move in themselves.”
“They don’t want to sell?” I picked up three fries and daintily dragged the tips through the ketchup puddled precisely an inch to the left of the burger.
“No, they don’t, I think the daughter, Hillary, wants to keep the house, maybe buy her brothers out. She lives in Danville. But that’s not the point.” Mom waved her fork. “The point is Mortimer wants to sell the house before the kids take over.”
“Well, mom, they can’t take over unless he’s dead.”
I’m so sorry I said that.
I regarded the prone body of poor Mr. Smith. Over the phone he had announced that his house should list for 4.5 million leading me to believe he had plenty of time to sell. I hadn’t even seen the house, but there was nothing, nothing, to support a 4.5 asking price. I put out some feelers anyway and bam! A couple from LA with more money than commonsense responded immediately and offered full price for the property. All that was needed to close the deal was the paperwork.
I clutched those very forms in my hand. It’s a lot of paper. Many trees gave their life for Mr. Smith’s deal.
The sales commission would have taken care of me for six months; I was already planning a trip to Costa Rica.
But no. Mr. Smith wasn’t able to accept the offer and now this lovely offer was void, null and void. I don’t suppose telling him now would really count would it?
No, really, it would not. But I did think of it. Come on, 4.5 million? In a buyer’s market? Would our attorneys accept that as a legitimate acceptance?
“They loved the house sight unseen, which means that location can trump even that strangely shaped guest bath under the stairs.” I told him.
“Just nod your head. Twitch an eyelid. Tell Allison yes.”
No luck. He did not move, or cooperate in any manner.
Blood oozed from underneath his skinny body. The blood ruled out a heart attack, not that I’m a professional, we already established that.
The man was eighty if he was a day, and left scrawny from all that exercise and healthy eating. And he died violently anyway. See?
That would mean, in the words of the dispatcher who had assured me someone would come out and pick up the body, (I know that in mystery books, the coroner picks up the body but we always do things differently in California. I was personally hoping for a couple of firemen because it’s been my experience that firemen are very attractive and I haven’t come across one yet who couldn’t put out my fire, but I also know it wouldn’t end up being that kind of day) that the murderer may still be in the house.
Oh, and I forgot a salient point. There was no front door.
This is a material fact and would require an addendum to the contract, signed by both parties, but since the offer couldn’t be accepted in the first place, the lack of front doors was a moot point.
No front door.
Other than that, Mr. Smith owned a typical, traditionally overblown, Marin home: 4,000 square feet, view of the city skyline, a large yard that stretched to the bay, front elevation screened from the road by a dry stacked stone wall. Mature trees, upgraded kitchen, blah, blah, blah. More important to the children; they’d inherit the current Prop 13 property tax limitations. I could go to Costa Rica five times for what they will save yearly in property taxes.
But dad didn’t want his children to inherit. And I had a voracious couple fresh from LA, who heard about the price and the address and those magic words, waterfront, and that was that.
I love people from LA, I really do.
Maybe the daughter, Hillary would sell once she learns the listed price. Or I could help her with the sibling buy-out. Maybe I could remind her about inheritance taxes and the fact that even though my mother expressed the situation in the most veiled language possible, I already guessed that for these three siblings, sharing the house was out of the question.
Did they all stab dear old dad? A la Agatha Christie? Do I want to turn the body over to discover if he harbored multiple wounds? I did not.
And I felt the murderer was away and gone. Possibly he took the door with him. Clues, should I look for clues?
I’m not good at clues. Oh sure, there was 3490 Coast Edge Ave. where I found the water line that reached to just under the hot tub deck and I had to practically shake the owner to make him admit that maybe, on occasion, the Russian River rose past the first story of the house, but only during the winter, or when it rained really, really hard. Most buyers would consider that a potential problem and important to disclose, yes?
But that was my only triumph in the detection field. I glanced around the kitchen, expecting to see the smoking gun or something like that but stopped just in time. I was not going to get involved. I was out. The kids would have to decide what to do with the house, and they could use my superior services or someone else, it didn’t matter. Plus, for them, hiring a real estate agent who was not completely certain that there was a violent death in the house may be a more strategic choice. Of course, the kids would have to replace the front door.
Do I even trust the kids? When it comes to money, inheritance and taxes, its always family. I know that.
I was planning to list the house today (even with an offer, you never know), I had my checklist, and the camera and a lock box in the car. Well, the lock box was fairly pointless since there is no door on which to hang it. I entered sans key, sans knocking, sans everything.
Who will pay for a new door?
I walked out to the front entryway, and stood on the marble floor. The hinges on the left side of the door frame were still attached; the right hinges had been pulled off along with the door. This was not a careful job. The door frame was splintered, that would have to be replaced as well. The thieves must have used crowbars, quickly pulled off the doors, ran.
Who the hell steals a door?
I couldn’t just sit and wait for the police. And I certainly wasn’t going to hang around a dead body. I skirted around poor, prone Mr. Smith and checked out the property. I hadn’t seen the house myself, I took the listing over the phone, per mother, the price pulled in the buyers, per greed. And here we are.
Good thing they didn’t see the house first.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s a lovely mansion, big, grand and completely appropriate for the area. However, I am not that impressed with a house merely because of its size. Most houses are either small rooms strung together, or really big rooms strung together. It takes an original Julia Morgan or Frank Lloyd Wright ( I would have liked to see the Marin Civic Center with the intended gold roof instead of fiscally compromised blue) to get me excited at all. This house was not even inspired by either architect, but did aspire to the Hearst Castle category of excess. It sported a wide curved stairs that spilled into the front foyer, which would make a very impressive photo on the MLS and a good lead for the web site. The front room curved at the end opening to the obligatory Tudor turret. The kitchen was cluttered with stainless steel colored appliances and hand rubbed cabinets. Every piece of furniture and every appliance from the espresso maker to the toaster looked expensive. Was he shot for his money?
I glanced back at Mr. Smith. Rejected lover? Hadn’t considered that. Maybe mom knew something.
Hell, I’d have to tell mom. She would immediately assume it was my fault.
She’ll say something along the lines of “Oh Allison, if only you had arrived for your appointment EARLY, you could have saved Mr. Smith.”
No, I am not kidding, she thinks that way. I have witnesses.
So we have the Tudor turret. We have the Gatsby swimming pool. But what really set off Mr. Mortimer’s big expensive house, was an overwhelming collection of very, very big art. Not big like important, big like huge massive canvasses covering what were probably nice innocent white walls.
I love nice clean white walls almost as much as I love curtain-less windows. We didn’t have either in this home. Heavy curtains protected the big art from the sunshine. A dubious save.
I may not know much about art, but I know big and scary when I’m confronted by it. And the house was filled with big colorful, disturbing, scary art. There must be a museum or haunted house that would take these, um, priceless paintings, but I knew for certain that I could not sell this house with that stuff defacing the interior space.
A huge wood mask with a long beard of dried grass loomed over the living room couch, distorted red and purple images smeared across a bare edged canvas dominated the opposite end of the living room. I spent a minute staring at that one. But even after a minute I couldn’t figure out what the painting was supposed to depict, say or indicate. Nope, I do not even know what it’s a picture of. And of course, what every kitchen needs – three grimacing devil masks hovering over the stove.
All the works radiated with violence, even the small carved figure with an evil grin hunched in the foyer. That would have to go first, not the welcoming image we want for the home.
No door and Mr. Smith dead when I arrived. What is that called, DOA? Dead On Arrival? I don’t watch enough TV to be conversant with the lingo. I do know that on TV the detectives are glamorous, have great hair, and a second after they discover the body, they get to enjoy a drink at the local bar. I was not that lucky.
I could not get a drink; it was not that kind of day. I had to call Hillary, the oldest Smith child and owner of the only other number my mother gave me and tell her that her father was dead. Who else would do it? Call the daughter, not murder the father.
It was the kind of day where I had to call the buyers in LA and tell them the deal was off, for now, and I’d see what I could do.
“Yes,” I reassured them. “You are in first place, I have the dated offer with me. I’ll see what I can do.”
I knew what I would do and I also I knew what they would do. They were looking at a place on Bainbridge Island listed for only 2.5 million. That property included a back deck cantilevered over the water. They will make an offer on that property and I’m going to assume that seller is still alive to accept. Oh well, I’ll get a referral fee. Enough money for shoes, not enough for a vacation. At least not the kind of vacation I had in mind.
It was the kind of day that when the two police officers arrived; they walked through the house straight to the body and looked at me expecting I’d be holding the smoking gun.
“How did you know the deceased?” The female officer asked. Her uniform looked a little tight as if she had gained a few pounds but wasn’t ready to acknowledge it by getting a larger size. Not yet, maybe a couple more weeks to take the weight off.
I understood. I smiled my best smile.
“I don’t know the deceased at all.” I pulled out my business card and handed one to her and one to him.
Another van pulled up. Damn, no firefighters.
My phone chirped the opening bars to “I’m in the mood for love.” I looked down, one of my mortgage brokers. I pressed a couple of buttons, slid the ringer onto vibrate and turned my attention back to the officers.
“I’m Allison Little. I’m a real estate agent; I just arrived here to present an offer to Mr. Smith. And I found him here. Or rather, over there.” I pointed to the kitchen where Mr. Smith’s foot was just visible.
The male officer, George, shook my hand. “Nice to meet you Ms. Little.”
“There’s no sign.” The female officer looked at me coldly.
“What?”
“There’s no sign.” She took in my purple linen Anne Klein suit and high heel purple Jimmy Choo pumps and wrinkled her nose. Hey, if she had wanted to make more money, she should have visited a different job booth during Career Day.
“You said you have an offer, but there is not sign outside.” She repeated her tone indicating that yes, I was under suspicion.
“And there may not be.” I muttered.
To her I said, “no, there wasn’t time, I had an offer almost as soon as I posted the listing.”
“You can do that?” George asked.
“Sell a property before it’s on the market? Of course you can.” I replied.
She sniffed and scribbled in her black covered notebook. “Doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s real estate.” I said succinctly. The second set of police officers carefully wheeled out the black body bag that was my former client. Fair indeed. But she was the officer, I was a civilian. I did not belabor the point.
Is this the moment where emotions over ride judgment and I become “involved?” Well sure, but I didn’t do it on purpose. Really. I had other listings, places to go, another Louis Vuitton purse to purchase. Shoes to acquire. An un-opened carton of Ben & Jerry’s called. Plus, I needed to berate my mother for getting me into this because these are her people, not mine.
During my uneventful childhood in Marin, absolutely nothing happened and I grew accustom to that state of affairs. I’m not suited for the unexpected. My last big crisis was poorly applied acrylic tips.
“Here is the daughter’s number.” I scribbled Hilary’s number per mom, onto the back of another one of my cards. “She lives in Danville, but she’ll probably have to come in and identify the body or something.”
Nancy, the officer in the tight uniform, nodded and took my card. All I could think was please don’t ever call me. But I could always refer Nancy to a Realtor I didn’t particularly like.
Buy why murder Mr. Smith at all? Especially when the kids could just do it slowly and legally simply by following the plan already in place: shut Dad away in a strange environment away from everything he loves and acquired over his lifetime and watch him die of loneliness and boredom. It wouldn’t have taken long.
My own mother will live with one of my perfect brothers, who will love and cherish her all the days of her life because that’s what you do when you are the perfect child. I, however, am not the perfect child. I’d put her in a home. In a minute.
She may know that.
Maybe it wasn’t one of his children.
I was allowed to leave after the police traipsed through the house and deemed it secure. It was now officially a crime scene and I was officially not involved. I left peaceably. I drove carefully out of Belvedere and back north towards my own house but knew enough that if I did not inform Mom of Mr. Smith’s change of plans, I would never hear the end of it, and since she already worked from an extensive list of my transgressions, I didn’t need to add anything more. As I wound past smooth lawns artfully decorated with one or two leaves, I passed by three signs for Mark Smith – DA. It was a little early for political signs, but who was I to complain about advertising?
The golf course glowed green and pristine; the crepe myrtle was full and brilliant pink. The temperature is always about ten degrees warmer here than up in River’s Bend (we have the ocean breeze) so it felt like true summer as I cruised towards my old house. I should have brought my bathing suit. But I also knew this wouldn’t be a relaxing visit. When I drop by the family home, it’s not about sitting around the pool and relaxing, it’s about listening to my mother talk.
“What do you mean he’s dead? I just saw him yesterday!” My mother actually looked panicked, even concerned. Well, well.
For a minute I sympathized, it was shocking and I didn’t really give her much time to warm up to the idea, so to speak.
“I’m sorry mom. But I have even more bad news.”
“Heart attack? He was so careful about cholesterol and he jogged as well as attended our Zumba class.”
I wasn’t going to point out the futility of jogging, eating high fiber food that tastes like cardboard and the dubious benefits of eschewing all cholesterol at a time like this but I was thinking about all those hours, days and weeks Mr. Smith wasted to “stay healthy”.
“He jogged, he kept healthy.” Mom chanted as she carefully walked out to the back patio and sank down under one of the five umbrellas that dotted the small area.
“He liked art.” I chose one of the few seats in the sun. Ah, okay, as much as I like my own weather, sometimes it’s too windy and foggy on the coast.
“Anything else you want to tell me? Why didn’t he want the kids to have the house?” I lifted my face to the sun.
“It’s a lovely house,” Mom said absently. “He just got those new doors, Gilberto doors, his have the glass inserts, and they are just lovely. You’ll ruin your skin if you keep doing that.”
“I know, tell me more about the doors.” I closed my eyes and saw only bright red. Just like those damn paintings in Mr. Smith’s living room.
“Well, everyone has Gilberto doors because they are so unique. Mine are on order, they’re made in Columbia so the native population doesn’t have to sell drugs, they can carve these doors instead. We paid quite a premium – don’t tell your father. But Mary Jane says they are so worth it, updates the entry and the front, so the house looks practically new.”
I looked at her, not with the dawning horror that she probably spent three months of mortgage payments on one set of doors and not because I had not heard about these new must-have Gilberto doors and now was obviously behind on an up - coming trend. Actually I am constantly horrified and thus morbidly fascinated by my mother and her friends. I’m convinced that Marin is what happens when too much money and too much time collide: new political parties with green and freedom in their name are formed; large public art installations are approved sight unseen and suddenly the city is host to an installation in the public park that looks like a large single breast (think Woody Allen’s All You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex . . .) and is filled with real silicon implants. The long explanation by the artist was that the breast represented the disproportionate numbers of breast cancer cases in this county. The photos, published by every paper in the country, made the art look like, well, a large breast. At least it was bigger than mine. Anyway, that’s what can happen in Marin.
“These were new doors?” I did not share that the famous doors were missing.
“Yes they were. He spent a good, what?” She thought about it for a moment. “Ours cost $10,000 and our house is smaller than his, so he probably spent about $15,000.”
“On doors.” I did not dare open my eyes. Did Dad know? Probably, he also probably didn’t care.
“Gilberto Doors,” Mom corrected.
“You’ll never get that back in a sale,” I pointed out. “Bathroom remodels yes, front doors, no.”
“It enhances the feel of the entry way.” Mom repeated diligently.
“Okay, unique doors.” I conceded. I had to remember to whom I was speaking. Mom once booked a tour of France that was specifically focused on shopping in Provence for those colorful yellow and blue and red pattered tablecloths and napkins. The stores in those tiny villages also apparently carried quilted purses, headscarves, full quilted skirts, tea cozies and large travel bags in which to carry it all home. Mom insists to this day that she saved money by traveling to France to get her Thanksgiving tablecloth set. But here’s the kicker, everyone in her tea club went, they all bought the same linens, and so, they all match. Scattered across the country club neighborhood are homes filled to the brim with Provence napkins and soft jackets.
And now, I suspected, every home in the county club now sported Gilberto Doors.
“And who or what is this Gilberto?” I finally asked. I opened my eyes to a slit against the sun. Mom sat perfectly composed under the shade of the umbrella, not a drop of perspiration marred her almost smooth brow.
Mom shrugged. “We order them through Doors and More down in San Rafael, they are the exclusive importer.”
“Well,” I said brightly. “That’s great! Except there are no doors on Mr. Smith’s property, they are gone.”
I waited, but she didn’t really react.
“So you need to call his daughter and tell her she needs doors.” I prompted.
“You call her, you’re the agent.” Mom replied back.
I shook my head and stood my ground or rather continued to sit where I was and not lunge for my phone.
“My client’s dead.” I pointed out, a little brutally I know, but sometimes my mother needs help cutting through the trivial. “I don’t have a client. As a close friend of the deceased, you may want to call the daughter.”
“I’ll call her.” Mom said heavily. But she delivered her infamous look that said you are not off the hook yet. “But maybe they want to sell?”
“They can sell, if they inherited the house. It will be a while before it all gets cleared up.” I replied easily, since it still wasn’t my problem. My problems were up north in another county in another town where people do not spend ten grand on front doors. In fact, most people don’t spend ten grand unless it’s for a car. In fact, some people (clients, I’m not telling you their names) did just that. While they were still in escrow for a house they assured me they loved and wanted, they went out and bought a new car. Their loan officer was wild-eyed about it and calls me every other hour to confirm it’s true and to also confirm that these people are really that stupid.
Of course people are really that stupid.
“Do you know anything else about him besides his cholesterol levels?” Okay, maybe the sun was a little warm. I moved into the shade of a nearby umbrella. But no closer to my phone, thank you.
“He’s originally from New York. His first wife passed away about ten years ago and he just lost the second last year.”
“Children are from the first marriage?”
“Yes.”
“Children from the blended family?”
“I’m not sure, he doesn’t talk much about the second wife, but he was devastated when she passed away. I met him right after her death, so I don’t know much about that part of his life.”
“So the children get everything.” I summarized. “Did he donate money?”
“Yes he did. You know, I can’t remember what he said he used to do, most of us are retired, our old careers don’t seem to matter anymore.” Mom mused.
Well, it wouldn’t hurt to see if there was a CRT to be negotiated or a sale on behalf of the children.
“I’ll call the daughter about the door.” I said finally.
Mom beamed, and for about five minutes I was the favorite child.
“What a dump.” Hillary Smith- Rodriguez marched into her father’s house, hands on hips, righteous anger in her eyes.
I had hoped, as we scheduled this meeting for the very next morning, for the devastated daughter, the sad-eyed child, the distracted newly-made orphan. Hell, I’m 35 and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my own parents this early (I would miss my dad).
Maybe it wasn’t too early for Hillary. She was older than me by about seven years. She didn’t really look that much older, in fact she looked quite lovely, so smooth and even that it was clear she had lots of work done. I’d say she had her breasts hoisted back up to pre-pubescent levels a couple years ago. If mine were lifted that high, I’d suffocate.
So Hillary was not one of those women who denied her own comforts for the good of the family. Or maybe in her family, there was plenty of comfort to go around. In any case, I couldn’t remember if mom mentioned Hillary’s husband, perfect children, anything like that. Did Mortimer-Smith not keep a thick album of grandchildren on his person like some grandparents we could mention? Guess not.
Hillary marched into the house trailing the latest look. She was dressed in tiny yellow Candie’s slides, white Capri slacks and a tight yellow tube top that displayed her latest investment to full advantage. I braced myself for the invariable look that thin, well molded women give me when we meet, the look that says you are a clearly a food slut and obviously can’t control yourself and I am all about control and extreme sports and I am superior to you in every possible way.
I got the look, I returned it with my best dumb blond look, because if anything, I do spend a considerable amount of cash on my hair, so I feel justified appropriating the persona. I am a Salon Blond. Smart enough to pay for the look myself; smart enough not to let on that I am smart.
And we were off.
“I can’t believe Dad let this place go, what’s in the kitchen?” She didn’t so much as glance at the devil mask collection. She was intent on more practical concerns. “Whirlpool? Not even a sub-zero? Honestly, how did he expect he could ever sell it?” She opened the refrigerator and sighed. “Look at this, five cartons of Cooper ice cream. He promised he was on a low cholesterol diet!” She shook her head and closed the door. “He was always sneaking around like that.”
Yes, but it wasn’t the ice cream that killed him in the end was it? To my credit I did not say that out loud. But it was kind of funny. Mom mentioned his healthy habits as well; how he ate low fat, exercised and in public, ordered the low calorie alternative dishes. Made me wonder if my own mother wasn’t snarfing down raw cookie dough in the middle of the night. No, if she did, she’d have hips like mine.
Instead I said. “I have buyers, are you still interested in selling?”
She shook her head. “No, tell them to go away. We’re keeping the house.”
Damn, double damn.
”I see,” I said as smoothly as I could. “And you plan to buy out your brothers?”
She continued to prowl around the house. After finding the ice cream, she abandoned the kitchen cabinets and moved on to search around the rest of the first floor. She peeked into the hall closet, examined the hardwood floors, lifted the edge of each hand knotted rug scattered around the cavernous great room (the one with the view of the City). The rugs matched – to a certain degree – the wild reds in the big painting on the far wall.
“No. Yes,” She kicked the rug back with her tiny, French pedicured foot, “I will be able to buy them out. But not yet.”
“What about this art? Are you going to divide that up?”
She laughed, short and brittle, as if her vocal chords had some work done as well and were tightened to make them look younger.
“Keep the art? Dad would have never approved of that. These,” She gestured to the devil masks, the living room art and possibly everything else upstairs. “Are here to keep then out of the public eye. He thought violent art was a bad influence. Can you believe that? Even my stepmother thought so, helped him hunt down some of this crap. Damn, if she were alive she could take care of this but nooo.” She contemplated the rug. “We’ll sell the damn art, one more thing for me to do. The rugs might be worth something.”
“Okay, well good.” I nodded. “Then you don’t need me, I’ll just get out of here.” I carefully placed about three of my business cards on the table in the foyer, reproduction French, didn’t fit the décor at all. Hillary continued to peek behind the paintings in the living room and tried to look behind the large cabinet.
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.
