Foreclosed: A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery (A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery, a Cozy Christian Collection) (21 page)

A tap sounded at the front door.

Alonzo dropped his arms and Mitzy slipped down to her feet again.

The door opened.

“You made it.” Mitzy stepped forward and extended her hand.

A man in a sharp black suit shook her hand and nodded.

“Ambassador?” Alonzo asked.

“Yes, yes. I’m here from the embassy. Call me Eduard.”

“Eduard Ivanovich?” Mitzy held out her hand for his ID.

“Of course.” He held out an ID badge and looked around the room. “Have you had any success yet?”

“We have.” Mitzy passed him the jewelry, nestled on top of the velvet bag.

“You’ve done the right thing,” Eduard said. “You wouldn’t believe the trouble we’ve had repatriating the national treasure.”

Alonzo snorted. “We just might.”

“Well, yes. I suppose you would.” He cleared his throat and looked over the collection. Then he set his titanium briefcase on the floor and knelt down beside it.

He laid the pieces in the case one at a time. Then he pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He compared the jewelry with the list. He cleared his throat again. “This looks like what we were hoping for.” He snapped the case shut and locked it.

He stood up and brushed the knees of his slacks with his hand. After he straightened out he pulled a card out of his pocket and passed it to Alonzo. “If anything else comes up you need to let me know.”

Mitzy reached across for the card. “Of course. If anything else shows up. We will get a receipt for all of this, right?”

Eduard heaved a dramatic sigh. “Yes, of course.” He mumbled something about American paperwork as he
opened his case again. He took out a carbon form and filled it in.

Mitzy tapped her toe while he wrote.

Eduard pulled the form apart and handed the top sheet to Alonzo.

Alonzo smiled and passed it to Mitzy.

Eduard folded the remaining sheets and tucked them back in the case. He gave one last look around the front of the house, shook his head, and left.

“Maxim Mikhaylichenko is in prison now,” Mitzy said. “And the jewels are on their way back to
Russia
. That’s the end of it.”

“The museum had to give back the money, didn’t they?” Alonzo asked.

“They didn’t collect any, actually. But it’s no matter. They could sell half a painting and make more than they did from the jewelry.”

“They got a lot of press though,” Alonzo said.

“And any press is good press. They’ll recover.” Mitzy looked up to the top of the staircase. Handing the jewelry over like that had dampened her spirit.

“And you will recover?” Alonzo asked, his voice hushed and concerned.

Mitzy took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I got knocked around a little. But what’s that in light of the grand scheme? What I want to know is will the economy recover?”

Alonzo nodded in agreement. He knocked on the wall nearest to him. “It’s got good bones,” he said.

“It’s a beautiful home.” She sighed a little, but smiled. “It will make a great little inn.”

“You won’t be sorry.” Alonzo leaned his elbow on the wall and looked Mitzy over again with a smile.

“You’re right. I won’t be. We’ve started this now. We have to be a success.”

The floorboard crumbled under Mitzy’s first step. She extracted her boot, ignoring the scratches on the new leather and said, “Replace floor.”

Alonzo Miramontes offered Mitzy his hand and directed her to a firmer spot in the upper attic room they were touring. “Replace floor,” he repeated, making a note on his iPhone.

The mansion on
Baltimore Street
had hooked Mitzy earlier in the year. As a Realtor she knew the broke-down mansion was a great commission waiting to happen. She also saw potential every time she looked at it. It could be a magnificent building with a little work. And since she owned the little rental house next door, potential for the mansion was potential property value for her as well. As icing on the cake, all that renovation work would mean jobs for her friends.

But Mitzy was realizing the word ‘renovation’ was insufficient. An argument could be made for just tearing the old house down. The untamed acres of property and ramshackle house that had consumed her mind were now consuming all of her capital as she, her new boyfriend Alonzo, and his sister Carmella converted it into an inn.

Buying the house had been the action of a heated moment. Alonzo and Mitzy had tried to buy it out from under each other, but found that the Mafia didn’t want either of them to have it. There was a little secret in the house, earlier that spring—a stash of missing jewels, from the Russian royal family, the Romanovs.

Mitzy was the best Realtor in
Portland
. A millionaire by 30. She didn’t get to the top by making mistakes. But in the thrill of the battle for the jewels, the house, and their lives, she and Alonzo had skimped on a few home buying technicalities. In fact, she had broken her favorite rule as a Realtor: Due Diligence. Mitzy took her job as a Realtor seriously. She wore her purple blazer with the company logo with pride. She wore her matching purple fingernails with pride too.

But being a Realtor was more than just owning a business to Mitzy. It was her life’s blood. The due diligence she had forgotten was the inspection. A mortgage requires an inspection, but cash can move mountains. Who needs an inspection when you are hunting for missing jewels? This was the first time Mitzy had discovered a whole floor of living space in a building after purchasing it.

Turning the property into an inn was Carmella and Alonzo’s dream. Since falling in love with Alonzo she had fallen in with this dream. But really, the love part only complicated the business start up. Mitzy fully intended to get beyond the drama of the mansion and the jewels and the Mafia and get back to selling homes as soon as the inn was up and running.

The business partners were dealing with the servants’ quarters on the top floor of the house today. The floor that had been a complete surprise. Mitzy was becoming convinced as she sketched plans yet again for the rooms upstairs, that some mountains should just stay put.

The Victorian mansion had five bed rooms right below the storage attic. It was enough space to house a butler, cook, and a few maids. Also on that floor was a larger room that must have been a school room or nursery.

“We need one large suite with extensive private accommodations, bath, sauna, living room, and big screen TV,” Carmella, Alonzo’s sister and future inn manager said.

“No,” Alonzo said.

“It’s the top floor. It needs to be posh,” Carmella said.

“Can we even get a spa up here?” Mitzy asked eyeing the narrow stairs and low ceilings.

“Lift it in through the window. It doesn’t matter how we do it; it just needs to be done.” Carmella drew a line across the window with her pointer finger.

“We are not plumbing a spa up here. It’s too expensive. We’d have to reinforce all the floor joists. Can’t do it. We’d have to get new permits. These rooms should be offices and storage,” Alonzo said.

“No,” Carmella said, shaking her head. “I am the inn manager and the design consultant. We can’t waste all of this space on storage and offices. The more rooms open, the more money we make.”

Mitzy was measuring windows with her keychain measuring tape and responded without thinking. “The more we advertise the more money we make.”

“Focus, Mitzy,” Alonzo said. “And you,” he said to his sister, “are not our design consultant. You had better not expect to be paid for design consulting. You are not a designer.”

“You invited me here for my opinion. I assume it is my opinion on design and not on what to have for lunch.” She tossed her thick black pony tail and turned her head to the window. “This is the best room in the house because it is the top room. The offices need to be downstairs so I am available to our guests,” Carmella said.

“We’re turning the staff staircase into an elevator,” Mitzy said.

“Focus,” Alonzo snapped.

“I am focused. Don’t be such a jerk. We are putting an elevator here, so guest access to the top floor wouldn’t be a problem.” She walked through the doorway into the hall, looking up and down its length. “But fitting out a suite would be.” She raised her voice to be heard. “If this is opened to guests at all it needs two washrooms. But if we don’t have sleeping space it wouldn’t have to be full on-suite baths. For two toilets and two sinks we wouldn’t have to reinforce floor joists, etc. The nursery is large and we could open up into the other small rooms.” Mitzy walked back into the room with her partners.

Alonzo shook his head, eyes lowered to a paper he was holding. “We have all of our estimates,” he said.

“We left the servants’ quarters ‘to be decided,’” Mitzy said. “We might as well decide now.”

“Because we don’t have enough to do?” Alonzo said.

“I have two ideas,” Mitzy began. “The first is the best. We could turn this into a banquet room. We would just need two bathrooms. The ceilings are low so it wouldn’t be very grand, but we could make it stylish and offer it as part of our wedding packages.” She paused and looked at Alonzo to see how he liked it. “Or we could turn it into a business conference room and fit it out like a smoking room or library, or that kind of manly thing.”

“We do need to add those bathrooms, no matter what we do,” Alonzo said, thumping the floor boards with his booted foot. “Do you know what it costs to reinforce these old beams?”

“We could get a lot more money for it as a honeymoon suite,” Carmella said.

Mitzy observed Carmella. Her peevish expression was so exactly like her brother’s. Her lips were pursed and her thick eyebrows drawn over her big black eyes. Her shoulders were thrown back and she stood with her feet planted shoulder width apart.

“We’ll keep that idea in mind, Carmella. But as far as we can tell off hand, it isn’t in the budget.” Mitzy patted her fluffy blond curls as she thought. Top floor was top floor. But these spaces had been servant’s quarters. Small rooms, small windows, low ceilings. Even converting them to a conference room would require larger windows and disturb the historic integrity of the façade.

“Carmella,” Mitzy asked, “what would you charge per night for your top floor honeymoon suite?”

“At minimum, $400 a night,” Carmella said.

“And what would you charge for your smallest room?” Mitzy asked.

“Nothing in this hotel will be less than $175 a night.”

Mitzy pointed as she counted the rooms. “Then one, two, three, four, five, junior-rooms with shared baths off the hall and continental breakfast in the nursery at $100 dollars a night, would be more profitable than one large suite at four hundred.” Mitzy smiled. This new plan was her favorite by far. “If you had the large suite rented every weekend in June and half of July and August the inn would make $3200 a year on this space. If we averaged renting half these rooms half of the weekends for the year this space would bring in $5250 a year. What do you think?”

“Can we get away with five bedrooms and shared bathrooms?” Alonzo asked.

“Sure. The McMennimins hotels do it,” Mitzy said.

“McMennimins hotels are destinations. We won’t have a movie theater, a micro-brewery, or golfing,” Carmella said.

“True,” Alonzo said. “But I think we could get the permits. I’d rather have a handful of rooms to rent than a conference room that was always empty.”

“Me too, I think we could do it. It would be so much cheaper. All we have to do is put in the bathrooms, new flooring, and paint. I’ll draw up the plans and estimates,” Mitzy said.

“So we’re just going to do your plan then?” Carmella said.

“Yes,” Alonzo replied turning to go down the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” Mitzy said.

Carmella’s shoulders drooped for just a moment. She pulled them back up though and glared at her brother’s retreating figure.

“We just can’t afford your idea, even though it is awesome.” Mitzy paused and looked at Carmella. Carmella turned away, crossing her arms on her chest. With a shrug, Mitzy started her trek down the flights of stairs to the main floor.

Alonzo was arguing in the foyer with two well dressed men. Through the front windows Mitzy saw two black
Lincolns
with tinted windows. And a police car.

“What’s going on here?” Mitzy rushed down the last few steps and interjected herself into the argument.

“I’ve got it, Mitzy,” Alonzo said. He stood with his feet apart and his arms crossed over his broad chest. “Until you show us a court order you’re not taking anything from this property.”

A tall, thin, man with wire rim glasses and sparse blond hair peered around the foyer before he spoke. “I don’t think you realize the seriousness of the situation. I don’t think you realize who you are working with here.”

“I realize,” Alonzo said, dropping his voice an octave and speaking slowly like to a child, “that you are attempting to seize our property without the legal authority. I realize that I am going to escort you off of our property now.”

Mitzy had moved to the front door, keeping the heels of her boots quiet on the wood floor, while the strangers had their stand off with Alonzo. She opened the door and a gust of fall scented wind blew into the room. “After you,” she said with a false smile, gritting her teeth.