I'll Protect You (Clueless Resolutions Book 1) (2 page)

The cool northeast morning breeze and grayish skies gave Max that seasonal New England feeling, as he drove toward his office, that a late-spring snow or cold rain was likely.  It was 8:15 AM as he pulled into the Jenson & Associates parking lot.

Max hoped that he could get into his cubicle before Carl came in. There he could fix a cup of coffee for himself and prepare to pass on the news of the previous evenings events.  As he passed through the office entryway, he could see that his coffee would have to wait, however.  Carl was just walking into his own office cubicle.

Carl Jenson was a heavy-set man in his late fifties.  Like many of those with his Scandinavian lineage, his face was usually a robust red.  The upper wrinkles on his forehead ended at what was once his hairline.  Reading glasses were almost always in a breast pocket or parked on his smooth, shiny dome above the wrinkle line.

Max hung up his overcoat and exchanged pleasantries with the office receptionist while he checked his message box for any notes or mailings.  Finding none, he stepped into Carl’s cubicle and sat on a folding chair just inside the entrance opening.  Bypassing any greetings, Carl handed Max some paperwork.

“Here’s the auction agreement on the Haverhill property on Whitmore Lane, ready for signatures, did you finish your recommendation report on the property?” Carl asked, referring to the house that Max had inspected the previous afternoon.  Max drew a breath and cleared his throat.

Where do I start?” he began, “The weirdest thing happened yesterday afternoon.”  He went on to relate the finding of a corpse during the inspection appointment with the Stanley Realty Financial Expediter and the subsequent thorough questioning by the police.  He deliberately omitted the Stanley Realty specialist’s name and especially the tripping-and-falling-on-Maggie part.  Carl seemed stunned, but not shocked, upon hearing the news about the corpse.

“Did you meet there with Maggie Marshall?”  Carl asked.  Before Max could answer, Carl pressed on with; “Is she okay?”  Max, faking an air of nonchalance, replied, “She seemed to handle it pretty well, actually.”  At that point Carl’s demeanor seemed to shift.

“She’s a real cool broad; I wouldn’t mind getting a piece of that.” he said with one eyebrow raised and a sort of half smile, half-sneer on his face.  Max was caught off balance by this uncharacteristic, men’s-locker-room sort of sexual jargon from Carl.

Max knew the man quite well through his employment, and from social encounters.  Carl was a married, church-going family man who was highly respected in the community.  Based on the assumption that Carl was not aware of his close relationship with Maggie, Max masked his resentment of the crude comment.  His mind started to conjure up all kinds of questions.

Carl is acting sort of weirdly. Why all the interest in Maggie? Does he realize that under the present circumstances there would probably be no immediate auction contract? Normally this would bother him.  Has he already heard about the dead body from someone else? If he had heard about it, why would he ask if I had finished the recommendation report?

Max rose from his seat.

“Well Carl, I think we should be expecting some delays on getting an agreement to sell this one” he blurted out as he dropped the unsigned contract papers on Carl’s desk.  With no response from Carl, Max continued, “I’ll check with Stanley Realty on the status of the property and I’ll get back to you as soon as I get further word on it.”  He turned to leave and saw Carl gazing out through a side window in a detached sort of way.

“Okay Max” was all that Carl said.

Ten minutes later Max left word with the receptionist that he was leaving to drop off his car for repairs and to arrange for a rental.  He asked to have any calls relayed to his cell phone.  He buttoned his coat and stepped out into the brisk air.  While driving out of his office parking lot, Max called Maggie’s number on his cell phone.  Recognizing Max’s number when her phone beeped, she answered,

“What’s up Max?”  Normally Max would have come back with a personal and humorous wisecrack but, with a subdued tone he asked Maggie if she had talked with Francine.

“I not only talked to her,” she replied, “I also got a visit from lieutenant Salvadore, the police detective.  He asked me some of the same questions he asked last night. Maybe the jerk lost his notes.  I don’t know what’s going on here, Max.  It seems that they don’t believe what I tell them.”

“Can you get away for lunch?” asked Max.   Maggie replied in the affirmative and they made plans to meet at a place they called “out of town” at 12:30 that afternoon.

Having both taken care of business during the rest of the morning, the preoccupied couple met at a fenced-off  public park-and-ride lot, just south of Bridgeport, adjacent to on-ramps and off-ramps to Interstate Route 95.  Maggie left her car and Max drove the recently rented compact coupe south on the freeway to the exit for the town of Clinton.  Once there, Max exited the freeway and drove south through Clinton to an out-of-the-way seafood restaurant, located in an un-known town, on an unnamed alleyway which ended at a wharf on the northern shore of Long Island Sound.

The location was a bit of a drive from East Wayford but both felt that privacy from their community was what they needed at this time. They had met here several times in the past and, judging by the small number of patrons that frequented the place, they figured that no one from their circle of acquaintances would know it existed.  Local shell fishermen were the main supporters.

Most times when they had come here the twosome felt that the quiet anonymity of the setting was very romantic.  Why, this tiny, dark and weathered seaside bar even had red and white checkered, plastic-reinforced table cloths on the round, shaky tables for two.  A single candle jammed into the neck of an old wicker-covered Chianti bottle adorned each of the four tables.

Fine dining was not their reason for coming here. They never dared to venture past cold-cut sandwiches in plastic wrap which they picked from a glass-front refrigerator case, and bagged potato chips.  They drank beer from the bottle after having wiped the tops upon opening.

Feeling the calm and warmth of being together, here in this place, provided some solace today.  Both Maggie and Max were anxious over the recent shake-up of the business scenario with which they had become accustomed during the last few years.  They were two individuals doing extremely well, successful and independent in their respective occupations, and they got pleasure from the comfort of their compatibility.  This feeling coincided with the warm and mutually satisfying occasional sex they enjoyed.  It was a feeling of permanency, a personal completeness that neither had known before they met.

“I can’t stand this guy, detective Salvadore.” Maggie related.  “He gets all red when he’s talking to you and he doesn’t look directly at you.  Not only that, but he constantly fidgets and pulls his pants around his crotch like he’s wearing real prickly woolen jockey shorts, or something.  Yuck!”  Max chuckled at this charmingly graphic depiction.

“How did your discussion with Francine go?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve got to tell you, that woman is a real trip.  By closing time she looked like hell, as if she hadn’t slept for days” related Maggie.  She went on to tell Max about how frazzled and paranoid Francine was about the police coming to the office.  They had questioned her about Maggie’s appointment schedule.  They had asked how many people were on her office sales staff.  They had even asked Francine herself whether she went out on showing appointments and when her last appointment was.  At that point, Francine cut off the conversation with Lt. Salvadore, she had told Maggie.

“I get the sense that Francine has   something to hide,” Maggie continued,  “Since she hired me eight years ago, I can’t shake the feeling that her attitude toward me is guarded.  It’s much different than her relations with the rest of the crew. They are all older and I was in my 20s back when I started working there.  Maybe it’s the generation gap, I don’t really know.  Once in a while she’ll bring up something about the past, and then watch my reaction to what she said.”

As they finished downing their meals and beverages, Max went into the details of his meeting with Carl, and how, for the first time he felt as though he was being quizzed or tested, much in the way Maggie had just described.

They had finished the ham and cheese sandwiches by now and the beer bottles were down to foam at the bottom.  As they sat gazing over the flickering candle, into each other’s eyes, Maggie’s thoughts flashed back to that time in June, 2002, when she and Max had been coupled up for their second, or third, house inspection together.

The subject house was furnished, but unoccupied.  The owner, an elderly widow had passed away, leaving no apparent heirs, but leaving a sizable outstanding mortgage balance.

Having completed the inspection, Max would now recommend the minimum price which could be set at auction, including the base fee to Jenson & Associates. Maggie would negotiate with the mortgage lender to get agreement with that price, plus a minimized flat fee commission to Stanley Realtors.  An agreement document would then be signed by all parties to proceed to auction.

On that fateful day at the vacant house, while standing in the darkened entrance hall exchanging goodbyes, and with Maggie ready to lock up the property, the couple’s eyes met.  For a blissful interlude, time stood still. Max dropped his attaché case as Maggie lost a grip on everything she had in her hands.  Locked in an embrace, a passionate kiss rendered them both delirious. Floating in a magical instant, both completely oblivious to the possibility of anyone infringing on this moment, they disrobed each other as they waltz-stepped to a nearby sofa. Then, and there, the smitten lovers proceeded to make frenzied, passionate love until, both exhausted, they rolled apart onto the carpeted floor.

Their histories with personal intimacies differed but, before they met, neither of them were neophytes in romance.  Max had been involved with several lady friends over the years, a few of which were serious affairs.  Maggie was once engaged to a young man whom she had known since they were high school classmates.  This was before she started as a business major in college and he had entered a distant engineering school.  The separation during their first semesters showed each of them that they could actually exist without daily contact with the other.  They had decided to put their engagement on hold for a while.  Maggie finally decided to return the engagement ring shortly after their third semesters.  She had dated other men intermittently since. Neither Maggie nor Max, however, had experienced the surprisingly intense feelings which exploded during that first, amazing, intimate contact with each other.

Now, almost four years later, Maggie was focusing her thoughts in the present.  Enveloped by the setting of the quaint, familiar meeting place in the tiny seaside bar together with Max, she felt warm and comfortable.  These thoughts were not Maggie’s alone. At the present time and place Max was re-living that special moment in his mind as well. He dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table, an amount which was twice the inexpensive hand written tab, and they left to find a motel.

Max’s and Maggie’s business activities were not unusual. The demand for their field of expertise was increasing nationally in connection with home ownership financial difficulties. The full description of their specialty can only be described in rather technical terms, but, suffice it to say that news accounts regarding the discovery of the corpse could impact their lives negatively due to police involvement and public exposure.

The two specialists were good at what they did and they took gratification from the fact that they helped many financially distressed business owners and home owners in their community to get through a bad time in their lives. Stanley Realty and Jenson & Associates both benefited from, and appreciated, the business generated by the excellent reputation of these two knowledgeable and skillful professionals.

Although they practiced exactly what many similar real estate marketing and financial professionals were practicing, Maggie’s and Max’s unique dilemma existed in the fact that, while they represented separate employers they were deliberately, and almost exclusively, working together. Both of them were salaried employees and therefore were profiting along with their respective employers.

Max and Maggie lived separately and maintained completely separate personal finances, but they could still be accused by their employers, based on the appearance of collusion, of unfair business practices.  Merely an accusation itself could jeopardize the good reputation they had achieved.

The potential risk involved was mutually nagging at their consciousness but the couple dealt with the situation in different ways.  Maggie tended to take a somewhat dismissive ‘let the chips fall where they may’ attitude toward worrying about their working arrangement.  Whenever the subject came up she thought to herself,
if it works,
why fix something that isn’t broken?

Max, on the other hand, had a broader experience in the business world and, probably as a carryover reflex from his training as a military officer, was prone to being more pragmatic and proactive in dealing with human nature in general.  He was seldom caught off guard and his tendency was to ‘circle the wagons’ when he sensed a looming crisis.

The strangeness of Max’s recent conversation with Carl, and Maggie’s weird description of her talk with Francine, exaggerated the concern they both had.

    That Friday evening the TV news started with a press release to the local media. It was announced as follows:

“The body of a Caucasian man in his fifties was discovered early Thursday evening in a vacant house on 230 Whitmore Lane, East Wayford. The body was found by real estate personnel handling the sale of the property. The identity of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of family.

The owner of the vacant house is Harriett Haverville, an 89 year old widow. She is not in residence there at this time. The cause of death is unknown, pending a report from the State Medical Examiner.

Detective Lieutenant Joseph Salvadore, a nine year veteran of the East Wayford police force, has been assigned as the investigating officer of the unexplained death.

According to a spokesperson for the real estate brokerage handling the sale, the house has been on the market for 6 months but remains unsold. An auction of the property is planned by the court appointed manager of the estate. The property has been taken off the market and the auction arrangements are being delayed, pending the completion of the police investigation.

If any persons have seen anyone suspicious in the surrounding area within the past week, or have any information concerning the matter, please contact the East Wayford Police Department.”