For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series

For Sale in Palm Springs

a Henry Wright Mystery

by

Albert Simon

Published by
DesertDreaming.com at Smashwords

ISBN
0-976200-34-1

All Rights
Reserved

Copyright © 2004 by Albert
Simon

This book may not be
reproduced in whole or in part without written
permission.

The characters and events in
this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Discover other books by
Albert Simon at Smashwords.com:

The Henry Wright Mystery
Series
:

Springtime in
Sonora

Mystery on the
Tramway

Drama in the Mother
Lode

Coachella Valley Traffic
Jam

This book is for
Berlynn

Chapter 1

Wednesday, April
12

He loved the feeling of
acceleration as he guided the big English car into the turn onto
Sunrise Way from Highway one-eleven. The luscious Jaguar XJ12 and
its velvety twelve cylinder engine purred as nicely as his mother’s
old sewing machine as he put his foot on the accelerator. He let
the steering wheel roll back through his hands as he finished
turning. He enjoyed the feel of the smooth leather on his palms. He
was really glad that he bought this model Jaguar before Ford Motor
got their designer’s hands on it and ruined the way the car
felt.

The smooth acceleration and
getting lost in the feelings that the car brought him made him
exceed the speed limit ever so slightly after rounding the corner.
He slowed it down and settled back into the big overstuffed Lazy
Boy like seat as he headed for his appointment in the older part of
Palm Springs. Sunrise Way’s straight four lanes stretched out in
front of him, it was only mid-April but already he could see the
shimmering heat waves rising off the asphalt in the distance from
the mid-day heat.

He stopped at the traffic
light at Ramon Road and motioned at two teenage boys to finish
crossing the street as his light turned green. They must have been
late for class at Palm Springs High. The packs on their backs
bounced as they ran, one of them smiled and waved thanks to him.
Ah, he wasn’t sure who said it, but youth truly was wasted on the
young.

He was brought out of his
daydream when the car behind him honked. He accelerated slowly this
time. The gas station at the corner had left the sprinklers running
and the water flooded into the intersection. The Jag was clean, he
had it washed yesterday and he didn’t want to splash the water on
it, he wanted it to look good so that his customer would be
impressed. Besides, he had plenty of time, in fact, he was a little
early, but that would give him time to open the house up, turn on
the air and the lights. A bright house looked larger and hopefully
his client would think it was bigger than the little cracker box it
actually was. Yes, sir, after six years in the real estate
business, Rex Thornbird was at the top of his game. One of the most
successful agents in the entire Palm Springs area, Rex had the
nice, showcase house up on the hill that he just finished
refurbishing, the big imported cars and he was the envy of everyone
in the Coachella Real Estate office. If only his wife hadn’t left
two years ago with half of what he had then, he could have retired
by now. Her greed slowed him down some, but after she took her half
of the nest egg he carefully built up, and the divorce was final,
he worked even harder to get it all back, and then some. This time,
the houses, the cars, bank accounts and toys were his and his alone
and he intended to keep it that way.

But, even with enough money
and toys, Rex wasn’t sure he wanted to retire. He was the top
producing agent in his office, month after month. His picture was
printed on For Sale signs on practically every block in this part
of Palm Springs. Around town, he was known as the “mid-century
specialist”, a reputation that he enjoyed and quietly encouraged.
He grinned as he thought of the allure the local real estate
industry had created with these so-called mid-Century homes.
Anywhere else in the country, these would be described as older
houses built in the ‘50’s, or “fixer-uppers” or “starter homes”.
But here in Palm Springs, that 50’s style reigned supreme, and many
buyers paid well to get to buy one of these houses. It was too bad
that most of them were built quickly and cheaply and were certainly
not up to today’s standards.

He’d made a nice business of
selling the little cracker boxes though; it was amazing what
prospective buyers would overlook after he had his paint crew slap
a fresh coat of white paint on the walls covering up tacky outdated
wallpaper, or years of grime. He also had a carpet cleaning crew
that he used all the time, they worked wonders with worn out wall
to wall. All of the houses he sold looked great, but their beauty
was only skin deep. Their typical 50’s style gently sloping roofs,
covered with tar and gravel, didn’t allow for the insulation that
was required in the heat of the Sonoran Desert. His prospects
didn’t need to know that the air conditioner that they were going
to install would run all day. Single pane windows in cheap aluminum
frames did nothing to keep the desert heat out, or cool air in. The
flimsy thin glass certainly wouldn’t block out the noise of the
ever increasing traffic at the Palm Springs Airport. Rex made it a
point to never show houses to prospective buyers while American and
Alaska airlines were flying their jets in and out of the little
airport.

Yet, of all the properties
he had ever sold, only a couple of buyers complained to him
afterwards. The continuously rising price of real estate and their
investment’s quickly increasing value was a big part of that. Rex
was convinced that some of these buyers were too embarrassed to
come back and complain that they had received less than they paid
for.

Four years ago he started
selling locally well-known architect designed houses. There are a
lot of homes in the Palm Springs area designed by famous architects
such as Richard Neutra. Some of these homes were built as
commissions for famous celebrities or business moguls; others were
expressions in Modernism by the architects, built by them on pure
speculation of a buyer coming along. Rex’s first architectural
listing was a small seventeen room motel on Farrell Street near the
airport that was designed by another Modernist architect. He sold
it to a young couple who wanted to turn it into a resort
hotel.

After the hotel he sold a
couple of Alexander tract homes, and got lucky when he listed a
Richard Neutra designed estate. When Rex discovered the premium
prices these designer homes commanded, he started getting creative
with the architectural attribution. He would casually mention an
architects name while showing a house to a potential buyer, and
soon he knew that he could ask for a hundred thousand more than the
true value of the house. His tactics paid off handsomely, but it
couldn’t last and it had run its course about the time his wife
filed the divorce papers.

Then, about two years ago,
when there was a small slump in sales, he discovered that many of
his potential buyers were intrigued by Palm Springs’ history as a
getaway for entertainers and film stars and the legacy they left
behind. Since the famous architect designed ruse was more or less
passé, Rex moved quickly to make the most of his newfound marketing
niche.

In its heyday, in the 1930’s
and ‘40’s, Palm Springs was the place where many of the Hollywood
movie stars slipped away to for rest, relaxation, drying out,
cosmetic surgery or illicit affairs. Most of these celebrities
wouldn’t stay in a hotel with its public rooms and possibility of
being recognized by vacationing fans. Instead, they bought a house,
or borrowed one from one of their costars. These “celebrity homes”
were now much sought after by older people wanting some of the
luster of the golden age of Hollywood to rub off on them, or by the
nouveau rich, who were trying to associate themselves with old
money.

Earlier this year he sold a
house that once belonged to Bette Davis to a young entrepreneur who
had flown down from Silicon Valley with IPO cash and was a Bette
Davis fanatic. The young man had obviously overpaid, the house was
small, had the original kitchen, was on a busy corner and didn’t
even have a pool. Although, as Rex had pointed out to the kid with
stars in his eyes, there was room to have a pool installed. He
grinned as he thought about it; sure there was room for a pool, as
long as you bought it in the toy section of Wal-Mart. Bette Davis
had never ever owned that house. He’d made it up, he knew that
Bette visited Palm Springs, but she certainly never even saw that
little house. Stretching the truth to make a sale didn’t matter to
Rex and the buyer took his word for it, anxious to have something
that had belonged to his idol.

The house he was heading for
now was rumored to have been owned by 1930’s singer and movie star
Rudy Vallee. Had Rudy ever owned it? He knew he hadn’t, since he
had been the one to start the rumor. Rex didn’t even know if the
late Rudy Vallee had even been to Palm Springs. It didn’t matter
though; Rex bought a small autographed photo of Rudy Vallee on eBay
for eight dollars, picked up a cheap frame at Target over in
Cathedral City and put it on the mantle of the house’s fireplace.
Then he added fifty thousand to the asking price and told one of
the clerks in the title company office that he just listed Rudy
Vallee’s former house for sale.

He also mentioned the Rudy
Vallee house to Rosie, the manager at the Coachella Real Estate
office, he knew that she would spread that to all the other agents,
at the Starbucks and all her friends at the gym. Sure enough, about
three days after he “quietly” mentioned it to her, one of the
associates in his office asked him how he got so lucky with listing
celebrity homes. He smiled as he explained to the youngster who
Rudy Vallee was, and he realized his reputation in the office had
climbed another notch.

Rex made the left turn off
of Sunrise onto Granvia Valmonte as he headed towards the mountains
and Ruth Hardy Park. He loved the way the Mount San Jacinto rose
straight from the desert floor and he never failed to be impressed
by the mountains when he headed in this direction. He thought he
could see the sun’s reflection off the upper station of the Palm
Springs tram line, he had seen the light from here at night. Yes,
this was a great street in the older section, and there were some
really nice homes on this street, some of which he had sold, some
of which he would sell in the future.

He had a listing at the
corner of Calle Rolph and Valmonte, but the owners still lived in
the house and were hard to deal with, he’d had trouble selling that
one. Perhaps when they returned to Alberta for the summer he would
get in there and stage it for a quick sale while they were gone.
He’d made the bulk of his money selling vacant homes for absentee
owners; many of the homes were fully furnished including linens and
silverware.

Six months ago he sold a
house with all the furniture and a 1988 Lincoln Continental in the
garage to a couple moving to Palm Springs from Minnesota. When the
husband found out the car had only twelve thousand miles on it, it
clinched the deal. He probably should have set the asking price
higher, but who knew that the car would push the old man’s
button?

Rex rolled the big Jaguar
further up Valmonte, across Caballeros and gracefully eased the car
to the curb. There was plenty of space for parking, and he figured
he would have enough time to get the house ready before his
prospect arrived. This old lady was a bit strange; he hadn’t met
her yet which was unusual for one of his clients. Usually he spent
a lot of time talking to them to see what their interests were
before showing them a house. She called the main number in the
office earlier in the week, asked for the “mid-century specialist”
and the call was routed directly to his desk.

He hadn’t been there at the
time he was out showing someone else a property he had just listed
in the Deep Well area of Palm Springs. She had talked with Rosie,
the office manager, and when the message was relayed to him, the
word was that she was a recent widow and wanted to move to Palm
Springs to be closer to her sister who had bought a home from him
earlier. Now that she was alone, she wanted to be closer to her
only remaining relative. She was from somewhere out on the coast,
he didn’t remember exactly where. Apparently, she heard that he
sold a lot of celebrity homes and wanted to look at something that
had been owned by a thirties or forties movie star.