Chapter 1

"Damn it Kurt!" My soon-to-be ex-wife Kelly cried out. "I'm tired of this mess everywhere! I'm sick and tired of the crap and junk everywhere in this pig sty ... I'm just tired of this shit and I've had enough!" She then stomped out of the house that Sunday afternoon and didn't return home that night. Sometime the next day I'd discovered that she'd returned just briefly to pack up most of her clothes.

She'd left a note that she was staying with some friends for awhile 'to think' but she didn't say whom or even leave a phone number. The next time I heard anything from her was when the process server handed me the divorce notice. Ok then ... I guess that meant she was really fed up this time and wanting to get my complete and total attention!

Ok, there was too much crap in the house ... and I won't even begin to discuss all of the other stuff that filled the garage to overflowing. Most of it I just can't help! I'm an antique dealer by trade and renting extra storage space costs money. Yeah ... but upon reflection, it would have been a lot cheaper than divorce!

Kelly had blustered, complained and threatened before, and I probably should have taken it more seriously the fourth or fourteenth time that she'd complained. She wasn't a total neatnik, obsessed with immaculate cleanliness or a vast wide open apportionment of our residential spaces, but the endless boxes and piles of my projects and other things to be 'organized and sorted' all over the house had finally tread on her last and final nerve.

Honestly, I couldn't blame her too much. It wasn't like I hadn't been warned before. Mea culpa ... my bad, sorry babe ... the shit will go, but just come back home again ... please?

She didn't. She didn't even much want to talk about it even through her lawyer. She'd crossed that last final line in the sand and was now sticking to her guns. 'She still loved me ... but she just couldn't live this way any longer', or so the message from her on an 'I'm Sorry' greeting card said attached to the divorce petition paperwork that was all filled out ready for me to sign, assuming we wanted an uncontested divorce. I had different ideas on the matter but it does take two to tango, and regrets notwithstanding on at least my part I decided to let her go without a fight, and about six months later the divorce was finalized without a tremendous amount of rancor on either part.

The worst part of the divorce was the financial separation of assets. I wouldn't owe her alimony (hurray for Texas law), but we'd need to sell our north Austin suburban house to split the equity, which was significant, and I'd also need to liquidate my antique business so that we could split all of the rest of the community property in half. I'd started the business right after our marriage ten years ago and legally it was half hers. I had no way of getting the money to buy her out and after five months of trying (and failing) to find a buyer for the business I just gave up and sent nearly all of my inventory stock to an auction house for a relatively quick and mostly painless liquidation. I wished that the sale had earned a wee bit more but we were both tolerably satisfied with the final outcome.

Kelly had even briefly arrived during the final day of the auction to provide a little bit of moral support. She hugged me briefly and even held my hand for a few minutes while we were watching some of our collected assets go under the hammer for disposal. Our divorce was already more or less final by this point and we were just waiting upon the payment check from the auction house to finish the last financial split. She'd probably realized looking over the auction catalog that I'd held back a thing or two (closer actually to a few dozen) from the sale. I'd held back the contents of one smaller storage warehouse which had some rather nice semi-irreplaceable goodies that were technically part of my old business property but I just couldn't abide the thought of selling, especially for about a quarter to half of their real value. These were mostly old antique hand-crank phonograph players and my rather extensive (and space consuming) collection of vintage records and early music cylinders.

There was another slightly larger storage shed full of mostly crap that hadn't been sold yet either. Stuff too mundane for an auction house but slightly too valuable to just throw away. Actually I don't think Kelly knew about the existence of this particular pile of junk and to keep the waters placid I didn't bother to reminder her.

Since Kelly had taken the vast bulk of the other household items and virtually all of the furniture and home electronics she didn't begrudge my minor skimming from the business merchandise anyway. She'd rather liked the old mechanical music machines herself, and several from our collection had been over a hundred years old. I was considering specializing in this antique genre if and when I could afford to reopen another business. Worse case, I might end up having to work for an antique auction house like this one to get my finances straightened out enough to get back into the retail side of the business again later. I was already really hoping that it wouldn't come to that.

Our lawyers received the auction house check promptly the next week and together with the proceeds from the sale of our house we then divvied up the final remaining marital assets, and about a week later the divorce decree became final. That was the last time I saw Kelly face to face for a long time. I'd thought about phoning her to beg for a last minute reconciliation before the judge finalized the decree, but I didn't. While she appeared somewhat regretful at our last meeting together she had also made it very plain that she wanted to move along with her life. I think she was even dating already, and looking to the future ahead ... and not the past. The divorce finally became final and we both got on with our lives.

Life goes on, but without either my spouse or my old business, I was having a rather difficult time coping and moving myself into my own next phase of life. I was feeling more than a tad regretful and more than a bit wistful about my lost relationship. Not actually quite bitter, mind you ... but getting somewhat into that general vicinity and ballpark.

I sent out a boat load of resumes and for the next few months got back exactly 'zilch' for replies. I could live on my share of the asset split for quite awhile, but I'd already handed over most of that pile of jack to my stockbroker to invest. Morose as I was feeling, I knew that I'd need to feel the pinch of some real financial pressure or else I'd just sit around on my ass and brood, and probably drink way more beer than was good for me or my almost flat waistline.

So, I'd been staying in a small monthly no-lease rental apartment fine tuning and polishing my 'poor pitiful me' act and waiting for life to give me a kick in the pants into some sort of direction as a bit of a wake-up call, when one of my oldest and very best friends that I hadn't talked to since well before the divorce called me up out of the blue with a 'can't miss opportunity'.

"Kurt, how have you been lately? I'd been meaning to pop by your shop to visit and catch-up with things for ages but time just flew by on me! I went by there the other day and saw that it was vacant. Did you move? What's happening bro?"

"Had to close up shop, Gary. Kelly and I split up and it was part of the community property. Everything must go, and all that jazz. I shouldn't bitch ... it really could have been much, much worse. She didn't even try and take me to the cleaners and everything was pretty evenly split down the middle without too much unhappiness or debate. We haven't talked since the split but we're still friends on Facebook and she gives me regular status updates there, and that's better than most divorces go."

"There is that." Gary agreed. He'd been divorced himself twice now and his first wife had tried to take him totally to the cleaners, but fortunately had failed. The fact that Gary had photos and emails proving that his ex was cheating on him and also conspiring to fabricate false evidence of spousal abuse had allowed him to turn the tables on her in court. His second marriage a few years ago was something of a rebound affair that didn't last very long at all, but that split had been slightly more amicable. Oh, he claimed that he was still getting all of the ass that he could handle but as far as he was concerned he was done with that whole 'love and relationship' thing ... at least until the next pretty pair of legs walked past him.

"Still working for Austin PD?" I enquired. Gary had always wanted to be a cop, even as far back as early high school, and really had both the physical build and mental attitude for the job. Unfortunately he was quite without the usual mean bullying streak that a lot of law-enforcement types tend to have. In other words, he was a good cop where most of his peers were flat out assholes. Promotions had been slow and the last time Gary and I had really talked about his job a couple of years ago, he had been suspecting that there was something of a whisper campaign against him. Didn't uphold the Blue Code of Silence or something like that, as Gary had on several occasions reported several other officers to Internal Affairs for various instances of misconduct.

"Nope, got a job offer about a year ago to be the Assistant Chief for Ranger Heights Village, south of Austin. Heard of it? Just four traffic lights long on a winding county road in a little master-planned gated community of McMansions surrounded by hills. It was supposed to be the next real shit spot for elite Austin suburbia when built in the late 1980's but it just never got trendy and the recent housing crash nearly killed it. That's why I'm calling, old buddy! The house right next door to mine has gone into foreclosure and is now up for auction. No minimum bid, must go, as-is, etcetera! Word is the bank is in deep doo-doo and loaded with bad debt from tons of dodgy mortgages and it needs to sell this place fast to get desperately needed working capital! I figure you could get this place for about half or even a third of its last appraised value ... which due to the burst of the housing bubble is about half again less than what the place went for the last time it was sold. They're looking for a cash buyer and not another finance job – they need the dough yesterday. It's win-win buddy!"

"Wow, sounds fun ... and better than the apartment that I'm in now. A cash deal just might be do-able if I don't have to pull out all of the cash by tomorrow. I've still got my half of the old house's equity money and my split of the business liquidation from the divorce sitting in my brokerage account. It's been making me a little money on the stock market the last two months or so, but for the right sort of deal I could liquidate it. Can't do a penny over $200 kay tops though, and even that's pushing it. I've been thinking about restarting the antique business again soon anyway, but I don't know yet if it is going to be internet only and working out of the house, or if I'll open another retail place. Would the homeowners association give me any trouble either way?"

"That should be fine," Gary decided after a pause, "the auction for the property won't be for another three weeks still. The HOA and the Village Council ... which are pretty much the same set of folks, used to be a lot more snooty and high-brow, but right now the entire village is at about an overall forty percent vacancy rate and ownerless houses don't help pay the city taxes! I know the Mayor and a couple of the Village Council enough to beg a favor, or get one repaid, and I'll make sure an exemption for a mail-order business is specifically granted in the HOA agreement. I think the last guy who owned that house ran a business out of it too, so that shouldn't be a problem. Otherwise, yeah, those clowns can be bastards if you cross one of their little written or unwritten rules!"

"Ok then ... no promises, but I'll at least take a look at the place. It's next door to yours you said? At least then I'll have at least one non-asshole for a neighbor and we can play touch football on our lawns! When can I look at it with you?"

"We can do it Saturday morning, anytime after 10 o'clock. The bank is holding a public open house there and if it's anything like the last one they held a few weeks ago there won't be much interest. Too many nicer places much closer to town or fancier shopping opportunities. The couple of new big local strip mall centers near us on I-35 just never caught on too much either and half of the commercial space there is still unleased as well. I think it was because of the high crime rate in the area. The County Sheriff's department thinks the problem is mostly that big group of Section Eight apartment houses almost next door towards us on the county road that is mostly responsible. Too many armed robberies, vagrancy, public drug use, drinking ... you name it. Welfare queens driving Lexus's and shoplifting anything not nailed down while their baby daddies are plying their trade at drug dealing and armed robbery. It's been a mess! The Sheriff's office has a fast response task force in the area now but I haven't seen any signs of progress myself yet! If you're willing to give it a try, the property management firm is probably offering some really reduced leases, if you want to open for retail again sometime it's about five minutes from home."

"This may seem a bit harsh, however, it is my belief that anyone who uses the phrase 'My babies' mamma ... or daddy' should be immediately euthanized, but if I'm going to reopen another antique show the rent's gotta be cheap. Being right off of I-35 would be a big plus for getting customers from San Antonio too, or even Houston. It's a thought ... and not out of the realm of impossibility either. Cheap and I are very close old bosom buddies and I've got a handgun I can keep under the counter for dealing with the rabid animal population if they try and get too upclose and personal!"

Actually, I was already a tad unhappy about having any sort of business within staggering range of a group of subsidized housing complexes. Section 8 is the second lowest rung on the ladder (just above homeless). Since most of the lazy and/or criminal elements in our society will fall down the ladder, eventually they'll end up in Section 8. Some will choose to pull themselves back up and those are the sorts of folk worthy of a helping hand up ... but far too many won't. We'd received our share of Katrina refugees a few years ago and while our crime rate didn't sudden skyrocket like Houston's, things did get noticeably worse for awhile before gradually improving.

"Hey, don't call them thieves!" Gary laughed. The new politically correct term is 'unlicensed invasive extrajudicial wealth redistributors', or 'freelance wealth redistribution specialist'. Just like calling them murderers is a very hateful and hurtful word too, us professionals in law enforcement prefer to call them 'metabolic impediment expeditors'".

For the next twenty minutes we caught up a bit on some old and not so past times and swapped rumors, innuendo and hearsay about several other old school friends from high school and college. We'd played football together for both schools and had a few isolated tales worth remembering of past glory but neither of us had a prayer of becoming professional, nor did we particularly have any regrets ... well about our past school days of glory anyway!

At first glance, I was none too impressed with the house and I could see why it had remained vacant for over three years. Everywhere I looked I saw damage that needed repairing or outright replacing! It was an unimpressive appearing 'A'-frame all-timber house built in the style of a McMansion crossed with a mountain hunting lodge, with an enormous sunken downstairs garage that might have been even bigger than the entire main first floor above. The main floor was mostly for fun and show with an extremely large bar, living room and dining area, an entertainment room that once might have been a home theater and a rear game room. On a slight wing to the right was the kitchen ... or rather a bombed out wreck of where one ought to have been at one time.

Upstairs on the smaller second floor were several bedrooms and a master bath, then above it at the apex of the 'A' was a tiny third floor study or home office and a smaller master bedroom & bath. The main and second floors sported a pair of exterior walk around wooden decks partially surrounding the house on its front street side and wrapped around to the right, eastern side of the house.

The roof itself was covered in some weird black ceramic/rubber composite that allegedly (according to the banks rather flamboyant and perhaps overly optimistic assessment of the property was state-of-the-art for both collecting solar panel energy and also providing 'all-natural earth-friendly' hot water heating and cooling. It didn't look too ugly I supposed, but it wouldn't have my first preference for how to blend into with the neighbors. No one, the bank foreclosure agents included, had any idea if this rather complicated alternative energy system actually worked, especially now that the house had been vacant for about three years and extremely thoroughly looted and vandalized. A lot of weasel words were offered and vague assurances that by no means should be confused with actual promises were given and I decided to just assume that nothing worked and I would need to make more conventional alternative arrangements.

From the street view, the first overwhelming impression was that the overall architectural design was extremely old Norse or medieval Anglo-Saxon. Very Tolkien inspired actually, right out of Lord of the Rings, especially in sort of Riders of Rohan sort of way. There was even a mirrored pair of wooden horse heads crowning the very front peak of the timber A-frame! The sales listing said that the house was 4,900 square feet but when I examined the math a little closer I found that a lot of this area was for the garage basement alone, where the former owner had expanded and built out his home recording studio. The actual house upstairs was much less remarkable. Frankly the vast majority of the house's valuation was sheer physical real estate value alone, with the actual value of the improved property, i.e. the house itself being largely negligible. If the house hadn't looked like it had been in a war zone, it might have been a fancy bit of real estate once upon a time ... but not at the moment.

There was virtually no back yard space! The rear property line included all of a rather steep hill, but there seemed to be fuck-all that anyone could do with that bit of property. The main ground level and even the second floor abutting directly against the hillside, and what little there was left appeared to be nearly vertical terrain unsuited even for walking let alone any back yard amenities! The left side of the house abutted nearly right upon a low stone fence marking the property line and on the right side there was a sloping ground level wooden deck with a very small side yard. As for the front of house, nearly all of the frontage was taken up by the sloping driveway that descended towards a garage which was big enough to load or unload a semi-truck and there was just a small bit of grass and rocky verge to its right.

Nope, even Garry's front yard to the left of mine was scarcely larger and it possessed enough loose gravel and limestone to make even the thought of touch football cringe worthy. No thanks ... my knees and ankles still hurt enough in cold wet weather as it was!

Physically, the location was alright, being just about in the center of a small gated cul-de-sac of eight fairly similar two story houses nestled against a group of small hills that more or less formed something of a canyon off of the twisting main country road. The one behind 'my' house was the largest of the three hills and as I mentioned it entirely abutted right up against the very rear of the house. The subdivision and the small incorporated village it resided in were considered 'upscale' and still very desirable ... but not elite, and it was only a very short commute east along the local county road to hit I-35, just south of Austin.

The garage kept drawing most of my attention, mostly because it seemed to display the worst damage in the entire house, appearing as if it had been blow up halfway to bits, with artillery or bomb sized craters everywhere I looked! I did have a storage warehouse of things that needed storing for both my own collections and for restarting my business. To say that the garage was by far the largest set of rooms in the entire house would be something of an understatement. It was completely sunken underneath the entire length of the house and providing its foundation via a pair of columns of concrete and steel pillars. This entire basement area was massively huge and cavernous and had been subdivided into three rooms, with the largest one divided about in half with a soundproof glass partition that ran east-west across most of the room, dividing the space nearly in half.

This was where the record mogul had built his home recording studio but vandals had smashed it all up long ago, but the framework was still there. Down here in the two basement rooms and the main garage area was where the spree of vandalized damage seemed to be the very worst. The concrete walls and flooring showed the marks of picks, jackhammers and even explosives nearly everywhere. In places, especially to the rear of the basement, the cement had been penetrated down to foundation level or even beyond, down into the raw limestone below it. No, there didn't seem to be any secret stashes down here, now or ever! Nothing obvious anyway to my casual inspection.

In the left rear corner of the basement/garage there was an elevator leading up to the main floor but there were no stairs down here. The elevator was trashed out too, with the doors pretty much ripped right out and the metal walls cut up into shreds. Even with no electrical power I was pretty sure that this elevator had made its last trip up and down and would need to be completely replaced.

The way the driveway sloped down into the garage basement made me wonder about the likelihood of drainage problems during rain storms, but this large storage area was perfect for a shameless hoarder and antique collector like me! There was a large iron covered drainage ditch just outside the heavy garage door to collect and carry off all of the rainwater flowing down the sloped concrete driveway, and I looked hard inside for old traces of flood water damage but didn't find any. I didn't care too much about the physical excavation damage to the walls and floors. I thought I could just slap some fresh concrete into the worst of the pits and easily level them off again. I just needed a reasonably dry space to stash old records and other antiques.

Otherwise the only access to the main house from the basement and garage was up the long slope of the sunken driveway and then around and back up the pathway to the house on the right to the front porch and the front door. There was no back door; the only other way into the house was a pair of French doors on the south side of the kitchen extension, right next to the dining room on the main level that looked out over the ground decking, the built in hot tub, and then a small kidney shaped swimming pool or water garden pond that filled up most of the rest of this small side yard. There was too much old debris filling it to tell just quite what it had once been.

This route seemed to be the primary entrance used by the successions of treasure hunters and vandals, with the door frames showing significant damage as if they'd been kicked in repeatedly. I liked the side view, but from a security aspect these doors were trouble still waiting to happen.

On the face of it, the property had very little curb appeal for the average homeowner, but it might be just right for an odd sort of fellow like myself!