Scammed by Morgan St. James

Author:Morgan St. James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: humorous mystery series; amateur sleuths, mystery series with female sleuths
Publisher: Morgan St. James
Published: 2019-09-01T16:00:00+00:00

24

She looked at the anxious faces around the table and cleared her throat.

“As I’m sure Danny has told you, I’m proud to say I’m one of the most successful realtors in the Beverly Hills area. As such, it was easy for me to call some of my most knowledgeable contacts and ask innocent questions about the Shadys. The fact that I lost out on their listing when they sold the house on Canon didn’t hurt. It made me look like I still harbored a little bit of unresolved remorse. Particularly when I had lunch with Landon Hunt, the realtor who beat me out. He was only too happy to rub my nose in the lost listing and share details about them, particularly about Barbara. Landon and I have been friendly rivals for years, and I know how much he loves to gossip.”

The room was absolutely still as the others fixed on every word, waiting for the payoff. Occasionally, the silence was broken by one of Clarence’s snores, but other than that there wasn’t another sound. To her credit, Margaret played it for all it was worth. Among her other talents, it became clear that the woman had a knack for drama.

She inhaled deeply. “Danny tells me that all of you suspect she was a stereotypical Black Widow, so you know that one of her talents was getting wealthy old men to marry her and probably speeding their journey to the happy hunting ground earlier than anticipated. Of course, before that happened, she got them to leave her very generous amounts in their wills. She even bragged about that to my friend Sarah, when Sarah dared to ask her why a beautiful woman like her only seemed to marry old men.”

The Colonel said, “That’s all well and good, Maggie, but it’s also something we already know. I’m waiting for the earth-shattering revelations Danny referred to. Something so important it even caused you to be late tonight.”

Margaret said in a soothing voice, “Patience, my dear man. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed. This is my way. I start slow and build to a dramatic finish.” She took a sip of water and a last bite of sesame chicken.

“The good stuff is about to come.”

Kate interrupted. “I don’t want to steal your thunder but will speed it up a little. Thanks to one of my researchers and Danny’s FBI contacts, we already know about her originally being Barbara Overbeck from Poway. We also know that at one point she was known under the married name Briana Hanley and still has a bank account and safe deposit box maintained in San Francisco under that alias. The woman got around.”

“Good, good. That saves me a little time. Here’s something that you apparently might not know. Joseph Hanley was her fifth husband. As far as I can tell, she used a different first name each time, but always with the initial B. When he met her, the eighty-two-year-old Hanley was a grieving widower, his longtime wife having passed only a few months before after a courageous fight with brain cancer.

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