“It will get ugly,” Harrison warned. “She will rally your family against you. She will smear your name.”
“My name is already smeared,” I replied, thinking of the fake gum story on Facebook. “I want the property back.”
Two days later, my phone blew up. Beatrice had received the legal notice taped to her front door. She called me twenty-two times. She called our mother, screaming that I was throwing her and the girls onto the streets over a “simple haircut misunderstanding.”
My mother called me, weeping. “Arthur, please. She made a mistake. But making her homeless? You are destroying this family!”
“She destroyed it when she laid hands on my child, Mom. The door is locked. Do not ask me to open it again.” I hung up.
I thought the eviction notice would paralyze Beatrice. I underestimated her greed.
Later that evening, an old friend from high school who lived a few houses down from Elm Street sent me a text message. It was a screenshot of a private local real estate group on Facebook.
My breath caught in my throat.
It was a listing for the Elm Street house. Beatrice was advertising it as a “Rent-to-Own” opportunity. She was asking for a $15,000 non-refundable cash deposit to secure the lease, claiming she was the owner relocating for work. She was trying to scam an innocent family out of their life savings and flee before the sheriff came to lock her out.
And the post said she was hosting an open house barbecue that very Saturday to “meet potential buyers.”
I forwarded the screenshot to Harrison.
“Well,” Harrison texted back three minutes later. “That’s felony fraud. Shall we attend the barbecue?”
Saturday afternoon was sweltering. The smell of charred meat and expensive sunscreen hung in the air over the manicured lawn of the Elm Street house. Beatrice had pulled out all the stops. String lights were hung across the patio. A catered spread was laid out. Half of our extended family was there, sipping margaritas, completely unaware that the ground beneath them was legally collapsing.
I parked half a block away. In the passenger seat sat Harrison Walker, looking delightfully out of place in a crisp navy suit.
In the backseat were two uniformed police officers I had requested for a civil standby, given the potential for fraud and violence.
“Ready?” Harrison asked, adjusting his briefcase.
“Let’s burn it down,” I said.
We walked up the driveway just as Beatrice was standing near the grill, holding a glass of wine and laughing with a young, nervous-looking couple. The couple was holding a checkbook. My stomach churned. She was actually doing it. She was closing the scam.
When the heavy wooden gate swung open and I stepped into the backyard, the music seemed to stop. The chatter died instantly. My mother, sitting in a lawn chair, dropped her paper plate.
