Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 03 - In Good Faith by Catharine Bramkamp Read Free Book Online

find out on an Internet posting or read about it in the paper. Our office manager Patricia lived for these kinds of incidents, she would tell him and show him photos if she could find them.  
    I wrenched my attention from the lack of interested bystanders and forced myself to look at him. “Someone hacked her up.” 
    “Why?”  He barely got the word out. I understood his revulsion. I was still reeling from my own.  
    “I didn’t know her .” I finally said, a lame answer.
    “ I did.”  He closed his eyes and sagged back into the chair, but he made no move to go upstairs. I was relieved.
    The police took care of the – pieces - and I moved Ben from the Eclectic Living Room into the Spacious Gourmet Kitchen with Double Convection Oven and Wolf Gas Range to prevent him from seeing the grisly procession down the stairs and out the front door. There were still no reporters. And no neighbors. Maybe using sirens to attract buyers wasn’t such a great idea after all.
    Did the police load her into one big bag or a collection of small bags?  This is why we weren’t watching.
    When the front door opened, I could hear the conversations from the gathering of now interested neighbors outside. Ah, there they were. Perhaps there was media as well, which was not good. I wasn’t going to say anything.
    I heard my looky-loos  holding court out on the driveway explaining their version of events in loud, and impressively authoritative, tones.
    “We were just in there, we walked right in. Didn’t look as if anyone broke in. Maybe it was the Real Estate agent. You can’t trust them, you know. Six percent, how do they get away with that kind of money?”
    “ Thanks very much.” I said under my breath.
    “ The carpets are lovely.” The wife chimed in.
    “Those are the McMurrys.” Ben cocked his head and listened to the running patter outside.  “He hasn’t changed. Thinks he’s an expert on everything and loves to regale anyone unfortunate enough to be caught outside, with details of his latest discovery.  When we moved in, he came right over, pointing out every flaw in our new house, because he watched it being built.”
    “Great, I’ll have to disclose about the neighbor.”
    “No, he’ll lay pretty low until the house is sold.”
    “How can you be sure?”
    “All these homes were sold in the week we moved in, it was during one of the booms.”
    “You all bought high.”
    He nodded .  “That was eleven years ago. He won’t want to spook the market right now. He wants you to get top dollar to keep his own value up. He’ll behave.”
    “Let’s hope so .” But I wasn’t too sure about the McMurrys.
    By two thirty we were asked to vacate the premises. I failed to point out the lock box on the faucet bib to the nice policeman, Robert. A small oversight on my part.  
    It was the shortest Open House I ever held, and the longest.  Ben said nothing about the state of the house, that it was still choked with crap. I was sure that the bedroom downstairs and the second bedroom upstairs were packed with even more stuff. This was the sloppiest Open House I ever held. It was embarrassing, but I couldn’t go about cleaning right now.
    I checked my phone on my way out.  I missed my grandmother’s call. I always call her at 2:00 on Sunday. It was a great time to chat, either to fill in a long Sunday afternoon  or to while away an open house time.
    What exactly was I going to tell my grandmother when she asked about my day?
     
    The coverage in Monday’s paper was more discrete than I would have given the fourth estate credit for, ever.  The reporter had not been allowed in Beverley’s house.  The neighbors claimed they heard nothing, saw nothing. She was a quiet neighbor. The article devoted most of the column space to what Beverley had contributed to the community. The President/CEO of the Homeless Prevention League as well as two staff members of United Way were quoted. Her terrible accident was only