Page 23 of Shakedown in Savannah

The dog, no longer afraid, trotted after him, eager for more treats.

“That is cool,” Carlita said. “A robot in real estate.”

“We’ve been working on teaching him new tricks for a while now. I recently added the pet treats. Clients stop by with their pets just to get a treat.”

Rambo spotted Annie behind the desk and trotted over.

“There’s my buddy.” She fluffed his ears. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

“We’ve been busy,” Carlita said. “Do you have a minute?”

“Of course. Have a seat.”

Carlita settled into an empty chair. “I have a smallish problem.”

“Smallish?” Annie laughed. “When have you ever had smallish problems?”

“You’re right. Let me rephrase my statement. I might have a potentially biggish problem.” Without going into too much detail, Carlita outlined her current dilemma.

“How awful.”

“I need to do my due diligence first, but if true, it appears I might owe this Danny Lombardo guy a hefty chunk of change.”

“You said the property is here in Savannah?”

“Yep.” Carlita rattled off the address. “8807 Morton Street.”

“Let’s see what we have.” Annie got to work, logging onto the local real estate website. With a few clicks, she announced she had tracked down the property. “This is interesting.”

“Let me guess. The men lied. The taxes haven’t been paid and the city now owns the property.”

“No. The taxes have been paid. I’ve been a real estate agent for many years, but I have to be honest. I’ve only seen this a couple of times before,” Annie said.

Chapter 8

“Only seen what a couple of times before?”

Annie motioned for Carlita to come around to the other side of the desk. “This. The tax amounts were pretty consistent until this date.”

Carlita slid her reading glasses on, her heart skipping a beat when she read the date. “These are the taxes paid the last year that Vinnie was alive.”

“After his death, you can see they went down. Way down.”

“Why do you think this is?”

Annie rattled off several scenarios. “It could be as simple as changing the zoning. Maybe it was moved from commercial zoning to vacant land. Was your first husband savvy as far as taxes and property ownership was concerned?”

Carlita thought about it. “He seemed to be pretty proficient at buying properties and not telling me about them. I can tell you he would try to pay as little as possible. He wasn’t a huge fan of the government.”

“Which is the case for at least half the people who live in this country,” Annie joked. “How much is this lender saying he owed in taxes?”

“A hundred thousand dollars. The taxes are something I need to check out. How much has this ‘lender’ paid in taxes since Vinnie’s death?”

Annie grabbed her calculator and calculated it out. “If Vinnie only paid two hundred and fifty thousand for the property, he got a pretty good deal, even back a few years ago. Although it’s a smaller square footage property. Maybe it wasn’t far off. Considering it’s more than property taxes, added up it might be in line with the hundred thousand.”

“So, in your professional opinion, the five hundred thousand plus the hundred for the taxes could be close to accurate,” Carlita summarized.

“Possibly. How many payments did Vinnie make to this lender?”

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