Maggie shooed us into the living room. As with the exterior of the house, one could see that great effort had been made to transform substandard housing into a warm and inviting home. An Oriental carpet, perhaps once worth thousands, now faded and threadbare in places. Jewel-toned pillows adorned an antique sofa and chair set, their upholstery patterns rubbed clean at the edges, their wood trim smooth with wear and shiny with polish.

Unlike at Evelyn’s house, these walls bore no artwork. Instead, they were decorated with photographs. Picture frames were everywhere, covering the walls, the end tables, the fireplace mantel, frames of every description, from dime-store plastic to contemporary wood to silver antiques. A lifetime of memories.

“Coffee for Evie,” Maggie said. “And you, dear? Coffee? Tea? Cold drink?”

“Coffee’s fine, thank you,” I said. “Cream or milk, please, whichever you have on hand.”

“How polite. Evie, are you taking notes?”

Evelyn opened her mouth, but Maggie vanished before she could respond. I continued to look at the pictures, then zeroed in on an old one propped next to the telephone. In it, two young women grinned before Mount Rushmore. Maggie and Frances. I could tell by the smiles, which hadn’t changed in the forty-plus years since the photo had been snapped. Age had favored Frances best. In the old picture, she was severe looking, her features too strong for her youthful face. And Maggie? She’d been jaw-droppingly gorgeous, with blond curls, dimples, flawless skin and a figure that could have body-doubled for Marilyn Monroe.

“A knockout, wasn’t she?” Frances said. “Of course, she still is.”

“Nice save, darling,” Maggie said as she pushed through the kitchen door. “Time has not been kind to this old broad, but it got me what I wanted.”

“An early and comfortable retirement,” Frances said. “We didn’t make a fortune, but we did well enough.”

Maggie grinned wickedly and slid her fingers down Frances’s arm. “That’s not what I meant.”

Frances blushed and dropped her eyes like a sixteen-year-old, then quickly grabbed two coffee cups from the tray Maggie had laid on the side table. She leaned forward to hand me one.

“Has Evie told you what we did in the old days?” Frances asked.

I shook my head.

Maggie held up a hand, motioning for Frances to let her explain. “A variation on the oldest and best female confidence scheme in the books. First, you find a lonely rich man…and believe me, all rich men are lonely. Then you send in someone who looks like that.” She pointed to her image in the old photo. “She wrangles a private invitation back to his house, and makes sure the doors are left unlocked behind her. While she’s busy cooing over cocktails, in comes her partner and cleans the place out. Frances could pick a mansion clean in thirty minutes.”

Frances grinned. “And Maggie could tease for thirty-five, so it worked out fine.”