Sheri and the Scam

Chapter 2: the scheme

The only relatives that I knew we had were a couple of distant cousins on Mum's side - she had long ago lost contact with them and had no interest in finding them - and a great aunt on my father's side. The aunt was Dad's late father's elder sister and he hadn't seen her for over twenty years. Occasionally he would say something like, "I must try to get in touch with Auntie Hilda one of these days," but made no real effort to do so.

Well, it seemed that Aunt Hilda, who had never married, had become a wealthy woman; she was now in her seventies and her health was deteriorating. Innsen was her personal lawyer and she had given him the task of finding her nephew (and only known relative) Jonas Romley, to see if he had any daughters.

The lawyer said that Aunt Hilda described herself as a "self-made woman who had succeeded against the odds, in the man's world of property development."

She wanted to leave her wealth to a female relative (or relatives) to help them succeed in a similar manner. However, this person had to be a blood relative, therefore Mum didn't qualify.

There wasn't anyone else . . . so here comes the devious scheme - me.

Now at the age of eighteen, my brother Hector was over six feet tall and well-built - he was right into sports. My other brother, Jerry, was a big lump, already taller than me and frankly of rather rugged appearance. Whereas in my case, it seemed that I had followed my mother's genes, for I was of modest height and of slender build and, I have to admit it, had rather feminine-looking facial features. Shit!

So I was going to become the female blood relative. They actually asked me if I would do it, I was given the choice.

Yeah, right. Some choice.

Innsen didn't really know the value of Aunt Hilda's estate, but guessed that it could be worth over twenty million dollars. What sort of arsehole would I be if I didn't give us a shot at those sort of bucks? Hell, I would resent myself as well. Okay, I'm in.

The plotters had considered other alternatives, such as bringing in an outsider - too risky, or my mother (at the age of forty-two????) having another baby - too risky and uncertain.

Innsen warned us that Aunt Hilda was pretty sharp, she wouldn't be easy to fool. He thought that she might insist on a DNA test, but he was confident that he could get the lab to simply report that there was a relationship between the two samples without any reference to other matters like gender.

Innsen also believed that there was no chance that Aunt Hilda would change her mind and be prepared to leave her money to a male relative - "men get it easy, women have to do it hard", he quoted her.

Thus, the bottom line was that I had to become a convincing enough girl to satisfy my great aunt that I was a female blood relative. Then Innsen could draw up the Will with me, Sheridan Romley, as the sole heir without any reference to my gender; all perfectly legal, no one else need know of Aunt's desire to leave her money to a female relative.

By the way, don't think our Mr Innsen was doing all this out of the kindness of his heart. No way, he was up for twenty percent of the estate if we pulled it off. He had originally wanted fifty, but settled for twenty. My parents were just as sharp as he was at this sort of stuff.