Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (15 page)

Not wanting to pry, I turned my gaze out to the expansive lawn, recognizing the familiar fountain that served as its centerpiece. When I canoed past here on the river, as I did frequently, the figurine in the fountain always looked to me like some sort of sea serpent. From here, however, I realized it was a mermaid, her hair thrown back, water flowing from a giant conch shell she cradled in her arms. Though the flamboyant sculpture wasn’t unattractive, it didn’t exactly fit in with these elegant and moneyed surroundings.

“I see you’re looking at Bertha,” Kirby said, reentering the room. Carrying a small glass jar, he strode over to join me at the window.

“Bertha?”

“The mermaid. At least that’s the name I gave her. My dad’s doing.”

“She’s interesting,” I said diplomatically.

“She’s ludicrous,” he replied. “But she has great sentimental value. That fountain used to be in a waterfront park in Baltimore, the park where my father proposed to my mother. When he heard they were tearing down the park to expand the inner harbor, he bought it and had it installed here.”

“What a sweet story,” I said, gazing out at the sculpture. “Very romantic.”

I could feel Kirby looking at me, and I was suddenly uncomfortable with his proximity—not that it was inappropriate, just that he was close enough for me to smell the vague scent of his cologne. I took a small step away from him, but before I could change the subject and ask about the nickels, he gave a small gasp.

“The canoe!” he said. “I knew I recognized you! From the canoe!”

I looked at him, and he was smiling widely, pointing out the window.

“You go past here all the time,” he said. “I watch you while I’m at my desk.”

“You said ‘from a distance,’” I replied, nodding. “Sorry I didn’t make the connection for you. I never thought of that.”

He went to the couch and sat, leaning back happily.

“You’re the canoe lady,” he said, grinning. “I’m so glad I figured that out. It was driving me crazy.”

I returned to my chair, also smiling.

“I even had a bet about you with my girlfriend one time,” he continued. “She made me watch your rowing technique so that I could see what proper paddling form looks like. She said I could learn to be that good, too. I told her not a chance, that you were probably part Indian, that it was no doubt in your blood.”

I sat back, trying not to look befuddled. Here I thought he’d been flirting with me, when all along he had a girlfriend! Boy, was I out of practice for interpreting male-female interplay.

“Sorry, no Indian blood here,” I said lamely.

“Are you sure? ’Cause you know, you have great cheekbones. Out there on the river, if you took your hair down, you’d look just like Pocahontas. You seem to be a natural at canoeing.”

I shrugged. “My husband made me take a class before our first white-water trip. Since then I guess I’ve gotten good at it because I do it so much. Canoeing is a very absorbing hobby for me.”

He studied me for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Husband?” he said finally, sounding disappointed. “You’re married?”

“Well, late husband,” I corrected, confused. Was this man flirting with me or not? It didn’t matter one way or the other, but it still felt odd to be so unsure of myself. “Bryan passed away three years ago.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I had no idea.”

“That was before I moved here.”

“Was he ill?”

“No,” I said. “He died in a boating accident, actually. Killed by a drunk driver in a speedboat.”

“Wow,” Kirby said slowly. “How horrible for you.”

“It’s been tough,” I said. “But time helps. And prayer.”

He ran a hand through his hair.

“You probably know my mother died a couple of months ago,” he said. “I mean, I wouldn’t compare losing a parent to losing a spouse, but it has been awfully hard.”

“You were close?” I asked gently, remembering my own grief that first year and how much I appreciated it whenever anyone gave me a chance to talk about it.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “My mom was a great lady. Just the best. When we found out she had cancer, I took a leave of absence from the company and moved back home to help out. But it was only a matter of time. We all knew she wasn’t going to make it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know the pain of loss very well.”

“I’m sure you do.”

He looked at me, and in that instant we seemed to form a sort of connection. He blinked and shook his head.

“But enough of that,” he said. Then he attempted a smile and held up the jar. “How ’bout we take a look at these nickels and figure out just what on earth is going on here?”

Eighteen

Kirby opened the jar and dumped it out onto a marble-topped coffee table. The contents formed a small mound of buttons, badges, coins, and wooden nickels.

“I haven’t looked at this stuff in years,” he said, pulling a small bronze medal from the pile. “I got this for swimming the hundred meter at summer camp.”

While he picked through the pile and strolled down memory lane, I pulled out all of the wooden nickels. There were only five, and though they looked old, the writing and images on them were still legible. On the front of each one was either a company logo, a buffalo, or an Indian head, with the words “Wooden Nickel” or the saying “Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels.” On the back of each was the name of some company or organization, a phone number, and either a slogan or a cash value. There was one from the “All Weather Wig Company” worth two dollars toward the purchase of a wig. Another advertised the 1980 convention of the Garden State Numismatic Association. I doubted any of them had any inherent value, though I wondered aloud how we could find out if old wooden nickels carried collectors’ prices, like coins or stamps.

“I’m sure they do,” Kirby said. “But the one you’re talking about wouldn’t have been old.”

“How do you know?”

“You said it had a website printed on it.”

“Oh, of course,” I replied, feeling stupid. “It would have to be fairly new. I didn’t realize they even made wooden nickels any more.”

“Yeah, I see them once in a while. Usually for a bar or something. You bring in the wooden nickel, and you get a free drink. Or some club or group, trying to get you to join.”

“So where do you think the wooden nickel your mother had could’ve come from?”

Kirby described the final months of his mother’s life, from her initial diagnosis of ovarian cancer last Christmas to her death in August. According to him, she had been too ill to go anywhere but the hospital and back. We thought about that, finally deciding we needed a better idea of the age of the blue blazer. Who knows how long the nickel had been in that pocket? Although Advancing Attire sent all of our finer donations to the dry cleaners, it was
possible that the coin had slipped by unnoticed. I sure hadn’t felt or seen it when I was helping Shayna pick out her clothes. And even she hadn’t noticed it for a while, since it was hidden in the small inner front pocket.

Kirby used the phone on the desk to call the woman who had been his mother’s personal assistant for the last five years. After I described the jacket, the woman felt fairly certain that she remembered it, and that it had been purchased about two years ago at a boutique in Baltimore. But she didn’t know a thing about a wooden nickel or buried treasure.

Kirby’s face was disappointed as he hung up the phone.

“If she didn’t know anything about it, I don’t know who else would.”

“How about your father?”

“My father?” he asked sarcastically. “Once Mom was diagnosed, my father found it suddenly necessary to work fifteen-hour days and travel for weeks at a time. I doubt he saw enough of my mother to know anything other than the fact that she was dying.”

Obviously, I realized, there were some unresolved issues here—issues I had no need to become involved in.

“In any event,” I said gently, “if you speak with him, could you ask?”

“Sure. No problem.”

Kirby began putting the items back into the jar one by one. It seemed like a good time to depart, so I thanked him for his help and gave him my card, jotting my home number on the back.

“The J.O.S.H.U.A. Foundation?” he said, reading the card. “What’s that name stand for?”

“I’m not sure,” I hedged. “To me, it’s just always been the J.O.S.H.U.A. Foundation.”

I didn’t add that once upon a time I had asked my boss the same question—and had been told that only he was privy to that information.

“Is the clothing place a branch of that?”

“No, Advancing Attire is purely a volunteer effort I do on the side,” I said. “Work for the foundation is my regular job, but the card lists my home office phone and fax and e-mail and all of that, so you can reach me if you hear anything more.”

He walked me to the door, tucking the card in his front pocket.

“I will figure this out and call you,” he said. “No reason you should have to waste your time digging around about some wooden nickel.”

“What about
your
time?” I asked. “It looks like you have a lot on your plate already.”

“Listen,” he said, putting a hand on my elbow, “if we’re going to be friends, then the first thing you need to know about me is that I always use any possible excuse I can find to take a break from things around here.”

Nineteen

I drove straight home, suddenly famished. I’d had an early breakfast, and now the clock was creeping toward afternoon. Sal was glad to see me, as usual, and after I gave her a treat and let her out, I turned my attention toward making a quick meal. There wasn’t a lot of food in the house, mainly because I hadn’t expected to be here this week. I found a can of tuna, though, and some limp lettuce, and as I fixed a light lunch I checked my messages.

The first call had come just after noon from Barbara Hightower. She wanted me to know that the tire iron in Shayna’s trunk had come back covered with Shayna’s fingerprints and no one else’s. Shayna had been formally charged with first-degree murder.

I listened to the message again and absorbed the information, heart pounding. The poor kid!

Next, I found that Tom had called twice, the first time leaving just a quick hello, the second time sounding a bit concerned.

“Come on, Callie, answer the phone,” he said. “I’m starting to wonder if something’s wrong there.”

I held the lettuce under the faucet, wishing there was some way for me to reach him.

“Here’s what I want you to do,” he continued. “Call my voice mail and let me know what would be a good time for me to call you. I don’t mean to be so much trouble; it’s just that they won’t let me keep my cell phone on in intensive care.”

Intensive care?

“My mom had a stroke, a really bad one. Right now it’s still kind of touch and go. But I want to talk to you. I need to talk to you. Call me.”

Then the line went dead.

I turned off the machine and sat on the stool beside the counter. His mom had a stroke! No wonder he had raced off to Louisiana like that. I was deeply ashamed of how self-centered I had been in all of this. Here I had been feeling ignored and rejected and sorry for myself, when all along Tom had been dealing with a family tragedy! I felt very sad.

Immediately, I closed my eyes and prayed for Tom and for his mother. I didn’t know much about his family situation—whether he had aunts and uncles to help share the load—or even if his dad was still around. But whatever the circumstances, I asked the Lord to put a loving hand over all of them, to give wisdom to the doctors, to give healing to Tom’s mother.

Once my prayer was done, I finished making my lunch and then sat and ate at the table, looking absently out of the window at my beautiful wooded yard. Sal was at the edge of her little fenced-in area, chewing away on her favorite toy. I thought about my own parents over in Virginia, both still in good health, thankfully. Their biggest problem these days seemed to be worrying about me and the isolated life I had created for myself
here. But physically, they were both fine. I couldn’t imagine either one of them rendered incapacitated by a stroke.

After eating, I reached for the phone and called Tom’s voice mail, telling him how sorry I was to hear about his mom. I said that I was heading out in just a while but that I would make a point to return to my house by 8
P.M.
I would also leave my cell phone on, in case he wanted to call me on that.