Found Money (11 page)

On Sunday morning Amy called Ryan Duffy again. An elderly-sounding woman answered, his mother. Amy hadn’t realized that the doctor she had found so interesting had formally moved in with his mother, but she quickly cut him some slack. She knew better than anyone what a divorce could do for your living arrangements.

“He’s not here,” said Mrs. Duffy.

“Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“He had to go out of town on business. Can I take a message?”

“I can call again. You think he’ll be back tomorrow?”

“Probably not. He called me from the Denver airport last night and said he’d be away for a few days. Are you a friend of his?”

“Yes, sort of. Thank you for your time, ma’am. I’ll check back later.” She hung up before the next question.

Amy sat on the edge of her bed, her thoughts churning in her head. It was a bit unnerving to hear Jeanette Duffy’s voice, the voice of the widow. It was Jeanette’s Crock-Pot, after all, that had given Amy her first link to the Duffy family. In that light, it seemed interesting now that Ryan had been so quick to dismiss the possibility of his mother’s involvement—his off-the-cuff comment that his
father but definitely not his mother would be the type to give away money to strangers. And now the phone call. Evasive, at best.

Amy hurried to the closet and dug out her tennis shoes. If Mrs. Duffy was lying and Ryan was still at home, she had to talk to him. If he was really out of town, this was her chance to talk directly to Jeanette Duffy.

It was time for another visit to Piedmont Springs.

The temperature rose as morning turned to afternoon and the mountains gave way to the eastern plains. Five hours on the highway had brought Amy down from an elevation of 5,400 feet to just over 3,000. The typical July humidity and scattered afternoon thunderclouds marked her entry into Prowers County.

Amy knew the way to the Duffy house from her earlier trip, when she had scouted out the family in advance of her meeting with Ryan. Her second trip to Piedmont Springs in a week had her somewhat concerned about her old truck. So long as she traveled by day, however, she felt safe.

She reached the Duffy residence around two o’clock. The Jeep Cherokee she’d seen in the driveway last time was nowhere to be seen. Maybe Ryan really was gone. Another car was in its place, a white Buick. Amy parked right behind it. She drew a deep breath and headed up the walkway toward the front door.

Wind chimes tinkled in the lazy breeze as she climbed the porch steps and knocked lightly. The screen door was locked with a metal latch. The heavy wood door behind it was wide open for ventilation. Through the screen, Amy could see across the living room, almost to the kitchen. Her palms
began to sweat as she waited for a response. She had spent the last five hours in the truck rehearsing exactly what she would say—Plan A and Plan B, depending on whether Ryan or his mother came to the door.

Amy was about to knock again when she heard footsteps from inside the house. Actually, it was more of a shuffling sound. Slowly, a large woman came into view. As she crossed the living room, it was clear she was pregnant. Very pregnant.

“Can I help you?” she asked, still shuffling forward.

Amy smiled. She had this notion in her mind that people in small towns always smiled. It was a nervous smile, however, as this woman’s voice didn’t match the voice on the phone. Amy had no Plan C.

“I—uh. Is Ryan here?”

She stopped on the other side of the screen door and caught her breath. “No.”

“Are you—you’re not Jeanette Duffy, are you?”

“I’m Sarah. Ryan’s sister.” She turned decidedly suspicious. “Who are you?”

She thought for a second. Last Friday, she had told Ryan her first name. It would be interesting to know if the name meant anything to his sister. “My name’s Amy.”

“You a friend of Ryan’s?” Neither the tone nor her expression raised a specter of recognition. Apparently Ryan hadn’t told his sister a thing.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a friend, really. To be honest, you might be as much help to me as Ryan. Maybe even more.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It has to do with money. Money that I think may have come from your father.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. Amy noted the reaction. “Can I come inside and talk for a minute?” asked Amy.

Sarah didn’t move, said nothing.

“Just for a minute,” said Amy.

“Let’s talk out here.” The screen door creaked as Sarah stepped onto the porch. She directed Amy to the wicker rocking chair in the corner. Sarah took the hanging love seat swing in front of the window. She looked about as miserable as pregnant-in-July could possibly look.

“I’m listening,” said Sarah. “What money are you talking about?”

Amy wasn’t aware of it, but she was on the edge of her chair. She was apprehensive, unsure of how to play this. She settled on a replay of her meeting with Ryan. “I received a package a few weeks ago. There was money inside. No return address, no card. But as best I can tell, I think it came from your father.”

“Did you know my father?”

“I don’t ever recall meeting him.”

“How do you know it’s from my father?”

“It came in a Crock-Pot box. I checked the registration from the product number on the box. It was registered in your mother’s name. I suppose it could have come from your mother—”

“No,” she interrupted. “Couldn’t have come from my mother. How much money was in the box?”

“At least a thousand dollars.” She flinched at the white lie—but again, it wasn’t a total lie. There was
at least
a thousand dollars. “Honestly, I’m not sure what to do with it.”

Sarah leaned forward in the swing, speaking sharply. “I’ll tell you what you do with it. You put the money back in the box. Every bit of it. And you
bring it right back. You have no right to keep it.”

Amy froze in her rocker. It was as if she’d stepped on a rattlesnake. “I didn’t come here to make trouble.”

“I won’t let you make trouble. Ryan and me are the only heirs. Our father didn’t leave no will, and in two months of dying, he sure as hell didn’t mention no Amy.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“Is your mother home? I’d like to talk to her. Maybe your father mentioned my name to her.”

“Don’t you go near my mother. This has been hard enough on her. I don’t need you poking around like some long-lost illegitimate child trying to weasel her way into an inheritance.”

“Who said anything about
that
? All I’m trying to do is figure out why your father would have sent me some money in a box. I’d like to know where the money came from.”

“It doesn’t matter where it came from. All that matters is that it comes back where it belongs. I want that money back, Miss Amy. I hope you have the good sense to see me eye-to-eye on this.”

“I really wish you would just let me talk to your mother, maybe clear things up.”

Her eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing to clear up. I told you what to do. Now
do
it.”

Amy stared right back, but there was nothing more to say. “Thank you for your time,” she said, rising. “And your hospitality.”

She stepped down from the porch and headed for her car.

It nearly maxed out his Visa card, but Ryan booked a flight to Panama City through Dallas. Getting out
of Denver was the easy part. Apparently the plane for the second leg of the journey had come down with malaria or some other mysterious Panamanian ailment. He spent the night and most of Sunday in the terminal at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, waiting on a mechanically sound 737 to take him and the other two hundred stranded passengers the rest of the way to Panama.

Ryan had no luggage to check, just his carry-on bags. Norm had loaned him some extra clothes, which accounted for the monogrammed polo player on his shirt. He took several naps in the waiting area, no more than twenty minutes at a stretch, keeping both arms wrapped around his bag at all times. The last thing he needed was someone to walk off with his passport. His bladder was bursting, but he didn’t dare get up from his seat. The flight was overbooked, and one trip to the airport rest room would mean having to sit on the floor until boarding time. The family camped out on the floor beside him spoke no English, so he used the opportunity to practice his Spanish. He was rusty, but it pleased him to see he could still get his point across. He’d treated a number of Spanish-speaking patients over the years, mostly migrant workers from the melon fields west of Piedmont Springs.

At 3:35 the woman at the check-in counter announced that Flight 97 to Panama would begin boarding in fifteen minutes.

Promises, promises.
Ryan grabbed his bag and made a final pre-boarding break for the rest room. On his way out, he stopped at the bank of pay phones in the hall for one last domestic call home, just to check on things. He punched out the number and waited. Sarah answered.

“Hi, it’s Ryan,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“Mom’s okay?”

“Yup.”

“You’ll stay with her tonight, right?”

“I’ve been with her all day, Ryan. Yes, I’ll spend the night.”

“Be firm about it. She’ll tell you she’s fine alone and tell you to go home. But she’s still depressed. She left the damn gas burner on yesterday. She’s just not all there. She’s gonna hurt herself if there isn’t somebody there looking after her.”

“Ryan, I said I’d stay.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“When you coming home?”

“Possibly Monday night. Tuesday at the latest.”

The airport speakers crackled with another announcement. Ryan’s flight would begin boarding in five minutes. “I gotta go, Sarah. You’re sure everything is okay?”

“Yes,” she said, almost groaning. “Just a typical dull day in Piedmont Springs.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing, Ryan. Nothing at all. I assure you, everything is perfectly A-okay.”

Her truck was dying at the Sand Creek Massacre.

Just north of the town of Chivington, to be exact, near the small stone monument that marked the spot where in 1864 Col. John Chivington and his citizens militia annihilated an entire reservation of peaceable Indians, including unarmed children running from the scene. Amy recalled that disgraceful tale from grade school history. At the moment, however, she could think only of her own disaster.

Steam was spewing from beneath the hood, growing thicker with each tick on the odometer. The engine sputtered. The truck was losing speed. Amy cranked on the heater inside the cab. Through experience she’d learned that turning on the heat could help cool down an overheated engine—at the driver’s expense, of course. The midafternoon’s flirt with a hundred degrees had thankfully passed, but the temperature was still unbearable. The heater was blasting on high. The plains stretched for miles in all directions, not a building or car in sight. Just acres of soybeans on either side. For miles ahead, mirages danced on a sun-baked road as straight as string. Amy felt like she might pass out. She stuck her head out the window for some cooler air. The truck limped along at twenty miles an hour. She had to make it
to the next town. A deserted highway was no place to spend the night.

“Come on, baby. You can do it.” Talking to her truck had always seemed to help. It sure couldn’t hurt.

Somehow she managed to make it a few more miles, all the way to a town called Kit Carson. She didn’t know precisely where she was, but it was hard to feel lost in a town named after Colorado’s most famous scout. Luckily there were a few service stations, particularly where Highway 40 intersected with 287. Her truck rolled into the station with just barely enough momentum to make it to the garage door. Unfortunately, it was Sunday. No mechanic would be on duty until Monday morning. One way or another, Amy was stuck on the plains for the night. She left a note under the windshield telling the mechanic she’d be back at 6:00

A.M
., when the garage opened. Down the road she noticed a small motel. The sign proclaimed “vacancy.” From the looks of the place, it
always
had a vacancy. She locked the truck and headed up the gravel shoulder along the highway.

The Kit Carson Motor Lodge was a simple one-story motel designed for one-night stays. Each room had its own outside entrance. Rooms in front faced the highway. Rooms in the back faced the gravel parking lot. Only the back rooms had air conditioning, rusty old wall units that stuck out beneath the windows. Amy took the one room with a unit that actually worked.

Amy showered and washed her clothes in the sink. She was able to buy a toothbrush and toothpaste at the front desk. She wrapped herself in the flimsy bath towel and hung her clothes on the shower rod to dry. The television didn’t work,
which was just as well. She lay on the bed, exhausted, but she couldn’t let herself sleep until she called home.

She sat up and dialed, thinking with the phone to her ear as she counted the lonely-sounding rings on the other end of line. Gram was totally up to speed. This morning, Amy had decided that if she was going to make contact with the Duffys in Piedmont Springs, Gram should know about it. One thing had led to another, as it always did with Gram, and before Amy hit the road Gram knew all about the meeting with Ryan in Denver. Gram wasn’t happy about any of it—which had Amy bracing for her wrath.

“Gram, it’s me.”

“Where the heck are you, girl?”

“I’m at the Kit Carson Motor Lodge. My truck died on the way home.”

“I told you to get rid of that junk.”

“I know, I know. I think it’s just a water hose. But I can’t get it fixed till tomorrow, so I’ll have to spend the night.”

“What about work? You want me to call the law firm and tell them you’re sick?”

“Gram, this isn’t grade school. I can call them.” She instantly regretted the sarcasm. Gram only meant well, even if she did sometimes treat Amy as if she were Taylor’s age.

Gram let it go. “By the way, did you get to talk with Mrs. Duffy?”

“No.”

“Just as well.”

“I talked to her daughter. A woman named Sarah. She said she wants the money back.”

“Doggone it, Amy. I told you not to stir the pot. Now look where we are.”

“I didn’t tell her I had two hundred thousand dollars. I only told her it was about a thousand.”

“Good girl.”

Amy blinked. The woman who’d taught her right from wrong was now praising her for telling half-truths. “Gram, I don’t think I have the stomach for this.”

“Nonsense. We’re over the hump now. You talked to the son. You talked to the daughter. You tried to talk to the widow. You’ve done everything you can to try and find out where the money came from. Your conscience should be clear. Just give that Sarah character her thousand dollars and everybody will be happy.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. I just got some strange vibes from Sarah. Downright hostile.”

“How do you mean?”

Amy had not forgotten the feeling she’d gotten when talking to Sarah—the way Sarah had treated her like the gold-digging illegitimate heir. Still, it was a touchy subject to raise with her grandmother—the mother of her father. “I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m just being a nervous Nellie.”

“You really are. Now promise me you’ll be careful getting home.”

“I will. Let me talk to Taylor for a minute, okay?”

“She might be asleep already. Let me check.”

The wait triggered a wave of thoughts, again about Sarah. An inheritance would explain the money. Amy had no list of every man her mother had ever known intimately. Perhaps Frank Duffy was among them. Maybe the money was his way of acknowledging Amy was his. Why else would he have been so seemingly careless as to send the
money in a used Crock-Pot box, which made it possible for her to track down the sender with just a little ingenuity and perseverance? Maybe his mind had said make the gift anonymously, but in his heart he
wanted
her to find out it was from her real father.

She was suddenly queasy about the instant attraction she’d felt toward Frank Duffy’s handsome son.

“She’s asleep,” said Gram, back on the line.

“Poor little angel must have put a hundred miles on her roller skates today. Call us in the morning before you get on the road. And be careful. I love you, darling.”

“I love you, too.”

She hung up the phone, torn inside. She did love her Gram. She’d always love her. Even if it turned out she wasn’t her
real
grandmother.