Regarding Anna (20 page)

Her look served as her response, which was clear.

“Do you have clothesline?”

“Of course.”

“Can you bring me some?”

She turned to leave.

“And Minnie?”

“Yes, masser.”

She could be funny.

“Something to cut it.”

It was just as well I didn’t understand what she muttered.

While Minnie was on her mission, I walked the perimeter of the room to make sure there were floorboards everywhere and not any openings between joists where I could fall through. It was a good thing I did this because there were a couple of places where the floorboards were loose.

“So, Miss Einstein, how am I going to get this rope and knife up to you?” Minnie shouted from below.

I couldn’t see her throwing the rope up to me—it weighed too much—and certainly not the knife, so I was going to have to come down to get them.

“Too bad there’s not a man around,” I told her. “They come in handy for stuff like this.”

A ringing phone interrupted our conversation, and Minnie disappeared downstairs. She returned a few minutes later.

“Those stairs are going to be the death of me. Tymon is on his way over.”

“I better come down then.”

“Why? Maybe he can help.”

“Do you really want him to see what’s up here? What if it’s something...well, that you don’t want anyone else to see?”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“Why is he coming over? Just for a visit?”

“No. He has something for you.”

“For me? Like what?”

“We’ll show you later. Right now, we have to figure this out.”

“Do you think he’s left already?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I’d ask him if he has a better ladder.”

“This is the last time I’m going to...”

I didn’t hear the end of her sentence, but I didn’t have to.

I continued to scan the room. It was a nice attic, as far as attics went. I could walk to within just a few feet from the edges without ducking my head. It would have been better with an overhead light though, or at least a window.

Stacks of old
National Geographic
magazines sat in one corner next to an old-fashioned baby stroller, an empty file cabinet, and a pile of tarps. Two boxes sitting in the corner looked interesting. The first one contained women’s clothes that appeared to be from the Roaring Twenties. The second box contained scads of old photographs.

I continued my walk around the perimeter and found nothing more.

In the middle of the room was a huge pillar, and leaning up against it were several framed paintings. I couldn’t tell whether they were original paintings or prints, but the frames were nice.

I heard Minnie calling me and walked over to the trapdoor.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Good. There are a few interesting things up here. Were you able to catch Tymon?”

“Yes. He’s bringing a better ladder. I left the back door open for him. I’m
not
climbing those stairs again.”

I told her what I had found.

“Let’s not mention the trunk to him,” she said. “I don’t want anyone else to know what’s in it before us.”

“But that’s what we probably need the most help with. It’s huge.”

“Will it even fit through the opening?” she asked.

“It got up there, didn’t it?”

“Good point. Well, let’s deal with it later.”

I told her about the paintings.

“What am I going to do with a bunch of old paintings?”

“They could be valuable. You never know.”

“I doubt—. Here comes Tymon.”

“Hello, Tymon,” I shouted down to him.

He looked up at me. “Please tell me you didn’t get up there using this rickety stepladder.”

“’Fraid so.”

He moved the stepladder out of the way and raised one of those outdoor extension ladders through the opening in the ceiling. Then he put something that looked like a strip of rubber on the floor in front of it so it wouldn’t slip.

My father used to say you can do anything with the proper tools. On one of our rare family outings, my parents took me to Kiddieland when I was seven or eight, and I got stuck in the roller coaster car on the Little Dipper. At the end of the ride, the metal lap bar that holds you in wouldn’t unlock. The park staff tried to get me out, but twenty minutes later, I was still stuck in the car. After my father had seen enough, he told my mother he was running home and would be back as soon as he could. He returned with just one tool, and I was freed within seconds. My father and Tymon must have gone to the same school.

Tymon climbed the ladder and stuck his head up into the attic.

“What’s that foul smell up here, Tymon?”

“It smells musty. Is that what you mean?”

“Like urine.”

“Could be the fiberglass insulation. It can get that way, especially when a room has been closed off for a long time.”

“Just about knocked me over when I first opened the trapdoor.”

“You’re not thinking of bringing that old trunk down, are you?” he asked.

I didn’t know how he could even see the trunk with the pillar in the way.

He must have read my mind. “I’ve been up here before,” he said. “Looks the same as it did twenty years ago.” He glanced over to a far corner. “Had to fix a roof leak once. Can still see my patchwork.”

“Let’s get some of this stuff down and worry about the trunk later,” I said.

For the next hour, Tymon and I got the items Minnie and I decided were of interest down to the second floor, with Tymon doing most of the work.

Thanks to Tymon’s ladder, it was much easier coming down than it had been going up.

“Tymon, can you wait downstairs a few minutes?” Minnie asked him. “We’ll be right down. Grab yourself a cold drink if you like.”

She handed the metal box to me. “Find a hiding place for this downstairs, will you? Wait ’til I leave, and I’ll distract Tymon in the kitchen while you find a place for it.”

Minnie grabbed the mop, the rope, and the knife and disappeared out the bedroom door. I waited a couple of minutes, tucked the metal box under my arm, and went downstairs. I shoved it under Minnie’s bed before joining them in the kitchen.

“We have something for you,” Minnie said.

I couldn’t imagine what the two of them would have for me.

Tymon disappeared and returned with a large cardboard box that he set on the kitchen table. I peered inside to find some of the things I had kept in the back room of my office.

“Where did you get this?”

Neither of them responded.

“From my old office?”

Tymon shook his head.

“Where then?”

“Doesn’t matter. He found it. Is that everything?” Minnie asked.

I rummaged through the box, and the only things I believed were missing were the bank statements and business cards.

“Where did you found these things if not in my old office?”

“Some things are better left unknown,” Minnie said. “That way you can never be implicated.”

Implicated
meant only one thing.

Tymon announced that if we didn’t need him for anything else, he was going to go home. “If you want help with the trunk later, let me know. I’ll leave the ladder here just in case.”

Minnie walked him to the back door, while I tried to get my mind around what they had just presented to me. The only thing I could think of was that Tymon or someone had broken into Elmer’s house or his office and stolen the items for me, and while I was extremely grateful to have my belongings back, I didn’t know how I felt about the manner in which they had been secured.

Minnie returned to the kitchen and asked me if I would bring her the metal box. When I did, she placed it on the table, examined the lock, and then disappeared. She returned a minute later with a bobby pin.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Don’t underestimate me.”

Minnie fiddled with the lock but couldn’t open it. She shook it. “Something’s in there. Can’t tell what though.”

She disappeared again and then returned with a crochet hook. When that didn’t work, she retrieved a second crochet hook and worked both of them inside the lock at the same time.

“Have you done this before?” I asked her.

Minnie just smiled and kept jiggling the hooks in the lock until it opened.

She looked at me with a wide grin.

“You’re good.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” She stared at the box. “I’m afraid to open it.”

“Why? Afraid something is going to jump out at you?”

She lifted the hinged lid. I couldn’t see what was inside, but the look on her face told me it was a surprise to her.

“What is it?”

Minnie took out a piece of paper and handed it to me.

“Bank of Ireland—Irish currency of some sort.”

She nodded and turned the box around so I could see inside.

It was filled with bills. I flipped through them.

“They all say one hundred pounds.”

We stared at each other for a long moment.

“O’Gowan’s?” I asked.

“I told you I thought he must have had a stash.”

“Makes sense since that
was
his room down below, so he was the only one with access to the attic.”

“Do you think it’s still good?” she asked.

“What do you mean? Does Irish money have an expiration date?” The date on the top one was 1942. I flipped through the top twenty notes or so. “1930s and ’40s. Want to count it?” I asked her.

“Yeah...over a glass of Scotch.”

Minnie poured, and I started counting, creating stacks of ten hundred-pound notes. In the end, we had thirty-seven piles with two left over.

“So how much is that worth?” she asked.

“I have no idea—37,200 pounds. They could tell you at a currency exchange though.”

“If it’s like a peso, it won’t be worth much.”

“Good point. Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Famished.”

“Do you like Chinese?”

“Love it.”

“My treat.”

I ran out to pick up dinner, and by the time we finished eating, it was almost eight o’clock. Afterward, too tired to do much of anything else, we said goodnight to each other.

TWENTY

The Key

The next morning, I awoke to the savory smell of bacon wafting up the stairs to the second floor, compelling me to hurry through my morning routine. I joined Minnie in the kitchen and asked her if there was anything I could do to help.

“You can help by letting me take care of you.” She turned to face me. “You don’t have to be so damned independent, you know.”

I tried to stifle a smile. I had become self-reliant because I knew first-hand that people you depend on could be gone tomorrow.

“Yes, m’am,” I said to appease her.

She turned back around toward the stove. “Don’t get smart with me, young lady. And you need to smile more—it looks good on you.”

While Minnie finished cooking, I thought about how different her life would have been right now if she hadn’t lost her husband and daughter.

She served me a heaping plate of bacon, eggs, and hash-brown potatoes.

“What—no toast?”

She stared at me for a long moment before smiling a half-smirk. “That better be your sense of humor, Gracie.”

I liked teasing her. “So what do you want to do today?” I asked her. “Do you want to tackle the trunk, go through the stuff we brought down from the attic, see how much money you’ve just inherited? What’s next?”

“The money can wait, but one thing I would like for you to find out, if you don’t mind, is what right do I have to it? Is there someone you can ask?”

“I don’t know who I’d ask off-hand, but I can probably find someone. It’s your house though. The money was there when you bought it, so I would think it’s yours.”

“Well, in the meantime, I want to help you find out everything
you’re
after so you can figure out whatever it is you’re trying to figure out and move on.
That’s
what I want to do next. So you tell me what that is.”

“I don’t think anything in the attic is going to help me with that, unless there’s something in the trunk.”

“Let’s do that then.”

“Let’s, as in let
us
?”

“Whatever I can do from down below, I’ll do, because you won’t catch me climbing up that ladder. But before we go there, I’ve been meaning to ask you, why do you really think Elmer booted you out?”