Regarding Anna (21 page)

“If Tymon found my belongings in Elmer’s possession, which I assume he did, I’d say his reason was tied to them somehow. I just don’t know how. Elmer’s a user—once he gets whatever it is he’s after, he’s done with you, and that’s what I think happened.”

“How did you come to meet him?”

“I answered an ad to sublet the office.”

“In the paper?”

“No. It was posted on the bulletin board in the small branch library where I used to go all the time. Why? What are you getting at?”

“Looks like that’s how he lured you in.”

“Which investigative school did you say you went to?”

“I’m just using a little common sense.”

“That could be, but I still don’t know what he would want with me. Maybe it’s tied to him buying my parents’ house.”

“Remember, he’s Henry’s cousin. There’s that tie-in.”

“I know. Well, one thing is for sure—he’s hiding something.”

While we cleared the table and did the dishes, I told her everything I knew about Elmer.

“Henry’s the common factor,” she said after drying the last glass. “And I can handle him,” she added, rolling up her sleeves like she was getting ready to take him on—physically.

I looked at her in disbelief.

“What? You don’t think I can handle that little twerp?”

Nope. I had no doubts.

* * *

Minnie and I had agreed to leave breaking open the trunk for another day. It was supposed to reach eighty degrees, which meant the attic would be a hundred. My room was already unbearably hot, and it wasn’t even noon yet.

I decided to try a new approach on the Midnighter case—sitting in that tree fort was obviously not working. An hour after sunset, I drove to the neighborhood where the thefts had taken place, parked the car at the end of the street, slouched down in the seat, and waited.

Forty-five minutes into my watch, I saw movement halfway down the block—three young boys playing kickball. When one of them got hit in the head with the ball and started crying, the game ended and the boys disappeared.

An hour passed without any activity except for the stumpy-tailed cat crossing the street three times, the last time carrying something in its mouth, probably a bird or mouse or something. My mother used to talk about a cat she once had that would catch a variety of critters at night and leave them on her front porch for her to find in the morning.

By midnight, I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer and called it a night. On the drive home, I thought about the necklace Anna was wearing in the photo of her and me in the rocking chair and had an idea. When I got home, I pulled the photo from the evidence box and examined it more carefully.

I retrieved my mother’s jewelry box—one of the few personal things I had of hers—and combed through it. I didn’t find the necklace, but I did notice that the felt lining at the bottom was loose, so I dumped out the contents onto the bed and picked at the lining until it was halfway up. Underneath was a small envelope. Inside it was a key.

Tymon’s ladder was still in the room, on its side tucked behind the dresser so it would be out of the way. It took me a while, but I managed to right the ladder, poke the trapdoor out of the way with the top of it, and then lean it inside the opening. Excited at the possibility that the key might fit the trunk, I started to scramble up the ladder.

Halfway up, the ladder started to slip at the bottom, and there was nothing I could do but fall with it to the floor.

* * *

When I came to, Minnie was saying repeatedly, “You’re all right Gracie. You’re going to be all right.”

All I could see were Minnie’s feet—I was lying face down on the floor, my head pounding.

“The ambulance is on the way.”

“What happened?” I tried to get up, but Minnie held me down.

“They said to keep you stable, for you not to move. You could have internal injuries.”

“What happened?” I asked again.

“You fell off the ladder.”

I closed my eyes until I recalled what I had been doing last.

“Where’s the key?”

“What key, dear?”

“I had a key.”

She patted my head like you would do to a faithful dog and said, “Why don’t you just close your eyes and relax until they get here.”

“Find the key. I must have dropped it.”

“Okay, dear. Whatever you say.”

* * *

I spent two days in the hospital—two days too long, if you asked me. I had a concussion, a fractured kneecap, and eight badly sprained fingers. Apparently, I had forgotten to put that rubber thing in front of the feet of the ladder so it wouldn’t slip, a minor detail that had cost me dearly.

Minnie was in her glory taking care of me, even though she complained about going up and down the stairs at least a hundred times a day. I didn’t need much—just food really—but you couldn’t tell Minnie anything. She had a mind of her own.

They told me my knee had a stable fracture, which meant the broken ends of the bones were aligned right, and as long as they stayed that way, it could heal on its own. Unfortunately, the only way they would remain that way was if I stayed off of that leg. At least the concussion had healed, and my fingers would eventually be good as new.

I had been given a set of crutches, which Minnie hid from me. I was not happy about that, but she was my caregiver and, well, my only friend at that point. Someone had removed the two ladders from my room. No surprise there. So that I could get to the bathroom without putting weight on my knee, Minnie rolled into my bedroom a desk chair on wheels.

I told Minnie that I remembered finding a key in my mother’s jewelry box and was going to see if it fit the trunk in the attic when the accident happened, but she said she had combed the room and found no key. I wondered if maybe the bump on my head had done something to my memory.

It was the afternoon of my third day out of the hospital, and I heard Minnie coming up the stairs. I could tell what time of day it was by her footfalls on the wooden steps—quick and snappy in the morning, starting to slow down toward the middle of the day, and lethargic and heavy toward evening.

“I brought you some lemonade, dear,” she said. “How does that sound?”

“It would sound better in your kitchen.”

“You’re not supposed to walk on that leg.”

“I could use the crutches if I knew where they were.”

“Crutches down those stairs? Are you crazy? You must have hit your head harder than we thought.”

I glanced over at the area of the floor directly under the attic trapdoor and noticed the glint of something shiny that had caught a ray of sunlight streaming in through the window.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“What? Where?”

“Right there, next to that darker floorboard, halfway to the wall.”

Minnie walked over to where I was pointing.

“I don’t see anything.” She took a step toward the window. “This floorboard is loose. I wonder if that happened when you fell.”

“Gee, I hope I didn’t damage anything when I just about killed myself trying to figure out what was in
your
trunk in
your
attic.”

“Just remember, Missy, whose idea it was to go up there.”

“It’s in the crack. There’s something shiny in the crack,” I told her.

“I don’t see a thing.”

Then I didn’t see it either because the sun had gone behind a cloud or something. I had one foot on the floor when Minnie stopped me. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“I’ll use the rolling chair!”

“Stay where you are.”

“But the key. I think that’s the key!”

“I don’t see a—”

“Will you do me a big favor?” I asked her.

“That depends.”

“Will you please go get your lantern and shine it on the floor, like the sunlight was doing a minute ago?”

Minnie gave me a look that only she could give, but then proceeded downstairs to fetch the lantern. Her footsteps now sounded like she weighed two hundred pounds.

When Minnie returned, I asked her to sit on my bed while I shined the light. “Now do you see it?”

“Yep.” She walked over to the spot. “It’s down in the crack though. I can’t get it.”

“Could you maybe get it out with one of your crochet hooks?”

“You mean the ones downstairs?”

TWENTY-ONE

She Wants to Talk

It took Minnie a good half hour to fish out the key from between the floorboards, and when she did, she stuck it in the pocket of her sweater. Why she didn’t give it to me I couldn’t understand—there was no way for me to get to the attic without the ladder, which I was sure had been stashed away in a place where I’d never find it, probably alongside my crutches. But I didn’t say anything.

Before Minnie left to fix dinner, she said, “By the way, I completely forgot to tell you that your lawyer called when you were in the hospital. I must be getting—”

“My lawyer?” I didn’t have a lawyer.

“Yes, he said he wanted to talk to you about the money.”

“What money?”

“I just assumed it was the Irish money we found. You said you’d look into it for me.”

“I’d look into what for you?”

“My rights to it. We talked about that.”

It was all I could do to keep my calm.

“What did you tell him?”

“I said you were in the hospital, and I’d give you the message that he called.”

“What else did you tell him?”

“Nothing, why? Why are you so upset?”

“Because I don’t have a lawyer, Minnie. Someone was trying to get information from you.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah, oh, dear.”

“I’m sorry. He sounded legit to me.”

“Think back. What else did you tell him?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

She threw up her arms. “I don’t know.”

My stomach began a slow churn as I watched Minnie shuffle across the room toward the door. Then she turned to me and said, “I may have mentioned I still had it here,” before she disappeared.

How could she have been so naive? And who was it who had called? Whoever had called was aware of the money, unless Minnie didn’t tell me everything. Like maybe the caller had been vague and cunning enough to get Minnie to tell
him
about the money.
Damn it!
I wished
I
had answered the phone.

An hour passed, long enough for an unsettling mixture of anger and resentment to build up inside me, when Minnie came up with my dinner.

“I hope you realize what you did.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“If someone is bold enough to impersonate a lawyer in order to get information from you about the money, they’re certainly bold enough to come after it!”

“So I’ll burn it.”

“You don’t get it. They’ll still think it’s here and come after it. And then, when they don’t find it, who knows what they’ll do?” I never should have let her get involved.

She plopped the tray of food on the bed—hard enough to cause most of the peas to bounce up off the plate and scatter everywhere—and abruptly turned away from me.

“I’m going to the grocery store for a few things. Maybe you need to think about things while I’m gone.”

I let her go without saying anything more, even though I hadn’t gotten everything off my chest. I didn’t know what she meant by “think about things,” but I didn’t care. There were more important issues at hand than trying to figure her out.

I pushed the tray aside and grabbed a pad of paper and pen to start a list of precautions we could take in case whoever had called Minnie paid us a visit. My swollen fingers made it difficult to write, adding to my frustration. After twenty minutes, I had a few things listed in handwriting I hoped I could decipher later, when the phone rang from downstairs.

I sat through ten rings. I could have managed the stairs on crutches if I’d had them. Ten more rings. Someone was determined.

I rolled out to the hallway and into the back bedroom. Scooting down the stairs on my butt was the only way I could think of to get downstairs without damaging my bad knee. If I had been a kid, it would have been fun, but I wasn’t, and it wasn’t.

Once downstairs, the phone was just several hops away. I was completely out of breath when I answered it.