Rest in Pieces (20 page)

Her gaze went to my toe and she shot me the what–are–you–talking–about look.

I pointed to the iTunes icon on her phone. “I think I’ll just sit here until it stops throbbing.”

I wrote, “turn on the Bible.”

She nodded and touched the icon. James Earl Jones said, “And Jesus went unto this place…”

I used the nail puller part of the hammer and loosened the nail. It squeaked a little so I started coughing to cover it up. I was pretty sure Mr. Jones at full volume would cover the noise, but I was playing it safe. After working the hammer back and forth, the nail finally popped out. The board had an old rusted hinge on the opposite end so the whole board folded up. Apparently, this had been the family hiding place for many decades.

Haley held the board up while I pulled my flashlight out of my back pocket. I flicked it on and shone it at the hole in the porch. There were two long narrow metal boxes sitting side–by–side on the dirt under the porch.

They were safety deposit boxes.

Bingo.

I threw both of my fists into the air and yelled a silent, “yes.”

Haley and I high–fived.

I handed the flashlight to Haley, got down on my stomach, and told myself not to think of all the critters that probably lived under this porch. I reached down and my fingertips grazed one of the boxes. I worked the box until it flipped on its side. I grabbed it and tried to lift it. I weighed a ton…well not really, but it felt like it. I used both my hands and finally hauled the box out of the hole. I reached down and worked the other one on its side and then brought it out of the hole.

Haley had to use both hands to lift the first box. “Your toe looks really bad. I’m going to check the first aid kit in the car for a bandage.”

She winked as she walked down the stairs and carried the safety deposit box to the car.

“Good call.” I yelled after her.

I was really impressed with her last statement. Not only had she made it up on the fly, it almost sounded like a real human had said it.

A couple of minutes later she returned.

“You know, I think my toe is broken.” On my legal pad, I wrote, “I need to nail this back in so we need to pretend to set my toe so my screams will hide the hammering.”

She gave me an okay sign and then held up one finger. She wrote something really fast on her pad and then turned it around. “I’m louder, so I’ll scream while you bang.”

I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing. Yet, another sentence I’d never thought to see.

I gave her a thumbs up.

“I’m going to need to set it before the swelling gets bad.” Haley nodded like she had this. “Don’t worry. I’m not a doctor but I sleep with one so I’ve seen this done many times.”

If the people listening could hear us over James Earl Jones I was pretty sure they’d be wondering why I didn’t go to the hospital since I worked there and all.

“On the count of three.” Haley pointed to the hammer.

I moved the board back in place.

Haley mouthed, “ready?”

I grabbed the hammer.

Haley said, “one, two, three.”

She yelled at the top of her lungs while I pounded that nail back into place.

All in all, I think it worked. Between James Earl and Haley, I couldn’t even hear the hammer. I moved the welcome mat back into place and stood.

“Let me tape that broken toe to the other toe.” Haley said loudly.

“Okay.” I said just as loudly. Not sure why.

“And thanks for setting it for me. While I have free medical care at Lakeside Hospital, I am supposed to be sick today so that would have been weird.” Now I was starting to sound like I was performing in a fifth grade play.

“You bet.” Haley said.

I mouthed, “you bet?”

She hunched her shoulders and mouthed, “all I could think of.”

I picked up the other safety deposit box and I stumbled under the weight. Haley grabbed my elbow and helped me up.

“Let me help you to the car.” She grinned.

I mouthed, “bitch.”

“You know working out would strengthen that toe.” Haley practically pulled me down the steps.

I stuck out my tongue.

We loaded the second safety deposit box in the back of Haley’s Rover and got in.

“I can’t believe that we found something.” Haley talked so fast, I could have sworn she was high on caffeine.

“I know. It was a total accident. If I hadn’t tripped over the welcome mat, I would have never seen that shiny nail.” I glanced in the direction of the safety deposit boxes. “Maybe now we will find out what Molly was into.”

“Let’s call Monica. She needs to be here when we open them.”

“I agree and we need to find a quiet, bug–free place to open them.

“That’s easy. My neighbor across the street just left for their Caribbean home on the island of Bonaire. I have the keys. Their house is private and hopefully not bugged.” Haley was about to break and enter—sort of. Monica would be so pleased.

“Bonaire?” I’d heard of Grande Cayman, I’m pretty sure that’s in the Caribbean.

“It’s next to Aruba.” Haley stopped at Molly’s gate.

I got out to open the gate. I hated to disappoint her, but I didn’t know where Aruba was either.

Chapter 16

Thirty minutes later we pulled into the driveway of the Bonaire people. I’m sure they had an actual name, but Bonaire people worked for me. Monica pulled in right behind us.

We’d stopped at Target and bought a prepaid cell phone—Haley’s idea. I’d used it to call Monica’s work and had left a message with the receptionist that she needed to call us at this new phone number. She’d used her administrative assistant’s phone and called us.

Haley pulled all the way up to the garage, pulled out her cell phone—the old one, not the new one—touched an icon and the garage door rolled up. “Garage door app. I have the code.”

“There’s a garage door app?” Wow, I didn’t even have a garage door, but I was totally going to download the app.

We pulled into the four bay garage and Monica pulled right in next to us. Haley touched the icon again and the garage door rolled closed.

Yep, I was totally downloading that app. Could you open any garage door? It would be really fun to drive down the street and randomly open and close other people’s garage doors. I’m poor, remember; cheap thrills are my only source of entertainment.

Monica opened her car door and stepped out. “I can’t wait to see what’s inside the boxes. This is just like the time Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s safe on live TV.”

“Yeah, but that safe was empty.” I stepped out. “Let’s hope these two safety deposit boxes aren’t.”

“Where do you think she got two safety deposit boxes? Surely, they’re hard to come by.” Haley stepped out of the driver’s seat and joined us at the back of the Rover.

“Ebay.” I cocked my head to the left. “That’s where she bought all of that other junk.”

“Oh yeah.” Haley slipped her left hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out ten dollars. “Here you go.” She handed it to Monica.

“Yes.” Monica stuffed it into her front jeans pocket. “We made a bet on whether there really was a bunch of hoarded stuff or if you were exaggerating.”

I put my hand over my heart. “Me…exaggerate?” I swooned and fake cried. “I’m hurt.”

I really was channeling a Latin soap star.

“I should have bet on the chemistry set.” Haley touched a button on the handle of the back Rover door and it opened on its own. “Someone took the chemistry set. The garage was spotless.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was me who cleaned it. It was that clean.” I couldn’t get over it.

“That’s saying a lot coming from you.” Monica watched as the Rover’s back door rose and then stopped. She ducked underneath the hatch back door and sat on the bumper. She tried to pick up on of the safety deposit boxes. “Damn, this is heavy. I say we take them inside to open them.”

She adjusted her grip and picked it up. Haley grabbed the other one.

“Hand me the house keys.” I glanced at Haley.

“Don’t need them. I remote unlocked the door from my phone.” Haley heaved a breath like she was carrying a thousand pounds.

“What’s the name of that app. I’m totally downloading it.” I could open garage doors and house doors. Life was good.

“I’m not telling you. You’d use it for evil.” Haley held the box balanced on her hand and shoulder like a waitress with a large tray of food.

“Would not.” She knew me so well. I opened the only door in the garage and walked into a huge hallway with benches and coat hooks. It looked like a waiting room in a doctor’s office. “What’s this?”

Haley walked through the open door. “The mud room.”

“What the hell’s a mud room?” Monica followed her in.

“A place to take off your muddy shoes and hang your coats.” Haley kept on walking down a hallway lined with glass–fronted cabinets.

“I don’t get it. This is central Texas. It hardly rains here so there’s no mud, and it’s not like we have tons of coats that need hanging.” Today it was in the sixties. I followed Haley down the hall.

“If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, rich people are weird.” Monica said from behind me.

“Here we go.” Haley laid the box down on a huge kitchen table. It had to be ten feet long.

These people must have like twenty kids. Or did the husband and wife sit at opposite ends of the table and play shuffleboard to pass the salt?

Monica laid her box down next to Haley’s.

I felt like we needed a drumroll, but there weren’t any drums lying around. Surely if they had a mud room, there’d be some drums. Rich people were so weird.

I pulled the small key out of my front jeans pocket and slid it in the lock. I tried to turn it and it wouldn’t budge. I pulled it out and tried the other box. This time the key turned a tiny bit.

I slid it in again and turned. Still nothing. I jiggled it around and it still wouldn’t open the lock.

“Are you kidding me? This is crazy.” I slapped the key on the table. “We have two safety deposit boxes and one safety deposit box key and it doesn’t work on either box.”

“I love it when she states the obvious.” Monica nodded.

“Maybe she collected safety deposit boxes like she collected stamped envelopes?” Haley liked to try and make sense out of stupidity. That’s probably why she’s my friend.

“This is stupid. I need a hammer or a crowbar.” Monica headed back to the garage.

“You’re not going to find one in there.” Haley called after her. “Marshall Huddlestone is a trust fund baby. The only thing he knows how to do on his own is walk. His wife Brenda is worse. She calls a handyman anytime she wants to hang a something on the wall. Home maintenance isn’t their thing.”

“Of course not.” Monica turned around. “When the zombie invasion comes, they are definitely going to be the first ones eaten.”

“There’s got to be something around that we can use to open these boxes.” I looked around. The décor was black and red and white. Lakeside’s school colors are black, red and white. This was way too much school spirit for me.

The kitchen walls were red, and the floor and counter tops were black. In the living room part of the great room, the walls were black and the floor was red. It was a lot of black and red. In the corner was a chrome hand that seemed to have sprouted out of the floor. There was a red velvet cushion on it so I guess it was a chair. “I got nothing.”

“Haley, grab the other box.” Monica hefted the box she’d carried in. “I vote we run over these with the Rover.”

“What if it breaks whatever’s inside.” Haley glanced at me for back up.

I shrugged.

“Because Molly stored her priceless collection of porcelain duck figurines in two safety deposit boxes under her back porch?” Monica didn’t even bother to turn around.

“She has a point.” I tried to pick up the box, but dropped the corner I’d managed to get off of the table. “That’s really heavy.”

Haley rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll try it.”

She picked up the box and stomped to the garage.

I followed after her.

She shoved the box under the passenger’s side tire as Monica shoved hers under the driver’s side.

Haley walked around the back of the Rover, closed the hatchback and stomped to the driver’s door. She opened it, climbed in, and started the engine. Without closing the driver’s side door, she put the car in reverse, and rolled over the boxes.

I crouched on the concrete next to the driver’s wheel. “They didn’t crush, only dented. Pull forward and roll over them again.”

After several roll overs, back ups, and roll overs again, the box lids finally caved in.

Haley put her car in park and turned off the engine. “Let me get the tire iron out and see if we can pry the lids off.”

She hopped out, checked the safety deposit box damage, and walked to the back of her Rover. She opened the door, rummaged around, and came up with a tire iron.

With a loud scraping noise, I pulled the driver’s side box out from under the car.

“Here.” Monica held her hand out for the tire iron. “I think I can work those back hinges loose.”

Haley handed her the tire iron.

Monica rammed the chisel end of the tire iron in between the two box hinges. She worked it back and forth until the hinges popped. Haley and I each took a corner of the newly released lid and pulled back hard. The lock didn’t give, but we bent the lid back.

“Holy shit.” Monica stared down into the box.

Holy shit was right. Stacks of hundred dollar bills were crammed all the way up the sides of the box. Each was held together with a white paper band with ten thousand printed on it. Haley reached in and picked up a stack.

“Ten thousand dollar bundles. These are new.” She handed it to me. “See, it’s the new hundred dollar bill.”

“I don’t understand.” I put that stack on the floor, and one by one I pulled out the first layer of bundles. I kept going. All in all, there were three layers of hundreds amounting to thirty–five bundles of money. “Molly was as broke as I am. Why does she have three hundred and fifty thousand dollars under her back porch?”

We all glanced at the other safety deposit box. Monica walked around the front of the Rover to it and dragged it over to us. Again she wedged the tire iron between the hinges until they popped open. Haley and I peeled back the lid.