Cold Hard Cache

by Amy Isaman

  “Right. Thanks.” I picked up the brochures. “So, there’s nothing I can do to get her to leave?”

  “Sadly, no. We all wish we could, but unfortunately, that’s not how it works.”

  A young woman walked down the hallway, a baby on her hip and a three-year-old skipping in front of her. I couldn’t even imagine having to leave with babies in tow, but if this woman managed to do it, surely Anne could find the courage to leave as well. How the hell could mom and I convince her? Joanna said I couldn’t, but I had to give it a shot.

  If she wouldn’t come here to the shelter, maybe I could get her to come to San Francisco with me? I wasn’t sure what the safest place would be for her. I just knew in my gut that away from Brian was the best place.

  A few minutes later, I said my goodbyes and stood on the front stoop of Erin’s House, the two brochures in my hand. I wondered who Erin was. Had some horrible man killed the poor woman and inspiring her family to start this place? Or had Erin herself escaped an abusive relationship?

  I started toward my car across the street and turned on my phone to plug in the address of the coin dealer when I saw the start of a text from Laurel. “This is NOT good.” I read in a banner at the top of my screen. My thumb hovered over the text. Did I even want to know? As soon as the text opened, I could only gawk at my screen which showed a photo of our shop, Urban Antiques, buried behind a wall of scaffolding. Our store was on the ground floor in a super cute neighborhood, but I couldn’t see the shop’s name or the front door through the construction. She’d written “Mandatory earthquake retrofit” in her text message.

  I didn’t even realize that I’d stopped walking and stood like a statue in the middle of the street, gawking at my screen until a car honked at me. I jumped and ran toward the safety of the sidewalk where an older man stopped with his dog.

  “Are you alright?” He asked, reaching his hand toward me.

  “No, I’m not.” I tried not to wail but failed miserably. Scaffolding covered our new shop. Scaffolding! How will people know it’s there? They won’t. And my haphazard attempts at social media marketing were not going well.

  He took a step back and eyed me worriedly. “Yes, you almost got hit. Do you need to sit?”

  I glanced around. Sit?

  He apparently took my lack of a response as some sort of invitation because he grabbed my elbow and began to escort me down the sidewalk.

  “Uh, thank you. But really. I’m fine. I just had a bit of a surprise, but I, uh, appreciate your concern.” I shrugged my arm out of his grasp and stopped next to my car.

  “You know, tea can help. There’s a lovely little tea shop just around the corner.” He leaned in and gave me what I could only imagine, with horror, was his seductive smile. The man was not that bad looking, but he had me by a good twenty years.

  I took a step back.

  “My treat,” he added before he, honest to God, winked at me.

  What the hell kind of door had Laurel opened by setting up my dating profile? They were everywhere, and now one had crept out of the internet into the real world. Did this old guy walk his dog outside the women’s shelter to specifically find vulnerable women?

  I tried to take another step back but only managed to back myself into the side of a car. “I need to get back to my, uh, mom who’s sick. Really sick.” I glanced at my phone again. “Yeah, she’s got an appointment shortly that I need to get her to. Bye.” I turned and fled.

  I wanted to call Laurel back immediately, but my new friend was standing on the sidewalk watching me. I pulled out and headed down the street. Despite not having any kids at home for well over thirty years, my mom still drove a giant Suburban. She’d owned one for pretty much my whole life and upgraded every fifteen years or so. This one was loaded and deluxe when she bought it, but that was pre-cell phone days. And making a call while driving this behemoth wouldn’t work. I’d for sure crush myself or somebody else.

  I pulled into the nearest parking lot, so I could call Laurel, who picked up on the first ring.

  “Please tell me that scaffolding will be gone in a week,” I said.

  “Nope. Probably more like eight to ten weeks. I called the landlord, and he said it was in the lease agreement, and it is. I checked. We missed that little detail. It didn’t say when it was happening, just that this building would be undergoing a retrofit at some point in the next two years.”

  I dropped my head in my hands wondering how we’d missed that. “Okay, we can handle two months. Let’s just focus on scheduling some more estate sales and reaching out to designers every week with our current inventory. We’ve got some great pieces.”

  “Did you post any of those pictures I sent last week? On social media?” Laurel asked.

  “Uh, well, not yet.”

  She groaned. “Mom. I’ve sent all the pictures and hashtags, but you have to write the captions to explain the pieces and their value. That’s your area of expertise, not mine. That’s how more designers will find us. We can’t just rely on the ones we’ve got if we want to grow. We have to work as a team.”

  “Right. I’m sorry. I’ll set a little alarm on my phone to remind me to set it all up.” I got the value of social media, sort of, but found it a huge time suck and pain in the butt.

  “Mom… Do you remember how to do it? You can plan it all out on that website I showed you.”

  I cringed. I hadn’t even opened that site up since our lesson before I left to come to Idaho. “Yes, I remember,” I lied and said a little prayer that I could find a YouTube video to walk me through it. “Um, can you send me the link to the site again? And I’ll do it tonight,” I promised.

  “Mom, you haven’t even gotten on it one time, have you?” Laurel groaned into the phone.

  “I’m on it. Tonight.” Right after I managed to convince my sister to leave her husband and found a long-lost gold treasure to finance her escape.

  Chapter 13

  PUNCHING THE NEXT ADDRESS into my phone, I pulled out into the traffic again and followed the instructions to a section of Boise that seemed to have been created as an ode to the strip mall. I drove past miles and miles of them, old junky buildings with random shops and offices in them, interspersed with new shiny parking lots that were studded with fast-food restaurants and larger big box stores. Finally, I arrived at the appropriately named Boise Stamp and Coin. A huge We Buy Gold sign blinked in the front window, and I wondered if anywhere else in the world had gold-buying shops. Or was it just in America that people had extra gold sitting around to sell? No wonder people wanted to emigrate here.

  Apparently, there was way more extra gold lying around than I ever imagined.

  The shop’s door tinkled when I opened it. An older gentleman dressed in a button-down western-style shirt sat on a stool at the back of the shop that was filled with cases of gold jewelry, coins, and stamps. “Welcome,” he said with a friendly smile.

  “Hi,” I said, navigating the jewelry cases toward the back of the store. “Your sign says that you buy gold. I was wondering if you could take a look at a coin I’ve got and let me know if any other coins like it have come into your shop.”

  He nodded. “Are you looking to sell it?” His voice was a deep, rich baritone.

  “Perhaps.” I shrugged noncommittally and tried to keep my face as neutral as possible. I pulled up the picture of the coin on my phone and slid it across the case to him.

  He studied it while I looked at the coins in the case, most of which were marked between one-hundred and one thousand dollars. Nothing like the coins I’d seen online, some of which were been valued in the six-figures.

  He slid the phone back toward me. “It’s hard to say the value from a photo. I really need to see it.”

  “Can you give me a ballpark?”

  “If it’s in mint condition, it’s worth a lot.” He was annoyingly non-committal, exactly as I would be in his shoes.

  I tried a different tack. “So, if this coin was in your inventory, I’m guessin
g it would not be in one of these cases.” I pointed to the coins in front of me.

  He smiled. “You would be correct.”

  I nodded. “Let me ask another question, have any similar coins come in over the past few years?”

  “Ma’am, this is a coin shop. We have collectible pieces come in quite often.”

  “Of course, you do. I know that, but I need help here.” The wall behind him was covered with family photos. One of the larger ones showed this man with his arms around a young teen. Both of them were hunkered behind a dead deer, the rifle leaning on the animal. I pointed to the picture.

  “Is that your grandson?” I asked.

  He turned and grinned at the photo. “Sure is. His first buck.”

  “I haven’t hunted since I was his age, but I’m sure my mom’s got a pic like that of me and my first with my dad somewhere. Mine wasn’t nearly that big though.” I also didn’t add that I never killed anything after that, though my dad always got me tags and tried his best. I liked the hiking part but not processing the animal, which my Dad enjoyed. Butcher was never on my list of job options after gutting my first deer with my dad, though I did still like venison.

  His eyebrows went up. “You didn’t strike me as a hunter when you walked in.”

  I laughed. “I’m not. As I said, it was forever ago. I left Idaho after high school and only came back recently to help my mom out. She’s getting older.”

  He nodded in sympathy.

  “That’s why I’m here. We think someone in the family might have taken some of grandpa’s coin collection,” I lied. “We’re pretty sure we know who. He’s struggled with addiction, but if we can prove that he’s stolen this, we could get him off the streets, which would be the best thing for everyone. I mean, if he could get cleaned up.” I tried to look as sympathetic as possible. “If he came in here or tried to sell some to you, I thought maybe you could just describe the seller. I know you probably can’t give me a name, but a description would be great.”

  “We’ve seen a few coins like this, but the kid who’s brought them in never looked like he was on anything to me. And he hasn’t been in for a while now, anyway. Might have gone to another shop, though. Who knows?”

  Kid?!? “Can you describe him to me?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. He was medium height. Skinny. Wore glasses. Short hair, trimmed. Pretty clean cut. Didn’t look like the kinda kid who would be using, but you never know these days.”

  My surprise must have shown on my face.

  “Not who you were expecting?” he asked.

  “No, not at all.” He’d definitely not described Frank. “When was the last time he was in here?”

  “Oh, it’s been at least a year since I’ve seen him. Similar coins have come in when I’m not here, though. I just haven’t seen that type of coin,” he nodded toward my phone, “since that kid used to bring them in occasionally.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been super helpful. Can I ask one more question?”

  He shrugged. “Shoot.”

  “Is it common for people who have access to coins or gold to go to different dealers to sell it? Or do they tend to stick with the same shop?”

  “Well, that depends, but it’s like anything. If they feel like they get a good deal or have a relationship with the dealer, they’ll stick with one dealer. If they feel like they can get more somewhere else, they might shop around.” He slid a business card across the counter toward me, which I grabbed and shoved in my purse.

  “Thanks. I guess I’ll go visit some other shops.” I grabbed my phone before glancing at my watch. If I didn’t go to the antique shop next door, I’d have time to hit one or two more coin shops.

  The second shop’s clerk claimed they hadn’t seen any coins like that come through the door, but I wasn’t sure I believed them. The third shop was run by a chatty middle-aged-guy. I told him I dealt in antiques in San Francisco, and he immediately took it upon himself to convince me that I should become a coin dealer, and he needed to give me a full education in numismatic sales. I decided to humor him. We were instant best friends.

  I slid my phone across the case, the picture open, which he eyed. “Ah, yes, we get these in occasionally. A kid brought one of those in a while back, but we got more of those off this old dude from up in the hills. I think he dug them up somewhere. He always acted a little dodgy when he came in, like the IRS was on his tail or something.”

  Finally. A hit on Frank. But this kid again? “When did the kid come in? Do you recall? And the old guy?”

  He shrugged noncommittally. “It’s been a while, I’d say.”

  “Of course. And the old guy. He wouldn’t happen to be Frank, would he?”

  The dealer’s face instantly went blank. “I couldn’t tell you that even if I remembered. Confidential, you know.”

  In a little shop like this, he’d remember every detail of a sale or purchase of anything over ten thousand, much less something like this that could be worth much more than that. I know I’d remember the details. I also knew the rules for larger estate purchases and sales but wasn’t sure about coins.

  “How does the IRS play into all of this? Do you have to report the purchase and tax info when you buy coins like this?”

  “It depends on the value and the type of coin. And we, of course, follow all required reporting rules with the government,” he added.

  “Right. Of course, you do. I just thought I could tell Frank’s wife where he was cashing out the coins. You know, he died last week? His wife still has a pile of these things, and she wanted some help liquidating them. They’re worth a pretty penny. Aren’t they?”

  The dealer cleared his throat. “His wife? She’s got more?”

  Bingo. It had been Frank. I nodded in answer to his question and grabbed my phone off the counter. “A few. Any idea what they’re worth?”

  “Well, I’d have to see them. You know, look at the quality, and see both sides before I gave you an accurate evaluation of them.”

  I inwardly groaned. This was so annoying, but having sat in his spot on numerous occasions, I totally understood his hesitance to give a price.

  “Can you give me a ballpark? Like is it worth a hundred, ten K, fifty K, more?”

  The dealer eyed the image on my phone. “In mint condition, eight to fifty thousand,” he finally said. “But they could be as low as two thousand apiece.”

  My heart lurched. I knew they could be worth a lot, but hearing a dealer confirm it panicked me a bit. And two thousand wasn’t low, if you owned hundreds of them. No wonder people were killing over these things.

  “Wow, thanks. That’s more than I thought.” I reached for my phone and slid it back into my purse.

  “Let me know if you’d like to sell.” He grabbed a business card from the little holder next to the cash register and slid it across the counter. Bill Patterson, gold and coin dealer.

  “Thanks, Bill,” I said, slipping the card into my purse. “We’ll be in touch.” I hurried out of the shop and climbed up into the Suburban, my mind racing. Now I knew for sure it was Frank who cashed out the coins. And a kid too. Alex? Had he stolen some of Frank’s coins? But why would Alex, at sixteen or seventeen, bring thousands of dollars’ worth of coins into town to cash out without his dad? And were these coins from the initial haul with Del, or had they gone back and gotten the rest of them?

  I began to pull out of the parking lot only to have my phone buzz with an incoming call. My mom’s face lit up the screen. I glanced at the steering wheel to find the button to press to answer the phone, only to be reminded that I wasn’t in a car from this decade. Crap. I pulled into another parking spot and hit the button to answer. “Hi,” I said.

  There was no answer, only some heavy breathing. I glanced at my phone to make sure it was my mom’s number and not some creeper.

  “Mom? Mom, are you there?”

  “Tricia,” she said, her voice breathy and weak. “I….” She fell silent and breathy again.

  “
Mom, what’s wrong?” I yelled. I shoved the car into drive and pulled out. To hell with the no talking while driving law. “Are you there?”

  “I fell.” Her voice hitched in pain.

  “You fell? Are you alone? I’ll call Anne. I’m leaving Boise. Can you get up? Did you call 911?”

  Silence met my barrage of questions.

  “Mom?!? Mom?” I yelled. She didn’t reply, and I could no longer hear her labored breathing. I glanced at my phone in horror, but we were still connected. Crap. I needed to call Anne, but I couldn’t hang up on my mom. Could I?

  “Mom, are you there? Please say something.”

  I waited a beat, but she didn’t reply.

  I yelled into my phone again, hoping that might get a response. Nope. Nada. “Mom, I love you,” I hollered. “I’m going to go, to call for help. I’ll call you back in a minute. Stay there.” Like she could go anywhere anyway. I hung up and pressed Anne’s number.

  I wondered if she’d answer. So, I broke every vow I ever made not to text and drive and texted her in all caps, MOM FELL. PICK UP!! And I called her again.

  This time she answered. “What do you mean mom fell? Where is she? Are you at the hospital?”

  I swallowed my shame. “No, I’m not there. I think she’s at home. You need to get there now. I’ll call 911.”

  “You think she’s at home? Where are you?” she hissed.

  “I’m on the way. I’ll be there as fast as I can, but she needs someone there now. Where are you? Can you get there now?”

  “Well, not really. I have a client in the chair in foils, but do I have a choice? Dammit, Tricia. You were supposed to come here to help. You’re not helping.” Her volume rose with each word until she yelled the final sentence before hanging up.

  I took a deep breath, tried not to kill anyone as I careened through downtown Boise toward the mountains, and made my second call to 911 in a week. I tried to stay focused on the 911 operator, but my mind kept thinking of my mom laying on the floor, hurting. She was doing so well. I wouldn’t have left if she hadn’t been. She told me to go. She said she needed to get used to being on her own again, and had I argued? No. I leapt at the chance to head out, so I could start rescuing Anne. Only to completely fail my mother. And piss my sister off even more. I swiped at the tears that started, answered the operator’s questions, and prayed that my mom would be okay.