Regarding Anna

by Florence Osmund

  I didn’t know what I would have done without Tymon. He insisted on sleeping on the sofa that night just in case the intruder returned, and he said he planned to stay around for a little while the next day. Still, I needed to be careful around him. Maybe that wasn’t fair of me, but at that point, I didn’t trust anyone. And if Tymon had in fact had a romantic relationship with Anna and hadn’t told me about it, I couldn’t trust him either. For all I knew, he could have had some covert reason for hanging around me or been in cahoots with Elmer or Henry.

  In the morning, I hobbled down the stairs to the kitchen, where I found Tymon drinking coffee.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I helped myself.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Can I pour you a cup?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Feeling better today?”

  “Much.”

  “I want to fix that floorboard so you don’t get your crutch caught in it again,” he said as he got up from the table.

  “Okay.”

  I started the tea kettle. Five minutes later, Tymon was back in the kitchen with a shoebox.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He sat down and slowly shoved the box across the table toward me without saying anything.

  I laughed. “Nothing is going to jump out at me, is it?”

  He maintained a sober face.

  I lifted off the lid. The box was filled with 100-pound Irish notes.

  I glanced up at Tymon, and we stared at each other for several seconds.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “Under the loose floorboard.”

  “So that’s where she hid it.”

  “Who?”

  “Minnie.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “It’s a long story.”

  He stood up. “So you know about this?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I don’t need to know. I’m going to fix that floorboard now.”

  I did a quick count of the bills to make sure all were there. Four hundred. Four hundred? I had counted three hundred and seventy-two of them with Minnie. Where had the other twenty-eight come from? I recounted. Exactly four hundred. I counted a third time. Same thing. Could I have miscounted the first time? The damn bills couldn’t have multiplied on their own.

  Tymon was back.

  “All done, Miss Gracie.” He sat down with me. “So do you suppose that’s what they were after?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You’re not safe here. They could come back.”

  “They won’t come back. Whatever it was they were looking for—if they were looking for something in particular—they didn’t find it.”

  “You never know. If I were you, I’d put that money in a safe place and stay in a hotel or something until this cools down.”

  “I can’t afford to do that.”

  He glanced down at the box and then at me. “Are you kidding me?”

  “It’s not my money, Tymon.”

  “I’ll lend you the money to stay in a hotel. What are you going to do if they come back here and you’re here? Hobble away from them? You’re defenseless on those crutches.” There was certainty in his tone.

  “I’ll get an attack dog.”

  “You’re taking this much too lightly. Promise me you’ll think about what I’ve said.”

  “I promise.”

  “I can stay if you want.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Lock the door behind me.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  I looked at all the money, afraid to admit he might be right.

  * * *

  I started out sleeping in my bed upstairs, but every creak, gust of wind, and car that went by made me jump. After two hours of lying there with my eyes wide open, I got dressed and went downstairs to sleep, but not before lining up pots and pans, tin cans, and anything else I could find in front of the doors so that if anyone did try to get in I would hear it.

  The next morning, every muscle in my body ached from sleeping crumpled up in the living room armchair—the most centrally located piece of furniture. Minnie didn’t have as much as an aspirin in the medicine cabinet, so I added that to the list of things I needed at the store.

  The money made me nervous, but I had to keep it in the house until Monday when the banks were open. It was currently inside a flour sack in the freezer, the only place that hadn’t been disturbed during the break-in.

  The phone rang, and I didn’t have to answer it to know it was Tymon. He’d called to check on me no less than four times since he’d left. I supposed he was genuinely concerned, but even though I thought I could probably trust him, his attentiveness was making me uncomfortable. He said he was going to come over later in the day to drill holes in all the window frames and then secure them somehow with large nails stuck in the holes. As long as he didn’t nail all the windows shut, I didn’t care what he did.

  Savoring the last of Minnie’s chamomile tea, I made a list of what I needed to do on Monday. I was running low on cash and hoped I had enough to buy at least some staples. Naomi had been forwarding my mail to me, and the checks I’d received from clients had carried me so far. I checked my wallet. Twenty-eight dollars. With any luck, when I was done I’d have enough left over to put a few dollars’ worth of gas in my car. I checked the change compartment. Another dollar seventy-five and the key from my mother’s jewelry box that I hoped opened the trunk in the attic.

  I stared at the key. That wasn’t her key. That was the key to Minnie’s safe deposit box. Where had I put my mother’s key? Or was that my mother’s key? Confused, I went to Minnie’s dresser drawer where I thought I had left her safe deposit box key, and it was there, right where I had left it. I placed both keys side by side on the dresser. Except for the grooves, they were identical.

  While examining them, I managed to turn them over enough times that now I didn’t know which was which, but I guessed that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the key I had found in my mother’s jewelry box now looked like it could be for a safe deposit box and not the trunk.

  I went upstairs and dumped the contents of the jewelry box onto the bed. Her watch caught my attention. I had never really looked at it very closely before. It was a Rolex. Expensive. I don’t remember ever having seen my mother wear it. I put it back and continued with my original mission.

  Initially, I had found the key hiding under the loose felt lining at the bottom of the box. I pulled back the entire lining to reveal a tiny piece of paper with the number 708 written on it. Minnie’s box number at North Community Bank was 351. Did all banks use the same kind of key and numbering system?

  I racked my brain for the name of the bank that had taken over my parents’ house after they died, thinking maybe they had a box at that bank. Now that I thought about it, it would have made sense since I hadn’t found any of the documents among their things one might have expected to find after they died, like my parents’ birth certificates or their marriage license.

  I supposed that even if I had known at which bank the box was located, I wouldn’t have been able to access it. For Minnie’s box, I had power of attorney, but I didn’t have anything like that for my parents. I would call Minnie’s attorney on Monday and ask him what I could do about it. If they’d had a safe deposit box, my birth certificate could be in there. I didn’t know why I—ace PI that I was—hadn’t thought of that before.

  * * *

  That night, I slept well, probably because Tymon had burglar-proofed all the windows. But for him to be completely satisfied, I feared I may have still needed a ten-foot barbed-wire fence surrounding the house.

  The next morning, I thought about leaving the house, and the idea made me nervous. Or maybe it was the idea of coming back to it that scared me. Or both. But I had errands to do, and I had to face that fear sometime—I refused to be a prisoner in my own home.

  When it was time to go,
I triple-checked all the windows and double-locked the back door. Somehow I managed to get to the car on my crutches while carrying a shoulder bag across my chest, keys in one hand and in the other a metal nail file that Tymon made me promise I would carry with me whenever I left the house. “The neck and eyes are the best places to jab someone if you really want to hurt them,” he had explained. “That’s if you can’t knee him in the groin.” I was also wearing a whistle around my neck in case I was attacked and needed to get someone’s attention. It was almost not worth going out.

  As I drove to the bank, for some reason I was reminded of a conversation Minnie and I had had over a few Scotches one evening when she asked me where I saw myself in five years. I told her I didn’t know, wouldn’t know until I knew who I was. She’d quoted one of her late husband’s favorite authors, Napoleon Hill. “A goal is a dream with a deadline,” she had said. I liked that quote. Then she advised me to not be like her and wallow my way through life without dreams and goals. I vowed never to lose sight of that wisdom.

  I neared Six Corners and parked the car in an open lot—another one of Tymon’s suggestions—and armed with the power-of-attorney letter, I entered Minnie’s bank and asked for her safe deposit box. The clerk brought it into a small room assigned to me and unlocked his half while I unlocked the other. As soon as he left, I opened the box and realized there wasn’t enough room in it for the thick stash of money I had. I rang for the clerk and asked if I could rent a larger box. When he came back with the new box and paperwork to sign, I noticed the new key was a different style than the one for the smaller box. I asked him about it.

  “We probably have six different style keys here,” he said. “Most banks do.”

  I showed him my other key. “So this other key I have could belong to any number of banks?”

  He examined the edge of the key.

  “They all have serial numbers. Do you want me see if this is one of ours?”

  “Sure.” I had never noticed a number stamped on the edge—more of my first-rate investigative skills hard at work.

  He came back in a few minutes with a thick ledger.

  “It was ours.”

  “Was?”

  “It went to the city’s unclaimed property office on...let’s see...June 1.”

  “Of this year?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No ma’am. When someone fails to pay the rent, we try our best to locate the owner or, in cases where the owner died, their heirs. And if we can’t locate anyone, we’re obligated to keep it five years, and that was up on June 1.”

  Ten days ago. What timing!

  After the clerk left, I put everything in the new box and—taking a chance that he was available to see me for a few minutes—drove to Minnie’s attorney’s office. There I learned that Mr. Webb was in court, so I left him a message about my parents’ safe deposit box.

  My next stop was the District 16 police station, where I picked up a copy of the police report on the break-in and dropped off the crumpled photo and cigarette butt I had found after the ransacking. I asked the policeman behind the counter if I gave him the name of who I thought did it, could they see if their fingerprints matched those on the photo. I already knew the answer to this question but wanted to hear it from him.

  “Not without probable cause, lady. What would you like us to do with the cigarette butt?”

  “I thought it could be evidence. If you have a suspect and he smokes that brand...”

  “Whatever you say.”

  My next stop was the Ace Hardware store, where I picked up ten rubber doorstops. After buying a few essentials at the grocery store, I had enough cash left for three gallons of gas.

  The first thing I did when I got home was place three rubber doorstops under each of the outside doors. I wasn’t sure how secure that was, but it beat the pile of pots and pans I had been using. Then I made some lunch and thought about where I should be focusing my time—seeking revenge on Elmer, working on Attic Finds, or getting a life. It was a tough call. I was grateful when the phone interrupted my thoughts.

  It was Fern. She told me Essie hadn’t come to church on Sunday, and when she’d asked one of the elders about her, he’d said she moved away and didn’t leave a forwarding address. Fern had then called the Cicero Baird & Warner office where Essie worked and was told she no longer worked there.

  I would have kicked myself if I could have.

  “Moved away? Just like that?” I asked her.

  “That’s what I was told. I asked around, and no one seems to know anything.”

  “Great. So where does that leave us?”

  “You’re the private eye. Can’t you do something to find her?”

  “I could. But then what? It appears she doesn’t want to tell either one of us what she knows.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. What could she possibly know that is so remarkable that it would change someone else’s life and make her so afraid to say anything that she ups and moves away? I don’t know anything that would fit that scenario.”

  “It must have something to do with Anna’s death, don’t you think?”

  “So let’s say she knows who killed her. And let’s say when Essie said it would change a girl’s life, she was referring to you. Would that change your life?” she asked me.

  “Depends on who it was, I suppose. I don’t know. Maybe if we put our heads together we could come up with something. Want to come over?”

  We planned to get together Friday after work. She’d bring the pizza—I’d supply the beer.

  While I waited for Tymon to arrive to fix a leaky pipe under the kitchen sink, I called each of the Irish organizations the reference librarian had provided to ask them for a list of Irish Sweepstakes winners. None was able to do it straight away, but all three agreed to see what they could find.

  A loud knock on the back door startled me. I figured it was Tymon.

  I opened the door with a big smile only to find myself standing face-to-face with Elmer Berghorn.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Desperation

  Without saying a word, Elmer shoved me out of the way and closed the door.

  I stumbled several steps back and teetered for a few long seconds before dropping one of my crutches, which he kicked to the side. To regain my balance, I grabbed onto the corner of the large island in the middle of the room.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

  Five feet in front of me, Elmer stood with his fists clenched, his eyes narrow slits. In the eight months I had worked in the same office with him, I’d never seen his face look anything like that—so distorted and perverse. The scant light that trickled in from the small window onto his face caused him to appear more apparitional than human.

  “Where is it?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “Where is what?” I asked inching back away from him.

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  What does he have in his hand?

  “I know you found it.”

  He edged closer, and I took a long step back, struggling to balance on one crutch, the thumping of my heart against my rib cage only adding to my unsteadiness.

  “You better leave before I call the police.”

  He took another step toward me, and I took another step backward. My back was now up against the refrigerator. I scanned the island for something I could use to hit him or throw at him if I needed to, but there was nothing within my reach. I considered confessing to having the Irish money and offering to take him to the bank for it. I didn’t know how far I should go and also didn’t know how far he would go.

  He glanced over at the phone on the other side of the kitchen and arched a sly brow. “No, you won’t.”

  “You need to leave.” I was barely able to get the words out.

  “Not until you hand it over, and if you want to find out how serious I am, continue to play dumb.” />
  He started to take another step closer, and when I raised my remaining crutch up toward his head in an effort to stop him, he snatched it out of my hand with a vicious yank and threw it across the room. The formidable sound of it slamming against the wall caused me to jump. I considered running but was afraid my knee wouldn’t hold up to that. The rush of blood that surged through my veins made me feel faint.

  “If you don’t hand it over, Gracie,” he said, spitting out my name like it was poison, “you’ll need someone a lot better than your boy Tymon for protection.”

  That he called me Gracie was unnerving—only Tymon, Minnie, and my mother had ever called me that.

  “Look, Elmer, I don’t have anything you—”

  “And if you even think of calling the police, try this on for size, golden girl. I don’t suppose you know that my dear cousin Henry is dead. Poor soul. I found him crumpled up in a heap on his cement patio.” He relaxed his posture, almost like he was enjoying a little chitchat with a friend. “And wouldn’t you know it, just the other day he was telling me about how your little Miss Minnie made some threats against him. Now the police think he fell off his second-floor deck after having a bit too much to drink—which, knowing that boozer, was a likely story. But if I told them you were the one who made those threats, I think that would open up a nice little investigation ...making your life a living hell.”

  “What makes you think they’d believe you?”

  “The grieving relative? The one who found his poor broken body that evening?”

  “You’ll never get away with it.”

  He took another step closer, his face so tense it looked like it might shatter. I glanced to the right, but there was nothing to hold on to, so I sidestepped back to the island, putting more distance between us.

  “Too bad Mommy and Daddy aren’t around to help you,” he said sarcastically.

  My body stiffened at the remark, the anger rising up in my throat like bile.

  “You leave them out of this.”

  He took another step closer, forcing me back one more step along the base of the island.