“What are you suggesting, that we beat it out of him?”
“No. Maybe just rough him up a little.”
“You’re sick, Fern.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
* * *
Raymond Webb called me to say he had a hearing date for the validation of Minnie’s draft will—August 2. Three weeks away. He felt good about it, especially given Tymon’s statement.
When I got off the phone, I started setting the table for dinner—Tymon was bringing Chinese food. It had surprised me earlier when he’d said he had a few errands to run and would be back in a couple of hours. He hadn’t left me alone for that long since moving in, which I had to admit didn’t bother me anymore.
Tymon’s familiar rap on the back door made me smile. There were certain things I’d miss when he was gone.
He had a wide grin on his face.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said unconvincingly, as he entered the kitchen with a large bag.
I finished setting the table while he unloaded the food, which we didn’t bother taking out of the white cardboard containers.
“There is no safe,” he said before either one of us took a bite.
“What?”
“There is a room in Berghorn’s basement, very similar to the one here, but it’s empty.”
“I know you don’t want me to know how you know this, but can you at least tell me that everything went okay...without incident.”
“He’ll never know anyone was there. Someone had already hacked through the cement wall to get in though.”
“Someone?”
“Not us. Someone before us.”
“Well, I hope it was Berghorn. And when he finished hacking down the wall, I hope he looked up to find the trapdoor that he could have used to get in. Serve him right. Anyway, the room was empty?”
“Completely.”
“But who knows what Berghorn could have removed from it.”
“Right. I’m sure your parents didn’t build it for nothing.”
“I’m getting tired of all these dead ends.”
“Gracie?”
“Hmm?”
“At some point, are you going to let go so you can get on with your life?”
“And give up?”
“Letting go doesn’t have to mean giving up.”
“I suppose.”
“And I realize everyone’s different, but sometimes maybe it’s better not to search too hard for it.”
“Why?”
“You could get hurt in the process, or worse yet, find something that makes the situation even more troublesome.”
“I guess it’s a matter of whether or not it’s worth the risk,” I added.
“Exactly.”
“Tymon?”
“Yes.”
“It’s worth the risk for me.”
* * *
A floor safe couldn’t just disappear, I thought, as I lay wide awake several hours before daybreak. Like Tymon had said, since the receipt described it as a floor safe, it had to have been heavy and bulky. He said he remembered seeing something covered with a tarp in Anna’s hidden basement room that could have been a safe—the size of a small dresser. A floor safe would obviously—.
“You idiot!” I said aloud.
It was three A.M., but I didn’t care. I threw on a robe, ran up the stairs to Tymon’s room, and pounded on the door.
The door swung open, and there stood Tymon, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, his hair a tousled mess.
“What’s wrong?”
“It doesn’t sit on the floor. It sits in the floor.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a floor safe! A safe that’s built into the floor...flush with the floor so you could throw a rug over it or a piece of furniture, and no one would ever know it’s there.”
He looked dazed.
“Okay,” he said unenthusiastically.
“I’m sorry I woke you. I got excited. We can continue this conversation in the morning.”
“Well, I’m up now,” he said. “Let me get dressed. You make the coffee.”
He wasn’t as excited as I was, but that was okay. I charged down the stairs, threw on some clothes, and went to the kitchen. While I made a pot of coffee, which Minnie had eventually taught me how to do correctly, I fantasized about finding the safe and uncovering all sorts of missing pieces to the incomplete puzzle that was my life. This could be a red-letter day.
Tymon used the inside staircase to enter my space. I supposed he figured that since I had rousted him out of bed he had the right to do that. And he did.
“I’m really sorry, Tymon. Please don’t be mad at me.”
“I don’t think I could ever get mad at you, Gracie, not for real. Just give me a cup of coffee.”
We sat down at the kitchen table.
“So what’s this about the floor safe?”
“The floor safe Anna bought isn’t one that sits on the floor. It’s one that gets implanted into the floor. That would make a lot more sense than a big clumsy one that would be next to impossible to get down a ladder into that basement room, doesn’t it?”
“Have to agree with you there. So let me guess. We’re going to search every inch of floor for the safe.”
I flashed him a wide smile.
“That’s what I thought. But what makes you think it’s still here?”
“Because it was hidden, and whoever cleaned out this place after Anna died didn’t know it was there. Could be.”
“We’ll soon find out, won’t we?”
“Do you want me to make you some breakfast before we start?”
“That would be wonderful.”
When Tymon finished his breakfast, we started in the living room, moving each piece of furniture, peeling back the area rug, and looking underneath it for suspicious cracks in the hardwood floor. We found nothing in the living room, foyer, or dining room.
Minnie’s bedroom also had hardwood floors, and like the living room, there was a large area rug covering ninety percent of it. The trapdoor to the basement room was under the bed. A thin leather strap affixed to it served as the means to open it. And several feet from it was a thin outline, about a foot square, about the right size for a floor safe.
I looked at Tymon.
“I’ll get something to pry it open,” he said.
He returned in a few minutes and slipped a putty knife into one of the cracks. The suspense caused me to stop breathing until he lifted the thin ply of wood out of its cradle and placed it to the side. Underneath was a sheet of tar paper. Tymon lifted up the tar paper to reveal a combination lock, situated in the middle of what appeared to be the top of a metal box.
I raced to my dresser drawer and pulled out the scrap of paper that had the combination written on it.
L4, R29, L60.
I dialed the numbers, and when I heard a click, I let out a high-pitched yelp. I pulled up on the recessed handle and carefully lifted open the lid to the box. The suspense was invigorating but at the same time seemed to settle my nerves.
THIRTY-FIVE
Open Floodgates!
The safe was empty.
“If Anna had actually used this safe, why was it empty? No one would have even known it was here.”
Tymon shook his head.
“I wonder if Al knew about it.”
“Maybe. I wish we knew who he was. You don’t remember anything more about him other than what you’ve already told me?”
“No.”
“When Henry called here and believed I was Minnie and started to spill his guts, he said something about the loverboy across the hall having something to do with Anna’s murder.”
“Didn’t seem like that kind of person.”
“People snap sometimes.”
“I suppose.”
“And Henry’s nose was in everybody’s business.”
“I know, but—”
“And we know he left right after
she died. Why was that?”
“I still don’t think he had anything to do with it.”
“You look tired.”
“I am. After we put this room back together, I think I’ll take a short nap.”
It was approaching five A.M., but it seemed much later. Tymon went back upstairs. I settled myself in the living room to think.
* * *
The phone woke me up. I must have dozed off in the living room chair—not surprising since I had gotten up at three in the morning. I glanced at the mantle clock—half past nine.
It was Naomi.
“Are you going to be home later?” she asked. “I’d like to stop over after work, if that’s okay.”
“Sure. I’m—”
“No, I’m sorry you must have the wrong number. Goodbye.”
She hung up. Berghorn must have stepped out of his office.
I knew Naomi well enough to know she wasn’t coming over to chitchat. Something was going on.
I had nothing better to do, so I figured I’d spend some time at City Hall to see what I could find out about Bonnie and Walter Thomas, the names written on the backs of the photographs we had found in Minnie’s attic. As soon as Tymon came down, I told him where I was going.
I drove to the County Assessor’s office where they kept a paper trail of real estate ownerships. I didn’t have good contacts there, so I had to wait in line. An hour later, I had confirmation that Bonnie and Walter Thomas were the first owners of the house and that it had been built in 1910. Nothing earth-shattering, but at least that put the Thomas name to rest.
* * *
I could tell Naomi was upset.
“Let’s sit in the living room,” I suggested. “Can I get you something to drink? Wine, something stronger?”
“No. If I have a drink, I’ll get just that more agitated.”
“Ice water?”
“Thanks. It’s so god-awful hot today.”
She wasted no time or words as soon as I returned with her beverage.
“Elmer Berghorn is scum. No he’s lower than scum. Do you know what he’s doing right now?”
I shook my head.
“Two people, two illegal immigrants without driver’s licenses, strangers to each other, get into a car accident, and one is seriously injured. Each comes separately to Mr. Berghorn for advice, and he accepts both cases! Now I know a little bit about conflict of interest, and I know he can’t do that.”
“Right. There are rules of conduct that prohibit that.”
“And he’s got me doing the billing. These guys are probably so scared, they keep paying his bills. And they don’t have that kind of money. I know they don’t. He’s shameless!”
“I’ll tell you what’s even more despicable, Naomi. He doesn’t even have a license to practice law.”
“What?!”
“I found out recently it was revoked twenty years ago.”
“Well, that explains a few things. I’ve got to get out of there. What a horrible man.”
“Do you think you could stick it out just a little longer to give me time to have him caught by the right people?”
“How long would that take?”
“Not long, I hope. And, Naomi, when it’s over, if you need anything to tide you over in between jobs, I can help you with that.”
“Just tell me what I have to do.”
Learning Berghorn’s latest escapade incited me to trigger the opening of the floodgates that would hopefully sweep him into a jail cell where he belonged.
THIRTY-SIX
The Trunk
I had sufficient evidence against Berghorn to file a complaint with the Illinois State Bar Association—one compelling enough in my mind to solidly implicate him. The big question was whether the people with the power to put him away agreed with that premise.
I was careful not to implicate Naomi in the gathering of evidence or present any information that could be construed as illegally seized or else I’d be incriminating myself. It was a delicate balancing act. When I finished entering the information on the appropriate complaint form, I drove to the ISBS’s regional office near City Hall and, ignoring my stomach spasms, hand-delivered it.
I didn’t feel good doing this. The investigation would likely result in Elmer being fined, made to reimburse people for his fees and any damages, and possibly incarcerated. The fact that he had many illegal immigrants for clients—people with so few rights—was even more troubling. What would happen to them? And it pained me that the bar association’s investigation would have nothing to do with his causing my parents’ deaths.
I hoped I had done the right thing.
The next morning, Tymon agreed to join me in the attic to see if we could get the trunk open without breaking it. If we couldn’t, then I’d have to wait to see if I legally inherited the house, in which case I figured the trunk would be my property and I could break into it if I wanted.
It was the middle of July, and each day the local weathermen stated how many days in a row we’d had record heat. The heat would have had less effect on everyone if they hadn’t kept reminding us of it. I was grateful that Tymon had installed a fan in one of the front windows—the air it pulled through the house made it somewhat bearable. Other people were more creative—Naomi had shared with me that she put her underwear in the freezer to keep cool.
Tymon was still living with me, though his buddies had moved out. The other guys came over just often enough to give the appearance of constant activity. This arrangement suited me fine.
With all that had been going on in my life since Minnie had died, I hadn’t given much thought to her neighbors, and none had approached me either. Now with a succession of men coming and going all the time, I suspected there was a lot of tongue-wagging going on behind my back. Oh, well.
Tymon arrived carrying his long extension ladder and a rubber strip, the same rubber strip I should have used to avoid that nasty fall back in April. We both smiled, and we both knew why.
“Here, let me carry that,” I told him. “Where would I buy one of these, by the way?”
“I’ll give you one for Christmas,” he said with a straight face.
Tymon was tall enough to stand on a chair and open the trapdoor to the ceiling. He pushed it to the side and situated the ladder and rubber strip, and we climbed up. It had to be 100 degrees in that attic.
He shined light on the trunk with his flashlight.
“I believe they call this a steamer trunk,” he explained.
“What’s a steamer trunk?”
“Any trunk with a flat top. They were called that back when people used them for luggage on steam-powered ships and trains. The flat tops made them stackable.”
“How do you know so much about everything, Tymon?”
“I’ve been around the block a few times, Gracie. I see and hear things.”
He aimed the light on the lock. Underneath it were the initials ISR.
“I didn’t notice that before,” I said.
He shined the light on the top of the trunk.
“I’ll bet you didn’t notice this before either,” he said, pointing to a key sitting atop the trunk.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I picked up the key, put it in the lock, and turned it. The clasp popped open.
We looked at each other in disbelief, and when we’d stopped laughing, Tymon tried to nudge the trunk with his foot.
“There’s something heavy in there.”
“I’m afraid to lift the lid.”
“Want me to open it?” he asked.
“Yeah, you do it. I’m going to get ready to run.”
He grinned. “Why? Whatever is in there is dead by now.”
“Cut that out. This is creepy enough.”
He lifted the lid and exposed a tray sitting on top. Inside the tray were three light-colored bags tied off with thick string.
Tymon lifted one of the bags out of the tray. It jingled.
“This weighs a ton.”
; “Open it.”
He took a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and cut the string. When he did, coins came spilling out. Tymon shined the flashlight on one of them. At its center was an image of a woman with outstretched arms and wings. On the left was engraved 50 PESOS. On the right, 37.5 GR ORO PURO. And on the bottom, “1821” and “1947.”
“Why the two dates?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe 1821 is some important date in Mexican history?”
“Could be.”
“It says it’s 37.5 grams of pure gold,” he said. He poked the other two bags, which made the same jingly sound. “Three bags of them.”
I had two letters to Anna from Nacho, who I presumed was her uncle in Mexico. Naomi had told me Nacho was a nickname for Ignacio, which would fit the first initial of the monogram on the trunk. And the Mexican coins made sense in terms of where he had lived.
“How much is 37.5 grams of gold worth, do you think?” I asked.
“An ounce is worth thirty-some dollars.”
“How many grams are in an ounce?”
“I have no idea, but let’s say each coin is an ounce.”
“And would you say there are at least 250 coins in each bag?” I asked.
“Probably.”
I did the rough math in my head. “That’s at least $7,500 a bag.”
“Times three bags.”
“Let’s see what’s underneath.”
His brow dripping with perspiration, Tymon lifted the heavy bags out of the tray.
Inside the trunk were numerous smallish items wrapped in brown cloth. I picked one up and tore off the cloth to find a layer of foam padding. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to protect whatever was inside. I removed the padding and revealed a jade figurine—a beautifully carved salamander.
“As much as I want to see what all is in there, I can’t take much more of this heat,” he said.
“Feel up to carrying them downstairs?”
We dragged the trunk over to the hatch door. Tymon went halfway down the ladder, and one by one I handed him the items. When we were done, the floor of the room that used to be O’Gowan’s was a sea of brown lumps.
“Before we unwrap these, let me get us some drinks.”
Regarding Anna Page 25