Regarding Anna (37 page)

“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.”

Tymon and I spent the next few hours unwrapping a variety of unusual-looking figurines, clay masks, and jewelry—many of them quite beautiful and all appearing to be Mexican. And then we counted the coins, all 1,123 of them.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked him.

“I have no idea what you’re thinking.” He handed me an envelope.

“What’s this?”

“It was in one of the coin bags.”

The sealed envelope had Anna’s name written on it.

“I can’t open this.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not mine.”

“The owner can’t open it.”

“I don’t feel right opening it.”

“You could wait to see if you inherit the house, and then it would be legally yours. But I would say it’s yours anyway. She was your mother.”

“I don’t know that for sure.”

He smiled. “
I
do.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

Anna’s Letters

Tymon and I placed the items from the trunk into three large garbage bags and stashed them in the basement until I could figure out what to do with them. I put the letter to Anna in my nightstand drawer.

The cache of what appeared to be valuable art was a reminder of the photographs I’d taken of the paintings we’d found in the attic earlier. I’d never had the film developed, so I put that on my mental list of errands for the afternoon.

I puttered around the house until the sudden rain shower let up and then headed for Six Corners where I dropped off the film and stopped at the bank to withdraw money from my savings account.

Something compelled me to drive by Berghorn’s office on my way home. I pulled into a parking space across the street and stared at the front door. The more I thought about how nice he’d been in the beginning—how he’d helped me buy a car and move into the apartment upstairs and arranged for Danny to accompany me to places that were too dangerous for me to go alone—the more contempt I had for the man.

Naomi had told me that my half of the office remained vacant. I wasn’t surprised—everyone else was probably too smart to be taken in by him. I wondered if he periodically had a good laugh over what he had pulled on me.

I was just about ready to pull out of the parking space when I heard the gradual increasing sound of a siren. I waited for it to pass, but it didn’t. Instead, a couple of unmarked police cars with blue lights flashing from their dashboards pulled up in front of Berghorn’s office. Two men in dark suits jumped out of the first car and rushed in through the front door. The two remaining men stood outside of their car and appeared to be having a casual conversation.

I put my car in park and turned off the ignition, not believing my good fortune to be able to witness first-hand what I hoped was Berghorn’s arrest.

Five minutes later, Berghorn emerged with his hands behind his back, escorted by the two men. The perspiration glistening on his muscle-tight face was visible from clear across the street. I didn’t want him to see me, so I started to slouch down in my seat. Too late—he looked directly at me. He mouthed something I couldn’t discern, but I didn’t have to—the evil look he gave me spoke for itself.

The police car with Berghorn in it left. I waited another fifteen minutes until the other two officers emerged from his office, each one carrying a box of what I presumed was evidence. As soon as they pulled out, I walked across the street and through the front door to Naomi’s desk.

“Naomi?” I called out.

Naomi came around the corner smiling.

“You knew it was going to come down this afternoon?” she asked.

“No! That’s the beauty of it. I just decided to drive by and, as luck would have it, I saw the whole thing. I haven’t heard one word from the Bar Association.”

“Well, I have. I had to go downtown and answer a bunch of questions, not once, but twice.” Her face lit up. “You should have seen the look on his face when those agents came storming in here. First, surprise. And then, complete horror. It was all I could do to keep a straight face.”

“What did they say to him?”

She picked up a scrap of paper from her desk and, straining to deepen her voice, pretended to read from it. “You’re under arrest for practicing law without a license, insurance fraud, forgery, mail fraud, and driving on an expired driver’s license.”

She switched up her voice to sound pathetic. “But Officer, there must be some mistake.”

Then she went back to the deep voice. “There’s no mistake, Berghorner.”

In her own voice, she said, “Now that was funny, the way he mispronounced his name.”

Back to the deep voice: “There’s no mistake, Berghorner. You’re coming with us.”

“So what happens now?” I asked.

“I was instructed to stay here and wait for a federal investigator.”

“Federal?”

“That’s what he said.”

“I better leave then. Will you be all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Call me if you want to come over afterward. I’ll be home.”

“I will.”

She gestured toward her desk drawer and then left the area.

I opened the drawer and removed a two-page list of Berghorn’s clients, tucked it inside my blouse, and left.

On the drive home, it hit me that things couldn’t have worked out any better¬: he’d be going back to prison where he belonged, and I wasn’t feeling the least bit guilty for having had something to do with it. I turned up the volume on “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. Not me. I had just gotten plenty of satisfaction.

After I got home, I drafted a script I would use to call Berghorn’s clients, telling them that Berghorn was not a real lawyer and giving them the names and phone numbers for two legitimate ones. Naomi had agreed to be with me when I actually called them in case they needed an interpreter.

It had been a tiring day, but I had to make another attempt at solving the Midnighter case—it had been almost five months since Flora had engaged my services. The thefts had continued, and I had no leads. Most recently, a Zippy the Chimp hand puppet had been taken from the backyard of a family who now had a very distraught three-year-old on their hands. Knowing I would be out very late, I took a two-hour nap first and then drove to that neighborhood.

I hadn’t been parked for longer than ten minutes when some movement in the front yard two houses down caught my eye. I sat in silence in the darkness and observed someone or something sauntering across the street. I turned on my headlights to find the same stumpy-tailed cat I had seen on previous stakeouts. When it sensed the light, it dropped something and ran.

I got out of my car and walked to the place where the cat had dropped the item. It was a fully cooked turkey leg.

Since it was too late to knock on Flora’s door and tell her what I had observed, I drove home to catch a few hours of sleep before work the next day.

* * *

I called Flora first thing in the morning.

“I think I know who has been stealing things around the neighborhood,” I told her.

“Who?”

“He’s a large fellow, short brown hair, big green eyes, and a stump for a tail.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a cat, Flora.”

“A cat?”

“That’s what I think. Do you know a cat like that in your neighborhood?”

“No. But in the next block there’s a cat lady—that’s what we call her because nobody knows her name. We don’t know how many cats she has, but we suspect it’s quite a few.” She gave me a description of the cat lady’s house and approximate address so I could investigate further.

That afternoon, I drove to the cat lady’s house to see if any of her cats fit the description of the turkey-leg bandit. Seeing nothing telltale in her yard, I knocked on her door.

The foul smell that wafted from within when the door opened overwhelmed me. An older woman, unkempt, with missing teeth and stubbled chin whiskers, asked me what I wanted. I explained the reason for my visit, and after I convinced her I wasn’t with Animal Control nor interested in removing any cats from her premises, she admitted that she had a cat that fit the description of the bandit.

“He’s been getting out lately, but I have no idea where he goes.”

I told her about all the missing items from the neighborhood.

“Could be him. I don’t know.”

“Would it be possible to have a look around? See if any of the missing items are here?”

“Be my guest.”

The house was in the same unkempt condition as the woman...maybe worse. Cats were everywhere—one on top of the refrigerator, several around the woman’s feet, two going at it in the dining room, and a mom with kittens on a dining room chair. I glanced around as we walked through the house but didn’t see any of the missing items.

“His name is Stumpy,” she said as she led me toward the back of the house. “Never did know what happened to his tail. I saw him coming out of the shed out back the other morning. We can look in there if you want.”

The shed she had referred to was missing a door and half the roof. We walked inside to a large stash of items piled in the corner—toys, clothing, linens, balloons, and right on top a pair of pink polka-dot panties.

“He’s our thief, all right. Would you have a couple of bags I could put all this stuff in?”

While she was getting the bags, I pushed some of the items around with my foot only to find three dead mice at the bottom of the pile. I was grateful when the woman returned with a pair of gloves along with the bags.

“Can you try to keep Stumpy inside from now on?”

“I’ll try.”

* * *

The next day I arrived at circuit court early for the hearing of Minnie’s will and waited for Raymond. When he arrived, he explained what to expect in the proceeding. He didn’t think I would have to say anything—he’d do all the talking.