Authors: Peg Kehret
When he entered the Market, the clerk said, “Oh. You again.”
“I forgot something,” Mr. Turlep said.
“Your manners?”
“I forgot to ask you for directions. I'm trying to find Ethel Hodge. Do you know where she lives?”
“Up the hill about six miles. The old Hodge place. Go past the cemetery and then keep going until the paved road ends and the gravel road starts. You'll see her driveway on the right.”
“I didn't know there were any homes beyond the cemetery.”
“There's only the one. It's been there forever; the parents homesteaded the place. The two girls grew up there and then stayed on after the old folks died. One sister's gone now, tooâFlorence, God rest her soul. But Ethel's still alive and kicking as far as I know, though I haven't seen her in a while. She bakes cakes for all the big events around here. You haven't lived until you've tasted Ethel Hodge's lemon layer cake.”
Mr. Turlep couldn't wait while the man yammered on about the Hodge woman's cakes. He walked away while the man was in mid-sentence and rushed to his car. As the market door banged shut, he heard the man holler, “You're welcome again!”
Impudent clerk. Didn't he know he was insulting the manager of the bank? Let him come in next week wanting a loan so he could buy a new car. Mr. Turlep began imagining how he'd turn down the application, then realized he would no longer have any say about who got loans and who didn't. Today had been his last day of work, his last day to earn a paycheck. He gripped the steering wheel and started up the hill. He had to get the box of money.
He drove past the cemetery again. The rain fell steadily now. He had never come here after dark before, but his eyes automatically looked toward the place where his money had been hidden. His headlights illuminated the wilted daisies that lay beside the gaping hole.
He continued up the hill and found the road that the clerk had described. A small wooden sign on a post said
HODGE
.
Mr. Turlep stopped as soon as he turned into the driveway. He put the ski mask on, then he loaded the gun and laid it in his lap. He drove slowly down
the long, winding driveway, anger boiling inside him like hot lava, ready to erupt.
An old truck sat at the end of the driveway. He saw no other cars. Good. She must be alone.
The old woman was probably trying to open the box. He'd show her the gun and tell her the box belonged to him. She'd hand it over without a word. She'd better, because he intended to do whatever he had to do to get the money back.
There were no neighbors out here, no houses for miles. No one would hear if a gun went off.
I
rummaged through the tools in the barn until I found a sturdy metal file. I jammed it in the opening I'd made between the lid and the box itself. I sawed the file back and forth, trying to cut through the hinges.
When that didn't work, I used a pry bar to work the hinges loose. I stuck the pry bar under a hinge, then hit the pry bar with a hammer. The hinge gave a little, so I did it again and again. Each time, the hinge loosened a bit more.
Darkness fell early because of the rain. I turned on the single light that hung from a chain and kept prying.
It took me nearly an hour of steady work, but the hinges finally broke loose. I could open the box from the back side, even though it was still locked. I held
the box under the light and looked at its contents: money. Lots of money.
I lifted out a pile of crisp new paper bills held together with a narrow paper band. This was not Monopoly money, buried by children playing pirate games. These bills were real.
A one-hundred-dollar bill was on top. I slid it out and held it toward the lightbulb. Last year my social studies teacher had talked about the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving, the government agency that makes our money. He showed the class how to check for counterfeit twenty-dollar bills by holding the money up to a light. He said when we did, we should be able to see a face that didn't show before. He had passed a twenty-dollar bill around, and we each got a turn to hold it up to the light and find the secret face.
When I held the one-hundred-dollar bill toward the barn light, I couldn't see an extra face. I tried to recall what my teacher had said. Did the test only work on twenties?
Still holding the bill up to the light, I moved it to a different angle, and that's when I remembered. My teacher had not demonstrated a one-hundred-dollar bill, but he'd told us about a special ink that's used on the numerals in the bottom right-hand corner when one-hundred-dollar bills are printed. As I tilted
the bill, the number 100 in that corner changed from green to black. I moved the bill back and forth, watching the numeral turn green, then black again.
The money was not fake; it was real.
I used my thumb to flip through the edges of the rest of the bills in the stack, looking at the number in the corner of each one. All of the bills were the same.
I counted: There were one hundred bills in this stack. One hundred times one hundred dollars . . . I held ten thousand dollars in one hand!
I couldn't get the bill I'd removed to slide back under the strip of paper so I laid it on top and set that stack of bills on the floor. I took out another stack, and then another, counting the bills in each one.
Some of the stacks at the bottom were held together with green rubber bands, and the bills were worn, as if they'd been in circulation for a while. Those stacks were slightly thicker, but each one held the same amount.
Altogether, the box contained thirteen stacks of bills, with ten thousand dollars in each stack!
I did the math in my head. Oh, man! Along with Willie's leg bones, I had removed one hundred thirty thousand dollars from the grave!
Wait a minute. The amount sounded familiar. Aunt Ethel had told me that's how much the Cash for Critters auction had raised. One hundred thirty thousand dollars had been stolen by the masked robber outside the bank.
Could this be the money the community had raised for the animal shelter? In my mind, I replayed Aunt Ethel's account of the robbery. I was sure she had said bags of money were stolen.
The bags from the auction would have contained bills of many sizes, not all one-hundred-dollar bills. Still, the amount seemed suspicious. The thief could have exchanged any coins and lesser bills for bills this size, so the money would fit in a smaller box and be easier to hide.
Shaking with excitement, I stuffed the money back in the box, pulled the light chain, and carried the box out of the barn.
The sky and yard were black as midnight now, although the rain had stopped. A crescent moon peeked over the treetops, too slim to send any light to the ground. It didn't matter. I knew where the house was, and I ran toward it, clutching the box of money in my arms.
I was halfway to the back door when headlights announced a car coming down the driveway. I
stopped, my heart pounding. I wanted to shout the news of my discovery to the world, but not everyone is honest. I didn't want to tell the wrong person, especially when I was alone out here in the country.
This car's driver was probably some friend of Aunt Ethel, come to check on me, but I decided to hide the box before I showed myself.
Instead of continuing to the kitchen door, I ran to the big lilac bush near the side of the house and knelt behind it. From there I could see the end of the driveway and the front of the house. I put the box on the ground, shoving it in close to where the lilac branches came out of the dirt.
The car drove in fast. The driver left the lights on when he got out, probably so he could see to walk to the front door.
I started to stand up, intending to go greet the visitor, but when I looked at the driver, my breath caught in my throat.
The driver wore a black ski mask, the kind that covers the whole head, with slits for the eyes and mouth.
This was no friendly visitor.
Why would anyone approach Aunt Ethel's house in the middle of June dressed like that? The only reason I could think of for someone to hide his face with
a ski mask was if he intended to commit a crime and didn't want to be recognized.
It seemed too much of a coincidence for this man to come tonight. Did he know Aunt Ethel wasn't here? I wondered if some dishonest hospital employee passed along to a thief the names of people who were admitted to the hospital, knowing the person's house would probably be unattended. If unscrupulous people stole from patients in the hospital, anything was possible.
I dropped back behind the lilac bush, the wet leaves brushing my face.
The man strode quickly up the porch steps, then pounded on the door. “Ethel Hodge!” he called. “Open up!”
Whoever he was, he didn't know Aunt Ethel was in the hospital. If he intended to rob Aunt Ethel, he wouldn't call out her name. But why else would he wear a ski mask in the middle of June? Nothing made sense.
Maybe when nobody answered the door, the man would leave. As soon as he did, I would call the police. I wished I had called them when I first got home from the hospital.
He didn't leave. Instead, he opened the front door and stepped inside. The indoor lights went on.
Through the windows, I could see the man go from room to room. He looked under the table and behind the couch, as if he were searching for something in particular.
Was he looking for the box of money? I couldn't tell if this was the same man I'd seen digging in the cemetery, but even if he was, how could he possibly know I had the box?
Light blazed from the upstairs windows. As I pictured the masked man going into the bedrooms, I realized he would soon discover Aunt Ethel did not live here alone.
I had left my dirty clothes in a pile on the floor. My extra sneakers stood beside the bed. My CDs were stacked on the small table, and a half-read book and a bag of jelly beans rested on the nightstand. It would be perfectly clear that someone besides an eighty-three-year-old woman lived in this house. Someone my age.
Was he a petty thief, looking for anything of value? Or was he the man I'd seen at the cemetery, looking for the box of money?
The upstairs lights went out, followed by the kitchen light, and, last, the living room light. The front door opened. The man returned to his car.
He drove off, spinning his tires in the gravel so it flew toward the porch.
I waited a minute to be sure he was gone. Then I grabbed the box from under the bush, raced toward the house, bolted up the steps, and pushed open the front door.
I flipped the light switch, then ran to Aunt Ethel's old black dial telephone, the one I'd used to call the medics. I put the box on the table and picked up the receiver.
My hands shook as I dialed the numbers. I was probably setting a new record, calling 911 twice in one day from the same telephone.
I held the receiver to my ear. There was no sound. My call had not gone through. I jiggled my finger on the button, then listened again. Nothing. No dial tone.
My eyes followed the telephone cord to where it met the wall. It stopped two feet short; the cord had been cut.
I stood with the useless receiver in my hand, staring at the dangling cord. I was completely isolated. No phone, no neighbors, no way to get help.
I couldn't stay here alone until morning, not with so much money. What if the masked man returned?
I would have to ride the old bicycle down the hill to Carbon City in the dark, using a flashlight to see the road.
I didn't think I could manage to hold a flashlight and the box of money, too, while I rode, so I decided to leave the box here. I grabbed it, ran to the kitchen, and stuck it in the clothes washer.
I raced back to the living room for the flashlight that Aunt Ethel kept next to her recliner in case the power went out. I bent to pick it up when, behind me, I heard a
click
as the front door opened.
I whirled around.
The man in the ski mask stood inside the door. He had a gun in one hand, pointed at me.
“Where's the box?” he asked.
“Box? What box? I don't know what you mean.”
“I think you do. You or Ethel Hodge dug up a box at the cemetery today. It's mine, and I want it back. Now.”
I tried to look innocent. “What makes you think we have it?”
“Because the flowers planted there are the same as the ones on Florence Hodge's grave. They're all along the side of this house, too. Either you have the box or Ethel Hodge has it. Where is she?”
“She'll be back any minute,” I said. I couldn't let him know the truth, that I was here alone.
“Did she take the box with her?”
I stalled, trying to think what to do. “We don't have any box. She, um, went to a neighbor's house.”
I remembered Aunt Ethel's gun, the one she had used to shoot the bat. She kept it in her bedroom. Should I pretend the box was upstairs, tell the man I would get it, and then get the gun instead? But I didn't know anything about guns. I wouldn't know how to tell if it was loaded, and even if I did know how to use it, did I really want to shoot at a person? There had to be a better way to save myself than by getting into a gunfight.
A flash of light beamed through the front window. Another car was driving toward the house! The man and I both looked out.
“Here's Aunt Ethel now,” I said, as I wondered who it was.
The man stepped close to me. The gun was only a foot from my chest.
“I'll wait behind the couch,” he said. “If this is not Ethel Hodge, you will get rid of whoever it is without saying one word about me or about the box you found. Is that clear?”
“I didn't find any . . .”
“Is that clear?”
His eyes bore into me through the slits in the ski mask.
I nodded.
“If you don't do as I say, you won't live to see tomorrow.”
He pulled the couch out from the wall far enough to get behind it, then he dropped to his knees. I couldn't see him, but I knew he was watching, and I knew the gun was still aimed at me.