"She never had the crown jewels," Carolyn said as we walked into the bank. "But she had some things left to her by her grandparents and a few things that had been gifted to her over the years for college graduation and such. Things with sentimental value. She was pretty upset when the watch disappeared, but she assumed she'd lost it herself, and it was just a knockoff anyway. When the diamond earring disappeared, she knew something was wrong. Wait here."
Curt and I stood to the side while she talked with a bank official, signed her name as required, and waited while the official checked her signature. Finally, she gave us a nod, and we followed the two of them back to the safe deposit boxes, waiting again while they used their respective keys to open Annie's box. Then the bank official led us to a private room and discreetly exited, leaving us alone.
"You said a few minutes ago that a diamond earring disappeared," I said before Carolyn opened the box. "Just one?"
"That's what was so odd," she said, her fingers hovering over the box. "It was just the one. Maybe someone wanted her to think she was losing things for some reason." She gave a small smile. "That really does sound Movie of the Week, doesn't it? Anyway, that's when she decided to get this." She tapped the box. "She said she put the remaining diamond earring in here. She always hoped she'd find its mate one day."
She opened the box and sucked in a sharp breath.
It was filled with cash. Stacks of it, piled nearly to the top. It appeared to be all hundreds. Annie had been good with her money, all right. It was a mesmerizing sight to see that much cash in one place.
"I didn't know she…" Carolyn trailed off, staring at the box in disbelief. "I didn't expect this," she said finally, her voice faint.
Curt removed the cash and piled it on the table. "Do you have any idea where this came from?"
Carolyn shook her head. "I know she got some kind of inheritance from her grandparents, and of course there was Eddie's life insurance. I don't know how much of each, though."
A lot, if the stacks on the table were any indication. I didn't want to be gauche and count it. Well, I did, but I managed to restrain myself. "This is certainly safer than stuffing cash in her mattress," I said. "At least she knew this wasn't going to disappear."
A disturbing thought occurred to me. What if Annie had planned to disappear? Maybe the contents of the safe deposit box had been intended to fund her escape. But from what? I couldn't help but wonder if Randy O'Brien had been harassing her again. Carolyn had said the security alarm at Annie's house had been installed after her husband had died, to help her feel safer. Maybe Randy was the reason she'd felt unsafe. I'd assumed he'd broken into her home after Annie was dead. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he'd been sneaking into her house all along, pilfering her things little by little, as a way to terrorize her.
My anger surged again at the possibility. Annie had endured the typical teenaged meanness throughout high school, but she'd managed to succeed enough to graduate college and grow comfortably into her life. Now it seemed the meanness had found her again in the form of Randy O'Brien, and this time she hadn't been able to escape it. The unfairness of it was infuriating.
Curt took some papers from the box and spread them on the table. Annie's deed and mortgage papers. Her will. I picked that up and flipped through it. Pretty standard stuff. I noticed it was dated in early 2015, after her husband's death, so either his passing had got her thinking about her own mortality, leading her to draft a will, or she'd had an existing will redrafted to remove her husband as beneficiary. The bulk of her estate was to be split between her family and a few charities benefiting children, with a small bequest for Carolyn herself. I didn't recognize the name of the attorney who'd prepared it, but I knew he would have kept a copy as well and given Annie the original. I wondered why he hadn't told her not to lock it in her safe deposit box. She must have had a reason why she didn't want the original at her house, someone she didn't want to read it. Maybe that was another reason why she'd made Carolyn co-owner of the box, so the will could be accessed in the event of her death.
"Did she have a safe in her home?" I asked anyway. "Somewhere she could have kept important papers like these?"
"Nothing like these," Carolyn said. "Only insurance policies and such, replaceable documents." To her credit, she did not read the will. Instead she reached for the last item in the safe deposit box, a small black velvet case that seemed like a jewelry case, and it was. It held a pearl necklace and matching pearl earrings that even I could see were the real thing, along with a diamond tennis bracelet, a gorgeous Movado wristwatch, and a single diamond earring. It was more jewelry than I would have imagined Annie owning, and probably more than the Annie I'd known would have worn, but I was happy she'd owned it nonetheless. I could only hope it had given her pleasure to have it.
My eyes lingered on the single diamond earring and a swell of sadness rose in my chest. It wasn't hard to imagine Randy O'Brien walking around with its stolen mate in his ear. Especially now that I was pretty sure the pearl earrings in his motel room belonged to Annie. If we ever saw Randy O'Brien again, I was going to personally pierce a less traditional part of his anatomy.
"That's it," Carolyn said, and I could tell by her voice she was experiencing the same sadness. I had to give her credit for holding it together. I'd only lost the memory of someone I'd once known. Carolyn had lost a real friend. "Did it help you to see this?" she asked.
Curt and I exchanged glances. "I think it did," I said. "I think we have a better sense of who might have done this. Now we have to find him."
"Can't you just call the police?" she asked. "Give them his name? Maybe they already know of him."
Curt shook his head. "They don't believe there's been a murder. We can't exactly run to them accusing anyone when there's no body."
Carolyn considered it for a moment while she stared at the contents of Annie's box strewn across the table. As she did, her face changed. The sadness melted into an icy hardness that was a little scary. Like the angel in white had gone over to the dark side.
"So," she said slowly, giving us the full-on winter blue stare, "vigilante justice, then. I don't want to know anything except when it's done." She didn't even blink. "And then I want to know everything," she said. "We have to bring Annie home."