Breathing hard, Mr. Turlep held the torn plastic bag and stared into the empty hole.
The box was gone. The box containing all the money for his golden retirement had been stolen.
How dare someone remove what belonged to him?
He knew the box had been discovered accidentally because he had told no one where he’d hidden it. Unfortunately, he did not know whose grave this was, so he had no way to track down any relative or friend who might have planted the daisies.
Mr. Turlep stood up, wiped his filthy hands on his suit pants, and looked around the cemetery. The same kind of daisies bloomed on another grave a few rows over. The thief must have planted those, too.
Mr. Turlep rushed over to the second clump of daisies and read the name on the headstone. FLORENCE HODGE. He remembered her; she and her sister used to come to the bank to complain whenever interest rates on savings went down. Mr. Turlep didn’t know she had died, but, come to think of it, he had not seen her in a while.
Was the sister still living? Had she come here and planted flowers? Is that who took his money? If so, it ought to be a simple matter to get it back, as long as he got to the old woman before she told anyone what she’d found.
Mr. Turlep ran back to his car and broke the speed limit driving toward town. He tried to remember the sister’s name. Edna? Emma? He decided to go to the Carbon City Post Office and ask where the Hodge sisters lived. The surviving sister might still live around here. In a small town like Carbon City, everyone would use the same post office.
He reached the post office as a woman was turning a key in the lock on the front door. He screeched to a halt in the parking lot and jumped out of his car.
“Sorry,” she said. “The post office is closed for today. If you need stamps, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“All I need is information. I’m looking for the sister of an old friend. My friend’s name was Florence Hodge, but I can’t remember the name of her sister or where she lives.”
“I’m not the regular postmistress,” the woman said. “She was sick today, and I substituted for her. I don’t sub here often, so I don’t know the local people. If there is a Hodge who has a P.O. box, I wouldn’t know the street address. If you want to come back tomorrow morning, the regular postmistress will be back, and she might be able to help you.”
“Can’t you look it up? You must have records.”
“Sorry. The post office closed at five; I stayed to finish some paperwork.” The woman walked to her car, ignoring the icy glare from Mr. Turlep.
He went next door to the Carbon City Market and asked the clerk if he could use a telephone directory.
The man reached under the counter and began sorting through piles of papers. “You want King County or Pierce County?” he asked.
“I want this area. The local numbers.”
“Hold on, then. It’s in the back room by my personal phone.”
Mr. Turlep drummed his fingers on the counter while the man ambled to the rear of the store and went through a door marked PRIVATE.
“Don’t take all day,” Mr. Turlep called after him. “I’m in a hurry!”
The clerk reappeared. “Keep your shirt on,” he grumbled as he slapped the slim phone book on the counter.
Mr. Turlep turned quickly to the H page and ran his finger down the listings. He stopped at E. Hodge. A phone number followed but no address.
“It doesn’t give the address,” he said.
“Who is it you’re trying to find?”
Mr. Turlep hesitated. He didn’t want to tell this man he was searching for someone named Hodge, whose first name he didn’t know. What if the old lady put up a struggle and wouldn’t give him the box? What if he had to take it by force? It was foolish to have a witness who could identify him, a witness who would swear he had come in the market looking for Miss Hodge’s address.
It would be better to drive to the bank and look through the records there. Most of the old-timers who lived around here had stuck with the local bank, even after two of the big national banks opened branches in town. Probably this Hodge woman’s address was on file in his own office, where nobody would wonder why he wanted it.
Mr. Turlep slapped the phone book closed, then turned and pushed open the door. As he hurried out, he heard the clerk call, “You’re welcome!”
He headed away from Carbon City, back to the bank in Diamond Hill. As he drove, he became more and more agitated. What if the woman had already called the police and turned the money in? What if he was already too late?
He had never bothered to wipe his fingerprints off the metal box before he put it in the bag because he’d been positive it would never be found. He wondered how long fingerprints stay on a surface. Could they still be lifted from the box? Maybe it was good that the Hodge woman had taken the plastic bag off. Now her fingerprints were on the box, too, on top of his.
As he reached the city limits of Diamond Hill, a sleek black cat dashed across the road in front of his car. Mr. Turlep slammed on his brakes, made a U-turn, and drove four blocks out of his way to avoid driving where the cat had crossed. He wasn’t superstitious, he told himself, but why take chances?
He reached the bank, punched in the alarm code, and used the back entrance. He booted up his computer, opened the list of customer files, and scrolled down until he reached Hodge.
There she was! Ethel Hodge. She had a checking account, where a Social Security check was deposited automatically on the third of every month. She also had a small certificate of deposit. No wonder he didn’t remember her first name. Even though she had been a bank customer for more than fifty years, she’d never taken out a loan, and she had minimal assets. Mr. Turlep only paid attention to his wealthier clients.
Both the checking account and the certificate of deposit gave the Carbon City post office box as the address. Nowhere in the bank’s records could he find the physical address. Where did this woman live?
He closed the current customer file and opened the file called Closed Accounts. This time he searched for Florence Hodge, but the information was the same—nothing but a post office box. He’d have to go back to the Carbon City Market and ask that slow-moving clerk to give him directions.
Mr. Turlep closed the files, turned off the computer, reset the bank alarm, and locked the door. But he didn’t drive straight back to Carbon City. Instead, he went to his apartment. Now that he’d had time to think about it, he realized it was crucial for him to leave for Florida that night, as soon as he had the money. He couldn’t take a chance that the Hodge woman would keep quiet—or the market clerk, for that matter.
Since he had planned to go the next day, his bags were already packed. He would leave the boxes for Goodwill and the load of trash for the dump in his apartment. Let the landlord deal with it.
He hurried inside and opened his bedroom closet. He removed a box, set it on his bed, opened it, and took out dozens of back issues of Deep-Sea Fishing magazine. At the bottom of the box lay a black ski mask and a handgun, the ones he’d used the night two years ago when he stole the money.
He’d bought the ski mask at a garage sale a few weeks before he used it. The handgun came from a gun shop in Tacoma, one with a reputation for not requiring background checks and for “losing” guns to theft. Customers who paid cash for a gun did so with the assurance there would never be a way to trace that gun back to the purchaser. Mr. Turlep had paid cash.
He had hidden the gun and the ski mask under the magazines as soon as he got home the night of the robbery, and he had intended never to touch either of them again. His plan had been to take several boxes of clothing and household items to a Goodwill donation station tomorrow morning before he left town for good. By the time someone discovered one of the boxes contained items other than magazines, he would already be halfway to Florida—and nobody would even know where the items had come from.
Now he carried the gun and ski mask back to his car, hid them under the seat, and drove the eighteen miles back to Carbon City.
It was long past Mr. Turlep’s dinner hour, and his hunger made him irritable.
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, too—Florence, 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.