When he awoke the next day, Earl spent all morning ignoring the metal box. He was determined to put the entire business out of his mind, and so spent all morning thinking about how he was not going to think about it.
His hands and arms were stiff from the exertion of the night before. How could he have gotten involved like that? The question triggered memories of that fateful day on the bus. He shivered and tried to think of something else.
No interesting topics came to mind. At least none that did not lead around back to that metal box. So Earl threw back the covers and got up for the day. Went through his whole morning routine, all the while patting himself on the back for not thinking about the box.
He got to his breakfast—a bowl of cereal, six lemon-flavored prunes, and a glass of orange juice. He preferred grapefruit juice, but it interfered with his meds. Earl checked his pill schedule, took the appropriate pills, and finished his cereal dry.
During the whole process, his hands and arms ached. He wondered whether he might have pulled something in his shoulder.
He flipped on the TV and tried to watch the morning news, but he couldn’t focus. He flipped around the channels for a bit, trying to find something, anything, to occupy him. It didn’t work.
He finally broke down and admitted to himself that if he didn’t want to think about the metal box, he should not have sneaked it home. As the morning sun peeked through the crack in the curtain, Earl tried to remember his state of mind the night before.
Who was that old man in the wheelchair who got involved? “Oh, that’s right,” he grumbled to himself. “That was you.” It wasn’t the Earl Walker he knew. Not the Earl Walker he knew at all.
Clutching the round dining table, he pushed himself up and followed the railing around to the refrigerator. He pushed aside the ketchup, the pitcher of water, the half-empty jar of bread and butter pickles, and reached for the gray metal box stuck in the back. It was cold. The fridge might not have been the perfect hiding place, but it was all he could think of at the time. It worked, didn’t it? Nobody broke in and found it there.
Wheeling himself into the living room by the lamp, he set the cold box on the coffee table then sat back and looked at it. The only scratches were around the lock. Had the intruder broken it open, or had Kent done that himself?
Reaching for the box, Earl flipped it open. A thought shot through him, and he looked at his fingers, then wheeled to the kitchenette for a towel and some cleanser. He was about to spray down the box when he stopped himself. Was it better to have his fingerprints on this box or not? After all, he had nothing to hide. Would wiping down the box make it look like he did?
“Let’s think this through,” Earl said aloud. “If a burglar had left fingerprints on this box, that could be important evidence.” He rubbed his chin. “Then again, if said criminal person was thoughtless enough to leave prints on this box, he would have also left his prints all over that apartment.”
Not to mention, by now Earl had probably already obliterated any useful prints. He looked at the box now, the lid open, the stack of money right there. If the sheriff showed up right now, at this moment, how would he explain that?
“I’ll just explain it calmly,” Earl said out loud. “It belongs to George Kent’s family. With all manner of intruders coming and going at will, it made no sense to leave such valuable property out in the open. Right?”
It sounded good, so he went along and agreed with himself. And as he was making an inventory for the sake of Kent’s family, it stood to reason that he would have to make an assessment of its contents. And if in the process a few of his own questions might be answered, so much the better.
Besides, what if the money got tied up somewhere as “evidence”? Tagged and boxed and stuck in storage somewhere, until the sheriff tracked down the intruder or burglar and brought him to trial? Or worse, what if the box of money somehow fell through the cracks and got lost in the system? That hardly seemed fair to the family.
So, it was settled: For the time being, Earl would not volunteer the existence of the box to anybody. He would not lie if directly asked, but there was no point in bringing it up unnecessarily.
He wondered what Barbara would have said to that. He put it out of his mind.
Turning his attention to the actual contents inside the box, it certainly did seem like a lot of money. Earl pulled out the stacks of bills. What was this, hundreds of dollars? Thousands? Flipping through them, he saw groupings of fives, tens, twenties, and hundreds. After he added it up, he whistled aloud. Why in the world would the man keep so much money on hand?
But Earl’s mind kept circling back around to an even more nagging question: Why would a burglar have left so much money behind?
There was a knock at the door. Earl’s first instinct was to hide the box. It could be the authorities at the door, finally coming to get his statement. “Be right there!”
He flipped the lid closed and slid the box off the table into his lap. He considered taking it all the way back to the fridge, but that would take him too long. And he didn’t want it to seem like he was hiding something. Especially since he was, in fact, hiding something.
He dropped the box on the floor and pushed it under the couch and wheeled himself to the door. He took a second to catch his breath, compose himself, and slap a more casual expression on his face. Then he fumbled with the knob and opened the door.
Gloria Logan stood there. “Hello, Blue Eyes.”
“Oh. Hi.” His heart beat faster. It annoyed him.
She stood in the doorway awkwardly. “I didn’t hear from you. I was worried.”
“You didn’t hear from me? When did you ever hear from me?”
It was actually gruffer than Earl intended, but he was anxious to get back to the mysterious box under the couch.
Gloria rubbed her fingers nervously. “Well, I mean, nobody has seen you around. So I wanted to make sure you were doing okay. After everything that happened.”
“After—?” Had news of the burglary gotten around?
“Well, you know, at the party. George Kent dropping dead and all.”
“Oh. Right.” Earl remembered his manners. “Would you like to come in? Can I get you something? Coffee? Juice?”
“I guess I could spare a few minutes for a cup of coffee.”
“Oh. Um, I haven’t actually made any.” Earl felt his face grow warm. “Sorry, I just asked out of habit. I used to make coffee for Barbara, my late wife.” He glanced toward the couch, then back. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t prepared for visitors.”
She offered a wobbly smile. “I need to get going anyway. I was just passing by.” Gloria stood another second, lingering.
He sat awkwardly, unable to think of anything to say. He stopped himself from looking back at the couch again.
Finally Gloria said, “Maybe we can talk later?”
“Sure.”
“Here is my number if you need to reach me for anything.” She handed him a slip of paper.
After she was gone, Earl closed the door and pulled the chain. It took him some doing to retrieve the gray metal box from under the couch.
Setting it back on the coffee table, he flipped open the lid and marveled again at the contents inside. “Why would George Kent have this much cash on hand?” Earl did not wait for the empty apartment to answer. He reached for the rubber banded stacks and pulled them out one at a time. They made quite a pile on the table.
Where had the money come from? And why hadn’t the man stored it in some safe place? It was all so strange.
Of course, the real question was whether this was connected with Kent’s death. And what about Kent’s precious ring? Had whoever stolen the ring needed something from Kent’s apartment? Was there some secret engraved inside the metal band—maybe the combination to a safe or a riddle that led to a treasure?
“You are losing it, Earl,” he told himself. And frankly, he was inclined to agree with himself. Seriously, a treasure?
At the bottom of the box, Earl found a little black book. At first he was hesitant to open it. If this was a collection of women’s phone numbers, then it was none of his business.
Then Earl remembered how Kent had talked to Gloria. If that was how he behaved when the two of them were in public—
He immediately flipped the book open and began to search it, telling himself that he was merely looking for clues. There were lots of names, but the numerical figures ascribed to each one did not look like telephone numbers.
Some names seemed familiar, but no “Kent” was listed. It would have been nice if the book had listed some family members, maybe Kent’s children or grandchildren—or even a lawyer who might be handling Kent’s estate—but nothing in the entries indicated what relationship Kent had with each person.
Of course, the authorities no doubt had resources to track such people down. And speaking of authorities, why had no one shown up yet?
He should have never gotten involved. It was easier to simply shrink more into his shell and hope the situation would pass. He had learned his lesson about getting involved years ago, on his last day as a bus driver. It was a lesson he had held tightly to in the years since, even as he drifted further away from contact with the outside world.
You say the state of Kentucky is forcing all the residents of Candlewick Retirement Community to find new places to live? Shrink more into the shell and hope the problem goes away.
You say George Kent died in front of a room full of witnesses under mysterious circumstances? Further into the shell.
But all these mental gymnastics were a lot of fancy dancing around the central question: How did Kent get all this money?
There was something about the way the money was arranged, something about the names and numbers in the book, combined with Earl’s general impression of the man when he was still alive. It was hard not to assume it all pointed to something bad.
A furious pounding on his door interrupted his thoughts. Earl gripped his wheels, rocking his chair forward and back a couple times. He turned and yelled at the door in a cracked voice, “J–just a minute!”
It had to be the sheriff. He looked at the table. Scrambling, he threw the money into the metal box. He tried to close the lid, but the money had not been stacked neatly enough. Of course, the lock was broken anyway. He shoved it back under the couch.
Getting to the door, he stopped his chair. Put his hand to his chest, forced himself to breathe normally. He closed his eyes, waited a moment for the spots to clear.
Okay.
Okay.
Wait—wait.
Okay. He reached for the knob, opened the door.
College was standing there, distraught, on edge. “Where have you been?”
“Oh. Um, I was just—”
“Grant was fired! And it’s all your fault!”