“You don’t have to stick around,” I say, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”
“I don’t,” he says simply. “I know you didn’t know him, but this still can’t be a fun thing to go through alone.”
I feel like a burden on him, this kind stranger who also sorta half hates me, until a policeman walks toward us with a grim expression.
“Hunter.”
“Officer Ferguson. This is Rhea Wolfe, Maggie Kirkwood’s granddaughter.”
He inclines his head to me. “Ms. Wolfe, I’m sorry you had to see this tonight. Is it okay if I ask you some questions?”
“Of course. I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you what I can.”
He pulls out a notebook and pen, and I tell the story of how we discovered Abraham. I feel a little guilty that I can’t tell the officer when Abraham got to work or how he looked or what he said. The closest I’ve come to an actual interaction with him was at Lindy’s on my first day, when Colonel asked him who was watching the video store—and we didn’t actually interact.
“Do you know how old Mr. Kirkwood was?” he asks me.
“Oh, gosh,” Maggie mutters from my bag. “Let’s see. My father was born in 1930, and Uncle Abe was three years younger, so—”
“Around ninety, I think,” I say.
“Looks like he went peacefully. Was there anything unusual about the store that might indicate foul play?”
I look around, but honestly, I wouldn’t know what constitutesunusualhere.
“The door was unlocked and the lights were on,” Hunter says. “Like always.”
“And the fishbowl is full of cash, so it wasn’t a robbery,” I add.
“We’ll ask around, but this seems pretty open-and-shut.” Officer Ferguson puts away his notebook. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.” He winces. “Losses.Grandmother, too. That’s rough.”
“He was probably waiting for me to go,” Maggie says softly. “Always thought he could look after me, even when I was looking after him. Then you got here, and I guess he reckoned you could handle it yourself.”
“Maybe he was waiting for Maggie to go,” I say. “I know old folks do that sometimes.”
Officer Ferguson nods. “Maybe so. Usually we’d alert the next of kin, but I think that’s just you. Not that many Kirkwoods around these days. Again, I’m sorry for your loss. Y’all have a nice night and give us a call if you think of anything else we need to know.”
It’s after ten by the time he drives away, and the square is dark and still. I give a decisive sigh and head inside to unplug the boiled peanut slow cookers before something catches fire.
“I wonder if there’s a manual for opening and closing,” I say out loud, and I know I might sound like an absolute idiot, but Hunter isn’t aware that someone in the know is secretly answering all my questions.
“No manual. It was only ever me and Uncle Abraham. I tried hiring teenagers a couple of times, but it was an absolute failure,” Maggie says. “Just put the cash in the safe, turn out the lights,lock the doors, and head upstairs. Nothing you can do now.” Maggie sounds sleepy and sad. I can’t imagine how strange it must be, to die and return to life in the body of an animal, to be staring straight at your friends while they think you’re dead, and then to lose someone you’re close to and not even be able to cry. It is possibly the weirdest situation I can think of, and I read over a hundred books last year, one of which was about romancing Bigfoot.
Hunter is still at the door, giving me space to do whatever I need to do.
I grab the fishbowl, and Maggie mutters, “The safe is in the back corner under a tablecloth.”
“There’s got to be a safe around here, right? Because Maggie wasn’t stuffing cash under the bed,” I say for Hunter’s benefit. Then, after a few minutes of poking around, I lift up the flowered tablecloth on what appears to be a small table with an ALF doll on it and find a safe that’s got to be older than both Maggie and Abraham combined.
“No combination. It doesn’t lock anymore. We called it the Unsafe Safe,” Maggie tells me.
I open the door and my jaw drops.
This thing isstuffedwith cash.
Almost a solid block of wadded bills.
“Holy shit,” I mutter.
