Regarding Anna

by Florence Osmund

  “Yep.” She walked over to the spot. “It’s down in the crack though. I can’t get it.”

  “Could you maybe get it out with one of your crochet hooks?”

  “You mean the ones downstairs?”

  TWENTY-ONE

  She Wants to Talk

  It took Minnie a good half hour to fish out the key from between the floorboards, and when she did, she stuck it in the pocket of her sweater. Why she didn’t give it to me I couldn’t understand—there was no way for me to get to the attic without the ladder, which I was sure had been stashed away in a place where I’d never find it, probably alongside my crutches. But I didn’t say anything.

  Before Minnie left to fix dinner, she said, “By the way, I completely forgot to tell you that your lawyer called when you were in the hospital. I must be getting—”

  “My lawyer?” I didn’t have a lawyer.

  “Yes, he said he wanted to talk to you about the money.”

  “What money?”

  “I just assumed it was the Irish money we found. You said you’d look into it for me.”

  “I’d look into what for you?”

  “My rights to it. We talked about that.”

  It was all I could do to keep my calm.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said you were in the hospital, and I’d give you the message that he called.”

  “What else did you tell him?”

  “Nothing, why? Why are you so upset?”

  “Because I don’t have a lawyer, Minnie. Someone was trying to get information from you.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Yeah, oh, dear.”

  “I’m sorry. He sounded legit to me.”

  “Think back. What else did you tell him?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She threw up her arms. “I don’t know.”

  My stomach began a slow churn as I watched Minnie shuffle across the room toward the door. Then she turned to me and said, “I may have mentioned I still had it here,” before she disappeared.

  How could she have been so naive? And who was it who had called? Whoever had called was aware of the money, unless Minnie didn’t tell me everything. Like maybe the caller had been vague and cunning enough to get Minnie to tell him about the money. Damn it! I wished I had answered the phone.

  An hour passed, long enough for an unsettling mixture of anger and resentment to build up inside me, when Minnie came up with my dinner.

  “I hope you realize what you did.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “If someone is bold enough to impersonate a lawyer in order to get information from you about the money, they’re certainly bold enough to come after it!”

  “So I’ll burn it.”

  “You don’t get it. They’ll still think it’s here and come after it. And then, when they don’t find it, who knows what they’ll do?” I never should have let her get involved.

  She plopped the tray of food on the bed—hard enough to cause most of the peas to bounce up off the plate and scatter everywhere—and abruptly turned away from me.

  “I’m going to the grocery store for a few things. Maybe you need to think about things while I’m gone.”

  I let her go without saying anything more, even though I hadn’t gotten everything off my chest. I didn’t know what she meant by “think about things,” but I didn’t care. There were more important issues at hand than trying to figure her out.

  I pushed the tray aside and grabbed a pad of paper and pen to start a list of precautions we could take in case whoever had called Minnie paid us a visit. My swollen fingers made it difficult to write, adding to my frustration. After twenty minutes, I had a few things listed in handwriting I hoped I could decipher later, when the phone rang from downstairs.

  I sat through ten rings. I could have managed the stairs on crutches if I’d had them. Ten more rings. Someone was determined.

  I rolled out to the hallway and into the back bedroom. Scooting down the stairs on my butt was the only way I could think of to get downstairs without damaging my bad knee. If I had been a kid, it would have been fun, but I wasn’t, and it wasn’t.

  Once downstairs, the phone was just several hops away. I was completely out of breath when I answered it.

  “Hello.”

  “What are you doing right now?”

  It was Fern.

  “I’m talking to you. What are you doing?”

  “You’ve got to come here right away. Essie wants to talk.”

  “Come where?”

  “We’re at that little diner on State and North Avenue. Do you know the one?”

  “Yes, but I can’t come! I fractured my knee and I’m homebound.”

  “You’ve got to come, and I’ve got to go before she changes her mind.”

  She hung up.

  My purse and car keys were upstairs. It took me a while to scooch up each stair backwards on my butt, and when I did, I grabbed my purse and slid back down them in a fraction of the time.

  I was almost out the back door when I discovered my car keys weren’t in my purse.

  “Damn her!” I whacked the wall with the side of my fist, causing a decorative plate that hung on it to come crashing to the floor. Pieces of porcelain scattered everywhere.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, perched on one leg, and wondered what else could possibly go wrong. Who could I call? Tymon. I had his phone number, but it was upstairs. No time for that. I dialed “0” and waited for an operator.

  “I need the number for Tymon Kossak.”

  “What city, please?”

  “Chicago.”

  “Spell the last name, please.”

  I was so frazzled I couldn’t think of how it was spelled. “I’m not sure, I—”

  “I can’t look up a name if I don’t have the spelling.”

  “Can you try K-o-s-s-a-c-k?”

  I waited through several seconds of silence.

  “I have no listing by that name, ma’am.”

  “Can you try K-o-s-a-c-k?”

  “No listing by that name either.”

  “Can you try—”

  “Ma’am, can you please call back when you have the correct spelling?”

  Click.

  What was wrong with her? Couldn’t she tell how desperate I was?

  I didn’t know who else to call.

  The ringing of the phone startled me to where I almost lost my balance.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Fern,” she said with a tone of despair.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She left.”

  “Did she say anything before she left?”

  “Grace, all I have is one dime in change for the phone, so I can’t talk long. You can’t get out?”

  I explained my situation. “Can you come here?” I asked her.

  I gave Fern the address. She was about twenty minutes away. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to see come through the door first—Fern or Minnie. Either way, Minnie was not going to be happy when she found me downstairs and her fancy plate on the floor in a million pieces, but at that point, I didn’t care.

  I allowed my anger to subside while I waited for Fern—anger at myself for being so careless with that stupid ladder and at Minnie for everything she had done to make my life more miserable than it already was. To think I had just blown the only chance of Essie ever talking to me. I fought to keep back the tears.

  When Fern arrived, we settled in at the kitchen table.

  “What happened?” she asked after seeing the mess on the floor.

  “Plate fell off the wall. Don’t ask.”

  “I won’t.” She looked around the kitchen. “So this is the house.”

  “This is it. I’d show you around, but I’m just a little incapacitated.”

  “I see that.”

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “So I was working at this ice cream social this afternoon with Essie. It e
nded at five-thirty, and she was in a pretty friendly mood, so I asked her if she had any plans for dinner, maybe we could grab a quick bite somewhere. And she said okay. So we go to that little diner…I can never remember the name of it…and we’re eating sandwiches and talking about church stuff when she gets this weird look on her face, like she’s going to cry or something. I ask her what’s wrong, and she asks me if I ever had to keep a big secret to myself, one that slowly ate away at me.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. So I said, no I hadn’t, but I could imagine that would be a hard thing to do. And she said, ‘Well, I have, and I don’t know what to do.’ So I asked her if she wanted to talk about it, and she said maybe she should, but not with me…with our minister.”

  “Damn.”

  “I know. I had to think fast because we were done eating by that time, so I tell her that talking to Reverend Orman would be a good thing, but if she ever wanted to talk friend-to-friend to let me know because I can be a pretty good listener. Then she blurted out something like, ‘I know something that could change a girl’s life.’”

  “Change whose life? Did she say?”

  “Not then, but she went on to tell me about this friend she had over twenty years ago who has a daughter who doesn’t know about her.”

  “The girl doesn’t know about her mother, or the girl doesn’t know about her?”

  “I don’t remember her exact words, but she led me to believe she knows things about her friend—this girl’s mother—that the girl doesn’t know, and what she knows could change that girl’s life.”

  We stared at each other for several seconds.

  “Anyway, so I’m thinking she’s talking about me, but then she says, ‘And she called me the other day.’”

  “Who called her, the daughter or the mother?”

  “The daughter. But I hadn’t called her.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “Okay, so now that fits. Well, I didn’t know that at the time and wasn’t sure what to think, so I told her that was interesting because I had a friend with a similar story. And she said, ‘Is her name Grace, by any chance?”

  “Oh, my—”

  “So I tell her a little about you and, trying not to push her or anything, encourage her to talk to you. And after thinking about it, she asks me if I could call you to see if you could meet us there. So that’s when I called you. But when I got back to the table, she was gone.”

  “Damn.”

  Just then Minnie burst into the kitchen juggling two bags of groceries. The sound of the broken plate crunching under her feet echoed throughout the room.

  “What’s going on in here? What are you doing out of your room? What’s all this mess?” She looked at Fern. “And who the hell are you?”

  “It’s a long story, Minnie. Can I tell you later?” I didn’t give her time to respond. “Minnie, this is Fern. Fern this is Minnie.”

  Minnie’s face softened. “Okay. You two continue. Don’t mind me.” She proceeded to put away the groceries.

  Fern and I wrapped up our conversation, and she left.

  I tried to forget how mad I was at Minnie and filled her in on Fern’s call.

  “How did my plate get broken?”

  “It was my fault. I’ll pay for it.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Sure, I can. Why not?”

  “Because it was priceless.”

  * * *

  I had learned in law enforcement school that oftentimes things get muddled right before they get resolved. I hoped that was the case, because nothing was clear to me, including my relationship with Minnie. When I had offered to help her clean up the broken plate, she told me I had caused enough trouble for one day, so I retreated to my room where I stayed for an hour trying to maintain some semblance of composure.

  When I heard Minnie clomping up the stairs even more loudly than usual, I didn’t know what to expect. She entered my room and stood in the doorway with my car keys in one hand and crutches in the other.

  “I’m sorry I hid these from you.”

  “And I’m sorry I lost my temper earlier today.”

  “And I’m sorry I messed up that phone call.”

  “I’m sorry I broke your plate.”

  “I’m sorry I told you it was priceless.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “I bought it at Woolworth’s.”

  * * *

  I called Naomi around noon, hoping Elmer was out to lunch, to ask her if we could meet somewhere after she got off work. In the meantime, Minnie and I agreed to comb through the stuff from the attic.

  We spread the contents of one box out on the dining room table and started with a pack of baseball cards. Neither of us had any interest in baseball. Babe Ruth’s was the only name I recognized.

  We found several theater ticket stubs from 1921, 1922, and 1923, most of them from musicals at the Chicago Theater. A small unframed oil painting was signed P. Cézanne. I knew nothing about art and neither did Minnie. I told her that if she wanted, I could look up the artist at the library to determine if he was listed anywhere.

  We pored over hundreds of photographs. The ones that had writing on the back most often referred to two people, apparently a married couple, named Bonnie and Walter. Several of them appeared to have been taken inside Minnie’s house. Others had been taken on what may have been road trips. A few of them included other people, but Bonnie and Walter were in almost all of them. Some had been dated, and based on these dates and their clothing, I deduced that Bonnie and Walter had been young adults between 1910 and 1920—the generation before my mother’s. I decided for now that they had nothing to do with me.

  The phone interrupted the rhythm we had going. Minnie went to answer it.

  The dining room was in the opposite corner of the house from the kitchen, but I could still hear Minnie’s side of the conversation. She was giving someone a hard time about cancelling plans to meet her. She ended the conversation with, “Don’t wait too long to be in touch. I have things I need to talk to the authorities about.” Based on her last comment, I figured it must have been Henry.

  She was in over her head, but given our recent squabble, I wasn’t sure if I should say anything to her. She was so good-hearted, but my gut told me she was destined for trouble.

  She came back to our project and picked up where she had left off.

  “Minnie, I think you may be putting—”

  Her hands flew straight to her hips. “You don’t think I can handle myself, do you?”

  “It’s not that. It’s...what if Henry feels trapped and does something stupid? What if he had something to do with that phony phone call? I don’t want—”

  “Please don’t do this to me, Gracie.” She paused for a moment. “I haven’t felt this alive since...since I had my family.” Her last few words were shaky, like she was fighting back tears.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. It’s not worth it.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I know you do.” No, you really don’t.

  “What are you doing later today?” she asked.

  “With any luck, convincing Naomi to get firmly into my camp.”

  “Be careful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all.”

  “Minnie...”

  “I hid the money.”

  “What?”

  “The Irish money. I hid it.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m not telling you.”

  “Maybe I should know where it is, just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “Just in case I need to know where it is.”

  She turned her back on me and muttered, “It’s my money. As long as I know where it is...”

  * * *

  Naomi was five minutes late. I hoped she hadn’t changed her mind. I was sitting on a bench in a nearby park that was small and set back from the street. A dozen or so o
ther benches were scattered along a winding sidewalk, but I was the only one there. I started to feel uncomfortable when I realized that if someone bothered me in any way, I wouldn’t be able to escape very fast on crutches.

  Ten more minutes passed before I saw her come around the corner. She was decked out in a tight black skirt and pink sweater, looking a lot like the late Marilyn Monroe. Had I worn an outfit like that, I’d have looked like a joke, but somehow she managed to pull it off.

  “I am so sorry, Miss Lindroth,” she said after joining me on the bench. “I didn’t think Mr. Berghorn would ever leave.”

  “That’s okay, and please call me Grace.”

  She looked at my crutches. “What happened?”

  I explained my unfortunate incident.

  “Can I tell you something before we get started?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I think what Mr. Berghorn did to you was atrocious, and I almost quit over it. The only reason I didn’t is because of Candy.”

  “Candy?”

  “My daughter, Candace.” Naomi smiled wide, opened her purse, and pulled out a photo.

  I hadn’t realized she had a child. “She’s a beautiful girl.”

  “Yes, she is. She turns four on Friday. Anyway, Mr. Berghorn is bad news, and as soon as I find something else, I’m out of there.”

  “What makes you think he’s a bad person?”

  “Besides what he did to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “For one thing, he has very few clients, and most of those are foreigners who don’t understand much English. When I offered to be a translator in the meetings with his Mexican clientele, he flat out refused, said they didn’t need my help. He pads their bills with bogus time and expenses…and I have to type them up knowing exactly what he’s doing. And then there’s that fishy trust he has, Waddershins. Whenever he wants to hide what he’s doing, he does it from behind that trust.”

  She hesitated a moment. “Look, I shouldn’t be telling you all this, but it made me so mad when he made me pack up your things—”

  “He made you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Naomi, did you pack up what was in my back room?”

  “No, he told me not to touch that.”

  “Why did he say he was throwing me out?”