Buddy was holding her breath. “Yes, I think so. Do you remember having the money in it?”
He looked thoughtful. “Lot of money, wasn’t it? Little stacks, with paper bands around each pile.”
By this time, Buddy’s chest had begun to ache from the tension. Please, God, make him remember! Don’t let him forget again!
“Yes,” she breathed. “I think the bag was full.”
But already Grandpa was scowling, as if the effort of recalling was painful. “They kept asking me about it. That silly-looking bag, like something a little girl would carry her doll clothes in. Sister was upset.” Suddenly he looked straight at Buddy, as if he could see her clearly, as if his mind had miraculously cleared of the fog that covered it so much of the time. “I wasn’t supposed to have given it to her, was I?”
Buddy’s words came in little more than a whisper. “Who did you give it to, Grandpa?”
To her dismay, she could see that so quickly the clarity was fading. “Wasn’t it you, Sister?”
“I’m Buddy—Amy Kate,” she explained desperately. “Grandpa, did you give it to my mother? To EllaBelle?”
“She needed it to carry something. I forget what. She said she’d bring it back. I think she said she’d bring it back. Only I don’t remember if she ever did. She probably forgot, and I didn’t want it, anyway.”
Max appeared in the doorway, his mouth opening to speak, and Buddy frantically motioned him to be still. He hesitated, with his jaw sagging, but he didn’t interrupt.
“When you gave her the bag, was the money still in it?” Buddy asked urgently. “Or had you taken it out first?”
“Oh, she didn’t want the money. Only the little bag. The empty bag. To carry her letters in. She found them in the attic.”
Max had caught on to what they were talking about, and though he closed his mouth, he looked almost as stunned as Buddy was feeling.
“Letters,” Buddy choked. “Mama put some letters into the bag. And what did you do with the money?”
Grandpa put a hand on the activating button on his talking watch. “The time is 10:22 p.m.,” the mechanical voice said. And Grandpa’s memory faded off into nothingness. “Could we have cocoa before we go to bed?” he asked.
In the small silence that followed, they heard Cassie somewhere off in the distance. “Haven’t those kids stopped poking around in Grandpa’s old books and headed for bed yet?”
Nobody reacted to her voice. But Max ran his tongue over his lips and took a step closer to Buddy. “He remembered taking the money out of the bag before he gave it to your mom.”
Buddy’s voice cracked when she replied. “Yeah. But he doesn’t know what they did with it.”
Exultation swept over Max’s face. “Right. But if it wasn’t in the bag when your mother took that away, then it’s probably still right here somewhere. In this room. Don’t you think?”
Chapter Sixteen
Buddy stared around the room that was packed almost solid with boxes and junk.
“The time,” said the tinny mechanical voice, “is 10:25 p.m.”
Grandpa was moving toward the doorway, having lost interest in whatever they were saying. Or perhaps he simply couldn’t hear them because they were speaking quietly.
Max moved out of the old man’s way, his gaze fixed on Buddy while he absently scratched behind the kitten’s ears. “It sounds like you were right. Your mom didn’t steal anything. She just took the bag and left the money behind, only Grandpa forgot about it when Cassie and Addie asked him. He probably doesn’t have a clue where it is. But we could look for it.”
He followed Buddy’s gaze over paper bags filled, with clothes and books and heaven knew what else, and all the cartons they’d been looking through for Montana history books. “It might take weeks to go through all this stuff.”
“Do you think we should tell Aunt Cassie and Aunt Addie? That it’s probably here somewhere, not permanently lost after all?”
Max considered for only a moment. “Maybe not. I’m not sure they’d believe us, anyway. Let’s look for it ourselves. That way we won’t get them all excited for nothing if we can’t find it.”
“How are we going to do that without everyone knowing what we’re doing?” Buddy asked.
“We could offer to clean up this room, sort things out. Cassie’s always saying what a mess it is, fussing because Grandpa won’t let her touch anything.” Max’s mouth twisted wryly. “You’d have to be the one to suggest it. She’d never believe I would tackle that much work on my own. She might believe I’d help you.”
Scanning the room, Buddy sighed. “It’s a big job. But if the money’s still here, we have to find it.” Excitement began building in her. Maybe she could prove that Mama was innocent of stealing Grandpa’s money! “Let’s try, okay?”
Not mentioning it turned out to be almost more than Buddy could manage. Max was right, though: Why get everybody’s hopes up before they knew the money was still on the premises? Who knew what might have happened to it in more than two years? Grandpa might have thrown it away with the trash without realizing what he was doing.
But Buddy couldn’t allow herself to think that way. She had to clear her mother’s memory. And she would find the money. She hated the fact that she had to concentrate the rest of the week on writing the essay about Montana history, and on other homework, but she didn’t dare not do it, and Max was busy with his, too.
On Friday evening, over an excellent supper of broiled salmon and herbed scalloped potatoes, Buddy took a deep breath as soon as Gus had left the table—he usually left, without excusing himself, before the others were finished—and spoke the words she’d been rehearsing since Tuesday night.
“Aunt Cassie, is it all right with you if I help Grandpa straighten up his room? He stumbled over a box this afternoon, and I thought maybe if nothing was sticking out to trip him, it might be safer.”
Cassie and Addie both stopped eating to stare at her, then at the old man. “That all right with you, Grandpa?” Cassie asked.
“I guess it’s time I got rid of some of that stuff,” Grandpa said, as if Cassie had never pestered him to do it before. “No sense waiting for it all to be pitched out after the funeral.”
“What funeral?” Max blurted, then flushed as Grandpa responded offhandedly.
“Mine, of course. Going to happen one of these days, though old George Hubbard is going on a hundred and one, he told me. ’Course, he’s not blind, so he can still read and go for walks by himself without getting lost. I got my hymns picked out, Sister. ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘Fly Away.’” He sang a bar of the latter. “‘When I die, Glory Alleluia, by and by, I’ll fly away!’ Only need two, don’t I?”
For a moment there was a disconcerted silence at the idea of Grandpa planning his own funeral service. Then Addie cleared her throat and agreed. “Sounds about right,” she said. “I’ll remember to tell Pastor.”
Buddy was disconcerted along with everyone else, but she didn’t want to get off the subject that was important to her. “It’s all right, then? If I reorganize everything? I figured maybe Max would help me lift and move the heavy stuff.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” Max said, trying to sound reluctant. After all, he didn’t want to seem too much out of character.
Right then the phone rang. Buddy didn’t care about the interruption, since she apparently had permission to start poking around in Grandpa’s room. She held her breath, though, when Max went to answer it, hoping it might be Bart. He was going to call when her dad was finally released from the hospital.
Max returned, looking at Cassie. “It’s Mrs. Boardman. She wants to know can you come over and help her? Her father-in-law fell down the back steps, and they think he broke his hip.”
“Oh, Lordy,” Cassie said, forgetting her dinner. “Tell her I’ll be right there.”
And so it was that on Saturday morning, Cassie went to Kalispell, driving the car with the new tires on it, to bring Mrs. Boardman home after she’d
ridden over to the hospital in the ambulance with her father-in-law. And Addie was preparing to leave for her stint at the library. She looked at Buddy and Max and Grandpa uneasily. “Can you two keep track of him all day by yourselves?” Gus was not yet down for breakfast, but everyone knew he wasn’t going to be of any help. “Don’t leave him alone.”
“He can help us,” Max said cheerfully. “You can sit in your chair, Grandpa, and tell us which things to throw away and which ones to keep.”
“I suppose,” Grandpa said, “we could give most of my books to the library, unless Sister wants them.”
Addie nodded. “Good idea. Stack all the book boxes in the dining room, and I’ll sort them out later.”
And then they were left on their own with a whole, glorious expanse of time to search for the missing money.
Buddy had hoped it would be somewhere near at hand, perhaps having been dumped into a paper bag, whatever had come easily when they wanted to empty the carrying case. But for three hours they pawed through useless, worn-out items of no value whatever. Max went over to the grocery store with the wagon and came back with big boxes so they could pack up the things worth keeping. And he had one box from neighbors in which a new big-screen TV had arrived. They put that on the back porch for the items to be carried to the dump.
At noon they were dirty and tired. They fixed lunch and went back to their task, trying not to become discouraged. Grandpa, after listening to his talking clock, decided he would take a nap, but they didn’t stop working. Unless they yelled, it wasn’t likely they’d disturb his sleep.
Once in a while one of them turned up something interesting to remark upon, like a collection of miniature ship models thrown helter-skelter together in an oatmeal box. Max decided to ask for them when Grandpa woke up. Mostly, they opened up and hauled out stuff that nobody would have wanted.
Late in the afternoon Max collapsed on yet another box of books and wiped a hand across his face, leaving a dirty smear. “Let’s take a break. You want a can of pop?”
“Sure,” Buddy said, subdued. “I thought we’d find it before this, if it’s here.” Her eyes stung. “It has to be here, doesn’t it? But how can we guess where he’d have put it? His mind wasn’t very clear even then, was it?”
“Apparently not. I know they asked him about the money quite a few times after your mom was here and had left, and he never remembered anything about it.” Max’s voice drifted back from the kitchen. “Is a Coke okay?”
He brought back two cans, popping hers open before he handed it to her. He took a long swig, and then said in a strange voice, “Hey, Buddy.”
“What?”
“Maybe we’re the ones who aren’t thinking too straight. Maybe Grandpa couldn’t keep track of things a couple of years ago, but your mom could. Do you think she’d have taken a lot of cash out of that carrying bag and just let him dump it any old place? Where it could get lost?”
Buddy’s heart seemed to stop. She set down the pop can because she could hardly hold it. “No, of course not. She wasn’t stupid.”
“Then what would she have done with it?”
“Something sensible. Whatever it was, I’d have expected her to tell Cassie, or Addie, but apparently she didn’t.”
“Do we know if they were here when she left?”
Buddy tried to remember what Addie had said. “Somebody saw the flowered bag in Mama’s car on her way out of town. Mr. Faulkner, the school principal, I think. Addie thinks he’s an idiot, but she says he wouldn’t lie.”
“But by the time he saw her, she was leaving town, and she’d taken the money out of the flowered bag and put it somewhere else. Where?”
“I thought you kids were watching Grandpa!”
Addie’s voice was sharp, and they swung around to face the door. Grandpa’s bed was rumpled and empty.
Buddy jumped up so quickly, she nearly knocked over her pop can, catching it just in time. “Oh, no! He was sleeping just a minute ago—”
“He’s turning up the thermostat right now. Didn’t you notice how hot it was getting in here?” It was quite clear that Addie was annoyed with them.
Max muttered a curse and brushed past her in the doorway. “I hope he didn’t tear off our stopper again. At least he didn’t try to cook anything this time.”
Buddy was sorry they’d lost track of the old man for a few minutes, but she had something more important on her mind. “Aunt Addie, were you here when Mama left that last time, right after Grandpa’s money disappeared?”
“When she actually threw the bag in her car and drove away? No. It was a Thursday, and I worked at the library all day. She was gone—with the bag and the money—when I got home.”
“But the money wasn’t in the bag,” Buddy said. “Grandpa remembered. They took the money out so Mama could carry some letters in it. Only he doesn’t remember what they did with the money.”
A peculiar look came over Addie’s face. “Letters?” she echoed.
“That’s what he said. Letters that she found in the attic. There must have been a lot of them if she needed the bag to carry them.”
“Letters,” Addie murmured once more. “There was a box of letters she brought down from the attic . . . letters our parents had written to each other, years ago. She wanted to . . . edit them, and put them into a booklet form, so each of us could have copies, maybe even publish them. She said they were wonderful, inspiring letters, and they deserved to be read. . . .”
Addie was looking rather pale, and she sank into Grandpa’s chair and put up a hand to massage her throat. “She put the letters in the bag and . . . dear God, could she have put the money into the box she took the letters out of?”
“Where is everybody?” Cassie called out, coming in the back door. “Good grief, Grandpa’s been at the thermostat again, haven’t you, dear? Max, did you fix it? Addie, what’s the matter with you? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Addie’s mouth worked for a moment before she could summon her voice. “Maybe I have. Oh, God forgive me if I have. EllaBelle left the box on my desk, with a note on it to me—something about would I take care of this? I assumed she’d left the letters for me to return to the attic. It seemed like her—careless, inconsiderate, and it made me so angry!—oh, Cassie, I never even looked in the box to see if the letters were still there!”
Cassie was scowling. “What on earth are you talking about? I’ve had a perfectly dreadful, exhausting day, waiting around for June’s father-in-law to have his hip pinned, and driving her home practically in hysterics about what she was going to do with him when she had to take him out of the hospital. She’s afraid to take time off to take care of him because she’ll lose her job, which she needs urgently, but she won’t be able to leave him alone, either, and they said they’ll have him up and walking by tomorrow, imagine! He’ll have to have physical therapy, and learn to walk with crutches or a walker or something, but he won’t be able to shift for himself for weeks or even months—” Cassie ran out of air and gave her sister a fierce look. “Will you please explain to me what’s the matter with you? All of you?”
Addie was consciously trying to calm down, taking deep breaths. “Max,” she said. “Your legs are younger than mine, and I don’t think mine would work right now. Go up in the attic and find that box that had those letters in it. It’s about so big”—she gestured with her hands—“and it had a pink ribbon tied around it to hold it shut. It’s probably close to the top of the stairs, because there wasn’t room to walk very far into the attic.”
Max gave Buddy an excised, half-scared look, then bolted for the stairs.
He was back in only a few minutes, placing the box on Addie’s lap, where with trembling fingers she untied the ribbon and lifted the lid.
And there it was. Dozens of small bundles of cash, each with a paper band around it.
Buddy felt as if her bones had melted. When she saw the tears in Addie’s eyes, she didn’t have the heart to say, “I told you so.”
> “She put the letters in the bag,” Cassie breathed, “and the money in the box, and she expected you to take it to the bank that way. She was in a hurry to leave because they were predicting a storm and she wanted to get home as soon as she could. And then of course her car slid on the ice and—” She swallowed hard.
It was too late to get the box of cash to the bank, and they couldn’t think of any better place to put it for safekeeping than to call Mr. Faulkner and ask to put it in the school safe until Monday. For once Addie didn’t treat him as if he were the village idiot instead of the school principal, and she expressed her gratitude to him for opening up the school after hours.
Addie had just taken the money off to the school when Grandpa’s talking clock announced the hour, and he asked querulously, “Is anybody doing anything about supper?”
After a moment Cassie said, “I never believed much in fast food, it’s not very healthy, but today I think we could make an exception. Max, why don’t you and Buddy run over to the Hayloft and get us a bag of hamburgers and whatever else they’ve got to go with them? Gus says they’re pretty good. Get enough for the Boardmans, too, and leave them off on your way home. She’s at least as worn out as I am. Take enough money out of my purse.”
Buddy doubted if anybody really tasted the food except for Grandpa, who demolished two burgers, an order of fries, and one of onion rings.
Addie, when she got back, didn’t apologize to Buddy for the things she had thought about her mother. She really didn’t have to. Her grief, her pain, were unmistakable. She made no pretense of trying to eat anything, though Cassie insisted she have at least a cup of tea.
Finally, after their fast-food supper, Cassie surveyed the work Max and Buddy had done through the day. “Well, you’ve gotten rid of a lot of it, but I hope you aren’t going to leave it like that. It’s still a mess. He’ll break his neck tripping over what’s left if you don’t finish the job.”
“Can’t we just move those few boxes and do the rest tomorrow?” Max wanted to know. “We’re beat, Cassie.”