“Get Barbara more tea,” Nana Cole said. “With, um, maybe some whiskey in it.”
CHAPTER NINE
Barbara left an hour or so later. The afternoon had gotten awfully hot, I opened all the windows and left the door standing open in hopes of a breeze. It was only seventy-five degrees, which in L.A. was super comfortable. For some reason, in Michigan it was super uncomfortable. I mean, seriously, Michigan seventy-five was like L.A. ninety.
As I sweated my way through cleaning up, I decided it was time to lower the boom on my grandmother. “I think I’ve done enough. You need to give me the thousand dollars you promised me.”
“But I still have questions. Don’t you have questions?”
I did, of course, but I really wanted that money. I mean, someday she’d get better—hopefully someday soon—and then I could leave. I wanted money to do that.
“We had a deal. All I had to do was talk to the sheriff and you’d give me a thousand dollars. I’ve done a lot more than that. I think it’s only fair—”
“Two thousand,” she said quickly. “I’ll give you two thousand if you keep going until we figure out what really happened.”
Tempting, but still I said, “No. I’m done.” Her thousand dollars and the eight-plus I’d sent to Bank of America. Thatwould be enough for me to buy a decent car and go home. It would have to be.
“You’re not done.”
“I am. I’m going upstairs until dinner. We’re having leftover tuna casserole.” And with that I walked out of the room and went upstairs to my room where I searched online for reasonably priced, reliable used cars.
Unfortunately,reasonably priced and reliable didn’t seem to have much to do with each other. After leafing through the car ads for half an hour, I realized the reward money, all eight thousand, nine hundred and forty-two dollars was not going to buy very much.
Everything I could afford seemed to be ten years old—a 1994 Cavalier, a 1992 Olds 98, a 1993 Jeep Cherokee. Okay, the Olds 98 was out of the question. I was not a grandfather. Or a Mafia don. The Cavalier might have been okay if it were a convertible or even a coupe. But no, it was a station wagon. Grrrr. That left the Jeep Cherokee, which sounded great except for the fact it had well over two hundred thousand miles on it.
One of my semi-quasi-stepfathers was into cars. I don’t remember which one, but I did pick-up a few things. Like, don’t buy a used car with more than a hundred thousand miles, and never buy a Saab.
My grandmother was frosty at dinner and during television—a repeat of7th Heaven. Ugh. Not my cup of tea. I would have gone back upstairs, but I had to wait around to help her get ready for bed. When the show was finally over, I convinced her to go to bed early.
Since she’d gotten herself ready for church all by herself, I went to get her a glass of water while she changed into her nightgown. When I got back, after dawdling in the kitchen, sheneeded a little help pulling her nightgown all the way down, but otherwise she’d done a reasonable job.
She got into bed. I set her water down on the nightstand and handed her the John Grisham book she was reading. I wasn’t sure how well she was doing with it. She’d been reading it since before she went into the hospital.
I said good night and turned to leave the room, but she reached out and grabbed me by the wrist. “You’re not from here so you don’t know. In a place like Masons Bay, we all know each other. We know each other’s kids, our families, who used to have a crush on who. We do things for each other. We help out. It’s not like a big city where everyone’s a stranger. We can’t just forget about Reverend Hessel. We have to find out what happened to him.”
I have to say, I was not as moved as she wanted me to be. I mean, I was alittlemoved. Just not to the point where I was willing to say, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find out who killed him and I won’t even take your money.’ I smiled at her as best I could, said good night again, and went upstairs.
After breakfast the next morning—scrambled eggs and toast—I set Nana Cole up in front of the television and made her promise not to move for the next hour. I needed to run some errands: pick up a prescription—for her, not me, grab a few odds and ends at Benson’s Country Store, and stop in at the post office.
My grandmother preferred to have her mail sent to a post office box. She’d had the mailbox removed ages ago and it now leaned up against the pole barn. The street was far enough from the house that walking down there was about as much exercise as any human needed—and more than my grandmother could generally handle.
The first two errands were easy enough since the pharmacy was next door to Benson’s Country Store. Then I drove to thepost office, which was minuscule—especially compared to the post office in Hollywood, which was a massive, Depression-era fortress. The Masons Bay Post Office only had two windows and a small room with the P.O. boxes. I went to my grandmother’s box, 292, and opened it with her key.
I hadn’t been there for a week or so and the box was crammed full. For Nana Cole there were several medical bills, the electric bill, a flyer from a food co-op, two greeting cards—which were probably get-well cards—and an opportunity to win a million dollars from Publisher’s Clearing House. For me—and a big part of why everything was crammed together—there was a fat, nine-by-twelve manilla envelope.
There was a counter between two banks of boxes, so I took the mail over there. I opened the envelope that was for me and immediately saw that it was my California mail. Vinnie had sent it to me. He’d done so before, though this time there was a note on top that said, YOU OWE ME 25 BUCKS. I was a little wounded. He hadn’t said hello or how are you or I miss you. No, just, you owe me money.
I flipped through my mail. Most of it was for things I didn’t want; life insurance (I was only twenty-four for God’s sake), new windows (I was basically homeless), an IKEA catalogue (I did want that but there wasn’t an IKEA for hundreds of miles), my bank statements for February, March, April and May, several credit card bills (most of them I’d paid over the phone—well, some of them I’d paid over the phone) and… eight letters from an attorney in Fresno named Martin Nollo.
Looking at the postmarks, I put the letters in order by date. I opened them and scanned each quickly. Well, it seems I’d been taken to court over a credit card I’d kind of forgotten about. And since I hadn’t shown up to defend myself—not surprising since I was thousands of miles away—a judgement was lodged against me. I owed five-thousand five hundred and thirty-seven dollars,which was the original thirty-five hundred I’d never paid plus attorney fees and court fees.
I was reassuring myself that they’d never get the money as I read the final letter, which explained they planned to garnish my bank account. That letter was dated May 23, 2003.
Frantically, I opened my bank statement to check on my balance. I’m sure I was white as a sheet. The reward check had gotten to Los Angeles but it had been immediately reduced by the five thousand five hundred and thirty-seven dollars I’d been sued for. That meant my balance was a bit more than thirty-four hundred dollars.
I felt completely robbed.
On my way home, I did some math in my head. If I agreed to keep asking questions about Reverend Hessel’s death and managed to get that two thousand dollars from my grandmother, I’d have well over five thousand. That meant I could afford a not-entirely reliable car that I would have to sleep in once I got to L.A.
