Shirley Murphy - Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Bearing_Gifts_BookFi

Late one night they’d moved into the stone shack when Emmylou was sound asleep, house all dark, and they didn’t make a sound, didn’t use a flashlight. Vic had picked the old lock, and had jimmied the padlock on the shed, too, hid the truck in there, fixed the lock back so it looked untouched, still hanging rusty against the peeling paint of the old, swinging shed door.

The single stone room had maybe been workers’ quarters back in the last century, when there were mostly little scraggy farms up here. At some time, rough planks had been fitted up against the bare stone walls, nailed onto two-by-fours, most likely for warmth. Stained toilet and old metal sink in one corner. Stone floor, cold as hell under their sleeping bags.

It was some days before Birely, lying in his sleeping bag staring at the plank walls, said, “Money could be up here, where no one’d think to look. Maybe Sammie didn’t leave Emmylou all of it, maybe she left some for me to find, in case I wanted to come looking. Sure as hell she didn’t put it in any bank, she got that from Uncle Lee, he robbed banks. He told her, never trust your money to a banker. As little as she was, maybe nine or ten when he left for Mexico, I guess she listened.” Birely shrugged. “Sammie lived all her life that way, hiding what she earned and hiding what Uncle Lee sent her. Lived alone all her life, stayed to herself just like the old man did, never got cozy with strangers—until this Emmylou person.”

There were no cupboards in the stone shed to search, no attic, no place to hide anything except maybe in those double walls. They’d started prying off one slab of wood and then another, putting each back as they worked. Used an old hammer they’d found in the truck, had muffled the sound with rags when they pulled the nails and tapped them back in real quiet, moving on to the next board, and the next. Underneath the boards, some of the stones were loose, too, the mortar crumbling around them—and sure as hell, the fifth stone they’d lifted out, behind it was a package wrapped in yellowed newspaper. Unwrapped it, and there it was: a sour-smelling packet of mildewed hundred-dollar bills. Birely’d let out a whoop that made Vic grab him and slap a hand over his mouth.

“Christ, Birely! You want that old woman up here with her flashlight, you want her calling the cops?” But nothing had happened, when they looked out the dirty little window no lights had come on down at the house below.

“Hell, Vic, there’s a fortune here,” Birely said, counting out the old, sour-smelling hundred-dollar bills.

Took them several days to examine all the walls. They’d found ten more packets, and made sure they didn’t miss any. They came away with nearly nine thousand dollars. But even then, Birely said that originally there’d been maybe two hundred thousand in stolen bills, and he’d looked down meaningfully toward the larger house.

Over the next weeks, whenever they saw the old woman get in her old green Chevy and head off into the village, they’d go down through the woods and search the house, and that tickled Birely, that he still had his key to the place, that Sammie’d given him years back, in case he ever needed a place to hide out from the law or from his traveling buddies.

While they searched her three rooms they took turns watching the weedy driveway so the old woman wouldn’t come home and surprise them. Emmylou Warren was her name. Tall, skinny. Sun-browned face and arms wrinkled as an old boot. Long brown hair streaked with gray. She had a couple of cats, maybe more, there were always cats around her overgrown yard and going in and out of the house.

They’d see her drive in, watch her unload lumber that was tied on top the Chevy, all the while, cats rubbing against her ankles. Birely said, “You think that’s Sammie’s money she’s spending for all them building materials? Or,” he said, his face creasing in a knowing smile, “or did Sammie only tell her about the money, tell her it was hid, and she’s looking for it?

“Sammie would do that,” he said. “Not put anything in writing to keep from paying inheritance. Sammie didn’t like the gover’ment any better than she liked banks.

“That’s why she’s tearing up the walls,” Birely said, scowling at the nerve of the woman. “Tearing them up just like we’re doing, and it’s rightfully my money.”

“If she’s found any,” Vic said, “why’s she driving that clunky old car? I’d get me a new car, first off. And if she is looking for the money, why would she have help coming in, those two carpenters that are here sometimes, and that woman carpenter? She wouldn’t have no one else around. That dark-haired woman’s a looker, I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better.” Slim woman, short, roughed-up hair. Fit her faded jeans real nice. He’d heard the old woman call her Ryan, she drove a big red king cab, her own logo on the side, Ryan Flannery Construction. Pretty damn fancy. Well, hell, Vic thought, she was likely too snooty to give him a second look.

He did meet a little gal down in the next block, though, and she wasn’t too good for him. Debbie Kraft, flirty little gal with two small children, both girls, light-fingered woman not too good to steal, neither, he soon found out.

They burned no lights in the stone house at night, and didn’t cook none, or warm up their food. Just opened a can of cold beans, kept a loaf of bread handy and maybe doughnuts. He missed hot coffee. Even in the hobo camps they boiled coffee. And they didn’t drive the truck, just left it hidden in the shed below and hoped she’d stay away from there. If they needed beer and food they’d walk up the hill through the woods and then down the next street to the village. Carried out their trash, too, dropped it in a village Dumpster, in one alley or another, always behind a different restaurant. Fancy place like Molena Point, even the Dumpsters were kept all neat and covered.

They’d kept on slipping down to the house whenever Emmylou went out, searching where she was starting a tear-out, fishing back between the studs, but then one night she came up the hill snooping around the stone house. They were inside sitting on their sleeping bags eating cold beans and crackers, they heard her come up the steps, saw her through the smeared window, and they eased down out of sight. They were sure she’d have a key, but she didn’t come in. They’d stayed real still until they heard her leave again, her shoes scuffing on the steps, heard her rustling away down through the bushes, heard her door open and shut.

They’d waited a while after her lights went out, feeling real nervous. They’d opened the shed door real quiet, shoved some food and their sleeping bags in the pickup, with what money they’d found, hoping she wouldn’t hear the pickup start. Had eased up the dirt lane and around through the woods, and moved on away from there. Had parked for the night way up at the edge of the village beside an overgrown canyon. Had waited until dawn, then had made a run back down near Emmylou’s place, where Vic tended to a deal he’d made with Debbie Kraft. Had picked up some goods he’d told her he’d sell for her up in the city and some fancy, stolen clothes. A nice stroke of luck, when he’d seen Debbie and her older child shoplifting, and had got the goods on them. A nice little deal he’d set up with her: he’d make the sale and take his share, and not turn her in to the cops. He’d met with Debbie, picked up the goods, and then headed for the city. Let Emmylou think they were gone for good—if she ever was onto them living right there above her.

They were gone a week up the coast, boosting food from a mom-and-pop grocery or a 7-Eleven, and they’d gone on into San Francisco, where he’d made the business transaction. That turned out pretty good, except for the damn cops sitting out in front, there. Well, hell, the goons hadn’t followed them, maybe it was just coincidence, maybe they were watching someone else.