He squeezed my hand. “Someone hoping to steal business secrets, maybe.”
“He was retired!”
“But he kept his hand in, he told you that. Or it could have been access to his credit card info they were after. Whoever it was got your voicemail on the cloned phone, and decided to play a practical joke.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. “Daddy, we have to check!”
“We don’t, and I’m going to tell you why. Mr. Harrigan was a rich man who died unattended. In addition to that, he hadn’t visited a physician in years, although I bet Rafferty gave him hell on that score, if only because he couldn’t update the old guy’s insurance to cover more of the death duties. For those reasons, there was an autopsy. That’s how they found out he died of advanced heart disease.”
“They cut him open?” I thought of how my knuckles had brushed his chest when I put his phone in his pocket. Had there been stitched-up incisions under his crisp white shirt and knotted tie? If my dad was right, then yes. Stitched-up incisions in the shape of a Y. I had seen that on TV. On CSI.
“Yes,” Dad said. “I don’t like telling you that, don’t want it preying on your mind, but it’s better that than letting you think he was buried alive. He wasn’t. Couldn’t have been. He’s dead. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like me to stay home today? I will if you want.”
“No, that’s okay. You’re right. I got spoofed.” And spooked. That too.
“What are you going to do with yourself? Because if you’re going to brood and be all morbid, I should take the day off. We could go fishing.”
“I’m not going to brood and be all morbid. But I should go up to his house and water the plants.”
“Is going there a good idea?” He was watching me closely.
“I owe it to him. And I want to talk to Mrs. Grogan. Find out if he made a whatchacallit for her, too.”
“A provision. That’s very thoughtful. Of course she may tell you to mind your beeswax. She’s an old-time Yankee, that one.”
“If he didn’t, I wish I could give her some of mine,” I said.
He smiled, and kissed my cheek. “You’re a good kid. Your mom would be so proud of you. Are you sure you’re okay now?”
“Yes.” I ate some eggs and toast to prove it, although I didn’t want them. My dad had to be right—a stolen password, a cloned phone, a cruel practical joke. It sure hadn’t been Mr. Harrigan, whose guts had been tossed like salad and whose blood had been replaced with embalming fluid.
* * *
Dad went to work and I went up to Mr. Harrigan’s. Mrs. Grogan was vacuuming the living room. She wasn’t singing like she usually did, but she was composed enough, and after I finished watering the plants, she asked if I’d like to go into the kitchen and have a cup of tea (which she called “a cuppa cheer”) with her.
“There’s cookies, too,” she said.
We went into the kitchen and while she boiled the kettle, I told her about Mr. Harrigan’s note, and how he’d left money in trust for my college education.
Mrs. Grogan nodded in businesslike fashion, as if she’d expected no less, and said she had also gotten an envelope from Mr. Rafferty. “The boss fixed me up. More than I expected. Prob’ly more than I deserve.”
I said I felt pretty much the same way.
Mrs. G. brought the tea to the table, a big mug for each of us. Between them she set down a plate of oatmeal cookies. “He loved these,” Mrs. Grogan said.
“Yeah. He said they got his bowels in gear.”
That made her laugh. I picked up one of the cookies and bit into it. As I chewed, I thought of the scripture from 1 Corinthians I’d read at Methodist Youth Fellowship on Maundy Thursday and at Easter service just a few months back: “And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” The cookies weren’t communion, the Rev would surely have called the idea blasphemous, but I was glad to have one just the same.
“He took care of Pete, too,” she said. Meaning Pete Bostwick, the gardener.
“Nice,” I said, and reached for another cookie. “He was a good guy, wasn’t he?”