Found Money - James Grippando [8]
“Stop,” said Gram, covering her ears. “Don’t be talking like that.”
“I’m kidding, okay? Just making a point.”
“There’s no point in sass.” Gram went to the kitchen and refilled her coffee cup.
Amy sighed, backing down, as usual. “I’m sorry, all right? It’s not every day a box full of money comes in an unmarked package. I’d just like to talk it out.”
Gram returned to her chair, then looked across the table, eye to eye. “What do you think we should do with it?”
“I don’t know. Should we call the police?”
“What for? No crime has been committed.”
“None that we know of, you mean.”
“Amy, I’m surprised at you. How did you get so negative? Something good happens, and you immediately figure it has to be connected to something bad.”
“I’m just considering all the possibilities. I’m assuming we don’t have any rich relatives you’ve forgotten to tell me about.”
Gram laughed. “Honey, in our family tree, not even the leaves are green.”
“None of your friends have this kind of money to give away, do they?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“So, if this is a gift, it came from someone we don’t know, someone who’s not even related to us.”
“It could happen. Things like that do happen.”
“When?”
“All the time.”
“Name one.”
“I can’t think of one, but it happens. Somebody you met, somewhere along the line. You’re a sweet person, Amy. Maybe some rich old man had a crush on you and you didn’t even know it.”
Amy shook her head. “This is just too strange. We should call the police.”
“For what? We’ll never see it again.”
“If nobody claims it, I would think the police will give it back to us.”
“That’s not the way it works,” said Gram. “A few years ago, I read in the newspaper about a minister who found over a million dollars in a suitcase on the side of the road. He turned it in to the police, thinking that if nobody claimed it, the cops would give it back to him, since he was the guy who found it. Sure enough, nobody claimed it. But you know what? The police said it was drug money, and they confiscated it under these drug laws they have now. They kept every penny of it. That’s what will happen to us.”
“I’m just worried. If it were just the two of us, maybe I’d be braver about this. But with Taylor living here, I’d feel better if we had a little protection.”
“Protection from what?”
“Well, maybe it is drug money. Someone could have sent it to me by mistake, thinking I’m part of their distribution chain or something.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“Oh, and some rich old man with the hots for me is perfectly logical.”
“Look,” said Gram, “I don’t know who sent you this or why. All I know is that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. So we keep the money, and we wait a couple weeks. Don’t spend any of it, at least for a little while. Maybe in a few days a letter will come in the mail from someone that explains everything.”
“Maybe the Mafia will come pounding on our door.”
“Maybe. That’s why we’re keeping the money right here in our apartment.”
“That’s crazy, Gram. We should at least put it in a safe deposit box for safekeeping.”
“Bad idea. Don’t you watch the news? The quickest way to get shot in a robbery is not to have any money on you. It makes robbers very angry.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
“Let’s say it was criminals who sent you this money by mistake. Let’s say they come looking for it. We tell them we don’t have it. They think we’re lying. They go berserk. Somebody gets hurt.”
“But if the money is here, then what?”
“We just give it back to them. They leave happy, and we go on living the way we’ve always lived. The chances of anything bad like that happening are probably zilch. But in the worst-case scenario, I don’t want any angry thugs accusing me of playing games. It’s best if we can just hand over the money right on the spot and be done with it.”
Amy finished her coffee. She looked away nervously, then back. “I don’t know.”
“There’s no downside, Amy. If it’s a gift, we’re rich. If some creeps come to claim it, we just give it back. Just wait a couple weeks,