'Oh, my God. I don't believe it.' Kathy put her hand to her forehead. She did believe it. All of a sudden it made sense.
'What got me thinking, Kathy, was when you insisted you saw your mother buried in a coffin. Why would she be buried in a coffin if she'd been cremated? The cemetery accepts cremated remains, so he didn't need to fool them with a coffin. The only people he needed to fool were you two.'
'Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!' Kathy was so agitated that she broke a chopstick. 'I understand. Dad wanted Mom to take it with her. I guess he thought four million was her share.' She shook her head. 'Unbelievable.'
'What troubled us,' Mike said, 'was that no one believed you didn't know where it was. Anyway, one of you did. Harry did.' The dumplings arrived and he tucked in, delighted by the reaction they were getting.
Kathy and Bill looked at the food blankly.
'Dad didn't tell me because I wouldn't have let him,' Bill said.
'But this is just the kind of thing Harry would enjoy doing. What a hoax, and two cops could pull it off easily. They put the cash in the coffin. Dad gave Harry his piece and knew that as long as he was alive the money was safe in the grave. Jesus, I'll bet Harry was just waiting for Dad to leave for Florida to go and get it,' Kathy said.
'Eat,' April ordered.
Kathy laughed nervously. 'How can I eat when we don't know he hasn't already taken it?'
'I gave him a little warning,' Mike told her. 'When I told him we knew everything, he confirmed. Eat; we have all the time in the world.'
Kathy's face turned the color of her jacket with the excitement of revelation. 'Look, with Bill as my witness, I'm going to make you two a promise. If that money turns up where you say it is, I'm going to give you Dad's house for a dollar and see you married there.' She sounded so positive about it that April had to laugh.
'What if I don't want to marry him?' she said, rolling up a Peking Duck pancake and handing it over to him.
'You will,' Kathy said.
Bill lifted a shoulder, then started to eat. 'It's only fair,' he said. 'The whole thing could have gone a lot worse.'
Bernardino's lovely house in Westchester, for April and Mike and maybe a couple of kids? The two of them were enjoying the food and the occasion. The promise made them look at each other and just laugh. A reward for doing their job? That would be the day. But it sure felt good.
Leslie Glass
