`Right,’ I said. `But think about the punctuation. If the apostrophe was before the final letter, it would mean the garage belonging to one person called Stoller. The singular possessive, they call it in school, right?’
`But?’ he said.
`It wasn’t written like that,’ I said. `The apostrophe came after the final letter. It meant the garage belonging to the Stollers. The plural possessive. The garage belonging to two people called Stoller. And there weren’t two people called Stoller living at the house out by the golf course. Judy and Sherman weren’t married. The only place we’re going to find two people called Stoller is the little old house where Sherman’s parents live. And they’ve got a garage.’
Finlay drove on in silence. Trawled back to his grade-school grammar.
`You think he stashed a box with his folks?’ he said.
`It’s logical,’ I said. `The boxes we saw in his own place were empty. But Sherman didn’t know he
was going to die last Thursday. So it’s reasonable to assume he had more savings stashed away somewhere else. He thought he was going to live for years without working.’
We were just about into Atlanta. The big interchange was coming up.
`Loop around past the airport,’ I told him.
We skirted the city on a raised ribbon of concrete. We passed near the airport. I found my way back to the poor part of town. It was nearly seventhirty in the morning. The place looked pretty good in the soft morning light. The low sun gave it a spurious glow. I found the right street, and the right house, crouching inoffensively behind its hurricane fencing.
We got out of the car and I led Finlay through the gate in the wire fence. Along the straight path to the door. I nodded to him. He pulled his badge and pounded on the door. We heard the hallway floor creak. We heard bolts and chains snapping and clinking. Then the door opened. Sherman Stoller’s mother stood there. She looked awake. Didn’t look like we’d got her out of bed. She didn’t speak. Just stared out at us.
`Morning, Mrs Stoller,’ I said. `Remember me?’ `You’re a police officer,’ she said.
Finlay held his badge out toward her. She
nodded.
`Better come in,’ she said.
We followed her down the hall into the cramped kitchen.
`What can I do for you?’ the old lady asked.
`We’d like to see the inside of your garage, ma’am,’ Finlay said. `We have reason to believe your son may have placed some stolen property there.’
The woman stood silently in her kitchen for a moment. Then she turned and took a key off a nail on the wall. Handed it to us without a word. Walked off down the narrow hallway and disappeared into another room. Finlay shrugged at me and we went back out the front door and walked around to the garage.
It was a small tumble-down structure, barely big enough for a single car. Finlay used the key on the lock and swung the door open. The garage was empty except for two tall cartons. They were stacked side by side against the end wall. Identical to the empty boxes I’d seen at Sherman Stoller’s new house. Island Air-conditioning, Inc. But these were still sealed with tape. They had long handwritten serial numbers. I took a good look at them. According to those numbers, there was a hundred thousand dollars in each box.
Finlay and I stood there looking at the boxes. Just staring at them. Then I walked over and rocked one out from the wall. Took out Morrison’s knife and popped the blade. Pushed the point under the sealing tape and slit the top open. Pulled up the flaps on the top and pushed the box over.
It landed with a dusty thump on the concrete floor. An avalanche of paper money poured out. Cash fluttered over the floor. A mass of paper money. Thousands and thousands of dollar bills. A river of singles, some new, some crumpled, some in thick rolls, some in wide bricks, some loose and fluttering. The carton spilled its contents and the flood tide of cash reached Finlay’s polished shoes. He crouched down and plunged his hands into the lake of money. He grabbed two random fistfuls of cash and held them up. The tiny garage was dim. Just a small dirty windowpane letting in the pale