The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(24)

“I shouldn’t have asked you to do this,” James Harris said.

She looked at him, his face already reddening with sunburn, cheeks wet with the fluid streaming from beneath his sunglasses. She weighed her sympathy against what Carter would say when he balanced their checkbook. But it was her money, too, wasn’t it? That was what Carter always said when she asked for her own bank account: this money belonged to both of them. She was a grown woman and could use it however she saw fit, even if it was to help another man.

She wrote the second check and tore it off with a brisk flick of her wrist before she could change her mind. She felt efficient. Like she was solving problems and getting things done. She felt like Grace.

Back at his house she wanted to wait on the front porch while he got his wallet, but he hustled her inside. By now it was after two o’clock and the sun pressed down hard.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, leaving her alone in his dark kitchen.

She thought about opening his refrigerator to see what he had inside. Or looking in his cupboards. She still didn’t know anything about him.

The floor cracked and he came back into the kitchen.

“Three hundred fifty dollars,” he said, counting it out on the table in worn twenties and a ten. He beamed at her, even though it looked painful to move his sunburned face. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

“I’m happy to help,” she said.

“You know…,” he said, and trailed off. He looked away, then shook his head briskly. “Never mind.”

“What?” she asked.

“It’s too much,” he told her. “You’ve been wonderful. I don’t know how I can repay you.”

“What is it?” Patricia asked.

“Forget it,” he said. “It’s unfair.”

“What is?” she asked.

He got very still.

“Do you want to see something really cool? Just between the two of us?”

The inside of Patricia’s skull lit up with alarm bells. She’d read enough to know that anyone saying that, especially a stranger, was about to ask you to take a package over the border or park outside a jewelry store and keep the engine running. But when was the last time anyone had even said the word cool to her?

“Of course,” she said, dry-mouthed.

He went away, then returned with a grimy blue gym bag. He swung it onto the table and unzipped it.

The dank stench of compost wafted from the bag’s mouth and Patricia leaned forward and looked inside. It was stuffed with money: fives, twenties, tens, ones. The pain in Patricia’s left ear disappeared. Her breath got high in her chest. Her blood sizzled in her veins. Her mouth got wet.

“Can I touch it?” she asked, quietly.

“Go ahead.”

She reached out for a twenty, thought that looked greedy, and picked up a five. Disappointingly, it felt like any other five-dollar bill. She dipped her hand in again and this time pulled out a thick sheaf of bills. This felt more substantial. James Harris had just gone from a vaguely interesting man to a full-blown mystery.

“I found it in the crawl space,” he said. “It’s eighty-five thousand dollars. I think it’s Auntie’s life savings.”

It felt dangerous. It felt illegal. She wanted to ask him to put it away. She wanted to keep fondling it.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I wanted to ask you,” he said.

“Put it in the bank.”

“Can you imagine me showing up at First Federal with no ID and a bag of cash?” he said. “They’d be on the phone to the police before I could sit down.”

“You can’t keep it here,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “I can’t sleep with it in the house. For the past week, I’ve been terrified someone’s going to break in.”

The solutions to so many mysteries began to reveal themselves to Patricia. He wasn’t just sick with the sun, he was sick with stress. Ann Savage had been unfriendly because she wanted to keep people away from the house where she’d hidden her life savings. Of course she hadn’t trusted banks.

“We have to open an account for you,” Patricia said.

“How?” he asked.

“Leave that to me,” she said, a plan already forming in her mind. “And put on a dry shirt.”



* * *



—

They stood at the counter of First Federal on Coleman Boulevard half an hour later, James Harris already sweating through his fresh shirt.

“May I speak with Doug Mackey?” Patricia asked the girl across the counter. She thought it was Sarah Shandy’s daughter but she couldn’t be sure so she didn’t say anything.

“Patricia,” a voice called from across the floor. Patricia turned and saw Doug, thick-necked and red-faced, with his belly straining the bottom three buttons of his shirt, coming at them with his arms spread wide. “They say every dog has its day, and today’s mine.”

“I’m trying to help my neighbor, James Harris,” Patricia said, shaking his hand, making introductions. “This is my friend from high school, Doug Mackey.”

“Welcome, stranger,” Doug Mackey said. “You couldn’t have a better guide to Mt. Pleasant than Patricia Campbell.”