“You sure do.” Jo Ellen elbowed her. “But why are you expecting them to not let us see our husbands’ safe deposit box?”
“Because there are rules and laws for this kind of thing,” she said. “You don’t waltz in like you’re in an episode ofColomboand demand to get into someone’s safe deposit box. You have to prove who you are and they’ll probably want someone to go with us.”
“No!”
“Oh, you’re so naïve,” Maggie said as she pulled the door open. “Just let me take the lead.”
They walked in together and straight to the first teller, a young woman about the age of her granddaughter, Meredith. Only instead of put together and on top of her game, like beautiful Meredith, this girl had one of those ridiculous rings in her nose and a purple flower inked on what would have otherwise been a lovely arm.
Who told her that was attractive?
Maggie lifted her chin and looked down her own—unpierced—nose, knowing how powerful her expressions could be.
“We would like access to a safe deposit box.”
The woman looked up. “ID and key, please.” She turned to the computer and tapped. “What name is the box in?”
“Uh, Roger Lawson.”
Her fingers froze. “I take it that’s not you, ma’am.”
Maggie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s my late husband.”
She snapped her gum—honestly!—and it took everything Maggie had to stay quiet.
“We’ll need written permission to access the box, your ID, a death certificate, and/or a signed and notarized affidavit that says you have permission or the power of attorney to…” Her gaze shifted to Jo Ellen. “Are you okay?”
Maggie turned and looked at Jo, who was…bawling. Her face was red, her nose slobbery, and her shoulders shook with a silent sob.
“It was my husband’s, too,” she managed to mumble. “They shared the box. It hasn’t been a year since he died and I came all the way from Ithaca, New York, just to get in this box so please, please,pleaselet us in there. Alone. Please. We mean no harm, but my husband asked me on his death bed to get what’s in that box.”
Her whole arm vibrated as she held out the envelope containing the death certificate. With a tentative look, the young woman pulled out the certificate, glanced at it, then turned to tap her pointed acrylic nails on the computer keyboard.
All the while, Jo Ellen sobbed. Literallyugly criedinto a used Kleenex. Maggie didn’t know whether to laugh, scream, or dig for a fresh tissue.
“Arthur Wylie?” the woman asked. “Here it is. Wow. That box is…” She counted on her fingers.On her fingers. A girl who workedin a bank. “Thirty years old!”
“Yes, we know.” Maggie lathered condescension on the words, but Jo Ellen muscled closer.
“Please, honey,” she sniveled. “What’s in there is the last piece of him I have. Do you have a father? Maybe a dead grandfather? Can you understand?—”
“I’ll need your ID,” she said, unmoved but maybe a little terrified of Jo.
“Oh, of course.” Jo Ellen flipped open her wallet and struggled to slide out her license, too overcome with grief to manage—or her acting skills were in overdrive.
“Okay,” the girl finally said after checking it and comparing it to the name on her computer screen. “My manager is at lunch and he’s supposed to go in with you.”
Maggie inched closer. “We don’t need?—”
Jo Ellen cut her off with another extended, quivering hand. “Please, honey. Please let us be alone with our memories.”
Nose Ring looked from one to the other, then shrugged. “Okay. But be warned, ladies, the room has cameras.”
“What do you think we’re going to?—”
“Maggie.” Jo Ellen shut her up with a wave of her hand. “It’s fine. We’ll be in there crying.”
The woman escorted them to the back of the bank and unlocked a door, showing them into a cold hallway lined with small boxes.
