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bucks or so.”
    “No. We can’t spend any of it until we find out who it’s from.”
    “Then all we can do is wait.” She folded up the paper shopping bag, placed it in a drawer, and kissed Amy on the forehead. “I’m going to check on our little angel.”
    She grimaced as her grandmother left the apartment. Waiting was not her style. Short of hiring adetective and checking for fingerprints, however, she wasn’t sure how else to go about it. Cash was virtually untraceable. The plastic lining had no identification on it. That left the box.
    The box!
    She hurried to the freezer, yanked open the door, and grabbed the box. She set in on the table and checked the flaps. Nothing on top. She turned it over. Bingo. As she had hoped, the box bore a printed product identification number for the Crock-Pot it had once contained. Amy had purchased enough small appliances to know that they always came with a warranty registration card. She doubted, however, that they would freely give out names and addresses over the phone. After a moment to collect her thoughts, she called directory assistance, got the toll-free number for Gemco Home Appliances, and dialed it.
    “Good afternoon,” she said in her most affected, friendly voice. “I have a favor to ask. We had a potluck supper here at the church the other night, and wouldn’t you know it that two women showed up with the exact same Gemco Crock-Pot? I washed them both, and now I’m not sure whose is whose. I really don’t want to have to tell these women I mixed up their stuff. If I gave you the product identification number from one of them, could you tell me who owns it?”
    The operator on the line hesitated. “I’m not sure I can do that, ma’am.”
    “Please. Just the name. It would save me a world of embarrassment.”
    “Well—I suppose that would be all right. Just don’t tell my supervisor.”
    She read him the eleven-digit number from the box, then waited anxiously.
    “Here it is,” he said. “That one belongs to Jeanette Duffy.”
    “Oh, Jeanette.” Amy wanted to push for an address, but she couldn’t think of a convincing way to work it into her ruse. Leave it be , she thought, heeding Gram’s advice. “Thank you so much, sir.”
    Her heart pounded as she hung up the phone. She had surprised herself, the way she’d pulled it off. It was actually kind of fun, exhilarating. Best of all, it had worked. She had a lead.
    Now all she had to do was find the right Jeanette Duffy.

7
    The kitchen smelled of corned beef and cabbage. So did the dining room. The living room, too. The whole house smelled of it. It was a Duffy family tradition going back as far as Ryan could remember, which was his grandfather’s funeral. Just as soon as the body was in the ground, they’d file back to the house and stuff themselves, as if to prove that nothing was depressing enough to ruin a good meal. Somebody always brought corned beef and cabbage. Hell, anyone who could turn on an oven brought corned beef and cabbage.
    Dad didn’t even like corned beef and cabbage. Not that it mattered. Dad was gone. Forever.
    “Your father was a good man, Ryan.” It was Josh Colburn, the family lawyer. He’d been every family’s lawyer for the last fifty years. He was no Clarence Darrow, but he was an honest man, an old-school lawyer who considered the law a sacred profession. It was no wonder his dearly departed client’s last will and testament had made no mention of the stash in the attic. Colburn was the last person Dad would have told.
    He was back in the buffet line before Ryan could thank him for the kind words.
    Apart from the guests’ black attire, the post-cemetery gathering had lost any discernible connection to a funeral. It had begun somberly enough,with scattered groups of friends and relatives quietly remembering Frank Duffy. As the crowd grew, so did the noise level. The small groups expanded from three or four to six or eight, until the house was so crowded it was