The trio was nodding, so I went on.
“Collier and his girlfriend got engaged at Thanksgiving, remember? And the big family dinner was at the Bennethums’, so there was a lot of talk about family and heirlooms and Rowan remembered the coin collection, which she’d almost forgotten about.”
Ash had corroborated this by calling Neil (who hadn’t answered) and Anya and Collier (who had). I took in one bite of pancake and another of eggs. “When it came time for dessert, along with the pumpkin and apple pies, Rowan put Grandma’s coin collection on the table for everyone to see.”
“What kind of collection was it?” Otto asked. “From a certain time period? Civil War? Or gold coins?”
I shook my head and smiled as I picked up a piece of bacon. “It was the most romantic coin collection ever. Grandpa had given Grandma a brand-new uncirculated coin as an anniversary present for every year they’d been married, starting in 1936.”
“What kind of coin?” Aunt Frances asked. “Half-dollars?”
I paused for coffee. “What he gave her were pennies.”
“Pennies?” Otto laughed. “Not much of an anniversary present.”
“Family lore says it started as a joke and just kind of continued on.”
Rafe took my coffee mug and topped it off. “Bet I know how it started. That movie Pennies from Heaven came out in 1936.”
I blinked. He’d said it with such assurance that I believed him implicitly. It could have been a ruse, but since I’d almost died less than twenty-four hours ago, I didn’t think he’d be trying to scam me for at least another day. “How do you know that?”
Looking serious, he tapped his head. “Steel trap. Never forget a thing that’s unimportant.”
“Good to know,” I said, toasting him with my mug. “Anyway, with all the pennies out on the table, there was plenty of opportunity to take a close look at them, and Stewart did.”
“That boy was always looking for get-rich-quick schemes,” Aunt Frances mused. “A few years after he graduated from college, back in the late nineties, he quit the company he was working for and started one of those dot-com companies. And don’t ask me what they were supposed to be doing, because I have no idea.”
Otto chuckled. “Exactly. I still find it hard to believe so much money was invested in dot-coms. A classic speculation bubble. We can all be fooled some of the time.”
“The pennies,” Rafe said, dragging the conversation back to center. “What was with the pennies?”
I held up two fingers. “It wasn’t all of them. Just a couple of very special ones.”
Aunt Frances cut into her waffle. “How special can pennies be? I’ve heard of silver dollars worth a couple of hundred dollars, and you see those special offers in magazines for commemorative coins, but I don’t remember anything about a penny.”
“In Grandma’s collection,” I said slowly, because I was trying to remember the details and didn’t want to get any of it wrong, “were a mint condition 1944 steel wheat penny and a mint 1943 copper Lincoln penny.”
I waited a beat because Otto was getting a faraway look on his face. But he didn’t say anything and I carried on.
“Together, the two of them are worth more than three hundred thousand dollars.”
Coffee spewed across the table as my aunt started choking. Otto patted her on the back until her spasms eased and Rafe got up for paper towels.
I cut and ate my sausage and, when the fuss died down, started talking again.
“That’s just the amount of money Stewart needed for the boat he’d been dreaming about for years, the boat his now ex-wife would never let him buy. He thought he could sneak the pennies out of the collection, replace them with garden-variety 1943 and 1944 pennies, and no one would ever know.”
“So what happened?” Rafe asked. I’d paused, because the next part was the hardest to tell.
I sighed. “At the family Christmas party, Rowan told Stewart she’d decided to hand over the coin collection to Collier as an engagement present, and that she’d do so when he and his fiancée came up during Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. Stewart . . .” I stared at my plate.
“That was when,” I said quietly, “Stewart realized time was running out. Up until then, he thought he’d have time to find replacement coins. But now that he only had three weeks, he decided it was easier to just kill Rowan. He knew she had heart issues, so he put together a cocktail of medications he’d accumulated, crushed the pills, stopped by her house, and dropped the powder into her coffee, hoping that the stimulants would give her a heart attack.” Which it did. “With Rowan dead, Stewart had all sorts of time to replace the pennies since the coin collection was pretty much the last thing on anyone’s mind.”
There was a long pause, at the end of which Aunt Frances said, “In the back of the shop, there’s a stack of cherry that came out of the orchard down the road from the Bennethums’ house. What do you think about me making Collier and his fiancée a clock out of it for a wedding present? A grandfather . . . no, a grandmother clock.”
“Sounds like a grand idea,” Otto said. “Let me know when it’s time to sand. That seems to be my forte in the woodworking area.”
Rafe nodded. “Great idea. I can take a few days off from the house if you need some help.”
I almost couldn’t breathe. The sensations rushing through me were a tangled mess. I was sad, but joyful. Unhappy and happy at the same time. Tired, yet energized. But I knew one thing for certain. I was lucky to have these people in my life. So very, very lucky.
My aunt looked at me. “What do you think, Minnie?”
And all I could do was smile.
• • •
Otto and Rafe headed out after breakfast, Otto to an appointment with a nonprofit agency that would undoubtedly land him some volunteer work as their bookkeeper, Rafe to the school, because somehow it was Friday and the world was continuing as it normally did.
Aunt Frances told me to sit and drink coffee while she finished the dishes, but I felt an urge to move. Last night, Ash had driven me to the hospital, where they’d pronounced me fit to continue life. Rafe had arrived just as I was checking out, sweeping me into a huge hug that had warmed my heart, but my body racked with the occasional shiver all the way home.
“I’m fine,” I’d told the three of them last night as I’d sat close to the fire. My aunt had paid no attention to me, and as soon as I’d told the bare bones of what had happened, she’d shooed me upstairs and tucked me into bed, taking my e-reader out of my hands and putting Eddie on my chest.
This time I wasn’t about to let her coddle me, so I ignored what I assumed was a suggestion and started to dry the dishes as she washed.
Aunt Frances rolled her eyes, but didn’t actually force me back to the table and put the coffee mug in my hands. “When did Darren say they were going to get out there?” she asked.
Darren was the bookmobile’s mechanic and he’d been the first number I’d called after dialing 911 and Rafe. I’d called Darren even before I’d called Aunt Frances, a tiny little fact that she had no reason ever to learn.
I glanced at the wall clock. “The tow truck should be on its way. I’ll know after lunch what Darren thinks the damage will be.” And then I’d be on the phone with the insurance people. My afternoon would be nothing but fun.
Aunt Frances dropped a handful of silverware into the strainer. “Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone into the car repair business instead of woodworking.” She grinned. “But then I remember I can’t stand the feel of grease under my fingernails.”
Before I could acknowledge that could be an occupational difficulty, she said, “Forgot to tell you. Celeste must have read about your bookmobile escapade on Facebook. She sent me an e-mail this morning and her exact words—her only words—were, ‘Tell Minnie to keep her feet warm.’”