I picked up my purse, walked out the front door, and took a long look at all I was leaving behind. Then I slammed the door hard enough to rattle the windowpanes and didn't even look back. In ten minutes I was at the bank, standing in Charity's teller line. She was a pretty little thing. Not even old enough to get into a bar without an ID. Blond hair cut in one of those multilayered styles that was shorter in the back and framed her delicate face. Neither cellulite nor gravity had attacked her body, and every inch looked firm and taut. Did she iron shirts and make two meals a day? She'd better learn if she didn't, because Drew Williams didn't pay for a maid or a cook.
"And what can I do for you today?" she asked when I reached her.
"Would you please check the total amount in my family's savings account?" I was proud of myself for not grabbing a handful of that blond hair and jerking her through the opening in the teller station. It wouldn't be difficult to send her sailing through the plate-glass front window like a giant Frisbee.
"Your account number, please."
I told her, and she poked a few buttons, then sucked air for a few seconds before she looked up at me again.
"Mrs. Drew Williams? Do you have identification?"
I flipped open my wallet and presented my bank card. "Right here. How much is in that account?"
"Fifty thousand, four dollars, and twelve cents," she said.
"I'll be withdrawing all but the twelve cents right now"
"But, but ... oh, dear. I'll have to make a phone call." She reached for the phone.
I slapped my hand onto hers and looked her right in the eye. "I want a cashier's check for fifty thousand, four dollars. And then you'll see what's in my joint checking account. I want to withdraw all of it except thirteen cents. Do you understand me, Charity?"
"I think you'd better talk to the bank president. I can't authorize such a large withdrawal."
I yelled at the teller all the way at the other end of the row. "Hey, Mindy, go get Horace, and bring him up here. I want to take money out of my accounts, and Charity can't take care of my business."
Mindy nodded toward Charity. "Give her what she wants. That's Trudy Williams. She and her husband are among our best customers."
Charity gasped as if she'd been tossed over the side of the Washita River bridge in nothing but her sexy little thong underpants and concrete shoes. It was ten minutes before two, and all bank business was concluded promptly at two o'clock. I'd made sure that my transactions would go into that day's business and she couldn't call Drew to warn him until the deed was already done.
"Mindy, tell her to hurry up. I want these transactions done before the two o'clock business goes in," I said.
"Get a move on it, Charity," she said.
Charity handed me two checks just as the clock ticked off the two o'clock deadline.
"Thank you for your help. Now you can call Drew on his cell. Tell him he's a lucky man. I only wiped out what I could. The two bits I left are for you. Seems fittin', don't it?"
The ringtone on my cell phone let me know Drew was calling when I crawled into the car. Miss Two-bit Charity hadn't wasted much time. The cat was out of the bag now, and there was no turning back. If I regretted my hasty decision in ten years and found myself living in a tar-paper shanty on the Washita River, my newly found hot temper would be to blame. I tossed the phone out the window.
The bank president at the other bank in Tishomingo met me in the foyer and ushered me into his office. "Trudy Williams, I was hoping you'd come here after the funeral."
He was new in town, and his instant warmth scared the bejesus out of me. What if Drew had called him with instructions to keep me there until the mental institution could send a helicopter to take me to a padded cell in Norman?
He motioned toward one of the leather chairs. "Please have a seat, Mrs. Williams"
I didn't want to even think about the name Williams, much less be called it. "Trudy. My name is Trudy."
"Thank you. I'm hoping you will want to keep your business here. Gertrude was one of our bank's biggest customers, but I know you and your husband keep your affairs at the other bank in town."
I laid the cashier's checks on his desk. "I'm going to keep everything right here from now on. I've got a couple of checks, and I'd like to open a checking account and savings account in this bank"
He smiled. "That is wonderful. Just wonderful. I've prepared a list of Gert's assets just like she told me to do"
I wondered why he'd be so eager to keep Aunt Gert's miserly amounts of money in his bank. She'd barely made it on her Social Security income. Worn secondhand clothes and jewelry. Used coupons at the grocery store. Wouldn't even put in a window unit for air-conditioning.
"I'm not here to move anything," I assured him.
The papers he shoved across the desk were inside a manila folder. I opened it carefully, expecting to find a hundred dollars in her checking account and half that in savings. What I saw almost stopped my heart. What I'd brought from the other bank was a mere drop in the ocean compared to the figures before me.
"As you can see, your Aunt Gertrude was a very wealthy woman. Her folks had money, invested well, and left it all to her. She and her lawyer came in here a few months ago with instructions that I was to hand you this report after she passed and the will was read," he said.
I was in total shock. I pinched my leg. It hurt like the devil, so I wasn't dreaming.
"The interest off the money should provide a healthy monthly income. Will you be selling the house on Broadway Street?"
I was surprised I could even utter a sensible word. "No, I'm moving into it tonight."
"Good. I'm sure that would make her very happy. She hoped that you might ... let's see if I can remember her exact words ... come to your senses and face what was right in front of your eyes and do something about it-though I'm not sure what she was talking about."
"I am"
"Good. Then I've passed on a message from her. You'll be drawing on the money to repair the old place?"
"Yes, I will. And thank you for your help today. You'll take care of these two deposits?"
"Yes, I surely will. I'll take care of them personally. How do you want to handle this?"
"I can write checks on Aunt Gert's account starting right now?"
"Trudy, you could have written checks on her accounts six months ago, when she found out about the cancer. Everything was taken care of then"
"Then put them both into a savings account"
He pulled paperwork from a drawer in his desk and showed me where to sign. Then he took the checks to a teller window and deposited them into the new account. He brought back a deposit slip and handed it to me along with his business card. "Thank you again for keeping your business here. We will do anything we can to be of assistance to you. Feel free to call anytime"
I nodded toward the folder as I stood up. "Thank you. I can take this with me?"
"Yes, ma'am. Gert came in here on the first day of every month for a folder like that. You'll probably find them all stashed somewhere in her house, filed neatly and labeled by the year. She was a stickler for keeping good records."