A Break in a Cold Case

I was burning the midnight oil in my office, working a case that was so cold it would’ve given a lesser gumshoe frostbite. No lights. I like it dark as ink because it helps me think.

I go back to square one. “Kid” Hooper knocks over a bank twenty-two years ago. They find his body a year later, but no trace of the fifty-two grand he stole. Now his widow hires me to find the loot (she says she’ll give me a taste of the game) or prove her husband innocent.

I hear footsteps nearby. I shine my flashlight at the door and see a note on the floor. It says, “Time Capsule, Nine tomorrow morning. Ford High School garden.” The other side of the note says, “Be there. Could be worth fifty G’s.”

Tomorrow arrives. “The class of 1934 left instructions to open this time capsule now, in 1956,” a school principal tells a couple hundred students and a dozen adults, including me.

He opens the lid of a dirty metal container and the stench overwhelms. The crowd recoils, the principal drops the box, and I dive and get my mitts on it. But another hand is on mine.