"Motherfucker!" she said. "I would have given a hundred dollars to see that. What else was in the box?"

"Legal papers, deeds, insurance. The house was insured for eight hundred thousand with another two hundred thousand on the contents, so Junior'll get all of that. That's a million, all by itself, including the cash in the box."

"The old man owned a block of the downtown."

"Where the newspaper is."

"Yes, and he's got several parcels of good land down south of here, that'll be a nice chunk of cash," she said.

"What's Junior own? On his own?"

"He's been in and out of a few businesses, hasn't done so well. Right now he's got three or four Subways in the small towns around, and he's got a little land along the river that he's been talking about developing…but to tell you the truth, there hasn't been a big call for housing development around here. Why?"

"He seemed pretty damn excited about that cash," Virgil said. "And pretty upset when it turned out he wasn't going to get it in the next two weeks. I mean, he'll have it in a month or two, but they'll have to run it through probate. So what's the difference, two weeks or two months? But he was pretty upset."

"Huh. He's a jerk, but he wouldn't kill his dad, if that's what you're thinking," Joan said. "I've seen them have some pretty friendly conversations."

"Okay. Just trying to nail down stuff I can look into," Virgil said.

"But I think I can tell you about why he reacted the way he did…"

"Yeah?"

"The Judds worship money. They made it a stand-in for all the other qualities of life. If you can be nice, or have money, take the money. If you can be brave, or have money, take the money. If you can have friends or have money, take the money. They're like that. They don't even hide it. Take the money. Pulling two hundred thousand dollars in cash, out of a safe-deposit box, in front of Bill Judd Jr., would be like pulling Jesus Christ out of a box, in front of the Pope."