When Ruthie unlocked the door and the three of us entered, we were met by a loud buzzing. She stepped over to a keypad on the wall and punched in a numerical code to shut off the alarm, because that was what the buzzing was. Looking at the keypad, Ruthie pondered, "Mr. Big Fat Asshole knows the code to this alarm so I'd better reprogram it so that if he comes over here and breaks in, he won't be able to shut it off and the cops will bust him."
A few minutes later she told Pam and me, "The new code is the last four digits of George's telephone number. That would be really neat, if the cops came here and hauled Old-Holier-Than-Thou off to jail for breaking and entering, wouldn't it?"
We started searching in the bedroom that had been her parents'. After hauling everything out of the closet and dumping it on the bed, Ruthie made a quick decision. "I will either throw this stuff away or donate it to the church for a rummage sale or to give to the poor. That's what my parents would have wanted. I will follow some of their wishes, or what I think would have been their wishes, but not very many. George, can you get down that box from the end of the shelf?"
I reached up, brought down a large cardboard carton from the shelf, and set it on the cheap wooden dresser next to the closet. The carton was heavily wrapped in packaging tape so Ruthie went to the kitchen and got a knife to open it. As she cut through the tape, Pam and I gathered around to watch, wondering what treasure, or what trash, awaited us. We were all disappointed because, after Ruthie opened the box, it seemed to be full of old newspapers.
"Why would they wrap up old newspapers like that?" Pam wondered.
"They wouldn't," I replied, and removed the layer of newspaper in the box. Under it were bundles of greenbacks, mostly seeming to be twenties and hundreds.
"Oooee," Pam exclaimed. "I have never seen money like that."
"How much do you think it is?" Ruthie asked. "Thousands. Maybe millions."
I reached in, pulled out a bundle of greenbacks and riffled through it. "Closer to millions than to thousands, I would say. This bundle is all hundreds, and there must be at least a hundred of them here. That means just this one bundle of bills is ten thousand dollars and it's just a small part of the total volume. I would say at least a million, maybe ten times that."
Ruthie was amazed. "You really think this might be ten million dollars?" Her voice rose in awe as she said the number.
"Your guess is as good as mine," I answered. "However much it is, it's a lot. And, it's all yours, Ruthie."
"Are you sure of that? Can my asshole husband claim any of it?"
"He has no legal claim," I told her. As an author, I do odd bits of research on any number of subjects, including legal matters. "Even though this is a community property state, that only applies to earned income. Your inheritance from your parents is all yours, and nobody else has any claim on it."
"Good. That asshole never bought me anything worth keeping and I don't want to keep anything he did buy and I don't want him to have anything of mine. If you don't mind, though, I will ask the lawyer about it when we see him this afternoon."
"Good idea but do you want to stop or keep looking? There might be another box like this somewhere."
"Let's look a little more, then go to the bank. I want to come back her tomorrow anyhow and we can go everywhere with a fine-tooth comb."
A quick search of the other rooms, which were Spartan in their furnishings, yielded nothing and we were almost ready to start for the bank when Pam made a suggestion. "Is there an attic or a crawl space under the house? Those would be good places to stash money too."
"There's an attic and a crawl space and the entrances to both are in the same closet where we found the box of money."
Back to the bedroom we went, to where the box of money was still sitting on the dresser, and Ruthie pointed out the trapdoor in the ceiling and the one in the floor of the closet.
"Do you have a stepladder?" I asked.
"I think there's one in the garage but I don't have a key to it. We don't have a flashlight either and we'll need one to look in either place."
"Hold on," I told Ruthie. If you sit on my shoulders, you can open the trap door and have a quick look around. It's probably too dark up there but you might see something if it's near the opening."
I bent down; Ruthie climbed on my shoulders and Pam helped me to my feet. I thought about her marvelous pussy behind the fabric of her jeans and panties, and Ruthie's thought were along the same lines. "George, did you ever wish you had a mouth in the back of your neck?"
"Not until now and, since I don't, we will have to wait until this evening and I'll be able to use the one in my face."
Pam giggled. "You guys are disgusting," she said, but we all knew she was looking forward, as much as Ruthie and I, to making love again that night.