By: Milt Montague

MIlt and Sivia decided to spend a few days in the sun and had just arrived in Miami Beach, Florida. It was winter in New York City but it was delightfully warm at The Beach. Soon after they unpacked they called their Aunt Mae to see how she as getting along. She was teary and obviously extremely distraught, so they decided to go over to see her immediately.

Aunt Mae and uncle Ralph lived in a lovely apartment on the beach. The building was
a former luxury hotel, complete with large outdoor swimming pool directly on the beach, that had been converted into luxurious condominium apartments. It was just half a block north of The Eden Roc hotel [the ultimate luxury hotel of the 1950s-1980s], where Uncle Ralph would often meet his business friends for drinks and/or dinner.

Since Uncle Ralph passed away, about a year before, aunt Mae was alone except for her son Allan who lived with his wife and family in a nearby town. Her other son Jeffery had moved to Southern California and disappeared into hippyland.

When they arrived at her home, Aunt Mae was very upset and obviously had been crying for sometime. They were able to calm her and piece together her story. It seems that when Uncle Ralph died, he left her well provided with an income from stocks and bonds. A few days ago one of her CDs [Certificates of Deposit] from a local bank became due. She put it in the top drawer of her bureau to have it available for a trip to the bank for it’s renewal. Yesterday it was gone. She had ransacked the entire bureau and then the rest of the apartment, but no CD. The CD was for $5,000.

Now that she was in a calmer state of mind, Milt asked if he could look for himself, “just in case…….You never know,,,,,,,”. With her consent, he opened the top right hand drawer of the bureau. It was jammed full with papers and envelopes. Aunt Mae had carefully searched every last one to no avail. The second and third drawers were the same and elicited the same comment from Aunt Mae. A careful search of all the other drawers yielded the same result. Everything was in it’s place, except the missing CD. As Milt sat and stared at the top drawer, where the CD had last reposed…….. he had an idea. He pulled out the top drawer completely and peered inside the desk.. There, pressed against the back wall, was an envelope.

It was the missing CD.