It's certainly subjective, but I don't find this overly weird. Mildly interesting, sure, but not weird.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what's supposed to be construed as weird? 500$ is a normal amount of money. 1998 isn't that long ago. 100 miles of travel feels totally possible. Perhaps it's the fact that an uncashed cheque was found? But, even still, that's not really that weird — people can lose things. It's more unfortunate than anything.
Am I overthinking this? Yes.