by John R Cuneo
The little restaurant was crowded with stranded drivers who did not want to brave the wet and winding roadway. I walked in, cold and drained, and hoped I did not seem too out of place to these people.
“Sit wherever you want, hun,” yelled the waitress, who was almost too busy to look directly at me.
I went into a booth next to the family that, from what I could understand from their conversation, was trying to get back to Colorado. Behind me was a young couple trying to get up north for some skiing.
“What can I get for you, hun?” asked the waitress, whose firm cleavage was clearly exposed as she bent forward to take my order.
“Hot coffee, please, and black,” was all I said. It was still dark and raining, and all my energy was gone. I was completely exhausted, and I could have fallen asleep if it were just a little quieter in the restaurant.
Moments later, the waitress said, “Here’s your coffee.”
“Fast service in this joint,” I managed to say, and took the cup of hot coffee in my hands. The heat coming from the cup felt good.
I looked around the restaurant and wondered to myself what any of these people might have done if they had been in my position. Old men and women, young couples with their children—what would they have done?
Could they have helped or done anything differently? I wondered.
All the sounds of the restaurant blended into an undistinguishable mix of meaningless words. People talking, children yelling, music playing from an old jukebox with songs that had gone out of style a decade earlier. The smell of cooking grease along with bacon and eggs permeated the air, and the occasional smell of burning toast slowly brought me back to where I could think clearly again. I wondered what they would think of me if they knew what I had just experienced. The thought kept running around in my mind repeatedly.
After several cups of coffee, the sun finally broke through the dark clouds. Somehow, it felt reassuring to see the rays of light. Everyone in the restaurant perked up a little when they saw the light.
“Well, let’s finish up and get back on the road,” people said. Women and children waited in line to use the restroom one more time before continuing their journey. I could see that the men were somewhat annoyed with having to wait longer for them. My mind drifted back into its own quiet space, and when I looked up, most of the restaurant was empty. It was amazing how quickly the restaurant became quiet and still. I sat there another twenty minutes or so before paying my bill and starting my way back home.
As I was leaving the restaurant, the waitress, true to form, called out, “Thanks, hun. See you again sometime.”
I got back into my cold truck. Suddenly my eyes were filled with tears for the two dead men lying back in the cold rain.
What a waste, I thought.
The rain had almost completely stopped. The ride back home was uneventful and seemed to take a long time. Driving south on I-17, I came across a parked highway patrol vehicle. A few moments after I passed him, I saw in my rearview mirror the flashing lights come to life on top of the cruiser and the car swerve and accelerate as it came onto the freeway. My heart stopped.
Is this guy coming after me? I thought. I pulled my truck into the right lane, tapped the brakes, and slowed down, and in a flash, the cruiser passed my position and disappeared into the distance. I have had enough excitement for one day.
As I drove into my neighborhood an hour later, I thought about the three bags in the back of my truck.
Another problem: What to do with these bags? Before I could even get out of my truck, my son, Philip, was standing in the garage as if he were waiting for me.
“Why are you back so soon?” he asked.
“Too much rain,” I said. “The roads were more like rivers. I made it as far as that little restaurant—you know, the one that we stopped at before where we had car trouble,” I said.
“Yep, I remember,” he said. “Do you need any help unloading the truck?”
“No, that’s okay. I will take care of it. Thanks, son.” I unloaded everything that I had taken with me, making a pile in the corner of the garage. I went back to the bed of my truck, took the three bags out, and placed them in the garage along with my other gear. As far as anyone could tell, it was just more of my equipment. Nothing unusual about that.
I spent the rest of that Sunday helping my wife, Carolyn, work on one of her quilts. Philip looked in now and then and gave his opinion regarding colors, patterns, and just about everything else. For a short time—a very short time—I was able to forget about the morning’s events. Tomorrow, when everyone was gone from the house, I would open the bags and see exactly what they contained, but for now, I would enjoy my family and the quiet Sunday afternoon.
I should explain that while I had never dreamt something like that would happen to me, in the back of my mind I had planned for such an event, but my plan never included two dead men just bags of cash. Anyone who lived in the Southwest, especially near the border, was aware of all the problems and crime moving its way north into the United States. Regardless of what our friends in Washington were telling us on the nightly news, crime and drugs were—and are— a big part of the southern border. It was not unusual for stories of drug running and human smuggling to go unreported in national news and for local law enforcement to fend for themselves.
Back in the mid-1960s, no one would have thought twice about going into southern Arizona for a weekend of camping, hunting, or fishing. But today, those brave souls that live on or near the border must face the daily risk of crime, home invasion, assault, and worse.
You could see many strange things in the desert: people coming and going, people that looked like they had no business being out in the middle of nowhere, people driving shiny new cars down dirt roads. Yes, there were rattlesnakes and scorpions in the desert, but they were not the things you worried about when you were out there alone. And when you walked in the desert, you could find almost anything—old mine shafts, abandoned vehicles, rusted-out old washing machines, and old campsites.
It’s at those times when you need to focus and look around and make sure you really are alone. The thought of finding a burlap bag full of dope or cash has probably come across the minds of everyone that has gone into the desert. The real question is: What would you do if you found a burlap bag full of dope or cash?
So, think about it; you and your friends are sitting around the campfire, talking about what-ifs with each other. What if you found a bag of money? What if you found gold or treasure or anything else of value? We have all done it, said things like “If I found a bag of money, I would buy a new boat or pay my bills.”
Really, what would you do? Would you call the police? Would you keep some of the money and bury the rest? Would you split the money with friends? Would you be one of those people that drop a handful of folded hundred-dollar bills into the collection plate at church on Sunday? Anyway, you get the idea. We all have different answers to that what-if question, but for me, what-if was now a reality.
Moreover, being in the Southwest, there was a distinct possibility of finding drugs or money or weapons. That afternoon, I found myself wondering what tomorrow would bring. By now someone must have found the bodies under that overpass. Nothing had been reported on any of the local news channels, so even though I was tired, I was going to stay up and watch late-night news just to see if anything would be reported.
Getting back to the problem of hiding money, it then occurred to me that spending large amounts of money could be extremely dangerous. You just did not walk into the bank and pay off your mortgage with a box of cash. This was going to take some thought.
It would be easy enough to store large sums of paper money in my attic, even in the walls of my house, which was what I did at first. The other hard part was going to be breaking the news to my wife. As always, the best thing to do was to start at the beginning and tell Carolyn exactly
what had happened that morning.
At least, that was my plan, but first I wanted to count the money. There, I admit it. I was itching to find out how much was there. One bag weighed at least forty pounds; the second bag was just as heavy, and the bag of twenties was probably another thirty pounds. That could equal a lot of money. Yep, I wanted to count it first before I said anything to the wife. The big question was: How would she react? We had been through a lot together, but this was something new altogether.
Chapter 2
Jackpot
The alarm rang right on time. 5:30 a.m. came too early for all of us. Mondays were hell for Carolyn. She would be working late today, playing catch-up from the weekend’s activities at the office. Philip was up and moving around the house. He was in a better mood than his mother. The winter break from school was over, and he only had one semester until graduation.
I, on the other hand, got up, poured Carolyn her orange juice, and checked the outside temperature. It was still drizzling and quite cool, about forty-five degrees on the patio. That was cold for us.
“Hey, Dad, can you make me breakfast?” asked Phil.
“Sure, son, what would you like?”
“The usual. Bacon and eggs, wheat toast and milk.”
“Not a problem, son. It will be ready soon,” I replied.
Carolyn was the first into the kitchen that morning. “Is there any way you can take me to lunch one day this week?” she asked.
“Sure, when would you like to go?”
“How about tomorrow? I think I’ll need it.”
“Sure thing. It’s a date.”
We both just smiled and went about our appointed tasks.
Breakfast came and went, Philip drove off to school, and Carolyn went to work. Now it was my turn to see what was in those bags. In the garage, I took the three bags and set them in the middle of the floor. These things were heavier than I remembered. I opened the first bag, and just as I remembered, it was full of neatly wrapped packages of cash. Holy Mary and Joseph, I could not imagine how much was there. If these were all hundred-dollar bills, then I was looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars!
I took a box cutter off my workbench and carefully cut each package open, and just as I thought, all the packages were stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Unlike packages of cash that you see in the movies, there were no markings to show how much each pack was worth.
I guess I have some counting to do, I thought.
It took about an hour for me to flip through each of the packs of cash and confirm that they were all hundred-dollar bills. Then I opened the second bag. This bag did not feel as heavy as the first. As I emptied the packets onto the floor, I saw that a good portion of them were twenty- and fifty-dollar bills, with some packets of hundred-dollar bills. This is curious, I thought.
There was a small beat-up-looking notebook in the bottom of the bag. It was an old-style day timer. I set the notebook on my workbench. Looking at this pile of money, I realized that I had roughly forty-five pounds of cash. I got off the floor and got a cup of coffee out of the kitchen.
Going back into the garage, I looked at this pile of cash and then opened the third bag. It contained another forty or so pounds of hundred-dollar bills. I just stood there, wondering, Now what? How would I ever explain over one hundred pounds of cash money?
Easy, I thought. I do not need to explain a damn thing.
I did not know whether I should laugh or cry. Holy crap, what if all this was fake? Or marked? Well, I guessed there was only one way to find out, so I took several of the hundred-dollar bills and put them in my wallet. We had several empty moving boxes in the garage; I loaded the cash into the boxes and put them under my workbench. That was the last place my son or wife would look, I hoped.
There were more than a few Indian-owned casinos in the Phoenix area, so I thought, what the heck, let’s go to the casino. I got into my truck and drove to the casino not far from my home. It had been a long time since I had gambled. I was lucky to find a good parking spot not far from the entrance.
Before I got out of my truck, I took out the crisp hundred-dollar bills, gave them a quick crumple, and stuffed them into my pants pocket. Walking toward the casino, I took out the crumpled cash, stopped at a curb, and bent down as if I was picking something off the ground, making it look as if I had just found three one-hundred-dollar bills. Just in case they were fake or marked, I could say that I’d found them in the parking lot. I walked to the cashier’s cage, got the used-looking bills out of my pocket, laid them on the counter, and asked for change.
“How do you want it?” asked the cashier.
I looked at her and said, “All in twenties, please.”
She took my bills and ran them under a scanner, then she gave me my money.
I guess the money is good, I thought.
The cashier was so accustomed to changing large bills for customers that she barely looked at my face; I was just another person coming in to lose his money.
Just to play it safe, I walked onto the casino floor and put one of the twenties into a slot machine. It did not take long; less than five minutes and the twenty was gone. Then I went to another progressive slot machine and inserted five twenty-dollar bills, and wouldn’t you know it, I won $600. It had only taken several minutes, and one of the casino employees approached me and congratulated me on my winning. He then verified something on the machine and gave me six one hundred-dollar bills.
I could not believe it. I thanked him, and several patrons that were there patted me on the back, telling me how lucky I was, so I gambled a little more, and wouldn’t you know it, it only took another half an hour to lose $400 of the $600 that I had just won. I guess that was why they called it gambling. Looking around, I spotted the buffet.
Well, I might as well get some lunch while I am here. I must say, this casino has a nice assortment of food for the lunch crowd.
I made sure I left a nice tip for the wait staff and went back into the casino.
This time I tried my hand at roulette, and feeling like money was no obstacle, I laid $200 down on zero green. It only took a few moments before the money was gone, and with that, I turned to the young lady spinning the wheel and told her that I would be back to play some more. The cash was gone and so was I.
As I drove back home, I still did not know what to do about hiding the cash. Then I heard it on the radio: the news was reporting that two bodies had been found north of Phoenix on Interstate 17. No other details were available currently. I turned off my radio and just drove home in silence, not wanting to relive what I had seen.
Once I got back home, I started to look for a safe place to hide the cash. I could not go up into the ceiling and burying it in the backyard was out of the question. I walked around the house for a long time, trying to imagine someplace safe for the money. I went into the pantry, and there in front of me was the perfect hiding spot.
At the far end of the pantry was a lower section of wall that I could easily remove and replace with new painted drywall. I set to work removing the lower section of the wall. It came out easier than I’d thought. Removing the wall, I could see ample room for hiding the cash. I trimmed the opening as neatly as I could and then cut a replacement piece of drywall that I could hold in place with some leftover kitchen door magnets that I had. The new drywall fit perfectly. I gave it a coat of paint and replaced the false front.
Standing back, I admired my handiwork and thought how ingenious I was. No one would ever think to look in the pantry. I grabbed the cash and carried it to its new hiding spot. I also did a rough count of how much cash was there. I carefully counted out enough bills to make two-inch stacks—they were easier to carry that way—then I just measured the height of each packet of cash. Yes, I was right, there was about $650,000 in hundred-dollar bills, $50,000 in fifties, and another $70 or $80,000 in twenty-dollar bills! Roughly $1 million
in cash!
I spent the rest of that day wondering how to keep a low profile when spending the cash. Little things like buying gasoline for the car and groceries would be paid for in cash. I could go to the bank every month and make additional partial cash payments on my mortgage, just enough to give the impression that we were working hard to pay off the house early. We would still need to use our credit cards; after all, it would be a huge red flag if we paid off all our debts in cash. Somebody would notice.
In my mind, I was hoping to find someone somehow that could help divert a large portion of the cash on hand into something tangible without drawing too much attention, but for now I was very content knowing that I had $1 million in folding money hidden in the house.
I made myself comfortable in the living room and just tried to figure out if anyone else knew about all this cash. As far as I knew, the two men that had shot each other were just low-level drug dealers or hired couriers moving money across the country. Surely there was someone who knew about all this cash.
In addition to all the cash, there was that notebook I had discovered in one of the bags. I really did not pay that much attention to it at first. I even thought about tearing it up and putting it in the fireplace, getting rid of anything that could be used as evidence to identify that I had been at the scene of the crime. I went and sat at the kitchen table for the rest of the day, reading this notebook.
The front portion of the book contained a dozen or so pages with handwritten notes. It looked like last names and partial phone numbers or addresses. I could not tell because it was written in Spanish and very confusing to me. The second half of the book was made up of plastic business card holders. Most of the pages were full of cards, and most of those were what looked to me as being for storage units. I got a notepad and pencil and started making a list of the addresses on the business cards.
