More Than Money . . . a police novel

We never kept secrets from each other. I had to tell her. So, I told her the whole story and didn’t leave anything out. She looked at me as though I was describing a dream. For the next hour, I listened to her plead with me to call the police and end this thing.

My best argument was the "found property" theory. I used the technical definition, then threw in "finders keepers," but she didn’t bite.

Marie was quick to point out that I had seen the man in the back of the truck actually throw the boxes from the truck. She went on with something such as, "Yeah, Bradley, they just dropped down from the sky, right in front of you, as you went to Cory’s to buy milk." She wasn’t stupid. She had graduated from USC with honors and had taught school for twenty-plus years.

Next, I told her my dislike for dope dealers and how destructive they were. I gave the DARE pitch that I once used to raise money for the program. Keeping the money was taking the profit out of crime, much like asset forfeiture laws provided. This was a weak argument and I knew it.

Then, I tried the "no-witness" theory, which didn’t work much better. I emphasized that probably no one had seen me before, during or after I put the found property in my trunk. She said it was evidence, I said it was found property, without a known owner. I argued that if I found the original dope dealer, it would be better for us to keep it than return it to him.

Then I made the mistake of pleading with her to let me buy a new Cessna-182 that I had always wanted, or maybe a twin-engine Baron. Wrong! I probably sounded like a kid in a candy store asking for more candy.

Marie could care less about an airplane. The expression on her face told me I was dreaming if I thought she would ever go for that.

Finally, I worked in the marriage vows about, "for better or worse," "for richer or poorer" and "do it my way or no way." She didn’t recall the latter part. Then, I lost control and ended up with something such as "My way or the highway." I’m sure she thought the fire had flipped me out.

She began to cry. I put my arm around her and assured her everything was going to be okay. Then I kissed her, as though I was just going through the motions.

I went to the garage and found my new lightweight, bright blue, eight-foot-by- ten-foot plastic tarp. I took this into our master bedroom. It had never been opened. I closed all the black-out curtains, turned on the lights and spread the tarp on the floor.

Marie was still sitting in the living room with her head in her hands. She was probably praying. I gave her space and quickly brought in all three boxes, spacing them neatly on the tarp along the ten-foot edge. The room was prepared like a money count in a police property room: neat and clean.

Trying to get Marie with me on the matter, I went to the living room and said, "Come on, Honey, I hereby deputize you. Come help me count this money."

Counting the money was like playing a big Monopoly game on the floor when the boys were young. Except, this was for real, I thought.

It took us an hour and a half to finish the first box, which contained four hundred seventy bundles of money. Each bundle had exactly one hundred, one-hundred-dollar bills in it. There was ten thousand dollars in each bundle. The 4.7 on the box represented $4.7 million in the first box.

Marie was not impressed, but I could not wait to open the second box with the 5.6 written on the outside. When I discovered that 5.6 meant $5.6 million, I nearly choked.

The third box had 5.3 written on it. Yep, it had $5.3 million in it. This now brought the grand total to $15.6 million and it was not even noon yet. Not bad for a day’s work.