Chapter 1

I was taking a shortcut through the woods, one afternoon, in the winter, after school. Walking the long way would have taken me thirty minutes. Cutting through the woods, I could get home in half the time it usually took me.

I was climbing up the side of a shallow embankment when I saw a man wrapped in a large, brown, Camel's hair, overcoat. He was dead, I could tell that much just by seeing the way he was laying there, and all the dried blood on his coat, and along the side of his neck.

I moved cautiously toward the dead man, anxious to see his face, wondering if I might have known him or not. I didn't recognize the man, which was something of a relief. What I did notice was this large dark brown satchel, which was partially covered, by one of his legs, and part of his overcoat. Without thinking, my curiosity got the better of me, and I reached down to pull the handle, dragging the heavy bag free of his leg. I pulled up the leather clasp, freeing the metal pin from the steel grommet that held it fastened. As soon as I pulled on both handles, the bag opened, showing me more money than I'd ever seen. More than I'd even known existed.

It was 1953, and, with very few exceptions, every one I knew was poor. My father had just gotten released from the Army, having been recalled from the reserves after Korea had gotten started, back in 1951. We had barely been getting by on the money the Army sent home from his pay. Now that my father was back home, and looking for work, my mother was hoping that things would soon get better for all of us.

After two months of him out looking for work, my father was definitely becoming discouraged. A lot of his mustering out pay was spent already, and there didn't appear to be any jobs in the offing. The night before, I'd heard him telling my Uncle Gary that he wanted to get his hands on enough money to head out to California, because everyone knew they needed workers out there. I knew he was planning on going out to California, by himself, then sending for the rest of us after he'd found some work, and had saved enough to get us a new place to live. I knew my mother was dead set against him leaving her alone to take care of the four of us again.

I shut the valise back down again and took off my pea coat jacket to wrap it in. I was very cold, but I wanted to hide what I'd found from any curious eyes. I backed down that embankment again and followed it for another seventy yards before I found some rocks where I could climb out again, without leaving any tracks behind.

In the bedroom I shared with my two brothers, I counted all the money inside that valise. It came to a little more than thirty thousand dollars, all in used bills too. Most of it was in fives, tens, and twenties, but there were around fifteen fifties and more than that in hundreds. That was about what a man could expect to make in ten years of working. Two fifty a month was better than a living wage at this time.

I packed all the money up in old newspapers, tying it tightly with string I'd saved from back when I'd had a paper route the year before. It turned into a bundle about the size we used to save for school paper drives, a few years before. I took the bundle down to the cellar and pushed it way in the back, out of sight from where anyone was likely to look, way in the back, over where my parents had some of my late great grandmother's old furniture stored.

I wrapped that empty satchel in a small blanket and made my way back to where the dead body was, carefully placing it back under the leg where I'd first found it. Once again, I'd carefully retraced my steps, making sure that I'd left as little trace of my having been there as I could manage.

It took about another week before some other kids happened across that body in the woods. In the meantime, it had rained at least twice, and one of those times it had also snowed about three inches. I knew that the weather conditions had covered up any tracks I might have inadvertently left.

The local newspaper was claiming that the dead man was believed to be one of a group of men who'd been involved in a shoot out that had taken place three towns away, a couple of weeks before. His brother and one of his cousins had been shot and killed in this same shoot out, as well as three other men from a rival faction. The paper was hinting that all the men involved were hoodlums, that they were all somehow involved with organized crime.

I did nothing unusual, said nothing about the money to anyone, and just went about doing all the things I normally would.

My father had been continuing his quest for work, or for someone to lend him the money to go out to California. I knew money was starting to get very tight for our family. It finally got to the point where I felt I needed to step in and do something to help.

"Hey, Ma, remember that money you told me to save from my paper route? If you need to borrow it, I still have most of it left."

"What money, Jimmy? I'm pretty sure you and your cousins spent every cent you had on fire crackers and Roman candles last summer, for the 4th of July. If you have any money left, how come I'm just now hearing about it?"

"I know how much I spent, and how much I had saved up too. If you don't want my help, that's all right. I just thought I should offer."

"Okay, Mister Smarty Pants, I'll bite. How much money do you have that you can loan us?"

"I've got forty two dollars left, but I wanted to keep ten bucks of it to buy myself a good used bike, if I ever find the right one. You can borrow the rest if you want. Heck, you can just have it, if that will help you more."

"Go get this money, show it to me."

For some reason, my mother sounded angry with me. I'd been very careful not to claim more savings than I might have legitimately had. I'd earned about ten dollars a month on my paper route, including my tips, and I really had tried to save more than half of it each month. I'd let the money slip through my fingers though, spending it on things I didn't really need. The last of it had been spent on school supplies, right before school started, that past Fall. My mother hadn't kept too close a track of whatever money I might have, mostly being grateful whenever I used some of my money to take my younger brothers to the movies, or to buy them candy or popcorn when we went to the cartoon shows some Saturdays.

I went to my room and returned with the forty two dollars I'd told her I had. I had one ten, four fives, and the rest in one dollar bills and change. This is all I had left from the fifty I'd kept out for myself when I'd wrapped the rest of the money up and hidden it. My mother took the whole forty two dollars, telling me she knew we, meaning our family, needed that extra ten dollars more than I needed a bike. I had been aware that this might happen, her taking the entire forty two dollars instead of the thirty two I'd offered.

That evening, when my father got home, he and my mother had a quiet, private, huddle in the kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her waving the bills I'd given her at him. I saw him start to reach for the money, and my mother quickly pulling the bills back and shoving them down in her bra. My mother was a large lady, and given to putting things in her bra, in order to keep both hands free, for everything she needed to get done.

After supper my father told me to come with him, over to my Uncle Gary's house. This wasn't unusual, since I was the oldest boy in our family. My father tried to teach me things, fully expecting that I'd learn them and pass the information on to my two younger brothers. My mother was responsible for training and teaching my sister.

Because my father had been missing so much, because of World War II and Korea, he felt like I'd grown up without getting all the education a father normally gives a son. He might have been right, thinking that, but, I had to admit that I hadn't missed that particular aspect of his being around. Some of his lessons were about dishing out punishments, whenever I had been bad.

"Your mother told me about the money, Jimbo. Told me you were spinning out this big load of crap about having saved that much dough. I'm supposed to get the truth out of you, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. We gonna do this the easy way, or would you rather make it be the hard way, like usual?"

We were out in the open, walking to Uncle Gary's, but he lived only a block and a half down our street. My father had slowed way down while he'd told me this.

"I knew she was going to think I'd done something bad, that's why I didn't say anything to her before today. She was sitting in the kitchen, crying, so that's why I gave her all the rest of my money. I worked a year and a half saving up that money, but I couldn't just stand around and let her keep crying."

"Your mother says there isn't any way you had this money left over from any damn paper route. Who do you suppose I'm going to believe here?"

"Her I guess. Won't matter what you believe, that money is what I told her it was. You can take your belt to me if you take a mind to do it, but all that's going to do is give me a sore heinie, and make you feel bad when you've finally decided I wasn't lying about anything."

"I'm not going to feel one bit bad. Fifteen year old boys don't have that much money laying around, not without their parents knowing about it. Something isn't right here, and I'm damn sure going to get to the bottom of it."

We walked the rest of the way over to my uncle's house, with both of us keeping any further thoughts to ourselves. I was pretty certain that my father wouldn't whip me any worse than I could take. It might hurt for a few days, but that pain would eventually go away. There was just no way I could tell him, or anyone else, the real truth about the money I had. For that much money, I knew I could put up with a lot of whacks from his belt.

When we got over to my uncle's house, my father and my uncle talked about the money I'd suddenly come up with. Uncle Gary called in my two cousins, his sons, Donald and Patrick, and started asking them both if either of them had even the slightest idea that I ever had a bunch of money saved up.

I got lucky when Patrick told his father that he'd once seen inside the cigar box he thought I'd kept my savings in, and that he'd been surprised by how much I'd saved. In fact, that box had held all my route collection money for the paper route, and almost none of that money had been my personal money. I didn't try to correct him when he said this though. The little sneak shouldn't have taken that peek into my cigar box anyway.