Bad to worse…
 
 

Saturday Morning
 

“Morning Mom,” Philip greeted her when he came downstairs.

“Good morning, Sweetheart.  How did you sleep?” Amanda asked her son, pouring him a cup of coffee and handing it to him.

“I slept all right, I guess,” he answered with a less than convincing shrug.  Glancing around, he asked, “Where’s Lee?”

“Out back gathering some wood for the fireplace.  I want to be prepared in case the snowstorm hits, and we lose power,” she explained.

“I’ll go lend him a hand,” he answered, sipping at the coffee.

“Put a jacket on.  It’s getting cold out there.”

Philip took another swig of his coffee, then went over to his mother and kissed her forehead.  Turning, he grabbed his jacket from the closet and slipped out into the backyard.

A few minutes later, the two men came back inside, each burdened with a large load of firewood.

“That ought to keep us warm,” she smiled confidently.

“I don’t think that storm’s going to make it here.  I bet it heads further north, Pennsylvania and New York will get hit,” Lee indicated to his wife, filling the bin next to the fireplace and then helping Philip do the same.

“Hey, Lee, can you give me a ride to pick up my car?” Philip asked his stepfather.

“Yeah, no problem.  Let me grab my keys.”

“Thanks.”

Amanda shot a concerned look towards her husband.  “I was planning to have a nice, sit down breakfast.”

“No thanks, I’m not that hungry,” Philip called out as he hurried out the door.  “I really want to pick up my wheels.”

Lee came over to Amanda and gave her a kiss on the cheek.  Whispering to her, he reassured her. “Don’t worry.  I’ll talk to him, Amanda.  He can’t keep stonewalling us forever.”

She gave her husband a hug and tried to force a smile.  “I’ll see you soon.”

He winked and blew her a kiss before disappearing out the back door.  His stepson was leaning against Lee’s car, evidently eager to get his car and reclaim his freedom.  Lee Stetson knew one thing for sure; he was not going to allow Philip to evade the explanation he owed them as to where the bogus money came from.

There was silence in the car as Lee made his way out of the neighborhood.  Realizing Philip was not going to open up without a little push, he decided to try a little friendly coercion.

“You know, your mother didn’t sleep a wink last night.  She’s really worried about you,” Lee started, hoping to play on his weakness – concern for his mother.  “Sooner or later you’re going to have to admit where you got the money.”

“I know, Lee, and I’m sorry I put you in the middle of this.”

“Philip, we’re family.  Families help each other out when they have… problems.  Quit stalling and tell me, where did you get all that money?”

“You’re not going to believe it, but I won it playing poker,” he ultimately admitted.

“Playing poker?” Lee reiterated, not believing a word.

“Yeah, I know how it sounds, but it’s true.  It was a hell of a night.  I won the first hand I played, but then I barely won anything for the next two hours.  I’d draw a pair, maybe two pairs, but couldn’t seem to get three of a kind or a straight of anything.  Then, I was dealt three aces.  I asked for two more cards.  Would you believe I picked up the ace of spades!  Four aces – what are the odds?  Naturally, I bet it all.  The other guys must have assumed I was bluffing; all but one of them stayed in the game.  I won a bundle!”

Lee Stetson thought he was bluffing.  It was too contrived.  What happened to ‘I don’t think she knows the money is counterfeit,’ he wondered.  Lee continued to drive towards downtown, where Philip had left his car.  “Exactly who were you playing cards with, other students from school?”

“Hell, Lee, we don’t play for that kind of money at school.  We’re all usually too broke to play for money.  At school we play for pizza or beer,” Philip laughed, shaking his head in amusement.  “I was playing on Thursday night with Curt after Grandma went out with her friend.  Some of Curt’s Air Force buddies stopped in.”

This was the last thing Lee Stetson wanted to hear, that this mess somehow involved Dotty and Curt.  More questions rushed into Lee’s head.  Attempting to remain calm, he continued to drive towards the jewelry store parking lot and tried to wade through the information.  “How many guys are we talking about?”

“There were five of us all together.”

“So the money could have come from anyone at the poker game,” Lee commented.  “Why didn’t you tell this to the Secret Service yesterday?  They’re not going to bust you for playing a friendly game of poker!”

There was a pause in the conversation.  Lee turned his head to his stepson wanting more answers.  Things still weren’t adding up.  “Well?”

“There’s more to it than that.  See, I only had a few bucks in my wallet when the guys invited me to play poker.  Like I said before, most of the time, I’m broke, and putting gas in the car to drive my girlfriend home took most of my spare cash.  I couldn’t run out to the ATM, the guys were already waiting for me downstairs.”

“So you borrowed the money from Curt or your Grandmother?”

“Not exactly…” he replied, sounding rather ashamed of himself.  “I went up to the guest room where I’d put my stuff.  I’d brought home some laundry to wash.  I went through all my pockets looking for hidden cash, but all I came up with was six bucks.  That was hardly enough to play poker with the guys.  I was getting frustrated and threw my bag on the bed.  It hit one of the posters of the bed, and well, sort of broke it off.”

“Did you tell your Grandmother?” Lee continued with his soft interrogation.

“Naw, she’d already gone out to some play with the lady next door.  I tried to put the thing back on.  I thought maybe it screwed on, or I could glue it back together.  When I looked inside, it looked like money was stuffed down in it.  I pulled it out, and sure enough, it was money, lots of money.  There must have been a few dozen twenty dollar bills!”

“How much did you borrow?” Lee asked, cringing at the latest information.

“I know I shouldn’t have, but I took $200.  I didn’t bet much at first, but other than winning that first hand, I kept losing.  I lost at least fifty bucks in the first hour alone.  I figured I could go to the ATM in the morning and replace the money and nobody would be any the wiser.  Then my luck changed, and I drew the aces. I bet a bundle, and won back all of what I had lost and then some.  That hand cleaned a couple of the other guys out.  I swear to you Lee, I replaced all two hundred dollars and still had more than a hundred bucks leftover.”

“Did you tell your Grandmother or Curt where you got the money?”

“No, Curt never asked and the game was over long before Grandma got home.  I don’t think she would have approved if she knew they let me gamble.”

Lee chuckled at that idea.  “No, you’re probably right.”

“That’s why I couldn’t say anything to the police or the Secret Service.  I don’t want to get Grandma or Curt into trouble.  I doubt either of them knows the money is counterfeit.  She mentioned they’ve been saving for a trip to Hawaii.  If all that money is bogus…”

“Let’s pick up your car and then we’ll drive out to your Grandmother’s place.”

“Now?” Philip questioned less than enthusiastically.

“Yeah, right now!” Lee concurred.  He wanted to get to the bottom of the problem and the sooner the better.

“What if they’re not home?   She normally goes shopping on Saturday.  I think she wanted to go antique hunting.”

“Even better.”  Lee Stetson turned to face his stepson with a smile on his face.  That would be good news to him, he wasn’t looking forward to coming up with an excuse as to why they wanted to examine the bed.  “Let’s hope they’re out.  Then neither of us has to explain why we’re there.”

“You’re gonna pick the lock?” Philip inquired with a knowing grin.

“Maybe I know where they keep a spare key?” Lee suggested.

“Yeah, right.  When are you going to teach me how to pick a lock?  You taught Mom.”

“That was job related,” he reminded him as he pulled into the parking lot where Philip had left his car.  “Besides, your mother would skin me alive if she found out I taught you to pick a lock.”

“My car’s over there,” Philip pointed.

“I’ll follow you over to your Grandmother’s house.  No detours, OK?”

“I’ll see you there…”

Less than thirty minutes later, Lee Stetson pulled next to Philip’s car in the parking lot of Dotty and Curt’s townhouse in the Fairfax, Virginia suburbs.  Usually full of activity on a Saturday with children playing or residents attending to weekend chores, the bitter windy weather had kept things quiet this morning.  Getting out of his car, Lee glanced around the parking lot, looking for Curt’s car, but he didn’t see it in its usual parking space.

“Come on, we better make this quick,” Lee suggested to Philip and the two men hurried to the front door.  Lee rang the bell and opened the outer glass door.  Pulling out his tools, he didn’t wait, assuming the house was empty, and the occupants had indeed gone antique hunting.  Within seconds, Lee felt the lock give way, turned the knob and he and Philip were inside.

“Awesome!  You really have to teach me how to do that, Lee,” Philip beseeched him.

“Never mind that now,” Lee warned as he called out in what he suspected to be the empty townhouse.  “Dotty!  Curt?”

“I told you they were going out this morning.  Knowing Grandma, she’ll drag Curt to every antique shop in town,” Philip reminded his stepfather.  “Come on, I’ll show you were I found the money.”

The two men climbed the stairs and went into the guest bedroom.  Lee glanced at the old wooden, four-poster bed, not certain which post was the culprit that hid the bogus bills.  “Which one is hollowed out?”

Philip walked over to the foot of the bed, nearest the door.  At first, he wiggled the wooden top, but it didn’t budge.  “When I put it back on, I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t come off again easily,” Philip explained, now tugging on the top with a little more force.  With a quiet ‘pop’ it came off into his hand.  Peeking down into the dark hollowed out hole; he reached in with his finger and began extricating twenty-dollar bills.  “See!”

Lee took the bills from him and examined them closely.  “Do you know where your grandmother keeps a flashlight?”

“Yeah, in the bathroom, you want me to get it?”

“Please, and see if you can find me an empty bag, too,” Lee instructed.  “You know, one of those kitchen bags that can be sealed.”

Lee opened the closet door and took out a wire hanger.  Bending the wire until it was a shape of a hook, he proceeded to drop it into the hollowed out bed post cavity and continued to fish out the bills, one after the other.

“How’s it coming?” Philip asked when he got back with the flashlight and plastic bag.

Lee glanced at his stepson and then over at the pile of bills that he’d placed on the bed.  Taking the flashlight, he shone it down the opening and continued to remove the contents, some of which were tightly packed, deep into it.

“Wow!  That’s a lot of cash, Lee!  I didn’t know there was that much in there,” Philip gasped.  “How much do you suppose is here?”

“About a thousand dollars, maybe more,” Lee remarked, now sorting the bills, real money in one pile, and the funny money in another. “How much did you win the other night?”

“I won about 350 bucks.  Of course, some of it was what I’d already lost.”

“Do you notice the difference, Philip?” Lee pointed to the money that rested on the bed.  “Look at these bills, they’re legitimate.”

“They must be part of what I won the other night,” Philip remarked, examining the phony money more closely.  “When I put the money back, I counted out two hundred dollars and stuffed it back in there.  I must have put back the real money, and kept out the counterfeit stuff.  Now that I look at these, they do look different… the color is slightly different, so is the printing.  I wasn’t paying a lot of attention when we were playing poker.  I was more interested in the cards.”

Lee smiled at him, guessing the other players hadn’t noticed either.  He put the wooden top snuggly back in its rightful place.  “Let’s pack up the bogus money and get out of here before your Grandmother and Curt get back.  I’ll make some phone calls to the Secret Service on Tuesday.”

“Lee, I really appreciate you stepping up for me.  You know, bailing me out, not lecturing me about gambling…”

“I was 19 once, too, you know,” Lee admitted, hoping the Secret Service would be content once they knew the money came from an old bed.  Slipping out of the townhouse undetected, they walked back to their cars as light snow began to fall.  “I guess your mother was right about the weather.  We better get back home before she starts to worry.”

“Uh, Lee,” Philip said, glancing up at the gray sky.  “I um, I was thinking maybe I should head back to school.  If I leave from here, I can be back in a little over an hour.  I’ve got a paper due next week and I haven’t started on it yet…”

“Yeah, and you won’t have to mention your poker game to your mother!” Lee remarked, giving him a stern look.

“You know she doesn’t approve of gambling,” Philip smirked knowingly.  “Do you think you could explain this all to Mom?  Tell her I didn’t want to get Grandma in trouble.  She won’t get in trouble, will she?”

“Let me worry about that, Philip.  Just keep your nose in the books and stay away from any more poker games.  You’re not likely to get dealt four aces anytime soon.”

“I hear ya, Lee,” he remarked as the wind began to blow harder.

“Keep this whole incident to yourself, Sport, you understand?” Lee reminded his stepson.  “Until you hear differently from me.”

“No problem, Lee.  I’d like to forget the whole mess happened.”

“You better get a move on it if you want to beat this storm.  Call your mother as soon as you get back to your dorm, or your problems with the Secret Service will seem like a walk in the park,” Lee reminded Philip.

“I will,” he replied, giving Lee a quick hug before he got into his car.

Lee Stetson got into his car, started the engine, and watched as the young man departed.  Backing out of the parking space, he took off in the opposite direction, beginning the drive back home to explain things to his wife.

****

Pulling into the driveway on Maplewood Drive, he parked his car.  Hurrying towards the house, the brisk wintry wind sent a shiver down Lee’s spine.  Slipping into the back door, the warmth from the house began to take the chill from his body.  Moments later, his wife greeted him in the kitchen.

“I was starting to get worried about the two of you.  What took you so long?  Did you talk to Philip?  Speaking of Philip, where is he?” she asked, glancing past her husband, to see if her son was in the backyard.

Lee chuckled at his wife’s rapid-fire series of questions.  Rubbing his cold hands together, he suggested, “How about a hot cup of coffee to warm me up?  It’s freezing out there.”

Clearly frustrated with the delay, Amanda complied with his request, and poured him a cup of coffee while he put his coat in the closet.  When he returned to the kitchen, she handed him the hot cup and he took a sip.  “Mmm, thanks.”

Folding her arms across her chest, she asked in a demanding tone.  “So where’s Philip?”

“Probably half way back to college by now, but don’t worry, I reminded him to call as soon as he got there.”

“You let him go back to school?” Amanda stared at her husband, irritated by the information.  Taking a deep breath, she countered, “Sweetheart, I thought we were going to have a discussion with him about where he got the counterfeit money.”

“I did talk to him, Honey.  You really didn’t think I’d let him go back to school without an explanation of where it came from, do you?”

“Were we right?  Did he get it from his girlfriend, or her family?” she questioned eager for answers that would get her son out of trouble.

Reaching for her hand, he tugged on it gently and guided her towards the family room.  “How about we sit down and I’ll explain.”

“Something tells me, I’m not going to like the explanation,” she remarked anxiously.

“You already know he drove his girlfriend home the other day.  She lives in the same town as your mother.  Philip visited them after he dropped her off.  Of course, your mother invited him to stay for dinner and spend the night.  However, she went out with a neighbor.  Curt had some Air Force buddies come over.  The guys ended up playing poker and invited Philip to join them,” Lee started to reveal.

Amanda’s hands flew to her face.  “Oh my gosh, Curt’s friends were probably playing a joke on him, knowing it was fake money!”

“No, that’s not exactly what happened…” he replied, shaking his head.

“You think one of Curt’s friends tried to pass off the money purposefully?”

Reaching for her hand, he took it in his, patting it gently.  “No.  Actually, Philip ‘borrowed’ the money he used to gamble with.”

Amanda Stetson had caught the odd way her husband used the word borrow.  Furrowing her brow, she insisted.  “What exactly do you mean by borrowed?”

Lee Stetson swallowed hard, certain his wife wouldn’t approve of what Philip did.  “You know that old bed in your mother’s guest room?”

“You’re not going to tell me he found the money in the mattress now, are you?” she questioned skeptically.

“Not in the mattress, the bedpost.”

“The bedpost?” she laughed, leaning back on the couch, enjoying the contrived tale.  “Lee, you didn’t really buy this… this story, did you?  He’s trying to protect his girlfriend.  Now, I realize they’re having a family crisis, but we can’t let Philip take the blame for something he didn’t do.  They need to be told.”

Ignoring her admonishment, he asked a simple question.  “That bed in your mother’s guest room is fairly old.  Was it Curt’s bed or did your mother find it at one of those antique shops she’s always shopping at?”

Refusing to believe him, she didn’t answer his question.  “Lee, I can’t believe you fell for this tale.  I realize this is out of character for Philip, but clearly, this is just that, a tall tale.  He’s trying to protect his girlfriend.  We’re going to have to call her or her family and get to the bottom of this.”

Taking a deep breath, he persisted.  “Like it or not, Amanda, it is the truth.  His girlfriend has nothing to do with it.  Now, tell me, do you know where your mother bought that old bed?” he asked patiently, but firmly.

“You’re talking about that four poster, wooden bed?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t have a clue where she bought it,” Amanda explained with a worried look across her face.  Finally, she confessed, “They didn’t buy it at an antique shop; I’m sure of that.  It was my parent’s.”

“What?!” Lee grimaced, hoping he heard her incorrectly.

“I remember that bed being in the house when I was a little girl.  Daddy always used to put his hat on the bedpost when he’d come home at night, and mother would scold him, reminding him that it wasn’t a hat rack.”

“Are you sure?  I don’t remember seeing it before.”

“When Mother moved in here with me, after the divorce, she wanted something new, but the old bed had sentimental value.  She couldn’t part with it, so we put it out in the garage.  It was there for the longest time,” Amanda explained.  “Are you sure Philip found the money in the bedpost?”

Lee ran his hand anxiously through his hair.  “Yeah, that’s why I was gone so long.  We went over to your mother’s place and he showed me.  I pulled out over a thousand dollars worth of bogus bills and a few bills that Philip had stuffed back into it when he returned the borrowed money.”

“Where is the money now?” she asked curiously.

“In a bag, in my car,” he replied.  “I left the real bills in the bedpost.  They must have been mixed in with the money Philip won in the poker game.”

Amanda leaned forward, her elbows on her knees and her hands rubbing her face.  “We were right that Philip was trying to protect someone.  I never would have guessed it was his grandmother.  Lee, what are we going to do?  Certainly, Mother doesn’t realize the money is counterfeit!”

“I doubt she even knows it’s there.  That money is old - age wise, but almost crisp, like new money,” he explained to his wife.  “It’s probably been in there for almost thirty years.”

Her eyes widened at what she assumed he was implying.  She got up off the couch, and walked towards the mantel, fingering an old family picture; she turned around and advised him, “The only other person who would have had access to that bed back in the 60’s was…” she swallowed hard before she choked out the words, barely audibly, “my father…”

End Part Two

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