A Conspirator ? ? ?
 
 
 

Late Wednesday morning…
 
 

“Stetson,” Lee answered the phone at his office.

“Hi, it’s me,” Amanda said.  “Did Mr. Donnelly approve you working on this case?”

“I was going to call you in a few minutes.  I don’t know what Billy said to him, but he was intrigued to say the least.  I’m almost finished clearing my desk, and I should be available by lunchtime.  Did Billy’s files turn up anything?” he asked curiously.

“Yes, I’ve got the name of the person who was caught with some of the stolen money.  He was a local, working as a laborer.  The man was fired and put on probation.”

“Probation!” Lee exclaimed, in surprise.  “No prison time?”

“No, apparently the government didn’t want the publicity of a trial.”

“That makes sense.  Is he still alive?”

“Yes, his name is George Tipton; he was originally from Lewisburg,” Amanda continued to explain.  “He left there in 1969, and according to tax records, owns a bar near Staunton, Virginia.”

“Maybe he and Woody knew each other growing up?”

“Yeah, that’s a possibility,” she replied.

“Anything I can help with?”

“I know it’s a long shot, but I’d like to have a chat with Mr. Tipton – face to face.  Do you want to go for a ride this afternoon?” she suggested in a hopeful voice.

“Yeah, give me about an hour.  You want me to pick you up?”

“No, how about we meet at the house.  I’ll leave a note for Jamie that we might be late,” she explained.

“I’ll see you soon,” he replied, before hanging up the phone.
 

***
 

They drove through the town of Staunton, watching for the bar George Tipton owned.  They were about to turn around, thinking they’d missed it when Amanda spotted the red neon sign.  “There it is, Lee, ‘Tippy’s Tavern,’ ahead on your right.”

Lee pulled over, parked in front of the tavern, and he and Amanda got out of the car.  Reaching for her hand, they went inside together.  It took their eyes a moment to adjust to the darkened interior.  The place was small, and typically quiet in the early afternoon.  There was a man tending the bar and a cook back in the kitchen.

“What’ll you have?” the bartender called out to them as they walked over.

Lee helped Amanda onto a stool and then sat down next to her.  “We’re looking for George Tipton.”

“Who?” the bartender asked as he cautiously sized up the two people now sitting in front of him.

“George Tipton,” Lee repeated.

The bartender glanced around the bar.  Only a couple of wooden stools were occupied.  The television was on, numbing the attention of the patrons while they imbibed in a mid-afternoon drink.  There were a half dozen old tables scattered around a large wood fireplace, which wasn’t lit.  The tables were all empty.  With a shrug, the bartender answered.  “Sorry, he’s not here.”

“When do you expect him?” Amanda asked politely.

“I’m not.  He doesn’t work on Wednesday,” the bartender explained while he wiped down the bar with a white dishtowel.  Eyeing both Lee and Amanda suspiciously, he asked, “Is he in some sort of trouble?”

“No, we just wanted to talk with him.  Thanks for your time,” Lee replied, and he and Amanda got up off their stools and exited the tavern.

“Lee, drive around behind the bar,” Amanda suggested after she got back into his car.

“Why?  He lives in town, doesn’t he?  Why don’t we just go to his house?” Lee asked, starting up his car.

Sorting through the file she had brought with them, she pulled out the old mug shots of George Tipton.  “We don’t have to,” she replied, holding the photos up for her husband to view.  “Picture him older, balding, and a few pounds heavier than these mug shots; don’t you think that was the bartender?”

“Yeah, you’re right.”  Lee pulled back onto the road, and drove around the block.  As they pulled into the back parking lot of the bar, the bartender was getting into his car to leave.  Lee stopped his car behind the other, blocking the bartender from leaving.

The man, realizing he was trapped, got out of the car, and hustled down the alley as fast as he could.

“He’s running!” Amanda called out.

“He’s not going to get far!” Lee bolted from his car and quickly sped down the alley after the guy.  It didn’t take long before he caught up to him and grabbed him.  Pushing the man against the brick wall, Lee frisked him.  Finding no weapon, he hauled him roughly by the shoulder.

“Leaving kind of early today aren’t you, George?!” Lee snapped, leading the man back towards their car where Amanda was waiting.

“Listen, I don’t want any trouble,” George pleaded nervously, glancing around the parking lot.

“Good, because neither do we!” Lee snapped, catching his breath and pushing the man against his car.  “We just want to talk.”

“I already told your cohort on the phone to leave me alone,” George replied brusquely.

Amanda and Lee glanced at each other with wide eyes.  What they thought was a long shot in talking with the perpetrator of a crime thirty years ago might actually pay off.

“And who would that be?” Lee asked with a raised eyebrow.

George opened his mouth, but then cocked his head slightly.  Narrowing his eyes, he didn’t answer their question, but asked one of his own.  “Who are you?”

Lee pulled out his government ID and flashed it quickly, “Lee Stetson, Justice Department.”

George’s eyes got wide, but his face appeared to be relieved.  “The Justice Department!  You’re both from the government?”

“Yeah, who did you think we were?” Amanda asked curiously.

“Not the Feds, that’s for sure.  Come on inside,” George signaled with a nod of his head.
 

****
 

Now sitting at a table inside his bar, George Tipton slugged down a cold beer and asked, “Why exactly are you here?”

Lee put down his coffee and answered, “Almost thirty years ago, George, you were convicted for stealing money from a bunker below the Greenbrier.”

Slinking down in his chair, he glanced around at the few patrons sitting at his bar; his voice was low and full of regret.  “Nobody in this town ever calls me George.  I haven’t been called that in over twenty years.  To this town, I’m ‘Tippy’.  George Tipton was a stupid young kid, and I left him behind when I left West Virginia.”

“Why did you take the money?” Lee asked, rocking back in his chair, motioning for the man to tell his side of the story.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” the bartender answered, swilling the beer in his mug.

“Try us,” Amanda prompted, leaning towards the man, eager for answers.

At first, there was silence at the table.  Then finally, George ‘Tippy’ Tipton shrugged, and began to unfold the story of his youth.

“I was barely 20 when I got the job at the Greenbrier.  There wasn’t a lot of jobs in Lewisburg.  Getting a job with the Greenbrier was the best,” Tippy Tipton remembered with a melancholy grin.  “I was on the cleanup crew; it was a dirty job, but it paid well.”

“So why’d you steal the money?” Lee asked impatiently.

“I didn’t steal it,” Tippy snapped, glaring at Lee angrily.  He folded his arms across his chest in defiance.  “You’re not gonna believe me anymore than they did back in ‘62.”

Amanda put her hand on top of Lee’s, giving him a reproving glare.  Turning towards George, she gave him a warm smile.  In a soothing voice, she coaxed him to continue, “We’re listening, Tippy.”

Tippy glanced at Lee skeptically, but Amanda nodded for him to continue.  He rubbed his chin for a moment, before telling his side of the story.  “I worked the night shift, mopping floors, replacing burned out light bulbs, emptying trash - nothing exciting.  I didn’t mind; it paid good.  I’d gotten home one morning exhausted as usual.  I fell right asleep, and was woken up by the phone; I don’t remember what time it was.”

“Who called you?” Amanda asked.

“He never gave me his name, but he knew everything about me:  my name, birthday, who I worked for, what I was doing.  He asked me if I loved my country.  I told him that was a stupid question.  That I was a true blooded American.”  Tippy pounded his chest for emphasis.

Amanda and Lee exchanged concerned glances, but didn’t interrupt.

Leaning towards them both and staring Lee in the eye at first, then Amanda, his tale continued to unfold.  “The caller said that my country needed me.  That someone had stolen money from inside the Greenbrier, and that they needed my help to protect the rest of it.”

“What did he ask you to do?” Amanda questioned.

“He told me that there was a half million dollars inside the Greenbrier’s lower level.”

“A half million dollars?” Lee repeated, his eyes darting over to Amanda.

“Yeah, a half million bucks!” Tippy nodded, taking another swig of his beer.  “The guy on the phone told me where to find the key and where to look for the money in the medical clinic.  I should have asked him some questions, but I was a stupid kid.  I honestly thought I was doing my civic duty.  He told me National Security depended upon me getting hold of that money.  He warned me not to mention the ‘operation’ to anyone.  He made it sound official.  I never thought it was a load of crap…”

“What were you supposed to do with the money when you found it?” Amanda questioned.

“The caller said when I found the money; I was to move it upstairs.  There’s a storage room behind the ballroom on the main level.  It was near one of the concealed entrances.  A lot of the contractors left stuff in that storage room.  I was to write ‘EXPIRED’ on the boxes and he would take charge of it from there.  Move it to a more secure location.”

“Is that what you did?” Amanda asked with an arched brow.

“Sort of,” Tippy admitted hesitantly.  He glanced around the room cagily, as if looking for ghosts from his past.  “A few days later, my boss told me to clean the clinic.  I figured that was part of the plan.  You know, that the call was on the level.  Cleaning the clinic was a better job than most on the cleaning crew, dusting mostly, bleaching the floors instead of just mopping.  Sure enough, the money was inside the drug case just as I was told, but there wasn’t a half million dollars, it was closer to a quarter million.  I figured the thief had stolen even more of the money.  I packed up what was left in the empty medical boxes and put them upstairs in the storage room like the caller asked.”

“How did you end up with $20,000?” Lee pressed suspiciously.  “Did you take a piece of the action?”

“NO!” George snapped, glaring distrustfully at Lee and folding his arms across his chest again with an angry snarl on his face.  “The following week, when I’d gotten home in the morning, there was a package on my front doorstep addressed to me.  When I opened it up, there was $20,000 inside – no note, no return address, nothing.  I thought I’d hit the jackpot.  That was a lot of money back in the 60’s.  Was gonna buy me a car - even picked out a real nice Chevy Corvette.  Never owned a new car before,” then Tippy laughed, “come to think of it, I still haven’t.”

“What happened?”  Amanda asked, knowing part of the answer.

“Before I could decide on what color ‘vette I wanted, the cops busted me.  They came with a search warrant, found the money under my mattress, and arrested me.  I tried to explain to them what happened, but they weren’t hearing any of it.  Town folk didn’t believe me either.  My life went to hell.”

“You didn’t get any prison time,” Lee reminded him.

“Might as well have; couldn’t find a job for ages.  For the longest time I didn’t know who I could trust, but once I figured out who was behind things, I left town and never went back.”

Amanda and Lee leaned in with added interest.  “You know who set you up?” Lee questioned.

Tippy nodded, drinking down the last of his beer.  “Yeah, the jerk called me again.  Can you believe he wanted me to help him get out of a jam!  Hey, can I get either of you more coffee, maybe a burger or something?”

“No, we’re fine,” Amanda replied quickly, wanting to hear who was behind the ‘operation’.  “Who was it who called, and when did he call you?”

“It was spring of 69,” he recalled clearly.  “I’d finally finished my probation the year before and was saving what little money I was making to leave town and start over again - fresh.  I’d got a call one day and this guy asked me how I was doing?  He knew everything about me – just like last time.  Told me that he’d paid for the attorney to cut the deal so I didn’t go to prison.  He thought I’d be grateful!”

“What did he want?” Lee pressed.

“He said that the government was reopening the investigation on the missing money and that he needed me to ‘take care’ of somebody!  Now I might have been a dumb kid back when I was 20 years old, but I was a lot wiser by then.  I wasn’t no thief, and I certainly wasn’t gonna ‘take care’ of anybody.”

 “Oh my gosh!” Amanda gasped, her face paled at the revelation of what Tippy was suggesting.

Lee noticed his wife’s reaction.  “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she choked out with a quivering voice.

Then, turning his attention to the bartender he asked, “I take it you didn’t go to the police and tell them about the phone call?”

“Hell no!  They didn’t believe me years ago, why would they believe me now?”

Lee watched his wife carefully, noticing she was trembling slightly.  He reached over and put his arm around her.  With a slight movement of his eyes, he silently questioned his wife if she wanted to hear more.

“Go on,” she urged the man by nodding slightly, needing to hear the rest of it.

“I left Lewisburg a couple weeks after that phone call.  Hoped that by moving, I’d leave my past behind – for good.  To me, that whole incident at the Greenbrier was a lifetime ago.  Came here, to Staunton, and worked at this very bar, first as a dishwasher, then cook.  Eventually, I became the bartender.  A few years ago the owner retired, and sold it to me.”

“You said you knew who called you.  What’s his name?”  Lee pressed.

Tippy didn’t answer him, but glanced around the room furtively.

“Was he a local?” Lee prodded.

“Sure was,” Tippy answered, his face was turning red with anger.  “Went to school with the son of a bitch, but he was a few years older.  He was a smart kid. Got a scholarship and went to college, then worked for the government in DC.  Never came back to town to live, but sure did meddle in my life.”

“What’s his name, Tippy?” Lee asked again.

Tippy glanced around the room furtively.  “If I give you his name, he’s gonna come after me for sure.”

“We can protect you, Mr. Tipton,” Amanda reassured the man.  “But if you don’t tell us who he is, other people could be in danger.”

“You’ll protect my family, too?  I’ve got a wife and three kids now.  My wife knows about my past, but the kids don’t.”

“We’ll protect your family, too.  If we can confirm what you told us, Tippy, we might be able to have your conviction overturned,” Amanda suggested, hoping to get him to cooperate fully.

“All right,” he agreed leaning in closer to Lee and Amanda.  In a voice barely above a whisper, he revealed, “His name is Elwood, but he goes by his nickname:  Woody, Woody Kraus.   He called here on Monday afternoon.  I don’t know how he done it, but that bastard tracked me down again.  Told me that they’d found some plates.  Not sure what the hell plates he’s talking about, but he told me we was both in big trouble.  I told him to go to hell!” Tippy growled angrily.  “I know about double jeopardy.  Can’t convict me twice, specially since I didn’t know nothing about any damned plates.”

“Did he threaten you?” Lee asked.

“Told me I’d regret it if I didn’t help him.  I thought you were ‘associates’ of his, if you know what I mean.  Been a little on edge since then.”

“That’s understandable,” Lee remarked compassionately, and then glanced at his wife.  At the moment, she appeared to be on edge as well.  “Amanda, call Billy.  Update him on what we found out.  Tell him we need a team out here to protect the Tipton family, and have the Agency put a tail on Woody.”

Fidgeting nervously with a button on her sweater, she pulled Lee close, and whispered in his ear. “Lee, if Woody gets desperate, he might go after Philip.”

“Yeah, that thought crossed my mind as well,” he answered, running his hand through his hair.  “Have the Agency notify the campus police, but you and I will head up that detail.  We’ll be finished here in a couple of minutes and we’re a lot closer than anyone in DC.”

“Good, we can be there in less than an hour,” she answered, thankful they were so close.  She dug out her cell phone from her purse.  “I’ll be waiting in the car if you need me.”

Lee knew his wife was anxious; she hated to wait in the car.  He picked up his cell phone and made a call as well.  He left the table for privacy while he was on the phone.  When he was finished, he went back and spoke to Tippy again.

“It’ll be a couple of hours before a team is in place.  We’re going to have some people from the Justice Department come out and take a sworn statement from you.  I want you to tell them exactly what you told us today.  If you remember any other details, even if it sounds insignificant, let them know.  I’m giving you my card, and my cell phone number.  If you see or hear from Woody again, call me immediately.”

“Sure thing.”  Tippy Tipton took the card and shook his head.  “I’m kind of surprised by all this.  For so long nobody believed me.”

“The cards were stacked against you originally; you were set up by somebody on the inside.  We’re going to get to the bottom of this once and for all.”

“You know, I was raised poor, didn’t have much growing up,” Tippy shared with Lee.  “All I had was my word – my reputation.  Can’t tell you what it would mean to me if I can prove once and for all that I was innocent.”

“I promise to do my best.”  Lee stood up and reached out to shake the bartender’s hand.

“Thanks,” Tippy Tipton replied, shaking Lee’s hand and walking him to the door.

Amanda was leaning against his car, finishing up a call when Lee got back to the car.   When she hung up, she turned towards him, a worried look on her face.  “Everything is in motion.  There should be a team up here before dark, and they’re trying to locate Woody now.  He’s not in his office...”

“Maybe he left for the day,” Lee suggested as Amanda got into the car, not wanting to worry his wife.  “Did you get a hold of campus security?”

“That’s who I was just talking to.  They said they’d pick up Philip, and keep him at the security building until we get there.  They’re going to put an alert out in case Woody shows up,” she replied, wringing her hands anxiously.  “Lee, it’s a huge campus.  It could take them a while to track down Philip.  What if Woody…”

Lee cut off his wife before she could finish.  “That works both ways, Amanda,” Lee reminded his wife, reaching for her hand and squeezing it in support.  “We have security on our side, and have a better idea where to look for him.  Besides, we don’t know for sure that Woody’s even gone down to the college.  He’s probably somewhere in DC.  There’s a chance that he hasn’t put this whole thing together yet.”

“I hope you’re right,” she whispered anxiously.

“We’ll find Philip before Woody does,” Lee replied with mock confidence giving his wife a charming smile; then he floored the gas pedal…
 

End Part Nine
 
 

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