#6: Cash Rules Everything Around Me

[00:00:25] Edith was fishing through her purse for the shopping list she'd forgotten she left on the countertop. Need anything from the market? [00:00:32] Bernard, across the room, slouched on the couch, a book open in his lap, eyes skimming the words but not really reading. [00:00:41] His mind was elsewhere, out in the shed, locked up with a suitcase full of cash that didn't belong to him. [00:00:48] He cleared his throat. [00:00:51] Milk? Captain Crunch? Something to snack on later, maybe? [00:00:56] Edith exhaled through her nose. [00:00:59] Too much sugar, Bernie? He didn't look up. Well, then, surprise me. She shook her head, the universal signal for she'll do what she wants anyway. Grabbed her purse off the counter, then her keys, then made for the door without another word. Bernard listened. The door shut. The screen clattered behind it. He waited, counted the seconds. [00:01:24] Then the car engine rumbled to life. Tires crunched down the gravel drive faded into the distance. Still he sat, waited. Just in case she doubled back for something. Coupons. Her checkbook, that weird little notepad she used to write down gossip from the church. Ladies. [00:01:43] Women had a way of remembering things at the last damn second. But the driveway stayed empty. [00:01:50] Bernard stood, stretched, mosey toward the front window, peeking through the curtain like a man checking for the rapture. [00:01:59] The coast was clear. He cracked his knuckles. [00:02:04] Time to go see about that suitcase. [00:02:07] A part of him prayed it wouldn't be there, that this had all been some weird fever dreams. That he'd gone out onto his boat this morning like always, sipped his coffee, let the sunrise spill gold over the Foxfire river, and then came back with nothing heavier than the usual quiet in his bones. [00:02:28] But when he pulled open the shed door, the scent of damp wood and old gasoline hitting him, there it was, right where he left it, tucked into the corner like a stray dog waiting to be noticed. [00:02:42] Bernard swallowed. The suitcase hadn't moved, hadn't grown legs, hadn't vanished into thin air, hadn't absolved him of whatever this was going to turn into. [00:02:53] It just sat there, heavy, unopened. [00:02:58] Real. [00:03:00] He exhaled, rubbing his palm against the back of his neck, eyes fixed on the thing like it might lunge at him if he blinked. [00:03:09] Maybe it was still full of money. [00:03:12] Maybe it wasn't. [00:03:14] Maybe someone had been here while he was inside, eating a sandwich and pretending to read his book, flipped it open, saw what was inside and took off with it. Maybe he wasn't the only one who knew. The thought put a cold weight in his gut. [00:03:30] Slowly, carefully, Bernard took a step forward. The cash was still there. Stacks of crisp, neatly banded hundred dollar bills packed tight like they'd been waiting for him all along. [00:03:44] Bernard let out a slow breath, kneeling down, running his fingers over the edges. [00:03:50] It didn't feel. Real money like this belonged in bank vaults, in armored trucks, in the hands of people who made deals over steak dinners and never had to look at price tags. Not in his shed, sitting next to an old lawnmower that hadn't worked in two decades. He started counting. One stack. Two. Three. [00:04:12] By the time he hit 50,000, his stomach tightened and there was still more. A lot more. He leaned back on his heels, exhaling sharply through his nares, eyes dragging over the layers of cash still untouched. His heart thudded a little harder. [00:04:31] There had to be close to half a million here. Maybe more. [00:04:36] His fingers twitched. His mouth went dry. [00:04:40] This wasn't a lucky break. This was a problem, because nobody loses this much money without noticing, and nobody forgets to come back for it. [00:04:49] He could take it back to the river, toss it into the current, let the water swallow it whole, make it someone else's problem or no one's at all. [00:04:59] He pictured it now, squeezing some bricks inside, watching it disappear beneath the murky surface of Foxfire river, sinking to the bottom where it would sit forever lost among the old bones and forgotten things the river had claimed over the years. [00:05:17] He chuckled to himself, the kind of laugh you let out when you're teetering on the edge of a bad idea. [00:05:25] What if the suitcase of cash became another Hickory Bend legend, a bedtime story to keep the kids from wandering too far into the woods? Like Henry Cawthorn's stolen gold. [00:05:38] Ah, Henry. A drifter with dirt on his boots and a silver tongue sharp enough to split wood. [00:05:45] He blew into town a hundred and some years ago, back when Hickory Ben was still more trees than people and tried to make his escape with a sack full of gold nuggets. [00:05:56] Folks said he'd mind it himself. [00:06:00] Others whispered he'd sweet talked it out of a widow with a bad case of loneliness. [00:06:05] Either way, he ran. [00:06:08] The law chased him right up to the Foxfire river, its black water swirling like a secret. [00:06:14] Henry made it about halfway across, before the current or the cold or the hands of the damned reached up and pulled him under. [00:06:21] Some say his body washed up three miles downstream, waterlogged and pale as milk. But the gold never did. [00:06:29] The bag slipped through his fingers, sank like a stone, and settled into the riverbed. They say the river got a little meaner after that, its banks a little softer, a little more eager to swallow up anything or anyone who dared to tempt their own Fate. If the suitcase went missing, if it vanished into thin air or into the muddy claws of the foxfire. [00:06:54] He could already hear the whispers, the legend of the cache that slipped away, and he'd sit back and watch as the town tried to peel back its own skin to find it all while he sipped his coffee, the kind of hot that burns all the way down, and waited for the next poor fool to take a plunge. [00:07:15] That would be the smart thing to do, the safe thing. [00:07:19] Just ditch the suitcase and get on with his life. [00:07:23] But then his mind drifted, shifted, started doing the kind of math that comes naturally to a man who's spent too many years just getting by. [00:07:34] He thought about his mortgage, the overdue electric bill, the credit card statements he stacked in a drawer, unopened, like ignoring them might erase the debt. [00:07:45] He thought about the price of gas, the way groceries seemed to get more expensive every damn week, how every trip to the mechanic came with a sigh and a well, I got some bad news for you, Bernard. [00:07:59] He could keep some of it. [00:08:01] Pay off a few bills. [00:08:04] Just a little, enough to breathe. [00:08:08] Nobody had to know. [00:08:10] He could bury the rest in the backyard, behind the shed, under the old oak tree where nothing ever grew, and go unnoticed for decades. [00:08:17] Bernard exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face. He tucked the suitcase back where he hid it and threw some old rags over it to give it some extra protection. [00:08:28] No one ever comes out here. [00:08:31] But what if Edith decided to touch up the bathroom walls with some paint? [00:08:36] Fat chance. [00:08:38] But stranger things have happened. [00:08:41] Like finding a suitcase of cash in the river, to name one. [00:08:46] Bernard made his way back into the house, feet dragging a little more than before. [00:08:52] His hand lingered on the doorknob a second longer than necessary before he stepped inside. [00:08:57] Moving on autopilot. He went straight to his desk, pulled open the drawer. Envelopes. A lot of them, most unopened, their edges curled, their contents avoided. He grabbed one at random, tore it open with his thumb, and pulled out the slip of paper inside. His eyes scanned the balance due. [00:09:17] Just shy of 10,000 left on the mortgage. [00:09:21] His stomach twisted. [00:09:23] Not because of the number itself he's seen worse. [00:09:28] But because for the first time he wasn't looking at it as a burden. [00:09:34] He was looking at it as something he could erase. [00:09:37] What would they say if he paid it off in full? [00:09:41] Would that raise a red flag? Would someone ask questions? [00:09:45] The kind of questions that led to other questions, the kind he didn't want to answer? [00:09:52] He could play it smart. [00:09:54] Smaller payments. A few thousand here, a few there. Keep it quiet, keep it casual. [00:10:01] Or he could pay off a smaller debt. [00:10:03] Something less noticeable, like the insurance policy on his home. [00:10:09] It shouldn't raise suspicion. [00:10:11] Then another thought crept in. [00:10:14] Edith. [00:10:16] Would she notice? [00:10:18] He reckoned she wouldn't. [00:10:21] She didn't keep track of the bills. Wasn't good with numbers. She thought interest rates were something they talked about on the news when the stock market got mad. [00:10:29] No, she wouldn't know. [00:10:33] And what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. [00:10:36] Bernard sat back in his chair, rubbing his jaw. [00:10:40] This was starting to feel less like a decision and more like something that had already been made.