He didn’t even wake up by the time Bede had hauled in the other two bins. Then he raced back to the truck to put the key fob on the seat, and then dashed, panting the whole way, to sit on the floor of the tent, cross-legged, doing his best to slow his breathing so he wouldn’t wake Galen up before he was ready to.
Bede didn’t know exactly how much money was in those bins, but it should be enough, shouldn’t it?
Legally the money should have been turned over as evidence when Bede had been arrested, but Bede had never told his lawyer about the money, and nobody, really, had ever asked him a specific enough question for him to have to, legally, talk about it.
There was still an issue, though. It wasn’t like he’d stashed fifty bucks away from his illegal dealings. That much could be understood to be forgotten. It was more money than that. And as such, was subject to evidentiary proceedings. Or, that is, should have been subjected. But it hadn't been. And now it would save the farm. And, more importantly, save Galen’s smiles. Save them for Bede.
He did this for love. If he was caught, or if Galen turned him in, Bede could go back to prison. But it would be worth it if Galen didn’t lose the farm.
Chapter 35
Galen
Tightly wound nightmares about buying an old house and simply throwing money at it, to no avail, had occupied Galen’s entire night. He woke up restless with a headache, and when he reached out to the other side of the cot, not very far, really, he found it empty.
“Morning, sunshine,” said Bede’s deep voice from beyond a lump of pillow.
“Morning,” said Galen in return, blinking as he pulled the pillow away and folded a length of sheet so he could figure out where Bede was in the dim, dawn-cool, green-tinged light of the canvas tent. “What are you doing down there?”
Bede was on the floor, sitting cross-legged, hands resting on his knees. He beamed a proud smile, eyes glittering with delight, and it was then that Galen noticed how dusty he was. That there were half circles of pale beige dust on his once-white t-shirt, and dark smears of something else on his blue jeans. Even his soft-looking yellow work boots were grimy with dust.
Next to him on the floor were three plastic bins, the ordinary kind you could get at Target or just about anywhere. There was a strip of masking tape on each one, and written on each strip of masking tape were the words,Mom’s Trip to Bermuda.
Which was strange because Bede had never mentioned parents, much less a mother who had gone to Bermuda and who had asked her son, Bede, the drug dealer, to watch over three bins of whatever she’d brought back. Which, now that Galen thought about it as he sat up, very well could be drugs.
In spite of Bede and Beck’s single dalliance with pot, drugs were not allowed in the valley, nor in Galen’s tent, so what the hell was Bede up to? And why was he so dusty and grease-streaked?
Swinging his legs over the edge of the cot, the cotton sheet draping around his ankles like a friendly, soft snake, Galen rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm and did his best to bring his thoughts into order.
“What’s going on?” asked Galen, his voice coming out morning rough.
“I’ve come to save the farm,” said Bede quite brightly. “If this were a musical, I’d ask Judy and Mickey to sing about it, but since it’s just me—” Bede laughed, low and sweet, the smile on his face a thing of beauty.
Galen laughed a little, having gotten theBabes in Armsreference, but he couldn’t quite focus on the humor of it when the three plastic bins looked so out of place and Bede looked so unkempt.
“What are the bins?” he asked. “And what did your mom ask you to store that came from Bermuda?”
“Well, I don’t actually have a mom,” said Bede in a matter-of-fact way as he rose to his knees and started pulling open the lids to the bins. “But what I learned is if you wanted to launder money, you’d take it to an offshore bank account, such as you might find in Bermuda. Or anywhere in the Bahamas, really. Cayman Islands. British Virgin Islands.”
“Launder money?” asked Galen with growing confusion, which soon turned to a kind of giddy horror as Bede pulled outplastic baggies that glittered with the coins inside, and old coffee cans that clunked when Bede put them on the wooden floor. And then came the dust clouds that surrounded the large plastic bag stored in each bin.
“Money?” asked Galen, his voice rising. “That’s money.”
“Yes, it’s money, you smart thing, you,” said Bede quite breezily as he reached into the nearest black plastic bag and pulled out a fold of bills and fanned it at Galen. “It’s to pay the bills from the IRS and the hospital.” Bede shrugged, suddenly looking at the money as he held it close to his chest and appeared to be counting it. “Of course, we’ll put it in your account—or maybe we’ll create a new account with a fake LLC—and then pay those bills, slowly, every month, following the payment plan. So as not to alert anyone that you’ve got more than enough.”
“You—” Galen could hardly get enough air to ask the question. “You want me to put that money in my bank account? Wouldn’t I be laundering it, then? Is that legal?”
The more important question was not whether the money was legal, because money stored in bags, cans, and even bigger plastic bags never could be. The question was not only where had the money come from, but how to get rid of it, only Galen couldn’t get his brain around the right words to ask the question out loud.
“No,” said Bede, looking up, his dark brows drawing together as though he was dismayed to find that Galen didn’t already understand all of this. “But it’s going to help you keep the farm. Otherwise, it’d still be in my Aunt Lorraine’s garden shed.”
Galen knew that Lorraine Deacon, according to the manilla folder with all of Wyoming Correctional’s notes about Bede, was known to the police.
There’d never been anything to connect her to Bede’s drug business, so she’d not been questioned or brought to court to testify on Bede’s behalf when he’d been arrested. Yet, all thistime, she’d been storing Bede’s ill-gotten gains. Gains that Bede had earned buying and selling drugs. Right? That must have been where he’d gotten it all.
“Is this drug money?” The question came out very small because of an even smaller hope that the money was not drug related. An impossibility in this case, but Galen needed to know.
“Of course it is.”
