“Do you believe that shit?She tells me no about giving me money, but she’s all right with having my place done up.Why the hell is it called Tucker anyway?That’s not a name that I know.”He told him that they were married, Kayce Tucker and Molly Tucker.“No.She’s not supposed to be getting married.She’s in the service.I know that because she comes home dressed in a uniform and wears a gun.They taught her how to fight, too, which I’m none too happy about.She nearly made me stay in the hospital for a week when she fought back when I was showing her some manners.”
“As enlightening as it’s been talking to you, I have a full day ahead of me, so I’m going to putyou in for a court date.”He asked if he’d be able to get out today; he had stuff to do.“No.I don’t think I want you to be out where you can cause more trouble.I’m going to have you sent to prison until such time as a court date can be given to you.Once you have that, I’ll keep you there in the event that you try to take on the government and get a raise in your father’s checks.That’s not going to happen either.I’m also going to have you put in prison for mail fraud, abuse of the elderly, and cashing a government check when it doesn’t belong to you.There are more that I’m sure that I can tack onto that, but for now, that should be enough to keep you in jail until such time as the courts can see you again.”
“Wait.I thought that you understood me.Like we was buddies of something.”He said that he didn’t usually become friends with convicts.“I did my time.You can’t hold that over me no more.I get a free pass on killing too because of that.”
“Have you killed since you got out of prison, Mr.Toby?”He said that he had, but he couldn’t hold that against him.“Why not?Just because you paid for that one crime doesn’t mean that you get a pass to kill again.It’s against the law.”
“I know that, but I served my time.I got out, and they said that I didn’t have to worry about paying for that crime again.I remember thinking that was a good thing to know.That’s why I call it a free pass.You can’t put me in prison for the same crime.”He explained to him what it meant.“No, that’s not right.If that were true, then everybody I know would be back in prison for killing people again.You have to look that up.I think you’re wrong about that.I can’t be tried for the same crime.They told me that.”
“You can’t be tried for the same person that you killed.But there will be a whole new trial for the next person you kill.There are no free passes on murder.You’ll have to be tried again and again for murder for as many times as you do it.”He told the judge that wasn’t fair.“Fair or not, that’s the way it works.How many people have you killed with this supposed free pass?More than two?Three?”
“Three, but I’m not going to tell you about them if you can try me again.That’s just not right.They should explain that better when a person gets out of jail.”He said that he thought everyone understood that it was just him.“I still don’t know how they can try a man for killing again when he paid his dues.I did too.I paid them all when I was in there.I don’t want to go back to prison for any reason.It’s not fair that I’m the only one being punished for this.I’ve known men who come out and kill someone on the same day, and they’re still running around.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who they are, would you?”He asked if the rule would apply to them getting out on the same deal.“Of course, they’ll go back to prison.You just tell me who they are and I’ll take care that they too understand that murder is a crime each time you do it.”
“It’s still not fair.I shouldn’t have to be punished because someone told me wrong.”He asked again about the person, and William told him, even the name of the victim.“I suppose they’re going to have to understand this, too.I think someone needs to make this more clear when they let you out.There’s no telling how many people I would have killed by not understanding the law.I just don’t get it.”
William might well have protested more had he been thinking.But all he could remember was that someone had lied to him about going back to prison.He might well have to remember that when he’s set up with a bad person.Getting himself locked into the van that he’d come here in, he asked about where he was going.They told him he was going to prison just like the judge said.
“He ain’t as nice as I thought he was.Sending me to the big house when I didn’t know that I could get back there.And for murder, too.”He was still fuzzy on the details about getting his daddy’s checks and making them be more, but he’d get to that.Someone somewhere would have him some answers, and he’d get right on that.A bit more money coming his way would be nice when he got out of prison, he thought.Then he’d move into his daddy’s old place, and it would be fit for a king.Yes, sir, he was ready for some changes in his life, starting with more money coming in.
~*~
Molly was never so happy with a hearing as she was the one that got her father put in prison again.Her brothers, too, were going to be spending more time in jail as well.As soon as they were all gone, shefigured that she was going to have a nice little party and celebrate that they were all gone from her life.
“I guess your father made a spectacle of himself when he was explaining to the judge about being put in prison for murder already.”She asked Joey, the officer who had come to tell her about the judgments against them, if people really thought that.“The judge he didn’t think so.He told your daddy right off the bat that no one thought like he did and that everyone knew that murder was a crime that got you tried every time.Your father just didn’t seem to get it.”
“It doesn’t surprise me.He’s always worked rules around to suit himself.Once, when I was little, he had to pay my fees.Or he was supposed to.But since he didn’t have the money, he said that the school should pay for them.He thought the same way about my meals there as well.He sent me to school, and the school was responsible for me during the time I was there.I have never been more embarrassed than that day in my life.”He told her that he could understand that having to spend time with her father.“He’s an idiot.So are my brothers.I’m guessing that the two of them understood that they can’t go around murdering people because they’d gone to prison for it once.”
“No.They got it.I was surprised, too, that the younger one, Seth, agreed to tell on his dad about the three people that he murdered.They didn’t even have to offer him a deal; he just said he knew who they were and said he’d even tell them where the bodies were buried.I think your daddy is going to be in jail for a good long time now that his own kids are against him.”She said that it didn’t surprise her at all.They were all three exactly alike when it came to being smart.They weren’t.“No, they’re not.And the fact that your daddy asked the judge for more money coming on your granddas social security checks after your granddaddy was dead shocked us all.I think he really believes that there is a way for him to get them mailed to him while he’s in jail, too.”
After Joey left, she sat around the house watching the construction workers.They were doing such a good job that she was going to be surprised if they didn’t have it done in the next couple of weeks.She and Kayce had eaten in the kitchen last night at the counters.They were so smooth that she could have laid down on them and not gotten hurt.The other counters had been rough and needed a good top laid on them.These were made of concrete, and she loved them.
“Mrs.Tucker, there is an issue with your bedroom.The master suite.”She asked what sort of problem.“We found some money in the walls.There’s quite a bit of it, too, when it comes down to it.It looks like it’s been there a while, too.And there’s a note with it.From your grannie.”
She wanted to wait until Kayce came home, but he insisted that she go and have a look at what it was now.He was excited, she could hear it in his voice, and wondered why her grannie would be leaving her a note and not grandda.She couldn’t wait to find out what was going on.With her cell phone on video, she talked to Kayce while she was getting ready to look.
“He said it’s a bit of money.Quite a bit is what he said.”He told her to hurry because he wanted to know as well.“I’m going.Don’t rush me.I have no idea why it would be in the walls, so hopefully we’ll know what it’s about when I read the letter that came with it.”
She was handed the missive and told that the money was still being pulled out of the wall.She could see it stacked on one of the wire rolls and knew that she wasn’t going to be able to count it all in one sitting.Then she thought that if it was all ones, this was going to be a good joke on her.She picked up the first rolled stack of money and sat down on the floor.
“It’s all hundreds.There are at least a hundred rolled stacks of money already out, and there is more.She said it would be a good amount of money, but I never dreamed…Kayce, we’re going to be rich enough to pay off everything that we owe and then some.”He asked her to read the letter to him.The workers left her then, and she was glad.If it said it was all counterfeit, she didn’t want any witnesses to her shame.“It starts out with my dearest Molly.”
“I knew that you’d be the one who would inherit the house and the person who would want to have things just so.It sort of got away from us, the house did, and it was too late for us to do much in the way of upgrades.I knew that you’d do this old house well when grandda left it to you.”
“She thinks that grandda is gone and he left it to me.I’m so glad he’s still around so that I can tell him what Grannie had done.”Kayce asked if it explained where the money had come from.“I’mgetting there.Hold on.”She read on.
“I’ve always been lucky when it came to winning money.And I used that luck in having you and someone special that will be with you through all time to have yourself a nest egg.I never told your grandda about it, so he’d not let it slip to the boys.Your father would have beaten him to death for the money that I’ve put aside for you.
“I won three big payoffs.And of course, I took the cash for it all at one time.That way, the taxes have been paid on it from the start.You’ll find the receipts there with the money, so that you have proof that I paid on it.I’d still not tell anyone that you have the money.Just bring it out when you need it so that no one knows.It’s none of their business anyway.”Kayce cleared his throat before speaking.
“Your grannie won all that money and put it aside.I wonder if there was a time that she needed it but didn’t spend it?”Molly said that she didn’t know, but didn’t have too much more to read.“Then read on, my love, so that when I get home, we can bathe in the money.”
She laughed and read on ahead without telling Kayce.As soon as she got to the end of the letter, she told him what it had said.She was fighting tears badly by the time she was able to get out what she’d told her.
“Grannie said that there was never a time when they needed the money more than I would.And that the reason there is so much is because she wanted us, my someone special, to have it for when we redid the house.She said she thinks that there is close to seventy million dollars here with all the lottery money that she won.”She blew her nose and looked at the money still in the wall.“I wonder how she was able to get it into the wall without grandda knowing.I mean, there would have been a big hole in the drywall for her to have put this much money in there.”
She found the receipts for paying the taxes on all that she’d won and put them with the letter for when Kayce came home.Even though she’d told him all about it, she knew he was going to be as surprised as she was for when he saw it.There were a lot of rolls of cash just sitting on top of a wire roll.And more in the wall still yet to be pulled out.That’s when she looked around the room.
