Mango Bob (25 page)

Jack interrupted, “A legal repo requires you to have a copy of the title and the lien showing a delinquency. Let's see those things.”

The repo guy said nothing.

“Let's see the paperwork. You do have it don't you?”

The repo guy shook his head. “The client said he'd send the paperwork along with the keys and the payment.

“He sent the payment and the keys, but no papers. I called him, but haven't been able to reach him.

Since he paid me five thousand up front, I figured he'd be good for the paperwork later.”

I looked at the repo guy, “Here's the problem. I'm the legal owner of this motorhome. I have the registration and bill of sale in the glove box.

“So who's the client that's paying you?”

“His name's Tucker. Harvey Tucker.”

I looked at the repo guy, “Harvey Tucker never owned this motorhome. He rented it for a few days from the company that did own it. Probably made a copy of the keys then.

“The company that owned it sold it to me. Tucker has no claim on this motorhome.

“He tricked you into stealing it. You picked it up without the proper paperwork. That means you committed felony theft.

“One more thing. Tucker's dead. You won't be collecting any further payment from him.”

A police car pulled up. The officer rolled down his window. “This the disturbance call?”

“Sure is. This guy stole that motorhome. It belongs to me. We're here to get it back.”

The officer got out of his car and interviewed each of us individually. When he spoke to me, I retrieved the registration and bill of sale from the motorhome. The officer checked the license plate, called it in.

After twenty minutes of interviews, the officer came over to me, “Your story checks out. The repo guy had no legal right to take your vehicle.”

He continued, “It looks like he made an honest mistake. Relied on faulty information. But if you want to press charges, we can do that.”

I thought about it for a moment, “Let me speak to him. See if I can clear this up.”

I went over to the repo guy. “The officer says I can press felony theft charges against you. I haven't decided whether I will or not. Maybe if you answer some questions, it'll help me make up my mind.

“When Harvey Tucker called you, what'd he tell you to do with the motorhome?”

“He said get it to a storage yard and call him. He'd tell me what to do next.”

“What about the GPS tracking info Tucker supplied? ”

“Tucker gave me an internet address and password, which let me log in and see the GPS location of the motorhome. Probably has a GPS tracking box under the hood. Usually on the driver's side, close to the fuse box.”

“Show me.”

We walked over to the coach and I popped the hood.

The repo guy looked in the engine compartment for a moment, then said, “Right there. That little black box with the flashing light.”

I nodded, “How do we disable it?”

“Easy. Disconnect the red wire, then pull the unit off. It's held on with Velcro.”

I disconnected the wire and pulled the tracking unit. The red flashing light continued to blink.

I showed it to the repo guy.

“It has a battery backup. Good for about a week.”

I thought for a moment, then said, “You driving back to Arkansas?”

“Yep.”

“Mind taking this with you? Dropping it into the Mississippi river when you go over the bridge?”

“Yeah, I'll do that.”

“OK. What about the keys Tucker sent you? Let me see them.”

He handed me a set of keys. They were copies of the ones I got with the coach. I put them in my pocket.

“One last question. Why'd you stop at Walmart? Why not keep going until you got further away?”

The repo guy blew his nose, “After I started driving my head stopped up, my nose started running, my eyes were watering. I couldn't hardly breathe.

“I stopped here to get some fresh air, clear my head, get some tissues and eye drops.”

I laughed, “You allergic to cats?”

“I sure am. Don't tell me there's a cat in there.”

“Yep. Name's Mango Bob. Probably still asleep on the bed in the back.

“You stay here. I'm going to check and make sure everything inside is okay, and if it is, I'm not going to press charges.”

The repo guy looked relieved, “I wasn't trying to steal anything, just doing my job.”

I opened the side door and stepped into the coach and walked to the back. Bob was on the bed, sleeping.

Checking the closet and drawers I found everything was where I had left it. Nothing was missing.

Satisfied that the repo man hadn't disturbed anything, I went out and advised the police officer I wouldn't be pressing charges. I thanked him for his time, and he left.

I went over to Jack, shook his hand. “Jack, thank you for your help on this. Hope I didn't ruin your afternoon.”

“No problem. It was fun. Gave me an excuse to get out of the house. Plus I got to meet Sarah. We were talking about you while you were dealing with the police.

“She seems nice. Told me she dumped you in the water this morning. Bet that was fun.”

“Yeah, she's loads of fun.”

“Walker, you know those two guys you tased back in Mississippi? The state police picked them up.

“The car they were in was stolen. And both guys had felony warrants out on them.

“So they won't be getting out on bail. Probably do a few years in Mississippi jails.”

I smiled. “Good for them.”

“Walker, I hate to run, but I need to get back home to Jean. I've promised to take her to dinner this evening. I don't want to be late.

“Oh, and Sarah has invited us out to dinner with you and her next week. Said you'll pay. Jean will be calling to arrange a time.”

I laughed, “Jack, at the very least I owe you dinner. I'll call you later.”

Jack got into his car and drove off.

The repo guy was still there. I asked him, “You need a ride somewhere?”

He shook his head, “Nah, my wife's down here with me. I've called her and she's coming back to get me.

“Even if she weren't coming, I wouldn't get back into that rig. I'm allergic to cats.”

I walked over to Sarah and gave her a hug. “Everything's OK. Bob's safe. Let's go inside and see him.”

63

After settling everything at Walmart, Sarah drove her truck back to Englewood and I followed in the Love Bus. Bob stayed with me.

Driving back was a lot less hectic than the trip over. I was able to relax knowing that Bob was safe and the motorhome was recovered.

Hopefully, this Harvey Tucker business was behind me.

Back at Sarah's, I carefully pulled the motorhome through the gate and parked it in the corner as before.

Then I made a point of closing and locking the gate.

Sarah had gotten back before me and had already unloaded Bob's food and new litter box and had taken it into her apartment.

When she saw me locking the gate, she came out and said, “I'll be coming to get Bob in about ten minutes. In the meantime, get your new clothes out of the truck.”

She then turned and walked back to her apartment. She didn't seem to be in a talkative mood.

I got my new clothes out of her truck and took them into the motorhome. I'd hang them up later.

Bob was waking up, so I gave him a few pets and explained that Sarah would soon be taking him home.

He said, “Murrph.”

A few minutes later, Sarah knocked on my door.

When I opened the door, Sarah said, “Everything's set up. I'm ready for Bob.”

“OK, I'll get him.”

I went to the bedroom and picked Bob up off the bed. When I got back to the motorhome door, Sarah said, “I'll carry him from here.”

I handed Bob over, and she took him to her apartment, closing the door behind her.

I wasn't invited in.

64

I was standing in the boatyard. No invitation by Sarah to come in, no mention of dinner.

Maybe she needed some 'alone time' with Bob.

That was OK with me. There was still two hours of daylight, and I had a few things I wanted to do.

First on my list was to check the website for the GPS tracker. I wanted to be sure it no longer showed the correct location of the Love Bus.

I tapped the address into my cellphone, entered the password, and looked at the display.

It showed the coach was on I-75, moving north toward Tampa.

That was good. Meant anyone who was following the tracker, wouldn't find the coach.

Next on my list was to connect up to shore power and city water. I was becoming an expert at doing this. Only took about five minutes.

Back inside the coach, I checked the system levels. Battery good, propane good. Black water and gray water tanks were three quarters full. Not good.

With the holding tanks nearly full, it was time to dump them or risk sewage backing up into the shower pan.

Outside, I opened the utility compartment door, and quickly found the connection to dump the holding tanks, but no sewer hose. I'd need the hose to connect the motorhome to the sewer pipe in the boat-yard.

Checking in the other compartments, I eventually found a sewer hose. Brown and disgustingly dirty. Looked like someone had dumped sewage directly onto the outside of the hose. And hadn't bothered to clean it up. Nasty.

I remember what Jack had told me about dumping the tanks. He said wear rubber gloves. I now understood why.

I hadn't remembered to purchase rubber gloves, but I was hoping there might be a pair in the coach. Maybe under the bathroom sink.

Back inside I checked. Some cleaning supplies but no rubber gloves.

As I looked around for other places where gloves might be stored, I wondered if there was any storage under the bed. It looked like the platform under the mattress might lift up, revealing storage space.

I checked, and sure enough, it did lift up revealing a large storage area. But no rubber gloves. However, there was a large metal toolbox. Red, with a chrome handle. Maybe I'd find gloves in it.

I reached into the space and grabbed the toolbox by the handle. But it wasn't moving. Either it was glued to the floor or was quite a bit heavier than I expected.

On my second try, I planted my feet firmly and grabbed the box and lifted. Even through it was much heavier than I expected, I was able to lift it out and place it on the floor.

From the weight of the box, I assumed I'd find heavy tools inside. Pipe wrenches, hammers, maybe an anvil.

I flipped up the chrome latch on the toolbox, and opened it. Inside there were no tools. Just two rows of round white tubes. Ten in all.

I'd seen these tubes before. In the briefcase given to Harvey Tucker.

These were the rolls of gold coins he had accepted from the man in the white suit.

And this explained why Tucker had been so interested in getting the motorhome back. He had stashed his gold here.

65

Gold.

Each of the tubes contained twenty gold coins. For a total of 200 ounces of gold. Worth close to half a million dollars.

The question was, who did the gold belong to now?

It was in my possession. And I'd legally purchased the motorhome and presumably everything in it.

So was the gold rightfully mine?

Tucker was probably the only person who knew it was here. And he was dead.

So if I kept it, no one but me would know.

On the other-hand, I didn't want to end up in jail if the gold didn't belong to me.

I decided to call Jack.

After three rings, he answered. “Jack, this is Walker. You got a minute to talk?”

“Sure, what's up?”

“First, thanks for your help today. I don't know what I would have done without you.”

“No problem. Glad to be of assistance.”

“So Jack, I have a question.

“Let's say that hypothetically I found a gold coin in my motorhome. Probably left by Tucker.

“If I found one of those coins, what should I do about it?”

Jack thought a minute, then said, “Hypothetically speaking, if you were to find a gold coin in the motorhome, I'd say you should keep it. And don't tell anyone about it.

“You bought the motorhome and everything in it. That should cover anything left by the previous owner.”

“Seems like the only person who could claim ownership of the coin would be Tucker. But he's dead and has no relatives. That means there's no one left to make a claim.

“So, I'd keep it. This is all hypothetical, right?”

“Yeah, right. Just wondering what I should do if I stumbled onto one of those coins.”