The Plodder's Mile

By Dane Allred

If you found a hundred thousand dollars, would you turn it in to the police? Or would you figure out a way to keep it? John Graham has a dilemma, but through his artistic creativity, he may get to keep most of the money.
But Raymond Johnson went to a lot of trouble to steal that money from a bank, and he won’t let anyone stand in the way of getting it back. Not his partner or anyone else.
Not even Police Captain Greg Jones.
Jones has had major crime in his little town before, but with the help of local reporter Paula Rogers, everything may get sorted out.
This fast paced book has a twist at every turn; a crime drama which will keep you turning page after page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dane Allred
• Release date: Jul 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452415970

Dane Allred

Dane Allred teaches Theatre Foundations, Film History, and Technical Theatre classes at Payson High School. He is also adjunct faculty at Brigham Young University where he teaches Public Speaking. A high school version of his public speaking course is also available through BYU's Independent Study. He has been married for 33 years and has two daughters. Dane has appeared in over 30 movies, 50 stage productions and has directed more than 70 drama productions. An award-winning gardener, he loves working in his yard, selling some of the plants on Ebay, and ships them around the world. A very slow marathon runner, he has completed the St. George Marathon three times. His personal best is two hours slower than the winner of the race.

Book preview

The Plodder’s Mile

by Dane Allred

published by Dane Allred at Smashwords

© 2011 copyright

Dane Allred

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Dane Allred

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CHAPTER ONE

Tommy loomed over the bank teller; a giant compared to any other customer Judy had helped that day.

He was taller than anyone she had seen in a month or two, yet the innocent eyes and gentle demeanor softened the effect. Tommy looked like a big teddy bear, waiting for a hug, but today he stood filling the teller’s window with his massive frame. He held a note in his hand, and though he handed it to Judy without hesitation, the writing belied the intent of the transaction.

Judy had worked for the bank for several years now, putting her husband through college and waiting for the day when she could quit, follow him to his next chapter in life and… do what? Probably get work at another bank, have children, build a home and settle into married life.

As she mechanically went through the motions of each day’s work, Judy didn’t really engage the mental powers of her business degree, and didn’t invest much emotion in the performance of her job. She wanted the paycheck, and wondered at times if this was all there really was to life. She read the note, and her life changed in an instant.

Tommy pushed back a shock of blond hair. He didn’t really understand what was going on, and had pushed the note to the teller under orders from Ray, his new best friend. Tommy usually did what other people told him to do, not thinking through the consequences. This gentle giant had been placed in state care early in his life by parents who couldn’t feed or care for someone with his needs. The state then placed him in several institutions trying to find the right fit for a massive man-child who wanted nothing more than to please. Ray had found the combination of trusting child-like passivity and Tommy’s massive frame irresistible as a partner in crime.

If Ray could only get Tommy to just pass the note without speaking.

Tommy spoke. We’re going riding on a train.

Judy looked up with fear in her eyes, never expecting this to happen to her, never expecting a man like Tommy to do something like this in a place so well protected with guards, cameras and secret alarms. She looked down at the note again. Go to the vault and bring out one large package of one hundred dollar bills. A gun is pointed at you to make sure you don’t cause no trouble.

Judy looked at Tommy, and he looked blankly back.

She did a quick survey of the lobby, and there against the wall under one of the cameras was a short dirty looking man. He was looking directly into her eyes, and seemed to be poking the pocket of his jacket toward her. She glanced at the jacket, assumed there was a gun, and the man under the camera slowly shook his head up and down. Judy looked back at Tommy.

We’re going on the train to Rockwood. Have you ever been to Rockwood?

Judy was at once terrified and mystified. The giant in front of her was unaware of her agitation, but the man with the gun knew she faced a decision. One large package of one hundred dollar bills meant the hundred thousand pack most banks receive from the federal reserve. She took a deep breath and tried to remember what she had been trained to do in this situation. She glanced once more at the pocketed gun and then slowly went to the safe.

Judy’s teller training had included several responses to just such an attempted robbery. She was to push the silent alarm button under her desk, or if prompted to go to the safe, to push the notification button in there. No alarms would sound, but the management would receive notification, and the guards would be put on alert.

Bank officials rarely lost any cash in robberies, and most companies worried about personal injury and the death of spectators, employees, or criminals more than the cash. The money that was lost was insured and could be replaced, but a life couldn’t be brought back. With the advanced technology available, robberies were usually a failure. Face recognition software, bank cameras, street cameras, and an alerted staff were usually all that was necessary for recovery of the cash.

But Judy was still unnerved. A threat had been made against her life, and the threat of the huge man at her window only drove the point home. She followed protocol and walked to the safe, pushed the button, grabbed the heavy package and walked back to the window.

Judy handed Tommy the money. She held it with both hands and placed it in his massive right hand. He palmed the package like a ball, and tossed it up in the air. A thousand one hundred dollar bills. The brown paper wrapping had official markings, but Tommy wasn’t impressed. He looked at Judy and only said one word.

Football.

One foot plodded after the other as the endless railroad ties passed under John Graham’s feet. The man whose breath cut a jagged path behind him as his feet thumped the ground liked to think of this type of running as plodding. Not really running, or even jogging, but more simply plodding along. He had even developed a name for this pace. He called it the plodder’s mile. One foot in front of the other. Plod on, mighty exercise king. Keep plodding and imagine it is running, and tell everyone else it is jogging. But to yourself, never be ashamed to plod along this path. One foot, and then another.

Plodding along on the west side of town was always good for reducing stress, and John Graham liked the railroad tracks. He always thought back to the days of running through tires for the one year he played football, although the team probably didn’t really use tires, but was just a cultural imprint from all those football movies he had watched. Bill-paying stress was one of the usual causes of jogging on the tracks, and at least once a month out came the plodding shoes. He and his wife Reba had just finished the you spend too much money discussion which usually followed the monthly bill payment routine.

Heated discussion.

Argument.

Battle.

World War III.

Funny how the person doing the accusing always said the other person spent too much, which was answered with, No, you spend too much.

Both of which were probably true. As a high school drama teacher, the money wasn’t bad now after twenty years, unless they had to live on only that money, which they didn’t. Reba was a high school administrator, and although they had spent the last twenty-five years wondering where all the money went, there was never enough even when they were making six figures between them. With part-time work, selling things on E-bay and extracurricular pay, they really didn’t have anything to complain about. But they both still complained. Loudly. Once a month.

It was probably a good thing they were only paid once at the end of the month, since this tended to limit the argument to the first few days of the next month. The rest of the time was spent in a truce where they both waited for the final days before payday, reconnoitering on just how to spend some of the money on an absolutely necessary item to which the other spouse could not possibly object. There were good days, and bad ones, and bad months, (especially August) but most of the other three hundred and sixty-five days were spent monitoring each other’s borders like North and South Korea, waiting for an infraction.

There’s no more money in the account, had been one of his last salvos, which was followed by a broad shot by Reba, Why do you keep writing checks when you say there is no money in the account?

The strategy board after all these years now included five different checking or savings accounts – more places to hide money. They both had plenty, and there was no argument about the fact there was plenty to go around. The war was only about where does it all go?

John crossed over the river and looked out at the fields which were white with the new snow. It had melted some as the afternoon snow had turned to rain, and the slush left in the fields looked like a freshly cut white alfalfa crop ready to winnow and then bale. The air was crisp and the temperature just right, cold enough to balance the heat created as he plodded along wondering why he felt so crummy. He really didn’t have anything to complain about, and if money was the biggest problem they faced this year, it would be a good year indeed. Breathing in the frosty air, John thought back ten years as he was sitting at Reba’s bedside in the hospital, where he had been telling her to keep breathing, to wake up, keep breathing and keep trying.

The cancer treatments and the pain medications had left her numb in the fingers and toes, but ten years out she was still free and clear of any recurring cancer. But those days back in the hospital had changed him forever, even to the point of welcoming her restless tossing and turning at night which kept him awake while she slept. Better to be kept awake by tossing and turning than sleeping alone. He was grateful to still have his wife and the mother of his children around.

So why the discontent? He looked at a perfectly contented horse eating out of a trough at the side of a field. As he jogged past, he noticed the light rain had again turned to snow. The back of the horse was steaming while the snow fell slowly. The horse’s dark coat contrasted with the light of the snow on its back helped him to summarize this train of thought — while there is life, there is opposition — and that’s what makes life worth living.

Even the exercise of jogging opposed the sensible idea of sitting in the house while the snowfall fed the thoughts of opposition. Gravity and weight versus the muscles, which would undoubtedly be sore tomorrow, would produce better health and flexibility. If the literature was to be believed, and John actually kept running during the year, and he completed a fourth marathon, his risks of heart attack would decrease over the next five years. But there was always the uncertainty. Jog on the railroad tracks, get lost in your thoughts, get hit by a train, and all that exercise was for nothing. He thought of a bumper sticker. The light at the end of the tunnel is from the oncoming train.

Which made John realize there was a train in the distance, and if he wanted the benefits of this particular cardio-vascular exercise, he would have to get off the tracks for a couple of minutes. He turned aside at another bridge and went under the tracks, jogging comfortably on a running trail which ran by the river. There was a water fountain at a park just half a mile ahead, and then, after a long cold drink, it would be time to jog back home.

CHAPTER TWO

Tommy sat in the railroad car turning the bundle over and over again in his hands. Smaller than a shoebox, it contained something very solid, and the brick seemed to weigh almost ten pounds. A strong and very tall man, Tommy had no problem hefting the weight in his hands, tossing it up and down, then from side to side, then rolling it over from top to bottom, then back again.

Ray didn’t have the patience that seemed to come naturally with Tommy’s mental challenges. Although easily amused, it was also easy for Tommy to irritate Ray. Give me that, you idiot, Ray whispered to Tommy a bit too loudly, since the other three passengers in the car looked up to see if Ray was going to reprimand his big friend again. Ray smiled and asked a little too politely, Could you give me that for a minute, Tommy?

I like playing with it, Raymond. Tommy held the package close as if protecting a pet. It’s like a really heavy football, and I feel like I’m one of those catching guys on the football team.

The little girl, the girl’s mother and the businessman turned to look at Ray. Over the last hour they had seen several tantrums, cajolings, negotiations, and stand-offs over the package. Ray realized he would need to get rid of this unwanted attention.

Tommy, you do look like one of those football guys, but not the receiver, Ray intoned in a child-like voice. You look like the quarterback, the guy who throws the ball.

Immediately Tommy lifted the package for a forward pass, which brought Ray to his feet. But, sometimes, Tommy, he said getting closer to the towering Tommy, sometimes the quarterbacks pretend to throw and just hand-off the ball. Although shorter than Tommy by at least a foot, Ray sidled up to the quarterback and took the hand-off, and excused himself into the next car. Tommy followed like a puppy.

As soon as the door shut, Ray pulled Tommy closer, which also meant lower. Listen you big stoop, said the little man. You drop this package and it breaks, there won’t be no money for us to spend later. Those people in there, you think they’re just going to sit there while money flies around the train?

The idea seemed to have an appeal to Tommy, who reached again for the package. No, Tommy, we are not going to throw the money around the train. I want you and me to spend the money, not them, so I am going to keep a hold of it for a while, okay?

Tommy slumped into another seat, with his lower lip protruding in a pout. He rehearsed the rules he had learned on this train ride. Don’t talk about the money, don’t say the word money, don’t talk about what you are gonna spend the money on, don’t play with the money…Why do there have to be so many rules? Ray sat down next to Tommy to whisper more instructions.

Stop saying the word money.

But you just said money.

That’s because you said it four times in a row.

But then you said it, so I can say it, too. Money, money, money, money…

Ray knew there was no hope in winning an argument with Tommy, so the next best thing was to distract him. Out came the yo-yo, which Tommy had yet to master. But he could spend hours flinging the yo-yo down and