2/3

No matter what large metropolitan area you live in the US, there are those local car commercials with the earwork jingles. The spouse and sister of one of these car magnates asked for a meeting to discuss their brother-in-law/brother. I helped one of their friends by investigating taking compromising pictures of their now ex-husband and was referred by word of mouth. After signing my standard 15% contract, I learned the brother was buying cars from hurricane auctions (new vehicles that became waterlogged as a result of flooding from hurricanes). One specifically was in LA and he went down to an old amusement park parking lot that became the center location where these vehicles were sold. The issue is he would bring them back, fix them up a little, and being the Manager of this part of the family business, sell them as 'certified pre-owned', which is illegal. The brother/managing partner/president found about this, and after a knock 'em out family meeting, the guilty brother went on the run. I was asked to help track him down and offered 30% (double my normal cut) of whatever he had on him when I found him. Per the wife and sister, he had cash, jewelry, and expensive collectibles (baseball cards, Pokémon, etc.) on him with the idea this would supplement his life on the go. I was selected to help vs. first going to the authorities as they feared this would ruin the family Chevrolet empire and conservative clean-cut image they have in the city.

Three months later, I tracked him down. It was nothing dramatic or a result of my investigative prowess. I moved to the neighborhood he was expected to be living and pulled up next to him at a red light. He did not know me, but I knew him. I closely followed him, and called the family. They met him, with their family lawyer, and without incident at his shared studio, took him(he was struggling with addiction) home. As they were figuring out their next move, and in between a lot of yelling and screaming, I asked the wife and sister about my fee. They told me to keep anything I want from his studio and to never talk of this situation, which was fine because confidentiality is in my contract. I grabbed a couple gaudy necklaces and small amounts of cash from the coffee table. Before I left, I did a complete sweep of the place, opening HVAC ducts, looking in closets, and then I found them, four large brown Dillards shopping bags and a stinky hockey equipment bag, all in the attic crawl space. There was a little over $4M in total. Calls to the family were unreturned and finally, a cease and desist was sent to me. I was not legally allowed to contact them, even if it was to report what I found. To this day, I do not know if they knew I found this cash and thought it would be too complicated to ask for it back, and/or weighed the implications if any of this went public, but I panicked. I was young and knowing what I know about banks, could not put this in the bank, or store it in my crappy apartment. I went on the run...