I don’t envy the mechanics who must deal with the day-to-day mess we leave in our cars, even when we drop them off at the shop. When Reader’s Digest rounded up all the most bizarre things mechanics found in cars, there were some doozies, from full litterboxes to graphic magazines to rotting fish heads. But one of the most disturbing stories was about a mechanic who found $60k in cash. Allegedly.

Brian Glastetter now trains automotive technicians in Dallas, Texas. He shared his own shocking stories with Reader’s Digest, including that bizarre pile of rotting fish heads in the back seat of a car in for transmission repair. But he also told a tale a colleague, who’d rather remain unnamed, once told him.

This mechanic was doing a job to a Lincoln which required getting behind the dashboard. He found that a brown paper bag had fallen behind the glovebox. When he took a closer look, he found it packed with $60,000 in cash.

How did that much cash even fit, and how did the mechanic count it so fast? He didn’t say. But I suspect we’re talking about nice compact piles of $100 bills. One “strap” of $100 bills contains $10k, meaning it’s 100 pieces of paper, is just 0.43 inches tall, and weighs a pound. I’ll bet this brown bag contained six straps. That would make it easy to count and small enough to fit behind a glovebox.

The mechanic in question was wise enough not to fiddle with the bag of cash any further. He assumed the owner had wedged his emergency fund behind the glovebox—out of sight of any would-be burglars—and forgotten about it before taking his car to the shop.

So what did the mechanic do? Hurry to the lobby where the Lincoln’s owner was waiting. He politely asked if the customer would rather keep his “valuable” with him. The customer just stared. The mechanic—still wanting no trouble over the cash—took the customer to the shop area. There, he pointed to the disassembled dashboard and the bag behind it.

According to the mechanic, the customer laughed out loud. Then he said, “I thought this was stolen from me. I guess I killed that guy for nothing.”

Yikes! I have so many questions. I’m hoping the customer was just a wisecracker trying to make the mechanic squirm. I suppose he could have been some kind of criminal who did “do away” with someone after misplacing the $60k. But if so, why in the world would he admit it in the middle of a crowded auto shop?

We may never know. But if I ever buy a used Lincoln, the first thing I’m doing is removing the glovebox to see what’s behind it!