CHAPTER 4 #2
Recently retired. Concluding her own career in education as a high school principal, she could now devote her time and energy to conducting her own investigation. She’d spent the last three years combing over incident reports from the police and fire departments from her home in Arizona.
It was time to put boots on the ground. Hers. And get some answers.
She parked on the curb in front of the empty lot where her uncle’s three-story green Edwardian home once stood. Accented with light green painted fish scales and trim. It was a beautiful home in the historic district, originally built in 1904 by the proprietor of the town’s lumberyard.
No expense was spared in its workmanship. The banisters were ornately hand carved, as were the pocket doors with scrolling details.
Though similar to most old homes, rudimentary insulation made it hard to heat and cool during the changing seasons. During the fall and winter, her uncle kept electric space heaters going in his bedroom and sitting room.
Jan got out of her car and leaned her back against the passenger side. She took a moment to stare at the empty lot. It was hard to imagine a thirty-five hundred square-foot home once fit comfortably and so naturally in the space.
She remembered hiring a structural engineer to come and inspect the property after the fire. The second and third floors were so damaged, making the entire home beyond repair. She followed the expert’s advice and had it demolished.
Her uncle loved the home. It was his dream to live in a splotch of local history. Those were his words. “Jan, if you zoom in enough on Google Earth, the green splotch is my home,” he would say.
He even allowed the ladies of the Historical Society of Abilene to come and decorate for the Christmas homes tour every other year.
Those poor ladies had their work cut out.
They featured only four spaces. The entryway to show off the intricate carving details of the bannister, the dining room, the drawing room, and the kitchen.
Only after the clutter was removed and tucked into other spaces, could they begin to even decorate. Uncle Rudy was a packrat in every way.
That’s why the second and third floors went so quickly in the flames. Books, papers, including collections of both Life and Time magazines were stacked in the upstairs bedrooms. In the end, they were fuel to the fire.
It was pure luck an off-duty firefighter drove by and saw the smoke. Without his bravery, her uncle’s body would not have been fit for an open casket.
Jan decided her moment to reminisce was up. She pushed herself off the car and zipped up her jacket. She needed to knock on some doors before the sun went down and the autumn temperature dropped.
* * *
The important documents Lainey mentioned might contain info about a safe deposit box.
Maybe that’s where the coins were now, Mac thought.
He needed to get inside the house when she wasn’t home to snoop.
He’d gained access to the garage when she wasn’t home, but she always locked the door to the house.
She’ll forget one of these days to lock it, he told himself. And he always checked.
Unfortunately, creditors were already at his door.
They’d burned up his phone for the last three years and sent threatening letters, but now he’d been served by multiple process servers.
They were going to take his house, his boat, his truck, his mother’s home, his wife’s car, and anything else they could get.
He’d racked up massive gambling debts, and though he’d gotten control of his addiction to the blackjack and craps tables, the debts remained.
Mac had borrowed from Peter to pay Paul to fend off the creditors, the past three years, but it had caught up. His marriage was practically over. His wife wasn’t visiting her mother, as much as she’d actually moved back in with her and left him to deal with his mess.
Those coins were supposed to fix all this. Those shiny mint Eisenhower silver dollars.
Mac and Geoff first spotted them at Bingman’s house when they’d responded to a life-alert call two months before the fire.
The old man had fallen and was convinced he’d broken his hip. He hadn’t, but having EMT training, they beat the ambulance to his house and let themselves in.
Those gleaming silver dollars were strewn all over the floor in the entryway around the feeble man’s body. The professor had dropped the heavy cardboard box, tripping on the stairs and careening to the floor.
They made sure he was comfortable until the ambulance arrived to check him over before moving him.
While they waited, they picked all the coins up and put them back in the box for him. They didn’t even realize what they were picking up. If only he would’ve slipped a dozen of them in his pockets, his money problems would never have been.
It wasn’t until later, when Geoff had done an inquisitive internet search back at the firehouse that they realized the thousands, maybe millions of dollars they’d grasped in their bare hands only moments before.
They cracked jokes about how ignorant they’d been. They played make believe, dreaming of what they’d buy if they’d stolen the coins. Little did they know, another opportunity would present itself. And the next time, they didn’t pass it up.