It Fell From the Sky
How I Found the Love of My Life
It was a Tuesday like any other, at least it started out that way. The year was 1979. I was on my way home from work. I had stopped at the store first, so it was later than usual. That's important to know as it was that timing that changed my life forever.
I live 5 miles out of town with mostly dirt roads still. No street lights and mostly dense forest with cabins about a block or so between each other. I lived in one of those cabins. Because of my stop at the store, it started to get dark and I was still a ways from home. I hate driving in the dark and to make things worse, it started to rain, the other thing I hate to drive in. This increased my stress two fold. I already had a long day at work, but I was out of a few needed items at home and couldn’t wait until I had a day off to take care of my shopping.
Back to my story. I was getting closer to home and feeling a little relief, when all of a sudden something fell on the hood of my car. As if it had fallen from the sky. I swerved and ended up off the road and into the bank. I got out to see what it was. I had to look around to find it with my flashlight, but I found it. It was a black leather bag. I was soaked and it was too. I put it in my trunk and managed to get my car out. I made my way home and took in my groceries and poured myself a drink. I was still shaken up from the event. After a while I decided to bring in the bag and see what was in it. It was still pouring rain, but I couldn’t let that stop me. This bag nearly killed me. I needed to know what was in it and maybe find out how it ended up falling on my car in the middle of nowhere.
I brought it in and sat it on the table. I noticed that it was a good quality bag. Probably very expensive. I hesitated, as I felt I was about to violate someone's personal things, but how else will I be able to find out who’s bag it was. I opened it up and the first thing I saw was some stuffed animals. I took them out and found a nice cloth shopping bag. It was when I looked in the bag that things changed for me. Money, and lots of it. I counted out the 5’s, 10’s and 20’s to get a total of $20,000. But still no idea of who’s bag it could be. I kept looking in the bag. I found a shirt and some jogging clothes and then I found a little black book. Perhaps this could tell me whose bag this was. But it seemed to be in code. I spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out what it all meant, but it was late and I still had work the next day. I tried to sleep but didn’t get much. I asked my boss if I could leave a little early as I needed to go to the Library. I wanted to get some books on secret codes and how to decipher them. I found 5 books to check out. I couldn’t wait to get to work on this mystery. I love mysteries. Sir Auther Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was my favorite. To be part of a mystery was so exciting. I spent the next few days trying to figure out what was in the book.
I know what you are thinking, why didn’t I turn it into the police. After all, if I lost my bag with $20,000 cash in it I would go to the police to find it. Thing is, I could tell that this wasn't dear Aunt Rose’s bag. It was likely money from a bank robbery or drug money or something that wasn’t all on the up and up. Anyway, the cops in this town would likely have kept the money themselves and thrown out the rest. Besides, I was finely having fun for a change. I was a loaner back then and didn’t really have any friends.
After a few more days I finally found the code they had used in the book. Now to decipher it. That took a few more days of work. I even called out sick on Monday so I could get it solved as soon as possible. The first page was full of names and numbers. Only the numbers were too short for a phone number, but were not written as money. If it was money, it was a lot of it.
The numbers were in groups, like 43678004 or 326679. What did they mean. I kept working on the book. When it came to me. This must be a bookies book. There were names that were those of horses in the race form. I had been to a race or two with my dad as a kid and would often look at the race page in the newspaper. But no way of knowing who it was, so no need to return it. Right? I could have just been happy with the gift of the money and the fun of learning about codes and call it a day, but I didn’t. I was at the pub early on a Saturday, when I heard someone talking about a man who was killed falling out of a plane. I jumped in and asked what day it was, as if I had to ask. So the bag was likely a dead man’s bag. That was when I went to the FBI. They were the ones investigating the case. I gave them the book. I didn’t tell them that I broke the code and I didn’t say anything about the money. How would they know about the money?
They listened to my “story” about how I had just come across the book and heard about the man they had found not far from where I had found it. I could tell they knew I wasn’t telling everything, but they let me go, for now. I had given them my name, phone number and address, as I didn’t think I could tell them no.
It was nearly 10:00 pm and I was already in bed when I heard a loud knock on my door. I jumped up and got dressed and went to the door. It was the FBI. They asked if they could come in, again I should have said NO. It was late and I had work the next day, but I let them in. I had the money safely hidden in a couple of shoe boxes, among all the other shoe boxes I had. Some had shoes in them, some old pictures and two had $10,000 each in them. For some reason I kept the bag I had found that night. When they came across it, they asked me about where I got such a high end bag, as it really didn’t fit with the rest of the things I had. I lived very modestly. I told them I had found it not far from the book, but didn’t think it was important. Then I told them that I really needed to get some sleep and asked them to leave. They did, but I knew they would be back. They didn’t see the papers that I had written on when decoding the book. I was grateful for that. I looked through them again to see if I had missed something. I noticed that on the bottom of each page the same word appeared. Flamingo was on every page. Not in the same spot, but in the bottom line. I had been to Los Vegas before an The Flamingo was a casino there. Could that be why that word was in the book and where the person was from who fell, jumped or pushed out of a plane? I was sure the FBI would be back. I needed to make sure if they decided to search my house, as I knew they didn’t believe I was telling the full truth, they wouldn’t find anything. I sent the pages that I had all the notes on in a letter to myself addressed to my mom’s house. Then I took the money out and put it in a safety deposit box at my bank.
I knew I never should have turned in the book. The FBI didn’t bother me anymore. I guess they were able to get what they needed from the book. It took me years before I went to my safety deposit box to get the money. I decided to finely spend it. I got myself a plane ticket, took all my saved vacation days and traveled Europe. It was in Sweden that I met the girl of my dreams. We were wed after only knowing each other for a few days. After returning home to settle my affairs, I moved to Sweden. We now have 3 beautiful children. I have a better job then I did in the states and it was all possible because I had to stop at the store before I went home on a Tuesday night.
About the Creator
Connie Sahlin
I am new to writing, at least for others to read. I hope that you will like some of what I write.
I am starting the next chapter of my life and putting myself out of my comfort zone, this is part of it.
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