On The House

The house looked old and weathered, not unlike Grandpa Jon when Jack had last seen him. Once warm and inviting, today it stood cold and empty with no one to welcome him, no Grandma to stuff him with warm food, no Grandpa to tell him stories by the fire. Jack had stopped by briefly before Grandpa’s funeral, but this was the first time he really took to examine the house. His house.

Grandpa Jon built it decades ago, long before Jack was born. He cut the trees, planed them and built the house with his own two hands. Jack grew up there after his parents wrapped their car around a tree one cold night in January, some twenty years ago. Ten-year-old Jack then moved in with his grandparents on the outskirts of Taffey, just north of Indianapolis.

The old Formica table had been replaced by a square wooden one with four chairs. That, too, was old now. Jack breathed in a mild, musty scent. How long, he wondered, had it been since Grandpa, or anyone, had cleaned the house? He dragged a finger across the counter to reveal a fine layer of dust.

The quiet rumble of a car on the road quickly turned to muted tires on the dirt driveway. He wondered who would know he was there. Of course, everyone knew. Taffey was still a small town. On his way to the door, he noticed the layer of dust in the living room. The light tap of heels up the front stairs stopped just as he pulled the door open.

She stood at the top of the stars, not six feet away, beautiful as ever. Auburn brown hair hung just over her shoulders framing soft red lips above a charcoal blouse. A thin, black belt cinched dark gray slacks. Black pumps nosing out from below the cuffs finished the ensemble. Jack always had a crush on her in high school, but she was “Miss Popularity,” going steady with the captain of the football team. Jack was the odd man out there, just like everywhere. He was the guy who just never fit in. So what was she doing here?

“Denise,” he said.

“Hi Jack.” Her voice sweet as lemongrass.

“Nice to see you, Denise.” Jack, nervous as a teenager, fumbled for words. “I…uh, what…um…?”

“I heard you were in town,” she said, “I thought you might be here.”

“It’s nice to see you.”

“Do you mind if I come in?”

“Well, uh, sure.” He stepped aside and motioned. “But I’ve got to warn you, it’s pretty dusty in here.”

“I bet.” Her head bobbed lightly as she looked around the room. “I’ve always wondered about this place. We used to drive by as teenagers sometimes.”

“I remember,” he said. He also remembered the hoots and hollers that would sometimes go with them. He hoped she hadn’t participated in that. “What brings you by?”

“Nothing in particular,” she said. “I heard you were back from California. Just wanted to say hi.”

“Um, can I get you something?”

“I don’t suppose you have a glass of wine by any chance?”

“Not likely,” he said. “But I think I know where there’s a fine bottle of scotch. That is, if he still kept it in the same place.”

***

Jack wasn’t entirely sure why he decided to go up to the attic. Maybe because Grandpa had insisted that he stay out of it. Of course, Grandpa would go up there every now and again. Jack had learned to just leave it alone. But he never stopped being curious.

He and Denise had sat up sipping last night, then sipping harder, on Grandpa’s good scotch, a thirty-year old Talisker from the Isle of Skye. He felt like he had said some things he probably shouldn’t have but couldn’t remember a word of them. He figured she probably had, as well. Denise took off around one, and Jack fell asleep on the couch. He hadn’t wanted to drive Grandpa’s old pickup with its bad headlights and worn brakes back to Adam’s in the dark.

Tucked in the corner among the old wiring and insulation sat a dirty, worn rucksack. Jack sat cross-legged on a beam, careful not to poke a foot through the ceiling. A plume of dust swelled up when he hoisted the backpack over. He blew the sooty air away, unwound the heavy laces holding it closed and peeled the top open. Nothing but old clothes. He pulled them out to reveal a stack of old newspapers. Jack took those out and quickly flipped through them. Why save old newspapers? He laid them gently on the slats. The only other item left in the backpack was a shoebox. He took it out, placed it on his lap and took off the top.

A classified ad clipped from a newspaper lay on top of a bunch of pictures. The headline read, “Call for Fieldhands.” It invited laborers to show up on a particular date at a particular time for a “big job,” and to “bring tools.” The pictures were of a building by a park. Some were of a river; some of the building with the river in the background; some of the park; different angles of the building, up close and from a distance. Below the pictures, he found a small black notebook. Apparently, Grandpa was a man with a lot of secrets. Jack opened the notebook and flipped through the first few pages. Blank, then a page with different times of day on it. He had circled one of the times. Another page held a drawing of a boat dock. It looked like one of the pictures. He flipped through a few more pages, and found himself looking at two, one-hundred dollar bills.

They were flat and crisp to the touch. Jack set the two bills beside him on the beam. He flipped a couple more pages and found another pair of hundred dollar bills. Jack flipped quickly through the book and saw numerous green flashes. How much money was in there? And where did it come from? No wonder Jack hadn’t been allowed in the attic.

***

“A bank robber?” Denise’s voice cracked. Her eyes probably would have fallen out of head, if they could. “Your grandfather was a bank robber?”

She sat opposite him at the kitchen table, same as where they sat last night drinking scotch. Even with the strained pitch, her voice sent a tingle down Jack’s spine. Whatever scent she wore smelled like fresh cut flowers.

“Not a bank robber,” Jack said with certainty. “The bank robber.” He waited a moment for it to sink in. Or maybe because he could hardly believe it himself. “From what I’ve got here, it looks he robbed the Second First Bank back in ’64.”

“The Second First Bank?” Denise’s voice didn’t crack this time. “People still talk about that. I think they--he got away with around a hundred thousand.” Her fingers tapped on the tabletop. “How…how much is there?”

“Twenty thousand.” Jack held the pile of hundred-dollar bills in his hand, rubbing the top with his thumb. The shoebox with pictures and the little black notebook sat on the table, the backpack on the chair beside him.

“Twenty thousand,” she said. “I wonder what happened to the other eighty.”

Jack looked around the room, then at Denise. “I think that’s what he used to buy the land, build the house, finance his farming. He used to go up in the attic sometimes. I tried to follow him once. It was the only time Grandpa ever got angry with me. I never tried again after that.”

“Wow.” Denise shook her head. “Do you think he robbed any other banks?”

Jack burst into a hearty laugh and pounded his hand on the table. Grandpa a bank robber? It couldn’t be, could it?

“I still can’t believe,” he said, “that my grandfather robbed a single bank, much less a string of them.” He looked at the bottle of scotch still on the table from last night. They had done some serious damage. “I guess we’ll never know.”

“It’s a mystery,” Denise said. “What are you going to do with the money?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s stolen, so do I need to turn it in? Do you think they’ll take the house away from me?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure,” she said. “But I worked in a law office for a while after college. It’s been so long I think it’s past any statute of limitations. Besides, no one knows but us. Are you sure he robbed the bank? He could’ve just stashed the money away and didn’t want you to know about it.”

“I suppose he could have,” Jack said. “He never liked banks. But how do you explain this?”

Jack showed her the pictures of the bank and the park beside it, the timetables, pictures of the boat dock, old newspapers with stories about the robbery, the ad for fieldhands to meet at the park one Thursday back in 1964. That was particularly relevant because, as the story goes, the bank robber put out an ad for fieldhands to meet in the park next to the bank for some big job. The bank robber also dressed as a fieldhand. He then proceeded to rob the armored car when it pulled up then locked the guards in the back. The robber disappeared into the crowd then slipped away on a boat down the White River, a hundred yards from the First Second Bank of Indiana. Grandpa was farmer, Jack thought. And if he wasa fieldhand, that wouldn’t explain the twenty thousand dollars.

“It’s pretty convincing.” Denise straightened up in her chair. “I think we just solved the mystery of who robbed the First Second Bank of Indiana. Your grandfather.”

“Should we drink to that?” Jack said. Denise put a hand on the back of her head and mouthed the word no. Jack nodded and said, “Yeah, me too. How about dinner, then?”

“I don’t think you should go spending that money. I mean, you might need it, like your grandfather did.”

“Oh,” Jack said. “Don’t worry about that. I think we can scam a free dinner.”

“You have connections somewhere?”

“Absolutely,” Jack said. “Adam Graye is kind of like my godfather. In fact, I’m staying with him for the time being.”

“Adam Graye’s Grille and Oyster Bar? I love that place.”

“Great.” Jack stood up and pushed his chair back in the process. “You can be my date for the evening. And it’ll be on the house.”

“Sounds delightful,” she said, “but don’t you think you should put the money away?” Maybe the pictures and whatnot?”

Jack stuffed it the money, the book, the pictures, the newspapers, into the backpack, took it upstairs and left it back in the attic where he had found it.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

When Jack and Denise stepped onto the porch, she looked at Grandpa’s beat-up old pickup truck then at her year-old, metallic blue Volkswagen Jetta.

“I’ll drive,” she said.

Jack gazed up at the clear night sky, the stars, the crescent moon rising, then looked over at the oversized ash tree in the front yard, the tufts of grass, the hard pan dirt drive. This was all his now. He had his work cut out for him. But tonight, he had a date. And twenty thousand dollars that could buy him out of trouble.

Thank you, Grandpa, he thought, as he crossed the drive to Denise’s Jetta.