The Box
Tony called Luke Dale to make sure he’d be at home at two o’clock when he planned to be there. Dale said he was a guard on the night shift at Norfolk State Prison and would be home until three o’clock in the afternoon. Tony then walked into his office off the family room and unlocked the wall safe in the office closet. After fumbling around through the safe’s contents, he pulled out his baptism certificate from St. Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Church on Mendon Road. Dale had asked Tony to bring some proof that Gerard Papineau was his father. That information was on the baptism certificate, along with the address on Little Pond where they lived.
At one-thirty in the afternoon, he drove his 2008 Lexus 300 SUV up Route 295 to the Route 114 exit in Cumberland. A half-mile off the exit ramp on Diamond Hill Road was one end of Little Pond County Road. The road extended nearly three miles and connected to Nate Whipple Highway at the other end. The old farm was halfway on Little Pond and Tony noticed several horses loose in a corral on the property. He parked his car in the driveway near the house, got out of the car, and walked toward the front door of the two-story cottage. The weather was sunny and warm this May afternoon as he rang the doorbell. The front door was open and all that stood between Tony and the man approaching from inside was a screen door.
“You must be Dr. Antoine Papineau?” Dale asked.
“The house looks in great shape. Call me Tony. I don’t practice anymore, so I don’t need people to be so formal.”
“Come on in. Before we go too far though, can I see some kind of proof that you’re the right guy I’m looking for?”
“I brought my baptism certificate from 1948 from St. Joan of Arc on Mendon Road. I hope that’s enough? It has both my mother and father’s name on it, and the date of my baptism, which should match the time we owned this property. The address is also shown on the certificate.”
“Perfect. You’re the guy.”
He followed Dale through the living room to the kitchen. Just off the kitchen was a staircase leading to the second floor.
“Oh boy, does this bring back memories from way back. Even though I only lived in the house for about five years, I remember it like it was yesterday.”
“C’mon upstairs with me and I’ll show you where we found the box. It got me wondering if there were other secret rooms in the house, but we checked and didn’t find any.”
“I remember we had three bedrooms upstairs and a pretty big bathroom with double-door closets in the bathroom.”
“That’s the way we had it too, until my son got married and moved to Houston to work for the space program late last year. We don’t need two guest rooms, so we decided to make our bedroom bigger. Here’s what we found.”
Tony walked into what used to be his parents’ bedroom. Dale showed him the closet in that room. They walked into the closet and at the far end of the walk-in storage area Dale showed him where a wooden wall had been. Dale had assumed it was a solid wall. But when that wall was knocked down, another small room appeared before the son’s bedroom.
“There was nothing else in the room but the metal box,” Dale explained. “The box is downstairs. Which bedroom were you in?”
“My brother Bill and I shared this one across from the bathroom. It was nice, kind of small, but nice. The one your son was in belonged to my sisters. They were older than me.”
Luke Dale could see Tony’s eyes begin to water up as they began the descent to the main level. He was happy to hear that former owners had pleasant memories of their time at the farmhouse. When they reached the kitchen, Dale picked up the metal box from a corner of the room and plopped it on the kitchen table.
“Well, here it is. I doubt you have a key for the lock, so you’ll likely need something to cut the lock off, maybe a hacksaw or some kind of metal cutters.”
“I will let you know what I find. I can’t wait to see what’s in it,” Tony added.
He picked up the box and shouted, “Well, you can eliminate gold bullion. It’s too light for that.”