Chapter Fourteen
Over the next few days, Ben and Kyle worked diligently to get the house in order. They worked well as a team and were no strangers to manual labour. It was especially satisfying working for themselves for a change. The place was dusted, scrubbed, and polished. They bound up fourteen large garbage bags filled with old junk and hauled them out to the curb.
“Are you sure the garbage collectors will take all this?” Kyle asked.
“I’m not sure; I’ve never owned a house before.”
They did an inventory of the house, but did not find anything of value. Nor did they find any of Mr. Gringer’s personal effects. Any letters lying around were just junk mail and not assigned to anyone specifically. It was as if the previous owner had just vanished one night without leaving a trace. It was a peculiar mystery indeed; one that Ben had a hard time wrapping his head around.
He stayed indoors mostly, only leaving when necessary. One such trip was to a pawnshop where he pawned the jewellery he had stolen from his old apartment building. It was the only money they had and it was keeping him and Kyle afloat until they found work. It was enough to get the electricity turned back on and for Ben to buy a cheap computer from the pawnshop. Due to the recent events in his life, Ben was actually inspired to start writing again. It had been over a week since he last touched a keyboard, and he was brimming with new ideas.
Ben sat at the dining room table; he had been writing all morning. During a break, he opened up a browser and typed ‘Charles Gringer’ into a search engine. When the results populated, Ben could not believe his eyes.
“Hey, Kyle, check this out,” Ben said.
“What is it?”
“Read this.”
“Charles Gringer of Calgary wins Alberta’s largest lotto jackpot — twenty-two million dollars,” Kyle read the headline aloud. He then skimmed the rest of the article. “So Charles Gringer, a man who you claim to have never met, wins the lottery, dies the next day, and then for no apparent reason, decides to leave everything to an orphan kid from Cold Lake, who presumably he has no relation to.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Ben said.
“Where’s the twenty-two million? Shouldn’t you get that too?”
“Not sure, maybe he gave it away to charity.”
“Aren’t you his charity of choice?”
“Maybe he buried it in the backyard.”
“This guy was old, right? Maybe all that digging gave him a heart attack.”
Kyle was half kidding, but still, it was a possibility. They both looked at each other and then bolted to the backyard. They paced around like a couple of hounds sniffing out a trail. Unfortunately, there were no disturbances in the land. If Charles Gringer hid the money, it certainly was not in the backyard. Disappointed, the boys sauntered back into the house and contemplated their next plan.
“Wouldn’t the obvious explanation be that this Gringer guy is related to you somehow?” Kyle said.
“I thought about that, and it still might be a possibility, but it doesn’t explain why he would do such a kind act for me at the end of his life. Why not reach out to me earlier?”
“Who knows? Maybe he just recently found out you were his grandson or something.”
“Hmm, I doubt it.”
“I’ve got an idea. Follow me,” Kyle said.
“Where are we going?”
Kyle did not respond. He simply marched out the front door, down the porch steps, and across the yard to the neighbour’s house.
“Kyle, what are you doing?” Ben asked.
“I’m going to get some answers. Somebody in this neighbourhood must have known him.”
Kyle pulled back the screen on the neighbour’s front door and gave three hard knocks. They only waited a moment before someone answered.
“Yes, what can I do for you?” an old lady asked. She looked slightly nervous that two unfamiliar young men who did not appear to be selling anything were standing on her doorstep.
“Hello ma’am, my name is Kyle Watson and this here is Benjamin Owen. We just moved in next door and wanted to introduce ourselves.”
“Well, hello. I’m Gladys. Would you boys like to come in?”
“Sure, we’d love to,” Kyle said as he looked at Ben and smiled.
“But we can only stay for a bit,” Ben added.
Ben and Kyle entered Gladys’s home and took notice of the familiar layout. The furniture was similarly dated, but in much better condition than theirs. Little figurines and trinkets, which had most likely been collected over the past fifty years, occupied shelves behind glass cabinets.
“Please, have a seat. I’ll put on a pot of tea.”
“That would be great, thank you,” Kyle said. “By the way, this is a lovely home you have here Ms… Gladys.”
“Thank you, dear,” she called out from the kitchen. Moments later, she returned with a plate of biscuits.
“So how long have you lived in this neighbourhood for?” Kyle asked.
“Oh, let’s see,” she said, taking a moment to think. “It’s been about thirty years in this house. My husband and I moved out from Ontario. We ran a shoe repair business in the neighbourhood. It wasn’t much, but it paid the bills and put a roof over our heads.”
“Are you and your husband still together?”
“In spirit only. He passed away last August and it has been a really hard adjustment for me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kyle said.
“Gladys, did you know Mr. Gringer?” Ben asked.
For some reason, that brought a smile to her face. “Which one?” she said, as she chuckled a bit. Ben and Kyle looked at each other, confused.
“The one that lived next door to you.”
“I’ve known Charles for thirty years. He’s a wonderful man; keeps to himself mostly. He used to come by often for tea and biscuits. He and my husband got along quite well. That reminds me, perhaps I’ll invite him over this afternoon.”
“Gladys, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Charles Gringer passed away recently.”
Gladys did not respond the typical way one would expect upon hearing such news. Instead she looked down at the crumbled napkin in her hands, which she had been fidgeting with ever since she sat down.
“Can you tell us about him? Did he have any kids, or grandkids?”
“Charles? No, he never married and did not have any children as far as I know.”
“Did that strike you as a bit odd?”
“Why are you two so interested in Charles?”
Ben looked at Kyle, then back at Gladys. He decided to be forthright with her.
“Mr. Gringer left his house to me in his will, and I’m just trying to find out why.”
Gladys took another moment before she spoke. She opened her mouth at the precise moment the water in the kettle began to boil. The sound of steam whistled from the kitchen.
“Please excuse me,” she said, getting up from the couch and heading into the kitchen.
Ben and Kyle chatted amongst themselves until Gladys returned. She brought out three cups on a tray, accompanied by a pot with some sugar and milk. She set the tray down and they each took a moment to sort out their tea.
“So, Gladys, you were going to say something about Mr. Gringer,” Ben said.
“Well, you asked me if Charles’ behaviour seemed odd… I’ve known the man for thirty years and the oddest thing about him was winning the lottery.”
“What was odd about that?”
“Charles only played the lottery once in his entire life. I know this because he would give me grief for playing. He always referred to the lottery as tax for the poor. Then the one time he plays the lottery, he wins.”
“Yeah, you’re right, that is a bit odd,” Kyle said, trying to goad her into revealing more information. “What else did he do that was odd to you?”
Again, Gladys took her time to respond. “Well…” she paused.
“What is it???
? Ben probed eagerly.
“Perhaps I have said enough, I don’t wish to get involved any further.”
“Gladys, please.”
“Whoever left you that house looked like, sounded like, and dressed like Charles Gringer, but he wasn’t the man I knew for thirty years. I know that probably sounds crazy, and I don’t know how to explain it, but trust me, it wasn’t the same man.”
“Surely you have some thoughts about it though, right?”
“Oh I don’t know, I guess it could be a number of things: split personality, amnesia, alien implant…”
“Alien implant? Do you really believe that?”
“I’m not sure what to believe.”
“You seem pretty convinced it wasn’t the same person.”
“Call it an intuition or a gut feeling, but something was definitely different about him.”
“We appreciate your help, Gladys.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any more service to you boys.”
“Your hospitality was enough. Thank you for the tea,” Kyle politely said.
They rose from the couch and headed toward the door. On their way out, Kyle offered to be of future service. “We’re next door if you need anything, just give us a call and we’ll be right over.”
On their walk back to their house, they discussed what Gladys had said.
“So, did that go how you had expected?” Ben asked.
“Not really,” Kyle replied. “Now I’m more confused than ever.”
“What do you make of her story about this so-called ‘new’ Charles Gringer?”
“Who knows, but I think the simplest explanation is that the money changed him,” Kyle said. “I heard a saying once — money doesn’t change a person, it just reveals who they naturally are when they are no longer required to be nice to people. Perhaps that explains why Gringer behaved so differently after he won the lottery.”
“Perhaps, but that still doesn’t explain why he played the lottery in the first place, nor how he won on his first try.”
“We don’t know for sure that it was his first time, all we know is what Gladys told us, and what he told her. For all we know he was playing the lottery his entire life.”
“Still, the odds of winning are astronomically small – something like fourteen million to one.”
“True, but despite the narrow odds, people still win it… especially old people from quiet neighbourhoods.”
“Then die the next day?” Ben added.
“It could just be a stroke of bad luck. Who knows, the guy was old, right? Isn’t it possible that there’s no grand mystery in it all, that all the answers are really that simple?”
“Alright, even if I was willing to accept that, how do you explain the fact that he left me his house, and died completely broke?”
“We haven’t ruled out the grandfather hypothesis just yet. Perhaps in his old age, he felt guilty for not being a part of your life and wanted to do one final gesture to make it up to you.”
“Okay, but he didn’t have any children, and where’d all the money go?”
“Maybe he gave it to charity, gambled it away, someone robbed him. There are a million different complex scenarios that could explain all this, and we would be foolish to think we could independently unravel the complexity on our own. I say we forget about Mr. Gringer, his mysterious alter ego, and count your blessings.”