Mark’s uncle was a truly loved family man. He was always there when somebody needed a word of wisdom, and someone who everybody flocked to when they needed something fixed. So when the family gathered at the notary two weeks after his passing, there were only sad faces in the room.
Nobody was happy to hear what their inheritance would be; they just mourned the passing of a great man. But Mark’s eyebrows rose when he heard the gift he was about to receive. Mark’s uncle knew him well because the old man had left him his prized truck.
“Why would he do that?” Mark had his eyes on the vehicle for some years. It was always locked away in his uncle’s barn, and the stubborn old fool never drove it, but he sure kept it in top condition.
He was very protective when people got close to it, and pretty soon Mark was going to understand why. Mark wasn’t going to linger on the past, though, because this truck was an inheritance he could use very well. Mark was a carpenter, and his old van was on the brink of breaking down. Having a transport vehicle as a freelance carpenter was vital, so the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
After the inheritance, Mark drove to his uncle’s house with his aunt. The woman was sad that her husband was gone, but she was glad that pieces of his life were being passed down to his family. Mark’s Aunt Marcia guided her nephew to the barn where the car was parked and handed him the keys.
“Take good care of it. For some reason, it was special to my husband.”
Mark promised he would, and shortly after, he drove away from their property. But pretty quickly, he ran into some weird trouble. The car was large, as most pickup trucks were, but it drove more like a tank than an actual car. It felt extremely heavy, and Mark noticed that it had great difficulty getting up even the most shallow hills. Whenever Mark drove downhill, it was like something strong was pushing the vehicle.
There was something about this car that was working against him. When Mark was about 10 miles removed from his house, the vehicle almost caused an accident because of it. Mark was standing on a hill and had to wait for a traffic light.
The car was on its handbrake, but still, it lost traction. Mark noticed the car moving backward slowly at first, but pretty soon, it was rolling downhill fast. Mark managed to turn the wheel just in time, because otherwise, he would surely have hit a tree or worse. As if by a miracle, Mark managed to make it home unharmed.
“Something is wrong with it,” he stated.
Mark parked the car in his driveway and pulled the keys out of the ignition. This needed a thorough inspection. So, Mark walked around the car with a confused look on his face. He checked every angle, but the car seemed perfectly normal at first glance.
There was not a scratch on it. Mark must have walked around that car over two dozen times, and every time, his search yielded no results. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. The engine seemed fine, and the tires were fully inflated.
Mark was scratching his head and about to give up. Then, suddenly, the phone rang. It was his aunt who called, and Mark hoped that she could provide answers to the car’s condition. But what he heard when he picked up the phone was something else. Mark’s Aunt sounded nervous and even frightened. The old woman whispered over the phone and asked if Mark was alone right now. Mark confirmed this question and asked his aunt what was going on.
“What is it, Aunt Marcia? Why are you whispering?”
The old woman continued in her low-volume voice and explained that there were people walking on her property that she did not know. They looked sketchy, and they were searching the barn. Mark immediately panicked and wanted to help his aunt in this dire situation since it sounded like burglars were trespassing.
“Don’t worry, Aunt Marcia. I can jump in Uncle’s truck and be there in 15 minutes.”
Mark was determined to help and acted purely on instinct, but his aunt stopped him.
When Mark said he would drive up in her husband’s truck, Aunt Marcia’s voice panicked a little. She pleaded with her nephew to please leave the truck hidden back at his place.
“These men cannot see that wretched car because that is exactly what they came here looking for.”
Aunt Marcia overheard them talking about the truck from her hiding place. Mark was still by the car and looked at the vehicle with confusion written all over his face.
“What do they want with it?”
But that she did not know. She whispered that the men sounded frantic, desperate to find it. After that statement, it felt quiet. Mark kept talking, but his aunt did not answer. When she finally replied, she said the men were just past the window she was hiding under.
“I have to go. What if they hear me? If I can hear them, they probably can also hear me talking to you.”
As a solution, Aunt Marcia suggested that the two meet in a cafe nearby. There, they might speak more openly.
“If you go there, come on foot and keep the car hidden at your house. Oh, see if you can find a handle on the car. I heard these men talking about it repeatedly.”
After that confusing request, Mark’s aunt hung up the phone. The line just beeped while the worried Mark stared at the mysterious truck. Was his aunt going to be okay? What was so important about this truck? And what was the final thing she asked—find a handle? What handle?
Just to be safe, Mark chose to move the car. He didn’t want any onlookers since his aunt seemed to be nervous about anything related to the vehicle. So, after the truck was safely parked at the back of his property, Mark started his mission: searching for this mysterious handle. The first few passes bore the same results as before. Mark couldn’t find anything.
He checked every inch of the car’s interior, and there seemed nothing out of place on the outside. But after about 30 minutes of searching, he noticed something. Something was sticking out just underneath the rear bumper. Mark moved his hand along the edge of the bumper and pushed the sticking out piece to the side, and that’s when it happened. To Mark’s surprise, the entire backloading area of the truck came loose. It lifted up on its own and hovered diagonally. Mark squinted his eyes and peeked at the now open space. The curious young man let out a long and confused breath.
“What the hell is that?”
Mark’s eyes widened as he lifted the truck’s rear bed more. There was a lot of stuff hidden underneath this truck bed’s metal exterior that wasn’t supposed to be there. But what was it? Mark slowly reached out. There seemed to be hundreds of boxes hidden beneath the exterior of this truck. Mark pulled one out and saw that it was one of those old matchboxes, you know, the very long ones used for lighting fireplaces.
“That seems dangerous,” Mark spoke out loud, but that was before he opened one.
The boxes looked old, like they had been underneath the bed of this pickup truck for at least 20 years. And when Mark checked the expiration date on one of the matchboxes, his suspicion was confirmed. Eventually, he decided to open one, and that’s when his face turned pale instantly.
The outside of these boxes might have suggested that sulfur-tipped lighting sticks were inside, but the inside of the boxes proved to house something completely different. Inside the cardboard container was another box, but this one looked much more fancy. And once Mark opened that one, he saw diamonds everywhere. Mark couldn’t believe it. Why were these under the truck bed of this car?
The confused man reached out and grabbed multiple matchboxes this time. With every box Mark opened, his jaw dropped a little further. Multiple pricey-looking gems and high-end jewelry were found inside, which freaked Mark out like crazy. Mark got extremely nervous extremely quickly. He felt like he was getting involved in some shady underground business, one that he would rather not be part of. But there was one problem: if he backed off, his aunt might be the one in danger. Mark nervously put the boxes back in the truck bed.
“What now?”
Eventually, Mark decided to listen to his aunt’s request. He waited for a while so he could arrive at the cafe on foot at the agreed-upon time. After 40 minutes of waiting, it was time. Mark pulled down the handle on the entrance door, and when he peeked inside, his aunt was already there. She sat in a corner booth and stared out the window. Mark sat across from her and asked the old woman,
“What the hell is going on? Did you find the handle these men were looking for?”
She asked. Mark nodded and asked why he had found hundreds of hidden jewelry boxes in Uncle’s truck and why those men were on her property. That question made Marcia look at her nephew worriedly. She stated that the car had been kept hidden in that building for well over 20 years.
“My husband kept the door to that building closed and protected that truck with his life, and now I know why.”
Everything about this scenario screamed criminal activity to Mark.
“Are those boxes filled with jewelry stolen, and was my uncle a thief? Nobody has this many valuables in one place without criminal intent behind it. Well, Aunt Marcia, tell me, am I right?”
She nodded yes and no at the same time. She started off by saying that Mark’s uncle was innocent of stealing any of these items, so he wasn’t a crook. But every piece of jewelry underneath that truck bed was, in fact, stolen, and the people on
her property today were the actual thieves who made this heist over 20 years ago. Mark was confused. His aunt did not seem to know anything about these men except the fact that they were trespassing on her property before. And now, all of a sudden, she seemed to know their entire history. He took over her monologue and asked his aunt how she came by all this information. Aunt Marcia replied,
“You’re right, Mark. I did not know these men before, nor did I know my husband’s involvement in their business. I only overheard them looking for the car, and I knew that my husband was very protective of it. But when they left, I started searching for answers.
I searched the house and tried to find anything that could help me understand the situation that had just occurred. That’s when I found my husband’s old journal. It was tucked away in the back of the closet, but it explained the terrible thing that happened to him in great detail. My husband wrote The Notebook stated that the four thieves arrived on Mark’s uncle’s property over 20 years ago.
They had just finished their heist and had found a clever way to hide the treasure under the truck bed of their escape vehicle. There was only one problem: the police spotted their car and were on their heels. Mark’s uncle saw the men in their truck approach on a Wednesday evening. He was working in his barn when they entered with screams and harsh threats. They ordered Mark’s uncle to hide their escape vehicle until they knew what to do with it, or else. My loving husband must have feared for his life.”
Aunt Marcia figured that it was harder than the criminals thought to launder all these stolen goods because the truck remained in that barn for the next two decades.
“But when my husband died, they must have found out some way because today they came back to claim their prize.”
Mark couldn’t believe this bizarre story. He believed his uncle to be a good man, so he believed every word he wrote in that journal.
“We have to do something. These guys need to be caught because you can’t live in this fear forever, and my uncle’s name needs to be cleared.”
Aunt Marcia agreed, so together they walked over to the police station and told the officers present the entire story. It was an unbelievable tale, but the way they told it, combined with Mark’s uncle’s journal, which Marcia brought with her, made the policemen believe them.
“We have to figure out a plan to catch these bastards.”
After that mission statement, the policemen stepped out of the room for a quick brainstorm. When they came back, they had a plan of attack.
“But I’m sorry, you two are not going to like it because we need your help to get it done.”
Mark and Marcia looked at the officer with confused looks. They both had a role in catching these guys. Mark was going to be the bait. He was ordered to drive the car around town as much as possible for the next few days so the criminals would spot it and eventually follow.
Marcia needed to open up her home to the truck once more. At the end of each day, Mark needed to park the car back in his uncle’s barn so the criminals would have a place to eventually get caught. Both aunt and nephew were nervous to participate, but they knew it was the best chance they got, so Mark and Marcia agreed.
“Let’s get started.”
Over the next few days, Mark drove around town with the getaway car. He made sure to drive slowly so everyone could see him, and at the end of each day, he would bring the car back to the barn, where he would wait along with a police squad. It took three days, but then the criminals entered Marcia’s property like they did days before and headed to the barn.
This time the truck was in there, and Mark could hear the relief in their voices. But that wasn’t all that was in there. Over ten policemen jumped out from hiding places and managed to arrest the thieves. After well over 20 years, justice was done.
Marcia could finally resume her life without living in fear, and the dark shadow that hovered over her husband’s name was finally lifted. Of course, Mark got to keep the truck, but this time it wasn’t weighted down by 300 boxes and criminal intent.
