Chapter 5

Back inside, Bill and Garrett stood looking at the décor for a moment, and Bill asked, “Have you given any thought about what you are going to do with this floor? That solid walnut wainscoting and trim will be gorgeous if you can keep it and work it into whatever you intend to do with the bank. This area would make some great office space for a small business.”

“No, I haven’t even thought about uses for the building other than living upstairs. I hadn’t even considered renovating the apartments I don’t use for rentals until you brought it up. I’m not sure I want to bother with rentals after hearing you discuss all the problems you have with damage and late payments. I sure could use the money, though, so I might.”

“Well, if you figure out some way to screen your renters, it helps. The damn laws are written more to protect the deadbeat renters than landlords and you have to be careful how you handle the apartments or you get into trouble there, but it can be done. Kathy and her mother do my rentals, and they seem to have it down pat. We still have some late payments, but at least most of our damage is normal wear and tear. I haven’t had to evict anyone for over a year. If you go that route, maybe you can get some pointers from them, or better yet, no more apartments than you have, maybe they will manage them for you.”

“Well, that’s pretty far in the future. I have to get things back up to snuff first. So, what do you suggest for rewiring this mess? I’m not sure which should be first: water or electricity. Water, I think so I can at least clean up and take a crap.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Look, I don’t have much going on today. I can go home and get some pipe and tools if you want to take a stab at plumbing. You can begin tearing out the old plumbing while I’m gone. We can get some of the work done inside here, anyway, then next week you can call the city for a meter and hook into the mains.”

The exterior walls of the old bank were constructed from 12-inch limestone blocks, so a significant percentage of the plumbing and wiring was located inside the room, rather than in the walls. This wasn’t ideal aesthetically, but it made it much easier for Garrett to remove the old wiring and plumbing. He carefully saved all the old pipe and wire for later recycling. The copper wire would fetch a good price and help offset expenses. After he tore out all the pipes and wires he could reach, he built wooden runs for the utilities when he replaced them, so they weren’t exposed again. Where possible, he ran the utilities up inside an interior wall. By the end of the day on Sunday, they had completed all the plumbing for the downstairs toilet in the bank, as well as his one bathroom and kitchen in his upstairs apartment. Much of the plumbing was temporary because Garrett intended to remodel the bathrooms later and install more modern fixtures. He planned to leave the sinks and commode in the same location, however, so there wouldn’t be much repeat plumbing. They even had some temporary wiring run to give him some light and power for an air conditioning unit and to cook with. Now, all he had to do was contact the electric company and the city to initiate the service.

The next project would be the building of the stairs so he could enter his apartment more easily than climbing the ladder. That took almost a month working with the contractor and cost more than Garrett even wanted to mention. He ensured the job was done to his satisfaction, although he also helped keep the costs down by locating used steel for the frame. He even managed to cover the deck so it looked as much like the picture Kathy had found as possible. Now he had a nice place to sit outside and watch the world go by if he ever found the time to do it.

Much to his surprise, through the summer, from time to time, one or another of the men he worked with would come over and help with some of the heavier work or with a job Garrett didn’t know how to accomplish. Even nicer, none of them would accept payment for their help. He always made sure they had plenty to eat and drink. Occasionally, he even had a BBQ out by the stream on his farm for his co-workers.

They went through the entire building’s plumbing and wiring, so by the time fall arrived, all the remaining work was cosmetic finish work. He even bit the bullet and redid the bathrooms, adding new fixtures so they could hide the plumbing.

They decided to build an interior instead of an exterior stairway to the third floor. It took almost two weeks to build, but after it was completed, it was much easier to access the two third-floor apartments. Somewhat to his surprise, Garrett was more than capable of affording the work he was doing on the building. Much of that was because of Kathy. She had the bright idea to list the things they found in the bank on eBay. It was amazing what the antiques brought. People were crazy for the old office equipment, calendars, and papers she found to sell for him. She even took care of the shipping and handling, only keeping the excess shipping and handling fees for her efforts.

So far, they had been unable to gain access to the locked vault. Garrett was too busy to worry much about it, but Kathy was going crazy wondering what was inside. She had grudgingly agreed with Garrett that they had more important things to attend to, but she still kept asking when he was going to get it open.

Finally, late in November, Garrett had the two third-floor apartments completed and ready to rent. The old bank was 30 feet by 72 feet, resulting in a floor space of 2,160 square feet on each floor. The common-use entryway and internal stairs reduced the area of the third-floor apartments to approximately 1,000 square feet each. Since they were in a small town, he asked $475 per month for each of them. To his surprise, the apartments were rented within two weeks of being advertised. That gave him a $900 per month income to live on or use for improvements to his apartment or the bank on the first floor. Kathy and her mother agreed to act as his agent for $25 per apartment per month. None of the utilities were included in the rent, so the balance of the rental flowed to Garrett’s bottom line, except for a small amount spent on insurance and property taxes.

Garrett finally gave up trying to find the combination to the safe and called a vault company to see if they could open it. On the day the representative came, it seemed like half his friends were there for the grand opening. Kathy was right behind the technician, bouncing around in impatience. Finally, after nearly thirty minutes of working, the technician turned the handle on the vault. With a loud click, the tumblers disengaged, and he slowly pulled the door open. While he continued to service the old vault, Kathy darted inside the thick walls and began to explore. Bill and some of his closest friends followed.

There was a large bank of safe deposit boxes just inside the vault door. Some of them were locked, some stood open. Further inside was a thick steel lattice that was closed. Kathy pulled against it and let out a moan when she also found it to be locked. She turned and darted past the men and over to the desk she had been using. She grabbed the keys and trotted back into the vault, where she began trying them one by one until she found one that unlocked the folding lattice. She pushed the door open and moved quickly into the space. She stopped inside and looked at the shelves. She was standing, staring at the shelves when Bill and Garrett moved up beside her. There were several trays on the shelf filled with money of all denominations, ranging from pennies to real silver dollars. Further along were stacks of the various denominations of bills. There were ones, twos, fives, tens, twenties, fifties, and hundreds, although the larger the denomination, the smaller the stack of bills.

Kathy turned to Garrett and said, “Just look at the money. I bet there are thousands of dollars there. You can finish college and the work on the bank, now, with no problems.”

Bill stepped past Kathy and looked at the money. He picked up some of the bills and coins, then whistled before returning them to their original location. He turned to Garrett and said, “Kathy is more correct than I think even she knows, Garrett. This money is worth far more as collector’s items than its face value. Those coins are made of real silver, and some of the bills are gold and silver certificates. I didn’t see one Federal Reserve note in the lot. When the country went off the gold standard, all the old gold and silver certificates were supposed to be turned in for destruction. You have a veritable gold mine right there on that shelf. You need to be damn sure this vault stays locked and don’t even breathe a hint of what is in here or you will have serious problems.”

Bill turned and began ushering Kathy out of the vault, after admonishing her to be quiet about what they had found. As they were passing through the safe deposit box room, she stopped once again and said, “I wonder if there’s anything in those locked boxes?”