My Grandson Slipped Me a Note: “Check Storage Unit 247,” He Whispered. I Gasped When I Saw…
A Note Under the Table
My grandson slipped me a note during dinner last Tuesday. His hands were shaking when he passed it under the table.
“Grandpa,” it read, “check the storage unit Dad rented last month. Unit 247. The combination is Mom’s birthday backwards. You need to see what’s inside before Friday.”
I looked up at him, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. He just stared at his plate while his stepmother, Caroline, chatted away about her shopping trip. That’s when I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.
Let me back up. My name is Richard, and I’m 67 years old. I live in a quiet neighborhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba. 3 years ago, my wife Patricia passed away from cancer.
It devastated our whole family, especially our son Thomas. He was 42 when he lost his mother, and he took it hard. We all did. Patricia was the glue that held us together.
A New Wife and a Sudden Decline
About 18 months after Patricia died, Thomas met Caroline at some charity gala his company sponsored. She was 38, attractive, charming, and she seemed genuinely interested in him.
They got married after dating for only 7 months. Too fast, I thought, but Thomas was lonely. His first marriage had ended badly 10 years earlier, and he’d been single ever since.
He has a son from that marriage, my grandson Jake, who’s 15 now. Jake splits his time between his mother’s place in Toronto and Thomas’s house here in Winnipeg.
When Caroline came into the picture, Jake seemed happy at first. He told me his dad was smiling again, laughing more. I was relieved. I thought maybe this woman was exactly what Thomas needed.
Caroline was sweet to me too. Called me Dad, brought me homemade perogies, asked about my woodworking projects. She seemed perfect.
But about 6 months ago, things started changing. Thomas looked tired all the time. He’d lost weight, dark circles under his eyes.
When I asked him about it, he said work was stressful. His accounting firm was going through a merger. Made sense, I suppose.
But then I noticed other things. He seemed confused sometimes, forgetful. He’d repeat himself in conversations. Once, he couldn’t remember where he’d parked his car at the grocery store.
The Dinner That Changed Everything
Thomas is sharp as a tack; always has been. This wasn’t like him. Jake noticed too. During his visits, I could see the worry in the boy’s eyes.
He’d watch his father carefully, studying him when Thomas wasn’t looking. But whenever I tried to talk to Jake about it, he’d clam up. Said everything was fine, just normal teenage stuff.
Then came that dinner last Tuesday. Caroline had invited me over for what she called a family meal. She made roast chicken, mashed potatoes, the works.
Thomas barely touched his food. He pushed it around his plate, his movements slow and uncertain. Caroline kept putting her hand on his arm.
“You need to eat, honey, keep your strength up.”
She said. Something about the way she said it made my skin crawl. That’s when Jake passed me the note.
I waited until I got home before I really processed what it meant. My grandson was asking me to break into a storage unit to spy on his father and stepmother.
Inside Unit 247
The combination was Caroline’s birthday backwards. How did Jake even know about this unit, and what could possibly be inside that was so important he’d risk getting caught passing me that note?
I didn’t sleep that night. Just lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about my son’s deteriorating health, thinking about Jake’s frightened eyes, thinking about Caroline’s too-perfect smile.
Wednesday morning, I drove to the storage facility on Pembina Highway. It was one of those big, impersonal places with rows and rows of orange doors. I found unit 247 on the second floor.
My heart was pounding as I entered the combination: 421987. The lock clicked open. Inside the unit was mostly empty except for three cardboard boxes stacked in the corner.
I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight. The first box contained files, legal documents. I started reading, and my blood went cold.
There was a new will. Thomas’s will, dated just two months ago. In it, everything was left to Caroline: the house, his investments, his life insurance policy, his share of the accounting firm. Everything.
There was no mention of Jake at all. My grandson, Thomas’s only child, had been completely written out. But that wasn’t the worst part.
The signature at the bottom looked like Thomas’s handwriting, but something was off. The “T” was wrong. Thomas always loops his “T” in a very specific way, a habit he picked up from his mother.
This signature was close, but not quite right. I’d seen enough of my son’s writing over 67 years to know the difference.
Evidence of Poison
The second box made my hands shake. Inside were medical supplies: syringes, bottles of medication I didn’t recognize, latex gloves, and a small notebook filled with handwritten entries.
I flipped through the pages, my stomach churning. The entries were dated going back four months. Each one detailed dosages, times, and effects.
“Increased confusion today. Speech slightly slurred. Memory gaps more pronounced. Forgot colleague’s name at meeting. Balance issues. Nearly fell on stairs.”
Caroline was keeping a log. She was documenting Thomas’s decline because she was causing it. I pulled out one of the medication bottles and Googled the name on my phone: Scopolamine.
Used medically in low doses for motion sickness. In higher doses, it causes confusion, memory loss, cognitive impairment. In very high doses, it can be fatal. It’s sometimes called “Devil’s Breath.”
My son wasn’t sick. He was being poisoned.
The third box contained surveillance photos. Pictures of my house taken from different angles. Pictures of me at the grocery store, at the hardware store, at my morning walks.
There were printed copies of my bank statements—how did she get those?—a floor plan of my house with certain rooms circled: my bedroom, my study where I keep important documents.
There was also a life insurance policy. My life insurance policy. I’d made Thomas the beneficiary years ago when Patricia was still alive. The policy was worth half a million dollars.
Someone had paperclipped a sticky note to it with a single word written in neat, feminine handwriting: “Next.”
I nearly threw up right there in that storage unit. This wasn’t just about Thomas’s money. Caroline was planning to kill my son, and then she was coming for me.
Devising a Plan
I took pictures of everything with my phone. Every document, every page of that notebook, every surveillance photo. Then I carefully put everything back exactly as I’d found it.
I had to think. I had to plan. If I went to the police right now with what I had, would it be enough? A forged will, some medication, a creepy notebook?
Caroline could claim Thomas asked her to pick up his prescriptions. Could say the notebook was her tracking his symptoms to help his doctors. The will could have been legitimately signed during one of Thomas’s confused periods.
I needed more. I needed proof she was actively poisoning him. I needed her caught in the act.
That evening, Jake called me. We’d never talked on the phone before; he always just texted. His voice was quiet, scared.
“Did you go?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see it?”
“I saw everything. Jake, how did you know about that storage unit?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I followed her last week. Dad was at work and she left the house with these boxes. I thought it was weird, so I took my bike and followed her car.”
“I saw which unit she went into. Then I waited until she left and I tried combinations until one worked.”
“That was dangerous, son.”
“I know, but Dad’s getting worse, Grandpa. He fell down yesterday, just collapsed in the kitchen.”
“Caroline called 911, but by the time the ambulance came, she’d already cleaned up whatever he’d been drinking. The paramedics said it might be a heart problem. They want to run tests, but I know it’s her.”
“I’ve seen her putting stuff in his coffee. She thinks I don’t notice, but I do.”
