Wes Coffey

Upstairs, there's a loft you get to by a ladder, and that's where Papa slept.

Underneath the cabin, there's a crawlspace where he kept canned goods and tools.

I'd never been in the crawlspace.

When I was a kid, Papa said it was off-limits.

I'd honored that my whole life.

I didn't go down there when I moved my stuff in on the 14th.

I didn't go down there on the 15th.

On the 16th, after I talked to Buddy, I went down there.

The entrance is a hatch in the floor of the kitchen, under a rug.

I pulled the rug back and I lifted the hatch.

There was a short wooden ladder going down maybe six feet into the dirt.

I went down with a flashlight.

The crawlspace was about 40 feet by 20 feet.

Packed dirt floor, low ceiling.

I couldn't stand up straight.

Along one wall were shelves with mason jars of preserved vegetables, which I expected.

Along another wall were old tools, a couple of rusty traps, a buck saw.

Along the third wall, there was a wooden footlocker.

I'd never seen it before.

Three feet long, padlocked.