The stillness of the house wrapped around me. It felt oppressive. Old Frank was gone. He was gone and some things you just can’t bring back. When a person is gone it’s final, which is one reason my job is important to me. I’m a tracker. Personally I don’t know enough first aid to keep a person alive but I can bring in the people who do know. In the morning I needed to do just that. It was going to be a rough trail to follow. A man missing two days. The area he disappeared in was notorious for bad tracking: rocky, dusty, hostile, and rugged. It matched my mood.
My husband, Rusty, came home, saw all the camping gear, and his heart sank. I was going away. Rusty is a tall, sandy haired, blue eyed, hunk of a detective and he loves me way too much for his own good.
I stood over the gear trying to decide what I needed. My choices changed a lot depending on who I was going with on the search. My team consisted of four EMTs and me. Of course, the whole search and rescue organization was made up of many more people, with many more talents than I possessed. But I was good at one thing: finding people, following their tracks until we came to the person. This time I was going with Victor, so I had to bring everything. Anything he thought I needed I better have on hand. It was standard procedure to have a trail ready pack at all times. Sometimes I have to grab it and go. However, this call gave me the luxury of time because I couldn’t track at night. I would take off first thing in the morning, ready to hit the trail at first light.
“Babe, what’s wrong?” Rusty asked.
“I know Marcel Clayborn’s situation is more important than a funeral but my heart just isn’t in this search. I’ll go, and I’ll find him, but this pack is going to weigh a ton. My thoughts are going to weigh more. The miles are going to be long.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“Yes, I do. You know I won’t turn down a search if they really need me. And they really do need me. This is not a trail that Victor can follow. It’s going to be overnight, maybe two nights. I hope not. Marcel has been lost for two days already. I don’t know how much time he has left. If I’m not back by Friday afternoon, can you call the ranch and tell them what happened?”
The ranch was where I grew up and where my family still lived. It’s a quarter horse ranch about four hours drive north of where I lived in Joshua Hills.
“You can’t miss Old Frank’s funeral,” Rusty said. “You’ll be miserable if you don’t go.”
Old Frank was the ranch foreman for longer than I could remember.
“I know, but if Marcel has a chance, I’ll stay on his trail. Preserving life is more important than honoring death, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.”
I began picking up things, the heaviest things first. I decided if it was necessary, and then packed it for the search, or put it in the camping box to be stored out in the garage. The camp stove, needed. I placed it in my pack positioning it for good weight distribution. The tent, unfortunately, needed. Sleeping bag, needed. Water purifying system, needed only because I was going with Victor. Clothes, one change of lightweight tracking clothes, the bare minimum. Food, three days worth. Water, arg, water, the curse of backpackers, three days worth. This was going to be a very hot, dry search. I doubted I’d find a spring or a creek but I’d try. Matches, knife… all the little things that get lost in the bottom of a pack and never get used because I forget they are there. And cookies. I opened the freezer and took out a bag of cookies hoping Victor was hungry for them so I wouldn’t have to carry them for long. Then I took out another bag of cookies and left them on the counter for Rusty. After I packed my backpack, and tied down the tent and sleeping bag, I packed a suitcase just in case the search ran long and we had to make a run for the ranch.
A hollow, lonely feeling loomed at the edge of everything I did. I sat in the bay window of our bedroom and gazed out to the hills where the deer came from, even though it was too late for the deer to arrive. My dog, Shadow, slept curled in a ball by the bed.
“Think you could leave the sadness behind long enough to enjoy a dinner in town?” Rusty asked.
He was asking for minutes. It would take all evening to go eat dinner in town but it would be time spent together, not him working in the office while I cooked dinner. When Rusty proposed to me he said he wanted every minute I’d give to him. Searches robbed us of minutes. Trouble robbed us of more. Work and daily life encroached on our minutes. With a search just around the corner he just wanted to get a dose of minutes, full minutes, together.
“I’ll try,” I answered.
“That’s my girl,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. I soaked up his strength. We stood there for a long time until finally he kissed me on the forehead. “Are you ready?” he asked.
I looked at my clothes: old jeans, old t-shirt, dusty moccasins.
“Is this a date or just dinner?”
“Babe, you’re fine. Don’t worry about it unless changing will make you feel better.”
Rusty had just come from work so he was still dressed in brown slacks, sports coat, and tie. Maybe dressing up would make me feel better.
“Give me half an hour,” I told him.
I went to the closet and picked out a cheery dress. I hadn’t worn a dress in months, not since the Christmas party at the Schroeder’s house. The weather was warm so I chose a little white sundress with beachy graphics on it. I curled my hair so it would look perky and fun. I slipped on a pair of pumps and was ready to go. I stepped into his office and he had taken off his coat and tie, untucked his shirt and rolled up his sleeves.
“Rusty! I changed clothes so we’d match and now look at you.”
He turned around, looked at me appraisingly, and smiled, “Maybe you changed clothes for the wrong reason.”
He pulled on his coat, buttoned one button and looked dressed up again. It was no fair.
“Where can we go where we won’t end up working?” he asked.
“I know this little hole in the wall place that only has five tables and one waitress. What’s the likelihood of running into felons with only five tables, a waitress and a cook?”
“Sounds like the kind of a place I’d go if I was a crook,” he answered.
“I can just close my eyes. If I don’t see them, they aren’t there, right?”
It’s a fact; I’m a magnet for bad guys. When we went shopping for our wedding rings the store was held up. When we went to a restaurant they sat at the next table. I’d had drug dealers walk up to me, strike up a conversation and tell me their profession. What was it about me? It didn’t happen consistently enough for me to decide, just often enough that I worried about it whenever I went out. I needed blinders, that’s what I needed, so I could only look at Rusty and people would think I was weird and back quietly away.
“Why don’t you show me who you’re looking for, so I’ll at least know them when I see them?” I said.
“No, but I do have one you could identify with,” he answered. “She’s a lot like you.”
“Really?” I asked, interested.
“Yeah, she’s a cat burglar. Ever since I met you I thought I sure was lucky you were on the right side of the law. This woman is sixty-five and has hit ten houses in the past four months. She’s invisible.”
“How do you know who she is then?”
“We’re not sure. We’ve compared notes with other agencies and when a similar string of burglaries stopped in Northridge they started up here. Many communities within a few hundred miles have had similar cases.”
“You think they are all related?”
“There are too many similarities to ignore it. This picture is five years old.”
He held up a computer printout showing an older woman. Agnes Cooper. She looked like anybody’s grandmother. She was slim, petite, and colored her hair a dark brown. Her face was tanned and lined but she looked young for her age.
“She looks like Chase’s girlfriend,” I observed.
Chase was a friend of the family, a retired cop and part time tracker who lived in the San Diego area. He was sixtyish and would make a good cat burglar, too. I’d tracked him and been tracking with him. He was single and available but too eccentric for most women’s tastes. Although he would grudgingly enjoy some companionship, he knew the likelihood of marriage at his age was slim so he tried to enjoy his solitude.
“Look at this. It was taken in Riverside six years ago.”
I looked at the picture. It was a slim figure, dressed in black, a black ski mask pulled over their face. The person was sneaking behind a bush in a yard next to a house. I looked at the shoes. This person would be hard to track. They knew what they were doing. The shoes fitted close to the person’s feet and were as black as the rest of their clothes. Not moccasins, not water shoes. Rock climbing shoes? As a tracker, shoes interested me and movements intrigued me. I wished I could observe this person for a while.
“Is this Agnes?”
“I’ll ask her if I catch her. What do you think?”
I held up the two pictures next to each other.
“It could be, but I don’t think so.”
That got his attention. “Why?”
“The head is shaped differently.”
“How can you tell with all that hair?”
“Imagine her without the hair. What shape is her head?”
“How should I know?”
“Okay, picture Agnes stepping out of the shower, her hair is plastered to her head. Does it look like this picture?” I asked showing him the picture of the person in black. “To me Agnes is slimmer, her jaw is smaller, her neck is thinner, the forehead is shaped differently. If this picture is on your computer try taking away the background, see the profile you get. It’ll be different from Agnes’s profile.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, it’s just a feeling I got.”
“Just like when you profile while you track?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll try it.”
“Is Agnes a professional? Or is this some kind of hobby? What does she steal?”
We climbed into the Explorer and Rusty pulled out of the driveway and headed for town.
“She has a record but she hasn’t been caught since those pictures were taken. She got off pretty easy since they could really only link her to a fraction of the charges they suspected her of. Then she plea-bargained. She did two years. Nobody really knows how long she has been at it.”
“Interesting.”
“The burglaries I have been involved in have involved jewelry and credit cards.”
“Any extremely recognizable pieces? Have you asked Hazel about Agnes?”
“Hazel? Our neighbor, Hazel?”
“Yeah.”
“No, why would a housewife who lives up in the foothills outside town know Agnes Cooper?”
“I’ve got a feeling about Hazel. She knows more than you think she does.”
“That’s because Hazel’s nosey. Why would she know Agnes Cooper?”
“Something tells me Hazel has connections. She doesn’t just sit at home knitting. She is too social for that. I bet she goes down to the senior center and gets involved in their activities. We need a spy in the world of the senior citizens.”
Rusty thought I was kidding, but I wasn’t. He wouldn’t pursue that idea, but I might. First dinner, then Marcel Clayborn, then Old Frank’s funeral. Sigh, I had a full week ahead of me but at least the cat burglar case had me thinking of something besides sadness.
“Thanks,” I said brightly. “I feel better already. With a puzzle in my head I can think again.”
“Don’t think about it too much. I don’t want you involved in this.”
“How dangerous can a sixty-five year old cat burglar be? Is she armed?”
“We don’t know. She hasn’t shot anybody yet.”
“There, you see?”
Our conversation at dinner was limited. Talking about the search would get Rusty down. Talking about the ranch and Old Frank would get me down. Talking about Agnes Cooper made Rusty worry about me pursuing his case. I thought it was safe to bat the subject around a bit. As we sat in Trujillo’s wondering what we wanted to eat I asked, “So, what kind of places does she break into?”
“Just like you would expect, upper-class homes. We’re convinced she watches a house until she knows the family’s schedule and breaks in when they are likely to be gone for a while, although she has been known to break in while a woman was home alone in a large house. I think she is getting overconfident. It is pretty gutsy to break in with people in the house.”
“How does she break in?”
“She just finds the easiest way in that she can. Usually it’s an unlocked window she can pry open. You’d be amazed how easy it is to break into most people’s houses. She has even entered second story windows. Most people consider the second story windows to be safe so they just leave them open in the summer to let the heat escape and allow the air conditioning to circulate. What convinced us that she stakes out a house first is that a family hid a key right before going on vacation. It wasn’t a simple hiding place, like over the door or under the mat. The key was hidden between two boards on the inside of the backyard fence. No breaking and entering. She used the key, let herself in, took what she wanted and left. She even locked up behind her and put the key back so no one would suspect a thing. She wears gloves. She never makes a mess, doesn’t ransack a house. She leaves a house in such a state that nobody suspects a thing until they discover something missing. The things she steals are so small the theft often goes unnoticed for weeks.”
“Interesting. I’d almost hate to arrest her. She sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”
“I told you, she’s a lot like you.”
“Do you have a recent break in?”
“It won’t be by the time you get back from your search. Besides, most of the houses she breaks into are very carefully landscaped and gardeners visit weekly wiping out any outside evidence.”
Trujillo’s was frequented by most of the police force. Someone from the force could be found there most evenings. Kent Jacobsen wandered over and then dragged a chair over to our booth.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m just getting ready for a search,” I answered.
Kent looked at Rusty. “Just a search?”
“Just a camper gone astray.”
“That’s a relief. Don’t think you’ve run into problems on those searches. It just seems to be felons who give you trouble. It’s like you’re a magnet for trouble or something.”
“Thanks, Jacobsen. I think your food’s ready.”
“I’ve already eaten,” he said. “I heard that’s going to be a killer search.”
“That’s why they called me,” I said confidently.
“You think you can make rocks talk.”
“That’s silly,” I said. “Rocks don’t talk. Dirt talks. Rocks whisper very, very quietly. Sometimes you have to put your ear down to the ground to hear them.”
“Very funny. Seriously though, do you think you can find him?”
“Yeah, I’ll find him.”
“Is she always this confident?” Jacobsen asked Rusty.
“I’ve haven’t seen her misjudge a search yet,” Rusty answered, somewhat dodging the question. The fact was I was always positive starting out. I wasn’t always happy with the results.