“You and Rusty are as elusive as an escaped convict,” Misty said as I stepped out of my Jeep.
“That’s good.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Misty,” I said. “Go home. You’re wasting your time here. You’re not welcome. You’re getting nowhere.”
“It just so happens I am home and I have business here. And you don’t know that I’m getting nowhere. These things take patient persistence.”
“I bet they do. Joshua Hills is not your idea of the ideal place to live. You’d be miserable here.”
“I do have business here. I have investments to check on.”
“Good, go check on them.”
She left in a huff and I realized I’d done it again.
The next house was small, in a poorer section of town. Typical middle class. A family lived here. A family with small kids. A plastic kid sized picnic table and slide were in the front yard. This time it paid off to be there as school got out. A woman walked from the front door carrying a baby and went down to the street. I was tempted to follow but before I could an older woman exited the house with a toddler. They played in the front yard until the woman came back, an older child in tow. I realized there was a school close by. I made notes next to the house on the list- mom, three kids, grandma? The two older kids played in the front yard for a few minutes while the women talked and then they herded the children inside. A short time later the older woman came out with a list shaped piece of paper and her purse. She got into an older tan sedan and left. I argued with myself for a second and then instinct told me to follow her. I pulled out and caught up at the light at the end of the street. I could just about have followed her on foot. She went to a grocery store less than a half mile away. Okay, I thought, I can go grocery shopping. There were a few things I could pick up, too.
I parked my Jeep and went into the store, only halfway following the woman. I really only wanted to run into her a few times to get a closer look. I looked for dinner ingredients and found steak on sale. Then I thought about what I needed to go with steak. In and out of the aisles I went running into the woman a few times. I noted a leather purse, crisp dry-cleaned clothes and…and lots of jewelry. Expensive jewelry. As we were checking out she noticed me looking at her rings. Oops.
“They’re my last link to a past long gone,” she said. “My husband had a booming business here for forty years and he lost it all five years ago. He gave these to me, God rest his soul. I refuse to give them up even when things get rough.”
“Don’t you worry about someone stealing them?” I asked, hint, hint.
“I didn’t used to, but after a burglary a few months ago, I do. I wear these all the time now. I can’t bear to lose them. It broke my heart to lose the few that were stolen from me.”
“Whoa, you should insure them babies!” the woman behind me exclaimed.
“I did, but I still miss the original pieces. I could never replace them. They were gifts, gifts I’d never part with.”
“I’m sorry you lost them,” I said. “Maybe you’ll see them again someday. You did report the theft, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did, but I really have no hope.”
Uh oh, she’d said the words, those words that drive me into a set course. I would find this woman’s jewelry. As soon as the word hope entered the picture I wanted to restore it. I lived on hope. I hoped trouble wouldn’t strike. I hoped for another day with Rusty. I couldn’t count on another day but I could hope and so hope drove me. It drove me to look for people lost in the mountains. It drove me to look for a woman’s jewelry. I thought as long as hope held out for me I’d see a lot of adventures, and I hoped this one wouldn’t be too adventuresome. Mild adventure was fine right now. Grocery store interrogations. That’s the way I preferred to work.
I went back the next day and parked at a different angle. It was an older house. Single story. Agnes probably had no problem finding a loose window. Large shrubs provided lots of dark corners to hide in. Even though it wasn’t the house of an uppity up, Agnes had known to strike this particular house. She knew that woman had jewelry. How did she know?
The next day I drove around to the other houses on the list but they were big, lonely houses. I could sit there all day and only see a cleaning lady or a gardener. The owners had two incomes, the kids were in school or daycare or had lives of their own. Agnes could have broken into those houses any time of the day. It was the little, old house that drew me back. It had a life. It was interesting. And the grandma there had a story. It was the best clue I’d had yet so I went back as early in the morning as I could and I watched the house. When the grandma left it was always in the tan sedan. She went out frequently but never stayed out long. I followed her to the bookstore where she bought two romance novels. Later in the day she went to Wal-Mart and bought flowers. She went home and put her things away and spent an hour or so planting flowers in the flowerbeds. The toddler helped. She had to guard her patience. Maybe that’s why she went out frequently. She always made sure she was home when school got out so the mom could walk down to the school and pick up the older boy. It felt like I was eves dropping, watching this family go about their daily lives. I felt like an intruder, a well-intentioned intruder, but unwelcome all the same. I wished I could see the dad come home from work. A piece was missing to the puzzle, but he must have come home in the evening like Rusty because I never saw him. I hoped he existed.
“You sure have been out a lot,” Rusty commented one day. “What have you been up to?”
“Following a hunch.”
“Uh oh.”
“I promise, it’s harmless. I’ve been following a grandmother around town. So far she’s showed me where to get a good romance novel, where to buy bedding plants for the yard, where to go to donate used books if I want to get rid of them, where to buy Chinese chili paste and where to take my clothes for dry cleaning half off, if I have at least ten items on Tuesday afternoons.”
“So, where does your hunch come from if all she does is typical little old lady errands?”
“Eventually she is going to lead me to the place she met Agnes.”
“Agnes has met her?”
“She didn’t say that, but I’m willing to bet.”
“What makes you think that?”
“She doesn’t fit the pattern. All the houses that were broken into were big fancy affairs. Agnes could have broken into those places any time. I watched a few of them. I could have been in and out of those houses ten times and nobody would know.”
“How do you know?”
Ooops! Skirt the question, Cass.
“I watched them. They are empty all day. Nobody comes or goes except a cleaning lady or gardener and Agnes is not a cleaning lady. I know you checked out the housekeeping companies these people hire. Then I ran across this little house in an old neighborhood. No one would think to break into that house for anything and yet Agnes stole several valuable pieces of jewelry from this grandmother. Agnes knew to hit that particular house even though it didn’t appear to have anything valuable in it. I think she talked to this grandmother. So I have been following her to see if she goes anywhere she would run into Agnes. See? It’s harmless.”
“Cassidy,” he said, and he meant business. “How do you know about these houses? How did you find out about this grandmother?”
Time to fess up.
“Would you be mad if I told you a careless person left the information in plain view and I just happened to read it?”
He put his hands on his hips and looked at me sternly. I was glad he loved me. I could imagine some punk kid seeing that look and slowly melting into the sidewalk.
“Did I do that?” he asked.
“You did.”
“And you narrowed it down to this one house and this one person?”
“I did, but only on instinct and because the people in the other houses are never around. This family does things. They are home when I can be out watching them. I have to leave to cook dinner so I never see what happens there in the evening.”
“And I suppose you’d like to.”
What? Was he offering to go on stake out with me?
“I’m curious, your file is backwards. Usually you have a crime with several people’s backgrounds in it. This time you have Agnes at the front with all these crimes in the back. Are you really convinced Agnes pulled off all these burglaries?”
“Show me the house. And tell me about this grandmother.”
We ate a quick dinner and then got in the Explorer and headed for town. I led him to the house I’d been watching. As he drove, I talked.
“And the one time I spoke to her she was wearing rings on every finger because she was afraid they would get stolen if she didn’t keep them on. I’m convinced Agnes knows this woman, maybe not well, but they have a connection. I’m betting it’s a social one, which is why she hasn’t led me there in the daytime. That’s when this woman would be dressed in such a way to draw attention to her rings.”
When we pulled up to the little stucco home Rusty looked at me weird.
“This house? This is the house you’ve been watching all this time?”
“This is the home of the grandmother I’ve been following,” I corrected him. “She comes and goes a lot. She doesn’t have a lot of patience with the kids so I bet she goes out in the evenings if she has someplace to go.”
“This house doesn’t match the pattern at all.”
“That’s why it might be the one link. Something had to make Agnes choose this house. It wasn’t a chance drive by that made her choose it. The big, fancy houses, yes, those were hit by chance, but not this one. This one has secrets.”
He smiled and we settled in for a long, quiet evening and quiet it turned out to be. I was glad to note there was, indeed a father in the house, but the dad came home and almost immediately the parents left and grandma stayed home babysitting.
“Do you want to follow the parents?”
“No, it’s Grandma we’re interested in.”
“I doubt there’s much reason to stay.”
“I don’t know, I think we should stay.”
“Why?”
“Did you bring the file?”
“It’s at the office where it should have been when you read it.”
“Rats.”
“Why?”
“What day of the week did the break in occur? Today is Friday. What if every Friday Mom and Dad have a date night? What if Grandma agrees to babysit every Friday?”
“So?”
“So, I think we should stay.”
“Sometimes your logic eludes me.”
“Sometimes it pays to listen to it, too.”
Hours went by. It was boring in the car. Too bad we couldn’t make things a little more interesting. About eight o’clock the house got still, lights went out. Shortly thereafter the front door opened and Grandma came outside and sat in a patio chair under the front yard tree. She brought out a skein of yarn and a crochet hook and added to a project she had started. I guess she didn’t need to see it because she only rarely even looked at it. Her fingers flew automatically.
“You want to sit here and watch an old lady crochet?” Rusty asked.
“I want to see if she can finish it tonight,” I joked.
After a short time a man walked down the street and into the front yard. He sat down in the other patio chair and he and Grandma talked for hours.
“Bet I could slip in that house and be out before she realized it.” I said.
“I bet you could. You really think Agnes broke in while they were in the front yard and the kids were sleeping in the house? She’d have to be pretty gutsy to pull that off.”
“You said she was a gutsy lady.”
About ten thirty the man got up and kissed Grandma gently on the cheek and walked home. About eleven o’clock Mom and Dad came home and the house went completely dark.
Rusty and I had enough for one night except for one quick stop. I’d gotten Rusty curious. He drove to the station and got out Agnes’s file. He read through it a little bit and set it down.
“Well?” I asked. It was my stake out. I wanted to know if I was right.
“It happened at 9 o’clock. On a Friday. It was one of the few thefts that was discovered soon after it happened. The grandma’s name is Dottie and she doesn’t mention the man at all, unsurprisingly. She just reported that she was outside getting some fresh air.”
“I wonder how fresh,” I joked.
“Got any other hunches you’d like to follow up on?”
“I still think one of these evenings Dottie will go out for her own night out and when it turns out to be a social occasion Agnes is likely to be there.”
“Did you get any more hunches out of this file?”
“I didn’t pry. I only got enough general information to give me a starting place.”
He took the file home. In the morning, when he left for work, he put the file on the dining room table and said, “Maybe you should pry. Just don’t act before calling me.”
“Do you want to stake out the house tonight?” I asked.
“You’re still set on this?”
“I still think it’ll pay off, eventually.”
“Pack a picnic dinner and I’ll pick you up at four. Maybe eating will help pass the time. Stakeouts were never my favorite thing to do.”
“Maybe we can do your favorite thing afterwards,” I said playfully.
His eyes got all soft but he checked his thoughts and glared at me instead.
“I’ll pick you up at four.”
I smiled, “okay.”
I decided I’d get more information out of the file than I would watching Dottie pick up her prescriptions and go to the library so I settled in with the file.
Agnes was born Agnes Luella Peruggia, in New York City. I wondered what part of New York City. That might explain why she learned to rely on stealth. She married Isaac Cooper and had three kids. The thefts dated back into the nineteen seventies. Several were confirmed. Many were not. Just as Rusty had said, she was caught and served two years in prison after a plea-bargain. Apparently, two years didn’t teach her a lesson. She was suspected in burglaries all over southern California. I wondered what kind of a name Peruggia was so I did a search on the Internet and laughed when I found out the Mona Lisa was once stolen by a man named Peruggia. Maybe it ran in the blood. I compared the picture in the file with the picture on the Internet. I couldn’t see a resemblance.
I was sure if I came up with any hunches it was not going to come from Agnes’s past. It was going to come from closer to the present. I looked at the cat burglar picture again and I was almost sure it wasn’t Agnes. I looked at the mug shots and memorized the features. I was almost sure I could spot Agnes from across a room without seeing her face just because of the way she moved but it couldn’t hurt to have a face to go with the actions.
I studied the recent burglaries. There was nothing to indicate they were broken into at night. The few that were confirmed were daytime break-ins; she was discovered by a person like the cleaning lady I had watched earlier. Still, her access points were interesting. She could fit through a very small opening. Sometimes she didn’t even open the window farther to get in. She just popped off the screen and slithered through. She even replaced the screens if it was physically possible. Sometimes the victims blamed friends and servants because there was no evidence of a break in, yet the police had the cases lumped in with Agnes’s file. Did they really give her that much credit?
The burglaries she was convicted of were similar to the confirmed cases in her recent history. She had been seen by witnesses. Hmm. I wondered if she could be baited. What if Hazel had a neighbor, just down the road who had the most exquisite ring she had ever seen? Could I get her to break into my house? Some research was necessary first. Before I invited her over for a break in I wanted to know if she was armed and I needed to make the right connections. At least reading through the file I was familiarizing myself with the way Agnes worked. Usually if I did that a profile would build in my head and when I finally met the person something would click.
Dottie seemed to have big plans that night. We were lucky we got there early because ten minutes after we got there Dottie came out of the house with a flourish. She was wearing a bright purple dress, with bright purple hosiery, with little rhinestones sewn in so her legs sparkled when she walked. Her high-heeled shoes clicked rhythmically as she walked to her car. On her head was a bright red hat with red and purple feathers and silver accents. Dottie was all dolled up!
Rusty and I looked at each other. Would he follow her? He better! This was what we were waiting for.
Dottie opened her car door and reached in. She brought out an outrageous antenna ball with purple and red ribbons streaming down from it. She’d be hard to lose with that thing flying as she drove! Dottie started up her car and backed out of the driveway. Rusty let her get a head start and then pulled out. It was hard to follow Dottie inconspicuously because she drove so slowly. Rusty tried to keep a car or two between us but drivers got tired of following Dottie and passed her. We followed her through town to a park and ride near the freeway. She parked and got out of her car. I looked around thinking the Martians had landed. Everybody was dressed in bright purple and topped with a red hat. The women greeted each other warmly. There must have been fifty of them! What were all these outrageous women doing at the freeway park and ride?
“Do you have binoculars?” I asked.
“Yeah, but now isn’t the time. We’re too visible. If someone saw you they’d call the cops.”
“So? What if one of them is Agnes and I can’t see her behind all the feathers?”
“Just wait.”
When all were accounted for they boarded a charter bus and it slowly pulled out of the parking lot. Rusty let the bus get onto the freeway before taking off from the park and ride. The women were not going to get away and the bus was visible from a mile away. As we merged onto the freeway Rusty checked his gas gauge. Three quarters of a tank. We hoped it was enough.
At one point when we knew it was several miles until the next exit Rusty pulled up alongside the bus and I watched the women inside laughing and joking together. When some of them saw me watching they waved enthusiastically. I couldn’t distinguish individual faces through the tinted glass but they were all smiling, glad to be out doing something together.
Rusty dropped back again and we settled in for a long evening.
“If there was ever a group of ladies who would appreciate Agnes’s jewelry collection it would be these ladies,” I commented to Rusty.
“Unless they are all former owners,” Rusty said glumly, eyes on the road. “What have we got to eat?”
I pulled out a sandwich and unwrapped it halfway so Rusty could hold it easily and drive.
We followed the bus all the way down Highway 14 to I-5 and then followed them south for an hour. I was glad Rusty was used to following people in big city traffic. He stayed on their tail and they never suspected a thing. I brightened considerably when I saw where they were going. Maybe this stakeout business could be fun after all. The Red Hat Ladies were going to Downtown Disney.
The atmosphere at the park and ride was festive, but once the women disembarked at the shopping area of Downtown Disney they opened up even more. They split up and shopped. Many of them bought small gifts for grandkids. Rusty and I wandered from group to group acting like tourists, trying to see if any of the Red Hat Ladies looked or acted like Agnes or wore particularly dazzling jewelry. The festive mood was contagious and I had to remind myself that I had a job to do. I bought a big Lego set for Patrick and Wyatt. Rusty shook his head. He was all work. I figured there were Red Hat Ladies everywhere so we had to go in all the shops and buying something would make me fit in. About seven thirty all the Red Hat Ladies gathered at a meeting spot and went to a jazz restaurant. The constant music all over the shopping area lent to the festive mood. I was wishing we hadn’t eaten on the way. The Red Hat Ladies had reservations. They had a head start on us and we couldn’t afford to lose them afterwards so we sat outside with the hope that we would get a good look at each and every one of them as they exited the restaurant.
“We need to come here with Patrick and Wyatt,” I said as a cartoon character walked by.
“We need to come here with our own kid,” said Rusty and we both fell silent. We’d brought up the forbidden topic.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want kids. I loved kids, but I loved my freedom, too. I thought my time was better spent doing other things besides procreating. I was worried what would happen with a little Cassidy running loose. I wasn’t sure two trouble magnets in one household would survive long enough to see the kid grow up. It sounds silly, but it was a legitimate worry, especially after spending a couple of weeks with Patrick. In those two weeks Patrick had called 911 and sent the police to arrest Hazel and Wally’s son, become stuck in the top branches of a tree, and been dragged down the mall by a purse snatcher. If I had kids I thought we’d need our own personal search and rescue team. We’d need a tracker, an EMT, and a swat team. Then I reminded myself of the good times we’d had playing in the snow, teaching Patrick how to ride a bike and roller blade, tracking and stalking together.
Rusty was watching me but he was wise not to intrude on my thoughts. He could read me like a book and he knew to talk about it would be harmful to his cause. He did want kids. I knew that. He didn’t push. But I knew. He left me alone to work my way through the difficult topic.
Another reason I had trouble with the idea of bringing kids into the world was that I’d seen how life could end. I’d seen an Alzheimer’s patient wander the woods looking for a spouse who had died ten years ago. I’d felt what it was like to be beaten and shot at and carried away from a car crash. I saw what I put Rusty through and I wasn’t willing to double that. Okay, so most people don’t know what it’s like to be beaten and shot at, but this was my kid we were talking about. If they took after me at all who knows what would happen. I’d grown up in a peaceful setting, sheltered from the world, yet just my basic personality prevented me from staying in a nice safe place. I was just programmed differently. I wanted to be out there, like Frank said, jumping into life with both feet.
And how would you have your kid live, Cass? Would you have them sit at home and be a house wife? What about a boy? Would you have him sit in an office and, and do what? Accounting? No, admit it, you’d want your kids to be out there getting as much as they could out of life, too. Damn, it was a catch 22. And that’s why the subject of kids was the forbidden topic.
“Here we go. You watch the ones on the left, I’ll watch the ones on the right,” Rusty said.
I’d seen them coming. “Okay,” I replied although my methods of observation were different from his and I tended to look at people in general and then focus on details if someone stood out. It was like bird identification. The first thing to notice is the general shape and motions of a bird, this narrows your choices down to a certain type of bird, then look for particular markings to make a final identification. In this case I was looking for a smaller, lither woman, who moved gracefully, smoothly, who kept track of her surroundings, who wore lots of jewelry. It only took a couple of seconds to run through the list. Most of the women were instantly ruled out. By the time all the women had left the restaurant I was convinced Agnes was not one of them. Many of them were small. Many of them wore expensive jewelry. But none of them moved like a cat burglar. Rusty would say, “And how exactly does a cat burglar move when she’s not cat burglaring?” But I knew, she would move slightly differently, just as I couldn’t help but move differently. It was programmed into the brain. I wished I could get a man nearby to yell, “Freeze! Police!” so I could see the reactions. If Agnes were here we’d see forty-nine Red Hat Ladies go “huh? What?” and stand there looking puzzled. And we would see one who shrunk from sight, becoming nearly invisible within seconds. Then she would put anything she could between the voice and herself and she’d shrink back into the shadows and vanish.
“I think we struck out,” Rusty said.
“At least it was an entertaining stake out,” I said.
“I’m not going to bother following the bus back. We’ll beat it back and find a dark corner where we can use the binoculars.”
“You’re being very thorough with this group of ladies. What’s up?” I asked.
“If I knew, I’d look into it further, but I don’t. It can’t hurt to give it one more try and call it a night.”
I doubted we’d learn anything new by hiding out and watching with binoculars. I’d gotten a good look at the whole group and none of them was Agnes. I was sure of it. Still, I wasn’t going to do anything to stop Rusty from reaching the same conclusion.
We drove back to the park and ride and located a dark corner where we had a good view of the bus stop. We finished off the sandwiches and started in on the macaroni salad when the bus pulled up. Rusty watched as all the women disembarked. I sat, watching Rusty, as the binoculars shifted slightly one way and then another. All the women disembarked and he was still watching. Suddenly he brought the glasses down and looked around. I sat up, looking over the situation. Something was up. The ladies were all in a commotion but we were too far away to see what it was about. I slipped out the passenger’s door and made my way through the few parked cars that remained late at night. I slipped into the desert bordering the park and ride and stalked my way closer to the group. The ground sloped down and it was easy for me to stay below their field of view. When I’d stalked as close as I could without being seen I still couldn’t hear well but I could make out motions and attitudes. The actions said, “It was right here! I parked between Mildred and Sarah and their cars are right here and mine’s gone!”
This was interesting. I speculated about who would want to steal that particular car. It could be anybody, or it could be Agnes, knowing a car was available, one that wouldn’t draw attention herself. I lay in wait while the women fidgeted and stewed and comforted the woman whose car was stolen. I tried to notice if the woman was wearing an excessive amount of jewelry. I quickly made my way back to Rusty.
“Her car was stolen!” I said. “Is there any way you can get some information out of her, like whether or not she had a spare house key in it and what her address is?”
Rusty looked at me like I was nuts.
“Okay, it’s a hunch. But one that could be worthwhile checking out.”
It took half an hour for a black and white to show up and when they did Rusty stepped forward.
“What’re you doing here?” Jayce Thompson asked.
“It has nothing to do with stolen cars but it could tie into something I’m working on. I have a few questions and then I’ll get out of your way.”
I left Rusty to his detective work, partly because he was better at it and partly because I didn’t want Jayce to know I was there. As soon as the guys saw me at a crime scene they tried to figure out how it could go wrong or who was after me this time.
Nothing interesting happened while Jayce and Rusty questioned the woman. Rusty returned to the Explorer.
“What did you find out?”
“She locks her keys in her car so she doesn’t lose them. She has a combination lock so she didn’t worry about someone breaking in. The keys were out of sight in the console. And I got an address. Let’s go.”
“Did you ask her about Agnes?”
“Yeah, but I doubt Agnes goes by her real name. I think she’s smarter than that.”
Rusty hurried to the woman’s house. He had to get out his big, city map and locate it first because it was on one of those residential streets that we had to wind our way in to. The neighborhood was quiet as we drove down one street after another. It was a two story house and Rusty paused half a block away.
“That’s the car,” he said.
“What? You mean the car was stolen just so the thief could take it home for her? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Unless they just wanted access to the house.”
He pulled out his phone and called Jayce.
“I found the car. Now I need the owner.” A pause while Jayce spoke. “It’s at her house.” Another pause. “Just let her go as soon as you can. I may know who took it shortly after she gets here.”
“You think Anges stole this lady’s car to break into her house?”
“Agnes is a good locksmith. I’m sure she can unlock a car.”
When the woman arrived she looked over her red Mazda MX5. It matched her hat. And her attitude. She unlocked the car with a combination and dove inside. The keys were still there. Rusty instructed her to look around to see if anything was missing, especially jewelry.
I waited in the Explorer. Jayce pulled up and noticed me there.
“Oh, no, don’t tell me you’re in on this, too?”
“Just barely, I wish I had worn my uniform so I could go in there and know what was going on.”
“I think you just got your chance,” Jayce said nodding towards the house.
“Cassidy, come here,” Rusty called from the front door.
Hmm, this was odd. I knew there were no tracks to follow; everything outside was cement. When I jogged up Rusty said, “I need your input.”
“On what?” I said and then realized the whole house had very new carpet and footprints showed up easily. I slipped over to where Rusty was standing.
“Cassidy, this is Verna. Verna, this is my wife, Cassidy. Her area of expertise is tracking. I’d like her to follow the trail through the house and tell me what the person did in here. I’d do it but she seems to get more out of a trail than anyone else.”
“Do you have your cell phone?” I asked.
He pulled it out of his pocket.
“Set it to speaker phone so I can talk to both of you.” I looked around a little before moving. Even from where I stood I had a few questions. “Before you left the house were the curtains open or closed?”
“Open, I leave them open so I can see in when I get home. I leave the lights on so people think someone’s home, too.”
“The first thing the person did was stop at the front door, probably to listen for other people in the house. Then they closed the front curtains so the neighbors wouldn’t see her poking around.”
“Her?” Verna said. “What makes you think it was a woman?”
I looked to Rusty.
“She doesn’t yet,” Rust said, though I did know it was woman. A woman who wore size six. She wore flat soled shoes with very little tread. They fit her feet closely. The wear was even. All those facts pointed toward Agnes.
“After she closed the curtains she felt more free to look around.” I followed the tracks to the dining room and then to the kitchen. “She only glanced in the dining room and the kitchen,” I informed them. If she went in the kitchen she came out exactly where she went in and that would be unusual. Can you think of anything you left out that might draw her attention?”
“No, nothing!” Said Verna. “I’m a neat freak. I hate a cluttered house.”
I looked in the kitchen again. She was right. She was a neat freak. No dirty dishes, nothing was on the counters except a few canisters, a toaster, and a coffee maker.
“Do you keep any valuables hidden in the canisters?” I asked.
“No, just sugar, flour, corn starch, that sort of thing.”
I followed the tracks upstairs. They became muddled with Verna’s tracks a little but the thief’s tracks were on top. I was surprised when the tracks bypassed the first two doors and went straight to the master bedroom. It was fairly obvious which bedroom the master bedroom was because it had big double doors.
“Whoever it was didn’t bother with the smaller bedrooms,” I informed those downstairs. “They went straight to the master bedroom and closed the curtains in there too. They glanced in the bathroom. Was there anything in the bathroom they would want? Any rings in the dish? Any necklaces hanging from the peg?”
“No, all my jewelry would be in the jewelry box…”
“On your nightstand,” I said finishing her sentence for her. “Why didn’t they bother with the bigger one on your dresser?”
“It’s just costume jewelry,” she said with a worried tone. The jewelry box on my nightstand has the good stuff in it.”
“But how did the thief know that? Almost any thief would have gone for the big one first, the small one second, yet they skipped over the big one completely.”
Verna gasped, “It’s like they knew me!”
“Anything else, Cassidy?” Rusty asked.
“Just one little quirky thing that doesn’t involve the theft. As she was leaving the master bedroom she jumped to the side. As I look to see what made her jump, I realize you can see directly from Verna’s bedroom door, through two windows, directly into the neighbor’s house. From what I see here maybe we should warn them to be on their guard.”
“Oh, that woman only has junk. The gaudiest costume jewelry you can imagine.” This coming from a woman dressed in a bright purple and red pantsuit and a red hat with purple hatpins all over it.
“How did the burglar get out?” Rusty asked.
“She just went back down stairs and out the front door.” I answered.
“Thanks, Cassidy, you can come downstairs now.” When I got downstairs he asked. “Do you want to take the truck home? It’s going to be a long night.”
Sigh, I didn’t want to, but there was also no use in me staying. I knew the basics. Verna knew this woman. The woman had been in her house before, had been in her bedroom before. Knew which jewelry box held the best jewelry. Had known Verna would be gone several hours today and knew she tended to leave her keys inside her car. She knew where to find the car and how to get in. A slim jim might have done the trick, or she might have known the combination.
“There was an accomplice involved here or the car wouldn’t be in the driveway,” I mused aloud. “Now it makes sense why we could never find out what car she drove. It’s possible that she is never in her car.”
“Now that you mention it,” Verna said. “I’ve heard of people’s cars being stolen and then turning up, unharmed in odd places before.”
“It’s going to be a long night,” Rusty said again. He handed me the keys to the Explorer. He called the station to arrange for a forensics crew to come in and collect evidence. I didn’t see that they would find much but they had to look anyway. If it was Agnes, she was known to wear gloves during her break-ins. We would at least know if the theft matched Agnes’s MO. So far I was willing to put good money on Agnes. It was observant enough and sneaky enough and neat enough to fit her profile.
I took the Explorer home knowing there was no use waiting up. I slipped into bed at two a.m. and woke up, like usual, around dawn. Oh man, I needed more sleep! But it was no use. I was awake for the day. Shadow woke up, too, and once he was awake I knew there was no use trying to sleep. I fed him and ran him through the agility course a few times. That got him wound up enough that he wanted to play. I’d have taken him out in the hills for a hike except I wanted to be home when Rusty got there.
Rusty dragged in around eight a.m. and slouched into the old brown couch. I sat down next to him feeling nearly as tired as he was.
“What haven’t you already guessed?” he asked.
“Did Verna identify Agnes from the picture?”
“No, nor from any of the mug shots on record.”
“Do you think I should show the picture to Hazel? Did you show it to Dottie?”
“Dottie didn’t recognize Agnes’s picture either. By the sounds of it, it can’t hurt to ask Hazel.”
“Agnes hasn’t been known for her disguises, has she?”
“Who knows anything about Agnes anymore,” he said tiredly. “It didn’t work out quite the way we hoped but it paid off to follow Dottie last night. Are you ready to try again?”
“Not unless we both have a nap.”
“It’s a deal.”
About three in the afternoon the doorbell rang and I pulled myself out of the depths of sleep enough to answer it. I took a look at myself in the hallway mirror and didn’t like what I saw and didn’t care a whole lot. I smoothed down the worst of it and opened the door to a perfectly primped Misty Montague. I groaned inwardly.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“I’ve been on a stakeout all night.” I told her without thinking.
“Ooo, anything exciting happen?”
“I can’t talk about ongoing cases. You know that.”
“I bet I could get Rusty to talk,” she said.
“I bet you can’t because you’re going to let him sleep. Good night, Misty.”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon,” she whined.
“Yes, and morning will be here sooner than you think.”
She turned with a huff and laid rubber on Lost Hills Road as she headed for town.
Dottie led us to a dominoes game at a friend’s house, a pot luck at the senior center and a eightieth birthday party at the Holiday Inn conference center.
I thought another trip to Hazel’s house was in order. She opened the door but quickly admitted, “We’ve been wracking our brains all week and we can’t think of who this woman is.”
“That’s okay; I have another question for you. Have there been an unusual number of stolen cars amongst the seniors?”
“How many is an unusual number? I can’t say I’ve heard of more than four.”
“I’d say four is an unusual number for a small group of people.” I observed. “Do you know any details?”
I was alert right away when she started her explanation with, “Well, it’s the oddest thing, cars are stolen but police find them really quickly. The police must think they are doing a wonderful job recovering cars so fast but I think the thief is just borrowing them. But why would someone borrow a car without asking only to return it?”
“To commit a crime?”
“But the police haven’t mentioned to any of the owners that their car was involved in a crime.”
“Maybe the police don’t know. Can you tell me what was going on at the time the cars got stolen?”
“Well, one was a Boggle match. I was there for that one.”
“How long does a Boggle match go on?”
“It depends on how quick people think and how many people enter. It can be a few hours.”
“And what happened?”
“I went to the senior center for the match and won handily but when we came out one of the cars was gone. It was found again back at the senior center the next day. Lily says that Carol said that her car was stolen when she went on a bus trip to the State Line. When she came back her car was not where she left it but it was found near her house. We were all wondering how the car thief knew where she lived.”
“Have any of these people also had their houses broken into?”
“What? Like a robbery?”
“If it’s a house that’s broken into it’s a burglary but, yeah.”
She thought for a minute. “Come to think of it there have been a lot of burglaries lately. There didn’t used to be but for the past year it’s gotten worse and worse.”
“The past year?”
“No, I guess it’s been more recent than that. It’s awful, isn’t it, the way crime is getting?”
“Can you tell me what has been stolen?”
“Well, cars. And credit cards. Cash and credit cards are always high on the list of stolen goods. And jewelry, but that’s understandable. Some of those women have jewelry you wouldn’t believe!”
Okay, it was time to take the plunge. I’d copied Agnes’s picture and removed all the personal information from the page.
“Hazel, does this woman look familiar to you?”
She took the picture from me and looked it over carefully, then hollered into the other room, “Wally! Get in here! Cassidy has a suspect!”
Wally waddled in from the other room and took the picture from Hazel.
“Does she look familiar to you?” she asked. “You see a lot more women of an evening than I do.” Then to me, “He’s such a flirt.”
“Maybe, just maybe. I can’t think of her name but she looks a little like what’s her name.”
“I don’t know,” Hazel said. “What’s her name?”
“If I knew I’d tell you. It’s right at the tip of my brain.”
“Your brain is as round as your head, maybe it slipped off the side. If we wait long enough maybe it’ll slip out your mouth.”
I didn’t appreciate the mental picture that went with that but I didn’t say anything.
“Will you be quiet?” Wally scolded her. “I can’t think with you going on about it.”
They went back and forth a bit, “Well, what group is she in?”
“None.”
“What do you mean none? How do you not be part of a group?”
“By not forming cliques!” Wally said pointedly.
“She’s gotta be in some group. Who does she hang out with?”
“No one. She just kind of watches things. She’s a wallflower, that’s what she is. She’s quiet and she watches things from a distance. The only time I’ve seen her get involved is at the big dances. She dances! Boy can she dance! Makes me wish I could dance too!”
“Okay,” said Hazel, losing patience. “So what’s her name?”
“I don’t know but, if I could dance, I’d be sure to find out!”
“What does she wear?” Hazel was helping me out by leaps and bounds without even knowing it.
“She wears…oh hell, how should I know what she wears? I never examined her outfits before, except those dresses she wears to dance in and her sparkly jewelry. She does go for the sparkly ones, that gal does. Wow!”
“I see,” said Hazel with a glare.
“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight,” I interrupted. “Cars disappear when there’s a long activity going on. There have been burglaries involving cash, credit cards and jewelry. Not TVs? No big electronics or antiques?”
“Louis had his TV stolen, but that was while he was moving. Someone just walked off with it out of the truck,” Wally said.
“And this woman looks like a woman that goes to the dances and usually sits quietly alone observing things,” I said in conclusion.
“Yeah, that sounds about right to me.”
“Do you have a schedule of the upcoming events?” I asked Hazel.
“Of course! I keep it tacked to my refrigerator.”
She went and got the paper and handed it to me. It was water spotted and had food stains on it but it showed the activities for the month.
“Can I copy this? I’ll bring it back in a few hours. Do you happen to have one of these for the Red Hat Ladies, too?”
“Is what’s her name a Red Hat Lady?”
“I don’t know, just a possibility,” I said, not wanting to go in that direction at that point in time.
“I don’t have one but Melba does. I’ll have her give me a copy. She’s always trying to get me to go to the meetings with her.”
I left Hazel’s house ready to take on Agnes. All I had to do was find her.
I was convinced that the next big senior citizen’s event or Red Hat Ladies event would bring her out. This time I wouldn’t go to the event itself. I would watch the parking lot. I copied the calendar as promised and took the original back to Hazel, then drove quickly to town. I was excited about what I had learned and didn’t want to wait until Rusty came home from work to tell him about it.