Judy Nicholas phoned to inform me the owner had returned. She had spotted him that morning carrying groceries into the house.
Later that night, I parked my Wrangler within sight of the Meeker Street bungalow, tucked between two other cars. Rather than listen to talk radio or randomly selected music, I had the audio version of Elmore Leonard’s action-packed Western, Last Stand at Saber River, plugged into the car’s speaker system.
I also brought two thermos jugs filled with black coffee, a box of Snackwell Devil’s Food cookies, and a package of Nips Chocolate Parfait sucking candies. I figured that between the caffeine and the sugar, I’d stay awake and wired.
It was around eleven-thirty when I spotted a young man exit the bungalow, a backpack slung over his shoulder. He opened the garage door and stepped inside. After several minutes, a slate gray BMW M14 sports coupe backed down the driveway, turned left and drove past me, gathering speed as it did. After a while, with my lights switched off, I followed.
The BMW drove aimlessly through the sparse late night traffic, turning onto side streets and sliding into main drags as if in search of something elusive. This went on for some while before the BMW made its way onto Highway 101, heading south toward Los Angeles. I quit following once we crossed the county line.
It was close to two a.m. by the time I got home. I poured myself a Jack Daniel’s and collapsed into an armchair in my darkened living room.
My thoughts turned to the young man I had followed. Was he a candidate for closer inspection? He seemed a fish in unlikely waters, which heightened my suspicions. So, what were the facts?
A real estate trust fund represented by a high-class Beverly Hills law firm purchased a heretofore hard to sell bungalow in a low-rent section of Freedom. A young man moves into the bungalow and instead of improving the property, he lets it slide deeper into disrepair. Turns out the young man drives a top-of-the-line BMW sports coupe and seems to be a nocturnal creature. And the house purchase coincides with a sudden outbreak of graffiti vandalization in Freedom.
What’s wrong with this picture?
I had made note of the BMW’s license plate and was hopeful it might yield the first real clue in the quest to identify the vandal or vandals.
Flush with the promise of discovery I tumbled into bed and slept like a baby.