by Nic Saint
“Maybe we should,” Chase agreed. “Do you know a good plumber?”
“I can ask the contractor,” Marge suggested.
“You better not. We don’t want to distract them from the work on your house,” said Odelia. “No, I’ll ask Dan. I’m sure he knows someone who can help us out for a reasonable price.”
“Is it true what Ma said?” asked Marge. “Did they really break into your office last night?”
“Yeah, they did. Probably those Hampton Heisters again.”
“I’m going over to Lil Leaky Fruit Loop’s house,” said Chase. “Wanna come?”
“Leaky who?” asked Marge.
“He’s a rapper,” Chase said, as if that explained everything—and it did.
“Sure,” said Odelia. “Why? Did they take anything?”
“No, but Mr. Fruit Loop has a good security system, with plenty of cameras. So I’m hoping that maybe the Heisters got caught on CCTV this time.”
“If they keep this up, sooner or later we’re going to catch them. They can’t keep lucking out.”
Just then, Chase’s phone dinged, and he glanced down. “Dolores,” he announced, then frowned as he read her message. “She needs me at the precinct. On the double.”
I had to hand it to Chase. He really made haste when he needed to. About ten minutes after Dolores had left that message on his phone, we were at the precinct, wondering what could possibly be so urgent as to interrupt the regular Poole morning ritual.
It didn’t take us long to discover what it was: seated on a bench in the waiting area out front, four teenagers were biding their time. And when Chase and Odelia sidled up to Dolores, she gestured with her head to the foursome, and said, “They claim to be the Hampton Heisters. Said they’re here to turn themselves in.”
Chase and Odelia slowly turned to the teens, who looked nervous yet defiant.
“They don’t look like dangerous criminals, Max,” said Dooley. “They look more like the cast members of a Disney Channel Original Movie.”
“Yes, they do,” I agreed as I studied the foursome. They were two girls and two boys, and they all looked pretty normal to me: they wore jeans and sweatshirts, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a school setting, which was probably what they were playing truant from right now. I would have estimated their age around seventeen or eighteen. In other words, Emma Hudson’s age.
“You lot, come with me,” Chase instructed, and watched as the foursome got up and followed him down the corridor and into the precinct proper.
Unfortunately cats aren’t allowed inside police interview rooms, so Dooley and I watched on as Chase and Odelia headed in. But since we’re both very curious kitties, we decided to take up position on Uncle Alec’s windowsill, and hopefully glean a little something about the goings-on from that position.
When we arrived there, we discovered that Ellie Pack was in with the Chief, conducting what was likely her very first solo interview.
“Thank you so much for this, Chief,” the girl was saying.
“You’re very welcome, Ellie,” said Uncle Alec, leaning back in his chair and looking well pleased. It wasn’t hard to imagine why he was so happy: in a box in front of him an assortment of donuts lay, and I had the impression that Ellie was the one who’d placed them there.
“Great interview technique,” Dooley remarked, who’d noticed the same thing.
“Excellent technique,” I agreed. “Ellie is a quick learner.”
“So your dad was a reporter? Is that correct?” asked the Chief as he picked a jelly donut from the box and took a big bite.
“Yeah, he was. Or at least that’s what my mom told me.”
“You never knew your dad?”
“No, he left before I was born.”
“You never met him later on?”
“Mom says they lost touch, and she has no idea where he might be. He could be dead for all we know.”
“But if he’s a reporter, there must be a way to track him down, right? Through the paper he worked for, or maybe some trade association?”
“According to Mom he quit his job so he could write a book. He moved to Alaska and that’s the last she heard of him.”
“So maybe he’s a famous writer and you don’t even know,” said the Chief with a smile.
“Maybe,” Ellie allowed. “And maybe he doesn’t even know he has a daughter.”
“You know what you should do? Go find him. And then you can write an article about how you found your dad.”
“You know, I was thinking the exact same thing. And if I find him, maybe the two of us could write a book together, father and daughter.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?” said Odelia’s uncle as he picked a cream donut from the box and managed to eat it whole in three big bites.
“Uncle Alec is an accomplished donut eater,” Dooley remarked.
“He’s a cop, Dooley. Eating donuts comes with the territory.”
“Do you think they teach donut eating at the police academy?”
“Of course. It’s part of the curriculum.”
He studied me for a moment, then smiled. “You’re pulling my paw, aren’t you, Max?”
“Yeah, I guess I am, Dooley.”
Inside the office, Ellie had gotten up. “I have to go. I have a meeting with the school principal.”
“Oh, you’re not in trouble again, are you?” asked the Chief.
“No, no. She called my mom yesterday and asked me to come in. She wants to discuss my future after my week’s suspension.”
“If you want I’ll put in a good word for you,” Uncle Alec suggested.
“No, that’s all right,” said Ellie. “Odelia has already done that.” She held out a hand. “Thank you so much for the interview, Chief Lip.”
“Just call me Alec,” said the Chief as he wiped his fingers on a napkin then shook the junior reporter’s hand. “And you’re very welcome. I think you did a great job on your first interview all by yourself.”
Ellie beamed with pride. “Thank you, Alec. Well, see you around, I guess.”
The moment she’d left, Uncle Alec turned to us and said, “Did you get all that, you nosy parkers?”
“Yeah, we got all that!” I confirmed.
“Eat another donut, Uncle Alec,” Dooley said, “You’re really good at it.”
Uncle Alec must have understood, for that’s exactly what he did—and with relish!
28
As Odelia followed Chase and the four Hampton Heisters into the interview room, she had to confess she was more than a little curious what they had to say. Only last night they’d attempted another break-in, and yet here they were, turning themselves in!
“This is Odelia Poole,” said Chase, introducing Odelia. “Our civilian consultant. Now tell me what the hell is going on here.”
They’d all taken a seat, and the foursome first exchanged hesitant glances, then finally a girl with long blond hair piped up, “We’re the Hampton Heisters, and we would like to turn ourselves in.”
“You’re the Hampton Heisters, and you’re…” He read from his notes. “Lorie Mitford?”
“Dawn Strain. She’s Lorie Mitford.”
“So you claim to be the Hampton Heisters, Dawn?”
The girl nodded. “At least that’s how the media has started calling us.” She directed a glance at Odelia.
“But why? Why this sudden attack of contrition?”
“Emma,” said Dawn. “We don’t think it’s fair for one of us to end up taking the blame for what we all did.”
“So Emma is the reason you had a change of heart?” asked Odelia.
The foursome nodded in unison. “We read that Emma is being accused of attempted murder,” Dawn continued. “And we want to state for the record that she’s innocent. She never attacked Carl Strauss. None of us did.”
“So who did?”
“I have no idea. But he was already knocked out on the floor when we got there.”
“Yeah, we found him like that
,” said Lorie Mitford, who was the brown-haired mousy type, and certainly did not look like a vicious wannabe celebrity heister to Odelia. In fact none of them looked like hardened criminals. More like the foursome from Scoobie Doo.
“Why did you do this?” she asked. “Why burgle these people’s homes and steal their stuff?”
“It started as a dare,” said Dawn, who seemed to be the unspoken yet outspoken spokesperson for the group. “We’ve always been addicted to social media, and we’ve been obsessing about celebrities for ages, so one day we decided we wanted access.”
“Access?”
“Yeah, we wanted to see where they lived. We wanted to lie in their beds. We wanted to step in their shoes and poke through their wardrobes. And we wanted to get our hands on something that belonged to them. And at first it was a lot of fun. We broke into the homes of the people we’ve been following online for years, and suddenly we were right there: right where they lived. It was so cool, and exciting, and since we were there anyway, we decided to grab a few souvenirs.”
“You took more than just souvenirs,” Chase said.
“I know. I guess we got carried away.”
Chase now addressed a dark-haired boy with attractive features. “Miles Cotts?”
The kid nodded nervously.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Miles?”
“Well, it’s not as if they were ever going to miss that stuff,” said Miles as he swept a dark lock from his brow. “These people are so rich I don’t think they’d miss a couple of rings or watches or a small pile of cash. All they need to do is post an update on their Insta and they’ve earned it back already. So no, I don’t feel like we did a bad thing.”
“So what happened the other night, when you broke into Carl Strauss’s place?” asked Chase. He pointed to the second boy, who wore glasses and looked a little nerdier than his colleagues. “You, Hank… Choice?”
“Hank Joyce,” the kid corrected him, then pushed his glasses up his nose. “It was really strange. For one thing, there was no alarm we needed to cut. The doors were open, and the alarm was turned off. And then after we’d already gone through the place, we suddenly found Carl—Mr. Strauss—on the floor, and just as we were debating what to do, whether to call an ambulance, suddenly you showed up, and we had to make a run for it. And then you caught Emma.” Four sets of eyes stared at Odelia with a touch of hostility.
“So now what?” asked Chase. “You expect us to believe you? For all we know Carl caught you breaking into his house and you knocked him out cold, either in a panic or in an attempt to get rid of him before he called the cops.”
“Look, I’m telling you, we didn’t do it,” said Dawn emphatically. “And if you don’t believe us, ask Carl. He’s not dead, is he?”
“No, but he’s still in a coma.”
The foursome exchanged startled glances. “But… we thought he was okay,” said Lorie.
“Who told you that?”
“It was on his Facebook. It said he’d come to and he was saying that Emma did this to him. That she’d taken a swing at him and put him in the hospital.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read on Facebook,” said Odelia.
“Besides, Carl Strauss doesn’t have a social media presence,” Chase added. “We asked his manager, and he decided a long time ago that he didn’t want that kind of exposure.”
“But… he has a Facebook page. It even has the blue tick.”
“What blue tick?”
“The blue tick that says that the page is representative of the real person.”
“I don’t know about any ticks, whether blue or otherwise, but Carl is still in the hospital, and he hasn’t come to. But you are right that Emma is still our main suspect, so you made the right decision when you decided to turn yourselves in.”
“What’s going to happen now?” asked Dawn in a small voice.
“Now you’re all going to be charged with multiple cases of burglary and in the morning you’ll appear in juvenile court to be arraigned.” He paused. “So if I were you, I’d get in touch with a good lawyer.”
“Oh, before I forget,” said Odelia, “when you were in Carl’s house, you didn’t happen to see anyone else there, did you?”
“Apart from you, you mean?” asked Hank. “No, no one.”
“Carl was supposed to meet a girl that night,” Chase explained. “A girl named Zoe?”
“We didn’t see anyone else there. Though like I said, the alarm was switched off, and the front door was open, so it definitely looked as if someone had been in there before we arrived. And that someone is probably the person who attacked Carl.”
29
We were back at the house, where Odelia had set up a big meeting: the meeting of the neighborhood watches!
On her left sat Wilbur Vickery and Father Francis Reilly, on her right sat Gran and Scarlett, and under the table sat Dooley and myself, eager to discover what solution Odelia had in mind to end the war of the watches once and for all.
“Look, this is ridiculous,” said Wilbur. “I asked Vesta to be allowed back in and she said no. So fine. It’s her watch. If she doesn’t want us, that’s all right by me. But she can’t tell us not to form our own watch. That’s the way tyranny lies, and I for one am against tyranny. This is a free country and if Francis and I want to start a watch, she can’t stop us.”
“Well spoken, Wilbur,” Father Reilly murmured.
“I’m not saying you can’t start a watch,” said Vesta. “You can start all the watches you want. But not here. Not in Hampton Cove. That’s ours to guard.”
“So where do you want us to start a neighborhood watch if not in our neighborhood?”
“I don’t care! Patrol the ocean, if you like. Plenty of drug traffickers out there.”
“I’m not going to let you tell us where we can and cannot patrol!” said Wilbur, getting a little hot under his collar again.
“Quiet, please,” said Odelia, holding up her hands like a King Solomon about to issue a ruling. “Look, there’s absolutely no reason you can’t both exist side by side. Hampton Cove is a big town. Big enough for two neighborhood watches. All you need to do is come to some kind of arrangement.”
“What arrangement? What are you talking about?” asked Gran.
“Either you divide Hampton Cove up into zones, and you each take a specific zone, or you take a different time block, for instance. Gran and Scarlett could patrol between the hours of ten and midnight, and then Wilbur and Father Reilly take midnight to two.”
“I’m not taking midnight to two,” said Wilbur. “I’m in my shop at six. I’m not going to spend half the night patrolling while Vesta and Scarlett could just as easily take that time slot. They don’t have to work for a living. They can live off their fat pensions.”
“For your information, I don’t have a fat pension,” said Gran. “I also work for a living.”
“You call that working? Gabbing away the morning with your son-in-law’s patients?”
“Hey, gabbing is hard work!”
“Or you—spending all your time at the spa,” he added, giving Scarlett a nasty look.
“Hey, it’s hard work to look this good,” said Scarlett, gesturing to her admittedly voluptuous body.
“Look, I didn’t invite you here to argue,” said Odelia. “We’re going to come to some kind of arrangement, and if you can’t play nice, I’m going to follow my uncle’s advice and tell you right here and now that there will be no more neighborhood watch.”
A collective howl of indignation rose up. “You can’t tell us not to patrol!” said Gran. “Like Wilbur said, that’s tyranny!”
“Oh, yes, we can,” said Odelia. “We can give you all house arrest, and mark my words, this will happen if you don’t all get along. After last night’s fiasco, we’ve had it up to here with you.” She gestured to her neck, then raised her hand to her lips, then thought better of it and ended up indicating her eyeballs, showing us she really was fed up
with this neighborhood watch nonsense.
“You’re going to give us house arrest?” asked Gran, looking shocked.
“Yes, we are. You’ll all be grounded—for life, if it’s up to me!”
“Oh, my God!” said Scarlett with a high-pitched laugh. “I feel like I’m back in school!”
“Grounded!” said Wilbur. “You can’t ground me, young lady. I’m a business owner. A prominent member of this community. I personally know Mayor Butterwick!”
“Watch me,” said Odelia, and she didn’t look like she was kidding either.
For a moment, no one spoke, then finally Gran said, “I guess we could come to some kind of arrangement. Like, maybe you and Francis patrol the first part of the night, and then Scarlett and I will take the second part.”
“Or we could alternate,” said Wilbur. “One week Francis and I take the first shift, and then the other week we take the second shift.”
“I guess that’s a good idea,” said Scarlett. “I mean, like Odelia said, Hampton Cove is a big town, and to patrol all of it in one night all by ourselves is pretty much impossible.”
“Yeah, I told you this town is too big for one watch to cover, didn’t I?” said Gran.
“You never told me any such thing.”
“No, but I was thinking it.”
“I like it,” said Father Reilly. “I can’t afford to spend the whole night out there. I have Mass in the morning, and other obligations. But a couple of hours every night is doable.”
The atmosphere around the table became more relaxed and convivial, and it didn’t take long for the four neighborhood watch members to start joking back and forth, and before long they were already talking about switching things up: Gran riding with Father Reilly some nights, or Scarlett and Wilbur teaming up. In other words: “Cooperation, people!” said Gran. “I told you all along that the secret to success is cooperation!”
“No, you didn’t,” said Scarlett.
“But I was thinking it.”
And it was a sign of this sudden entente that they all laughed heartily at this.
And then of course the conversation turned to the Hampton Heisters, and last night’s break-in at the Gazette.