Petty Crimes & Head Cases

by Lola Beatlebrox

  “What?”

  “Some out-of-towners went to their vacation property yesterday. All that remained of their log cabin was a cement block foundation with weeds in it. Looked like it’d been taken some time ago.”

  “How could somebody steal a cabin?”

  “It was a ten-by-twenty prefabbed storage shed with log siding on it. Torgesen and I are driving up there this morning to interview the neighbors.”

  “Torgesen?”

  “Joe’s my partner now.”

  I told him about Joe’s visit to the salon.

  Carl laughed. “I’m glad I’m off the hook for that one! Mr. Stud Muffin! Wait ‘til I tell the guys. He won’t hear the end of it.”

  “Don’t tell anyone! He might not do it and Cholly will be crushed.”

  “Cholly have the hots for him?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “How am I going to keep this to myself?”

  “It’s an ongoing investigation, sweetheart,” I said. “You know you can’t reveal any details.”

  Carl chuckled.

  When I arrived at the salon at 11:15, my masseuse, Annabelle Davina, had already opened up.

  “The feet connect the body to the Earth,” she was saying to Mrs. Argosy. “They support every muscle—the heart, the lungs, and the brain. Your feet are incredibly strong. Stand on your tiptoes for a moment.”

  Mrs. Argosy levitated like a ballerina.

  “You see?” said Annabelle. “Our feet are our means of standing up in the world and facing every person and problem that comes our way. When the feet are well-cared for, we achieve true happiness and serenity.”

  “All right,” said Mrs. Argosy, “add a pedicure.”

  Annabelle processed Mrs. Argosy’s credit card and handed her a Pamper Night ticket. “I’m so glad you’re coming,” she said.

  I ushered Mrs. Argosy to the front door. “You deserve to be pampered after that awful experience with the meth addict in your rental,” I said.

  “It’s all right, Tracy. We have some good tenants now.”

  I returned to the desk and scrolled through the day’s transactions.

  “People have been stopping by since nine o’clock,” Annabelle said. “I’ve sold thirty tickets already.”

  The front door opened and my noontime appointment walked in. I looked at the clock. It was eleven thirty.

  “Tracy!” boomed Hawk Reynolds.

  “Hey, Hawk.”

  “How’s my favorite head shaper?”

  “Got my chain saw ready.”

  “Who’s this beautiful lady?” he asked.

  “I’m Annabelle. Annabelle Davina.”

  Hawk whistled. “A mighty pretty name for a mighty pretty lady. You got a boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  “You lookin’ for one?”

  “No.”

  “Gosh darn,” he said.

  Annabelle disappeared into the massage room.

  Hawk had that effect on women.

  I took Hawk into my back workroom and draped his burly body with a steel-grey cape. Reaching deep into the cabinet, I pulled out my pair of electric hedge clippers, turned them on, and poised them over his ear.

  Hawk guffawed. He got a kick out of this gag every time. He loves to run heavy equipment, set semi-trucks upright, suck up oil spills, and use the Jaws of Life. If something big has to be moved, he’s your go-to man.

  I took out my iPad. “Let me show you some new hair designs.” We went to Pinterest and I clicked through scalps with shaved hair art in stripes, circles, swirls, dots and dashes. There was even a picture of Bart Simpson.

  Hawk shook his head. “You never know what people are thinkin’,” he said. “Ain’t they just ridiculous?”

  I glanced at the tattoo on his arm—a death’s head figure carrying a sickle. “Ridiculous,” I murmured.

  He pushed the iPad away. “I want the usual—Telly Savalas.”

  “Telly Savalas?” I said. “He’s so seventies!”

  “Patrick Stewart, then.”

  “So eighties.”

  “Bruce Willis!”

  “Nineties!”

  His eyes were popping out now. “Hawk Reynolds!”

  “Twenty-first century!”

  He guffawed.

  “Gotcha!” I said.

  I took out my barber’s clippers and shaved his head. The buzz of the clippers overrode the sound of my spa music. As hair dropped down on the steel grey cape, his tattoo of a hawk on the wing re-emerged on his scalp.

  I turned the shaver off. “Hawk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you had to move a ten by twenty pre-fab storage shed, how would you do it?”

  “I’d just winch it up on my slideback and drive away.”

  “That easy?”

  “Piece a cake. You and Carl have a shed you want moved?”

  I told him about the stolen log cabin. “Have you had any jobs like that? Anyone ask you to move a cabin up at Wolf Lake?”

  Hawk gave it some thought. “Nope.”

  “You’ve pretty much got the corner on the towing market around here, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “So nobody else is going to get the job?”

  “Nope.”

  I got out my hair dryer and blew little hairs off his neck.

  “Tracy,” he said when I turned the dryer off.

  “Yes?”

  “Remember what happened last spring?”

  “What?”

  “When one of my slidebacks went missing for a night?”

  This was ringing a bell.

  “We operate twenty-four seven,” Hawk said, “and dispatch thought Jake had the truck and Jake thought Larry had the truck and Larry thought Alfie had the truck. The next day the slideback was in the lot. I asked the guys who had it but no one owned up, remember? That tow truck went for a ride overnight and no one confessed.”

  “How many miles were driven?”

  “A hunnert and sixty-eight.”

  “Interesting.” I didn’t wonder that Hawk remembered the exact mileage. He knew everything about his business. “Would you mind talking to Carl about it?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Okay.” I removed the cape. “How do you like it?”

  Hawk stood up, looked himself in the mirror, and gave me a thumbs up. “Yul Brynner,” he said.

  “So sixties!”

  Carl praised me for solving the riddle of how the log cabin left home. Then we talked about where it could have gone. If Hawk’s tow truck was indeed the getaway vehicle, the odometer mileage was low, so the cabin must still be in the county.

  The cabin owners were circulating “Reward Offered” flyers all over town. So far no one had come forward. I was so busy planning my event that the whole thing took a back seat until Pamper Night.

  The Citrus Salon was stuffed with women gorging themselves on First Lady Fare. My plate was piled high with seared Ahi tuna, crostini swabbed with wasabi-ginger, and maple-bourbon glazed pork on sweet potato chips.

  Margaret Pyle brought me a glass of wine.

  “How do you like the new caterer?” I asked.

  “If she’s good enough for Michelle Obama, she’s good enough for me!” Margaret said, popping a cucumber round topped with smoked trout into her mouth.

  “Not so loud,” I whispered. “Half these people voted Republican.”

  “Well, aren’t they silly!”

  Shelley Prothero emerged from the massage room wrapped in one of my snow-white Turkish robes. “Tracy, I want you to meet my good friend Dita Steed.”

  I shook the hand of a deeply tanned young woman, who was also wearing a robe.

  “That massage was perfect for my sore muscles,” she said.

  “Dita is Outlands Coordinator for the High Mountain Desert Wilderness Alliance,” said Shelley. “She’s staying at my house for a few days.”

  “What do you do for the Alliance?”

  “I hike the remote areas analyzing land use.
We protect the wilderness from oil and gas drillers, illegal road making, ATV damage—stuff like that. Right now I’m looking at the county land that borders the national forest.”

  “It’s pretty wild up there, isn’t it?”

  “Used to be. There’s a lot of building up there now, I’m sorry to say.”

  I told her about the log cabin. “Have you seen a little building like that?”

  “No, but I’ll keep a lookout.”

  We sipped our wine during one of those little lulls that happen during conversations with strangers. I was just about to go replenish the hors d’oeuvre table when she said, “We had a squatter case in the southern part of the state last year.”

  “What happened?”

  “A guy took over a cabin on private property. He had a four-year supply of freeze-dried food and an arsenal that put the Marines to shame.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “They had a tough time getting him out of there. He was one of those survivalists—wants the government to give all federal land away to private owners and no gun control.”

  “Just another wingnut,” Margaret said.

  “He should move to Virgin where it’s against the law NOT to own a gun,” I said. Virgin is a town down south in our state with a population of about 600.

  “When they passed mandatory gun ownership,” Dita said, “they also passed an ordinance banning the United Nations.”

  “As if the UN wants to cozy up to them,” said Margaret. “The UN has better things to do.”

  “The UN’s just a symbol,” Dita said. “This is about people who are fearful. They feel threatened by forces they can’t control. They think nuclear war is imminent.”

  “Did you know that town also approved an underground condo complex?” asked Margaret.

  “No!” I said.

  “They never built it, but the architect called for blast-proof doors and nuclear decontamination chambers.” We all laughed. Margaret sipped her wine. “So where else do these gun loving survivalists hide out?”

  “All over the state,” Dita said.

  “I guess you know all the kooks,” I said. “Does this log cabin thief sound like anyone you’ve met?”

  “I’d have to think about it,” Dita said.

  Cholly tapped his wine glass. “Time for the fashion show!” His voice was filled with glee. “Take a seat, everyone!”

  The room settled down.

  “We begin with the lovely Ms. Cowgirl,” Cholly said, as Su Tsu emerged from the door of my back workroom. “She’s wearing the ever popular teddy with silk bikini. Note the short lace hemline, meant to tantalize your man. And those high-heeled slippers will show off your calves and your pedicure. Thank you, Su.”

  “Quite the runway walk,” I whispered.

  “Shoulders back, hips pushed forward,” Margaret said.

  Ms. Cowgirl disappeared behind the curtain and Tina White Horse took her place.

  “Next we see Ms. Cowgirl’s First Attendant in a stunning brocade corset. There’s a matching G-string, ladies. Pay particular attention to the Velcro front lace closure. Your man will become a bodice ripper! Let’s give Tina a hand.”

  “I would look like a blimp in that,” whispered Shelley. “But she looks fabulous.”

  “Now, here we have Joe Torgesen wearing an attractive number that’s easy on your bank account. This fashion statement makes dollars and cents. Really ladies, you can’t go wrong buying these for your man.”

  Joe had emerged from behind the curtain, wearing nothing but tight, contoured, black briefs.

  “What a hunk!” Margaret said.

  Shelley was fanning herself. Annabelle was holding her breath.

  Joe threaded his way through the audience, his briefs at eye level, so everyone could inspect the goods. The salon became steamy. One girl shouted, “Take it off!”

  The room erupted.

  I could see that Joe was enjoying himself.

  Later that evening, as Cholly and I locked up, I gave credit where credit was due. “You certainly did a great job with that fashion show. It was a stroke of genius to feature men’s fashions. I think we made a thousand dollars on those briefs alone.”

  “It’s all about knowing what women want,” Cholly said.

  A vision of the Man of the Evening flashed through my mind. “That Joe Torgesen has an adorable cleft in his chin,” I said.

  Cholly looked surprised. “Not many of us were looking at his face.”

  A few days later Carl told me the County Code Enforcement department got a call from a property owner complaining that his stream was gone.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said to Carl. “You’ve now got a missing cabin and a missing stream?”

  “Yeah.” Carl laughed. “The property owner says his stream has dried up, which means somebody’s diverting water up the mountain. He wants code enforcement to find out who.”

  “So why do they need you?”

  “Because there’s a ‘No Trespassing’ sign on the upstream property the likes of which they’ve never seen.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Reads like a legal brief.”

  “You mean it doesn’t just say ‘No Trespassing - Keep Out’?”

  “It references the Second Amendment.”

  “The right to possess firearms?” I said. “You’re not serious.”

  “True story.”

  “What kind of landowner posts a thing like that?”

  “Someone who’s hiding something.”

  “So he’ll shoot first and ask questions later?”

  Carl shrugged and tapped on his tablet. “The wording’s on a gun rights site.” Within seconds the sign was there, front and center, on the screen.

  Warning Private Property

  NO TRESPASSING

  This includes any and all government agents.

  Those so trespassing are subject to civil and criminal penalties per USC Title 18 Sections 241 & 242 and all other applicable Federal and state civil or criminal “Trespass” statutes.

  VIOLATORS WILL BE TREATED AS INTRUDERS.

  A government official agent or any other person entering this property without the express consent of the owner(s) and without proper warrant, as prescribed by the 4th and 14th Amendment of the Constitution, will be considered an intruder, and an attempt to extort, injure, threaten, harass, intimidate or otherwise jeopardize the life and property of the owner of this property. Violations can trigger fines of up to $10,000 and prison sentences of up to 10 years or both, pursuant to trespass law as above listed. The 2nd Amendment is applicable and use of necessary force may be applied at the sole discretion of the owners(s).

  Property owner(s) address may be obtained from the County Assessor’s office.

  “This sounds like the nutcase I heard about the other day,” I said. “He had more guns than the military and he was holed up in a vacation cabin turned into a survival bunker.”

  “The world is a disturbing place,” Carl said. “Nine-eleven, Hurricane Katrina, Ebola, ISIS. People look at these things and dream up some frightening scenarios. That’s why they stock these arsenals—they’re trying to protect their homes and their families.”

  “But I want to protect my home and my family,” I said. “If you set foot on that property, you could be shot.”

  Carl gathered me in his arms. “Don’t worry. Most of these signs are just bluster and bravado. Code enforcement requested our support so they look more official.”

  “When are you going there?”

  “As soon as the judge grants a warrant.”

  Water diversion is a big deal in the west. A landowner who dams or alters the flow of water traveling to his downhill neighbor is violating all sorts of regulations. Any judge will issue a warrant and my husband could be under fire. I dreaded the words Officer Down and hoped to God I’d never hear them.

  I spent the next morning at the salon wandering around, forgetting what I was looking for, making mistakes o
n the computer, and listening for the phone to ring. I hoped I wasn’t giving my customers the worst haircuts they’d ever had. When Carl came through the front door at noon, I felt my body relax.

  “Thought I’d drop by for lunch,” Carl said.

  “I’ve got salad, lemon dressing, no bread,” I said.

  “On second thought, I’ll go to the deli.”

  “Very funny,” I said, “but please don’t keep me waiting. What happened?”

  “The guy had a long range rifle. He could have hit us if he wanted to, but he didn’t. He shot at the trees behind us as soon as we rounded a bend in the drive, but we saw enough to know that it’s definitely the stolen cabin.”

  I buried my face in his shoulder, my nose snuffling against his name tag. Carl held me for a long time.

  When he released me, he said, “The chief wants to assemble a SWAT team.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “I know. We’re all trying to get the chief see reason, but he wants to make the six o’clock news.”

  “Well, he will and it won’t be good news.”

  “The chief is incensed. Not only did this guy steal the cabin, but he also stole the property.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “The property owners are some family in New York. They haven’t been out west for years.”

  “Then he’s a squatter?” When Carl nodded, I shook my head in complete disbelief. “I still think there’s a less lethal way to enforce water rights than a SWAT team.”

  “The Feds gave the department all this military equipment and the chief’s been dying to use it.” Carl’s shoulders were hunched up around his ears and I read that as: Whaddya gonna do? It’s the chief.

  “You should call Dita Steed,” I said. “She works for the Wilderness Alliance and knows every survivalist and squatter in the state. Maybe she can find someone who knows this guy.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” he said.

  The Manchurian Grill & Esteemed Buffet is a favorite hangout of Margaret’s, our forensic accountant friend who rescued Shelley Prothero from insurance fraud. Not only are the margaritas half-price at Happy Hour but Cin Wang, the restaurant owner, always comps her visit to the buffet table as a thank you for setting up the restaurant’s computerized management system. Since I’d accompanied Margaret for a quick one after work, I got free eats too.