Case of the Holiday Hijinks

by Jeffrey M. Poole

  “He really knows his fork etiquette,” Vance chuckled.

  “He didn’t use to,” I said, giving Harry a bemused expression. “Where’d you learn about this?”

  “From Julie,” Harry answered. “Any time I acted out, or got on her bad side, she would make me dress up and take her out to the fanciest restaurant she could find. Trust me, I know all about this stuff. Way more than I’d like, if you catch my drift.”

  Ferdinand returned just then, followed closely by a second man, also wearing a tuxedo. He was older, in his mid-50s, and was carrying a thick binder with various tabs sticking out at all angles. When Ferdinand continued to stand in silence, observing, the older man nudged him on the shoulder.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. This is Mr. Enzo Dubois. He is the owner. Mr. Dubois, may I present Mr. Zachary Anderson, owner of Lentari Cellars.”

  I turned to look at the newcomer. Mr. Dubois was tall, lean, balding, and sported a pencil moustache. While unsure of what the proper response was, I figured I should at least offer a greeting from a standing position.

  I rose to my feet, prompting Harry and Vance to join me. I extended a hand and waited to see what Mr. Dubois would do. After a second of two of hesitation, the restaurant owner clasped my hand with his own.

  “Mr. Anderson! You are known to us, good sir!”

  Mr. Dubois spoke with a heavy French accent.

  “Good afternoon,” I carefully returned. “It’s a pleasure. Allow me to introduce my friends. This is Detective Vance Samuelson, of the PVPD, and this is Doctor Harrison Watt, town vet.”

  Mr. Dubois shook hands with everyone.

  “A pleasure to meet you all! Especially you, Monsieur. You are the owner of Lentari Cellars, oui?”

  I nodded, “Yes. Is there something I can do for you?”

  “We are almost sold out of every bottle of wine you have provided us. We have but one case remaining of the Syrah and two of the gewürztraminer. Your wine is the talk of the town, monsieur! I am embarrassed to admit this, but I am unable to raise anyone at the winery. I need to order more! We cannot run out now. Please, monsieur. Will you help me?”

  “I’m pretty sure my winemaster handles all the ordering,” I told the friendly owner. “I know the wine has become very popular once we restarted production, only I had no idea it was this popular. It’s all supply and demand. Right now it seems we cannot keep up with the demand. Perhaps if we…” I hesitated when I saw the owner’s face fall. “Look. I can’t make any guarantees, only that I’ll check with Caden. We might have a case or two stashed away in a back room.”

  Mr. Dubois caught my hand and pumped it vigorously.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Anderson! We will take whatever you can provide us. I don’t know how to thank you. Mais oui! I know what I can do for you. Your lunch today is on me! I insist!”

  About ready to object, I remembered the $149 price tag on the bottle of wine Harry and Vance wanted. I gave the owner a friendly smile. I nodded.

  “You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Dubois.”

  The owner and waiter hurried away, chatting excitedly with one another. Harry grinned at me and held up an open hand. I gave him a high-five.

  “Bro, you just saved me at least $300 bucks.”

  “And I’ll find some way to collect,” I assured him, giving Vance a conspiratorial wink.

  We placed our orders a few minutes later. Harry ordered some type of steak that I couldn’t pronounce while Vance ordered lobster. When it came to my turn I figured I’d be safe with seafood Alfredo.

  Words cannot even begin to describe how wrong I was. I not only managed to gross myself out but Vance, too. More on that later. Once we had our food, Vance decided to fill us in with what he knew about the case.

  “I assume you want to know about the tire tracks,” Vance began as he pulled his notebook from his back pocket.

  “Hell yeah, bro,” Harry said between mouthfuls of steak and mushrooms. “You’re the one who wanted to meet for lunch. Let’s hear it!”

  “The tracks on the curb that I took pictures of match those taken by one of our techs, Jerry, outside the retired dentist’s house.”

  “Is that burglary number one or two?” Harry asked. He took a sip of wine and sighed contentedly. “Man, I love this stuff. You make a helluva wine, Zack.”

  “Thank Caden, not me,” I corrected. “Sorry, Vance. Go ahead.”

  “Right. As I was saying, the marks are a match. They’ve identified the tire as a LT245 75R16. This particular model is manufactured by BFGoodrich.”

  I picked around a yellowish-orange something-or-other on my plate and ate another forkful of pasta.

  “You can tell that by looking at the tread pattern?” I asked, amazed.

  “There’s an online database of nothing but tire treads and shoe tracks,” Vance informed us. “It helps to know what we’re dealing with.”

  “So what kind of car uses those tires?” Harry wanted to know. “Is it very specific or is it a very generic model of tire that is found on every Tom, Dick, and Harry’s car?”

  “We’re waiting on the full report. I’m told we’ll have it within the hour. Once we get it we should be able to see what cars it typically comes installed on.”

  Right about this time I finished eating all the ‘edible’ parts of my lunch. The only part left was the ‘seafood’ part of ‘seafood Alfredo’. Assuming this meant there was perhaps little bits of cut up fish, I chose a piece of seafood that was a light yellow in color and about the size of standard meatball. Not wanting the blasted thing to go jetting off the plate if I cut into it incorrectly, I grabbed one of the knives and sliced it in half.

  Green ooze poured out.

  My stomach roiled at the sight. I closed my eyes and pushed the plate away, breathing heavily. I also noticed that all activity at our table had ceased. I opened my eyes and looked over at Vance. He was leaning forward and peering at the growing puddle of green goo on my plate with a look of utter disgust on his face.

  “Dude, what the hell is that? You didn’t eat that, did you?”

  Harry leaned forward and studied the spectacle with a quizzical look on his face. He reached out with his fork, speared half of the thing, and brought it over to his plate. After a few moments of careful inspection, he shrugged and popped it in his mouth.

  I damn near came out of my seat. He might as well have eaten a live cockroach. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one.

  “That has got to be the nastiest thing I have ever witnessed,” Vance murmured, keeping his voice low. “And you’re talking to a homicide detective, pal. Remember that.”

  “I’m not sure what it is,” Harry thoughtfully said as he chewed. “There’s a briny taste, so maybe it’s an oyster? I just haven’t seen one that big before.”

  I couldn’t even look at my plate. Whatever it was, I could smell it. My stomach started to churn again. I chugged down my soda, and then polished off my water. Vance wordlessly slid his water over to me. I drained his glass, too.

  “Well, I’m done. Shall we?”

  An hour later we were sitting in Vance’s living room around a card table. The poker chips were out and we were several rounds into a game of Texas Hold ‘em poker. The front door opened and the women walked in. Tori, Julie, and Jillian came in carrying bags of groceries.

  “Need any help?” I automatically asked as I looked up.

  Jillian beamed a smile at me, “No, thank you. We’ve got it. Thank you for asking.”

  “Kiss-ass,” Vance muttered. “That kind of shit makes the rest of us look bad.”

  “It’s a force of habit,” I admitted. “I did that for Samantha all the time.”

  “I think it’s a sweet move,” Harry said as he dealt another round of cards. “I do that for Julie, too.”

  “You’re both brown-nosers,” Vance grumbled. “Come on, come on. Deal the river. Let’s see what we’re working with here.”

  The women pulled up chairs and joined us as the game continued. />
  “So can anyone look at that database?” I asked as the three of us tossed our ante into the pot.

  Vance looked up, “Huh?”

  “That tire tread database. You said that the police have some way to input in the treads from a tire and it’ll tell you what the tire is. Can anyone look at it?”

  “You need permission,” Vance said. He glanced at his cards, studied the flop, and folded. “Why?”

  “I just think it’s remarkable that you can input a picture and a computer can tell you what tire made it.”

  “It’s not much more different than scanning a fingerprint in and letting the computer look for a match,” Vance said. “Think of it like a fingerprint for a vehicle.”

  Right on cue Vance’s phone beeped, signaling an incoming text message. The detective pulled his phone out of his pocket. After a few moments he put the phone on the table and grinned at me.

  “Ask and ye shall receive.”

  “Was that the report you were waiting for on the tire tracks?” Julie asked.

  Vance nodded, “Yep. Listen up. The LT245 75R16 is an all-terrain tire.”

  “How does that help us?” I asked.

  “That tire isn’t found on passenger cars,” Vance answered. “It’s used on full-sized pickups.”

  “So you’re looking for a truck,” Harry quipped as he dealt another round. “That would make sense. You need cargo room to be able to haul around the loot they’ve been making off with.”

  “Have you found any tire tracks around the apartment complex?” Jillian asked.

  Vance sighed, “Yes, and that’s the problem. It’s an apartment complex. There were tons of tracks. There were so many that it pretty much killed any chance of looking for individual tracks.”

  Jillian’s face fell, “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Vance kindly told her.

  “I have an idea,” Tori announced.

  Five pairs of eyes settled on the tall redhead.

  “Why don’t you go over everything you know from each case?” Tori suggested. “It’ll help refresh your memory as well as bring everyone else up to speed. What do you think?”

  Vance shrugged. He looked down at his notebook and started flipping pages. Growing exasperated when, after a few pages he still hadn’t hit the beginning of PV’s latest crime spree, he wet the tip of his finger with his tongue and flipped faster.

  “Here we are. Okay. We’ll start with the first burglary. This would’ve been last week, on Friday. The Murphy family was hit at the apartment complex on the west side of town.”

  “That small one not far from the library?” Jillian asked.

  Vance nodded, “Right. A family of four lives there. Husband, wife, and two small kids. The kids were in school and both parents were working. We know that the apartment was hit during business hours, which means the perp did this in broad daylight. We also know they ignored everything else in the apartment and just focused on the presents under the tree. Now, at the time, we figured it was because the apartment lacked any items of value.”

  “Don’t forget the part about no signs of forced entry,” I reminded Vance.

  “Right. There were no broken windows, or busted down doors. Hell, there wasn’t even any signs of trauma on the locks. Whoever was making it inside was doing so as though he had a key to the place.”

  “Well, could he?” Julie asked.

  Vance shook his head, “No. We already verified there were no hidden keys outside the apartment and those that had the extra keys, namely the apartment manager and his assistant, had them under lock and key. So, entry inside remains a mystery.”

  “Did you know someone donated a bundle of toys to the family?” Julie suddenly asked. “It was all the girls at the station could talk about today. I just wish we would have thought of it first.”

  I’m sure my face flamed up but I didn’t say anything. I managed to look away before Jillian could catch me grinning. She was the only one in the group that knew I was behind the donated bundle of toys. She took my hand in hers and pretended she didn’t know anything about it.

  “Dr. Bowen – the station’s psychologist – said the mother was eternally grateful,” Julie continued. “She said that their Christmas was now going to be better than they originally thought.”

  “Someone donated some food, too,” Vance added, looking up from his notebook. “Someone donated cookies, cupcakes, bagels, and one of those round cakes with a hole in the middle.”

  “A Bundt cake?” Tori guessed.

  Jillian’s hand tightened in my own. Taylor was the only other person in on the secret, especially seeing how her store was responsible for the donation of the baked goodies. Jillian laced her fingers through mine and held on tight.

  “Okay, moving on,” Vance announced. He flipped a page in his notebook. “Monday’s robbery. It happened at the home of a retired dentist, Dr. David Morris.”

  “His house was a lot nicer,” I recalled.

  “He had the bucks, no doubt about it,” Vance agreed. “This was where we realized that money was not a motivating factor for these burglaries. That house was dripping with money. Top notch home theater system. Jewelry box. Floor safe. Original pieces of art. Nothing was touched. Nothing that is, except for the presents under the tree. Our Grinch stole every single one of them.”

  “Again, without any signs of forced entry,” I added.

  “That’s right,” Vance agreed. “No hidden keys. No unlocked doors or open windows. And I should also point out that the window of opportunity here was probably no more than an hour or so.”

  “How did you come to that conclusion?” Harry asked.

  “The doctor said he and his wife had stepped out for lunch,” Vance answered. “Those were the only plans they had for the day.”

  “They must have been watched,” Tori guessed. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “If that’s the case then how did they know they’d even leave at all?” Vance asked as he looked over at his wife. “How would this Grinch character have known what they were planning on doing? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What about the presents?” Julie asked. “Could there have been something that was wrapped up that this… I’m sorry, what are you calling him?”

  “The Grinch,” Vance, Harry, and I all repeated, in unison.

  “Okay, the Grinch. Do you think the Grinch might have been looking for something in particular?”

  Jillian frowned, “Maybe, but do you really think that whatever the Grinch was looking for could have been found under the Murphy’s tree? I can see where it might have been under Dr. Morris’ tree, but not at the first burglary.”

  Julie sat back in her chair and nodded, “True. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Now, for the third burglary,” Vance said, flipping a few more pages. “This happened the following day, on Tuesday. It was at the home of another affluent citizen. Once more there were no signs of forced entry and, as before, all the presents were stolen.”

  “Only this time somebody was killed,” Jillian quietly added.

  Vance nodded, “Sad but true. Now, the VIC is the nephew of the home owner. He was visiting from out of town and, we think, asleep on the couch when the burglar broke in.”

  “He broke in?” Harry repeated. “They finally found out how they were getting in?”

  Vance shook his head, “No. Sorry. Poor choice of words. What I meant to say was, when the burglar illegally entered the house the VIC was asleep on the couch. The burglar fired a single shot, which struck the VIC in his chest. The VIC, unfortunately, died on the scene.”

  “Do we know when this was?” Tori asked. “I assume the neighbors heard the gunshot?”

  “No,” Vance groaned. “We figure he must have had a silencer on the gun. No one heard anything. In fact, the VIC’s girlfriend was asleep upstairs and slept through the entire burglary as well as the murder. She said she didn’t hear a thing.”

  “And still no
signs of forced entry,” I added, this time forcing a smile.

  “Confirmed by a locksmith,” Vance agreed. “He took the lock apart and verified that it hadn’t been picked.”

  “So how the hell is the Grinch getting inside?” Harry demanded. “No key, no open windows, no broken doors. This is freakin’ crazy, man.”

  “I never said they didn’t have a key,” Vance contradicted, giving everyone a coy smile.

  “Yes, you did,” Tori countered. “I heard you specifically say that there weren’t any keys hidden around the house. So where would they have gotten a key?”

  Vance reached into a pocket and held up a shiny gold key.

  “They would have brought their own.”

  I stared at the key. I noticed right away that the teeth of the key were all uniform, looking exactly like a saw blade. Somehow, and I don’t know how, Vance had got his hands on one of those ‘bumping’ keys.

  “So they had keys to these houses?” Harry asked. He smiled. “Then that should be easy. Find out who has given them their copies and you should have your man. By the way, didn’t the previous locksmith end up going to jail for giving away copies of the keys he made?”

  Vance nodded, “Yep. He’s still sitting in a jail cell, waiting to be arraigned in Medford.”

  I pointed at the key.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Jim made it for me,” Vance said as he tossed the key to me, “but only after he made me promise I wouldn’t hold him responsible.”

  “It’s just a key,” Julie pointed out. “What’s the big deal?”

  Vance took the key from my hand, stood, and walked to his front door.

  “I’ll show you why this is a big deal. This key will open any tumbler lock that it safely fits into.”

  Curious, the rest of us rose to our feet and followed Vance to the front door.

  “You mean that’s some type of master key?” Harry asked, confused. “How can that be? Locks are supposed to be secure, aren’t they? One key should not open them all.”

  “This is called a ‘bumping’ key,” Vance explained, as he opened the front closet. He pulled out a small tool box and selected a regular screwdriver. “Our new locksmith demonstrated this for me. It… well, see for yourself. Honey, could you hand me my key ring? It’s on the end table there.”