From the publisher

October 23-29, 2017

By Jay Edwards

 

My neighbor was out in his driveway as I walked by the other day. He didn’t look happy.

 

“Hey man,” I greeted him.

 

“Hey,” he said back. “I got hit again last night.”

 

By hit I assumed he meant someone had gotten into his truck and stolen whatever looked good to them.

 

“Oh no,” I said. “Did they break into your truck again?”

 

“Yep, but this time they just took the whole truck.”

 

I talked with him a bit and told him about when our house got broken into about eight years ago. The day after that burglary, KM and I were having lunch at Doe’s when my cell phone rang.

 

“Is this John Edwards?” came the question from a female voice. “It is,” I told her.

 

She said she was a manager at Motel 6.

 

“What happened, did you leave the light on?” I asked, fully expecting but never getting a giggle.

 

“Mr. Edwards, I need to ask you if you have recently stayed at our motel?” she continued.

 

“No, why?”

 

“Well one of our housekeepers found some of your blank checks in one of the rooms she was cleaning this morning.”

 

“AHA! We have a break in the case,” I excitedly told her, and KM, and nine or ten of the diners seated around us.

 

I went on to explain to the woman about our robbery and about all our stuff that had been taken and all our pain and suffering, and that I would call our detective right away before the robber’s trail cooled.

 

“Whatever,” she said.

 

A few days later I got a call from our detective. He told me that three people had been arrested whom he was pretty sure were the same ones who had robbed us. He asked if he could come by and “lift some prints,” because he needed to place the three suspects in our home.

 

That evening as he dusted our windowsill with black carbon, I looked down at three photographs he had laid out on our kitchen table.

 

The first was a man whose picture looked like it should have had a caption that read, “Two Years After Meth.”

 

The second photo was of a woman who didn’t look too good either.

 

The third photo was a nice looking, clean cut, preppie, boy next door, type. Our detective told me he was the gang’s leader.

 

About that time my Cairn terrier, Gus, got my attention from all the barking he was doing at the detective.

 

“Sure, now you make noise,” I said to him. “Where were you when we were being ransacked?” He tucked his tail and began slowly leaving the room. I thought of the photo I had of him behind bars at the LR Animal Shelter, from when he had run away the month before.

 

“What did you do Gus, spill your guts to your Rottweiler cellmate about all the cool stuff we have?”

 

A few days later our detective called to tell us the three suspects were being charged for another crime. He told me they would be convicted for robbery, again, and after about six months be released, again. I never heard one way or the other. As for my stuff, we never got it back.

 

Now it’s eight years later and I’m glad it was just stuff that we lost that day, but I didn’t tell my neighbor that, because at that moment he didn’t seem to be in the mood for looking at the bright side.

 

Gus is gone now too, and while he never was worth two cents as a guard dog, he did have his good qualities, like not shedding and always being happy to see us. That was worth a lot more than some stuff I can’t even remember now.

 

Jay Edwards is publisher of the Daily Record. Contact him at jedwards@dailydata.com.