Rose's Revenge
For those of you who braved pages prior, here is a sneak peak of a novel--likely a series--featuring a WWII child adopted by a sitting judge and his wife who lived in Chicago. The Romanian child, Anne Apel, became one of the first beat cops in Chicago, having grown up exposed to police work and the justice system and never wavering from her desire to serve in some law enforcement capacity. After retiring from the Chicago force, she thought she would retire to the West Palm Beach area of Florida, only to find herself drawn back into police work, though more as an inside Shield. Ultimately, it was time to spend more time wetting a line and less whacking a thief. Her first love, learned from her father, was chasing and challenging powerful Tarpon in the Florida Keys. She never lost the urge and was not at all unhappy to spend more time on the water. But something happened. People in her condo got to know her better and began turning to her for advice about how to handle what they felt were scams they fell for, or worse, everything from outright thefts, B&E, even life-threatening encounters with meth-heads and drunks. Soon, up and down the Intracoastal waterway, the word spread about the retired police woman they could call on to help her fellow elderly take on crooks when the law seemed unenthused to do so. It didn't take long for Anne Apel to be known as Annie Apple along the Treasure Coast. How? Simply because (a gentleman likely) dropped a biblical reference upon her, stating that she was the "Apple of his eye." Beyond that often repeated moniker, no one really knows where the "Granny" later came from. Unless, as speculation has it, it came naturally for someone whom she may had helped and who was reminded of that great cultivator of the Granny Smith apple, the propagator Maria (Granny) Smith. It seems natural since that particular apple is known for its tartness, acidic nature, and sharpness.
Here's an excerpt of "Rose's Revenge."
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Rose was standing over the man I’d clobbered with a table lamp. What remained of my assault weapon landed with a thud on an area rug next to the coffee table. It was there that it collapsed and spilled its tropical contents. Surprisingly, the glass base hadn’t shattered when the heavy oval globe made contact with the perp’s noggin. Now the sand-colored pleated shade looked like a pyramid, capping spilled sand and delicate sea shells, once held captive under glass.
“Looks like we got him,” I offered.
“You did. Not me. He was here to steal. To hurt. To ambush and then to humiliate,” Rose responded.
I thought about it. She’d been reading too many front page, above the fold headlines from the Palm Beach Post. Remembering the headlines and other information I knew, it occurred to me she had the order of his wrongdoings wrong. However, I could sense she’d thought about this moment for some time.
I walked to the kitchen. There I found the wall-mounted phone cater-corner from the refrigerator. I called the number I’d memorized. Captain Dan picked up on the fifth ring.
“Danny Boy,” I started, “your condo climber is conked out on the floor here for you guys to come get.”
“Granny?”
“Ms. Apple to you.”
“Shit.”
“No time for that. Get over here."
“Where’s here?”
I told him. Then I hung up and walked back to the living room.
“What will we do if he wakes up?” Rose asked.
“You mean before the cops get here?”
She looked perturbed. “Of course, Annie. Before the police get here. So what do we do?"
I knelt down and disturbed the resting lamp shade and what was left of the base. I pulled at the cord and watched it snake out of the sand. “Tie his hands with this.”
I watched as she defiantly shook her head. “You do it. I can’t tie knots and if he gets loose it will be all my fault and then he’ll—”
“Rose, shut up.” I handed her the plug end of the cord. “Start tying him up.”
I walked away. “By the way, you have a camera?”
“A camera? Why in heaven’s—”
I turned and leaned toward her. “A camera, Rose? Do you have a camera? With film?”
She was exasperated. “But, I just don’t understand what in the world you would want with a camera.”
She held the electrical cord and pondered what to do next, thinking she had dismissed my request.
“Rose? Camera?”
She shook her head. “If you must have one while I botch this tying job, you’ll find one in my bedroom. Look in the nightstand by the window. Herb’s nightstand. It’s in, I think, the bottom drawer.”
I walked into her bedroom. It smelled like lilac mixed with a hundred other varieties of fake flower scents. But mostly lilac. I toggled the light switch and looked toward the window. Undisturbed was the rocker-recliner I remembered was Herb’s favorite. He never cared much for formality when someone would stop by. Everyone knew where to find Herb. He was a voracious reader. He loved Greek mythology. He had hundreds of books on wars and the generals who led them. Rose had shared that he hadn’t acquired his newest pastime, reading of great sailing adventures and battles at sea, until they had settled into this 3trd floor apartment overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. I knew Rose had moved many of Herb’s collection to a closet in the hallway after her hsuband died. Some, she had told me, she’d shipped off to some of Herb’s old wartime buddies. He’d often say that Hank or Maurice or Johnnie-Jack—“if he was still alive and kickin’,” I heard him often repeat—would like this or that. What was endearing now was to see the last of the books he was able to enjoy neatly stacked next to his favorite chair by the window.
I found the camera in the top drawer of the nightstand. It had half-spent film in it. I wondered what kind of shots were stored. Some might be of her dearly departed, which might bring back memories she wouldn’t want to revisit. I decided I’d snap off the remainder of the roll and get them developed myself.
When I returned to the living room, Rose was mumbling at herself. When I got closer I could see beads of sweat streaming down her wrinkled face as she struggled to make simple knots. She fought back tears as the knots unraveled like uncooperative bows.
“That’s good enough,” I offered.
She looked up at me. “But they won’t hold his hands. He’ll easily pull them through the cord.”
“No, he won’t.”
“But, Annie, how can you say that?”
I walked over and picked up a shard of glass. “You’re going to tuck this in behind the cord, against his wrist. He’ll feel it if he tries to wrestle free.”
She rocked back and sat hard on the floor. I worried about her bony butt and the osteoporosis she always wove into every conversation. She could easily break something, a hip or whatever, if it was as bad as she’d said. For a fleeting second I felt sorry for her.
I leaned down over the smelly guy. He was still snoozing. The triangle shaped shard fit snugly where it would have the best effect. “Like that.”
“You’re not going to take it out and then have me do it, are you?”
I shook my head. “Nah. You did it. That’s what I’m going to tell everyone when they see these.” I held up the camera and lined up the shot.
Rose waved a hand at me. “Oh, Annie, you’re not!”
“Sure I am, sweetheart. Think of all the fun you’ll have with the other condo queens when they see these snapshots.”
I snapped off one, then directed her to her knees and told her to straddle the guy, like a lion over its prey.
"I will not!” she insisted. But then she did. With other shots she became even more animated, right up until the doorbell rang and the Condo Climber began to twitch. She stood faster than I’d ever seen her move and did the typical five second female thing: she de-wrinkled her face like she was smoothing a comforter, finger-fluffed her hair, re-tucked her blouse, and hand-ironed her slacks.
“Do you really have him?” Captain Dan of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office asked.
With a flourish I welcomed him and his entourage of uniformed men and women. “Tah-dahh!”
Rose hadn’t moved from her station between the coffee table and the sofa. As the law came closer, I could see her expression go from frantically formal to “Oh, It’s you,” casual. But with neither did she offer a greeting or explanation.
“Watch out for the glass,” I warned Dan.
He gingerly pulled the shard from between wrist and cord and pointed it at his underlings. “Typical Granny Apple, folks.” He turned further to smile at me.
The climber felt hands checking his legs, pockets and waistband and awoke with a start. The captain moved a big hand forward to the back of the climber’s neck.
“Stay put, you hear?”
He leaned forward to apply more pressure.
“I asked if you heard?”
We all leaned in to listen to the man’s muffled reply. We knew it was a yes though it sounded like a yeath.
Dan cuffed the man and turned him over. We all got a better look. A baby face from a distance but acne pock marked under a blond-red beard after a closer look. Twenties, maybe early thirties. Good build, about six-two, I guessed. Long, strong arms, washboard abs. Could have been any nightclub’s chick magnet party boy or, looking at his face again, a boy to bring to a party of other boys. You just never know.
Either way, this one had a proclivity to not rob and run, or rob and descend the way he came in. He had a history of humiliating seniors, having them disrobe before he tied them up for the authorities to find, or worse yet, the maid or home health aide or a neighbor. One couple had been smeared with peanut butter. Go figure. Another couple was found by a daughter. Mom was straddled on top of dad on the dining room table. The worse part was that dad was dead.
He had now hit five times in the last three months, the first in Sunny Isles south of here and the one before this one up in Vero Beach. He was the lead story for a week and then no story at all for a couple of weeks. That must have frosted him, so he found another mark, found where they lived, and found a way to scale the side of the building and come in through the sliders after landing on a balcony. Who locks those doors?
Captain Dan did the Miranda thing and then started asking questions.
His name was John Roth and he denied having anything to do with any of the other B & Es. He even played dumb when one of the uniformed officers, a young black gal named Betsy, started peppering him with questions.
“You’re the Condo Climber, my man. You’re famous, you know that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Listen, they’re going to make you wall-walker-one in prison. No ‘Stair Wars’ with you. You know what that means?”
Roth the room raider didn’t respond.
“You’re going to be the one they put over the fence first. You’re going to be the one the guards put a bull’s eye on first. Whattya think?”
“You’re nuts, lady. Ya got nothin’ on me.”
Betsy put her hands on her hips. “We’ve got four elderly women who will I.D. you plus this nice lady here. You want to tell us how you came upon…” Betsy looked at Rose.
“Rose. Rose Lurie. From New Jersey. Lived here with my late husband for almost four years.”
I tugged at Rose’s arm and walked her away.
“What? What did I say?”
“I was afraid you were going to tell him your social security number and bra size. Less is more, Rose.” At least for now, I wanted to say.
“Oh.”
Once I had her in the kitchen, I returned to the living room. I knew she was going to ask if she had to stay put.
“Make coffee, Rose. The sun’s about to come up.”
Back in the living room, Dan had moved on to the official work he had to do, calling in a crime scene crew, making sure nothing was disturbed so photo folks could document the perp’s entrance, place of final footfall, and the like. I stood close by but out of the way. Soon I heard coffee perking behind me and Rose clanging cups and saucers together as she pulled them from the cupboard.
Dan looked my way after he completed calls. “Annie, how did you know he would come here? There’s only been one other PBC B & E that matched the M.O. of the others.”
“Because he’s from Palm Beach County. This is his Florida base.”
“Florida base?”
“Yep. You’ll find he has a rap sheet from New Jersey.”
Dan shook his head and walked away.
When he stopped pacing, I walked to where he stood. We looked out the sliding glass doors and watched as the black night began its slow farewell, a curtain call until tomorrow’s early morning show.
“Step out here with me,” I said.
Dan closed the slider behind us. At the concrete rail, we both looked down and wondered the same thing, I was sure. How many times do you press your luck climbing from a first floor patio to a second, third or higher floor balcony to enter and do harm to others? Is it the thrill of the climb or does the adrenaline rush come after you enter someone’s home? Or, since there had been some security cameras who caught glimpses of an unidentified man exiting the lobbies of intruded condominiums, is that where the real kick kicks in?
We watched a PBSO van pull into a side parking lot. Dan seemed to sense that his time with me was now short. He’d have to get back in to supervise what came next.
“So, you say he had a rap sheet from New Jersey. Let’s start there.”
“That was actually one of the last things I discovered. I accessed the national database, used a key word search and kept narrowing it down. I wanted it to zero in on New Jersey for a reason.”
“And that would be?”
“That would be because that was where Herb and Rose were from.”
Dan stared at me. “Again?”
“That’s where the idea of climbing walls must have come from. But he got caught. He got out before serving six and moved south.”
“To start over again. A fresh start in the Sunshine State.”
I nodded. “That, and the fact that he had someone who had proved valuable up north to case places before he pulled these stunts. He’s the one that bungled the one and only job he tried up north, but the people he was hoping to rob offered easy pickings for him and his partner. Gold, diamonds, jewelry, that was their bounty, just like the stuff taken down here.”
“So the partner who doesn’t get fingered by this guy high tails it out of the Garden State. A fresh start down here, too?”
“Bingo.”
“So now we have to get this Condo Climber to tell us who it is he’s working with, who it is who gets inside these places and picks the place to jump into next,” Dan rightly summarized.
I shrugged. “Not that difficult.”
“How so.”
I told him where to look for the loot and who to put a second set of handcuffs on.
He decided to summarize again before he opened the sliding glass door. “You’re amazing. You work a desk and then a beat in Chicago, and then do the same down here. Then you retire to your digs up the street. But you can’t help but get in the way of investigations we have underway and sometimes beat us to the punch. Why don’t you just, you know, really call it quits, Granny Apple?”
“It’s Ms. Apple to you, Dan. I keep tellin’ ya.”
He smiled and walked away. Through the glass doors, I watched as he pointed toward different items, some broken and shattered and others the D.A. just might ask about as supporting evidence. His last finger pointing I knew had to do with making sure prints matched the climber. I felt a sense of remorse knowing the way this would have to end. Some of my senior friends would question my loyalty to our lot. I had built up a reputation as being a crusader against those who would cause them harm, take advantage of their age and some declining senses like good judgment and some exaggerated senses like fear. I shared aches and pains with them. Shared stories of childhood, adulthood and some of the hoods I had run into. I was getting into the habit of early bird dinners, despite what Dan might think. I’d held the hands of new friends who were counting their last days and watched over some who didn’t know what day it was and lost count when it came to taking their medications. In other words, what was happening now to one of my age-defined peers was the opposite of who I had decided to help when I retired.
Dan looked my way before moving just out of sight. My eyes shifted to Rose as she offered coffee refills to those now milling around her home. I caught her glance down at the Roth-child with a sad, almost motherly look. Like I needed to know for sure, now I knew for sure.
Dan walked back in to the living room holding one of Herb’s treasured books like a platter atop a white linen table napkin. In this case it was a handkerchief. Rose straightened slowly after pouring coffee in a cup. She noticeably stiffened. Her head swung from Captain Dan to me, who she could now see more clearly thanks to morning’s arrival. Total disbelief. Then she began shaking her head, more at Dan than me. The coffee pot began to sag in her hand. An attentive officer pulled it from her just before the brew could splatter on the floor, or worse, have the carafe crash and break, disturbing evidence.
I opened the slider enough to hear what was being said.
“Mrs. Lurie,” Dan spoke, “would you mind opening this book to one of the chapters inside?”
Rose shook her head. “Oh, no.”
I thought this was it. I was wrong.
“I can’t open it. I can’t touch it.”
She was good.
“You see,” she explained to the Captain, “I swore after my Herb died that I would never touch any of his valuable books again. Except to forward some to friends, I left them to rest in peace like he would want. It would be like disturbing the dead. That’s what I felt.” Her voice gained confidence, her words now more determined. “And, please honor my wishes, sir, and return the book to where you found it.”
Dan shrugged. “Well, if you will not allow me to open it, I suppose the only thing to do is to return it to the closet out of respect to your late husband. We’ll come back with a search warrant, of course…”
He turned and faked a stumble, which threw the book to his right. It landed on the tile floor in front of the TV stand. He began to apologize, but allowed his words to fade away as everyone looked down at the display on the floor. To break the mesmerizing stares, the photographer snapped a picture of it all.
“You stupid bitch!” the climber yelled.
“Shut up!” the rosy-red faced accomplice screamed.
The larcenous grandson was escorted down the elevator to a waiting car. Seconds later I rode with others down another elevator, tucked in the back. It was strange, sad. Some people press roses between the pages of books, I thought, thinking back to Rose’s defense of her late husband’s collection. Rose seemed to wilt between the big uniformed men on each side of her, squeezed like a cherished rose intended to forever immortalize dear memories. I followed behind and watched as Rose was pressed into a second squad car, separated from her partner in crime.
I had chosen not to retire, chosen instead to take my experience, my instincts, my desire to help those harmed by others in a new direction. A badge wasn’t needed. A badge of courage, maybe, to steal a title. But all it really was, was the sudden emptiness I felt when I left the force. I had time on my hands. I had to do something. I needed to feel as if I was still helping others, still chasing the bad guys, and still waking up each morning with a purpose. It started with a caregiver who took rather than gave and no one officially seemed to care. Word got around. More opportunity to help made me feel more like living.
Right, Dan. I’m retired. And just for the record, Dan, at this very moment I feel more tired than I’ve ever felt.
On subsequent trips downtown, and to substations where I thought I still had friends, I learned little. That was because there was a sense of failure among the guys who used to open up to me. There was ego involved, pride of the Corp., brotherhood of the saviors on the streets. No one offered a word of thanks while they individually dealt with testerone-driven depression of having an old biddy do their bidding. I was certain John pinned the whole scheme on Rose and vice versa. But no one wanted to engage me in conversation beyond a nod or harrumph or a sigh.
But I knew what I did was right. If cars had been lining the street and helicopters poised overhead, the Condo Climber would have traded his web-feet for cold-feet and scurried away. When Rose had called me in the wee hours of that morning complaining that she couldn’t sleep and suggesting that we grab coffees and drive to the Lake Worth pier to watch the sun rise, I knew it was a setup. I just knew. I had struggled with the knowledge that I had collected and the assumptions I had made and was about to turn it all over to Dan or anyone else who would listen. I had promised myself on the short drive over that I would do just that if the Condo Climber didn’t show. When I walked in I noticed the sliding glass doors closed. Rose always left one cracked open, once explaining that she liked to hear the night noise, feel the breeze from the Atlantic Ocean, and be assured that life went on beyond the concrete walls of her tower of together-until-death-do-us-depart.
Rose and I were to be bound like the others before John took his leave. I thought about the peanut butter and the staged love entanglement stories. It was clear to me that John was to “rob” Rose of the stashed jewelry in that early morn, then fence the merchandise through a pre-selected buyer. John would be on the loose again with no established leads pointing his way and Rose would be just another victim in the growing list of Condo Climber attacks.
I wanted to tell the story about how I had found the jewelry by accident when being simply nosey and remembering Herb and his joy of reading. Then the online search and then some conversational-like questions to Rose and in the end just getting lucky. Since I suspected he was already in the room when I arrived I went to the side of the sofa where the big lamp stood on an end table. I saw his reflection as I bent to find and toggle the switch to add some light to the room. It all happened in an instant and he went down. Rose, from that point forward, played the part of the nearly robbed and roped and suddenly shocked condo dweller.
A thought: Did I screw up a plan Dan and his people had to catch this guy?
Time would tell and I wasn’t at all sure why that moment of doubt entered my mind. But time was not something I had in common with the young and usually energetic bunch I visited. Maybe I wanted a late in life “Atta-gal” from them, some level of praise for an old gal who still had it in her. It didn’t happen. Their attitude soured me. Get over it.
Besides, I was supposed to be retired.
Here's an excerpt of "Rose's Revenge."
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Rose was standing over the man I’d clobbered with a table lamp. What remained of my assault weapon landed with a thud on an area rug next to the coffee table. It was there that it collapsed and spilled its tropical contents. Surprisingly, the glass base hadn’t shattered when the heavy oval globe made contact with the perp’s noggin. Now the sand-colored pleated shade looked like a pyramid, capping spilled sand and delicate sea shells, once held captive under glass.
“Looks like we got him,” I offered.
“You did. Not me. He was here to steal. To hurt. To ambush and then to humiliate,” Rose responded.
I thought about it. She’d been reading too many front page, above the fold headlines from the Palm Beach Post. Remembering the headlines and other information I knew, it occurred to me she had the order of his wrongdoings wrong. However, I could sense she’d thought about this moment for some time.
I walked to the kitchen. There I found the wall-mounted phone cater-corner from the refrigerator. I called the number I’d memorized. Captain Dan picked up on the fifth ring.
“Danny Boy,” I started, “your condo climber is conked out on the floor here for you guys to come get.”
“Granny?”
“Ms. Apple to you.”
“Shit.”
“No time for that. Get over here."
“Where’s here?”
I told him. Then I hung up and walked back to the living room.
“What will we do if he wakes up?” Rose asked.
“You mean before the cops get here?”
She looked perturbed. “Of course, Annie. Before the police get here. So what do we do?"
I knelt down and disturbed the resting lamp shade and what was left of the base. I pulled at the cord and watched it snake out of the sand. “Tie his hands with this.”
I watched as she defiantly shook her head. “You do it. I can’t tie knots and if he gets loose it will be all my fault and then he’ll—”
“Rose, shut up.” I handed her the plug end of the cord. “Start tying him up.”
I walked away. “By the way, you have a camera?”
“A camera? Why in heaven’s—”
I turned and leaned toward her. “A camera, Rose? Do you have a camera? With film?”
She was exasperated. “But, I just don’t understand what in the world you would want with a camera.”
She held the electrical cord and pondered what to do next, thinking she had dismissed my request.
“Rose? Camera?”
She shook her head. “If you must have one while I botch this tying job, you’ll find one in my bedroom. Look in the nightstand by the window. Herb’s nightstand. It’s in, I think, the bottom drawer.”
I walked into her bedroom. It smelled like lilac mixed with a hundred other varieties of fake flower scents. But mostly lilac. I toggled the light switch and looked toward the window. Undisturbed was the rocker-recliner I remembered was Herb’s favorite. He never cared much for formality when someone would stop by. Everyone knew where to find Herb. He was a voracious reader. He loved Greek mythology. He had hundreds of books on wars and the generals who led them. Rose had shared that he hadn’t acquired his newest pastime, reading of great sailing adventures and battles at sea, until they had settled into this 3trd floor apartment overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. I knew Rose had moved many of Herb’s collection to a closet in the hallway after her hsuband died. Some, she had told me, she’d shipped off to some of Herb’s old wartime buddies. He’d often say that Hank or Maurice or Johnnie-Jack—“if he was still alive and kickin’,” I heard him often repeat—would like this or that. What was endearing now was to see the last of the books he was able to enjoy neatly stacked next to his favorite chair by the window.
I found the camera in the top drawer of the nightstand. It had half-spent film in it. I wondered what kind of shots were stored. Some might be of her dearly departed, which might bring back memories she wouldn’t want to revisit. I decided I’d snap off the remainder of the roll and get them developed myself.
When I returned to the living room, Rose was mumbling at herself. When I got closer I could see beads of sweat streaming down her wrinkled face as she struggled to make simple knots. She fought back tears as the knots unraveled like uncooperative bows.
“That’s good enough,” I offered.
She looked up at me. “But they won’t hold his hands. He’ll easily pull them through the cord.”
“No, he won’t.”
“But, Annie, how can you say that?”
I walked over and picked up a shard of glass. “You’re going to tuck this in behind the cord, against his wrist. He’ll feel it if he tries to wrestle free.”
She rocked back and sat hard on the floor. I worried about her bony butt and the osteoporosis she always wove into every conversation. She could easily break something, a hip or whatever, if it was as bad as she’d said. For a fleeting second I felt sorry for her.
I leaned down over the smelly guy. He was still snoozing. The triangle shaped shard fit snugly where it would have the best effect. “Like that.”
“You’re not going to take it out and then have me do it, are you?”
I shook my head. “Nah. You did it. That’s what I’m going to tell everyone when they see these.” I held up the camera and lined up the shot.
Rose waved a hand at me. “Oh, Annie, you’re not!”
“Sure I am, sweetheart. Think of all the fun you’ll have with the other condo queens when they see these snapshots.”
I snapped off one, then directed her to her knees and told her to straddle the guy, like a lion over its prey.
"I will not!” she insisted. But then she did. With other shots she became even more animated, right up until the doorbell rang and the Condo Climber began to twitch. She stood faster than I’d ever seen her move and did the typical five second female thing: she de-wrinkled her face like she was smoothing a comforter, finger-fluffed her hair, re-tucked her blouse, and hand-ironed her slacks.
“Do you really have him?” Captain Dan of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office asked.
With a flourish I welcomed him and his entourage of uniformed men and women. “Tah-dahh!”
Rose hadn’t moved from her station between the coffee table and the sofa. As the law came closer, I could see her expression go from frantically formal to “Oh, It’s you,” casual. But with neither did she offer a greeting or explanation.
“Watch out for the glass,” I warned Dan.
He gingerly pulled the shard from between wrist and cord and pointed it at his underlings. “Typical Granny Apple, folks.” He turned further to smile at me.
The climber felt hands checking his legs, pockets and waistband and awoke with a start. The captain moved a big hand forward to the back of the climber’s neck.
“Stay put, you hear?”
He leaned forward to apply more pressure.
“I asked if you heard?”
We all leaned in to listen to the man’s muffled reply. We knew it was a yes though it sounded like a yeath.
Dan cuffed the man and turned him over. We all got a better look. A baby face from a distance but acne pock marked under a blond-red beard after a closer look. Twenties, maybe early thirties. Good build, about six-two, I guessed. Long, strong arms, washboard abs. Could have been any nightclub’s chick magnet party boy or, looking at his face again, a boy to bring to a party of other boys. You just never know.
Either way, this one had a proclivity to not rob and run, or rob and descend the way he came in. He had a history of humiliating seniors, having them disrobe before he tied them up for the authorities to find, or worse yet, the maid or home health aide or a neighbor. One couple had been smeared with peanut butter. Go figure. Another couple was found by a daughter. Mom was straddled on top of dad on the dining room table. The worse part was that dad was dead.
He had now hit five times in the last three months, the first in Sunny Isles south of here and the one before this one up in Vero Beach. He was the lead story for a week and then no story at all for a couple of weeks. That must have frosted him, so he found another mark, found where they lived, and found a way to scale the side of the building and come in through the sliders after landing on a balcony. Who locks those doors?
Captain Dan did the Miranda thing and then started asking questions.
His name was John Roth and he denied having anything to do with any of the other B & Es. He even played dumb when one of the uniformed officers, a young black gal named Betsy, started peppering him with questions.
“You’re the Condo Climber, my man. You’re famous, you know that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Listen, they’re going to make you wall-walker-one in prison. No ‘Stair Wars’ with you. You know what that means?”
Roth the room raider didn’t respond.
“You’re going to be the one they put over the fence first. You’re going to be the one the guards put a bull’s eye on first. Whattya think?”
“You’re nuts, lady. Ya got nothin’ on me.”
Betsy put her hands on her hips. “We’ve got four elderly women who will I.D. you plus this nice lady here. You want to tell us how you came upon…” Betsy looked at Rose.
“Rose. Rose Lurie. From New Jersey. Lived here with my late husband for almost four years.”
I tugged at Rose’s arm and walked her away.
“What? What did I say?”
“I was afraid you were going to tell him your social security number and bra size. Less is more, Rose.” At least for now, I wanted to say.
“Oh.”
Once I had her in the kitchen, I returned to the living room. I knew she was going to ask if she had to stay put.
“Make coffee, Rose. The sun’s about to come up.”
Back in the living room, Dan had moved on to the official work he had to do, calling in a crime scene crew, making sure nothing was disturbed so photo folks could document the perp’s entrance, place of final footfall, and the like. I stood close by but out of the way. Soon I heard coffee perking behind me and Rose clanging cups and saucers together as she pulled them from the cupboard.
Dan looked my way after he completed calls. “Annie, how did you know he would come here? There’s only been one other PBC B & E that matched the M.O. of the others.”
“Because he’s from Palm Beach County. This is his Florida base.”
“Florida base?”
“Yep. You’ll find he has a rap sheet from New Jersey.”
Dan shook his head and walked away.
When he stopped pacing, I walked to where he stood. We looked out the sliding glass doors and watched as the black night began its slow farewell, a curtain call until tomorrow’s early morning show.
“Step out here with me,” I said.
Dan closed the slider behind us. At the concrete rail, we both looked down and wondered the same thing, I was sure. How many times do you press your luck climbing from a first floor patio to a second, third or higher floor balcony to enter and do harm to others? Is it the thrill of the climb or does the adrenaline rush come after you enter someone’s home? Or, since there had been some security cameras who caught glimpses of an unidentified man exiting the lobbies of intruded condominiums, is that where the real kick kicks in?
We watched a PBSO van pull into a side parking lot. Dan seemed to sense that his time with me was now short. He’d have to get back in to supervise what came next.
“So, you say he had a rap sheet from New Jersey. Let’s start there.”
“That was actually one of the last things I discovered. I accessed the national database, used a key word search and kept narrowing it down. I wanted it to zero in on New Jersey for a reason.”
“And that would be?”
“That would be because that was where Herb and Rose were from.”
Dan stared at me. “Again?”
“That’s where the idea of climbing walls must have come from. But he got caught. He got out before serving six and moved south.”
“To start over again. A fresh start in the Sunshine State.”
I nodded. “That, and the fact that he had someone who had proved valuable up north to case places before he pulled these stunts. He’s the one that bungled the one and only job he tried up north, but the people he was hoping to rob offered easy pickings for him and his partner. Gold, diamonds, jewelry, that was their bounty, just like the stuff taken down here.”
“So the partner who doesn’t get fingered by this guy high tails it out of the Garden State. A fresh start down here, too?”
“Bingo.”
“So now we have to get this Condo Climber to tell us who it is he’s working with, who it is who gets inside these places and picks the place to jump into next,” Dan rightly summarized.
I shrugged. “Not that difficult.”
“How so.”
I told him where to look for the loot and who to put a second set of handcuffs on.
He decided to summarize again before he opened the sliding glass door. “You’re amazing. You work a desk and then a beat in Chicago, and then do the same down here. Then you retire to your digs up the street. But you can’t help but get in the way of investigations we have underway and sometimes beat us to the punch. Why don’t you just, you know, really call it quits, Granny Apple?”
“It’s Ms. Apple to you, Dan. I keep tellin’ ya.”
He smiled and walked away. Through the glass doors, I watched as he pointed toward different items, some broken and shattered and others the D.A. just might ask about as supporting evidence. His last finger pointing I knew had to do with making sure prints matched the climber. I felt a sense of remorse knowing the way this would have to end. Some of my senior friends would question my loyalty to our lot. I had built up a reputation as being a crusader against those who would cause them harm, take advantage of their age and some declining senses like good judgment and some exaggerated senses like fear. I shared aches and pains with them. Shared stories of childhood, adulthood and some of the hoods I had run into. I was getting into the habit of early bird dinners, despite what Dan might think. I’d held the hands of new friends who were counting their last days and watched over some who didn’t know what day it was and lost count when it came to taking their medications. In other words, what was happening now to one of my age-defined peers was the opposite of who I had decided to help when I retired.
Dan looked my way before moving just out of sight. My eyes shifted to Rose as she offered coffee refills to those now milling around her home. I caught her glance down at the Roth-child with a sad, almost motherly look. Like I needed to know for sure, now I knew for sure.
Dan walked back in to the living room holding one of Herb’s treasured books like a platter atop a white linen table napkin. In this case it was a handkerchief. Rose straightened slowly after pouring coffee in a cup. She noticeably stiffened. Her head swung from Captain Dan to me, who she could now see more clearly thanks to morning’s arrival. Total disbelief. Then she began shaking her head, more at Dan than me. The coffee pot began to sag in her hand. An attentive officer pulled it from her just before the brew could splatter on the floor, or worse, have the carafe crash and break, disturbing evidence.
I opened the slider enough to hear what was being said.
“Mrs. Lurie,” Dan spoke, “would you mind opening this book to one of the chapters inside?”
Rose shook her head. “Oh, no.”
I thought this was it. I was wrong.
“I can’t open it. I can’t touch it.”
She was good.
“You see,” she explained to the Captain, “I swore after my Herb died that I would never touch any of his valuable books again. Except to forward some to friends, I left them to rest in peace like he would want. It would be like disturbing the dead. That’s what I felt.” Her voice gained confidence, her words now more determined. “And, please honor my wishes, sir, and return the book to where you found it.”
Dan shrugged. “Well, if you will not allow me to open it, I suppose the only thing to do is to return it to the closet out of respect to your late husband. We’ll come back with a search warrant, of course…”
He turned and faked a stumble, which threw the book to his right. It landed on the tile floor in front of the TV stand. He began to apologize, but allowed his words to fade away as everyone looked down at the display on the floor. To break the mesmerizing stares, the photographer snapped a picture of it all.
“You stupid bitch!” the climber yelled.
“Shut up!” the rosy-red faced accomplice screamed.
The larcenous grandson was escorted down the elevator to a waiting car. Seconds later I rode with others down another elevator, tucked in the back. It was strange, sad. Some people press roses between the pages of books, I thought, thinking back to Rose’s defense of her late husband’s collection. Rose seemed to wilt between the big uniformed men on each side of her, squeezed like a cherished rose intended to forever immortalize dear memories. I followed behind and watched as Rose was pressed into a second squad car, separated from her partner in crime.
I had chosen not to retire, chosen instead to take my experience, my instincts, my desire to help those harmed by others in a new direction. A badge wasn’t needed. A badge of courage, maybe, to steal a title. But all it really was, was the sudden emptiness I felt when I left the force. I had time on my hands. I had to do something. I needed to feel as if I was still helping others, still chasing the bad guys, and still waking up each morning with a purpose. It started with a caregiver who took rather than gave and no one officially seemed to care. Word got around. More opportunity to help made me feel more like living.
Right, Dan. I’m retired. And just for the record, Dan, at this very moment I feel more tired than I’ve ever felt.
On subsequent trips downtown, and to substations where I thought I still had friends, I learned little. That was because there was a sense of failure among the guys who used to open up to me. There was ego involved, pride of the Corp., brotherhood of the saviors on the streets. No one offered a word of thanks while they individually dealt with testerone-driven depression of having an old biddy do their bidding. I was certain John pinned the whole scheme on Rose and vice versa. But no one wanted to engage me in conversation beyond a nod or harrumph or a sigh.
But I knew what I did was right. If cars had been lining the street and helicopters poised overhead, the Condo Climber would have traded his web-feet for cold-feet and scurried away. When Rose had called me in the wee hours of that morning complaining that she couldn’t sleep and suggesting that we grab coffees and drive to the Lake Worth pier to watch the sun rise, I knew it was a setup. I just knew. I had struggled with the knowledge that I had collected and the assumptions I had made and was about to turn it all over to Dan or anyone else who would listen. I had promised myself on the short drive over that I would do just that if the Condo Climber didn’t show. When I walked in I noticed the sliding glass doors closed. Rose always left one cracked open, once explaining that she liked to hear the night noise, feel the breeze from the Atlantic Ocean, and be assured that life went on beyond the concrete walls of her tower of together-until-death-do-us-depart.
Rose and I were to be bound like the others before John took his leave. I thought about the peanut butter and the staged love entanglement stories. It was clear to me that John was to “rob” Rose of the stashed jewelry in that early morn, then fence the merchandise through a pre-selected buyer. John would be on the loose again with no established leads pointing his way and Rose would be just another victim in the growing list of Condo Climber attacks.
I wanted to tell the story about how I had found the jewelry by accident when being simply nosey and remembering Herb and his joy of reading. Then the online search and then some conversational-like questions to Rose and in the end just getting lucky. Since I suspected he was already in the room when I arrived I went to the side of the sofa where the big lamp stood on an end table. I saw his reflection as I bent to find and toggle the switch to add some light to the room. It all happened in an instant and he went down. Rose, from that point forward, played the part of the nearly robbed and roped and suddenly shocked condo dweller.
A thought: Did I screw up a plan Dan and his people had to catch this guy?
Time would tell and I wasn’t at all sure why that moment of doubt entered my mind. But time was not something I had in common with the young and usually energetic bunch I visited. Maybe I wanted a late in life “Atta-gal” from them, some level of praise for an old gal who still had it in her. It didn’t happen. Their attitude soured me. Get over it.
Besides, I was supposed to be retired.
