THE FLYCATCHER

“Addison! Come here!” She was pointing at the corner of the concrete near the end of the second slider track for the door, “You should call the police.”

He grabbed his coffee cup and stepped outside, there was a small pry bar, one end was sharp and chisel shaped, and the other had a notch for pulling nails. The end of the door slider was bent. Someone had tried to pry up the stop and slide the door open.

“There is not much of a police force here, just two officers and the Chief. I hate to bother them with this. Maybe the three of them together could give a drunk ‘the bums rush’ or maybe not; they would probably need help,” he laughed lightly.

“Doesn’t this place have an alarm system? I seem to remember one when your dad lived here.”

“Yeah! However, I never use it unless I am going to be gone for a few months. I have a flat in New York—remember.”

“Hmmm. I think you better start,” she stepped off the patio onto the pebbles scattered about and looked at the darker planting soil around the shrubs.

“Christiana, I wonder why the perimeter lights didn’t come on?”

She was about to answer when two small birds fluttered out of the bushes, “Whoa! They startled me. What are they?”

“Flycatchers. They should be on their way to Brazil by now. Winter is almost here.”

“Here is a fresh footprint and it’s not yours. Now you better call the police.”

Addison looked at a placard held by a magnetic frog on the stove exhaust hood near the phone in the kitchen and dialed the village police station. After talking a moment, he pushed the button on the phone marked GATE.

Twelve minutes later, a lightly freckled, red-haired girl in her late twenties noisily showed up, riding an older Italian scooter. Addison thought it was a Vespa. The emblem was obscured by mud. It had rained along the coast last night. There was a red light and also a spotlight clamped to the handlebars.

She wore an unbuttoned, police styled jacket with a badge pinned over the left pocket. There was a 9 mm Walther stuffed into a holster on her left hip and was mounted gun butt forward. It sagged—with a full clip it weighed two pounds. Underneath the jacket was a dark gray vest-sweater—below were a pair of designer jeans with long legs. She was tall.

She introduced herself as Officer Renee Callahan, “I’m the one you talked to on the phone.” Addison thought he had been talking to a desk clerk. He felt a little twinge of guilt. He had not expected a female police officer.

Renee just smiled and pulled a notebook from the metal saddlebag over the back wheel and started asking him questions. She moved around to the sliding doors and looked at the pry tool and the footprint, “You got any plastic-wrap?”