Garage Sale Stalker (Garage Sale Mysteries) (8 page)

CHAPTER 13

A
thin, young man wit
h
curly black hair washed his hands at the bathroom sink. Reaching for a towel, Ralph Forbes thought smugly of the lucrative “business” he masterminded. Heists flowed smoothly, each successful job validating his ingenious formula. His mirrored reflection grinned back at him. A successful entrepreneur: not bad for a 23-year-old high-school dropout.

He hatched his “formula” during the one-year stint at the New Jersey Juvenile Detention Center when he was 17. He hated the boring regimentation of institutional life, being pushed around by fellow juvies and the periodic abuse from the despised staff, those self-styled regal lords reigning over their pathetic inmate inferiors.

Ralph partly escaped the detention center’s dreariness through books, eventually reading every volume in their modest library. He treasured the time spent with books, which increased his vocabulary and knowledge. A loner to begin with, he realized the superior attitude the books fostered further distanced him from his fellow inmates and the loathed staff.

Ralph returned again and again to one volume, “Reading and Drawing Blueprints.” To kill time, he mapped out all the rooms at the center and kept the growing stack of sketches in a box under his bed. Soon he tried designs on his own. These drawing exercises improved his skill to the point that when Ralph overheard the counselors discussing a new building to house offices and sports equipment, he submitted sketches for the exact structure they eventually built.

He took juvenile detention sullenly in stride until fellow inmate Bill Burdick ransacked his sketches, defacing or destroying them all. Discovering who did this, Ralph punched Burdick, who pulled a spoon handle he’d honed into a shiv. In the ensuing bloody attack, that damned bully nearly killed him. When he finally emerged from the juvie medical wing, his clothing hid healing defensive-wound gashes on his forearms, wrists, hands and across his chest, but the scar on his face advertised a visible reminder of his hatred for that swaggering Burdick. Gazing into the bathroom mirror this morning, he touched the healed slash across his cheek, despising Burdick yet again.

Patiently, Ralph plotted and then executed a wicked revenge that appeared as something quite different. He stifled gloating satisfaction the day a juvie staff member discovered Burdick’s body dangling limply below the open beamed ceiling in the eight-bed cottage where he and Ralph lived, an extension cord tightly constricting the bully’s bulging neck. Ralph feigned shock like everyone else at this unprecedented
suicide.
An unexpected bonus for Ralph’s primary effort came when the ensuing investigation focused blame upon the hated Juvie staff, resulting in the firing of two cottage counselors for negligence.

He could have “gone straight” by capitalizing upon his considerable self-taught blueprint skills, but the astonishing success of his revenge on Burdick infused Ralph with new confidence that he could outsmart most people… and any system.

When he finally tasted freedom, he tried out his heist ideas, at first barely escaping five or six
very
close calls. But he used those mistakes to refine his current winning tactics. While still on probation in New Jersey, he watched with fascination a TV documentary about a master thief named Bernard Welch in a town called Great Falls in Fairfax County, Virginia. The crime-and-punishment show described that place and surrounding neighborhoods as “embarrassingly affluent.” Ralph sat forward, watching keenly and mentally pinpointing Welch’s old territory as his own target destination. Moreover, he had an angle Welch didn’t.

He reached northern Virginia a year later when his probation ended. His primary focus remained his chosen mentor’s Great Falls, to which he added select areas of McLean and Vienna. But he and his brother Fred rented in adjacent Arlington County. They selected an inconspicuous house with a large, full basement—close to, but deliberately not within—Fairfax County. Should he ever become a suspect, this foresight might thwart cooperation between adjacent counties’ different law enforcement jurisdictions, allowing him to slip through the systems’ cracks.

Ralph’s plan was simple enough. While ostensibly attending moving sales, he cased the house and afterward drew rough draft indoor/outdoor blueprints of the property, noting security systems and escape routes. Armed with this information, he later burglarized the place. His spineless but doggedly dependable younger brother drove the getaway car and acted as lookout by listening with earphones to the police scanner. During jobs, he communicated with Ralph via a vibrating cell phone should a problem arise when a ring drew unwanted attention. To further minimize identification, they used code names should anyone compromise their cell phones. Ralph wore a ski mask and thin latex gloves during the heist. So far, foolproof!

Thrilled to be part of the action, Fred worshiped his older brother, never challenging Ralph’s leadership or their 70-30 split. Fred accepted Ralph’s greater role in planning each heist and greater risk as the inside man earning his greater cut. After a job they returned to their house, sorted the loot in the basement and used three South Arlington contacts as fences: one who fielded silver, jewelry, valuable coins, china and figurines; a second who peddled electronics and cameras, and a third for papers like passports, credit cards and checkbooks.

Fred accepted the new situation when Ralph added Celeste as his main squeeze. Far too shy and fearful of rejection to date anyone himself, Fred liked looking at her—the feminine way she moved, the girly way she giggled and the unfamiliar cosmetics and shampoos she left in the bathroom they all shared. Having no sisters, he found living in a house with a woman other than his mother fascinating.

Ralph first spotted Celeste at a garage sale. The way the petite, brown-eyed blond neatly filled her Capri pants and halter top caught his hungry eye. He watched as she lingered over the wares and did a double-take at what he saw her do next. Confidently he followed her down the sidewalk when she left the sale and asked, “Miss, may I speak with you a moment?”

She hesitated and turned toward him. “About what?” she drawled in her heavy West Virginia accent.

They stared at each other for a moment, both aware of an instant physical attraction.

“I saw what you did back there.”

A shadow crossed her face as she turned on her heel to walk briskly away from him.

Keeping in stride, he said, “I saw what you did back there and
I liked it.”

Halting in her tracks, she turned a suspicious eye on him.

“You stole a bracelet and then a hair clip. That was good, but they were small. Slipping the figurine into your purse took more skill. I liked that better.”

A half smile played across her mouth, “
You did?”

“Yeah, I admired how well you did it. So,” he paused for emphasis, allowing his eyes to travel over her, “I like what you did and I like how you look.” He hoped his Jersey accent sounded foreign to her. “And, I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

Intrigued now, she asked, “If ah won’t tell what?”

“That I want to discuss some business with you over a cup of coffee. What do you say? And I want you to say plenty so I can hear more of that drawl of yours.” He felt the chemistry between them heighten another notch right there on the sidewalk.

She hesitated, cautious but also curious. “Well… well ah say, why not?” she decided, waving off the ride that brought her there before climbing into Ralph’s car.

That’s how it began. In the rush of discovery between the two, the coffee and small-talk became lunch. Ralph spoke little but listened well, deciding just how she might be useful.

Celeste told him her own odyssey began three weeks earlier in a dirt-poor West Virginia “holler.” From a broken home like Ralph’s, she too quit high school. Bad enough were the pitiful local job prospects, never mind a live-in “step-Daddy” whose advances first disgusted and later frightened her. But the clincher lay when she revealed to her ever-mean mother the “step-Daddy’s” attempted rape. The woman slapped her to the ground for daring to speak ill of the man who provided for them both. Celeste realized then that no tolerable future lay ahead for her there.

Gathering her few belongings and her own meager savings, she grabbed every cent from her mother’s mayonnaise jar and top bureau drawer, stuffed her “step-Daddy’s” prized amber nugget (a plastic imitation, she later learned) into a cloth bag and walked five miles to the bus station in the next town. Nearly penniless after buying a ticket, with Washington, D.C. the coincidental destination of the next bus out, she climbed aboard and didn’t look back.

“That’s when ah met Amanda,” Celeste explained. Amanda Rochester, a gentle-voiced older woman, sat beside her on the bus and coaxed Celeste into conversation. Before long the 16-year-old girl’s story spilled out. Amanda clucked over the unfolding tale, muttering frequent “oh dear’s” and showing more interest and kindness than the girl could remember. Finally, Amanda suggested Celeste seek her new start in a safer suburb rather than her original big city District of Columbia destination.

“In fact, why don’t you just stay at my place for awhile, dear, until you get your feet on the ground?” Amanda patted Celeste’s hand. Absent a better plan, the girl nodded.

“Good. Then we’ll get off together in Arlington, where I live.”

Amanda’s small, clean, simply furnished house beat by a mile the weathered, drafty West Virginia shack with an outhouse she’d left that morning. Celeste couldn’t fully grasp her extraordinary good fortune in spending her first runaway night in a safe bed instead of drifting along the notoriously dangerous D.C. city streets, where she might not live to see morning. Even so, she vowed to repay this woman’s generosity, as was the code of the hills she’d left behind.

Next day, Celeste found a job waitressing and, on a bare-bones budget, began canvassing nearby garage sales, Goodwill and Salvation Army stores to assemble a passable wardrobe, a handful of simple belongings of her own and trinkets for Amanda. She mowed Amanda’s lawn, helped her clean house and cooked some meals to earn her keep, but she knew this was only a first step on her path somewhere else. Three weeks later, a restaurant co-worker drove her to the McLean area garage sales where she met Ralph.

“That statue ah took,” Celeste explained to Ralph, “it’s... it’s for Amanda, to thank her. Ah couldn’t afford to buy it.”

“Don’t worry,” Ralph soothed, “I understand perfectly.”

A week later, over Amanda’s warned, “Don’t forget, you can come back, dear, if things don’t work out,” Celeste moved in with Ralph and Fred.

Now she cooked and kept house for the two brothers at their Arlington place. Fred stared at her all the time, which seemed creepy, but Ralph assured her Fred was harmless.

Ralph found her pleasant to have around, liked her efforts to please him and enjoyed the pleasures they shared together. He found Celeste often naïve, given her youth and provincial mountain background, yet conveniently infatuated with him and eager to earn his attention. Watching her carefully, Ralph knew she’d be a natural in his business and an important addition to his team. It was time to begin her training.

CHAPTER 14

W
ith breakfast ove
r on
Sunday morning two weeks later, Ralph and Celeste snuggled together on his living room couch, poring over the classified sections of the two major local newspapers.

“Fred’s at the grocery buying the stuff on your list.” Ralph looked at his watch. “When we finish going over the ads, are you coming with me to sales again today?”

“Oh, Ralphie, of course ah will.” She sipped her coffee. “You know, at first ah wondered why you even cared about these silly old sales at houses where people are movin’ away, because when they leave, their place is empty, nothin’ for you to take! But you taught me that when one rich fella moves out of that big house, another rich one moves right back in an’ now we have a little old map of that new fella’s house!”

“You’ve paid attention, Celeste! Anonymity is our goal.” Ralph smiled, proud to have added that big word to her vocabulary. “That’s the drawback of businesses with easy access into people’s houses, like carpet layers, window washers, house cleaners and locksmiths. If you work for them, they have your employee records for a quick trace if a house is heisted after you were there. We want to get our information invisibly, so we do careful homework.” He pointed to the stack of floor plans on the coffee table in front of them.

“But Ralphie, how’d you figure all this out? Ah mean, ah used to think all those tag sales were pretty much the same.”

“Forget what the sale’s called: garage, yard, moving, estate, tag! Only one thing matters to us: getting inside the house. Because that’s where we nab any small stuff we see and we memorize the layout for our sketch.
If
we can charm our way inside, we size-up the pay-off for a later heist. If we plan a return, we also pay attention outside: a dog, a fence, an alarm system, convenient windows for the break-in, an escape route and where Fred parks the car. Outdoor information can be just as important as indoor information.”

Celeste wiggled with anticipation. “Okay, what about estate sales?”

“They are perfect for us,” Ralph said. “You’re
supposed
to walk around inside the house since items are sold in place. They expect you to collect purchases as you go and take them to the cashier. But some estate sales are run by amateurs and some by pros, and there’s a world of difference.”

“Knowin’ what we know, you’d think evahbody would hire the pros.”

“Yeah, but they don’t. People think they’re smart to save money by doing themselves what
looks
like an easy job, but two things work against them: they don’t have experience and they’re vulnerable.”

“So not havin’ experience means not arrangin’ their stuff like a store, not knowin’ to price it right and not havin’ people to watch out for sticky fingers. Ah think ah got that part figured out, but what’s this… ‘velderible’?” she asked.

“Vulnerable,” Ralph corrected, “you know, distracted and easy to con. Hey, moving is tough! A thousand problems pull at their minds. Their emotions are shot. What’s it gonna be like where they’re going, are they taking the right stuff, are they selling the right stuff, how can they leave the house empty if everything doesn’t sell? Or maybe a parent died and they’re dividing up family possessions—what to keep, what to get rid of—yeah, it can be tough for them, but good for us.”

“Oh, Ralphie, you’re right about when someone in the family dies,”Celeste commiserated. “That’s just what happened when mah Granny Burkhart died. Mama like to thought she’d die herself, picking through Granny’s belongings and fighting her sisters for them. Ah don’t like my mama at all, but even ah felt sorry for her that day.”

Ralph nodded. “So these sellers are vulnerable and inexperienced, which plays straight into our hands… Yes, sir. And believe it or not, sometimes they just want to talk. They reveal lots about themselves or about the house—like showing you a hidden wall safe or a false-bottom drawer for hiding jewelry in a built-in closet—proud of what their spouse or relative designed. But that information tells us right where to look! One woman told me her house didn’t really have an alarm system at all; before her husband died he just put the sign in the front yard to scare away thieves.” He laughed, “Imagine telling
me
that!”

Celeste clapped her hands like a five-year-old.

“But there’s more. The professionals bring the same staff to every sale they give. They’d recognize us if we’re around too often, which we can’t risk.”

Excited now, Celeste repeated learned lessons. “When an owner gives the estate sale himself, it’s a one-time shot. You hit the house a coupla’ weeks later when the fella who gave the sale has moved away an’ the new owner you just robbed has never seen you before. It’s perfect!”

Ralph’s eyes narrowed. “But every rule has an exception. In spite of the risk, sometimes it pays to hit the pro’s sale anyway.” He noted Celeste’s puzzled look. “The richer the seller, the likelier he is to hire menial work done for him. He’s used to paying others to accomplish things and he doesn’t want to be bothered with this trivia. See, the rich guy already took what he values. What ’s left in his house is a nuisance for him, but a windfall to the estate sale pros. They organize that remaining stuff, price it, sell it and leave the empty mansion ‘broom clean.’ The rich guy did no work himself, his house is empty and ready to sell and he even gets money back because the pros take only a percentage of what’s sold and the owner gets the rest!”

Celeste looked confused. “But with their ‘watchers’ an’ all, what about us?”

“Mapping a rich guy’s mansion prepares us for the new owner who rides in on his heels. This area has about ten professional estate sale companies, so we wouldn’t necessarily visit the same ones every time, but just in case, we wear disguises.”

Celeste brightened. “And that’s why you write in your book what we wear each place we go.”

“Exactly, to be sure we don’t use the same disguise twice for the same company. So,” Ralph summarized, “whatever the kind of sale, whoever runs it, we charm our way into the house. And Celeste, you’re a natural at that.”

“You mean like this?” Celeste jumped to her feet, striking freeze-frame poses as she danced around the room and sang out in a deliberately high falsetto little-girl voice: “May ah please use your bathroom?” she clutched her crotch, pretending extremis.

“Ah’m not feeling at all well, have you a place where I might could lie down for just a minute?” she touched the back of her hand to her forehead as if about to faint.

“Ah used to live in this house long ago an’ wonder if ah might just take one last little peek at mah old homestead,” her prayerful hands and beseeching expression melting any heart.

“What a
beautiful
garden! Could ah please wander back there to admire your spectacular flowers an’ maybe get some landscapin’ ideas?” her eyes scanned an imaginary garden.

“Ah see you have several teacups for sale here. Are you a collector, too? Do you have a lot of them? You do? Oh, could ah just look at them? Like, as if ah’m at a museum? As a courtesy, one collector to another?” She raised an imaginary teacup to her lips.

“Oh no, ah just realized my mom said to call her at noon an’ she’ll be so mad if ah don’t. Could ah please, oh pretty-please, use your phone inside for just a quick second?”

Ralph cheered enthusiastically and clapped his hands at her clever, impulsive rendition of their actual tactics. Laughing hard, they both fell back on the couch. This was quite a girl and high time to give deserved praise to his protégé, Ralph decided

“You did great at that place in Woodlea Hills.” He put his arm around her. “They were so harassed at that damn sale they didn’t realize I was in the house nearly thirty minutes while your fainting act grabbed everyone’s attention. And as usual, the cash and jewelry sat right there in the master bedroom closet. I lifted the old lady’s jewels clean out of her top drawer and the guy’s wallet stuck out on the hat shelf above his clothes hangers. Then I clipped those two little cameras from the den on the way out. Did you see how small these new digitals are now? And then I pocketed those little statues for you from the dining room on the way out.”

“Oh, thank you so much, Ralphie! Ah just love them,” she squeezed his hand. “Ah know they’re called Hummel’s because ah saw some over at Tysons Mall and the clerk told me the name.”

“You see how I reward you for getting me into a house?”

She hugged him as she thought about another question. “When you took the cash from his wallet, Ralphie, did you get his credit cards, too?”

“Of course, and sold them to our fence so if anybody gets caught, he’s the one with trouble! Peddling credit cards backfires if you don’t know what you’re doing. I know my business and that fence knows his. But $492 in greenbacks from the wallet wasn’t bad either.”

“Ah guess that was pretty good payback for thirty minutes of work.” Celeste agreed.

“True,” he said, “but I didn’t have much time or hiding space even in my cargo pants that morning. Take that $300 older camera and equipment you hiked from that other sale. My fence said a collector wants that exact model. Your purse works better for those quick grabs. And speaking of grabs... ” He pulled her to him and kissed her gently.

Engrossed in each other, they failed to notice Fred’s quiet return from the store or that he stood momentsarily transfixed, staring at them through the open kitchen door, his mouth hanging open in surprise and his eyes wide with consternation.