Dark and Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night.

Yes, really.

It’s close to midnight, and someone is lurking in the dark.

I was huddled in my room with the door shut, savoring a mug of tea, watching TV, and working on a cross stitch project.

The rest of the house was dark. After all, Artoo and Threepio need their beauty sleep, so I usually tuck them in around 10:00.

The sounds of the storm swirled outside: branches scraping on the roof, a vent cover clattering in the wind. Somewhere around the back of the house, there was a loud bang. It sounded close.

Great, I thought. That was probably the sound of my trash cans getting knocked over by the wind–either that, or somebody knocking around in my neighbor’s yard, which, because I have a corner lot, is located mere steps outside my back door. Whatever it was, I decided, snuggling deeper into my cocoon of blankets, it’s a problem for future Laura.

Minutes passed. I sipped a few more sips, stitched a few more stitches. The storm noises continued. Occasionally, there was a bump or crack that sounded very close. I stayed huddled in my little cocoon. I refuse to turn into the kind of paranoid hermit that thinks every noise is a serial killer lurking around the corner. I’m trying to relax. I’m comfy. I’m not dragging my butt out of bed to investigate every dead leaf that splats against the windows.

Outside, I heard the beep beep beep of a vehicle backing up. For those of you already familiar with my neighborhood, you’ll probably surmise that this is not unusual. I live across the street from a series of auto body shops, and it’s pretty common for tow trucks to be dropping off vehicles at all hours of the night.

Well, now I was out of tea. There was still half a pot left in the kitchen. I set down my stitching, paused my show, and unwound myself from my blankets, grabbing my mug for a refill. Maybe then, I could finally relax.

I stepped out into the darkened hallway, and across the living room I could see a shaft of light emanating from the kitchen.

I froze. It was certainly possible I did that, but very unlikely. The light shines right on the bird cage and, after all, the boys needed their beauty sleep. Then again, I was bustling around quite a bit as I settled in for the night. It’s kind of possible I forgot. I’m pretty forgetful–just usually not about this.

I reached the doorway and stood in the beam of light.

Laying on the kitchen counter was my purse.

Sitting on top of it, open, was my wallet.

My breath caught in my throat. I did not put that there. My purse does not go in the kitchen.

Even at a distance, I could see that most of the credit card slots were empty.

Beyond the kitchen, I could see that the back door was open, the screen door flapping in the wind.

Near the back door, on the other side of the kitchen wall, is a little laundry room. I couldn’t see in there from where I stood, and if…if…if someone was still in the house, that was the only place they could still be. If they knew I was standing here, would they dart out the door–a straight shot from where they’re hiding–or rush into the living room and come at me?

A trembling convulsion began somewhere behind my ribcage and radiated out through my body, making my legs wobble and my hands shake as a I turned and set my mug down on the coffee table as quietly as possible and pulled out my phone.

I hesitated. If I stood right here, then I’d know for sure that this person was, at least for the moment, not still knocking around in my house. But if I called 911 from here, and there was still someone in the house, they would definitely know that I was standing here.

The wind slammed the screen door into the house, and I made a noise that sounded like meep.

The jig’s up now, anyway, I thought, shakily stabbing at the numbers and hitting the ‘dial’ button.

I gave them the address of my emergency, and then blurted, “Someone broke into my house!”

I started to explain about the open back door and the operator started asking me a series of questions about whether I locked the doors and stuff. I was patient about it for about three questions before I cut to the chase. “I still haven’t told you the most important part. My purse is open on the counter, and I can see from here that my credit cards are gone.”

I was still frozen in place on the threshold of the kitchen, still trembling convulsively. It was making my voice shake. Part of me was hoping that the intruder would hear my 911 call, realize they were busted, and choose to bolt.

Now that I’ve told her definitively that this was an actual home invasion and not just my own carelessness at play, the operator’s tone changed. “Is the person still in the house?”

“I don’t know.” I stared back toward the darkened back door.

“Are you in the house alone? Is anyone else with you?”

I grit my teeth. ‘I am in the house alone’ was the last sentence I wanted to utter out loud if there was still someone hiding in the laundry room. I decided to answer her questions in succession. “Yes. No.”

She paused a moment to parse my answer. “You’re alone, then?”

“Yes.”

“Could you step outside? It might not be safe for you in the house. An officer should be there any moment.”

I didn’t like the idea of leaving whoever it was alone in my house–with my birds–but what was I gonna do, honestly, fend them off with my plastic lightsaber? “Okay,” I grumbled, stepping quietly toward the front door–because no way in hell was I going near the back door–and slipping on some shoes. It was still raining, so I shrugged my arms into a jacket one by one, handing off the phone between them as I continued to answer the operator’s questions, turning toward the front door, and–

“Oh fuck,” I said.

The basket on the table by the door–the basket where I trained myself to put my keys so that I don’t lose them somewhere in the house, where I kept the spare garage door opener for the 80% of the time that the button on the garage wall doesn’t work–that basket was empty.

“They have my keys,” I babbled to the operator. “They stole my car.” With a sinking heart, I threw open the front door and stuck my head out. Sure enough, the garage door was wide open, the inside a barren expanse of oil-stained concrete. “Yep. Car’s gone.”

I was pacing in front of my house now in the pelting rain, giving the operator all the info about my car: make, model, year, color, license plate. I kept thinking about that backing-up noise I heard and kicking myself. That was the sound of my own car being stolen–I hadn’t recognized it because I’m always in the car when it’s backing up. An officer pulled up, asked me a few questions and was finally brave enough to do what I wasn’t–investigate the back door.

There was nobody back there–I kind of figured that at this point, since it was pretty clear they stole my car and scrammed–but the officer was able to put my mind at ease about one other point, which is whether or not I locked the back door. I’m pretty fastidious about it, but there’s been a time or two when I’ve forgotten, and I was already berating myself for this being one of those times.

“Looks like they broke your window to unlock the door,” he said.

“Oh,” I said, actually relieved.

“…With a hatchet.”

“A hatchet?” The convulsions started up again.

There was a hatchet-wielding stranger in my kitchen.

Up until this point, I’d really been beating myself up about being too lazy to react when I started hearing noises–I might have been able to nip this in the bud. But now?

Now I was thanking each and every one of my lucky stars that I had stayed put.

The officer looked around at a few other things, and then informed me that the crime scene investigator was on route and everything had to stay as it was until he arrived. “He’s on call tonight, so he’s coming from home. We don’t have an ETA, but another officer is going to come and stay with you until he arrives.”

The other officer was there shortly, a very nice woman who asked me a lot of additional questions. The two officers together asked me to look around and see if anything else was taken.

I didn’t think there was. All my valuables still seemed to be right where I left them, even the ones the intruder would have had to walk right past. It seemed they’d ventured into the living room to get my purse and keys, but not beyond it. They’d mostly just been in the kitchen. I scanned the shelves and surfaces–there was a whole lot in here with sentimental value, like my mementos from my time at Disney, but not a lot that had commercial value–

I paused. Laying on a small table surrounded by tea things was a long, skinny, sharp tool with a wooden handle.

“That is not mine,” I told the officers.

While the first officer documented it, the female officer took me into the living room and had me sit down, since I was still shaking a bunch and clearly running high on adrenaline. Carefully, she asked one additional question: “Do you know anyone who could have done this?”

I was stunned by the question. I don’t have a lot of enemies, and I also don’t have a whole lot of people who know where I live, and the Venn diagram of those two things would be two circles that don’t touch. “I trust everyone who knows where I live,” I said. “I have a small circle of friends who wouldn’t do this. I don’t have any crazy exes or anything, if that’s what you’re asking.”

She chuckled ironically. “That’s exactly what I was asking.”

The first officer came into the living room. “We’ve located your car, and we’ve apprehended a subject.”

It had only probably been about 20 minutes since my 911 call. It felt like days. Ever so slowly, I could feel the trembling subside.

It took about two hours for the crime scene investigator to actually get there, during which time the female officer and I became great acquaintances. She complimented all the artwork and photography adorning my walls that had been created by my friends and family (y’all are a talented bunch); we swapped tips about visiting the Wizarding World at Universal Studios; she got to meet Threepio and Artoo, who were very polite despite it being well past their bedtime.

The crime scene guy finally arrived, took a lot of photos, and bagged the skinny tool from my tea table and the hatchet from the back porch. He told me that they were going to use DNA evidence to prove that the suspect was in my house, but they needed a way to exclude my DNA from the batch, so would I mind terribly giving them a cheek swab?

“Sure, why not?” I said. “I’m getting the full experience, here.”

By about 4 AM, I had finally rid myself of enough adrenaline to get a couple hours of sleep before my alarm went off…

At which time, I had already decided, I would definitely be taking a personal day.