GrowingOlderHopeWiser

Frank and Lucy pulled an all-nighter after receiving the case files. Frank paced, holding the files, while Lucy focused on the crime board, methodically adding details. Fueled by Chinese takeout and pots of coffee, they set up a sting to catch him in the act. The weekend was fast approaching, and they expected him to be brazen enough to try again. The bait was a young, attractive police officer. They made sure she appeared in the local Atlanta Journal and on social media as a top-performing New Realtor.

Atlanta had quite a few attractive female Realtors who sold houses. Charles made a point of following open-house announcements and MLS listings, noting the pretty ladies. He was obsessed with Realtors and their blazers; they reminded him of Catholic parochial school, when the girls in their blazers teased him for stuttering. He wanted to shut them up forever. 

Candy Thomas caught his eye, and he had been following her for a week. He watched her struggle to put up her Open House signs around the block. Mick Jagger was singing his iconic “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” in his headphones. He licked his lips. Early Saturday morning, he slipped into the house through the back slider. At 9 am, he heard the jangle of the front locks and hid in the pantry, his favorite spot. Candy Thomas walked into the kitchen, and he watched her set the cookie tray on the counter. She had short red hair and a million-dollar smile. She wore that Realtor blazer so well. 

Candy (Cynthia) was a rookie cop hoping to prove herself. She had the goal of someday becoming a detective. She jumped at the opportunity to go undercover, but she was nervous as a cat in a box. He could already be in the house. She eyed the slightly ajar pantry door and felt a tingling on the back of her neck. He was watching.

He saw his chance when she turned her back to him. Just as he reached for her, she swung around, gun in hand, startling him. “Atlanta Police, freeze, Mr.” Detectives Lucy and Frank were already on him as well; after a brief scuffle, Frank cuffed him from behind. “You like sneaking up on the ladies, don’t you?” Frank said. He read him his Miranda rights and escorted him to the police cruiser, where he shoved him hard into the back seat. 

“See you later.”

Officer Tom O’Niels sat in the driver’s seat. After a few minutes of police back-and-forth on the radio, he started the cruiser and drove off with his prisoner. Charles had already been quietly working to remove his handcuffs and had set himself free. As soon as they arrived, he pounced and choked the officer as the officer tried to take him out of the back seat. He pulled the officer into the back seat. They struggled. A gun went off, and the officer was injured. Charles took off. He was as quick as a flash. He knocked a nearby motorcyclist off his bike and disappeared. Lucy and Frank got the call. They were both fit to be tied. Pressure from above mounted. What went wrong? Who was to blame? Panic ensued in Atlanta, Georgia. A desperate search began. His face was plastered on the news, and warnings were issued to local real estate offices. Frank blamed himself for not riding with Officer O’Neil, who was now in the ICU. Lucy insisted that this was not over.

“I think he will try again. I want to go undercover this time,” Lucy said, resolutely.

But Frank was against this all along. “He’s seen you; that won’t work.”

“He won’t recognize me.” Lucy was good at disguises from back in the days with the vice squad. Back at the station, Lucy mentally prepared for her confrontation with Charles by going a few rounds on a punching bag. Frank popped antacids like candy; he wanted this guy locked away.

Somewhere out there, a man was studying Realtor headshots.

Charles Thomas, a locksmith, was self-employed and worked out of an old, beat-up white van with magnetic peel-away signs on the side panels. He drove as far out of town as he could, picked an isolated farmhouse for sale, and broke in to squat and lay low. He hid the van in the garage. He had all the local MLS listings with him and knew exactly where to go. Soon the itch returned as he admired his collection. He still had the name pins of his twenty ‘lovely ladies’ from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama; they wouldn’t expect him back so soon.