'… designed to reflect the classic elements found with Hollywood's hills…' said the ad.
'We're just a couple blocks from there,' West told Communications Officer Passman. 'We'll take the call.'
'And a vandal or vandals hit Hollywood Cemetery last night,' Hammer went on.
'Ten-4, 3. Complainant's a Mr. Butner Fluck.'
'Appears a Spiders basketball uniform was painted on the statue of Jefferson Davis,' Hammer explained.
Brazil was stunned. He started laughing and could not stop.
'And I'm afraid his race was altered,' she went on.
'You mean, he got Michael Jordanized?' Brazil choked.
'This isn't funny, Andy.'
'I think I'm gonna be sick.' Brazil was doubled over, hardly able to talk.
West made a U turn on Forest Hill and accelerated.
'Lelia Ehrhart's called an emergency meeting of city leaders tomorrow morning at eight,' Hammer told Brazil.
'I hope she's not going to speak!' Brazil's voice went up an octave. He couldn't help himself.
'What's wrong with you?' West glanced over at him as she drove fast out of habit, taking every shortcut she could to get to the scene.
'Look into it,' Hammer said to Brazil.
'Fishsteria or MagicJeff'?' Brazil's stomach hurt, his eyes watering.
'All of it,' she said to him.
The house on Clarence Street was very peculiar, but not for obvious reasons at a glance. Rather it was the sort of phenomenon that caused an unsettled, odd feeling of disharmony and something just not quite right that was discarded, like a lost file, the instant the person drove or walked past or delivered the newspaper and moved on.
But to someone with a trained eye who took a hard look, the problem was clear.
'Good God," West said, stopping the car in the middle of the road as she stared in wonder.
'Wow,' Brazil chimed in. 'I think he home-improved when he was drunk.'
Dark green shutters were askew, the paint not quite as white to the left of the red front door as it was to the right. The white picket fence was the worst West had ever seen. Clearly the soil was unstable and the builder had not driven the 4x4 posts far enough into the ground or set them in cement, nor had he bothered with a plumb line, it didn't appear, or chamfered the tops of the posts, meaning rainwater did not run off and the wood was beginning to rot. The rails sloped uphill on one side of the ill-fitting gate and downhill on the other. The pickets were unevenly spaced like bad teeth.
Apparently this same well-intentioned but misguided builder had expanded his garage by adding on a homemade shed that leaned north, suggesting the pressure-treated posts had not been sunk below the frost line and the new addition had shifted during the winter. Nothing was right. Shingles were not aligned, window boxes were different sizes, the stone garden fountain in front was dry, the herringbone pattern of the outdoor bench near the slumping brick barbecue was chaos. A long dog pen of torqued and drooping chain link was near the woods, and a blanket-back coon hound was perched on top of a barrel, bawling.
West turned into the driveway and a gas-station bell announced Mr. Fluck had company. A curtain in a window moved, and immediately a man emerged from the house. He was fat and didn't have much hair, his round head and small eyes bringing to mind a smiley face that wasn't. Mr. Fluck looked depressed and bereft, as if his wife had just walked out or come back, depending on how he felt about her.
'Uh oh,' Brazil said, unfastening his seat belt.
'No kidding,' said West.
Bubba followed his uneven brick walk to the driveway, where the unmarked white Chevrolet Caprice had pulled in. His mind was dark with ruined dreams, cruel predestination and bad karma.
His father, Reverend Fluck, had always disapproved of Bubba's fondness for guns, and Bubba was suspicious that his father had prayed for such a thing to happen. It was just too coincidental that, for the most part, only guns had been stolen. His expensive tools had been left. The burglar had not tried to break into Bubba's house or Honey's station wagon.
A tall, well-built blond man in uniform climbed out of the Caprice. The driver was a woman in plain clothes, a detective, Bubba assumed. They walked up to him, radios chattering.
'Are you Mr. Fluck?' the woman asked.
'Yes,' he said. 'Thank God you came. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.'
'I'm Deputy Chief Virginia West, and this is Officer Andy Brazil,' West said.
Bubba felt better. He sighed. The police had sent a deputy chief. This had to be Chief Hammer's doing. She was looking after Bubba. Somehow she had been touched as had he, their destinies entwined. Chief Hammer knew that a terrible injustice had been perpetrated against Bubba.
'I sure appreciate Chief Hammer contacting you,' Bubba said.
Both cops looked mystified.
'She did, didn't she?' Bubba's faith wavered. 'Just now, when I called nine-one-one?'
'Actually,' Brazil faltered. 'Well, yes. How did you know she just called me?'
Bubba looked heavenward and smiled, despite his pain.
West started walking toward the workshop. Brazil followed. Both of them stood on the driveway, looking at the mess. Brazil recorded the month, day, year and victim's name and address on the offense report attached to his clipboard.
'What a disaster,' Brazil said.
'It's unspeakable,' Bubba said.
'Do you have any idea when the B and E occurred?' West asked.
'Sometime between eight o'clock last night and seven-thirty this morning.'
'I need your home and business phone numbers.' Brazil was writing.
Bubba gave them to him.
'I got home from work and found this,' Bubba said, almost in tears. 'Exactly like this. I didn't touch anything. I didn't move anything, so I'm not a hundred percent sure what's missing.'
West's expert eye skimmed over stand-alone tools such as a drill press, a drum sander, bench grinder, jointer, thickness planer, shaper, and all the expected chisels, Forstner bits, wire-brush wheels, brad-point bits, plug cutter, countersink set. There was protective gear of every description, and more hand tools than Bob Vila probably had in his workshop.
'It's interesting that you have so many expensive tools, yet the burglar or burglars didn't take them,' West observed.
'He was after guns,' Bubba said. 'I know they're missing.'
He pointed to the cabinet and its severed padlock on the floor.
'You got bolt cutters?' West asked.
"Toolsmith, eighteen-inchers.'
'Still have them?' Brazil said.
'I can see them from here,' answered Bubba.
'What kind of lock was on the gun cabinet?' West asked.
'Just a plain Master lock.'
'Case hard?'
Bubba looked ashamed.
'I was meaning to get around to it,' he said.
'So it wasn't case hard,' Brazil wanted to make sure as he took the report.
Bubba shook his head.
'That's too bad,' West said with feeling. 'I've never seen a pair of bolt cutters that can go through a case hard Master lock. And considering what you had in your cabinet, you should have had the best.'
'I know, I know,' Bubba said as his shame deepened. 'I know how foolish I was.'
West walked in to inspect more closely, noting that Bubba had painted his initials in white on all tools and equipment. She stepped over dozens of step-by-step books on plumbing, deck and patio upgrades, painting and wallpapering, pruning, and home repair problem solving.
She picked her way around a Stanley thirty-foot heavy-duty tape measure and its Nicholas leather holder, a Makita tool holster, a McGuire-Nicholas wide saddle-leather belt, a top-grade cowhide Longhorn hammer holder, red Nicholas heavy-duty suspenders, and a foam rubber knee pad with double straps that had become separated from its mate.