The Slick Burglar

Rose’s Pinewood Campground was well established and had gone through many changes during the 60 or so years it had been operating. It had started out as a small campground for tent campers, but had expanded to accept RVs in the 1980s. As economic pressures grew on regular people, the park began accepting long-term residents. People would come and go, and there were always a few that seemed okay when they first arrived but would soon show their true colors regarding drinking or drug use, or fighting. The owners of the park would do whatever they could to get those particular residents out as soon as they could. Otherwise, it was a beautiful park in northern California, surrounded by tall redwoods and nature.

Rodger was the manager of the park but Debbie worked the office and probably knew more about the business end of it than Rodger did. He wasn’t tall, average height, but he was built strong and solid. He was hired to manage the entire park, including the office. And while he could, he had the brains for it, he didn’t really like to do it. He wanted to work at a campground because he loved the outdoors and didn’t like being cooped up in the office. After he hired Debbie, he quickly realized that he could delegate the paperwork to her and he could focus on the grounds. It was a good arrangement that worked for both of them since Debbie was more of a book nerd who happened to also love the outdoors.

Debbie had moved there looking for a simpler life. She quit her corporate job and bought an RV and was planning on looking for work when Rodger had approached her for help in the office. She’d been doing her job only one year less than Rodger and that was going on 10 years at this point. They had a good system, other good employees, some who lived on site and some who just came to clean the bathrooms or work the store. They had battled evicting criminals before, from dealing drugs undercover to outright opening a business using their address illegally, but the mystery of the slick burglar had yet to be solved.

Helena was an elderly woman who had lived there about a year. She was in her 70s and kept her place pretty, potted plants growing flowers and veggies which she shared with her neighbors. She was on social security so her rent payment was never late. She came in two days before rent was due, religiously, to pay by check. One day she came in and said she thought she might have been robbed.

She explained that she had gone into town for some food shopping, and left her door unlocked as she never had a problem before. When she returned, some of her things looked rifled through. She was missing some jewelry, which she insisted wasn’t worth anything at all. A potted plant that was by her sink, as well as the cat figurine that sat next to it. She had her purse with all of her important paperwork and cash in it so that was all safe. She didn’t think anything important was stolen but she wanted to alert management about it.

Debbie immediately sent a text to Rodger to let him know. This wasn’t the first time there was a thief on the property. Besides long-term residents, they also had spots for tent campers and RV campers who were staying only a short time. With the capability of online booking, part-time campers couldn’t really be screened for integrity. Rodger took the message in stride and asked Debbie to remind all residents to lock their doors when they leave and at night when they are sleeping. He felt bad for Helena. She was a nice little old lady who didn’t deserve that but why wouldn’t she lock her door?

Debbie sent out a reminder email through their booking system, telling residents to lock up their personal belongings, reminding them also that the park is not responsible for lost or stolen items. But apparently the email was ignored by some. Debbie heard again when Tom came into the office, how he was just over at the dog park, playing with his dog. He never locks his door when he just takes his dog out, and when he came back it looked like someone had gone through his stuff. His report was just like Helena’s, nothing really valuable taken, just little items like the Velcro dart board he had on his bathroom door and the new pack of pens he just bought.

Debbie thought that it sounded like maybe a kid was going around taking stuff. She reminded Tom about the email and he did see it, but didn’t think just taking his dog to the run inside the park would be dangerous. Debbie sent the message to Rodger and was already checking the cameras when he came into the office.

“You checking the footage?” he asked when he saw her looking intently at the computer when he walked in.

“Yeah, and Tom’s place isn’t in any of the camera views. I don’t see anything suspicious either.” Tom told her that he was at the dog run for about a half hour to 45 minutes and she was checking the cameras back as far as an hour and didn’t see anything crazy. There were people walking around, going to the bathrooms, taking their garbage out, walking their dogs on leash.

“You did send the email out…” It wasn’t a question, because he knew that she most likely did it 5 minutes after he told her to.

“Yeah, but he didn’t leave the grounds so he assumed he was safe. I reminded him again to keep his doors locked if he’s not at his site. Do you think it might be a kid?” She explained how the cat figurine and the dart board made her think it might be a kid. They discussed the different families that were staying there, and none of the kids seemed all that bad.

“The real bad ones hide it well,” Rodger said with a scowl on his face. He took his job seriously and didn’t like to think that they had a thief among them. He told her to send out another message, this one more urgent, telling people to lock their doors. Debbie worded it differently, not so much as a reminder this time. As a warning.

A week later, the bandit struck again. Maggie was a single mother doing the best she could with her two boys. They were good kids who rarely got into trouble. They would fight sometimes as brothers do but they didn’t do any real harm. Maggie came into the office distraught because someone had broken into her place. She told Debbie that she always locked her doors because of her ex-husband. She was always afraid of him showing up when she wasn’t ready and would even lock the doors when she was home.

She’d dropped the boys off at their day camp they went to in the summer, she stopped to do shopping before coming home to find that her lock had been picked and someone had been inside her RV. Stuff had been once again gone through. It didn’t sound like this person made a total mess of the place, but didn’t hide the fact that they were going through draws and taking things out. She wasn’t sure about everything that was missing. Just like Helena’s case, some jewelry was gone, a macrame hanger was missing. She thought some food might have gone missing out of her cabinets.

Debbie called Rodger and he came right to the office to talk to Maggie himself. While Maggie was there, they reviewed the footage. Again, the site that was robbed was outside the line of vision of the cameras and there was no one suspicious around. There was more footage to review because Maggie was out for about 4 hours, but even Maggie didn’t see anything or anyone she thought could have done it. Maggie was shaken up because her home had actually been broken into. She began panicking and started the what if we were home spiral and Rodger had to step in to bring her down to earth.

“Listen, I don’t think they would have gone in if you were home.” He told her about the other break ins and that this one was different because her lock was picked. Because of that, he was going to contact the police and they would probably want to talk to her about it. She agreed and after she left, Debbie and Rodger talked about it some more.

“Do you still think it’s a kid?” he asked her.

“I don’t know. The food missing? That does sound like a kid. But the jewelry part… it’s not expensive jewels, but then again, do any of our guest have expensive stuff? I don’t know… Yeah, I think it might be a teenager, or a smart pre-teen who’s watched lock picking videos on you tube.”

Rodger tended to agree with her and they went through the guest list to see if they could, together, come up with someone who might be doing this. They even went to newer residents to see if maybe someone had started showing signs of dishonesty or untrustworthiness but neither of them could think about who it was. There was a family staying for a week and they left their site a mess. Debbie had been suspicious of them, but they were long gone when Maggie’s place got hit. Rodger didn’t want to bring the police into it, but because there was an actual break in, he needed to tell the owners and contact the police.

The police didn’t seem too concerned with a break in at an RV park where nothing valuable was stolen and no one was hurt. They said they would send an officer down to take a statement, but before that happened, two days after Maggie’s break in, Henry came in angry and yelling.

“I’VE BEEN ROBBED!” Debbie knew that Henry wasn’t reading his emails and asked him if they broke in or if he left it unlocked.

“I NEVER HAD TO LOCK MY DOORS BEFORE!” His place was almost the worst in the place. He had cardboard boxes and old propane tanks around. The spiders loved his lot because he didn’t seem to own a broom or care. He was obviously a bachelor and one could smell him from a foot away. Debbie couldn’t imagine what the inside of his RV looked or smelled like and couldn’t imagine what he would have to steal. It also seemed that whoever was doing this wasn’t taking anything of much value anyway.

She called Rodger, who heard Henry ranting in the background and came as quickly as he could. Turns out, Henry had more to rob than the others had. While he was in town, they stole a couple of books that held coin collections. His Luger pistol which he didn’t have any bullets for, thank God. And some of his pickles he pickled himself. Debbie giggled internally when she sensed that he was angrier about the pickles he’d worked hard on and wouldn’t get to eat. He’d gone into great detail about the brine he made for them, while they had to ask him if there were bullets for the gun that was stolen and the value of the coins taken. They reminded him that the park wasn’t responsible and that he really needed to start locking his doors. He implied that they were letting the park go downhill, but Rodger got defensive and told him that his own spot needed to be tended to if he was going to talk about the state of the park. That seemed to deflate Henry a little bit, and he went away grumbling about how when he was young, no one had to lock their doors.

“Henry’s place?” Rodger asked incredulously when the smelly old man left.

“I couldn’t believe it either.” Debbie pulled up the footage that by now they knew would not show the perpetrator in any of the cameras. Whoever it was, was smart and was doing it in the daytime when a lot of people were out and about. You could see the back of Henry’s place from the camera but not the side with the door, and it was partially cut off from the camera so the guy must have come from the other side. They didn’t call the police again, but when the officer came to take the report, they would include that. Debbie had started documenting everything in its own file in their system after the second incident.

After a week, an officer did arrive and take statements from everyone who was involved. Rodger and Debbie talked about it after the cop left.

“He didn’t seem real interested in finding out who was doing this, huh?” Debbie said to Rodger.

“No, I got that. He was just going through the motions. Taking the statements so he could file his report. No big investigation coming out of this. It’s on us,” Rodger answered as though he was small town cop being denied help from the FBI. Debbie was less serious and joked with him about it. It wasn’t like people were being hurt, or anything serious was being stolen. The gun was serious, but there were no bullets. If it was a kid, which Debbie was leaning more and more towards, their stash would be found soon or they would get caught some other way.

Rodger let Debbie lighten the mood, but he was concerned about it in reality. He was the manager, and in charge of keeping everyone safe. Whoever it was knew to avoid the cameras. The cop was not very forthcoming about his own ideas and only said “could be” when Debbie told him she thought it might be a kid. Even if it was just a kid, Rodger didn’t want to let it slide.

Two weeks had gone by and nothing happened. The summer was half over and Rodger wanted to sit with Debbie to go over the guests that had been here. There was a way to ban people in the system and if they could think of who could have done the robberies, he wanted to make sure they couldn’t come back again. A guy who had rented one of the more private tent sites was gone and while Rodger and Debbie were wondering if he was perhaps the guy, Donna who had the huge pit bull came in shocked.

She told them that she was keeping her doors locked and had Domino to guard her so she wasn’t worried at all, but she was struck by the bandit! She was in town doing laundry since 6 that morning, and when she came home, her lock was picked and some of her things were gone. This made it more interesting. Domino didn’t defend the place at all as the thief took some decorative plates, fruit out of the fruit bowl, her silverware holder that she kept on the sink and her space heater. Draws had been gone through and she wasn’t sure if there was anything else taken. She was shocked and bewildered. Domino was NOT getting a steak dinner tonight.

Rodger and Debbie realized that it wasn’t someone staying there temporarily. Whoever it was, was able to get past Domino without setting off any alarms. He knew and liked whoever it was that was doing this. They asked Donna who her friends were around the place, if there was anyone that she’d invited over to her house, and no one she mentioned fit the bill. The camera angles were well known to whoever was doing this, and it was all different hours of the day. Rodger and Debbie were at a loss as to who could be doing this.

Meanwhile, Helena sat in her RV throwing the Velcro dart balls at her new dart board, surrounded by her growing collection, and a jar of homemade pickles open beside her.