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.