Good Dirt

Breaking and Entering

Breaking and Entering

2000

T hey were shaken up big-time.

How did it come to this? They had always been careful planners. They had worn gloves and masks and shoe coverings for the burglary. They had returned their rental van as if nothing had happened, after removing the magnetic sign and fake license plates. Plus, they knew they were dealing with a town that had very few surveillance cameras anywhere, private or public. All they had to do was drive out of the state in their Benz and change the plates on that car, too, just to be safe. It should have been a piece of cake. A simple case of breaking and entering—no harm done, folks. But the getaway was the only thing that had gone according to plan.

Within minutes, they had slid from burglary to home invasion to murder.

Murder. Assault. Robbery. The town had registered zero crimes in all these categories for several years running. That’s what they said on the news that night. Burglaries and other kinds of theft were many times below the national average. Theirs was supposed to have been a middle-of-the-afternoon job in a sleepy neighborhood. They were equipped with a diagram of the house and a summary of family schedules. They had spent several afternoons observing the residence on Windward and would be in and out before anyone knew it.

The only people coming and going at that hour were folks who made a living making things clean and functional for families like the people who lived on Windward. Two men in a white service van would fit right in. They only had to drive up, step out of the vehicle in fake uniforms, and knock on the front door, keeping their heads down to hide their faces from anyone who might see them and blocking the view of the door while they fiddled with the lock.

One always had to assume that there might be a surveillance camera somewhere inside, even if they couldn’t see one. Even if there’d been no information to that effect. They would pull on their masks as soon as the door was open. They would pretend that they were being greeted by the cleaning lady, who they knew did not work that day. They would walk into the house in an unhurried manner and close the door behind them. They’d have to take a quick look around, because their client hadn’t provided a photograph. Apparently, there weren’t any in circulation, but the guy who’d hired them said he had seen it with his own eyes.

Everything went as planned until they entered the front hallway and found the fifteen-year-old son of the property owners in the house. It was hard to say who was more surprised, them or the boy. The men knew that no one was ever home at that hour, that the family’s two children had their various extracurricular activities, depending on the day. What in the world was this boy doing at home?

The whole thing was an accident. But who would believe that, or care, when they had entered the home with guns? Who would care, when a fifteen-year-old kid was dead? No matter that he was a black kid. He was still a rich kid, living in a beach-club community. They had noticed the flooring on entering the house. What a color. They had been aiming to have something of that sort in their own home, someday. But their motivation for accepting one more job had not been to spend their money on décor. Their client had real money and they were looking to be set for life.

The guy who’d hired them was smart. He knew to look for people without a record. People with decent day jobs. Not someone desperate for quick cash. They’d already made a good amount with the most recent robbery. An art-for-ransom scheme. They were all going to wrap it up after this job. While no one would ever suspect the two of them, the alpha dog, the guy who’d hired them, had been too close to the insurance industry, and he’d done this several times. One more job and his colleagues might figure it out. So this would be it. They’d make it work for all of them, then scatter. It should have been easy enough. The alpha dog wanted the piece for himself. He would pay them outright, and that would be that.

They’d thought to arm themselves only because, nowadays, that’s what you did. In case someone walked in on you or some neighborhood security patrol passed by earlier than usual and pulled into the driveway behind their van. They’d had to park in the driveway because that’s what a service company would have done. Made it easy to walk up to the front door. Would make it easier to walk out with their item in a thirty-five-gallon trash bag.

“Don’t get nervous, now,” they told the kid. “We just want the antique vase. Where is it? Just tell us where it is.” They had studied the diagram but they were too flustered to remember. Left, or right? But the boy wouldn’t answer, even when they pointed a gun at his chest. Still, if you watch a person closely enough, you can tell what they’re thinking. They saw his eyes shift to the right. They saw a room full of books.

The study.

Once they entered the room, they saw the piece right away. Just think, all that fuss over a big old brown jar. They had taken ancient Chinese, Greek, and Roman stuff in their other jobs. Much older. And a heck of a lot prettier. Hard to believe someone else had sold a similar piece for six figures, which is what the man who’d commissioned them said. But it was historic. A part of American history that not that many people knew. That’s why their client wanted it.

One of them reached for the jar while the other shook out the folded trash bag. Then the boy did something unthinkable. He reached for the jar and tried to stop them. That sullen-looking boy, almost as tall as they were but a kid, nonetheless, had suddenly sprung to life. He lunged at them like a viper. Shouted at them. No! Scared one of them into firing their weapon. The fool kid. What was he thinking, doing a thing like that?

Everything happened so fast. You would think you’d remember every millisecond of what happened on a day like that, but you don’t. It could have been that jolt of back pain. It could have been the pills you were taking for the injury. Or it may have been the surprise of it all, the discrepancy between what you’d forced your way into the house to do that day and what you’d actually encountered. Any one of these things could have muddled your brain. Left you with only a few details to remember. The sound of a gun going off, and a teenager falling backward.

Stupid kid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Point-blank.

Fuckin’ hell.

Well, of course they ran. And forget the old vase, it had fallen over and broken apart. Needless to say, they never heard from their client again. That had been the agreement, should something go wrong, should something end up in the news. Their careers in commissioned art theft had come to a full stop, just like that. Thank goodness, they still had their day jobs and all of their take from the most recent robbery. They still had the home they’d shared for five years. And they still had each other. They would bide their time, act normal, then move to another state someday.

Strange how things had turned out since then. Their client, who had orchestrated all those art thefts, would be gone a year later. He was up in his office in the Twin Towers when those airplanes hit. They read his name in the papers later. He had never been linked to any of the crimes he’d commissioned.

Even though they hadn’t earned a dime on that job, they had turned out to be the lucky ones in that whole mess. There’d actually been another kid in the house, but she’d been upstairs and apparently didn’t know anything until afterward. So there’d been no real witnesses. No investigation that had come even remotely close to them. Yeah, they’d been lucky, all right. Or maybe not. That kid was fifteen years old when he died. And they were going to have to live with that knowledge for the rest of their lives.