Something Missing (7 page)

Martin was particularly amused today by a routine that he had seen only once before. Alfredo began by pretending to kiss his own foot, cooing and imitating the sound of large, wet kisses, and then suddenly, without provocation, the bird would bite his foot, screeching “Ow! You jerk! No biting!” He would then hold his foot in front of his face, staring it down like a child in a no-blinking contest. After a moment, his expression would soften
and he would begin cooing again, squawking “Gimme kiss! Gimme kiss Mommy dearest!”

Martin did not believe that Alfredo had come up with this routine on his own, but he found the flair with which the bird performed the bit to be astounding. Though Martin often wore a smile of satisfaction during the workday, the smile that Alfredo brought to his face was quite different.

It was the smile of pure joy.

Following Alfredo’s routine, Martin began the business that had brought him to the Grants’ home in the first place. With the bird still perched on his shoulder, Martin moved to the kitchen and pantry, filling his burlap with half a bag of flour, two handfuls of artificial sweetener packets, five potatoes, a pound of lean hamburger, three boxes of frozen vegetables, and a bottle of barbeque sauce that had been in the pantry for six months without being opened. He took photographs of the usual locations, inspected the desk in the office, sorting through the mail and examining the Grants’ checkbook register, looking for anything new (he would inspect the Grants’ computer files the following week, as scheduled), and quickly made his way to the dining room, on the west side of the living room, the site of Martin’s latest project.

Martin called large-scale acquisitions like Sophie Pearl’s diamond earrings “projects” because they required more time and research than the acquisition of a few potatoes or a bottle of barbeque sauce. He had made large-scale acquisitions at the Grants’ before, a string of pearls in 2005 and another in 2006, but it was the Grants’ crystal and silver that had been garnering large profits for Martin most recently.

An enormous oaken hutch along the south wall of the dining room contained the Grants’ collection of silver, china, and crystal. Wine and champagne glasses were hung from racks across the upper half of the hutch, and drawers of silver and
a cabinet filled with china and crystal comprised the lower half. Inside the cabinet, plates, saucers, and bowls were neatly stacked in front of a large assortment of crystal that was wrapped in thick sheets of bubble wrap. When he inspected the hutch during the Grants’ first month as clients, Martin had dismissed these items as unlikely future acquisitions. They seemed like the type of items that homeowners would use quite often. Still, in keeping with his thorough nature, Martin took photographs of the hutch’s interior and placed a thin sliver of tape across the drawers and cabinets, just in case. When he re-inspected the hutch six weeks later, he was surprised to find the tape still in place, indicating that the cabinets and drawers hadn’t been so much as touched.

His interest renewed, Martin began a more careful, two-week study of the hutch, removing each item, placing it on the dining room table to photograph and catalog, and then returning it to its original location. Crystal candlesticks and bowls were removed from their bubble wrap, silver was sorted for inventory purposes, and china was meticulously photographed for its distinctive markings. At home, he began his research, starting with a study of crystal, and he found the market to be surprisingly healthy. On eBay for example, Martin found Lalique crystal bowls selling for as much as $5,300, and Waterford decanters eliciting bids of $2,000 and more. Though the Grants did not appear to own any crystal of this value, they did own several pieces worth at least $1,000 each. And he found silver to be almost as promising.

Martin continued to survey the hutch for more than a year before planning his first acquisition, continuing his research in the meantime. In casual conversations, Martin would question Jim and his Starbucks coworkers about their silver and crystal, feigning interest by claiming that his mother had left him some when she died. In general, he found that people fell into one of
two categories when it came to crystal and silver (Martin lost interest in the Grants’ china since it seemed to be used more often than the other pieces).

The first category was comprised of homeowners who prized their silver and crystal and used it regularly. These people, like Jim’s wife, Karen, seemed to schedule dinner parties with the express purpose of displaying their finery. Their silver was always polished, and their china and crystal pieces could be found on museum-like exhibit in glass cabinets and handmade cupboards throughout the house. These were the type of people who would likely notice if even a single piece went missing.

The second category, fortunately for Martin, were folks like the Grants, who probably received their crystal, silver, and china as wedding presents, registering for it out of obligation rather than desire. These were the homeowners whose silver was polished only on the rare days on which it was put into use and who kept their crystal stored away in cabinets and closets, still wrapped in the bubble wrap in which it was originally packaged, waiting to be passed on to some unfortunate offspring.

In the year that Martin waited and prepared, the Grants had opened their hutch cabinet twice and had opened the silver drawer three times. Each time it appeared that the only items removed from the hutch were flatware and plates, and these items were always returned by the time of Martin’s next visit. Assuming that the flatware and china were probably being used for formal dinners, Martin identified a Waterford crystal bowl, wrapped in bubble wrap and stored in the rear of the cabinet, as his first target.

Martin timed this acquisition to take place immediately after the holidays. If the bowl would be used at all, he thought, it would probably be used sometime between November and January, when the Grants expected a great deal of family to visit for Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day (e-mails on the Grants’ computer
had informed Martin of these plans). But observing no apparent use during the holiday season, Martin acquired the crystal bowl in mid-January the first of three acquisitions from the hutch thus far. The bowl netted Martin a profit of $889, and his other acquisitions, a silver pie server and a crystal decanter, had netted a total profit of just under $3,000, minus the cost of silver polish.

The most recent project that Martin was working on was the acquisition of a silver serving tray worth more than $3,500. The tray was stored on the bottom shelf of the cabinet with a number of items atop it. Covered in a thick layer of dust, Martin was certain that the tray hadn’t been touched in years, but as it was a very large item, acquiring it made him nervous. He had continued monitoring the hutch, taking photos of the contents as he normally would, but was also going so far as to apply a thin slice of tape across the cabinet doors whenever the previous seal had been broken. Martin reasoned that if the Grants weren’t opening their hutch very often, it would be unlikely that they would notice the missing tray.

Martin had scheduled this next acquisition for later on in the month if everything continued on its present course, and so as he made his way across the living room and into the dining room, Alfredo still resting on his shoulder, he hoped that the hutch would show no signs of recent use. To his delight, the tape across the cabinet was still in place, indicating that the Grants had not touched it in almost six weeks.

“Hubba-bubba,” Martin whispered, an expression that he had picked up from Alfredo a while ago, and one that he had begun using with Jim, much to Jim’s chagrin.

“I can’t hear you,” Alfredo sang out. This was one of Alfredo’s favorite phrases.

“Pretty bird,” Martin replied apologetically, knowing that this would please his friend. Checking his watch, Martin saw
that he had just over a minute before time expired, and so he moved quickly, returning Alfredo to his perch and handing the bird a walnut (making sure that it was completely eaten before turning to leave). As he exited the back door, locking it behind him with keys that he had copied long ago after finding a spare set hanging on a hook in the basement stairs, he heard Alfredo’s familiar “Arrivederci!” ring out through the house.

“G’day mate!” Martin replied, stuffing the burlap into the large black backpack that he had left by the door, heading southwest through the trees toward his car, with a surprising spring in his step.

Twelve miles southeast, in Middletown, was the home of doctors Max and Emma Reed. The Reeds, a couple not yet in their forties, were among Martin’s best clients for a number of reasons. Financially, they fit his criteria perfectly. Highly successful but rarely home, the Reeds’ kitchen was well stocked with items that often gathered dust, passed their expiration dates, and generally went unused. The Reeds did their grocery shopping through Peapod, a delivery service operated by a local supermarket chain that allowed homeowners to place their grocery orders online and have the products delivered for a minimal charge. As busy as they were, the Reeds had a standard order that they placed each week with little variation. This meant that the same two pounds of tomatoes were delivered to their home every Tuesday, regardless of their current supply. Upon receiving the new order, the Reeds would simply rotate the week-old tomatoes into the trash bin, since it was unlikely that they would find a need for four pounds of tomatoes in any given week. For the Reeds, the money wasted in discarded perishables was offset by the time it would take to inventory their stock and alter their order.

This worked out beautifully for Martin. Having become familiar with their standard order (after accessing the Reed’s personal
computer), and by timing his visits just prior to a Peapod delivery, he was able to acquire items, particularly perishables such as meat and produce, with little concern over the Reeds becoming aware of his acquisitions. In fact, he felt that he was doing the Reeds a favor, since these items would normally be discarded anyway. He was simply reducing their wastefulness.

The Reeds also spent many weekends at their home in Vermont or their studio in Manhattan, allowing Martin the unusual opportunity of a weekend visit to a client. And determining whether or not the Reeds were home was simple thanks to Emma Reed’s enormous collection of flags, the type that homeowners typically hang vertically off the side of a house or a garage. In all, the Reeds owned more than seventy different flags, each folded in 6” x 6” squares and stored along the north wall of the garage. There were decorative flags, American flags marking different periods in history, flags representing the seasons, holidays, sports, and even a Confederate flag, though Martin had never seen that one displayed. There were eight flags for Hanukkah, each one showing a menorah with an additional candle lit. There were flags for Arbor Day, Election Day
(BE AMERICAN! VOTE!)
, and there were even flags for each of the Reeds’ birthdays. Emma’s flag was a green patchwork emblazoned with the phrase
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMY!
and Max’s was a square of red fabric dominated by a birthday cake that was currently adorned with thirty-eight candles. Each year, someone (Emma, likely) squeezed another candle onto the already crowded cake with a needle and thread, adding to the patchwork of fiery reds and yellows.

But what appealed most to Martin about the flags was that each day, without fail, Emma Reed would change the flag that was displayed off the side of her garage, unless, of course, she was away. So although Martin was often able to identify the weekends that the Reeds were away by keeping track of the
calendar hanging in their kitchen, the flags served as a fail-safe way of guaranteeing the couple’s absence. If the same flag that had been displayed on Friday was still up by Saturday afternoon, the house was most certainly empty.

Thirteen minutes after arriving at the Reeds’ house, Martin was locking the back door, backpack weighed down with a bottle of caffeine-free Diet Coke, a pound of boneless chicken breast, an avocado, half a dozen carrots, a green pepper, several cherry tomatoes, half a head of lettuce, and a book of stamps. In addition to the fresh produce and meat that Martin was often able to acquire, the Reeds unaccountably maintained a large supply of postage stamps on hand, at least five books at a time, so Martin was often able to acquire enough stamps to handle his own postage needs.

Loading the last of his groceries into the Outback, which was parked in Lot C on the campus of Wesleyan University, Martin turned back onto Route 9, heading north, heading home.

Some people can point to a specific day in their lives when everything changed. For Martin, that day was a Wednesday in October.

It was three-fifteen on an overcast afternoon and Martin was visiting his final clients for the day, Cindy and Alan Clayton of Cromwell. Cindy was a schoolteacher in Wethersfield (second grade, the last time Martin checked) and Alan owned a construction company that bought large tracts of unused woodlands and converted them into mortgage payments. When evaluating them as clients, Martin had been initially concerned about Alan’s line of work, envisioning a man with the freedom to come and go as he pleased, stopping at home for lunch or taking an occasional afternoon off, but after more than a month of surveillance, he was comforted by the discovery that Alan was a workaholic, never arriving home before seven in the evening. The Claytons also kept a meticulous schedule posted on a bulletin board in their kitchen, detailing every job site and meeting where Alan would be each week, presumably so that his wife would know his whereabouts at all times. Of course, this allowed Martin to know where he was as well.