Captain Heinz Noonan, the “bearded Holmes” of the Sandersonville Police Department, was deeply immersed in the physics of the Big Bang Theory. It was not that he was a fan of the theory or had any special interest in the subject. What he did have were twins in a physics class struggling with the concept of Hubble’s redshift and the metric expansion of space. Yes, it was true, quasars would have the redshift if they were moving away from the earth as opposed toward it. What the twins did not understand – and now Noonan was trying to discover – was a foolproof way of knowing which way the shift went – toward longer or shorter wavelengths. He was up to his ears in wave and quantum theories of light when his office phone rang. He snapped it to his ear and said, “I’m not sure yet which way the spectrum goes, big to little, red to violet, or the other way around.”

“It’s the other way around,” said a soft female voice. “Violet has the shortest wavelength, red the longest. That’s what the redshift is all about. Since the wave length of light from stars is red that means the universe is expanding. Everything is moving away from us in different directions. It proves the universe is expanding and probably always will.”

“That’s good to know. Who’s this?”

“Gloria Sandoval. Calling from Harrison City. We have had a string of strange crimes here and my Chief of Detectives said I should call you. ‘If there is anyone who can straighten this out,’ he said, ‘it is Heinz Noonan in Sandersonville.’ So I’m calling you.”

“OK. What can I do for you?”

“It’s a strange crime.”

“You have no idea what kind of crimes come through this phone,” Noonan paused for a moment. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

“Of course,”

“I’ve heard it all.”

“Good. Then you should have no trouble with this state of affairs. We have a reverse burglar, one who leaves things rather than taking them.”

“Say that again.”

“We have a reverse burglar. He’s leaving things instead of taking them. He breaks into a home and leaves an expensive item and then departs.”

“I take back what I said before.”

“What’s that?”

“That I had heard it all. What kinds of things is the burglar leaving?”

“To date we’ve reports he has left a Chinchilla wrap, Colonel Era tea set, Authentic Ming vase and a Waterford decanter.”

“That’s pretty expensive stuff.”

“Correct. And those are the just the things which have been reported. We’re assuming other people have received expensive items and are neglecting to tell the police. Why should they tell the police? The items are not stolen. Except for the Ming vase, none of the items have a provenance. We can’t take the items because they are not evidence in a crime. Even if we caught the burglar red-handed we could not charge him – or her – with stealing items of any value – and who is going to press Breaking and Entering charges against a person who is bringing you a $2,500 Colonial tea server?”

“Good point,” Noonan said. “But I’ll bet that’s the extent of the reverse burglaries. The people who are so blessed do not want to be associated with the items if those items happen to be stolen. No, I do not think there are more than four homes involved. Yes, if the items are not listed as stolen the people get them back. No crime, no investigation.”

“You are correct. We can only investigate crimes. There have been no crimes here. Giving someone something is called a gift. That’s not against the law unless the gift is stolen. But there are no records of those items being stolen.”

“So you’ve got zip.”

“That’s right. We’ve got zip. My question to you: What’s going on?”

“That, my dear lady, is a very interesting question.”

“So you can’t help us?”

“I didn’t say that. Just off the top of my head I’ve got some questions. Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

“Do I need them?”

“Not if you are a memory expert.”

“Just a second.”

Noonan waited for her to come back on line.

“OK, I’m here.”

“Good. You said the Ming Vase had a provenance. Who was the last person to own it and when did that person buy it? If the items are expensive, they might have been sold in a lot. See if a lot of items which could have been your gifts has been sold lately. Try Christie’s for sure. If they were sold as a lot, what other items are missing. Are the homes which reported the gifts in the same part of town? Where do the people who live in those homes work? Were the homes locked when the gifts arrived? Are the people who got the gifts locking their homes now? Are the families of those who received the gifts in dire need of money? Does anyone in any of the families who received the gifts have a police record? Did the reverse burglar leave any footprints in the home? Was any food missing in any of the homes? Right now, that’s all I can think of.”

“It’s quite a list. I can answer some of those questions now. Do you want those answers now?”

“No. I want all the answers at the same time.”

“Just one question, why the footprints?”

“None of these homes is a crime scene so no forensic team went over any home with a fine-tooth comb. If there were fingerprints, they will never be found. But footprints could be seen. If the prints were of a woman’s shoe, well then . . “

“I see. What about the food in the refrigerator?”

“If food was missing it means the reverse burglar spent time in the home. Therefore he – or she – must have had another reason to be in the home. No food missing doesn’t mean much but food missing would.”

“OK. I’ll see what I can find out for you.”

“One more question. Is there anything all of the homes have in common, even something as mundane as wall-to-wall carpeting or oversized televisions?”

“I’ll add it to the list. Do you know what you are looking for?”

“Not a clue.”

* * *

Six hours later Noonan got his call back. Sandoval was quite apologetic over her answers which were, as she stated, meaningless.

“The only one of your questions which made any sense was the provenance of the Ming vase. It was part of an inheritance a decade ago to a family in Marvin City. The previous owner, an eccentric real estate baron in Virginia Beach, had put it on the market for an exorbitant price. It never sold.”

“We were lucky,” said Noonan. “Once he put it up for sale the provenance became part of the paperwork universe.”

“A good way to put it. Yes, that’s how I found the provenance. But the tycoon died about 15 years ago and there was an ongoing dispute as to who was to inherit what. The man never married and had no siblings.”

Noonan cut in, “So everyone with a single strand of his DNA wanted a piece of the pie.”

“You are correct again. It must have been a carnival. I was able to find a list of the items in the inheritance and many of them match the items of the reverse burglar.”

“Match as in could be rather than are?”

“Correct. They are similar.”

“Any record of who got what out of the inheritance?”

“A lot of names. And I do mean a lot of names. From the Outer Banks of North Carolina to Alaska. No addresses. I researched the names of inheritors locally and got five. Three are deceased, one is in a charity hospice and the last is a retired teacher in Harperville. I talked to the teacher and she said all she got were ‘the leavings’ – that was her term – from the will. She still had what she had inherited.”

“What did she inherit?”

“An armoire of crystal goblets and an office chair.”

“An office chair?”

“That what she said.”

“Did she know any of the other inheritors?”

“Most of them, yes. They were all relatives so to speak. She said the largest chunk of the property went to a brother-in-law of the tycoon’s sister. He’s dead but his son is still alive in Harrison City.”

“Well, right in your own turf.”

“Correct. I talked with the son. He said he had everything he had inherited from his father and gave me a list. He was correct. Everything on the list was in his home or had been donated to various museums.”

“Did any of the donations match the objects left by the reverse burglar?”

“No.”

“So we’re back where we started.”

“Appears that way.”

“How about the other information I asked for?”

“Potpourri, I’m afraid. Everyone said they needed more money and no family was in financial straits. The only thing in common I could find was all the families were members of the same charitable organization, Sons and Daughters of the Shoals. It’s a group which raises money which is distributed to other local charities: cancer victims, homeless shelters, pet rescues. It’s kind of the cream-of-the-cream of Harrison City. A lot of money is raised.”

“Tell me more about this organization.”

“It’s not a regular organization in the sense it has weekly gatherings in a meeting hall or a building. It is coordinated out of a small office in the Harrison City Chamber of Commerce. The members don’t physically come into the office to make donations. They make the calls out of their own homes. The office just keeps the records and coordinates the fund-raising charity events. The office collects money in the sense people can drop off checks from the charity events. There are raffles and door prizes, of course, but there is not a lot of cash changing hands. After all, this is a charity.”

“Those raffles and door prizes. Big?”

“For this crowd, yeah. These are the big money people in town. Trips to the Caribbean, round-trip tickets and hotel to Atlantic City, a week in Hawaii. The next big one is for a dozen couples to take a three-day vacation in Las Vegas plus air fare and hotel right after the tourist season. In October. It’s raising quite a bit of money for charity.”

“Must be nice.”

“Yes, it would be nice. I’d love three days in Vegas all expenses paid.”

“Who wouldn’t? The other information.”

“Let me find the list. OK, here it is. Yes, all the homes which reported the reverse burglary are in the same part of town, within a four-block area. There could be other reverse burglaries in the four-block area but we won’t know because the burglaries have not been reported.”

“Go on.”

“All the people who have received these gifts work in various tourist industry shops along the beach highway. They do not all work for the same store or company chain. The homes were unlocked when the reverse burglaries occurred which is no surprise in this town. The doors are now being kept unlocked in hopes the reverse burglaries will occur again.”

“Imagine that!”

“Some of the members of the families who were reverse burgled do have police records but we are talking speeding, shoplifting, parking violations, DWI, possession of cannabis. Small time stuff.”

“Footprints and food?”

“No footprints. Food, yes. That surprised me. I asked what was missing and everyone said it was strange items. Things like a banana here, a sandwich there, a few cans of pop and an apple or two.”

“No garbage? I mean, like banana peels, apple core?”

“No one said they had found any.”

“How many individual pieces has the reverse burglar actually left?”

“Four.”

“The Ming vase being the most expensive?”

“Yes.”

“And the Ming vase is the only one with a provenance?”

“Yes.”

“And you do not know who inherited the Ming vase?”

“Correct.”

Noonan was silent for a long moment.

“Chief?”

“I’m still here. I’m thinking.”

“Do you have a clue as to what is going on with these reverse burglaries?”

“Maybe. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases when you will only get the complete picture at the end of the case. There is only one solid clue: the Ming vase. We can trace it with paperwork. The rest of the items the reverse burglar leaves are valuable but untraceable. All the reverse burglaries are happening in the same small area which, I presume, is a rich area.”

“Like I said, cream-of-the-cream.”

“These people talk among themselves because they live in the same area and are in the same industry. So, they all know about the reverse burglaries whether they were hit or not.”

“We are a small town in that sense of the term.”

“Here’s what I think is happening. Whoever is managing the Sons and Daughters of the Shoals inherited the Ming vase. He, or she, wants more money. The way he or she expects to make money is by stealing items from at least four homes, the ones where the reverse burglaries occurred. I do not mean stealing onesies-and-twosies, I mean cleaning out the homes, top to bottom. He or she has been using the income from the Sons and Daughters of the Shoals to secretly buy the objects which are being left in the homes. No one is questioning the expense because they are believed to be raffle items. The only item not bought was the Ming vase which, at this point, is untraceable BUT, at the same time, has a provenance. The provenance of the Ming vase makes all of the other reverse burglar items appear to be more valuable.”

“So this person in chumming.”

“That’s a nice way to put it. Yes, I think so. Whoever has been doing the reverse burglaries has been spending time in the home scoping out the valuables. That’s why he – or she – ate food in the homes. The reverse burglar was spending time there, making a list of the valuables, floor by floor, room by room. The burglar knows exactly what is in each room and where it is located. I’ll bet that when the names are chosen for that holiday in Las Vegas, four of the winners will be the people who got the reverse burglaries. The trip is set for October and by then the tourist rush will be over. Everyone will be looking forward to a vacation. So the happy couples go away to Las Vegas.”

“And they will leave their homes unlocked in the hope that the reverse burglar will return.”

“Correct. But when they return they will find their homes striped to the walls. The person running the charity knows who will be out of town, when and for how long. Then a gang will clean out the vacant homes and moving vans of the items form the homes will be halfway across the country before the families return. There will not be an APB for the vans because no one will know there has been a burglary – a real burglary – until the families get back.”

Sandoval cut in. “Then the reverse burglary objects are replaced in the charity items for the Sons and Daughters of the Shoals. Nothing is missing so our perp will be in the clear. The only solid clue is the Ming vase and I’ll bet it will never be found after the homes are cleaned out. The perp will end up with cash which he can hide all kinds of ways.”

“’Fraid so.” Noonan replied.

“Which means we can’t do anything until that person makes a move because right now no law has been broken.”

 

“Sorry. That’s what I think.”

* * *

On the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, Captain Heinz Noonan, the “bearded Holmes” of the Sandersonville Police Department came back to his office after casting his ballot for the least offensive candidates for North Carolina state house and senate and found a ratty office chair on his desk.

“What’s this?” snapped Noonan to Harriet who was chocking down laughter.

“It’s a reverse burglary,” she said with a grin that would have made the Cheshire Cat proud. “A retired teacher from Harperville said you’d understand. She also said her no good, sleazy, disreputable nephew was in the pokey, thank you very much, and you’d understand why as well.”