The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Some of you crusty old timers out here tonight might remember when Camano was such a sleepy little backwash, we didn’t have deputies on patrol after midnight. Crime was pretty much limited to marijuana growing —- you know, BEFORE it became a medicinal herb — and a few break-ins down at unoccupied beach cabins, probably OFF-islanders sneaking in by boat. Any criminals that were caught, well the sheriff’s department had to haul them over to the hoosegow in Coupeville, kind of a long drive, deliver the miscreant, then drive back here. In the meantime we were left vulnerable, defenseless and unprotected. To be honest, most of us never noticed….

Somewhere in the 1980’s some entrepreneurial South Enders … well, okay, some desperately unemployed South Enders thought the time was ripe for a Private Security Agency, sign up the absentee landowners and go check on their unattended dwellings. You know, cruise by and see if the front door was still on its jambs and lights weren’t on when they were supposed to be off, maybe get out and check the locks, walk around with a flashlight, wear a special agent badge South End Safeguard, something catchy, something official looking in case the neighbors wondered about us prowling the back yard late at night. Admittedly, we looked a little rough. Okay, we looked like the guys we were supposed to protect folks against. But hellfire, man, this was the South End and back then we all looked a little ragged around the edges. Remember, this was BEFORE the great migration, the one where the Dot.com’ers took their suitcases of cash and bought up the bluffs and hauled in stuff WORTH stealing.

That’s the trouble with rich people, you see. They bring valuables. They bring expensive toys. They bring, if you follow my reasoning here, CRIME. Simple as that. When we were all poor, why would we steal from each other? We left our doors unlocked, the keys to the truck in the ignition. You wanted to steal MY truck, chances are I’d find you broke down about half a mile north of me. I’d probably have to apologize to YOU for loaning you a beat up rig you’d have to repair three times to town.

Well, the South End Security and Surveillance Agency was a little ahead of the curve. So they finally called it quits. Before the incoming tsunami of wealthy neighbors brought their big suburb crime to our pastoral paradise of poverty . We got 24/7 deputies from Island County finally and for awhile we could drop off captured criminals, alleged captured criminals, with the Stanwoodopolis Police, save them hours of scenic transportation and get right back to the scene of our crimes.

And then, before we could regroup our patrol cars and security agents, along came the Civilian Patrol. Free of charge. Official. Nice lettering on the side of the vehicles instead of that ratty plastic sign we had that fell off more than a few times and even got Two Toke Tom pulled over for littering. He got off with a warning, but it rattled him so much he resigned and turned in his patrol badge, worried, I think, littering might lead to some sniffing around his grow sheds up by the South End Diner. And that was his sole livelihood, so he didn’t want to jeapordize that.

Well, anyway, I’m sort of rambling along here about the history of crime-fighting on Camano and I haven’t even gotten to Colton yet, but …. I think maybe I better just wrap this up and move on to subjects that won’t interfere with dessert digestion. But I do want to say to you crimefighters, thank you! Not so much for ending crime down by me as for saving me that job in my truck patrolling the rich folks’ houses. If I’d really seen how they lived, how much they had, how nice they had it, who knows, I mighta turned to a life of crime myself with all that temptation. Lucky for me I stayed stupid and poor.

Someone knocked my two mailboxes off their posts today.  Now … I don’t want to make a federal case out of this — but it IS.  Although I probably won’t call the FBI or even the sheriff’s office.  My last episode with the deputies convinced me Rome keeps these centurions down at our outpost primarily as slim proof Island County is still in charge.  Until you need them to solve crimes more heinous than speeding violations.  Mass mailbox destruction is pretty low on their priority.

Like most crime here, we’re pretty much on our own, okay by me, judging from the lack of crime waves.  The Barefoot Bandit ran amok for awhile and we got our first good look at Rome’s puny presence.  The Kid even stole their assault rifles and laptops right out of their squad cars.  Now that Rome’s running budget deficits, the sheriff is threatening to make cutbacks that will leave the South End without a single deputy most nights.  Exactly what we had when I moved here.  Pretty much what we got now.  I listened to my neighbor’s high decibel burglar alarm going non-stop for half an hour two nights ago.  If it had been an actual robbery, a moving van would’ve had time to empty the place.  You know, IF the burglars wore hearing protection.

We’re still small enough, still closed-knit enough, that when a break-in or vandalism occurs, we got a pretty good notion who the culprit was.  Been awhile since the last lynching, but a phone call to the miscreant’s parents usually does it.  Not always.  I had the mom of the kid who’d broken into my rootcellar and emptied my wine and homebrew stash bring said kid and herself over Right Now or I’d call the Law.  She sat in her idling car smoking her cigarette and denied denied denied.  I said her daughter’s step-dad had told me she had a winebottle with one of my labels on it for Roadspray Blackberry.  “What did you do with the bottle, honey?” she asked her punk progeny.  “I did what you told me, Mom, I got rid of the evidence.”

Now, I know blood is thicker than blackberry wine, but I also believe in good parenting.  So, reluctantly, I called the Law.  When they showed up a couple days later at my thief’s door, they took the step-dad aside and questioned him for half an hour about guns he supposedly had in his possession, then left.  Later I got a call from Deppity Dash wanting to see my rootcellar crime scene.

Deppity Dash, newly arrived from the Los Angeles police force, drove over in his squad car and I showed him my hand dug cellar behind the shack.  He just shook his head and said, “Damn, I thought those were just something you read about in books.  I didn’t think they actually existed.”  I didn’t tell him I thought the same about law enforcement on the island….  Turns out one of us was right.

Most of our crime on the South End is local. You got basically one way off the island, even most criminals can figure out how easy it is to put up a Roadblock by the bridge. But occasionally we get Outside Trouble. Rare, but it happens. Last year one of my old band members, who rents his castle a little to the south of us, dropped by his tenant where he planned to meet his realtor so he could discuss why his house hadn’t sold in, oh, four or five years.

His tenant, when he knocked on the door and finally shouted inside, came down the stairs in a state of disrepair, having been tied up, pistol whipped and shot in the shoulder by two ‘friends’ from Seattle who’d purportedly come by at 7 or 8 in the morning to, what she claimed!, give her some money they owed. Instead, I guess they decided to keep the money and take hers. Happens all the time …. Just not a whole lot on the South End. Did I mention our victim denied being shot?

It’s probably lucky for us that most criminals think the police are as dumb as they are. If not decidedly dumber….

My ex-band member — I did mention EX band member, didn’t I? — believed every word, even if the deputies who arrived later were somewhat more suspicious. Still believes she wasn’t shot, last time I talked to him, even when I asked about the hole in her shoulder, entry and exit. Probably doesn’t believe the Band 86’d him either. So when she gets released from the hospital, he takes pity on her and lets her stay rent-free until she can get back on her feet.

About two days later he gets a call from another ex-band member, neighbor Jim, who informs him there’s a box truck loading up in the driveway and maybe he ought to come on down and see what’s what. Which he does. Only to find two guys busy loading his artwork and furniture into the truck. He politely tells them this stuff belongs to him and they apologize and say they’re helping his tenant load her stuff and didn’t realize. All a misunderstanding, an honest mistake, see? He puts his stuff in the garage so they won’t misidentify it from hers, goes home satisfied that things worked out, and of course, they load up all his paintings and furniture and hit the road, where, since he’s a trusting sort, no roadblock awaits them at the bridge off the island.

If there’s a moral to this story, hell if I know what it is. Other than to say, if you’re ever starting your own Band, be sure you audition your prospective musicians.