The Case of the Litter Bug!

Or...

How I Returned a Stolen Car!

A few days ago I was invited to go tidepooling by a friend. She said, meet me at the beach at 6:50am.

I’m not one to pass up on the opportunity to tickle some intertidal invertebrates so I did as she said. Tide pooling happened and nice time was had by all...

...but our peaceful morning was about to take a trip to the dump because when we walked back to our cars parked on the side of the road we see this big white SUV speed off. In its wake was a big old pile of trash.

I always come prepared so I whipped out my rubber gloves and found a trash bag in my car (for you know, dead animals…) and we went to work picking up after this litterbug.

Something in my gut told me “this ain’t right, Renée” when I discovered among the fast food trash, the homework papers of a dame. We’ll call her "Miss K". Her name was all over this trash...

There were Miss K’s tax documents (she was broke), some chemistry homework (she was failing), and even an empty bottle of ADHD meds.

Crime Scene Reconstruction

It seemed like an open and shut case to the casual observer. Sure someone else might have done it, but… who? Why? I shook off the hunch and resumed being angry at this Miss K for trying to trash my ocean.

With her garbage in my rumble seat, I drove back to my office and got on the old facebook and looked up this Miss K. I left her scathing message about littering and fumed a bit more. Just how many curse words could I fit in a facebook message, I wondered.

This did little to alleviate my emotions on the subject of littering and I realized I had both her home address and her school address so I thought I’d give Mr. and Mrs K Senior a ring-a-ding on the telephone and tell them what their daughter had been up to this morning.

The phone rang and a young woman picked up. Something in my gut, knew it was her...

Miss K

“I need to talk to Miss K.” I said in my best tough-girl voice...

“Speaking…” she replied and I started to give her the length of my tongue (6.5 inches in case you are curious).

“I found some of your belonging on the side of the road…” I paused for a breath before unleashing my wrath.

“Oh my gosh, that’s great, my SUV was stolen last night!”

Bang! I was flummoxed and flabbergasted. My hunch had been right!

The poor dame went on telling me how her flat had been burgled and the keys to her ride pilfered by some miscreant. The trail had run dry until I called.

“Oh my gosh, you need to call the fuzz and tell them your wheels were last seen headed to Santa Cruz, Califor-knee-ay at about 8:30 this am!”

We got of the phone and ran to the post office to put her school books and homework and notes on the next train down south.

I thought I’d washed my hands of the case, doing as much as I could, but then I realized I could put my good archaeologist skills to work digging through other people’s trash.

My search revealed a couple of receipt’s, the box for a cheap phone you might buy at the grocery store… a throw away phone, a starbucks cup with the name “Richard” scrawled mysteriously on the side. Seems like our perp has a perchance for fast food!

I forwarded pictures to my contact on the force and washed my hands (literally) of this case. I'd done all I could do.

The next day I got the big news... thanks to my hot scoop the fuzz arrested Richard the Litterbug and will return this dame’s wheels! Hot Damn!

That’ll teach ‘em to litter in my town again!