It's Always Foggy in Scotland
an excerpt

The police car sitting in front of the house as she turned the corner was not a good sign. It was not like she knew any officers. Christy began to worry something serious happened as she sped up and pulled to a quick halt in her driveway. She tore out of the car, ran to the front door, and burst in.

“Mom? MOM! Are you ok?” She bolted up the stairs. Her mom was standing next to two officers with a dumb founded look on her face.

“Oh yes, I am fine.”

Christy put her arms around her mom. “I saw the police cars and I got scared. What happened?”

“Well, it is the craziest thing, really, though it is nothing to laugh at. We were robbed.”

“WE WERE ROBBED?!” Christy began to panic. “Did they take anything? What did they get? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

“Christy, calm down,” her mother said. “They did not take anything major. It is so silly, though.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” one of the officers interrupted. “I think we have everything we need. Here is my card. If you notice anything else missing in the next day or two, give me a call at that number, that extension. I will be happy to help you out.”

“Oh thank you, officer,” her mother said. “I appreciate your coming so quickly.”

“Mom,” Christy said. “What the hell did they take? I see the tv and vcr are here. So are both of the computers.”

“Ok,” her mom said. “Let me start at the beginning. I pulled into the driveway and noticed the front door was ajar. I did not even try to come inside, I dialed nine one one immediately. I know better after what happened next door. I called and said my front door, that was locked, is now open. They sent a cop car right away, I have never seen them come anywhere so quickly!”

“Mom, seriously, what did they get?”

“I am getting to that,” her mom said with a giggle in her voice. “You will not believe it, you really won’t. So the officers came into the house with me. One of them went downstairs, everything was fine. In fact, your door is still locked. The other came upstairs with me. We saw the tv and vcr were still there, I saw the computers were ok. The officer went back to the bedrooms and checked, no one was here. So he told me to start looking around to see if anything was missing.

“I walked around the bedrooms, my jewelry was there, my camera cases. It did not seem like anyone touched anything because everything looked like it was still where I left it. Nothing looked unusual.”

Christy sighed. “So did they actually take anything then?”

“Well,” her mom began again. “Yes, they did. As I was walking back towards the living room, I saw that the light from the refrigerator was on. I went into the kitchen and both the fridge and freezer doors were open just a tad, so I called the officer into the kitchen. He slipped a rubber glove on and opened the two doors, and that’s when I saw.”

“Saw what?” Christy was puzzled. “What did they take?”

“They emptied the entire contents of our freezer.” Her mom opened the freezer door and showed Christy. She laughed at the site as she still could not believe it. “They took everything. I mean, who takes someone’s food? Oh, they also took that bottle of sparkling cider from the fridge door, a package of bacon, and a can of tuna that was half eaten from the cat.”

Christy brought her hands up to her face. She began to laugh hysterically at the site of her empty freezer. It seemed so insane that someone would take the food. “Mom, this has to be a joke. Someone had to have come in here and taken this as a prank.”

“Chris, they took fingerprints. We will find out who did it,” her mom shook her head. “I just can not get over this. It seems so ridiculous to me. I mean, really. What did they want with our food? I have to go next door and talk to Sally about this. She is going to die.”

Christy hopped up on the counter and leaned back against the cupboards. “Mom, did you lock the door when you left the house?”

“Of course I did.”

Christy started to think. “I wonder how they got in.”

“The cops did not notice anything, but I was thinking it must have been either the front door, or the sliding glass door on the upstairs patio. After all, your bedroom door is locked.”

Christy slid back down off of the counter and walked down the steps to her bedroom door. Her mom was right, it was locked. She pulled her keys from her pocket and unlocked the door. As she opened it, she felt uneasy, worried someone might be in there. She realized no one would be and she opened the door. Her window was open three inches and someone had spelled out “Hi” on her bed in bacon.

“Mom! You have to see this. Call that officer.”

Her mom came running down the stairs and was at Christy’s side in a matter of moments. “Oh my God.”