I was headed home after some early errands on a beautiful June morning in 1997, and I loved seeing the flowers popping up in everybody’s yard. I pulled into my driveway, then put on the brakes. Lying on the ground under the carport was the bright-yellow funnel I used to pour gasoline in the lawnmower. How did that get there?
Leaving my car in the driveway, I walked to the front door of my house. I turned the key and pushed on the door. It opened only a crack, banging into the chain lock. What’s going on around here? I lived alone, and I certainly couldn’t have locked the door from inside. Was somebody planning a surprise for Grandma? I hadn’t seen any familiar cars nearby. “Hello?” I called through the opening in the door. No one answered. Reaching in with my fingers, I lifted the chain free and stepped into my living room.
I stood stock-still in the doorway, light from outside flooding the room. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My rocking chair was tipped over. The sofa cushions were lying on the carpet. Newspapers and magazines had been tossed around everywhere. The place was a mess! Then I saw my safety lock-box wide open and empty on the floor. It finally hit me; “I’ve been robbed!”
I wasn’t sure what to do. I had to get help, but from where? My neighbors were all at work. Then the phone started ringing in my bedroom down the hall, and I heard a voice coming over the answering machine. That’s it, I decided, hurrying toward the phone. I’ll get the message and calm down. Then I’ll call the police.
The machine clicked off before I got to it, and I was in for another shock when I saw my bedroom. The dresser drawers had been pulled out and turned upside down. My clothes were scattered all over the room. Boxes of Christmas lights had been dragged from storage in the closet and ripped open. Picture frames lay broken on the floor. A lamp had been dumped on my bed.
I leaned against the door, too stunned to move. Glancing across the hall at the other bedroom, I could see things were a mess there too. Before I could collect my thoughts, my eyes caught a movement to my left. Turning slightly, I held my breath.
Coming down the hall on his tiptoes was a tall, long-haired man ~ bare-chested and breathing hard. His eyes were half-hidden by a cap, and his arms were raised above his head. In each hand he held a large knife, pointed straight at me!
The man grabbed me by the shoulder, switching the knives to one hand. I screamed. “Be quiet,” he said, forcing me into the bedroom across the hall. Still holding me with one arm, he reached down and snatched a pair of my exercise pants from the floor. He pulled them over my head. I could see only dim shapes through the cloth. “What do you want?” I asked, choking for air. “Shut up,” he said. “Don’t say another word.”
He shoved me across the floor and into the closet, sliding the door closed. “Don’t come out,” he yelled, “or you’re dead.” I was trying to stand up, leaning against a small dresser I kept in that closet. I have problems with fibromyalgia, and my legs were weak. “Father in heaven,” I said, “can you spare an angel? I can’t handle this by myself.”
Suddenly the door opened, “Come on,” the man grunted, pulling me out of the closet. I stumbled alongside him, struggling to walk, trying to see through the pants over my head. We reached the bathroom, and he told me to get down on the floor. He pulled something else over my head, making everything darker. I felt him tying my wrists. Then I heard glass breaking, and things slamming around.
”What are you looking for?” I called out. “Shut up!” the man said. My body was numb, but my tongue seemed to be loose at both ends. “Does your family need food?” I asked.
”No!” the man shouted.
”Well, what are you looking for?” I asked again.
”Jewelry. Money,” he snapped. “A gun.”
”Oh, I don’t have any of those things,” I said.
”Not another word!” the man yelled.
I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t stop talking. “How would your mother feel about what you’re doing?” I asked.
”I don’t have a mother,” the man growled. He grabbed my hands and jerked me to my feet. I couldn’t stand because my legs were asleep. He pulled me down the hall, and pushed me onto the sofa.
”Write a check,” he demanded.
”I told you I don’t have any money.”
”You have these checkbooks,” he said, throwing them beside me. “Write a check anyway.”
”Okay,” I responded, “but I can’t see.”
The man uncovered my head. “Don’t look at me!” he shouted. But I couldn’t help it. The man was just skin and bones, and he had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. Glancing down at myself I saw that he had tied me up with a string of Christmas tree lights. I raised my hands and he freed them.
”How much do you want?” I asked, picking up the checkbook.
”Three hundred dollars,” he answered. He took a pen from the coffee table and threw it down on the sofa.
While I wrote the check for cash, the man went to the hall closet and put on the big warm jacket I wore when I worked outdoors. He’ll leave now, I thought, but he told me to get up. He grabbed the check, and gave it a once-over.
”We’re going to the bank,” he said, poking me with the knives. Is he ever going to let me go? Or is he desperate enough to kill me?
The man pushed me in front of him to my car outside. He held the knives on me while he slipped from the driver’s seat to the passenger side.
After I got in, he climbed over the seat into the back. He crouched on the floor, pressing one knife around the seat into my arm. “Now, drive,” he said.
The bank was only about a mile from my house, but the man was edgy. “Faster,” he said. He pounded the back of my seat when I had to wait for a red light. Just before we got to the drive-in entrance to the bank, he waved the check over the seat.
”Stop! You haven’t endorsed it!” he yelled, poking the knife at my side. I pulled into the bank’s parking lot. Maybe this is my chance, I thought, getting an idea. It was risky, though, and I prayed that the Lord had sent me an angel with mighty wings to wrap me in his protection.
As the car idled I took the pen and wrote “Deposit 911” on the memo line on the front of the check. Nervously I turned the check over and signed by name. Below the signature I wrote “Help 911.” Dare I be so obvious?
The man grabbed the check from my hand before I had the chance to reconsider. He peered at the front of the check, then turned it over. I watched breathlessly in the rearview mirror as he examined it carefully on both sides. My heart was pounding. What will he do when he sees my pleas for help?
”Okay,” he said, thrusting the check to me. “Let’s go.” He didn’t see what I wrote! How could he have missed it?
The man remained crouched on the floor as I pulled up to the drive-in window. The teller was a woman I knew. “Morning, Diane,” I said, managing a smile. “Morning,” she said through the speaker. I opened the drawer and dropped the check inside.
Diane glanced at the check. “Wait a moment,” she said, leaving the window with the check in her hand.
”No tricks, now,” the man snarled from the backseat. It seemed like hours before the teller came back, this time with the bank manager. “Just one moment,” Diane repeated.
She and the manager watched silently at the window. The man pounded the seat from the floor behind me, and I felt the knifepoint. I prayed he wouldn’t get impatient and order me to drive away. I could hardly breathe. Finally a blue car pulled in, coming along side me like another customer. Then the door opened and policemen surrounded my car!
My plan had worked!
Later the police told me that man had committed other burglaries, but it took a little Cleburne grandmother to catch him. “Maybe so,” I said. But God knew I couldn’t handle things by myself. Even though my message was written plain as day, the robber hadn’t seen it. Because an angel’s wing had covered his eyes.
