"My car's gone, that’s what!" Marv yelled.
Jed's old Ford was still there, alone now in the grassy area. Marv's brand new Lexus SUV was nowhere to be seen.
Cold air spilled out of Devil’s Hollow on our backs. The afternoon sun had warmed up outside to about 60, but we were still standing near enough to the Devil's Hollow entrance to get the cold air rolling around us. Devil's breath, I think it's called. I took another look at the Hollow entrance; it was really starting to look like West Virginia giving us the finger.
"Son of a …" Marv kicked the air, and then punched it. "I just bought that car!"
"I'm sure insurance will take care of it," I said, trying to boost Marv's spirits.
"I can't afford that car! The payments were killing me!" Marv picked up a rock and heaved it into Devil's Hollow. "Ghah! I'm going to be paying off a STOLEN car for the next FOUR YEARS!"
I put an arm around Marv. "Hey, insurance will give you a huge check, you can buy another one."
"I don't WANT another car. I want MINE!" Marv shrugged off my arm and hunted for another rock to throw.
"OK," I said, "Let's just chill out. Let's get a beer." Jed winced. Oh yeah; the beer was in Marv's car.
"Beer! My car's gone, and I can't even have a stinking lousy beer!"
"We'll buy more beer. We'll fill Mrs. Coten’s fridge with it," I said. "Good beer, too."
"Ted, bad time to be a fake optimist," Jed said. "The situation sucks. Let it suck."
"Damn right it sucks!" Marv yelled. "My gear! All my gear's gone!"
Now Gunther gave a gasp. "MY gear! It was there too!" Gunther began swearing, loudly and to the whole hillside.
Marv threw a few more rocks, including one big one that had to be around a hundred pounds. Gunther continued swearing. Marv walked back to us, exhausted from throwing.
"How'd they do it?" he asked between gasps. "There's no broken glass on the ground. I locked all the doors."
"Moron, you left the keys outside the car." Gunther said. "I saw you put them behind the back tire." That was a common practice, hiding the key before a cave trip. You never took the keys inside a cave, since if you lost them, you were screwed. But I never heard of a car getting stolen because of it.
"No one could find them," Marv said. "I really tucked them back there. There wouldn’t be a single glint of metal."
"But what if someone watched you do it?" Jed asked. I could hear Jed shifting to detective mode, God help us all. "Someone could have hid behind a tree or a rock and watched us." "That mullet guy!" Gunther yelled. "He unlocked the gate for us! He could have easily hid, watched Marv stash the key, and then take the damn car!" We never even found out what that guy's name was, or how he knew Mrs. Coten.
"He's a possibility," Jed said. "It's a pretty short suspect list. Not many people live around here."
"No one's heard of any chop shops in West Virginia, right?" Marv asked.
"I doubt you could get a Lexus repaired in West Virginia, much less disassembled," I said.
Jed felt under his front bumper, where he stashed the Ford's keys. "My keys are still here. I’m curious what that means."
"It means that the thief knows the difference between a brand new Lexus and a twenty year old rustbox." Gunther snapped. "Leave that on the Cross Bronx with the keys in the ignition, people wouldn't take it."
"The truck sucks, but it was still free for the taking," Jed said. "Unless there was only one guy. Then he'd just pick whichever one would bring in more money, which was obviously the Lexus."
"Maybe it's not a local," I said. "Every caver I know stashes their key around their car. All we need is someone who saw Marv’s bat sticker and followed him here."
"When was the last time you stopped, Marv?” Jed asked. “To get gas or food or anything?"
"We filled up the tank in Maryland." Marv said. "Gunther took a leak there. We didn't stop since. Barely saw anyone on the road." 4 A.M. in the country can be some desolate driving.
"I guess there's an outside chance someone followed you all the way from Maryland, but I wouldn't bet on it," Jed said. "So who does that leave?" Marv asked.
"Not many. You got the mullet guy, you've got Mrs. Coten ..."
I stopped Jed. "Mrs. Coten? She's not a car thief! She's letting us stay with her for the weekend!"
"I'm not saying she IS a car thief, I'm just saying she was one of the last people to see the Lexus."
"But she didn't! She can’t even see the road from her house."
"Did you check that yourself? It could have been misdirection," Jed said.
"It's not Mrs. Coten," I said firmly. "She's a nice old lady and a nice old landowner." Of course, she did had a motive. Jed and I went in her cave without permission, and got it shut down to all cavers for the next two years. She could still be harboring a grudge, although she probably hadn't realized we were the same jerks that made her close the cave.
"We've got a one man suspect list," Gunther said. "Mr. Mullet. Mrs. Coten probably knows who he is, if she gave him a gate key. We find him, sic the police on him, and he gives up where he's hiding the car."
"He's definitely on the list ...” Jed started.
"He IS the list!” Gunther shouted. "Has to be. He's got motive and opportunity."
"What's the motive?" I asked.
"He's poor! He probably goes to the Salvation Army for church clothes!"
"Being poor doesn't make him a thief, Gunth,” Jed said. "Yeah, but being poor AND being the last guy to see the car, excluding us, does make him the thief."
"Possibly," I said.
"Well, if it's not the Mullet, it's one of the Mullet's friends. He sees Marv's car, calls his friend Billy Bob and mentions there’s a caver leaving the keys to an expensive new car in the open. Billy Bob gets a little initiative, and boom: instant redneck car thief."
"Possibly," I said.
"I know," Gunther said, "that's assuming these people HAVE phones. Probably as rare as indoor plumbing around here."
"Speaking of phones, I should really call the police about this," Marv said. "I don't want the insurance company pulling something about me holding off on reporting this."
"Either of you bring your cell phone with you?" Gunther asked.
"I don't have a cell phone," I laughed. "I don't have the hundred bucks a month for it."
"I've got mine in my jacket up front," Jed said. "It wasn't getting a signal before, but you can try it." Marv gave it a shot, but he couldn't get a signal either. "We'll call back at Mrs. Coten's," he said.
Our muddy suits were getting cold, so we changed back into dry clothes. Marv's and Gunther's were in the Lexus, so they borrowed some extra clothes from us. It was a good thing I brought a second pair of jeans, or Gunther would have been walking around in his underwear. As it was, he had to seriously roll up the pant legs and cinch the belt to get them to fit. Marv and Jed are the same size, so Jed's clothes fit Marv fine.
"I've slept in tents that were smaller than these jeans," Gunther muttered, rolling up the pant legs.
I gave Marv the passenger seat for the ride back. Gunther and I cleared away enough gear in the back of the truck to sit down. Jed had a web of bungee cords wrapped across the gear to keep it in place, which he took off when he went in Devil's Hollow. Without the cords, the gear was bouncing all over, except Jed's duffel bag. Jed made special precaution to keep that one secured to a side, since he had a laptop computer in there.
"How are we going to get back home?" Gunther said between savage bounces. "I sure as hell ain't riding in the back of this for eleven hours."
A garbage bag with Marv's coveralls, helmet and pack fell on my lap. "Harry's coming down tomorrow morning, remember? We can put three people in his car, and Jed and I in the seat of this."
"Couldn't the thief have stolen some of this crap?" Gunther said as he braced a green Tupperware tub from hitting him. "It would save me a lot of stress."
Gunther and I kept a lookout for broken glass along the road, something that would have broken off the Lexus. The road was just branches and rocks, all natural junk.
After fifteen minutes, we drove by Mitch's house, who we all had completely forgot about. He lived right on the road between the cave and Mrs. Coten, whoever he was. Jed spun the wheel and his truck lurched up the hill to Mitch's. The back of the truck felt like a paint shaker. As soon as it stopped, Gunther and I hopped out, Gunther almost tripping on my jeans.
Driving past it, this looked like possibly the worst house in the world. Up close, there was no probably about it. Thirty years ago it could have been a regular house, but decades of homemade home repair had turned it into a quilt of aluminum sheeting and plywood. One corner of it was just bare timbers covered by a transparent tarp, which had numerous duct tape patches.
Plus, the whole house was covered in dirt. Some of it was dusty and some of it was greasy, but there wasn't a clean square foot to be found. Spraying it with a hose would help, but the water pressure might knock it down. And that was assuming this place had plumbing.
There wasn't any vehicle in sight, Lexus or otherwise. Two old tires, but nothing to put them on. I guessed that was why this Mitch guy didn't mind a locked gate put up on his road. "We'll be totally non-threatening," Jed said. "We don't accuse him at all, just ask him if he saw anything." It took some searching to find the front door, something that looked like particle board with three yellow windows put into it. Jed knocked on it gently. Surprisingly, it did not collapse. An exceptionally skinny man, somewhere between 30 and 55, opened the door. He had glasses thicker than his door, and was squinting furiously through them. "Who're you?"
"We're cavers," Jed said. "We just had a car stolen from us, and we were wondering if you saw anything. Mitch, right?"
"You the guy cussin', right?" He thrust a squint at Jed.
"That was me," Gunther said, stepping forward. "I had a lot of valuable stuff in that car. I just want it back."
"Did you see anyone or anything suspicious in the past couple hours, Mr., uh, Mitch?" Jed asked.
"I din't steal no car, no sir."
"I'm not saying you did," Jed said. "Your house is the closest one to where we parked it, and I was hoping you heard or saw something. It was a champagne colored Lexus, an SUV."
"I din't steal no Lexus car, no sir."
"Could I use your phone?” Marv asked. "I need to call the police about this."
"That is, if you have one,” Gunther said, mock politeness in full swing.
"Ain't got one. Miz Coten does. She's up the street. She might let ya."
"Thanks, we'll try her." Jed said. "Now, just to be sure, you didn't see anything suspicious in the past couple hours?"
"No!" He rolled his eyes, then shut the door. "Goo'night."
We walked back to the truck. "He seemed awfully unsurprised by a car thief in the neighborhood," Jed said.
"I think a lot of that is just dumb redneck," Gunther said. "I doubt that guy even knows how to drive."
"He shut the door in our faces. An innocent man just doesn't do that," Jed speculated.
Gunther climbed in the back of the truck. "But a redneck would. Marv, what do you think?"
"I just want my car back."
I decided to walk the rest of the way back. I made much better time than Jed's truck. I got a closer look at the road, which still didn't have any clues, just rocks and branches.
The gate was locked when I walked by it, just like we left it. The thief must have had a key, unless there was another road. I held off from touching it, in case there were fingerprints.
Jed's truck must have been really suffering, since I couldn't even hear it when I reached Mrs. Coten's house. No extra cars in her driveway, of course. That'd be too easy.
As I climbed her driveway, a pebble wriggled in my shoe and took a real good stab at my right foot. Yep, three more days of this could officially be the worst weekend of my life.
When I got to the door, I saw a woman inside who wasn’t Mrs. Coten. I knocked, and then opened it. "Hello?"
"Oh hi. Are you one of the cavers?" She was my age, with auburn hair almost to her waist. A very nice waist, I might add. It was odd to see a woman my age with hair that long. I liked it.
"I'm Ted. Hey."
She gave me a smile. "Hey Ted. I'm Sheila. We'll be sleeping together tonight."
I was going to have to rethink that worst weekend thought.