Dan's Papers - August 8, 2008

I sometimes write critizing one or another of the police departments in this area, so now here's an opportunity to praise their performance.

Last Wednesday at 10:15 in the morning, I stopped at Damark's Deli near my house to get a cup of coffee. I pulled up facing the store as always. The only other car there was a shiny new white Jeep, with roll bars across the top and sides and several pieces of canvas that could be untied and pulled out onto hooks to shelter from bad weather. There were also four yellow fog lights over the windshield. I went inside the deli. Behind me, a man got out of the Jeep and followed me a bit, but he did not go inside. When I came out with my coffee, the man and the Jeep were gone. And so I got into my car, a white four-wheel-drive Tahoe, and drove to the beach. My intention was to write stories for this newspaper on the beach on my laptop.

I opened the back of the Tahoe and found that the newest of my three beach chairs was not there. Why was that?

I unfolded one of the two older ones, walked with it down the beach and wiggled it steady into the sand. I then spread out a blanket in front of me. And then I returned to the car to get my bag. It was not there.

This bag contained, beside some personal papers, my laptop and my planner for 2008. I searched the car from top to bottom. No bag. I remembered packing it. I must have left it at the house. Driving back there, I began to think of what a life-altering thing this would be if I had been the victim of a theft at the deli. My laptop has all the stories I had written over the years, including some not published yet. My planner had lots of personal information, including the dates and times for many upcoming book parties and readings for my recently published memoir.

I tried not to think about this as I drove home. Surely my bag would be in the house, somewhere. It wasn't.

Now I was in a panic. I went back out to the car and tore it apart again. No bag. I drove down to the beach and looked everywhere down there. I called Damark's Deli to see if anyone had turned in such a thing during the last hour. No one had. And then I went back to the house again.

Now I began to think about that Jeep. It had been so unusual, not because it was just a Jeep with a roll bar, but because of the yellow fog lights. I had never seen one like it before.

Before the day was out, it had sunk in. Somebody had stolen my bag and the beach chair while I was in Damark's Deli for those five minutes getting coffee. And unless somebody had leaped out of the bushes while I was inside, it had to be the occupant of that Jeep, who I had seen briefly: a white male with a baseball cap.

I called my wife. She has always known me to be a worrier. I'd secure everything so it wouldn't get stolen. I'd never leave my bag for more than a minute. She never scolded me for it, but said I worried too much.

"This is your worst fear come true," she said. "I'm so sorry."

I began to think about what was in that planner. Bank account numbers were in there. Passwords to e-mail accounts were in there. A whole lot of other things were in there. Could it be this person knew who I was? And had robbed me of my two most significant items, and then thrown in the beach chair? What kind of sick person was that?

Before the day was out, I had called all the banks and put a hold on my accounts. I called my money manager and did the same thing. I went down to police headquarters in Wainscott, and with the help of Lt. Rodriguez, filed a crime report. My intention was, when I got home, to also call my insurance company to see if I was covered for any of this loss.

"Let me call Damark's," Lt. Rodriguez said, "and see if they have a surveillance system." And he got on the phone. They did.

"It was between 10 and 10:30 a.m.," I said. "You could watch the robbery."

Lt. Rodriguez said he would do that.

I did spend more time with the Lieutenant, sharing my tale of woe with him for a while. He listened to me patiently.

I had another laptop at home, I told him, but it was cumbersome and difficult. So anyway, until I got another little portable, I could still write. I also had a backup of almost everything I had ever written. Well, almost everything.

He asked if there was anything else in the bag, and I told him my iPod with 550 songs on it. Then I thought, thank goodness I have my iTunes set up to back up on my...uh, uh oh...my laptop. No. Everything was gone.

On my way home from the police station, I thought of other things lost. There was an envelope tucked into the planner with a boxtop inside from a new wireless phone I had bought my son. That and the receipt would get me a $50 rebate. Gone, all gone. I didn't suppose the thief would be so kind as to mail it for me. Oh no.

The rest of the day, I was in a state of shock, but I did what I had to do. I made other calls. I phoned the maker of the little laptop, which was Dell, and told them it had been lost and to cancel all the warranties on it in case the new owner wanted to have something done. I asked if they could provide me a replacement under the warranty. Sadly, the answer was no.

I called all the people I could remember I had appointments with and asked if they could e-mail me the times and places again. I changed the password on my e-mail. I changed the password on my eBay.

An hour later, I got a call from Lt. Rodriguez. He had been down to Damark's and said that because of a lightning storm the previous night, the power had gone out and they had not turned the surveillance system back on. So that was that.

"If you see that car, let me know," Lt. Rodriguez said. "And get the license plate."

That evening, I went online to look at the lineup of new Jeeps. I wanted to see what model it was. It was a Wrangler Renegade. I just knew I would see this car again. There couldn't be more than one of these in East Hampton. And I had already decided that whoever this was, they lived nearby. Who else would go to a deli at 10:30 a.m. just down the street like that?

The next morning, Thursday, I found myself feeling better. I was resigned that this laptop was gone, and that my other laptop, although half a pound heavier and not as good, would have to do for a while. New, nifty laptops, two-and-a-half-pound laptops, were coming out in the fall. I'd make it through with my backup.

As for the planner, I went to the store and bought a new one just like the old one, except with a red cover instead of a black cover. I then ripped out all the pages between January 1 and July 29. It was thinner. And lighter. Suddenly I felt a great weight lifting from me, replaced by a great revelation. I had just simplified my life.

It was like a six-month vacation. If you called during a vacation, I was not getting back to you. Now, for everybody I missed, I had another excuse. My bag was stolen.

When was that book reading at the Quogue Library? I could call and find out. Who was that person who wanted to ask a favor of me? Gone. Who wanted me to RSVP about some upcoming fundraiser? Gone.

This was pretty good.

The next day, Friday, I went to see my therapist. I have seen one every other week for 45 minutes for years. It's good to talk. You get things out. Things get settled. And on this Friday morning I spent about 40 minutes talking about what had happened. The therapist spoke for the last five.

"You seem to be fine," she said. "In fact, you seem exhilarated. Good for you. I think you've had a life-altering experience that you've handled very well."

Later that day, turning right from the Montauk Highway onto Accabonac Road going north, I passed the shiny white Jeep Wrangler with the four yellow fog lights heading south. It was him. I made a quick u-turn and followed him. He went down Egypt Lane and turned right on Turbell, then left on Highway Behind the Pond. I decided not to follow him there. It's a dead end. But as I headed up Turbell there he was again, heading back down Highway Behind the Pond toward me. So I turned around and continued to follow him.

I don't think it's fair to this person to tell you up what roads and down others this person went, but it went on for the next 15 minutes, and now, with a piece of paper with his license plate number between my knees, I called the police on my cell phone. I left the Lieutenant a message. He was not in.

I followed the white Jeep right to his driveway, and as I came up behind him, he rolled down his window. Obviously he had seen me following him.

"I need to talk to you," I said. "You either witnessed or participated in a robbery to my car at Damark's Deli on Wednesday morning. I need my stuff back."

"Sir, I don't know what you are talking about," he said. "I've just come out from the city."

I drove off. This time when calling back to the police, I told them where this person lived and I asked that a policeman meet me to go over what to do.

"Where are you?" they asked.

"I'm heading home. I will be there in 15 minutes."

"We'll be there," the dispatch clerk said.

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into my driveway, and just a minute after that, a police car pulled in. The officer got out and came inside and I told him what I had found and what I had done. I gave him the address.

"I think I'll go over there and have a talk with him," the officer said. And then he left.

Ten minutes later, my son David came in the front door. David has his own place on the ocean in Montauk, but sometimes stops by my house in East Hampton to take a nap or have some food or just hang with me.

I told him what had happened. He disappeared into this small guest room just off the bathroom on the main floor.

"Which laptop did you lose?" he asked from in there.

I was on the phone again, this time with my homeowner insurance people, finding out I had a $2,500 deductible.

"It's the small one with the big red bumper sticker on it," I said.

And then I went back to my phone call. When I looked up, there he was in front of me, holding up the small laptop with the big red bumper sticker on it. The bag I had lost was on his shoulder. I hung up the phone.

"It was in my room," David said. "Why didn't you look in there?"

"I don't go in there. It's your room."

"But it was in there. On the bed."

I began making a shrieking noise, which attracted my wife, Chris, who was out in the garden. When she came in, David said this to her.

"Maybe I should have messed with dad a little."

I got up from my desk and waved my arms in the air. "I DON'T BELIEVE THIS. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING. I WAS SO HAPPY. I HAD WORKED IT ALL OUT. I HAD GOTTEN USED TO EVERYTHING. I EVEN MADE FRIENDS WITH MY SECOND LAPTOP. I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS AFTER ALL THE WORK I PUT INTO THIS?"

Then I collapsed onto the sofa.

When I awoke five minutes later, I called the police department who called off the officer going to the suspect's house. I don't know if he did that interview or I caught it in time.

The next day, I had a big basket of fruit made up at Bob's Country Market in Bridgehampton and personally delivered it to the East Hampton Police Department with a note.

At first the police officer there wouldn't take it. I think he thought it could be construed as a bribe. "Give it to the food pantry," he said.

"But I'm so embarrassed and you guys did so much for nothing. You give it to a food pantry."

Either way, it was going to the food pantry. I took it.

I'd send a basket of fruit to the owner of the white Jeep if I knew who he was. Well, I know where his driveway is. But there are four mailboxes out by the street. I guess I could put a note in all four.

That night, I slept for 12 hours. And now that I'm awake again, I'm thinking - where the hell is my beach chair?