As I was pouring the cans into the recycle bin I heard a car being cranked over repeatedly. At 3:30 in the morning in a darkened business district with no one else around.
I took a few steps and stood on the sidewalk watching someone inside a darkened car in the used car lot turning the engine over, and then when it caught the car made a loud screeching sound, shuddered and the engine killed. Again and again this process was repeated
I thought my standing 60 feet away in the dim glow of the street lights would induce the driver in the dark car to emerge to sheepishly explain himself, or else run away, especially since the business was completely dark and shuttered for the night. Not so, he just kept repeating the suspicious process.
The former cop in me, 30 years dormant but already jarred awake by the dissonant car engine noise in the night, I thought briefly about striding up to the car in the lot and asking the driver what the hell he thought he was doing. After all, maybe it was a repo, or an owner who had returned to get his car at that hour, perhaps by arrangement.
But in the olden days (cops always take action, it's their job to do so) I would have had two crucial advantages: a pistol on my hip and a radio nearby in my car, connected to a wide network of swift support. This was a dangerous course for a mere civilian out alone in the dark encountering a possibly criminal situation with no nearby apparent support.
Ruing that I am so old as to not view my cell phone as an essential appendage of my body to be taken with me at absolutely all times (it was sitting on my dining room table), I turned and started walking briskly home, a two-minute walk. As I rounded the corner to gain my residential street, I heard the noisy engine finally catch and with a loud vroom, it pulled out of the lot onto the street and I looked back to see it peeling off EB on Main Street at a high speed, completely without lights.
I ran the rest of the way back home and dialed the Falls Church police. Thus began a charade, a caricature of civilian interaction with police that informs us why the public doesn't readily interact with the police.
A female answered on the fourth ring and the conversation, while not verbatim, went something like this as well as I remember it 24 hours later.
"Hello?"
"Is this the Falls Church police?"
"Yes, how can I help you?"
"I just saw a very suspicious occurrence at the Falls Church Auto used car lot on Broad [Main] Street one minute ago, a person started up a darkened car in the lot and went speeding off eastbound on Broad Street at a high rate of speed with no lights on."
"Sir, what are you saying?"
"I think a car might have been stolen from the used car lot at Falls Church Auto just a minute ago and it was headed EB on Broad Street without lights a minute ago."
"Where is Falls Church Auto?"
"It's on Broad Street across from the car wash."
"Which car wash is that?"
"It's right where the bicycle bridge on the W&OD Trail crosses over Broad Street."
"What part of town is that?"
"You're not familiar with Falls Church, are you?"
"What side of town is this lot in?"
"It's right next to the Car Title Loan storefront, and Smokey's garage service station. It's directly across the street from the old Chevy Chase Bank branch, which turned into a Capital One branch, which is closed now."
"Do you know its address?"
"No."
"And the car left on Broad Street?"
"Yes, EB."
"What kind of car was it?"
"I don't know, it was dark. It was a dark sedan. It had a pennant flag on the roof and a promotional front plate."
"A what?"
"A cloth banner flying on the roof and a promotional front plate."
"What's a promotional front plate?"
"It wasn't an ordinary front tag, it contained an advertisement for the used car lot on the front plate."
"Did you see the license plate or get a license number?"
"No, it was too dark, but I could see that it was a novelty front tag."
"What is your name"
"Peter Lamberton."
"How do you spell that?"
"Like it sounds. L-A-M-B-E-R-T-O-N."
"What's your phone number?"
[Feeling crucial minutes slipping away!]
"Isn't my number on your caller ID?"
"We just want to confirm it. Does it end in 4**4?"
"Yes."
"Can you hold for a minute?"
"Yes."
After three minutes of being on hold, I hung up. There was no further communication with the local police.
Today I stopped in at Falls Church Auto. After all, I have bought two cars from that business, and sold two cars to it.
There I heard a sad tale of woe, that a classic car with only 15,000 miles on it, already pre-sold to a buyer in France and being prepared for him, had been stolen off the lot at 3;30 that morning. The police received a call from a citizen at that time and had responded by 3:48 am and had found an open window at the business and left a note. They came back at 9:30 am, learned of the theft and took the report. They didn't have any information on who the informant was.
At the business, I learned that a key for the car was missing, and that it was a manual transmission and that the emergency brake had been locked down tightly, both of which would explain why the car had been catching, shuddering with a screech of metal on metal and quitting if the thief was not fully conversant with a stick shift or knew that the emergency brake was tightly engaged. I wish I could have done more to have averted this theft because it is a small business and I like the people there.
