Dirty Rat

I responded to a house to take a theft report. I arrived and was told by the homeowner he was missing some money. He had returned from a weeklong vacation and discovered $18,000 in cash missing from it's hiding place in the attic. The stack of $100 bills was wrapped in layers of cellophane and aluminum foil buried under insulation. His wife was home during the week and did not notice any signs of a break-in. I climbed up the ladder in the bedroom closet and peered into the attic where the cash was hidden. There was loose insulation everywhere (the kind you spray in, not the pink rolled kind.)

Nothing else in the house was missing and only the homeowners had keys or knew about the hiding spot. I had trouble believing a stranger broke into the house, found a ladder, entered the attic from a ceiling panel in the bedroom closet, dug through an ocean of shredded insulation and found a stack of money. Even more troublesome was a second stash of bills ($10,000) in plain view next to where the missing bundle was taken from. Why would a thief take one bundle of cash and leave another bundle alone?

I asked to see the $10,000 bundle the 'thief' left behind. The plastic and foil wrapping was already discarded but the homeowner mentioned it was partially torn open when he found it. The 15 or so bills on top of the stack had rat-sized chew marks. I informed the homeowner the likely culprit was a roof rat found in attics and sheds throughout the city.

The 'missing' cash bundle was probably dragged to another spot in the attic by the crafty rodent. I recommended he search the rest of the attic before the bills were shredded into an $18,000 rat nest.

Almost Famous: I was at the county jail dropping off a prisoner when a guard walked up and questioned, "Officer Gary, right?" My first name does not appear on my uniform so I asked him how he knew it. "You write officergary.blogspot.com, don't you?" I admitted I was the author and asked him how he came about it. He told me he was thinking of becoming a police officer and was researching the police academy and happened to find my blog. He complimented my blog while I tried to encourage him to consider becoming a police officer.