Watching the Detectives

I arrived at work this morning to find my usually locked door slightly ajar. And by slightly ajar, I mean completely smashed off the door frame.

Pretty subtle, eh? The perp (I never get to use that term!) used our water bottle in the hallway as a battering ram. Clever, right?

Me, not being fully awake at 7:00 a.m., thought the following: Hmmm, why is our water bottle on the ground? Wow, did I leave the door unlocked last night? What is that mess on the floor?

I continued to walk into my office where I noticed my laptop unplugged and moved. Odd, right? Ohhhhhhhhhh, wait a minute . . .

None too quick.

Of course, I immediately called the police. The dispatcher asked if anyone else was there. "Nope, the entire parking lot and garage are empty." Just then I heard footsteps. "Oh, I take that back, I hear someone upstairs."

Her response, "Get outside and away from the building right now." (The killer is in the house!)

So the cops came, looked around, took fingerprints and heaps of photos, asked oodles of questions about ex-coworkers/marital status/disputes and left. Now I'm sitting here alone waiting for someone from the building management to fix my door; otherwise, I cannot leave to go anywhere. No clients today anyway but now no errands. No library research. No nothing.

Super sleuth that I am, I did mention to the officers how the alarm did, in fact, say "burglary in progress" when I turned it off this morning. However, it says that almost every day. So often that they disconnected the alarm from the 911 system. I also mentioned how the door to the front lawn was wide open. Also a daily event. What none of us noticed was the hallway window open or the footprints in the side yard leading to my window. Scary . . .

When we packed up the office and moved everything to Denver last week, I didn't think there would be so many fun and fabulous events in store for me. Sure, my friend Charlie -- who is suddenly alone in an office in Baltimore -- and I joked about naked Skype-ing (time to go on the diet!) but never did I imagine I could be all alone with danger. Danger! Lucky me.

What's freaky is that nothing was taken. Aborted attempt? Someone messing with me? 

I guess this means I should leave before it gets dark every night. Always an upside!