The Stranger in the Woods_ The - Michael Finkel

5
Flashlights, for some families, were the first items to vanish. For others, it was a spare propane tank.
Or books on a bedside table, or steaks you’d put in the freezer. In one cabin it was a cast-iron frying pan, a
paring knife, and a coffeepot. Batteries, for sure, were missing—often every battery in the house.
It wasn’t funny enough to be a joke, and it wasn’t serious enough to be a crime. It occupied some
unsettling place between. Maybe your kids took the flashlights. You did put those steaks in the freezer,
didn’t you? After all, your TV was still there, as was your computer, your camera, your stereo, and your
jewelry. No windows or doors were broken. Do you call the police and tell them there’s been a burglary,
that all your D batteries and your Stephen King novel are gone? You do not.
But then you return to your cabin the following spring and the front door is unlocked. Or the dead bolt is
undone. Or, in one case, the hot-water knob on the kitchen sink breaks off in your hand—easily, as though
it has just been balanced there—and you examine the sink, then the window over the sink, and you see on
the sill a few tiny white curls that look like file shavings. Then you notice that the metal lock on the window
is open, and that the frame around the lock has been slightly scraped away.
Holy crap, someone has been inside—and probably stepped on your faucet while wriggling through the
window, then made it look like nothing was broken. Again no valuables are missing, but this time you do
call the police.
The police say they already know about the hermit and hope to have the case quickly solved. All summer,
at barbecues and campfires, you hear a dozen similar tales. Propane tanks, batteries, and books are the
constants, but also lost are an outdoor thermometer, a garden hose, a snow shovel, and a case of Heineken
beer.
One couple opened their place for the season and discovered that there was no mattress on one of the
bunk beds. This was baffling. You couldn’t push a mattress out any of the cabin’s windows, not even close.
But the front door, the only door, had been bolted and padlocked for winter. The door had been sealed when
they’d arrived, the lock untouched; there was no damage anywhere. The kitchen window, however, had been
jimmied open. The only idea that made even a sliver of sense was that the thief came in through the window,
pried the pins out of the front door’s hinges, forced the door open from the hinge side, slid the mattress out,
put the door back together, then exited through the window.
It was the Pine Tree Camp, everyone learned, that was the primary target, the thief’s own private Costco.
In every break-in, the damage was minimal—no broken glass, no ransacking. He was a thief, not a vandal.
If he removed a door, he took the time to reattach it. Expensive items didn’t seem to interest him. Or her.