Eler Beth, Private Eye

My daughter notices everything!!  She can walk into a room, not appear to even turn her eyes or her head and immediately ask you what that new nic-nac is on the top shelf of the curio cabinet!  Last year after hearing that a friend in the neighborhood had had her brand new bike stolen the night before, she rode around the block with the friend and saw a little piece of blue sticking up from the overgrown grass in the back yard of an empty house.  Sure enough it was her friend's new bike.  She said she remembered the bike was blue, drew her friend's attention to it, got the friend's mother, who walked into the back yard and sure enough, there it was.  The mother told me she never would have noticed the part that was visible if it had been her.

Well, she's been at it again.  Last evening a neighbor's house was burglarized and thanks to Eler Beth they may know who did it!

Thomas was home and gave Eler Beth permission to walk down the street to her friend Amanda's house for a few minutes.  Amanda lives about 14 houses away from us and around a little curve, but it wasn't dark yet and there were plenty of people coming and going that time of day, not to mention that every other house on the street has her or Andrew's friends and their parents there.

Eler Beth said as she got close to her friend Kimberly's house she saw a car pull up in the drive and a man and woman get out.  She noticed Kimberly's Mom's car wasn't there.  The man and woman went to the front door and she said it looked like the man kind of bent forward over the doorknob like he was unlocking it which immediately set off warning bells because Kimberly's mom is divorced from her dad and no other man lives there.

Eler Beth kind of slowed down as she came abreast of the house and watched them.  She said the woman was watching her.  Then they opened the door and went inside.  She walked on by but before she got to Amanda's house she said she just had a feeling something was wrong and she'd better go tell Dad.  So she turned around and went back.  As she got close to Kimberly's house again the man and woman were coming out carrying something.  As she went past she started repeating the license plate number to herself all the way back to our house.  As soon as she came in she got a pen and wrote down the number.  Then she told her Dad.  He told her to watch for Kimberly and her mom to get home, because it could have been a friend with permission to go in.  We needed to be sure.  In the meantime Eler Beth went to a friend's house across from Kimberly's, asked them if they'd seen anything and if they knew what kind of car Kimberly's dad drove.

About a half hour later Kimberly and her mom came home, opened their storm door and the doorknob on their main door fell off!!  So they didn't go in.  They went across the street to see if anyone had seen anything and they were able to tell her that Eler Beth had.  So they called us and the police.  Eler Beth was able to give a description of the car, the license plate number as closely as she had been able to remember it, a description of the man and woman and how long they'd been gone.

Kimberly's mom is sure it was her ex and his sister.  She gave the police his name, address and social security number.  This is the third time she's been robbed.  Now they can probably tie the other two times to him as well.  I haven't talked to her yet this morning, but I'm curious to see if it was him and if they got back what he'd stolen. 

I think we should make Eler Beth Captain of the Neighborhood Block Watch!!  There were other kids and adults outside when this happened, but no one else noticed anything strange.   It was their (the burglars') bad timing that they showed up just as Eler Beth was walking down the sidewalk!