When they’d left Simon’s car in the lot earlier that day, it was undamaged and parked in the shade of a large tree. Now it was missing the glass from the windows on the driver side, and sitting on its rims. As they moved closer and circled the vehicle, the slashes in the tires were obvious, as was the key scratch that marred the dark blue surface, running the length of the passenger side. The bright white, wavy line stood out starkly, and Simon swore again as he ran a finger along the groove. “Who the fuck would do this?”
“Perhaps kids?” Mike suggested. “Man, what a crap thing to do.”
From a quick glance around the near-empty parking lot, it appeared the few other cars parked nearby were undamaged and Simon’s was the only vehicle to have borne the brunt of someone’s aggression. “Yeah, vandals maybe. Damn, why did they have to pick my car to do this to, and wasn’t it enough to break the windows and leave the goddamn scratch? But to leave us with four flats….” His voice trailed off as he kicked one of the tires in question. “Fuck!”
Patrick peered in the window, or at least the gap where the glass should be. A fist-sized rock rested on the back seat of the car, surrounded by scattered pebbles of broken glass. It didn’t appear anything else was damaged or missing. The stereo was still mounted in the dash, there was a sweater on the back seat, and a spare pair of Simon’s sunglasses resting in the center console. “Strange. They didn’t take anything.”
“Fucking kids these days. Getting their kicks out of trashing other people’s property.” Simon hauled his cell phone from the backpack before tossing the pack through the gap into the back of the car.
“Are you calling the police?” Patrick asked.
Simon’s eyes flashed briefly, then he wore a look of resignation. He sighed as he pressed buttons. “What’s the point? I’m calling Moffatt’s to arrange a tow. Someone there can hopefully take a look at the car and get it back on the road quickly.”
Patrick frowned. “I still think you should call the cops. Maybe they can take fingerprints, or maybe someone saw what was going on?”
“If they did, they obviously didn’t call the cops themselves to report it, so— Frank. Hi. It’s Simon Dawson here. I’ve got a bit of a problem….” Simon turned and wandered away as he spoke to Frank, the guy who was replacing Andrew at the garage while Andrew was on his six-month road trip.
Patrick exchanged a glance with Mike, who looked just as baffled as Patrick felt.
