Grinch steals more than Christmas

Car thieves stole Barbara Williams’ Nissan Altima in broad daylight last week as she worked less than 50 feet away at the cash register of Snyder’s Bakery Thrift Store in Spokane Valley.

It was Thursday afternoon. Two minutes earlier, Williams had been staring right at her 1995 four-door while talking on the phone with a co-worker. A customer had asked for help finding some whole-grain bread, and when Williams returned to her post the car had vanished.

“We were talking about how beautiful it was outside,” Williams said. “I looked up and screamed, ‘My car’s gone.’ “

It wasn’t a fancy car, more mule than Mustang, just a mechanical pack animal upon which Williams depended.

She called her husband and broke the news that the car they had no plans for replacing was gone, called her mother to bum a ride home, then cried like a child lost at the mall. Her formerly safe surroundings seemed foreign and uninviting. It’s a feeling that’s been going around.

More than 30 cars have been stolen in Spokane County during this season of giving. Police suspect the thefts are being done with a “shaved key,” one altered to work the tumblers of many ignitions. One witness watched from a window in disbelief as a man unlocked her car, started it up and drove away.

Altimas like Williams’ have been stolen the most. The week before Christmas, 18 Nissan Altimas were stolen from Spokane’s North Side. Most were manufactured between 1993 and 1997. Fewer than half have been recovered.

The advice being given to owners of Nissans and Hondas, which are also disappearing faster than Elmo dolls, is to make the cars a nuisance to steal. Steering wheel clamps, like The Club, and battery cut-off switches are recommended.

“Basically you make it difficult for them to steal your car because the thing about criminals is they’re lazy,” said Dave Reagan, a Spokane County sheriff’s sergeant.

Too lazy and too bold, Williams added.

“It’s freaking ridiculous, to tell you the truth,” she said, “that they had that much guts.”

After the theft, Williams bagged bread and sobbed. She tried to banter with customers, but it was pointless.

“Did she have a nice Christmas?” one customer asked.

Yes, Williams said. It was nice, not as flashy as in years past, because this year she and her husband decided to cut back. Now this.

Soon the whole store buzzed with her tragedy.

“Someone stole your car?” asked an old man who gave Williams $4.90 for five loaves of Franz 100-percent whole wheat.

“What kind was it?” said a woman loading a cart with enough frosted molasses cookies for a church social. Each cellophane package bore the all-sales-are-final mark of a Sharpie pen, “$1.00.”

These were people who appreciated the value of a buck, who knew a discounted pie might not have the sugary punch of a fresh one, but the sweetness of savings went a long way.

Williams’ Altima was their kind of car. It wasn’t bought from a showroom display or even a used car lot. It was a “title car,” discounted several thousand dollars because it had been in a wreck and written off as totaled by an insurance company. The mechanic from whom Williams bought the car had fixed it up, good as new.

“It was a mom’s car,” Williams said, baby seat in the back, no stereo to speak of up front. Its paint job was a domestic, metallic beige. She rattled off the license plate number to anyone who thought knowing might do some good: 380 KXC.

The windshield sported a long horizontal crack that splintered into two more fractures trailing vertically up the passenger’s side. Williams, who works at Snyder’s stores from Spokane’s Market Street to Coeur d’Alene, stared through that busted glass roughly 300 miles a week.

When she shuttled her youngest child to school every morning and day care in the afternoon, the car was her school bus.

Every day the car kept Williams from worrying about a car payment, every month she got by with simple liability insurance instead of more expensive comprehensive coverage. The car appreciated in practical value, as items we pay the least for yet get the most out of often do.

“It infuriates me that someone felt they had the right to inconvenience me,” Williams sobbed. But the thieves apparently thought shopping was more important than Williams’ needs. Police found the undamaged car about seven hours later at the Spokane Valley Mall. “They took $3 in change from my purse but left everything else intact,” Williams said.

Police spotted her car while investigating a report of another car being stolen nearby. Williams suspects the thieves abandoned her car, perhaps because it was running low on gas, and took another: “The cycle is continuing,” she said.