Carol was sitting in her home office, working on the book she’s writing and looking out the front window at the people coming and going at the Whaling Museum across the street. I was sitting in the kitchen-dining-living room, eating lunch and reading the Sunday New York Times.

“The tea’s ready,” I said. I had said this several times before, but when Carol is writing she sometimes doesn’t hear things.

“I wonder what’s going on at the Whaling Museum,” she said. “This guy with a white beard, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, walked into the museum a few minutes ago, and now he just ran out.”

“Hmm,” I said. When I’m reading, I sometimes don’t hear things.

“It just looked funny,” she said. “He was this little slight man, and he was running away from the museum.”

We heard a siren. A police car pulled up in front of the museum. The cop went inside. “Something’s happening,” said Carol.

Another police car pulled up, blue lights flashing. We could hear another siren getting closer.

“I wonder if I should go over and tell them what I saw,” said Carol. “He ran down towards the waterfront.”

Suddenly it sunk in to my thick head: Carol had just seen something that might be important. My head snapped up. “Yeah, you better go over there — and hurry, so you can tell them which way he ran off!”

While she ran across the street to the museum, I looked out the window: four police cars parked in front of the museum, and fifth car, one of their SUVs, drove off towards the waterfront while I watched.

Carol came back and said someone had just held up the front desk of the museum with a penknife. She had given her story to the police, but hadn’t stayed around long enough to be interviewed by the reporter. “I went up to the woman at the desk and said, ‘Did you just get held up?’ and she looked at me and snapped, ‘Who are you?’ At first I was going to be pissed because she was so short with me, but then I realized, she had just been held up.”

What a stupid place to rob: very public, guaranteed there will be lots of witnesses, guaranteed five police cars will show up within a minute. Probably someone stealing money for drugs, too strung out to care any more.

The New Bedford Standard-Times Web site already has used to have a short report on the incident, on their breaking news page [link], which reads in part:

The culprit was described as a white male wearing square sunglasses and a charcoal gray hooded sweatshirt and sporting a large bandage on his chin.

Employee Pamela Lowe said she was working the counter at the main entrance when the man entered the museum, jumped the counter and demanded money.
She said he was brandishing a small knife.

He then jumped back over the counter, she handed him the money and he fled on foot.