In which Dean meets a criminal mastermind

Yesterday morning Dean stopped at a convenience store on the way to work. There was a guy sitting by the door to the store trying to sell a boat anchor. “It’s a real good anchor. You can have it for twenty bucks. Probably worth fifty.” Dean declined, went in and paid for his gas. On the way out, the guy had an even better offer. “Tell ya what, you can have it for fifteen bucks. Probably worth sixty.” Dean once again declined. The guy persisted. “You could probably sell it to Don Bell.” That happens to be the name of our county sheriff.

When Dean got to work he mentioned the odd encounter to the news guy, who then made his morning call to the courthouse for the daily cop shop report. One item was interesting – a call the previous evening from a boat owner who reported someone had broken into his boat and stolen a bunch of accessories. So this criminal mastermind probably thought: 1) I’ll sell this anchor and get some money from this guy, and 2) set him up to sell stolen property to the sheriff. Yeah, it’s genius! Instead, he got Dean telling the sheriff the time of the encounter so they can find the video on the store’s surveillance system. But other than that, great plan.