The case of a purloined pink flock

Kirk Stuart is a gardener of substance and sensibility. But that doesn’t stop him from taking bright pink flights of fancy.

Raised on the edge of Summit and Puyallup, he studied horticulture at Franklin Pierce High School, Green River Community College and Washington State University. He’s worked at garden stores in Oregon and Washington for two decades and, for the past year, in the garden center at the Puyallup McLendon Hardware Inc.

In that time, he and his wife, Cyndi, have been shaping the acre of land they bought at 6103 128th St. in Puyallup.

They have built raised-bed gardens enriched by the organic fertilizer Cyndi sells. They have fixed up their old farm home and nearly finished a chicken house.

They are creating a shaded haven on the western half of their property. Landscaped with unusual plants the Stuarts call by their Latin names, it is a model of re-use and restraint.

To the east, in the wetlands of Roddy Creek, lies their flamingo preserve.

Bright as if they’d just stepped out of their molds, the plastic Phoenicopteri stand amidst a rogue patch of ranunculus repens.

Cyndi Stuart was aghast at the first eight birds, until her husband explained the Rule of Pink Flamingos: “If there are two, it’s tacky. If there are 20, it’s art.”

Eight would count as art, too, he said of that first stand.

Truck drivers started honking. Stuart assumes it was in appreciation. Someone else apparently knew The Rule.

“Two showed up on our mailbox, all wrapped up in a bag with their mossy heads sticking out,” he said. “So now there were 10.”

They scrubbed up nicely and fit right into the flock he arranges in artful poses.

“Then one day I came home, and the 10 were gone,” Stuart said. “Two days later, I found the note: ‘I have your birds. More 2 follow.’”

The suspense was chilling, and what followed was even colder.

“Two weeks later, I got the ransom note,” he said.

Attached was a photo of the purloined flock. Each bird was blindfolded with black tape, and they were all penned together in a cardboard box on someone’s deck.

The note, written in classic cut-from-today’s-headlines-and-magazines style, read:

“These are your instructions. On February 3, at exactly 11 a.m., go to coffee stand at your work – look for X on floor. Stand on X facing into store & loudly sing I’m a Little Teapot, then go back inside. Comply and get 1/2 back. Do not, 2 will die. You will be watched. Will contact you.

The PFB”

And so, Stuart sang.

“It’s a good thing I know ‘I’m a Little Teapot,’ ” he said.

The next day he got five birds back, and the remaining instructions.

A large medallion reading “Pink Flamingo Lover” arrived on his porch, with instructions to wear it at work all the following day.

Again, he complied.

Again, birds returned. This time, with accessories.

Someone, pitying their tropical senses in bitter winter, had knit hats and scarves for two of them.

Stuart examined the clothes for clues. He pored over the ransom photo to see if he could place the boards on the deck. They did not belong to any of his family members. That, he said, left his colleagues at McLendon.

But who?

The whole store’s suspect.

Why else, when he received an award at the annual meeting banquet, would he turn around to see all the employees holding photos of flamingos in front of their faces?

And why would such a down-to-earth store carry such a broad assortment of flamingos, from the Super Luau Party Pack to the pairs dressed in the colors of Washington State University and the University of Washington.

Kirk has bought the Luau 10, freeing them to march and hula in his yard. And daring The PFB to strike again at his flock of 20.

Postscript: In a radical departure from sound journalistic practice, this writer offered anonymity to the entire McLendon staff for information leading to the identity of The PFB’s members. Not a peep.

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/street