EVERETT — The bike is a Nishiki Tri-A with Shimano Ultegra 600 gearing and an F. Moser seat, the kind of Japanese racing bicycle that was near the top of the line when it was built in the ’80s.
It’s a cool bike. It’s also a livelihood for Warland Hewitt Wight, 47, a single dad who works as a courthouse courier.
On weekdays Wight makes the rounds to pick up stacks of court papers from about 30 Everett law firms. Two to four times a day, he rides back to the courthouse, clicks a U-lock on the retro-blue Nishiki and lugs armfuls of papers upstairs to the legal offices.
Last week he had a crazy, busy Tuesday. Each client seemed to have heaps of paper for him. He guessed he was hauling 40 pounds when he parked at the courthouse. He noticed his tire was going flat. He inspected it for a moment, but missing a deadline can ruin a case. He ran inside. He spent a half hour or so making deliveries. He stepped out around 4 p.m.
The bike was gone.
Maybe he’d parked somewhere other than his usual spot? He looked in his carrying bag and realized he still had the black U-lock, buried among paper. His heart dropped. He asked security guards who run the metal detectors if they’d seen the bike.
One of the courthouse marshals, Mike Anderson, overheard him. Anderson is a former detective, with 38 years in law enforcement. He doesn’t miss some things from his days on patrol: trying to avoid crashes during high-speed chases; or sneaking up on homes where there might be armed, hostile suspects; or spending hours and hours on tedious paperwork to document exactly what was in a car full of stolen merchandise.
Courthouse marshal Mike Anderson
He actually looks forward to work each day on Rockefeller Avenue, he said. Marshals keep the peace in the courthouse and county government buildings. They stop fights in court hearings and kick out people who bathe in the bathrooms on the county campus. Sometimes they investigate thefts and other crimes. Months ago a lawyer’s $3,000 coat was stolen by a transient woman. Anderson identified the suspect, but the coat is still missing. The truth is most property crimes go unsolved, and items are never recovered.
Anderson wanted to solve the case for Wight. The marshals have a soft spot for the couriers.
“Here’s a hard-working young man, and the bicycle’s instrumental to making his living,” Anderson said. “The one time he forgets to lock it up, it’s stolen.”
Anderson dug through security footage from the downtown area. Eventually he spotted a man carrying a garbage bag riding off with the bike. Anderson had seen the suspect before, a homeless man who rummaged through the trash cans almost daily around the plaza.
Marshals spend a lot of time observing people accused of crimes. Yet Anderson struggled to identify this guy. He showed pictures to corrections deputies, who knew his face but not his full name.
Meanwhile, Wight and his manager were perusing common spots where people strip bike parts. They found no trace of the Nishiki.
“I never thought I would get that thing back,” Wight said. “Or if I did, I figured it was going to be in a box. Or spray-painted some hideous black color that I’d never get off.”
Acquiring the bike in the first place had felt like winning the lottery. He couldn’t believe the $26 price tag at a Goodwill in Edmonds. These days it could sell for $700-plus. For a 30-year-old racing bike, it was pristine, with chrome under the paint, little accents, flashing details — and in blue and yellow, too, the colors of his alma mater, UC Berkeley.
Wight raced bikes in college, and he commuted by bike for 20 years in Taiwan and Shanghai. In some Asian cities, you can leave out a bike for hours in daytime without locking it up. Over there Wight ran a modeling agency with his wife, he said. Lately he’s been trying to start a company, Velo Republique, designing urban cycling clothes — that is, business casual attire for bicycling. Leather shoes that clip in to pedals. That kind of thing.
After he returned to the United States, he was looking for jobs in the Seattle area when a bike courier posting came up in Everett. He was drawn to the city because he’s a descendant of Henry Hewitt Jr., a timber baron who helped found Everett in the 1890s. Wight goes by “Hewitt,” a name he shares with the oldest major street in the heart of the city.
The day after the Nishiki was stolen, Wight rode through Everett on a heavy, workhorse Raleigh he usually uses on days when it’s pouring rain. He ran into Anderson outside the courthouse around 3:50 p.m. He’d just asked the marshal if he had any good news about the bike, when Anderson got a funny look on his face. He started to squint. Over Wight’s shoulder, the marshal saw the man with the garbage bag. He was looking through the trash again.
Anderson detained the suspect, 45. He gave him two options. Either go to jail now, or if he revealed where the bike was stashed, he would cite him and he could worry about the court case later. According to Anderson, the man replied, “Well, let’s get going.”
He led Anderson to a camp off Smith Avenue. Someone else had moved the bike about 75 yards from the overpass where he sleeps. Anderson suspects the bike was going to be stolen a second time.
Anderson called Wight. He got the bike back in less than 24 hours. Other than greasy prints on the handlebars, there was no damage. Since then Wight has bought a brand new bright orange U-lock, and now he parks the bike in plain view of courthouse security, right outside an entrance with huge glass walls.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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