Bending the Paw

by Diane Kelly

  Greg reached into his car to retrieve his sport coat. The jacket was bright yellow with black trim and the theater company’s black-and-white clapboard logo over the breast pocket. He slid into the garment and began walking toward the theater. We followed along until he entered the building and Jackson switched the feed to an interior camera that provided a wide view of the lobby. At that time of day, only a handful of customers were in the theater, mostly mothers with young children taking in a matinee cartoon. In recognition of Valentine’s Day, heart-shaped helium-filled Mylar balloons floated above the ticket-takers podium. My mind went back to the balloon I’d seen in the kitchen last night. Greg must have brought it home for Shelby from the theater.

  Greg walked through the lobby and toward a door in the back wall next to the concessions stand. The door was situated between a life-sized cardboard cutout of The Rock from an upcoming movie and a claw machine filled with cheap stuffed animals.

  Greg typed in a code on the security keypad, opened the door, and disappeared through it. Jackson switched to another camera feed that showed Greg had entered a short hallway with doors on all four sides, including the one he’d just entered. He used a key to unlock the door at the back, which led to a large office divided into three cubicle spaces that were overseen by yet another camera. He took a seat at the modular desk in the center cubicle and logged into his computer. After spending a minute or two checking his e-mails, he stood, retrieved a handheld radio from his desktop, and clipped the device onto his belt. Jackson continued to switch feeds as necessary to track Greg as he exited the office, closing the door behind him. He locked the office, slid the key back into his pants pocket, and walked through the door to the right, which took him behind the concessions counter.

  We continued to follow him for the rest of his shift. It was no easy feat with the theater being a multiplex with long hallways and numerous rooms. We sped up and slowed the feed as needed to assess the images. He stopped to speak with a female employee who was running a carpet sweeper through a hallway. He was approached by a gray-haired couple taking in an afternoon show, and he pointed down the hall to direct them to the correct theater. He sat alone at his desk and performed tasks on his computer.

  At 4:03 according to the time stamp, a blonde woman with glasses entered his office. She, too, wore the theater’s signature sport coat. The two conversed briefly before Greg used a key to unlock a closet in the corner and reveal a floor-mounted safe inside. He knelt down, punched in a series of digits on the keypad, and opened the safe’s door. He removed a vinyl zippered bank bag. After closing the safe and locking the closet, he donned his coat, slid the bag of cash into an inside pocket, and zipped it up.

  The two ventured out of Greg’s office and into the lobby. A young couple, probably high school or college sweethearts, stood in line at the concessions stand. Both wore sneakers, jeans, and hooded sweatshirts. Both had straight dark hair and medium brown skin that pegged them as likely having Latin, Asian, or Middle Eastern roots. Both carried backpacks. The girl was exceptionally tall, her stature nearly equal to that of the boy. Both of them towered over the others in line and fell only a few inches short of the life-sized cardboard cutout of The Rock. As a fan of Dwayne Johnson, I knew he stood six-feet-five-inches tall. Given their relative heights to the cardboard cutout, I’d peg the boy as roughly six foot two, the girl at five ten or eleven. The boy glanced over at Greg and the manager in the blazer, continuing to eye them as they walked across the lobby and out the door together. He didn’t look away until the line in front of him advanced without him noticing and the girl he was with shoved him forward.

  I tapped the key to freeze the feed and pointed to the boy and girl. “What about those two?” As tall as the girl was, she must have big feet. A man’s size nine-and-a-half would be the same size as a woman’s eleven. Could her feet be that big?

  The detective issued a mirthless chuckle. “The boy grabbed my attention the first time around, too. I thought he was watching Greg and the manager. But look again.”

  She reversed the tape by twenty seconds and resumed the feed. This time, as Greg and the manager exited the office, Jackson pointed to a busty girl in a tight sweater and high-heeled boots who’d exited the ladies room and traversed a similar course to that of Greg and the manager. While Greg and the manager headed outside, the girl stopped just inside the doors to greet a young man who’d evidently come to meet her at the theater.

  “So he was just checking out the other girl.” No wonder his date shoved him.

  “That was my conclusion,” Jackson said. “His date’s too, from the looks of it. But maybe I was too quick to write him off.”

  We continued to watch. The manager walked Greg out to his car. They stopped next to it and appeared to be engaged in a short conversation. She reached out and gave him a pat on the shoulder before taking a few steps back. Hmm. The touch could be merely congenial and harmless, or it could indicate something more. Hard to tell without being able to hear their accompanying conversation. She waited nearby as he reversed out of his parking place and drove off to make a deposit at the bank. Was she simply following security protocols, or was there more to it?

  We sped up the feed until we saw Greg’s car return a few minutes after 5:00. He parked and came back inside the theater, once again removing his coat and hanging it on the hook in his office. He proceeded to work in his office on administrative tasks. The blonde female manager came to his office and bade him goodbye around 5:30 before leaving the theater. Another manager in a bright yellow blazer arrived a couple of minutes before 6:00 and greeted Greg in his office, the lights reflecting off the shiny forehead exposed by his receding hairline.

  Jackson pointed at the man on the screen. “That’s the manager I spoke with at the theater late last night.”

  We advanced the footage at a rapid pace. The theater filled with couples, some of them coming in together on double dates to see seasonal rom-coms and romantic adventure movies, while others opted for a horror flick. Jackson was right. Valentine’s was a busy night for theaters. The theater raked in an abundance of cash, so much so that Greg and the other assistant manager made several rounds of the ticket booth and concessions, collecting cash from the registers lest the tills overflow. We slowed the feed to look for anyone who might have been eyeing them as they rounded up the funds, but nobody caught our attention. Greg and his fellow assistant manager returned to their shared office, counted the take together, and documented the amount in the theater’s online bookkeeping system. When they finished, they stored the funds securely in the safe.

  We sped up the pace, only to slow it again when the tall couple’s film ended and the moviegoers left the theater en masse. The evening was fully dark by then, and the outdoor feed showed the couple making their way across the parking lot, which was illuminated by light posts spaced about the medians. They stopped to wait at the bus stop along the street. A bus rolled up a minute or so later and they boarded, disappearing from view as the bus drove out of camera range.

  Nothing else on the camera feed caught my attention. When Greg left the theater at 9:12, he exited among a throng of moviegoers who had caught the early-evening shows. Nobody outside seemed to be paying Greg or his car any special attention as he climbed in and drove off. Then again, it was dark and the image was grainy. Someone could easily have been waiting out of camera range, too.

  I turned to the detective. “Is there any way to identify the young couple? Did they pay for their tickets or snacks with a debit card? Or maybe they have one of the theater’s preferred customer cards.” Seemed every business signed people up for some kind of loyalty program these days.

  Jackson brought up the footage showing the couple’s arrival at the ticket booth. The camera was situated over the ticket sellers’ heads, looking down at the windows. The wide-angle image showed the boy pulling out his wallet. The girl reached into her purse and removed her wallet, too. They flashed cards at the cashier. Jackson stopped the feed. While
the program had no zoom feature, the two of us leaned in, improvising a close-up. Unfortunately, the lighting in the booth reflected off the plastic, creating a bright circle that obscured the cards themselves. Still, I could tell from the barely visible edge of the girl’s card that it was not the same bright yellow as the Take Two Movie Maniac card in my wallet.

  “It’s not a customer card,” I said. “Maybe a college or high school ID so they can get the discounted student tickets?”

  As quickly as the two had pulled the IDs out of their wallets, they returned them. The boy paid cash for their tickets, took his change, and the two stepped away to go into the theater. Jackson reversed the feed and slowly went through the interaction a second time, stopping the feed frame by frame to see if we could get a better look at the IDs. No such luck.

  “The card isn’t purple,” Jackson noted. “So they don’t appear to be TCU students. The cards were probably issued by a local high school or junior college.” She went back to the feed that showed them at the concessions stand. The boy paid cash there, too.

  The colleges would have too many students to make it easy to identify the two. “Any point in me checking with the high schools near the theater to see if the staff can ID the couple?”

  “No,” Jackson said. “Not yet, anyway. Seems like a weak lead and your time could be better spent elsewhere.” She picked up the receiver from her desk phone. “I’m going to check with the captain, see if he’ll let me borrow you this morning.”

  She placed a quick call to Captain Leone and obtained his okay to pull me off my regular beat so that I could serve as both her chauffeur and an extra set of ears and eyes. She’d get no complaint from me. Investigating a major crime like a possible murder was what I lived for. Ironic, huh?

  She glanced at her watch. “The bank just opened. Let’s go.”

  She grabbed her suit jacket, slid into it, and gave me a quick update as we walked out to my cruiser. Though Brigit’s sniffing skills would not likely be needed this morning, my K-9 partner came along for the ride. She’d be bored at home, and I’d miss having my furry partner by my side. She’d become like an extension of myself, much like the way married couples became a unit. Just like Shelby and Greg, Brigit and I had an always and forever relationship. Well, hopefully not “just like” Shelby and Greg, with the way this case was shaping up.

  Jackson, Brigit, and I headed for the Chase Bank branch nearest the theater. As I turned a corner, I asked the detective whether she’d been in contact with the couple’s landlord.

  “Spoke to him late last night,” Jackson said. “He said he always changes the locks when he gets a new tenant in one of his rental units. He’s used a lockbox that hangs from the doorknob a time or two so that he could leave keys for a repairman, but he never leaves keys out where just anyone could get their hands on them. Doesn’t want the liability if someone gained access. He gave me the name of the handyman who worked at the house after the Olsens moved in. Neither the landlord nor the handyman have a criminal record.”

  “So you’ve crossed them off your list of potential persons of interest?”

  “For now. The landlord insisted on coming out to the house first thing this morning. Fortunately, he’s agreed to arrange and pay for the cleanup. That’s one less thing Shelby will have to worry about.”

  Specialized crews trained in biohazard remediation were required to properly clean and sanitize crime scenes. Their services could cost an arm and a leg. The last thing Shelby needed to deal with right now was cleaning up the place. I was glad the homeowner had agreed to take on the expense. Still, I wondered about the lockbox. “Could someone who’d accessed the lockbox have made a copy of the key?”

  “It’s possible,” Jackson said. “The landlord told me he has the keys marked with ‘do not duplicate,’ but people ignore the marking all the time. Besides, some hardware stores have do-it-yourself key-making equipment. A person could copy any key on one of those self-service machines.”

  Looked like we couldn’t entirely eliminate the possibility that the repairman who had fixed the items noted on Shelby and Greg’s list had copied the key with the intent of later accessing the home. But what were the odds that a repairman would have known Greg handled cash deposits for a movie theater? Might he have seen Greg in uniform and inquired about his job? An alternative theory popped into my head, too. If a repairman had noticed the photographs of the couple in the house, maybe he’d assumed the Olsens would be out celebrating Valentine’s Day. Maybe he’d recruited a buddy and planned to burglarize the place, but had been discovered when Greg came home. Or maybe I was grasping at straws. The theory seemed farfetched, to assume too many coincidences. Still, I ran it by Jackson.

  “I’ve run background checks on both the repairman and the landlord,” she said. “They’re clean.”

  Of course we knew the lack of a criminal record didn’t necessarily mean a person was innocent. It could mean they’d never been caught committing their dirty deeds, or that a particular incident was their first foray into the world of crime. But what the lack of record told us definitively was that we were better off for the time being keeping our focus on the task at hand—getting information from the bank.

  The branch where Greg had made the deposit was housed in a small, one-story building situated in the front corner of a strip shopping center. Heads turned our way as we entered the lobby, customers exchanging nervous glances on seeing a uniformed cop and K-9 coming into the place.

  A sixtyish man in a blue security guard uniform was stationed just inside the door. “Everything okay?”

  Jackson raised her palms. “It’s all good,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “We just need to get some information from the manager, that’s all.”

  A teller picked up her phone and punched a couple of buttons, informing her unseen boss that police had arrived. A moment later, a fortyish Asian-American man in a business suit and stylish eyeglasses stepped up behind the counter. “Can I help you ladies?”

  “We need to speak in private,” Jackson said.

  “Sure.” The manager motioned for us to proceed to a door in a wall next to the teller counter. He punched a button to buzz us through. Bzzzt.

  Shortly thereafter, Jackson and I were seated in front of his desk with Brigit lying at our feet. His oversized monitor perched on the far corner of his desktop, positioned at an angle to make the best use of the space. He offered us coffee, but we both declined.

  While Brigit surreptitiously sniffed the toes of the man’s shoes under his desk, Jackson told him why we were there. “We need information about one of your customers. A man by the name of Greg Olsen. He’s a manager at Take Two Theaters, takes care of their business banking at this branch. He and his wife also have a joint checking account with the bank. Mr. Olsen disappeared last night. We suspect foul play.”

  The man’s eyes widened and his lips parted, but he seemed unsure how to respond. Who could blame him? It was an uncomfortable and horrific situation, one he had clearly not been in before. With any luck, he’d never be in this position again.

  Rather than wait for him to come up with a response, Jackson plowed ahead, pulling a folded piece of paper from the inside pocket of her jacket and laying it on his desk. She pushed the document toward him. “That’s the court’s authorization for you to put a hot watch on the Olsens’ account. If anyone other than Shelby tries to make a withdrawal or order a new debit card, the bank should contact law enforcement immediately.”

  Setting up a hot watch was standard procedure in cases like this, a way to try to track the movement of a person or suspect via their financial trail. Criminals had been apprehended after using a stolen debit or credit card at a bank, hotel, gas station, or restaurant. In this case, however, the hot watch was likely to be a futile effort. Greg’s credit and debit cards were still in his wallet in an evidence locker, along with his driver’s license. Whoever had taken him away would have a hard time accessing the Olsens’ accounts with the c
ards or an ID.

  After the bank manager reviewed the document, he pulled up the Olsens’ account on his computer screen, which was easily visible from my seat. Once again I noticed what seemed to be an inordinately large number of transactions at grocery stores, dollar stores, Walmart, and Target. They all fell within a general range, from slightly over $60 to slightly over $100. There’d been three transactions in the last week alone for $103.49, $82.78, and $64.36.

  “Done,” the manager said, after flagging the account and clicking a button to exit. The monitor returned to a home screen. “What else can I do for you?”

  “We need to view your security camera footage. Mr. Olsen made a deposit for the theater late yesterday afternoon. We need to see whether someone might have followed him when he left the bank.”

  The man went rigid. “You think someone went after him because he handles cash for the business?”

  “It’s a theory we’re working,” Jackson said. “Olsen left the theater a little after four and returned shortly after five. He made the deposit at some point during that time period.”

  Putting his hands to his keyboard again, the man ran a search for Take Two’s account number. He leaned in to take a closer look at the screen, quirking his nose to push his glasses back when they slid downward. “Looks like he made the deposit at four forty-five, shortly before the lobby closed for the day.”

  Having pinpointed the timeframe, he logged into the security camera feeds. He pushed the far edge of his monitor so that it now sat perpendicular, where we could all get a look at the screen. “We’ve got five cameras,” he said, tapping a key to show us the current view from one that looked out onto the front of the bank. “The first is over the front doors, as you can see.” He tapped his keyboard several times, taking us through each of the cameras. “The second is in the foyer over the ATM machines. Of course, the ATMs also have built-in cameras. The third device is over the teller’s station.” The backs of the two young women working the counter were visible. One helped a customer, while the other straightened a display of brochures. “The fourth camera shows the drive-through lane.” The drive-through was currently in use, a harried mother in a minivan cupping her hand around her ear to hear the teller over the wails of her toddler in the backseat. “The last camera is over the emergency exit out back.” There was nothing to see on that one except a small metal trash bin and the row of evergreen bushes that separated the bank property from the rest of the strip mall’s parking lot.