by Mike Faricy
The stocking cap had a Minnesota Wild logo, our NHL team. They probably sold over twenty thousand of the things each season, hell, even I had one. He wore a dark, hoody sweatshirt with a skeleton pattern on the front depicting rib, shoulder and arm bones and he had a pair of gloves on his hands with a similar bone pattern, sort of a unique outfit considering it was summer.
The guy walked just a few feet toward an ATM that I noticed for the first time. He wrapped a long nylon belt around the ATM and cinched it tight, then stepped back and seemed to yell something.
As the vehicle moved ahead the long belt grew taut and a second or two later the ATM was pulled onto its side. The guy in the hoody pushed the ATM out through the open door as the vehicle backed up. By the time he had the thing out onto the sidewalk the driver had joined him and together they lifted the ATM up against the back of the vehicle then seemed to effortlessly push the ATM inside. Something seemed to flash in my brain for a nanosecond, but I lost it just as fast. The digital clock in the corner had counted down to 0:53. A minute and seven seconds to take an ATM, lock, stock, and barrel out of that retail location. The second guy slammed the rear door closed, they high-fived one another then climbed in and drove away. I noticed they left the sledge hammer behind.
“Mr. Haskell?” Detective Dondavitch asked as she turned and stared at me.
“No offense, but what? What does any of that have to do with me?”
“Jerry,” she said over her shoulder. “Back that up to thirteen seconds from the start.”
“Detective, I have no idea what any of this is about.” The flat screen on the wall behind her was racing back through the security video. Jerry backed up too far, then went forward too far, then slowly backed up a second at a time until just thirteen seconds had expired on the digital readout and he froze the image. The guy in the skeleton hoody with the Minnesota Wild stocking cap had the door open and was about to carry the nylon belt toward the ATM.
“Anything catch your eye here, Mr. Haskell?”
“Actually, other than the fact that the sledge hammer is on the ground and they left it behind, now that you mention it, no. Nothing. You got a guy with his face completely covered, wearing that goofy skeleton hoody in the middle of summer. I’m guessing this happened somewhere in the city because your department is involved, but other than that nothing catches my eye.”
“Okay. Maybe see if you can read the license number on that vehicle.”
I looked back at the screen, and suddenly there it was in plain sight, so obvious no wonder I missed it. My license plate, BAF479.
“Is that my license plate?”
“It would appear so.”
“But, how did it get there? Did they take my license plate? I’m not missing one, a license plate, at least I don’t think I am.”
“And you don’t have any idea who that is up there on the screen?”
“No, I really don’t.”
“No idea how they got your plate?”
“Yeah, I have an idea, the bastards stole it. But I think it’s still on my car, I didn’t notice it missing. In fact, I know it’s not missing, because the two guys who brought me down here, Farrell and what’s his name….”
“Officer Simpson.”
“Yeah, they saw the plate this morning, they saw it on my car. In fact, that’s probably why Officer Simpson called in, because it didn’t make any sense to him, didn’t make any sense to either of them, actually, I think.”
“How do you think they got your license plate?”
“How did they get it? If I had to guess I’d say they probably unscrewed it and then walked away carrying the thing. We just watched them steal an ATM from some commercial establishment. I’m guessing they weren’t really too concerned about unscrewing a license plate from the back of my car.”
“Don’t you find it strange that they would return it, your license plate? That they would take the time to reattach it to your car?”
“I don’t know, maybe they developed a conscience. Yes, I find it strange, but don’t limit it to just returning my license plate. The whole thing is strange. Is this the only incident?”
“Actually it’s the third reported, but the first with a surveillance tape.”
“Was one of the others a little Italian restaurant over on University?”
“Yes,” she said drawing her response out as if to suggest, ‘How did you know?’
“I was there for dinner the other night.” Something suddenly clicked in my head. “Let me ask you something, Detective. Did you notice anything strange about that theft?”
“What do mean?”
“That ATM is what, about five feet tall?”
She flipped a few pages from the file in front of her, quickly read down using her finger. “No, it’s closer to six feet tall.”
“Okay, and I don’t know what it weighs but it’s probably fairly substantial. So two guys hoist the thing up then push it effortlessly into the back of that vehicle and something that size, that long, fits without a problem?”
“It was a station wagon, the seats were down.”
“It wasn’t a station wagon. Have your guy run the tape to where they tilt that thing up into the back of the vehicle.”
“Jerry.”
“Yeah, okay stop it there,” I said a few seconds later. “You see it, notice anything?”
“It looks like the ATM is heavy.”
“Apparently not heavy enough, they got the thing out the door. But watch how they get it in the back of the vehicle.”
“Okay, Jerry.”
The two figures tilted the ATM against the rear of the vehicle. If you paid attention you could actually see the vehicle drop a bit from the weight of the ATM, then they sort of lifted and quickly shoved the ATM all the way in, slammed the door closed and high-fived one another.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever loaded the rear of a station wagon, but even with the seats down something like a heavy ATM won’t slide that easily. And if there are seats in there, by the time you fold them down you’re sort of pushing a little up hill. That isn’t just any vehicle, Detective.”
“I’m not following.”
“Well, actually, now that I think about it, it’s perfect for this kind of job. There’s a large roller installed right inside by that rear door and then more rollers further along the inside. Once they had the ATM on that first roller it was a simple push and the thing slid into place. It would save them ten to twenty seconds, not to mention a sore back.”
“And you know this how?”
“I have a client who supplies mortuaries and funeral homes. I was just at his warehouse the other day and watched them loading up coffins. I don’t know how or why they took my license plate. I really have no idea why they put the thing back on my car once they were finished with this robbery. But, I’m pretty sure the vehicle you should be looking for is a hearse.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I’d actually left Detective Dondavitch on a bit of a friendly note, sipping a cup of dreadful vending machine coffee with her and laughing about some mutual acquaintances.
Now I was back at home rifling through my dresser drawers attempting to determine what, if anything was missing. I couldn’t find my Minnesota Wild stocking cap anywhere, but other than that I’d pretty much drawn a blank for the past two hours. Leo the locksmith was due late in afternoon to change the locks. He couldn’t get here fast enough for my tastes. I planned to stay home and stand guard until he arrived.
My phone rang in mid-afternoon. “Haskell Investigations.”
“Please hold for Mr. Baker.” It was Royal’s Keeper of the Gate, Marilynn, there were a couple of clicks and the phone began ringing.
Royal picked up on the second ring.
“Hello.”
“Royal, Dev Haskell.”
“Yes, Dev, thank you. I’ve convinced Ashley to schedule a fake appointment, hopefully for tomorrow evening if you can make it. With any luck we’ll be able to attract whoever has be
en following her around. It all hinges on your availability.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Yes, we’ll set up an appointment at eight, if that works for you. That’s always been a pretty standard time for clients.”
“I’ll make it work, are you going to do this at the Gresham, again?”
“No, Ashley thinks there’s a better place, the Holiday Inn, out on 94. She says there are no gardens, nothing really around the place, well except for the parking lot, and it’s always quiet. If our guy is out there he should stick out like a sore thumb.”
“I’ll be there early, before eight and get the lay of the land.”
“I’m feeling pretty positive about this, Dev. Just one other thing, let’s not have a confrontation if at all possible. We’ll just get an image of this individual, hopefully a license number and go from there. The last thing we need right now is an incident.”
“Sounds fine, Royal. If I might make a suggestion, have Tony drop her off right at the front door. That might just force our guy to hurry into the lobby if he’s lurking somewhere in the parking lot, or it could force him to wait in the lobby until she’s finished upstairs. Either way, it limits his options and might just make him stand out.”
“Good idea, I’ll pass it on.”
“Then, if you can just keep the two of them under control and off the hood of Tony’s car,” I said, half joking.
He ignored my attempt at humor and said, “Ashley has your phone number, I’ll instruct her to communicate with you by phone.”
“Let’s hope it works this time, Royal.”
“Thank you,” he said and hung up.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Leo the locksmith rang about half-past-four. “Yeah, Dev, I’m about fifteen minutes away, just enough time for you to shoo all those pretty girls out the door.”
“I think I’ll just tell them to stay quiet and lounge in a bubble bath upstairs, Leo. I’ll see you when you get here.”
Leo rang my doorbell ten minutes later.
“Hi, Dev,” he said as I opened the door. “Step aside, I start charging you overtime at a minute past five.” Then he set down a five-gallon bucket with a bunch of tools in it and took out a drill. He had the lock in the front door changed in about ten minutes and did the back door in even less time. We were sitting at the kitchen counter sipping a couple of bottles of Mankato Ale while Leo wrote out his invoice.
“Here you go, Dev. Parts and labor, let’s call it even at one-twenty, plus the beer.”
“Thanks for coming over Leo. Let me just get my checkbook, how was the fishing up north?”
“Bout what I expected this time of year, not so great. Course who the hell cares, three gorgeous days out on the lake, at night you could hear the waves. How the fish are biting is almost secondary.”
I wrote my check out and slid it across the counter to him.
“Thanks, appreciate it. I work with some of these youngsters nowadays, they’re amazed I don’t take credit cards or some sort of nonsense about transferring funds into my account, and then there are the ones with friend pay.”
“Friend pay? You mean PayPal?”
“That’s it, I think. I gotta tell you, I’m glad I’m not young.”
“Leo, in your line of work, have you ever done anything with ATMs?”
“You mean like at a bank? Those are contracted out to the larger firms, in fact it’s probably handled by a division of the manufacturer. Let me think, Diebold, Triton, Siemens, God, there’s lots of companies in that end of the business.”
“What about ATMs in bars or stores?”
“Same thing, the manufacturer would handle it, or some company contracted by them. Some guy like me wouldn’t be involved, I’m too small and frankly, I’m not interested.”
“But you know something about them, the ATMs?”
“Just what I read in the industry journals. What are you getting at? Don’t tell me you’re thinking of ripping off one of those things.”
“No, but not far from the truth.” I went on to explain the video I’d seen yesterday compliments of Detective Dondavitch. I didn’t feel the need to mention I’d been hauled in for some polite questioning.
“And they just tossed the damn thing in the back of a car and drove away?”
“Yep, the whole operation, from the time they pulled up until the time they left took just a little more than a minute.”
“Sounds pretty efficient, as far as it goes, of course you watched the easy part, they still have to get into the damn thing.”
“But, they can do that at their leisure, say in a workshop and with all sorts of tools.”
“Not quite, first off often times there’s some sort of tracking device in those kind of units. So, even if you grabbed the thing in the middle of the night you might be on a limited time frame and, you wouldn’t want to bring it anywhere that was going to be associated with you, like your workshop, a lake place, or your barn. The whole thing just sounds like a bad idea.”
“How much money do those things carry?”
“In a retail position, not that much, my thought would be those things usually dispense just twenties. Probably give you a couple of options when you use them, twenty, sixty maybe a hundred-and-twenty bucks. The bills are stored in a cassette, I think they can handle up to something like twenty-five hundred to three thousand.”
“Dollars?”
“No bills, so twenty-five hundred bills at twenty bucks a pop, do the math.”
“Jesus Christ, five grand?”
Leo looked at me for a long moment. “You’re probably not the guy I’m going to go to for my taxes, Dev. No, fifty grand.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. And the guys who did this, along with the tracking device, there might be some pretty serious dye packs in with that cash. They’re set to destroy the cash and coat whoever is nearby with some serious color. That said, depending on the location the thing might just have a couple of grand in it and none of the security devices.”
“You can’t avoid the dye pack?”
“Usually not, it’s set on a radio frequency. Look, some idiot screwing with this stuff, the least of his problems is getting the ATM. Once they grab that cassette with the cash, if there’s a dye pack, it’s just a matter of seconds once its open before that dye pack activates. That’s why your average idiot pretty much stays away from stealing ATMs. If they’re involved, they’re either plenty smart or really stupid. Odds on favorite is they are really stupid.”
“And then the guy is all red?”
“Maybe, the real intent is to destroy the money, get the bad guy to just drop it. A lot of the time in an on-site robbery the stuff is recovered and the bank or whoever can exchange it. The deal you’re talking about, it would be pretty tough for some deadbeat to go into the Federal Reserve with thousands of dollars dyed red and ask to exchange it.”
“I think you’ve told me more than I wanted to know, Leo.”
“My advice, Dev, don’t think about stealing ATMs.”
“Thanks, Leo, I’ll try and remember that.”
“Is your check good? Can I deposit this tomorrow?”
“As long as you’re first in line it should be okay.”
“Then I’ll be sure to get to the bank early, thanks for the beer, Dev. Always a pleasure learning what you’re up to.”
Chapter Thirty
I slept soundly with my new locks installed then drifted down to the office around noon. Louie was already there.
“Hey, we’re out of coffee, man,” he said by way of a greeting.
“Thanks, I’ll grab some on the way home. Were you in court this morning?”
Louie had a wrinkled grey suit on today, some sort of stain that looked like spaghetti sauce was smeared across the breast pocket. It looked like he had tried to wipe the stuff off with his hand, but only succeeded in making the stain larger.
“I’m scheduled for three this afternoon.”
“DUI?”
>
“Among other things,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.
I settled into my desk chair then picked up the binoculars and gave a quick scan to the third floor apartment across the street. Unfortunately, it looked like no one was home.
“Another ‘do nothing’ day?” Louie asked then closed the file in front of him, set it on top of a small stack, pulled another file off a larger stack and opened it.
“I’m working tonight, see if we can try and catch the guy who’s taking pictures of this woman and posting them on her web site.”
“That’s still going on?”
“I sort of don’t have the brightest nor the most cooperative clients. They want to call the shots, but they don’t really have any idea what they’re doing.”
“Probably should stick to what they know,” Louie said and turned a page in his file.
“Yeah, the problem there is neither one of them knows all that much.”
The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. I waited for the rush hour traffic to more or less die down then headed east on Interstate 94 and out to the Holiday Inn.
Royal had been right, there wasn’t much around the place. It looked like ten acres of soybeans planted across the road and the six-story building was surrounded by parking lots on all four sides. Unfortunately, the part about the hotel being quiet wasn’t quite happening tonight, there appeared to be a wedding going on. Lots of folks dressed to the nines were heading into the hotel, a number of them carried gift-wrapped packages.
I had to park in the back of one of the side lots. I pulled a sport coat out of my trunk and shook some of the debris off before I put it on. I took my time walking around to the front door of the hotel. The only thing I saw even halfway suspicious was a couple in their car. She appeared to be reading the guy the riot act while he just kept staring straight ahead.
