Boosted Pt. 05

"Just lucky I guess. Gavin is still on site. You want him to wait?"

"No, that's okay. Thanks for calling me."

"No problem," Claire said before he ended the call.

"Who was broken into?" Maggie asked, her voice thick with sleep.

"Loch and Castle."

"Are you serious?" she asked, sitting up, her voice much less sleepy.

"Yeah. I'm going to go take a look."

"Anything taken?"

"Won't know until I look," he said, leaning over to kiss her. "I'll be back."

"Want me to go with you?"

"No, there's no need. I'll be back as quick as I can," he said as he rose and started pulling on clothes.

He tip-toed out of the room before putting on his shoes and then hurrying to his car. He didn't bother with his strobes because what was done was done, and the few minutes the strobes might save him wouldn't make any difference now.

He pulled to a stop in the parking lot of Loch and Castle with his headlights on the rear door before flipping on his emergency beacons so anyone that saw his car would know he was a police officer. He stepped from the car, taking his flashlight with him. At first the door looked fine, but as he approached he could see the splintered jamb, and closer inspection revealed the door was slightly ajar. He tried closing the door and discovered it wouldn't latch. Using the flashlight, he looked closely at the jamb, examining the marks left by the prybar that was used to force the door. The burglar hadn't been subtle and had used brute force to gain entry. He pushed the door open and entered the darkened pub. He didn't draw his weapon since it was highly unlikely there was anyone inside, but he did have it holstered outside of his shirt in case he needed to reach it quickly.

He turned on the lights and quickly looked the place over. The storeroom and office doors were opened but he bypassed them to check the dining area. Nothing appeared disturbed, so he returned to the hall and examined the two doors. The interior doors didn't have deadbolts, so there didn't appear to be any damage to the doors other than tool marks on the jambs. He checked the storeroom, but nothing appeared out of place. He closed the door and checked it. It felt a little looser than before, but it latched. He turned to the door on the other side of the hall and slowly pushed it open. He stepped into the office as a squad car pulled to a stop at the curb, the cruiser's strobes flashing through the window adding to the crazy disco effect of his own beacons. Sean met Gavin at the rear door.

"Sean," Gavin said.

"Gavin. See anything?" Sean replied in greeting.

"Nah. The perp was gone by the time I got here. I ran dark, hoping to catch him in the act, but..." He shrugged. "Anything missing?"

"Not that I saw. I was about to check the office."

The two men walked into the small office. It appeared Laura's desk had been rifled through, but nothing else looked out of place.

"Probably a punk looking for drug money," Gavin offered.

Sean nodded. "Probably. I wish I'd thought to bring my laptop so I could look at the surveillance video."

"Want to run home and get it? I can hang around until you get back."

Sean took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No. It'll wait until morning. I'm going to have to come back and try to do something with that door in the morning anyway."

Gavin glanced in the general direction of the door, though he couldn't see it from inside the office. "Yeah. It's pretty screwed up. I tried but I couldn't get it to stay shut."

"Yeah, the entire jamb is wrecked. The door will have to be replaced. I'll come put a padlock on it in the morning. That'll hold it until I can get it fixed." Sean glanced around the office again. "I guess that's it for tonight. At least they didn't break a bunch of stuff out of spite."

"Did you check to make sure all your liquor was still here?"

Sean shook his head. "No, but I probably wouldn't know what was missing anyway."

"I'm really sorry about this."

"Not your fault. We can't be everywhere all the time."

"Maybe, but this pisses me off. Everyone in town knows this is your place. Whoever did this is rubbing our noses in it."

"Yes, well, after I look at the video, we may have something to say about that."

Gavin smiled but there was no humor in it. "That would be some sweet karma, you personally arresting the asshole that broke into your place. I'd pay good money to be there to see that."

Sean's lips twisted into a lopsided half-grin. "I hope you get the chance." He glanced around the office again. "I guess we're done here."

"We'll keep an eye on the place tonight in case this dipstick gets anymore bright ideas."

"Thanks Gavin. I'll get the door secured as soon as I can buy a lock tomorrow."

Sean turned out the lights as they left. He spent some time trying to get the door latched. He finally succeeded, but all it took was a gentle push to open the door again.

"Don't worry about it, Sean. I passed the word already and we'll have a car driving past every couple of minutes the rest of the night."

"Don't sacrifice coverage in the rest of the town."

"We won't, but we want this guy. He's daring us to try to catch him."

"Go get 'em, Officer Reed."

Sean settled into his car, staring at the pub for a long moment. It was unfortunate, but he'd expected something like this to happen. He was a little surprised it hadn't happened before now. Whoever had broken in wasn't completely stupid. Laura had been keeping him informed, and last night had been their busiest night yet. For the first time since they'd opened the doors, they'd had a short wait for a dinner table during their peak. Someone had been watching, and waiting, until they had a big night to make their move. They probably knew Laura wasn't carrying the cash to the bank after the pub closed. He was surprised they hadn't waited and made their attempt tomorrow--tonight he corrected himself--when there would be three days of receipts available.

He shifted his car into gear and backed away. It was almost four, Sunday morning. He'd go home, grab a few more hours of sleep, and then come back after the stores open and lock the place up. He yawned as he turned for home, passing a patrol car slowly making its way down the road. These late nights sucked.

-oOo-

The cordless drill chattered as the screw bit tightly into the door. After Sean left Loch and Castle, he'd returned to Maggie's and slept until nine. After a leisurely tumble and breakfast, he and Maggie had stopped at Walmart to buy a heavy-duty hasp and a beefy looking padlock. Maggie watched as he mounted the hasp to the door and jamb. The entire door was going to have to be replaced anyway, so he didn't mind drilling holes into it. It was a shame, though, because this was probably the original door to the building and was likely close to a hundred years old. He was mounting the hasp at eye level because the jamb was so damaged at the latch and deadbolt, the jamb wouldn't hold a screw. He repeated the process with the second screw and then closed the door, flipping the hinged bracket over the hoop and dropping the lock through the hole.

"Good enough," he said, stepping back to look at his handywork.

"There's a gap," Maggie said, pointing to the upper corner of the door.

He pushed at the corner she'd pointed out. There was almost a finger's width between the door and the insulated stop that the door normally pressed against. "Yeah. The jamb is probably twisted. They got in, but they had to work for it. This old door was tough. It's good enough for a day or two until I can have the door replaced."

He lifted the lock and flipped the bracket out of the way before dropping the lock back through the hoop and pushing the door open. After they were finished here, he'd drop a key off with Laura, and then tomorrow he'd call the contractor that did the original work on the building and schedule him to replace the door. "Ready to look at the video?" he asked as they entered the pub.

"Sure."

He escorted her to the office before sitting at the desk and flipping open his laptop. Loch and Castle had eight security cameras inside, six of them positioned to provide coverage for the front door, back door and hall, the office, the kitchen, and stock room. There were three more cameras with overlapping fields of view of the bar and public area of the pub, and six more outside that covered the building, sidewalks, and parking lot. All the cameras were small and discrete, so unless someone were looking for them, it was unlikely they'd be noticed. He'd probably overdone the security, but it lowered his insurance cost and if something did happen, like last night, he'd have video proof.

He started his computer and logged into each camera in turn, downloading all the video from each camera to his computer before wiping the video. He knew approximately what time the break-in occurred, and he quickly located the video he was looking for. With Maggie looking over his shoulder, he switched between the cameras, watching as a hooded man used a six-foot pry bar to force the door by jamming the end between the frame and door and heaving at the lever. There was no sound, but he could almost hear the groan and splintering of the wood as the thug tugged strenuously on the bar. After less than a minute of work, the door gave. The crook shoved the door violently open as he hurried into the pub. He hadn't looked, but there was probably a mark on the wall where the crook slammed the door open.

The man hurried to the front of the pub and looked in the two register drawers. Finding nothing, he crouched behind the bar to look through the drawers and cabinets before popping up again. He started to leave, but then turned back and grabbed a bottle from the selection behind the bar. Carrying his bottle, the man looked in the kitchen but didn't enter. He returned to the hall, placed the bottle on the floor, and then thudded his shoulder into the stockroom door a couple of times. When the door didn't yield, he tried ramming his shoulder into the office door. Failing to open the doors with his shoulder, he used the bar and quickly forced the storage room. That didn't interest him, so he turned his attention to the office. He forced the office door like he had the storage room, propping the bar against the wall and picking up the bottle as he entered. Sean and Maggie watched as he set the bottle on the corner of the desk before quickly going through all the drawers. The man then moved to the safe. He tried the handle before pressing his ear against the door as he spun the dial on the front.

Sean smiled. The pub's safe wasn't big, measuring three, by two, by two feet, but it was a TL-15 rated safe and weighed about fourteen hundred pounds. Someone wasn't going to open it by holding their ear to the door while spinning the lock. The crook must have realized the same thing because he quickly gave up and attempted to move the safe. Failing that, he grabbed the bottle and bar before he ran. Less than two minutes after the burglar left, Gavin arrived. Sean nodded to himself. Pretty good response time. From break-in to Gavin arriving on scene was five minutes, thirty-five seconds.

"All that risk and work, and all he got was a bottle of booze? Not a very good return on investment," Maggie said as Sean closed the window showing the video of Gavin cautiously approaching the shattered rear door.

"No, but if criminals were smart, they wouldn't be criminals. He probably guessed the place was alarmed and he knew he was running out of time. I suspect this wasn't the first time he's done this. It was a smash and grab job."

"Now what?"

"Now, nothing. He was wearing gloves, and he hid his face with the hood." He shrugged. "I'll have the doors fixed and carry on. Now that he knows there's nothing to steal, he probably won't come back."

"So, all you're really out is the bottle and the cost to fix the door."

"That's it. I'm not even going to turn it in on my insurance. It probably won't even meet my deductible, and it's not worth the risk of having my rates go up."

"Well, I hope he learned his lesson."

He snapped the laptop's lid closed. "Probably not. After all, if criminals were smart, they--"

"Wouldn't be criminals," she finished for him. "Yeah, I know."

He smiled. "Ready?"

"I guess."

He turned off the lights and secured the building, giving the door a good rattle to make sure it would hold. He took her hand and escorted her to his car, opening the door for her and then closing it behind her. They drove to Fish and Laura's house, joking about the guy trying to first open the safe, and then move it. He'd been there when the safe was delivered. It took four guys and specialized equipment to get the safe into place, and he could almost hear the floor groan under the weight. They'd teasingly told him to make sure it was where he wanted it before they left because he wouldn't be able to move it once they set it down.

He pulled to a stop in the Fisher's drive. "You want to wait in the car?" he asked.

"No, I'll go with you. I want to see their baby. What was her name?"

"Emma. Emma Leigh Fisher."

"Emma or Emily?"

"Emma... Leigh," he repeated.

"Emma Leigh," Maggie said, rolling the name off her tongue. "Clever."

They walked to the front door of the tidy little brick trimmed house and rang the doorbell. A moment later, Fish opened the door.

"Sean? What are you doing here? Oh, sorry, won't you come in?"

Sean smiled. He hadn't been here since the terrible night Fish shot Leroy Hags. "We can't stay long. Is Laura here?"

"Right here," Laura said, appearing from the back of the house with Emma in her arms. "Can I help you with something."

"You probably haven't heard, but Loch and Castle was broken into last night. I--"

"Oh, no! Was anything taken?" Laura asked.

"A bottle of something from behind the bar."

"Do we know who did it?" Fish asked.

Sean shook his head. "No. He was wearing a hood and gloves. Anyway, the back door was forced so I had to put a padlock on it. I brought you a key."

"I need to get down there," Laura said, handing Emma off to Fish.

Sean held up his hand. "No need. Nothing was damaged except the door. He went through the drawers of your desk, so you may have to straighten that out, but otherwise, everything is just like you left it."

Laura paused, clearly thinking about what Sean said. He held the key out to her. "You sure I don't--" she began.

"Positive, but since this happened, call the station and ask one of the officers to come watch when you close, just in case. I think this guy was more interested in quick cash than hurting anyone, but let's not take chances."

She nodded slowly. "Yeah. Good idea. That door is going to be a problem. I can't leave it locked when we're open because of fire regulations."

"I know. Unlock it when you arrive, and then lock it again when you leave. I'm calling the contractor tomorrow to have the door replaced. You might have to stick something between the door and jamb to make it stay shut when you take the lock off. A good gust of wind will blow it open."

Laura nodded as Maggie tickled Emma's chin. "Okay. This is upsetting though."

He shrugged. "I told you to expect it though, didn't I? That's why I said to put the laptop in the safe every night."

"Yeah, you did, but it still upsets me. Nobody is going to want to move into Tilley if they keep getting broken into."

He shrugged again. "It's a process. I knew someone would try, and I accepted the risk. That's the reason for all the cameras, the safe, and you not taking the cash to the bank at night. To be honest, I'm surprised it took this long."

Fish grinned, bouncing Emma to make her smile. "I'm sure Loch and Castle being owned by the Chief of Police has nothing to do with it."

"Or the manager being married to another police officer," Maggie added while making faces at Emma.

Sean snorted as he grinned. "That's all I needed," he said. "I won't keep you."

"Too bad you weren't here five minutes ago, you could have helped change a poopy diaper," Laura said with a smile.

"I can't believe someone as cute as you has poopy diapers," Maggie teased in a baby talk voice while tickling Emma.

"You have no idea," Fish said dramatically. "Wet diapers don't bother me, but poopy ones? I keep a trash can handy for when I have to change one... because I will puke."

Maggie and Sean both snickered as Maggie tickled Emma again. "I don't believe someone as cute as you has smelly diapers." She grinned at Fish. "Come down to the plant sometime and I'll toughen you up."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Fish replied.

"We'll go," Sean said, taking Maggie's hand. It appeared she'd stand there and make faces at Emma all day. "If you see anything that looks even a little off, don't hesitate to call for help, okay?"

"I won't," Laura agreed.

"She's so cute!" Maggie gushed after the door closed behind them.

"Don't start getting any ideas," Sean warned, making sure his tone was light and teasing.

She grinned. "No, no ideas." She paused, her smile spreading. "I wonder, though, if maybe they'd let us borrow her for a little while?"

"I should have known this was a bad idea," he muttered in a stage whisper as he closed the car door behind her.