Boosted Pt. 08

On the right side they'd finally succeeded in penetrating the safe. It appeared they'd drilled a series of holes through the steel to weaken the metal, and then used brute force to bend the cladding out of the way. The outer steel shell was close to an inch thick, and he wondered what they'd used to generate enough leverage to be able to do that. Unless the prying device was powered, whatever tool they used was probably exhausting. Getting the metal side open must have taken hours, if not days, and dozens of drill bits, but they'd opened almost the entire side of the safe. After finally defeating the tough metal exterior, they'd then gone to work on the composite layer. The composite material looked and felt like concrete, but it wasn't, and was engineered to eat cutting blades like candy. The composite was also what provided the fireproofing for the safe and was nearly impossible to cut with a torch. The men had first attacked the composite with cutting blades, as evidenced by some scoring, but they'd abandoned that idea and switched to hammers and chisels. The composite material was about three inches thick, and there were several dents in the metal shell, where they'd missed with their swings as they tried to batter their way through the composite. They must have whaled away at it with sledges, another exhausting endeavor, if the dimples in the metal were any indication.

Once they'd finally beaten their way through the composite, they were faced with yet another sheet of steel, with another layer of the smoke producing tar like substance. The thickness of the inner shell was much thinner, perhaps a half-inch thick, and they'd defeated it in the same manner as the outer, though the hole was only half as large. They may have gotten his money, but they'd earned it.

He considered having County come out and go over the safe for forensic evidence but then changed his mind. He wouldn't do that for anyone else who'd been robbed, because of the expense, and it was likely that Cotton and company had thoroughly wiped the safe down to remove or contaminate any evidence, especially after he'd mentioned the cut on Cotton's hand.

"Let me borrow your light," Sean said, holding out his hand. Since he didn't have to worry about contaminating the scene, he was going to see if there was anything left in the safe. Maybe the checkbook or computer was still inside.

Jon slipped his penlight from his pocket and handed it over. Sean flashed the light around inside the safe before reaching in and pulling out the two register trays. Laura had already bought replacement trays, but now she'd have extras. Sean handed the two trays to Jon and then looked inside again. The safe was now totally empty. He clicked off the light and exchanged Jon's light for the trays.

"I want a check of all the pawn shops in the area, and a watch put on. Maybe they'll be stupid enough to try to pawn the laptop," he ordered.

"We're on it," Jon replied, slipping the light back into his pocket.

Jon was another of the young officers who'd been with the Brunswick PD for a few years. In his ballistic vest Jon was a square man in both body and face, with intense dark eyes hidden behind his ever-present wraparound sunglasses, and close-cropped hair. Someone had shown Sean a picture of Sergeant Carter from the old Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., television series, and he'd laughed at the resemblance. Frank Sutton, the actor behind the character, could pass as Jon Lister's father when in character.

"I guess that's it. Nothing else here," Sean said as he scanned the ground around the safe.

He was hoping to see something lying on the ground, like maybe a dropped wallet or a license plate, but there was nothing that looked promising. Cotton and his crew had probably backed the truck into the lot, shoved the safe out, and driven away in less than a couple of minutes. Despite the police's best efforts, sometimes the crooks got away with it, and it looked like this was going to be one of those times. If they split the money five ways, that was only around three grand each. Considering the effort the men had expended, not to mention the expense of cutting blades and drill bits, and the risk of being caught, maybe they would think twice before breaking in and stealing another safe. If they were going to have to work that hard, there were better and easier ways of earning money.

The two officers trudged back through the weeds to their cars. A small crowd had gathered on the other side of the street to watch and see what the cops were looking at. Cotton wasn't among the group. They'd keep leaning on Cotton and his crew for a while, trying to bluff them into making a mistake, but unless something changed, he wasn't going to be able to hang the robbery on Cotton, despite his best efforts.

Sean tossed the two trays into the back seat and then sat down in his car before he lifted the mic. "Dispatch, McGhee."

"Dispatch, go ahead."

"Michelle, contact utilities and have them send a truck to the empty lot on Hickory, between..." he paused as he looked around. "I think it's Eucalyptus and Locust, in Tilley, to pick up my safe. Make sure they send the truck with that big claw thing on it. They don't want to try to muscle that thing around by hand." He released the button but clicked it again before Michelle could answer. "Oh, and tell them there's no hurry."

"Will do. Anything else?"

"No. I'm headed back to the station."

He placed the mic back in the holder. Unless Jon turned up something at the couple of pawn shops in town, the Loch and Castle theft case was probably at a dead end. It wasn't the result he wanted, but if he were honest with himself, it was the result he expected. "Dammit," he muttered as he pulled his car into gear.

Because he was out, and on the proper side of town, he couldn't resist the urge to drive past BIGS. Like always, it looked like a perfectly normal business, but that privacy fence was starting to piss him off. It'd been a little over two weeks since he'd seen the Panamera arrive, and he'd love to get a peek into the bays to see if the 911 was there and if the Panamera was still in the shop. He drove past and made a big winding loop to come back into town another way. He didn't want to be seen driving back and forth in front of BIGS too often.

He pulled to a stop at the station and walked to the front door, waving to Michelle though the window as he entered the lobby. She buzzed him through into the back. "Sean!" she called as he passed by the dispatch office door.

He stopped and turned back. "Yeah?" he grunted.

"They're going to get your safe, but they wanted to know what to do with it."

He shrugged. "It's empty. Haul it to the dump, recycle it, whatever they normally do with junk like that."

"Okay, I'll let them know."

He settled into his office. The first task was to close the Loch and Castle checking account and open another. He called his bank, and after a brief explanation, the account was closed and the funds transferred to a new account. He'd send Laura to the bank for the small packet of checks to tide them over until she could get new ones ordered.

The next task was to get a replacement computer ordered for Laura. He hadn't done that on the off-chance they might recover the old one. He logged onto Lenovo's website, found his previous order, and ordered another, identical, computer. It was an off the shelf unit and it would ship the next day to arrive in about a week.

His final call was to Raleigh Safe & Vault, the company he'd bought the safe from. He ordered another unit just like the one he had, and like the computer, it was an in-stock item. He scheduled delivery for tomorrow and asked them to email him a quote for the safe and delivery. When the quote arrived, he called his insurance company. He sent them the invoice for the computer, the quote for the safe, and all the pictures he'd taken of the destroyed vault. Once Laura's computer arrived, he'd install the accounting software again, download the backups from the internet, and then he'd have an exact count for the cash that had been stolen so he could be reimbursed for that as well. He rocked back in his chair. Now he wished he'd gone ahead and ordered the new safe and computer when they first went missing, and downloaded the backup to get the cash count, but he'd really thought they had a chance to recover the safe still intact. He glanced at the clock in the corner of the computer screen. Laura should be up by now. He dialed her number.

He smiled when he heard the screaming baby in the background. Boy, did he remember those days. "Hello, Sean." Laura didn't sound happy.

"Bad time?" he asked.

"No, it's okay. Emma is just being a pistol. You're a parent. Can the terrible twos start at ten months?"

He snickered. "That's probably a little young. Just you wait. McKenzie was in her terrible twos from about eighteen months to almost three."

"Emma! No!" she said, her voice clear even though she'd obviously held the phone away from her mouth. There was the sound of a crash followed by Laura growling as Emma's howls increased in intensity. "I may run away from home," she said, her voice close to the phone again.

"Do I need to call you back?"

"No. She just pushed her bowl of Cheerios onto the floor. Again. No! You're just going to have to wait!" Laura barked, clearly not talking to him. "I just know that in twenty years we're still going to be finding petrified Cheerios," she continued, her voice clear and strong again.

He chuckled again. "It sounds like you have your hands full, so I won't keep you. I just wanted to let you know we've found the safe."

"Was it...?"

"Open? Yeah. I did get your two cash drawers back though and I've ordered your computer. It should be here Friday or Monday, and the safe is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow at two."

"Okay, thanks. That'll be great. Do you want the safe back in the same spot?"

"That's up to you."

"It was fine where it was. Will it have the same combination?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now I won't have to memorize a new one. The way my brain is right now, I'd probably forget the new one, remember the old one, and then wonder why I can't get the safe to open. Anything else?"

"Nope. Go. Sorry to bother you."

"No bother. In fact, you want to come babysit?"

"Thanks, but no thanks. Been there, done that, have spit up on t-shirts to prove it. Don't make that offer to Maggie, though. She might take you up on it."

"Really? What's her number?"

He laughed. "Bye."

Still chuckling he returned the handset to the base. Maggie never had children, so she didn't know what she was missing. She thought kids were usually like Emma the day he'd stopped by to drop off the padlock key, sweet, smiling, and fun. People who'd never had children didn't, couldn't, know how trying being a parent was sometimes. His own daughter was a college senior, a good kid, and he loved her to pieces, but there were still times he'd like to strangle her. The latest had been over the winter when McKenzie had loaned her car to a friend to go out clubbing in Boston with other friends, only to have the car totaled when the driver hit a semi at one in the morning while driving drunk. Fortunately, the three girls weren't seriously injured, but that didn't replace McKenzie's car. That had been an expensive lesson, but one he hoped she'd learned from.

He worked around the office, doing chief stuff, until shift change. His department worked three shifts, and he gathered the off going shift and the on coming shift together in the breakroom. He'd leave word for the graveyard shift, but he wanted to talk to as many officers as possible in person so they'd understand what was going on.

"Listen up, boys and girls," he said. He was missing a couple of officers, but he didn't want to hold everyone else up waiting on them to arrive. They were probably working active calls and might be awhile. "Everyone knows about BIGS, right?" The collection of men and women nodded. "Okay, here's what we're going to start doing. If we see any high-end European cars in town, Porsches, BMWs, Jaguars, Land Rovers, Audis, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, anything like that, I want you to run the plates. Now, when I say in town, I don't mean stopping for gas at the interstate, but if they're anywhere in Brunswick proper, or especially Tilley, run the plates. Even if it comes back clean, I want a record of it, okay?"

"What are we looking for?" Gavin asked.

"BIGS is up to something. I'm sure they're chopping cars, but they're up to something else too."

"What's their MO?" Catalina asked.

He smiled but he wouldn't embarrass her. This wasn't television. "Their MO is they're good, okay? In the last month we've seen a Lamborghini Huracán, a Porsche Panamera, and a Porsche 911 in town. I don't know about you, but I don't know anybody around here that can afford cars like those, so why the sudden increase in cars that cost more than our houses?"

"You think they're stolen?" Eric asked.

"That's what I think. I'm betting they're being delivered to BIGS for some reason, but since I can't get in to see the cars in BIGS, I'm depending on you to collect the information for me."

"But if the cars come back clean?" Cat asked as she shrugged.

He smiled. "That means we're going to have to dig a little deeper."

"Do you want us to follow them?" Chips asked.

"No. I don't want to tip our hand. Just run the plate... unless it's reported as stolen of course."

"You're that sure something is going on?" Randy Leffler asked, another of his new recruits. The kids were starting to see how police work was really done. Sometimes cases were broken by following hunches and making guesses.

"No, but your pay's the same if I'm wasting your time or not," he said with a smile. "We're going to have to push this. We've been fooling around with this for weeks and we've still got nothing, and I'm betting if we keep going like we are, we're going to continue to get nothing. BIGS is laughing at us, boys and girls, and we're going to prove to them they underestimated us. Any questions?"

"Are we still supposed to watch BIGS?" Fish asked.

"No. In fact, let's back off a little and give them some room. We don't want to make them nervous. Any other questions?" Nobody had any. "Great. Go out there and let's get these guys."

He watched the men and women file out. He was really reaching, grasping at straws in truth, but he'd been truthful when he said if they kept going like this, they'd probably never have enough evidence to obtain a warrant. He went back to his desk and began to get ready to go. He started by packing up boxes of files to be archived at city hall, and after he loaded the three heavy boxes into his car, he returned for his computer. "I'm out of here," he said as he left.

"Have a good evening," Kim said.

He was going to drop off the boxes, stop by Loch and Castle to deliver the register trays, and then head to his apartment. As he drove to city hall, he began to purposely think about dinner prep. He'd given his officers their instructions, and he was confident they'd carry them out. There was nothing else for him to do tonight, and he was going to leave his work at the station. Doing wasn't as easy as saying. He still caught himself thinking about the case sometimes, but when he did, he shoved the thoughts away. By the time he arrived at his apartment, he found his thoughts more occupied by Maggie than work, and those thoughts he didn't try to push away.