literature

Zetta Files: Marge part 2

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     I ran around the building towards the sound of the burglar alarm. As I rounded the last corner a man shouting for help could be heard above the clamber of the alarm. A middle aged man was lying on the ground outside the steel door that lead into the hardware shop. The door was open, with the deadbolt broken and the frame bent.

     The man turned out to be Henry Grafton, the manager of the hardware store. He had just showed up to prepare the nightly deposit when the door burst open and a thief, wearing a black hockey mask, pushed him down and ran off. He told me which direction the assailant had run off in, but chasing after some thief in the night is not exactly my line of work, and I told him so. I gave him my card. Well, what was being passed off as my card for now. It was a 2 of clubs. I had written "Zetta Detection Agency" on it in sharpie. At least on this one I had printed neatly.
     
     Adequately convinced of my credentials, the manager lead me inside to survey the damage. The safe in the back room was open, and empty, but the merchandise seemed to be intact. It was one of those new fangled digital safes. You know the ones, with the panic codes and timer delays.
     "Do you know how much cash was in the safe?" I asked.
     "Not exactly, no. We have some records, but most of the financing is done at the end of the night, before it gets deposited."
     
     I looked around a bit more. The back door was pretty solid, but only secured by a single deadbolt. All it took was a bit of work with a crowbar to snap the thing and pry the door open. That's what had set off the alarm. I examined the door frame. The inside was badly bent, as was the door on this side. I stepped outside into the rapidly cooling night air. The frame on this side was intact.
     
     "Tell me, Mister Grafton, do you sell crowbars?"
     "Well, yes. You think the thief used tools from in here?"
     "I think this was an inside job," I told him. "The alarm only sounded as he was leaving, which means he didn't break in, only out. But he did use a crowbar to trigger the alarm, to make it look genuine."
     
     The man showed me to the crowbar rack. The rack was full, no crowbars had been removed, but the thief could have brought his own, right?
     
     "Tell me, do many employees have keys to the building?"
     "Only the shift managers... Michael McFarland, Christy Clark, and Darin Dyer."
     "Did any of them close the shop today?"
     "No, I closed up myself. We closed early, because of the holiday. I try to save on wages by doing the work myself on holidays."
     "Right. Well, I'll go pay a visit to the key holders, see if they have any good alibis. You should wait for me at my office, let my secretary know what's going on. I'll be back when I have more information."
     
     I took down the addresses I'd need and headed off. I needed the owner out of the way if I was going to conduct non-hostile questionings, and it would be useful to get all the, well, all the people involved in one spot.
     
     I went on foot to the address of Darin Dyer, the manager in charge of stock and inventory. He answered the door without delay-- a good sign. I never like getting people out of bed, makes them grouchy. I introduced myself and told him about the break-in.
     "Oh my god!" He shouted.
     "Was anybody hurt? Was there much damage? How much did they take?" On like that.
     I calmed him down and explained that I was collecting the management team for questioning in my office. He seemed happy to oblige and threw on a coat. I gave him my card, a four of diamonds, this time, and brief directions to my office. Marge would take care of him. This might be easier than I had thought.
     
     The second visit was to Christy Clark. She was the cashier manager, and so she would have the financial information I needed to know. When she answered the door she was slightly drunk, and dressed in a loosely worn bathrobe which kept trying to fall off, despite her near-constant adjustments. With some difficulty I convinced her to meet up with the rest of the suspects at my office. Apparently, to her, 'getting dressed' meant throwing a coat on over the bathrobe. At least it kept the bathrobe closed. I didn't need any more distractions tonight.
     
     She offered me a ride to Mike McFarland's place. He lived on the other side of town, too far to walk. I accepted, but insisted that I drive. On the way she told me about how the money at the hardware store is managed. At the end of each shift, and before breaks, the cash is removed from the tills and put in a deposit envelope. That's taken to the back and put in the safe. The safe has a ten minute timer, to open it, you have to type in a valid manager code, wait ten minutes, and type in the code again. Standard safety precaution. Even if they knew the code, any burglar trying to get the money would be stuck in the building long enough for the cops to arrive; unless they were already inside in the first place.
     
     I also found out that the daily profits were picked up by an armored car at 1am each night. The manager would arrive in time to count the cash, record the sales numbers for the day, and the armored car would take him and the cash to the bank to deposit it. Standard procedure in big cities. Security firms could make a killing hiring out cars and bodyguards.
     
     Michael McFarland, a British bloke in charge of Sales, was the least cooperative of the three. We had woken him up, although I was certain, from the red indents of fabric left on his face, that he hadn't been at the scene of the crime. He'd been sleeping for at least an hour. I told him he was a prime suspect anyway and dropped the suggestion that Snowtown cops don't have time to look into the details of a mere theft and will go with their first instinct just to get the job done. I'm not a nice person, sometimes.
part 1: [link]

sorry if it's boring :P
© 2009 - 2024 Swingerzetta
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woozalia's avatar
Not boring at all! Just a continuation & makes me want more More MORE! ^_^


Harena of ~woozalia