I turn my attention to evaluating the massive pile of cash that now covers the floor of the deer stand. I figure that I must have pulled out at least seventy-five bundles of cash—a third of which are comprised of euros and the rest comprised of dollars. I take in a really deep breath and look up at Alex. “Shit, there’s a lot more here than I thought…If I had to guess, I’d say there’s a few million bucks. What do you think?”
Alex stares back at me with a completely dazed look. “Holy…fucking shit, Mattie…Uh, yeah, that seems like a good guess,” she stammers. “I guess I’m just a little stunned by the amount of money. And the fact that it’s all in cash is all the more astonishing.”
“Well, I hope we can fit in all in our packs!” I say dumbly.
We both seem somewhat paralyzed until I eventually make use of my limbs and begin to divvy up the bundles between our daypacks. Alex snaps out of her paralysis and starts to assist me. It takes some effort, but we manage to stuff all the cash into our packs. I toss the now-empty camping mat back into the cavity and use my hammer to secure the floorboard back into place. Once I’m done, Alex climbs down out of the deer stand, and I toss the two overly stuffed daypacks down to the ground before climbing down after her.
I’m extremely grateful that some of the cash is in euros rather than dollars. If all the cash had been in dollars, I am not sure we could have fit it all in our packs—euros come in higher denominations than dollars, and thus the equivalent amount takes up a lot less space when it’s in euros, assuming it is in €500 notes.
The packs are now really heavy, so we help each other slip them on and begin to walk back toward the cabin. I set the tools inside the front door and then close and lock the door. I hide the key back under the wheelbarrow, and we start to bushwhack our way back to the Long Trail. We finally break out of the woods and hit the main trail, and a moment later we run into two older, rather chatty gentlemen.
They eye the large packs that Alex and I both have strapped to our backs. “You gals sure have some big packs! Did you sleep out in the woods last night?” the taller of the two men asks, but he continues talking without giving us a chance to answer. “It sure was a cold one for this time of year,” he says as he pokes my pack with his walking stick.
I’m thrown a little off guard but finally respond. “Ah…Nope, we are just training for a big hike so we are carrying a little extra weight to help get in shape.” I laugh nervously praying that no cash is sticking out the top of my pack.
“Wow, good for you gals! Enjoy the rest of this beautiful day,” the shorter man says, and they both turn to continue up the trail.
As soon as they are out of earshot, Alex turns to me. “Real smooth, Pearson!”
“Ha ha! What did you want me to say? Oh no, we are just lugging around a few million bucks.” I laugh and slap her playfully on the butt before we start back down the trail.
* * *
It’s nearly dark by the time that we get back to the trailhead where we left the truck. The trek to the cabin took longer than I thought, and we are probably going to be late meeting Todd for dinner in Stowe. Once we climb in the truck, I give Todd a quick call to tell him we will be a little late and ask him if we can pick anything up on our way. He says he will take care of dinner but asks if we can stop and pick up some beer.
Alex navigates the truck back down toward Richmond Town Center, and we stop at the small corner market to buy a few six-packs before jumping back onto I-89 toward Stowe.
We get to Ellen’s house a little after seven o’clock and we share a laugh when we walk in the door and see a Flatbread pizza box on the kitchen counter.
“What’s so funny?” Todd asks as he gives me a hug.
“Just so happens that we had pizza from Flatbread last night…Poor Alex is going to think that’s the only food they make in Vermont,” I respond before turning to introduce Alex and Todd.
We shed our coats and muddy boots in the foyer and venture into the main living area. Todd has already started a fire in the large stone fireplace, and the flames are reflecting off the windows that wrap the living room and offer views of the nearby ski slopes. We all grab some pizza and a beer and sit down on the overstuffed furniture in front of the fire.
I look over at Todd. “I was telling Alex earlier today that you haven’t heard from the police recently. I assume that’s still the case?”
“Yep, not a peep,” Todd replies while still chewing his pizza.
“Good news,” I reply.
Todd nods. “As I said on the phone last week, I think that bodes well for you Mattie. In my humble opinion, if they haven’t uncovered something at this point, I think it’s pretty unlikely that they will. I mean, you have to figure that the Schuyler House investigation has run its course by now. Plus, I read an article somewhere that said very few art crimes are ever actually solved. I think it said that something like less than ten percent of pieces are ever recovered, and the prosecution rate is even lower than that.”
“Wow, I hope you’re right, but I am not letting my guard down just yet,” I say as I take the last sip of my beer.
After we eat, Todd confirms that he has finalized all the arrangements to set up a college fund for Sarah’s kids and for the donation to the environmental conservation fund in honor of Kat. I ask him if he’s talked to Sara’s ex-husband Jake about the college fund.
Todd nods again. “As you know, Jake and I were never very close, but I can tell the poor guy is really hurting. When they were married, he pushed Sarah to keep up her ‘hobby’ as a thief because he loved the money it brought in, and then he blew through it like a jackass. I realize he didn’t even know about the Schuyler House until after it happened, but Jake is well aware that Sarah was struggling financially because of him, and he thinks her financial woes were what drove her to keep at it. Then she goes ahead and dies during a burglary. I think Jake feels like he’s at least partly responsible for her death. He called me a few times right after Schuyler House. I think he was just looking for someone to talk to, and I’m the only person he can really talk to about the burglaries.”
“Anyway, I called him again last week and told him about the college fund. He just broke down crying. He said he knew how worried Sarah was about saving for college and how much it would mean to the boys. He also asked how I knew about the fund since, as far as I know, he has no clue I’ve been in contact with you and Ellen. I just told him that I’d gotten a call from a lawyer in New York and that a trust had been set up for the boys…I tried to be as vague as I could.”
We each have another beer, and Alex asks Todd and me what Kat and Sarah were like.
A smile crosses my face as I think of them. “Well, they both had the best damn sense of humor,” I say, and see Todd smile as well.
“I remember the two of them poring over boring art research and giggling like school girls. Somehow, they found amusement in everything. Sarah always had on her lucky Red Sox hat, and Kat was always wrapped in multiple layers of clothing in an effort to stay warm.”
“Kat was feisty as hell,” Todd adds. “She never let anyone push her around, and I loved that about her. And she was so darn smart.”
“Sarah came off as tough, but that’s just because she was so matter-of-fact. She actually had a really soft side to her once you got to know her,” I say.
“Those two were a bad pair. Always up to something,” Todd says with a laugh.
I nod. “God, I remember this one time that Kat somehow decided it would be fun to go winter camping. I’m not sure how she convinced all four us to go, but she did. I think she told us it would be good team building.” I smile as I think back to the trip. “We nearly froze to death, and Sarah was afraid to go outside the tent to pee because she was sure she was going to get attacked by a cougar. I tried to tell her that cougars were all but extinct in our area of the country, but she would have none of it.”
“They sound wonderful,” Alex says. “I’m sorry I never got to meet them.”
&n
bsp; Finally, Todd turns to Alex and me. “Well, I should probably head back home.”
“It was really awesome to see you, Todd,” I say as I stand to give him a hug good-bye.
“You too, Mattie,” he says, and turns to Alex. “And it was great to meet you, Alex.”
After Todd leaves, Alex and I play a few mean rounds of gin rummy in front of the fire before we both start to yawn and decide to call it a night. All that hiking wore us out.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alex and I hit the road back to DC first thing Monday morning. I offer to drive for the first few hours so that Alex can catch up on some phone calls and emails. I know it’s a big deal for her to be out of the office on a weekday during the peak season, but she doesn’t say so. We pull into a rest stop just past New York City to get some gas and switch drivers.
As soon as we’re back on the highway, Alex turns to me. “Okay, so we just pulled a couple million bucks out of a fucking tree. I can’t wrap my head around it at all. It’s totally insane. I am dying to know more about what you, Ellen, Kat, and Sarah did to generate that kind of dough. You’ve given me the short version of your, shall we say, ‘tainted’ past, but I want details.”
At this point, I trust Alex with my whole heart and she deserves to know more about my past. “Hmm, well, gosh, I’m not sure where I should start,” I mumble.
“How about starting by telling me how you guys decided where and what to rob?” she suggests.
“All right. Well, Sarah and Kat did most of the research, and they would usually propose places that they thought we should target. Usually, they would also recommend the actual pieces they thought we should go after. Their proposal always included a detailed explanation about their reasons for choosing a particular place and the specified pieces.
“Once Sarah and Kat made a proposal, the four of us would talk it over at length. If the group decided unanimously to move forward, we would move to stealth planning mode. A key element of the planning was establishing a timeline—feasibly, how long would it take us to prepare, and was there a time of year or a date that we thought would be best to carry out the burglary. Once we finished the initial planning, the next step was to ‘case the joint’—in other words, one or two of us would spend a good deal of time ‘on location’ actually observing the next place we intended to rob.”
Alex nods but keeps her eyes on the road, so I continue.
“Overall, I think we’ve pulled off nearly a dozen heists.”
“Ooh, tell me about the boldest one,” Alex says.
“Okay.” I pause while I try to think of one of our most intriguing burglaries. “One of our first burglaries was from this office building in downtown Atlanta. We grabbed a couple of pretty valuable contemporary art pieces that hung on the walls of a very large and very prominent law firm. Honestly, I don’t think the firm had any clue how valuable some of their art was. The firm’s founders purchased most of the pieces back in the early 1960s.
“Anyway, Sarah and Ellen made an appointment—using fake names, of course—to meet with one of the associate lawyers at the firm just so that they could get inside the office and have a look around. They flew down to Atlanta, met with the lawyer and then spent a few days casing the office building from the outside. Not surprisingly, the building had pretty good security for people coming and going through the main entrance, but Sarah and Ellen noticed that there were some serious security lapses in the rear of the building. They observed that numerous office workers came down to the loading dock to smoke, and while they did so, they usually left the back door propped open. It didn’t escape their attention that one of them was an overweight older woman whom they’d briefly encountered during their appointment at the law firm. She was a chain-smoker, and she came down to the loading dock almost every hour on the hour. She would always set her badge and pack of cigarettes on the bench next to her while she took long drags on her cigarette and scanned Facebook or whatever on her phone.
“The following day, Sarah and Ellen returned to the office building at the end of the workday. Sarah jumped up on the loading dock and was positioned on the bench when the chain-smoker came down for her last smoke of the day. Sarah pretended to puff on an e-cigarette while she took a glimpse at the woman’s badge. The chain-smoker’s name was Connie, and she was indeed an employee at the law firm. When Connie headed back inside, Sarah followed her. Connie took the freight elevator back upstairs and used her badge to get back inside the glass doors of the law firm. Sarah didn’t try and follow Connie into the firm but hung around outside in the elevator lobby so that she could confirm the time at which the firm’s receptionist left for the day.” I pause and look over at Alex. “Am I boring you to death with too much detail?”
Alex briefly takes her eyes off the road to look over at me. “No, not at all. I am absolutely fascinated. Please go on.”
“Okay, then. Well, anyway, Sarah’s research indicated that more than five hundred people worked at the law firm’s Atlanta office, and they were spread over three floors. As a result, we decided that it was highly unlikely that Connie knew everyone who worked at the firm. So, Kat and I flew to Savannah a few days later, rented a car and drove to Atlanta to meet Sarah and Ellen. We spent a few days finalizing our plan and buying supplies.
“When we were ready, we sent Sarah and Ellen back to the loading dock in time to once again catch Connie on her last smoke break of the day. Sarah perched herself on the bench to wait for Connie, and sure enough, she showed up right on time, propped open the door and sat next to Sarah on the bench.
“Ellen paced along the loading dock pretending to be on a personal call while ensuring that the loading dock door stayed propped open. As usual, Connie puffed away while staring at her phone. This made it easy for Sarah to swap Connie’s badge for a fake one that we had made up the day before—it looked just like Connie’s real badge, but obviously, wouldn’t work to open any doors. When Connie finished smoking, Sarah got up too and rode the freight elevator back upstairs with her. Sarah made sure she got off the elevator first, and when she and Connie reached the glass doors of the law firm, Sarah swiped Connie’s real badge and they walked in the office together. Connie soon left for the day and likely didn’t realize until the next morning that her badge would no longer open any doors.
“Sarah just hid out in an empty office until the receptionist left for the day and then texted us to let us know that the coast was clear. Ellen stayed on the loading dock while Kat and I took the freight elevator upstairs. We assumed that many of the lawyers, especially the younger ones, would stay and work late into the night, so Kat and I were dressed to look like men and we were each wearing a jumpsuit with First Class Art Restorers stamped on the back.
“When we got upstairs, Sarah let us into the law office. Kat and I located the three pieces that we wanted and just lifted them off the wall, right under the noses of the lawyers that were still toiling away just down the hall.”
“Wow!” Alex says when I finish. “You make it sound so easy.”
“Well, we planned meticulously, so the heists usually went off without a hitch.”
“Until Schuyler House?”
I nod.
“What did you do with the art after you stole it?” Alex asks next.
I tell her all about the arrangement that we had with Olivier, and then she asks me what our most lucrative burglary was.
“That’s easy,” I say. “It was the two pieces we stole from a billionaire’s house in Texas.”
“How the hell did you manage that?”
“Believe it or not, it was not as hard as you’d think,” I say with a laugh. “The billionaire was a big donor for the Republican Party, and he regularly hosted these elaborate $5,000-a-plate fundraisers at his enormous house outside Houston. So, like in Atlanta, Sarah and Ellen went to Houston to do their usual reconnaissance except this time they had to pay $5,000 each to attend one of his dinners.
“Sarah was one of the most liberal people I know
—she was a diehard Bernie Sanders fan—so it damn near killed her to pay money to help elect some right-wing wacko, but she did it, and according to Ellen, she did a damn good job of playing a Republican! Shit, she even wore pearls!”
Alex lets out a loud laugh and gestures for me to continue.
“Anyway, Sarah and Ellen had made some keen observations while they were at the fundraiser. They noted how the caterers worked and how the event was choreographed. All the fundraisers follow the same agenda: cocktails followed by a seated dinner before the crowd is summoned to the ballroom for dessert so that they can listen to remarks from the candidate for whom the fundraiser is being held. Our research indicated that the billionaire always used the same catering company, and they usually arrived in three vans—one with the staff and the other two full of food and liquor. Getting people liquored up was always key to these fundraisers!”
“Did Sarah and Ellen steal the art that night?” Alex asks.
“No, Kat and I attended another fundraiser at the billionaire’s house a few months later, and that is when we stole the art. As luck would have it, both the pieces that we wanted hung in the dining room. After dinner, Kat and I hung behind in the dining room while the rest of the crowd was herded into the ballroom for dessert. The catering staff was scurrying around serving everyone dessert before the candidate’s remarks, which left me and Kat a few minutes alone in the dining room before the caters came back in to finish clearing the dinner tables. That gave the time that we needed to slip two paintings off the wall and roll them each in a tablecloth.
“Once we had the pieces, we bolted through the kitchen and took off in one of the catering vans. We drove the van about two miles down the road where Ellen was waiting in a getaway car.”
“Holy shit, you are kidding me!” Alex utters. “No one in the kitchen tried to stop you?”
“Nope. Some of the catering staff was in the kitchen when we ran out, but it all happened so fast and we were out of there before they had a chance to realize what was going on.”
The Schuyler House Page 18