Uncommon Thief

by William Manchee

  Chapter 5

  Summoned by the FBI

  On Thursday, when Fred arrived at work, several men were in Mr. Sinclair's office. When he went to pick up his keys, Jim motioned that he wanted to talk to him. That startled Fred, as he feared Jim was going to chew him out for coming in late the night before. Reluctantly, he went over to him and asked, “What’s up?"

  "Mr. Sinclair wants to see you."

  "Why?" Fred asked worriedly.

  "I don't know. There's some kind of investigation going on, and he wants to talk to you. I think the FBI is here."

  Looking over at the men in Sinclair’s office, Fred swallowed hard. "The FBI? Why would they want to talk to me?"

  "It beats me, lad. Just go find out."

  Fred walked to the end of the motor pool, climbed up onto the loading dock, and entered Sinclair's office. Two men dressed identically in dark gray suits, blue ties, and spit-shined shoes were sitting on Sinclair's desk. Mr. Sinclair was standing in the corner. "Jim said you wanted to talk to me?” Fred said.

  Sinclair took a step forward and nodded. "Yes. These are Special Agents Joe Harper and Jim Walters from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They’d like to have a word with you, Mr. Fuller."

  Harper was a short, middle-aged man, fit and trim with thinning grey hair. Walters was tall, looked to be in his thirties with thick black hair and was a bit overweight. They both stood up, and they all shook hands.

  "Pleased to meet you," Fred said. "So, what can I do for you?"

  "We just need to ask you few questions."

  "About what?"

  "Not here. Why don't you go with them downstairs to the conference room?"

  Fred’s curiosity was aroused by all of the mystery and suspense. Feeling confident that he hadn’t done anything to warrant the FBI’s attention, he followed Harper and Walters into the elevator. It creaked and moaned as they descended deep below ground into the bank's data processing center. Ordinarily, this area was off limits to drivers, so Fred was feeling pretty good about being able to see it for the first time. He figured it would give him something to brag about to the other drives the next time they were all huddled together by the gas pumps listening to Jim’s tall tales about his bedroom conquests.

  As they stepped out of the elevator, Fred noticed several large conveyor belts. They were used to carry the bags the drivers brought in each night to tables where the items were sorted. He could see several large mainframe computers in the distance. Dozens of employees were hard at work sorting checks, entering data, and operating the big IBM computers. Harper motioned to Fred to enter a small room with a round walnut table and four chairs.

  "Please have a seat," Harper said. "If you don't mind, Mr. Fuller, we are going to tape this interview."

  Fred shrugged. "Okay."

  "Mr. Sinclair tells us you run the North Beach route."

  "That's right. I just started last night, as a matter of fact."

  "That's what we're interest in."

  “Okay.”

  "Did you stop at the Venice Beach branch last night?" Harper asked.

  "Well, yeah, that’s my last stop."

  "Did you see anything unusual?"

  "No. They were running late though."

  "Who was there when you arrived?"

  "Clifford. . . . Harold Clifford. I believe that’s what he said his name was. I think he said he was the cashier."

  "What did he look like?"

  "He was maybe six feet, 220 pounds, black hair, brown eyes, and he had a mustache."

  "What did he say to you?"

  "He told me to have a seat and that it would be a few minutes."

  "What did you do while you waited?"

  "I went into the break room and had a Coke and read a magazine."

  "What happened next?"

  "Well, I got tired of waiting and went into the lobby to see if the bags were ready yet. As I walked toward the teller's window, I overheard Mr. Clifford arguing with the teller about something. I couldn't hear what it was all about."

  "What did the teller look like?"

  "She was short, a little plump with red hair. I didn't get a good look at her. I wasn’t paying all that much attention."

  "What happened then?" Harper asked.

  "The bags were ready a few minutes later, so I took them and left. . . . Oh yeah, one kind of strange thing did happen. Clifford walked me out to the door, let me out, and then locked the door behind me."

  "Is that unusual?" Harper asked.

  "It has never happened before. I have my own key, and I always let myself in and out. I've never been escorted out of the bank before. Usually nobody pays much attention to me. It was almost like he wanted to get me out of his hair."

  "Did you report his strange behavior to anyone?"

  "No. It wasn't that strange, and it was my first night at this bank, so I didn't know if Mr. Clifford always did that or what."

  "Do you know a messenger named Jake?"

  "Jake? Yeah. He used to have my route. I rode with him the first day."

  "Did anything unusual happen the day you rode with him?"

  "No, other than he wasn't very friendly."

  “How do you mean?” Agent Harper asked.

  “Well, the reprimand and everything left him pretty bitter, I guess. He didn’t seem too happy about having to train his replacement.”

  “Right. I guess that makes sense. Okay, that’s all we have for now unless Agent Walters has something.”

  Walters shook his head. “If you think of anything later on, give me a call,” Walters said as he handed Fred a card.

  “Thank you for your help, Mr. Fuller," Harper said.

  "You're welcome, but just out of curiosity’s sake, why all the questions?"

  "We are conducting an investigation of some irregularities at the Venice branch. That's all I can tell you at this time."

  Fred nodded. "Okay, well, nice meeting both of you."

  "Oh, one more thing, Fred,” Harper advised. “Sinclair is going to assign you to another route.”

  "Another route? Why?"

  "It's possible you might be needed as a witness, so we don't want you to have any contact with Mr. Clifford for a while."

  Fred gave Agent Harper a hard look. He’d liked the beach route and was sorely disappointed to hear he’d already lost it. He sighed. "Okay, whatever."

  When Fred got back upstairs, he took off on his route, wondering why the FBI was interested in Harold Clifford. He figured there had to be some money missing. Nobody was at the Venice branch went he got there, so he went in and out without incident. While he was there, he tried to reconstruct in his mind every minute of the previous night’s encounter to see if there was anything he had forgotten or overlooked. Nothing popped into his mind from that exercise, however, so he pushed the matter out of his mind.

  When he got back to the motor pool, however, the place was buzzing with excitement. A rumor was out that the cashier at the Venice branch had been embezzling money from the bank. The word was that one of the tellers had discovered it the night before. He figured the heated discussion he’d heard from the break room was the cashier trying to convince the teller to keep her mouth shut.

  That night, Fred called Maria and told her about the excitement of the day and that he might be called as a witness. She was concerned about him getting involved and said she wished he hadn't seen anything.

  When Fred went to bed that night, he was so keyed up he couldn't get to sleep. Eventually, he dozed off and drifted into a familiar dream. He was walking down a red line painted on a concrete floor. Suddenly, he heard the sound of steel crashing against steel behind him. When he woke up, he wondered how long it would be before his nightmare would become reality. He was pretty sure it would happen eventually, but he wondered how long it would be before he had to face it. The thought of going to prison terrified him. He’d heard such horrible stories about what went on in prisons and wondered if there was anything he could do to av
oid such a horrible fate or if it was his certain destiny.