Willow Glen Heist

by Alec Peche

  “Hey Natalie, how’s it going?” Damian asked as he reached over and placed an arm on her arm as a greeting.

  “It’s a little hot out, but I assume it’s much colder at home on your island.”

  “Yeah there was heavy fog there this morning, so I started in the high fifties temperature- wise and by the time I reach this city, it’d climbed to near ninety degree. Ugh that’s too hot. So how do you want to approach the bank?”

  “Since I don’t have a search warrant I would suggest we walk in and ask for management, then explain that we’re private detectives taking another look at their robbery nine years ago. I’ll show my license and hopefully that will stop them from calling the police on us.”

  “I don’t see a need to go into the vault, so we won’t be asking to see any confidential areas which should appease them. I’d like to just sit in a chair in the lobby and look around.”

  “Okay let’s do it,” Natalie said as she reached for the bank door and they entered.

  A short time later they were sitting across the street chatting over coffee as to what they observed. On the way to the meeting with Natalie, he stopped at the donut shop and casually asked the owner about the business.

  “I think it’s possible for someone to have walked in the vault as much as it was for them to tunnel into the vault. We know a tunnel was built but that doesn’t confirm that it was used for the actually robbery. I want to follow up on the lead of this employee that wasn’t on the current employee list at the time of the robbery who had a street address and safe deposit box of the donut shop. That’s three coincidences that I don’t like.”

  “What’s the missing employee’s name?” Natalie asked.

  “Arielle Joseph, she was a teller that had worked there for a year, but quit just two days before the robbery.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She disappeared off the face of the earth nine years ago just before the robbery.”

  “Why wasn’t she investigated at the time?”

  “I think she probably slipped everyone’s mind. She gave and worked a two week notice, and then she dropped out of sight as Arielle Joseph.”

  Natalie was staring at him as he described the woman dumbfounded that this might be their robber. Why hadn’t someone picked it up nine years ago, and then she knew what Damian meant with his description of a planned departure.

  “Wow! I wonder if she’s our robber? Wouldn’t that be an amazing plan if everyone distracted by a tunnel, missed the real evidence in the robbery? I mean this sounds like an inside job with the most elaborate cover-up scheme the FBI has ever seen,” Natalie said then another thought came to mind, “Wouldn’t they have deactivated her security upon leaving?”

  “I would have thought so, but maybe she figured out how to get a duplicate.”

  “So what’s the role of the floral store and the tunnel? Do you think this was a two person job with the second person creating the diversion of the tunnel?” Natalie had her own thoughts, but she was always curious as to what Damian thought.

  “On the surface so far it seems that might be a scenario, but I think we need to do a lot more research on the woman and the shop owner. Maybe re-think how it went down and chase clues from there. For all we know the tunnel was used for the robbery, but maybe with different tools than the ones left behind. I think the route of the robbery is not confirmed.”

  They both had been staring at the storefront that had once been a florist shop. The current occupant was a hair salon. According to the police report, the building has sat empty for six months as it was considered a crime scene. Eventually, it was turned back to the landlord who’d been required to seal the tunnel to the FBI’s satisfaction. There had been another occupant before the present salon had begun renting the space three years ago.

  “So I wonder what the deal was with the donut shop?” Natalie mused. “There must have been something worked out with the owner. There would have been employment stuff mailed to the address. I wonder if there’s a room to rent on its premises? We need to talk to the prior owner, Tim Ho, and see what he remembers.”

  “Let’s go ask the current owner if he has a spare room and if he knows anything about the previous owner,” Damian suggested.

  Walking two blocks south they found the donut shop. It hours stated it was open from five in the morning till two in the afternoon. It smelled good to Damian; he liked the scent of sugar on a deep fried bread smell. Realizing he was hungry, he ordered a few donuts for himself and Natalie and then asked a few questions.

  They walked north again toward their respective vehicles munching on deliciously puffy donuts bars covered with chocolate and glazed twists.

  “Too bad the previous owner died from lung cancer last year. I bet he was never interviewed by the cops at the time of the robbery as they didn’t see the connection,” Natalie said.

  “Let me look into his family. In my experience, successful donut shops are operated by families. Perhaps a wife or children remember something from that time. Since you’re local, do you want to question them?”

  “Yes I’ll take that. I have a friend that speaks Vietnamese, so I might take her with me to make sure the wife understands my questions and is not threatened by my P.I. license. I think I’ll call her now as I’m excited to follow this new threat of investigation.”

  Damian and Natalie arrived at their cars and parted company to pursue their own chores. A few hours later, Damian and several boxes were occupying mike’s pontoon boat deck. Damian would use his drone to lift the packages up the rocky cliffs of his island home to his front door.

  Chapter 21

  It was hours since he left Natalie and he noted that she’d manage to contact the family of Mr. Ho. His wife had benefited from the use of the interpreter that Natalie included in her meeting with the woman.

  She had worked in her husband’s shop off and on for twenty years. A girl had rented a room in the back for about a year. They knew she worked down the street at the bank as they sometimes saw her there. She told them she was a student with large college loans and she wanted to rent an empty room they had in the back of their shop for a year. There was no bathroom attached, but the shop had one she could use for a toilet. Mrs. Ho said she and her husband had lived there when they were trying to save money. Like Ms. Joseph, they had a gym membership that they’d used for showers. Yes, her mail was delivered to the shop. They had no complaints about her; she was quiet and paid her rent on time. They closed the shop about three in the afternoon and so had no idea what she did in the evenings, but there was never any damage in the shop. When asked to describe her, she said, ‘an average woman in her twenties, brown hair to the middle of her back, about five feet six inches tall, pale skin and nothing remarkable.’ I asked her if she worked with an artist could he help her draw a picture of the woman’s face and she said no. Since the girl was ‘American looking’ she had no distinguishable features she could remember.

  Damian picked up the phone and called Natalie interested in hearing more.

  “What’s an American looking female?”

  Natalie laughed and replied, “My friend says it the same for her - we Americans, whether Caucasian, Hispanic, or black all look alike to her at a certain age. Mrs. Ho couldn’t reliably tell me if Ms. Joseph was Hispanic or Caucasian. I’m going to talk to a police sketch artist on Monday and see if he thought he could get anywhere with her description, and I’m also going to circle back to the bank and see if any of the employees can help us on a sketch.”

  “If we can find a reliable sketch, than I can run it through my various facial recognition programs and see if we get a hit. It sounds like Ms. Joseph had a talent for making herself look average. The police have a sketch of the florist store owner, right?” Damian asked thinking back to the contents of the police file.

  “Yeah they do. I think I’ll run the picture by Mrs. Ho to see if she recognizes the florist. If this was a pair doing the robbery, then sometime during the year that t
he donut shop room was rented, they had to have been seen together.” Natalie said.

  “Can you send me another copy of the florist’s picture? The one I have is too grainy for my purpose.”

  “Sure. This is exciting, I think we’re getting somewhere!”

  “We have no proof Ms. Joseph was involved in the robbery and we can’t even do a fingerprint match of the prior evidence since as an employee, her fingerprint would legitimately be there.”

  “True, but there’s just too much weirdness about Ms. Joseph for me not to think she had a role in the robbery.

  “Cop instinct?”

  “That’s what my gut is telling me.”

  “Have you ever been wrong?”

  “No. My gut doesn’t come into play with every case, but when it does, it’s always right.”

  “I thought you cops were supposed to chase only the facts? Isn’t that what Joe Friday said?” Natalie could hear the amusement in Damian’s voice with the question.

  “Yeah well Joe Friday was a detective like sixty years ago and by the way he never said the phrase you’re thinking off - ‘Just the facts, ma’am’, it was a spoof of detective Friday that delivered the famous line,” Natalie said.

  “You’re kidding right? He must have said that line since it was so brilliant.”

  “Well look it up and you’ll see that I’m right.”

  “Ok. It sounds like there isn’t much for me to do until you have a conversation with Mrs. Ho.”

  “Just keep searching for Arielle Joseph, but other than that I’d suggest you go back to trying to create that brilliant DNA analysis machine you’ve been promising me,” Natalie said.

  After the call ended, Damian sighed with frustration. He could gather significant evidence that assisted the police to solve a cold case, but he couldn’t solve the mystery of Hermione. He sat back thinking about the two men identified as chasing Ariana and the countries they represented. True, their passports could be faked, but what did the two countries have in common? Then he thought back to something that Hermione had said about her parents - dad worked in the pharmaceutical business. He remembered hearing about some problem with drugs in that part of the world. Thirty minutes later, he had a possible idea of what demons might be chasing Hermione’s parents. If he chased the angle maybe he’d find some answers.

  Organized crime units referred by the term ‘Triad’ were involved in the illegal manufacture of prescription drugs and illicit drugs like crystal meth. Perhaps, some of the enforcers from a Triad were chasing Hermione’s parents. Maybe he had some role in uncovering the production of either substance. In Malaysia, criminals caught doing either were executed as punishment. Yikes. Some drug firms in China had been caught buying from these counterfeit prescription manufacturers.

  The problem with the illegal manufacturers wasn’t just that they offered look-a-like drugs at a cheap price; the real problem was there was no guarantee of chemical content of the pills which had resulted in deaths of hundreds of patients that took them. Researching this problem, Damian found the counterfeit scheme worth seventy-five billion dollars a year. This equaled seventy-five billion reasons to get rid of Hermione’s parents if her father had a role in closing down these companies. However it failed to explain why they were after Hermione herself. Did they have a piece of evidence that they shared with the teenager or hid among her possessions?

  Thinking back to the surveillance tape, he’d watch the thug in the house basically sit and watch television. He couldn’t recall a time that he noticed Mr. Lee doing a diligent search of the house. He went back to the electronic file that contained the footage from the house both at the time Hermione’s parents were kidnapped as well as the subsequent month. There was a search that had occurred but it was obviously that it had been for the teenager and not for some small memory stick or computer component. So what did the kid have?

  He thought back to the night he’d discovered her in the dinghy. What did she have on her or with her that might hold some fraudulent drug information? Her clothes had pockets in them so she could have hid something small in them. She also wore a pendant and earrings and since her parents seem to be in the business of spying perhaps these were data storage items. The only other thing he could think of was an implant. Surely her parents wouldn’t have implanted their own child with some kind of data device? Should he ask her if she had an implant? Given that she refused to provide many answers to questions about her parents, would she be interested in telling him the truth about what the secret is she holds? Does she even know that she has some secret information?

  He sighed and sent an email to Ariana,

  ‘I know this sounds like a weird question, but have you ever noticed an incision on Hermione’s body?’

  A while later, she responded,

  ‘No, but I wasn’t looking for one either. I’ll look tomorrow when we go swimming. It’s a weird question, but I’m sure you have a reason for asking it.’

  ‘I’m stuck on why anyone is after Hermione. I thought back to the night I found her in the dinghy but I can’t remember anything specifically on her that’s worth kidnapping her for. So I wondered if she had some kind of implant that contained information. You know a little like the Jason Bourne conspiracy books.’

  ‘I haven’t read any of those books or watched the movies, but I hope her parents wouldn’t have done something like that to their child.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’

  They ended their conversation and Damian called it quits for the day.

  Chapter 22

  Sunday arrived as one of those rare days in San Francisco where there was no fog. Damian thought of the Boudin sourdough bread factory on Fisherman’s Wharf and how the bakers must be lamenting the sunshine. They needed to the fog for their recipe to attain perfection with the yeast. Visitors would walk away with bread that rose a little bit less on a day like today. After he had a leisurely breakfast and coffee, reading the news and sports online, he put his wetsuit on for a swim in the bay. It was that kind of day where a resident should exploit the outdoors on one of those rare sunny days.

  He paused and gave thought for the day ahead and what his schedule should be. Certainly he should get in some fishing on such a beautiful day. He could freeze the extra fish he caught and debated going out in his dinghy to fish somewhere else on the bay or even off the coast, but the winds were moderate which meant that his boat would drift toward shore and rock over the waves. He pulled in his twelfth fish and decided it was time to take his embarrassment of riches inside to clean, skin, and freeze when his cell phone rang.

  “Hey Damian, how’s your Sunday so far?”

  “Eddie would have enjoyed my morning; I caught twelve fish in under an hour.”

  Eddie was Natalie’s husband of nearly three decades and he liked to tell fishing stories.

  “Did you use some super-duper technology to find them or attract them?”

  “No, that would take all of the fun out of fishing. The fish were just hungry for worms this morning. What’s up?”

  “I was able to interview Mrs. Ho again this morning and we got a few more clues. I wanted to see what you could do with the new information.”

  “Okay tell me what you want researched.”

  “Mrs. Ho said they asked her not to bring any overnight guests back to her room since she had a key to the donut shop and they didn’t trust anyone but her.”

  “Did they ever see a guest visit her?”

  “No, but she also said she was positive that she didn’t come home every night as they had an alarm system that had to be deactivated to go in and out and her husband checked every morning the girl was in residence just to make sure she was locking it. Perhaps one or two in seven days she didn’t come home at night.”

  “Did Mrs. Ho have any idea where she went?”

  “No, so I asked her if she saw her with anyone around town, or did she take frequent lunch breaks from the bank with anyone in particular. You know Willow Glen can be like a
small town with everyone knowing each other.”

  “And?” Damian was wishing Natalie would get to the point of her phone call.

  “And she could be spotted at times with other tellers from the bank which was so of what you would expect. The only other person she would see her with was a florist shop employee.”

  “Employee?” Damian said pondering the possibilities and thinking back to the police file. “Was anyone ever interviewed that worked at the florist shop?”

  “No, both the owner and the employee disappeared off the face of the earth and that’s part of the reason they were assumed to be involved in the robbery.”

  “Did you think they might be one in the same?”

  “One and the same what?”

  “Was the owner and the employee the same person?”

  “I think that’s one of several theories they had at the time that they were unable to confirm or deny.”

  “Lily suggested we follow up on credit card receipts to get business information. Have you had the chance to do that?”

  “No, mostly because I’m not sure where to start since it was nine years ago.”

  “I would think the credit card companies could look up the florist by the street address and time period specified. But I suppose you would need a search warrant for that.”

  “I’ll add it to my list of search warrant needs. Would you be able to find that information out of curiosity?”

  “Maybe,” mused Damian. “It depends if they have swept that information into an off-line archive computer. If they have, I can’t reach it. Did you look through the records to see if your guys looked for those records nine years ago?”

  “Yeah they didn’t think to look at that particular piece of data. They looked for records of ownership, but the names lead to dead ends.”

  “Could anyone describe the owner? I mean what if the employee and the owner were one and the same person?”

  “That’s a good question let me flip back through the file and see what I can find.”