“That’s correct,” Elmo Cranbury said quickly.
We all set there in silence for maybe five seconds, it felt like an hour. Jake turned up the air conditioning and closed the sun-roof.
“You guys comfortable back there, the air should be better in, in...Uh, I gotta ask you Captain; has anyone ever kidded you about that name of yours?”
“Just once,” he said, with what had to be the most stoic face I’ve ever seen on a person. Nothing moved on this guy but his mouth. Head straight-ahead, eyes locked on yours, no extraneous body movement, it was kinda scary. I was glad he was a cop and not a perp.
“I’ll remember that,” Jake said laughingly. “Now why are we here...is there something specific you wanted or is this a social call – a meet-and-greet kind of thing?”
Jake and I were fully prepared to engage any response coming from either of them, but the cops just looked at one another...then, Elmo Cranbury nodded his head at Detective Jones; indicating, I guess, that he should now carry the conversation with Jake.
“We’re missing some money,” Jones murmured, “a backpack containing two-hundred grand is missing from where we left it,” he continued in what seemed an embarrassing tone.
“Where’d you leave it,” I blurted out.
“It was last seen...” said Jones, when Captain Cranbury interrupted him saying...“from our evidence room!”
“Drug money, confiscated in a raid fourteen months ago; a large green backpack held in our evidence room – a secured, guarded, wire-fenced containment area,” said Cranbury, “and now it’s missing.”
Regardless of how the money went missing from a secured, guarded, fenced evidence room, we agreed to aid Captain Cranbury and Detective Jones’ efforts to recover the loot without embarrassing public disclosure. Jake later recounted an old Holmes case where a document went missing but later portrayed it to the victim as just; ‘misplaced or overlooked’ in their lock box. Holmes acquired the missing document from the victim’s wife who had pilfered it...returning it to the lock box without the victim’s knowledge. Sort of an inside job, but Holmes made it look otherwise for sake of the wife’s honor.
“It was a most cunning endeavor,” Jake said, as the cops looked on dumbfounded from his Holmes-esque recitation.
The Captain was perceptive of Jake’s story and picked up on its intent, that being, the backpack was misplaced or overlooked, retorting; “We’ve combed the entire evidence room and the money is not there.”
“Okay, we’ll help you. We’ll be in contact soon.”
We left the cops returning to 666 but not before passing through the drive-thru lane picking up a four pack of Big Mac’s with huge quantities of fries. It was late and we were hungry.
5:27 A.M., Thursday, June 13, 2013
“We better keep this hidden from those surrounding Cranbury and Jones,” Jake whispered, munching a bowl of granola with dehydrated grapes, staring at the spewing news-ticker on his desk monitor. “Probably some underling involved in this, some other cop – who else would have access,” he continued.
“Were you talking to me or the computer?”
“Both. Are you up for the day Clarice?” Showing off his early morning wit was so typical of him; he knew full well my aversion to waking ‘early-early’ morning.
“Maybe, not sure, 5:30 AM is pretty darn early.”
Jake always got up early, and went to bed late. He hardly slept. Me, I’m always sleepy. He liked to run early, he swam in the river sometimes, crazy I told him. Maybe he was a fitness junkie I’m not sure, as his behavior, his neuroses', manifested itself in many fashions. Jake was probably six-feet-four or so, slim, muscular and wire-like, similar to a piece of cable holding the phone poles up. Premature hair loss drove him to shave his head clean, like a basketball. His shape and physique reminded me of that football person from Chicago; the player called Ur Backer, Ur Smacker, something like that. He and Jake looked alike somewhat.
“Remember that Chicago footballer who you look like, what’s his name?” I mumbled through my Cheerio’s.
“Cutler you mean?”
“No, not him, he’s got hair, it’s UrBacker!” That’s the one.
“Urlacher?” Jake moaned. “He outweighs me 30 pounds or more.”
“Are you sure?”
We stared at each other. The banter flowed back and forth, back and forth; both of us racking brain for something witty and sarcastic to add to the early-early morning mental exercises.
Feeling more awake now I turned on my Samsung Tablet, it was flashing a new message from a local lawyer friend who I’d messaged last night. The message confirmed that Captain Cranbury had indeed arrived as the new 2nd Precinct top cop yesterday morning, at 3:00 AM. With him meeting us at 11:00 PM that night, it made for an extra-long first day, around 20 on-duty hours. So, it’s safe to say the new Captain is a hard charger.
The message went on to confirm Cranbury’s work ethic and drive. He was a game changer the message said; with four other crucial assignments, and successes, in his short three year history employed with the Detroit cops. I relayed the information to Spade who said he suspected as much. We both wondered where the Captain had been prior to his assignment at the 2nd Precinct as neither of us had heard of him before our meeting.
Epic212, one of our select Irregular techies, emailed Jake with Detective Jones’ employment history, his personal records with family ties, a brief medical report, along with Jones’ recent comings and goings in the last 12 hours. In instances like this, where Jake and I meet with governmental executives, particularly law enforcement types, it is our method to know who exactly we’re doing business with, to affirm their general truthfulness, or perhaps, ulterior motive.
Jake paced the maple floor, picking at plant leaves, staring at his phone device...
“Darby, Darby, Darby,” he mumbled, splashing water in the fish pond. “Ms. Darby, great counsel, soothsayer and mystic of all that is truth – what say you of these gentlemen’s inquiry? How do contents of a secure box go missing? At what critical moment did the riches fly? Why now the discovery? What secret players are we unaware? We must begin posthaste our studious research as to time, players, location, and motive apropos this quandary.”
Sometimes I have to listen carefully to his Holmes-esque speak, particularly when he uses an inane British, Victorian era word seldom used in the last 100 years. However, in most instances, his locution is modern day English, though quite haughty and terse, as if Holmes cannot escape him.
I flipped to my case notes document on the tablet and reviewed my entries.
Naturally, anyone would wonder how property could disappear from a secure location, and further, in a police station. Our conversation last night with Detective Jones and Captain Cranbury were short by any standard, and there was no mention of when the money disappeared, but only that they had just discovered it missing that day. Also, they did not offer, nor had we inquired, who had access to the secured area where important trial evidence is kept. As is our method, Jake and I normally wanted to ‘contemplate’ on the little information provided at the first meeting. We cipher what was told us and wonder about why it was told us. The outgrowth of the investigation begins from several first-hand interviews, street buzz, and findings from our Irregular team. Jake and I both have learned, or perhaps inherited, a unique formula or model if you will, to institute investigations from A to Z, supplemented with all the 1, 2, 3’s.
“As we’ve made contact with support staff, asking their initial findings, I suppose next we must again meet with Cranbury and Jones to pinpoint a timeline; which I’m certain they have no idea when the money went missing. At the same time, we set in motion our Irregular techs – acquiring any available video, plus we need to employ our street elements for what is currently being talked about, if anything.”
“Indeed!” Jake shouted while struggling to hold a fish he had captured from our small pond. “You’re comfortable with the proposed dilemma then, as you see it? You acce
pt what they say as true, that money has indeed been taken?”
“At this point in time, yes, I do. There is no reason to doubt them at this stage. However, as we always do after a first interview, we must keep an open mind regarding what they didn’t tell us; what they omitted by human error or purposefully withheld. Scarcely do we get the full story initially – that’s why we must see both Cranbury and Jones immediately, together or alone, preferably alone.”
“Agreed...I’ll text Cranbury to meet us, minus Jones, behind the Post Office on Schaefer Highway, a block over from his office, at noon,” Jake said.
“That time is good; I’ll email Jones to lunch with us at the McDonalds across from the station house at 1:00 PM. I'll ask him to come alone. Hopefully we can begin to piece together what has happened sans the influence of his immediate supervisor.”
We had time before our noon meeting with Cranbury to convene with our techies about what they know now, what gadgetry we can employ, what street resources are working this case and to take a look at any video they have secured. The Irregulars existed independently, un-housed in any singular physical location. It’s as if they were born of the virtual world linked only by the net. This day however, we met personally with Epic3, group commander, as was our custom occasionally, to be briefed on what investigative components were in place and view his acquired video of the ‘goings-on’ at the 2nd Precinct. We arrived at 9:18 A.M.
“You would think a police evidence room would only have one person, maybe two, with access to what certainly is a huge amount of valuable property, but no,” said Epic3, as he crawled into the back seat of Jakes vehicle. “Within the last 30 days we tagged and observed footage of seven separate individuals, not including your Precinct Captain and Detective Jones, inside the main containment area, which measures 36 feet, 7 ½ inches front to back, 15 feet 4 ¾ inches wide and 8.4 feet from floor to ceiling. The ceiling is concrete with no false or dropped tiles. Inside the main evidence room there exists a second 9 wire-gauge, screen-gated, containment area measuring 6 feet 5 inches wide, extending from floor to ceiling. It is secured by a Yale model 55 digital lock with an audible component.”
“You sourced this information how? You're telling me your discoveries were made since my text to you earlier this morning? That's only 7 hours ago! How is that possible?"
"The net never sleeps. Shall I go on?"
Jake nodded.
“The containment area has a security camera which feeds to the building’s main server. We hacked it from the back-door-net and found the link...pretty simple once we found the routing. We could post it on YouTube if you like,” the commander snorted.
“That’s funny,” Jake chuckled, “maybe later.”
Jake and I looked at each other occasionally while viewing the commander’s video. We were never surprised by the inventiveness of the Irregular team. They were a great, ingenious, and invaluable part of our efforts.
“Six individuals I could understand,” Jake said. “Probably two per shift – twice what’s necessary, as is typical of a bloated Detroit government agency; nevertheless," as Jake ran his fingers through the missing hair on his bald head, “But why the seventh person?”
“We wondered that as well. It looks to be a cleanup person, an older male, probably the janitor.”
“Have you identified the seven players yet?” I interjected.
“Yes, you should have an email file, marked SA2P”
“Anything, look out of place,” Jake queried.
“No,” said Epic3. “They average nine years of service in their current respective position, including the janitor who skews the average with his 13 years. Initially, each player is undistinguishable as having any criminal propensity given our forensic model. We saw typical, undifferentiating data as measured from the database contents of police department records. We have not run the individual’s personal stuff yet.”
“Do that – run the personals and message Clarice this afternoon with your results and any comments you have. We need to make one more stop before our interview with The Captain, so we’ll leave you now. Nice work E3, we’ll be in touch later today, and if you want to drop by 666 around ten this evening Clarice is steak hungry so we’re grilling on the roof,” Jake said, as he smilingly fist-bumped the commander.
We never used the Irregulars’ real names as each had a normal life they wanted untouched by the gore of our industry. All of us wanted every wall possible between who we were personally and what we did publicly, even though it seemed futile most of the time. The Net Effect makes privacy difficult if not impossible.
We had much to ponder from the infusion of new information. How amazing, I thought, the tech’s ability to discover precise measurements of the evidence room, the specific gauge of wire constructing the second storage area, the brand of digital lock with its audible option – all from tapping into a security camera tucked inconspicuously in the evidence rooms corner. The staff had obviously forgotten about the camera being there years ago, or had they. We wondered.
As we began to pull away Jake wanted me to drive so we changed places. He wanted to text an old friend of ours, mostly my friend, who works in the District Attorney’s office downtown. I asked him if he was concerned with Captain Cranbury’s or Detective Jones story about the missing $200K, he said, ‘No,’ only wanting to work the model we had so studiously devised, whereby, not only information ‘received’ but information ‘about’ all players who initialize our services and consequent inquiry, was indeed as we were told. It was our method...our way of doing things.
“We need some background on our guys before we speak with them a second time, that’s all...nothing suspicious, no preconceptions, just working the model,” Jake mumbled, thumbing the keyboard.
“Told you’re buddy Rudy to reply with what he had in 30 minutes max. Think he’s up to it?”
“He’s good – not as good as me – but good,” I smiled, scrunching my face, mesmerizing Jake with a trilogy of intelligence, wit and cuteness.
“We’ll see,” Jake said. “Pull into McDonalds and look for a blue Chrysler Mini Van...should be in the back somewhere.”
“Who are we here to meet?”
“22...Epic22, remember she had a baby last year.”
“Okay...uh, do I see the kid in the back seat?”
Jake laughed as we pulled up beside 22; he powered his window down and asked how she was doing. She answered ‘fine’ and asked him to come over and to ‘be quiet’ getting in.
Jake went alone and returned five minutes later. He was giggling and filling me in on how cute the baby was. I asked what the meeting between him and 22 was about, but he began texting again, not answering, maybe avoiding my question.
We pulled out of McDonald's headed for the Post Office and the meeting with Captain Cranbury.
"Looks like your buddy Rudy made it in time. Here's an email from him...I'm wondering what he has."
Jake looked over Rudy's email, pinching his ear as he normally does in deep thought – trying to counter the effects of cigar cessation, while alternatively moving his gargantuan fingers through his missing hair.
"What's his scoop?" I queried.
"Nothing extraordinary my Dear Darby," he mumbled, sliding the phone into his breast pocket.
"Except for one thing," he continued.
"Our Captain, the illustrative by nature, Mr. Elmo Cranbury – how could that name be chosen as an alias?" Jake said, with a tilt to his head, "Is indeed, as you proclaimed. What was it you said, a straight shooter?"
"I didn't say specifically, you deduced it. What I did say is that we should not assume otherwise, his obfuscation I mean, until we have gathered sufficient information."
"Indeed, Jake whispered, I stand corrected."
"And, what was the exception you spoke of?"
"Oh nothing...nothing so much congruent, relative to Cranbury's employment with local Detroit officials, as with, travels to our nations AG, and for what purpose, you might ask."
"Cranbury has a national connection?"
"Perhaps, perhaps," smiled Jake.
As we pulled into the back parking lot of the Schaefer-branch Post Office, I couldn't imagine our Captain being either 'officially assigned' or 'covertly planted' into the Detroit PD, by national Attorney General Authorities. Nevertheless, it was valuable information from which Jake and I could confront Cranbury, to further build a realistic case-foundation from what we’ve been told is a 'theft from a police-secure location.' No federalli would be interested in what is surely categorized as a local police affair. I now wondered of Cranbury's mission.
"Five minutes to twelve and he arrives, how fitting," Jake said, as Captain Cranbury's image is captured in Jakes review mirror.
"He walked from the station house? That's three blocks from here?" I said.
"What do you make of that, Dear Darby?"
"I'll reserve my thoughts, Dear Spade," as I pushed the button to open the locks to the back door. The big man entered quietly.
"Good day Mister Spade, Miss Darby"
"Hello Captain, thanks for meeting us on such short notice," I said. "Is it comfortable back there? Is the air cool enough for you?"
"Captain Cranbury," said Jake with a sharp, inquisitive tone, interrupting the Captain before he could speak. "Our people have discovered your Federal involvement...is that with or without the knowledge of the Detroit PD?"
The Captain was surprised, but calm. He sat quiet and contemplative, surely wondering how his secret, if it was a secret, became problematic with Jake Spade.
"The air is fine Miss Darby, thank you, and no the Detroit Police, in total, are not aware, only the Chief. I'm not particularly surprised that you found out my federal connection, after all, it is your business to delve more deeply into matters of crime. So, I suppose, I'm comforted by the fact you checked me out as well. I'm assigned to the Detroit PD as a favor to the mayor of Detroit from the United States Attorney General's office. My government pay grade is GS-15 and any further information relating to my connection with the Attorney General will have to be answered by them. I'm certain your inquiry with the AG will be of little use regarding why specifically I'm here in this precinct position. For all intents and purposes, your knowledge of me should only extend to the city's mayor and chief of the PD. Remember...I'm the one who called you in, Mr. Spade, and I'm the one you will answer too. It is my investigation of the missing money, and it is your services that I wish to employ. Now...what further information about the missing money can I help you with?"
The Mystery Maxims of Jake Spade - Case #1 FORGIVEN Page 2