by Dan Kelly
“I agree, Chuck. I didn’t think my street sources would have access to the kinds of info that would be helpful to the investigation, so I’ve left them alone. That might have been a mistake. You never know who is going to hear what and pass it on to whom. I’ll start spreading the word and see what develops.”
“Good. Well, it looks like we’re both on the same page now, so let’s see what we can stir up.”
They exchanged additional contact info and then parted company. Mickey’s thinking, “It’s always nice to have more oars in the water. You usually get to where you are going much faster, but in our case where that is I haven’t a clue.”
Chapter 9
Three days later the manure hits the fan again. This time the target is an auction house where rare and valuable items in the estate of a wealthy socialite who recently passed away at 88 years old were being set up for auction. Only specific pieces of jewelry mounted in some very rare and exquisite settings which have been in the family for generations were taken. Nothing else was touched.
These kinds of auctions are advertised well in advance and that’s like waving a cape at a bull in Mexican bull ring to a clever thief with a lot of backbone. The security in these places is so tight though that most thieves are discouraged from even thinking about it. Obviously, someone wasn’t discouraged.
The auction was to take place the following day, but was cancelled due to the robbery and the police securing the crime scene and subsequently crawling all over the place looking for clues which once again seem to be in short supply.
Once again, Mickey is called to the scene at three o’clock in the morning and is stymied over how it was pulled off. This time a bank like vault was opened as easily as if it were a door locked with an eye and hook. Mickey has been talking to some experts in the safe cracking business and has learned a lot about the sophisticated equipment available to help someone open a safe or vault where the combination has been lost or forgotten or a glitch has popped up in the circuitry or mechanism. Where a vault is involved, like in this case, a time lock had to be dealt with as well as the combination.
Security systems, no matter how sophisticated, seem to be a no-brainer for these guys as this one was also disabled without a wire being clipped anywhere. The only reason anyone knew something was going down here tonight was the guard didn’t make his normal check in call when scheduled to do so and his contact at the security firm called the police and asked them to check things out.
“Damn, these people must have the best of the best equipment to work with, the knowledge to use it and the means to pay for it. That stuff doesn’t come cheap and it takes more than a little savvy to use it effectively. They definitely aren’t second stringers. What’s really bugging me is how they’re getting the intelligence to pull these jobs off? Are they somehow bugging these places, planting miniature cameras beforehand? If so, they’re taking the equipment with them when they leave with the loot. We haven’t found a trace of anything like that. It’s too much to assume that they have people on the inside at every one of these locations, so maybe that’s something we should look into. It wouldn’t hurt to check out the local dealers of that type of equipment and inquire about who has made recent purchases, say within the last six months or so. It’s an avenue that might lead to something.
“Another thing I should do is to ask the victims if there have been any recent hires before the robberies and if these people are still with them. There might be a few surprises waiting for me down that road as well.”
His thoughts are interrupted by one of the techs yelling to him. “Mickey, I think we might have found something helpful over here. Take a look.”
Mickey walks over to see what was found and is surprised to see the tech holding what looks like a contact lens. “Is that what I think it is?”
“If you’re thinking it’s a contact lens, you’re dead on. It’s been stepped on, but you can still recognize it. It could belong to one of the thieves or to an employee. You’ll have to do your detecting thing and find out.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Right where we’re standing.”
They were standing in front of the vault.
“Thanks, Jeff. Good job. Hopefully, this will lead us to one of the bad guys.”
“The way my luck’s been going lately though, I’m not going to hold my breath. It will probably belong to the janitor or some other innocent employee.”
As soon as this thought passes through his mind one of the other techs calls out to him.
“Hey, Mick, we’ve got a fresh footprint over here. This floor has just been waxed and buffed and there weren’t any footprints on it when we arrived. It looks like the robbers gained entry through this side door and someone got sloppy while putting their booties on and stepped on the floor in front of the doorway. It rained last night which explains the clarity of the print. The door shows no signs of forced entry, so someone had to pick the lock. It’s not a cheap lock so someone has more than rudimentary skills when it comes to lock picking.”
“Thanks, Merle. Maybe, just maybe, things are beginning to turn our way. We’ve got a blood sample from the Tiffany robbery and a contact lens and a foot print from this robbery. If we get a few more anatomical clues, we just might be able to identify one or more of the doers. Let’s hope these guys continue to leave samples of their physical makeup.”
After the tech people are finished processing the scene, Mickey asks if anyone at the auction house has been notified as he sees no one but cops doing their thing. The patrolman who was first on the scene and who had secured it said, “The desk sergeant notified the owner, a Raymond Pearlman, as soon as I was able to get his name from the guard who was gassed with something and then tied up and shoved into that closet over there. It took a while for him to come to and even then he wasn’t really with it.”
“Where’s the guard now?”
“The paramedics are with him in one of the offices upstairs. They’ve been trying to get him to let them take him to a hospital to be checked out, but he refuses to go. I think he’s embarrassed that he was taken by surprise, overpowered and thrown in the closet and would prefer that no one else know about it.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll go have a chat with him. Maybe he saw something we can use to find these guys. Let me know as soon as Pearlman shows up. Where’s he coming from?”
“The desk sergeant said somewhere out in the Hamptons.”
“That figures judging from the looks of this place.”
When Mickey finds the office where the guard and paramedics are he is surprised to see that he knows the guard. His name is Sean Cavanaugh and he’s a retired cop. Sean had befriended him when he was a rookie and very wet behind the ears. Now the embarrassment made more sense. Sean is a big man, tough as nails, with a lot of street smarts and his pride must have taken a licking when he was so easily taken out of the picture.
The paramedics are getting ready to leave and as the last one comes to the door Mickey asks him how Sean is doing. “He’s a tough old bird. I’d feel better if he’d let us take him to the hospital to be checked out properly, but he’s a stubborn one and won’t budge. Whatever he was gassed with must have been powerful stuff to take a bruiser like him down. A smaller man would probably still be out like a light.”
“Thanks guy.”
Walking over to where Sean was sitting on a sofa along one of the walls in the spacious office with his head down looking at the floor Mickey says, “There must have been a dozen or more of them to take you down so easily. How are you feeling?”
Hearing the familiar voice is like getting a swift kick in the ass and Sean shoots up and starts ranting and swearing like a guy with a heart royal flush losing a huge pot to a guy with a royal flush in spades. Mickey actually saw that happen to a guy once in Atlantic City. The man was apoplectic.
“If I ever get my hands on those sons-a-bitches, I’ll pulverize them into corn meal for the rats. I’ll……”
“Calm down, Sean. You’re not going to be able to do anything to anyone if you have a stroke. Take a few deep breaths and settle down so you can tell me what you saw.”
After a great deal of effort, he gets himself under control and says, “I can’t believe I let those clowns get the best of me.”
“Well, why don’t we start there? How did they manage to do that?”
“That’s what’s driving me nuts, Mick. I vary my rounds as to the timing, what I check on and the order in which I check things out. I do that so I’m not predictable to anyone with B & E ideas. I didn’t see or smell anything to warn me that something was going down. One minute I was fine and the next I was out cold.”
“Where were you when the lights went out?”
“In the auction room checking the doors and windows.”
“Do you remember seeing anything out of place or unusual?”
“You know now that you mention it I noticed that a transom above one of the windows has a small crack in the corner of it and I made a mental note to tell the janitor when he came in in the morning. Other than that, nothing else comes to mind.”
“Okay, Sean, that’s all the questions I have for now. You know, you really should get yourself checked out at the hospital. The docs there might be able to determine what was used to put you to sleep and prevent any nasty side effects that might be building up in your system. You have nothing to be embarrassed about. You can’t fight what you can’t see.”
Looking at Mickey somewhat sheepishly he said, “I guess I have been acting like a jack ass. Stubbornness is a two sided coin, Mick. Sometimes it’s a good thing and sometimes it can get you into a whole lot of trouble.”
“Good, let me get one of the uniforms to drive you over to the emergency room so they can run some tests on you and treat you if necessary.”
“Fair enough.” After a moment’s pause and an appraising head to toe scan he added, “A detective, a lieutenant yet. I always knew you’d make a good cop.”
“I had some great teachers. Now you just sit there while I go round up someone to take you to the hospital.”
Mickey goes downstairs and corners the officer who was first on the scene and tells him what needs to be done. “He was one of us for thirty four years and one of the best. Treat him accordingly. Okay?”
“You got it, Lieutenant.”
Looking around to see if any of the techs are still on the premises, he spots both Jeff and Merle over by the vault going over their notes. “Guys, I need you to check out something for me.”
He tells them about the transom and asks them to check it out. After scrounging up a ladder, they find a half inch hole with a rubber tube hanging from it all the way down to a row of hedges below. Merle says, “They must have cracked the window when they cut the hole. There’s an impression in the dirt of what could be the bottom of a small tank and, guess what, another foot print. This one’s slightly bigger than the one we found inside and has an unusual pattern.”
“Okay guys, do your thing with the plaster cast and take pictures so I have something to show around when I’m doing my thing. I’m beginning to think these people are getting over confident and starting to get sloppy. Let’s hope these people continue to be careless because one of their screw-ups is going to lead us right to them.”
It is now almost six in the morning and he is tired, cranky and hungry. If he shows up at work in this frame of mind he is going to lock horns with someone and deeply regret it later, so he decides to get some breakfast at one of his favorite diners, Mel’s Diner, just like in that old TV show, and then take a nap in his wheels for a couple of hours before doing a face-to-face with Clancy.
Chapter 10
Somewhat renewed by the meal at Mel’s and a few hours’ sleep, when he arrives at the office Clancy isn’t around so he starts to surf the internet and make some calls to find out more about chloroform and other sleeping gases and how easy it is to acquire them. After several hours of research, he now knows that there are a lot of so called sleeping gases, some easily made by anyone with a fully equipped chemical lab. They can’t be seen, but all have odors of some kind, some slightly sweet and others very unpleasant. If not used properly, they can be very dangerous. To be purchased legally, the purchaser must be properly licensed/registered to do so and if these requirements are met there are a lot of medical supply houses that offer these gases for sale.
Mickey was hoping to generate some kind of a lead by talking with these companies, but there are too many of them and too many customers to filter out for this to be a worthwhile exercise. Besides, the people who were gassed said that they smelled nothing out of the ordinary which is a sure indicator that something new is being used. “Damn! I’m getting tired of running into dead ends.”
He calls Chuck Ferguson to bring him up to date on things and inform him of the auction house robbery as it hasn’t hit the media yet. After doing that, it was back to the internet and phone to locate suppliers of security systems and safe cracking equipment and then on to the victims to inquire about recent hires. By the end of the day, he has a lot of disjointed pieces of information, some of it might be helpful and getting some of it had clearly been a waste of time.
He is beat and all he has on his mind now is home and the sack. He almost makes it out the door, but Chief Clancy has other ideas. He has to pass by the chief’s office to leave the department and as he starts to pass the open door, the chief spots him and motions him into his office. “How’s it going with the gem robberies?”
Mickey gives him a rundown of what he has been doing and what has been found at the different scenes. “Chief, these guys are starting to make mistakes. The tide is beginning to flow our way. It’s just a matter of time before they mess up big time.”
“Mickey, I don’t know how much time I have left. The people upstairs, the mayor, hell, just about everybody in the city has been chewing my ass out for months now. Much more and I won’t be able to sit down.”
“The type of gas these people are using is something new and, therefore, since the source is unknown, knowing this doesn’t help us identify who’s using it. However, the sophisticated equipment they must be using to open the safes and vaults is available for purchase and the dealers may be able to steer us in the right direction to locate the miscreants using it to rip off gem dealers and collectors. Another avenue I’m going down belongs to possible recent hires at the sites of these robberies. If there are any, some or all of them might have been complicit in the preparation for the hits. If we put pressure on them, someone could very well want to make a deal to save his/her ass.
“On the surface the situation may look hopeless, but it’s far from it. We have places to look and the expertise to do the right kind of looking. These people are smart and have deep pockets, but they’re also human and prone to making mistakes just like the rest of us. Chief, we’re going to nail these guys, but it’s not going to be an overnight success.”
Chief Clancy hasn’t batted an eye or uttered a sound while Mickey’s been talking and this is more than a little unnerving for him. “Uh, oh, Hell’s Kitchen here I come.”
After a few seconds of eye ball to eye ball staring, the chief breaks the silence with, “Mickey, you’ve missed your true calling. You should be a coach somewhere. That was some pep talk. Either that or a politician because that was also an exceptional pile of bull shit.” Another pause and then a hint of a smile along with, “Okay, out with you. Go earn your paycheck.”
Mickey quickly heads for the door and doesn’t look back. “Man, I thought my detecting days were over. If I don’t come up with a major breakthrough soon, they may well be.”
Chapter 11
While Mickey has been pounding away at every door he can think of to approach, Chuck Ferguson hasn’t been idle either. He’s been talking to people too. One had an intriguing story to tell. This person came to light as a result of Chuck stirring the pot amongst his contacts in the precious gem trade with an attractive monetary ince
ntive to bring the pot quickly to a boil. A fence Chuck was acquainted with heard that Chuck was looking for information about any new top quality merchandise that might have recently shown up in channels not frequented by the law abiding public and came by his office to chat and negotiate.