Vengeance Is Personal (A Colton James Novel, Book 2)

by Thomas DePrima

  After I had read through the entire cold case bank robbery file, I watched the theft and kidnapping firsthand, tagging the perpetrators in anticipation for tracking them to the present and learning their identities. The robbery was like so many others. Armed gunmen burst into the bank, corralled the customers and bank employees in one area, grabbed cash from the vault, and left. What was different in this case was that they took a hostage and warned the customers and employees that if the police were called during the next ten minutes they would never see the young female teller again. But they didn't strike anyone or threaten anyone else. The kidnapping victim was released unharmed and unmolested a few hours after the robbery, which had been my reason for working the serial killer case first.

  The thieves had stormed in so fast and taken the employees by such complete surprise that no one had activated the silent alarm. The robbers wore full masks and clothing that completely concealed their identities, so none of the witnesses could even speculate on the race of the robbers. But all agreed they were male.

  Because the thieves only took used bills, the haul was rather small. The total loss reported by the bank was just over thirty-six thousand dollars. The robbers must have known that the sequential serial numbers of new bills might be traced if any were spent, so they ignored the stacks of new bills.

  The subsequent investigation revealed nothing that allowed the authorities to identify the thieves. No witnesses came forward who might have seen the robbers exit the bank, so the police couldn't put out an alert for a particular vehicle. The kidnapped teller later said they had a red getaway car parked on the side of the bank, but that they had pushed her into the trunk before leaving the scene. The driver drove sedately, ostensibly to avoid attracting attention, for about twenty minutes, then stopped. The teller said that when they opened the trunk, one of the robbers held a cloth against her face. She remembered blacking out but nothing after that until she awoke on the shoulder of a back road far outside of town. She said she had never seen any vehicle except the first one.

  The police found the abandoned red car ten minutes from the bank, parked next to a large combine in a farmer's field. The local resident who owned the car hadn't even missed it until the police showed up at his house. Tire tracks found near the abandoned car provided some clues to the case. The FBI had been able to learn the brand of tires and estimate the second car's weight and wheelbase, which made them confident they knew the make and model, although not the year. They had also found several footprints, which gave them shoe size, shoe brand, and the approximate weight of the perpetrators.

  Unfortunately, the thieves were long gone before the evidence was available to roadblocks checking cars containing three men and a woman hostage. While the information could help in building a case once the robbers were found, it didn't assist in learning their identities or whereabouts. I learned from watching the robbery that the robbers had two other cars stashed a few miles from where they'd left the teller. Once they split up, and without a description of any of the three cars, the roadblocks were totally ineffective.

  Using the evidence they'd been able to accumulate, the FBI had tried to match the thieves to perpetrators of other bank robberies, but they hadn't come up with any hits. The investigation was eventually put on the back burner in the hope that better information would be available the next time the same team robbed another bank. But there had been no other robberies they could tie to the same three perps. Finally, the crime was added to the cold cases file.

  Although I would be able to determine the identities of the three men who had committed the crime, I had the same problem as on previous cases—namely, explaining how I'd solved the case.

  After reviewing the bank's video footage, watching the crime and escape from every angle on the gizmo, and reading the investigation file repeatedly, I could understand why the case was still unsolved. The perps could not be connected with any bank robbery before or since. They only took used bills, and there were no witnesses to their escape. It was well planned and well executed. And they'd had their share of incredible luck.

  I finally turned off the gizmo, put it back into the secret compartment in the lighter, and headed for bed. Other than the office chair and small table in the safe-room, my bed was the only new piece of furniture in the co-op. I had gone all out and bought a beautiful new king-sized solid walnut frame and top-of-the-line mattress. It was like floating on a cloud compared to the lumpy old mattress in my former apartment. After spending nineteen million to buy the co-op, I wasn't going to move any of my old furniture, which had been third-hand when I'd gotten it. But I wanted to bring over some of my personal possessions and all of my memorabilia.

  I was still paying the rent on my former place and had reimbursed my landlord for all expenses to repair the damage from the shooting. The bathroom was practically brand new since the door, tub, toilet, sink, floor and walls had all been damaged by gunfire. The lease would be up in three months and I had until then to clean out the apartment.

  ~ ~ ~

  Luckily, my new co-op came with all the major kitchen appliances, including a built-in microwave oven. I had purchased a new coffeemaker and toaster oven, or I would have been eating untoasted bread or dry cereal for breakfast while I only dreamed about a steaming cup of coffee. A refrigerator large enough to supply a catering service was filled with all of my favorite foods, so although I had to eat in the safe-room because it contained the only chair and table in the co-op, I was at least able to enjoy OJ, hot coffee, and cereal with real milk. I didn't have any glasses, dishes, pots and pans, or kitchenware yet, so I was getting by with plastic eating utensils, paper cups, and paper plates. The paper bowls, although coated, got soggy quickly so I had to eat fast.

  I had finished my bran flakes and was sipping at my coffee while I thought about the bank robbery case when I had an inspiration. The thieves hadn't yet been associated with any similar crime, which would indicate they were first timers. But the escape seemed too well planned for amateurs. So either they or someone else must have cased the bank to determine the best time of day for the robbery and then planned the escape route. The file indicated that the FBI lab analysis of the bank's videos hadn't identified any visitors to the bank over the previous months that had the same basic build and movements as any of the three thieves. So either the teller they kidnapped had been part of the robbery, or a fourth person had been involved.

  After I had removed my breakfast dishes, I took out the gizmo and went back to work. I had previously tagged the three thieves, so now I tagged the teller and performed a search to locate any time prior to the robbery where she'd had contact with any of the robbers. The search turned up nothing, which probably meant she wasn't involved. Of course, she could have had contact with a fourth as yet unknown robbery suspect, or perhaps the bank had been cased by a fourth person who didn't participate in any other way. There were no outside cameras, so the previous investigators couldn't look for suspicious people or vehicles watching the bank. But I could. However, it was going to be a time-consuming job, so I decided instead to jump to the present and see where the perps were now and if they still got together. By searching for the latest date where the three perps were together, I found them working on a car in an automotive garage.

  The gizmo gave the garage's location coordinates, date, and time. Rather than turning on my laptop to determine the geographic area, I used the gizmo's features to maneuver around the garage. I found a current Charlotte newspaper on a workbench, so they were probably in North Carolina now. I'd verify the specific location coordinates later. As I watched, a fourth man joined the three working on an engine in a racecar. I immediately wondered if the fourth man could have been involved in the robbery. I tagged him, then jumped to the bank where the robbery had taken place.

  When I performed a search to learn if the fourth man had ever been in the bank, the gizmo immediately jumped to a time three weeks before the robbery. I watched as the fourth man at the garage entered the ba
nk and stood in line to exchange a ten-dollar bill for a roll of quarters. As he waited, he looked around, stopping his scan at each of the cameras, the location of the vault, and the layout of the desks outside the counter. The only connection the gizmo provided with the kidnapped teller was that she was in the bank while the fourth suspect was casing it. There was no guard on duty at the time and there hadn't been in any of the bank videos I'd viewed.

  So I had four suspects for sure now. There might be more, but I would have to spend a lot more time viewing with the gizmo. Instead of starting that, I decided to learn who I was dealing with. Using tags on each of the suspects, I went back to the day each was born and read the names off their birth certificate. They all had the same last name and parents.

  "So this was a family affair," I muttered. "I guess the family that does stickups together, sticks together."

  Knowing who had committed the robbery was a good first step, but I knew I couldn't go to Brigman yet. The first thing he'd say in that unpleasantly gruff voice of his would be, "How did you come up with this completely asinine theory, James?"

  I had no answer for that yet. In fact I didn't even have the remotest idea how I could respond to such an interrogative. Without the gizmo, I would have no more idea about the identity of the perps than the dozens of law enforcement personnel who had worked to solve the robbery case before it was assigned to me.

  There was nothing to do except start with the brother who cased the bank and watch every movement until I found a link I could exploit to show that I had solved the case with good old-fashioned police work.

  ~ ~ ~

  After a week of searching for something I could use to wrap up the case, I was still no closer to a solution. I had spent hours reading and rereading every page of the FBI file until the sheets were dog-eared. When I finally headed for bed at night, my eyes were bloodshot from having spent so much of the day staring at gizmo images. There just wasn't anything I could use to explain how I had solved the case. It was easier with the insurance companies because their main interest was in recovering whatever had been stolen. If I managed to provide them with evidence that proved the identities and guilt of the thieves, it was a bonus.

  But Brigman wouldn't simply accept that I had solved the FBI cold case without knowing how I had found what everyone else had missed. I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to report this one as solved. The one good aspect was that by devoting all of my attention to the robbery, I was able to forget about Delcona for most of the day.

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  After two more days of fruitless searching for the clue I needed, I decided a road trip was called for. So, before retiring for the evening I arranged for a limo to the airport, plane reservations to Texas, and a rental car when I arrived. I had expected all along that I would have to put in some time at the scene of the crime and interview the people involved, but I was hoping it would be in support of my crime resolution hypothesis rather than searching for the hypothesis itself.

  ~ ~ ~

  I checked into a national chain hotel immediately following my arrival. It was Sunday, so I watched a little TV as I thought about the case, then fell asleep thinking about Delcona.

  ~ ~

  Before heading to the bank in the morning, I stopped at the local police headquarters to alert them I was in town and was looking into the cold case. I wanted to avoid any incidents like the confrontation with police at my last bank robbery investigation. I showed my ID and spoke to the lieutenant in charge because the police chief was not available.

  "Welcome to our community, Special Agent James," Lieutenant Finn said. "Say, are you the FBI special agent who was attacked in his home a few months ago?"

  "Uh, yeah. That was me. You heard about that down here?"

  "Yeah. Congratulations on surviving the attack. After we heard about it, we scheduled another training session for our guys about home invasion by perps intent on revenge following an arrest."

  "Yes, it's something every law enforcement officer has to keep uppermost in his or her mind. Criminals hold a grudge and are always anxious to get even."

  "Are there any new leads in the bank robbery case?"

  "Not yet. I'm here to see if I can find something we can pursue. Do you have ideas as to who might have committed the robbery?"

  Finn paused for a couple of seconds before saying, "A witness believes they might not be Texans."

  "How did they arrive at that?"

  "At a dance recently, I was talking with a couple of the bank employees. One— Samantha Hutton— mentioned that we should be looking in Kentucky. When I asked why, she said the leader had sort of a Kentucky accent."

  "I never read that in the official report."

  "She said she didn't realize it at the time. She went to the last Kentucky Derby and got into a conversation with a couple of ladies there who were talking about the entries. She engaged them in conversation because their accents were very similar to one she'd heard at the bank on the day of the robbery. Eventually she asked them where they were from, and they told her they had both grown up near Sparta, Kentucky. She has an incredible ear for accents and told me how close their accent was to that of the bank robber who'd done all the talking."

  "There wasn't any audio on the bank's videos, so we can't confirm that," I said.

  "Yeah, I know. According to Samantha, two of the robbers said almost nothing. They just grunted a couple of times. But the leader said enough for Sam to note his accent, although she didn't recognize it as being Kentuckian at the time. She naturally knew it was Southern but couldn't quite place it with a more definitive location because his accent seemed to have traces of numerous South-eastern states. But when she heard those women talking at the Derby, she knew he had to have come from that same area while he was growing up."

  "That's interesting. Any other ideas, Lieutenant Finn?"

  "No, that's all." Shaking his head slightly, he said, "These guys were pros."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "They were in and out and left no trace. No fingerprints, no stray human hairs, no nothing."

  "It's possible they're professional criminals. But they've never pulled another bank job, as far as we know."

  "Perhaps they were picked up for another crime and have been incarcerated."

  "That's always a possibility. If that's the case, we want to find them before they get out and resume their life of crime. Well, I guess I'd better get to work before the bank closes. That's going to be my next stop. Thanks for your insights, Lieutenant. I'll check back with you before I leave town. Nice meeting you."

  "Likewise, Special Agent James. I hope you can find something that's been overlooked. Good luck."

  "Thanks, Lieutenant."

  As I drove towards the bank, I thought about the new evidence. If I could spin it right, it might give me the opening I needed to identify the perps. No, I thought, it's still too slim.

  The bank, like so many these days, was located in an open strip mall, but it was a standalone building near the edge of the property. On one side was a teller's window for drive-up convenience, while the other side was windowless and used for parking.

  It reminded me of the first bank robbery I'd investigated because the street behind the bank was just open land. Not that a few eyewitness neighbors here would necessarily have been able to add anything that wasn't already known.

  After scouting the area around the bank and matching the surroundings with what I'd seen in the gizmo, I entered the bank. Along the right side was a standard bank-style, chest-high counter with teller-access openings about five feet apart, so I headed to the left where four office-style desks were located. The woman at the first desk smiled and said, "Can I help you, sir?"

  I took out my ID and showed it to her as I said, "I'd like to see the branch manager or whoever is in charge today."

  "One moment, please." She picked up the phone, pressed a button, then said, "Mrs. Newberry, there's an FBI man here,
and he'd like to see you."

  The woman nodded and then put the receiver down. Looking up at me, she said, "Mrs. Newberry is with a depositor. If you'll have seat, she'll be with you in a few minutes." She gestured towards a small informal seating area with four comfortable chairs.

  As I sat down to wait, I scanned the bank and checked out the staff and the customers waiting in line. The most dangerous-looking customer was a man of about sixty, wearing stained and worn bib-overall jeans and ankle high boots caked with something that looked like mud at first. I pegged him as a pig farmer.

  "Are you the FBI man?" I heard from a few feet to my left. I looked up and saw an attractive woman of about forty-five. She was wearing a grey, two-piece business suit with slacks.

  As I stood up and moved closer to her, I extended my hand and said, "Special Agent Colton James, Mrs. Newberry."

  She took my hand and shook it lightly, then said "And how can I help the FBI today?"

  "I'm investigating the robbery that you folks had awhile back."

  "And how can I help?"

  "I was wondering if you might have remembered anything you perhaps overlooked during your past interviews."

  "No, nothing I'm aware of."

  "And your staff?"

  "No one's mentioned remembering anything that wasn't reported during their interviews."

  "I see. Would it be possible to speak privately with Samantha Hutton?"

  "Samantha? Why?"

  "Just part of my follow-up investigation. Is she here today?"

  "You don't know what she looks like?"

  "I've never met her. Is there a reason why I shouldn't speak with her?"

  "Uh, no. You just caught me off guard."

  "Is she here?"

  "Yes."

  "Is there a place where we can speak in private?"

  "We have a small conference room in the rear just past my office."

  "That would be perfect. Would you send her in, please?" Without waiting further, I headed for the rear of the bank and turned into the room just past the one that said 'Mrs. Newberry – Branch Manger' on the door. I took a seat at the conference table and waited.