In the Line of Fire Page 2

  “Okay.” Ashley stood and let her mother hold her jacket while she shrugged into it. Childlike, she turned back toward me. “I can’t shake this bad feeling, Laura. I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe here again.”

  I hugged her. Not exactly protocol, but then again, we’d been high school friends. “Take it one day at a time,” I told her. “And if you remember anything else about what happened here today, anything at all, please call me anytime.”

  Ashley gave me a hug and then walked out of the bank with her mother’s arms around her shaking shoulders. Even if she didn’t reach out to me, I would call her tomorrow to see how she was doing.

  While Z ducked into the restroom, I quickly compiled my notes and ran them by the boss, Lieutenant Omak. Tall and trim with graying hair around his temples and posture that pointed to time in the military, Omak was fair and equally demanding of all his cops.

  “I want to get a BOLO out, and here’s what we know,” I told him. The sooner other law enforcement agencies could “Be On the Lookout” for our robber, the better the chance we had of apprehending him quickly.

  Lieutenant Omak looked over my description of the perpetrator. “Keep it short. Limited to physical description,” he told me, then went back to the security camera images.

  Pacing the perimeters of our crime scene, I got on the phone with Officer Perry Lister back at the precinct and made sure the alert went out.

  I spent the next half hour helping the response team interview the customers and staff.

  I learned that the blonde woman in the workout clothes, Sidney Maynor, had passed the robber when he’d been heading out of the bank. “The only remarkable thing was that he pushed out the door as I was approaching, and he didn’t hold the door for me. I was like, thanks a lot, dude, but when I saw him struggle to skirt around a patch of ice, I let it go. Thank God. If I’d confronted him, I might be dead now.”

  “Did you see that he had a gun?” I asked.

  “I heard he pointed it at one of the tellers.” Sidney had not seen his gun—no one had—but rumor of it had traveled quickly among our witnesses.

  “Please … just tell me what you personally observed about him,” I told her. “Did you get a look at his hands? His face?”

  She glanced up at the ceiling and gave this some thought. “Hands? No. I think he was wearing gloves, but I did get a peek at his face, and he was smiling. Kind of smug and satisfied and young. Way too young to have long gray hair. He didn’t run. Maybe because he was walking with a limp. Oh, and I don’t think those were prescription glasses. He stripped them off and held them swinging in one hand as he disappeared down the street. Is any of that helpful?”

  I assured her that every detail mattered as I filled in a report with her statement. The image of a man in disguise with a fake gun in his pocket was beginning to take shape as I completed the paperwork and added it to the stack Z was collecting.

  After that I joined Omak and the head teller, a fortyish blonde woman with puffy red eyes named Kirsten Mitter. I was curious to see what they were looking for. One thing I did know was that right off the bat a timeline for the robbery would need to be established, and organization was one of my cornerstones. With the narratives from the witnesses and the information caught on camera, we’d get a solid time frame. Kirsten was a master at navigating through footage from different cameras. I tried to join in unobtrusively, taking notes on the video and culling time stamps from Omak’s notes. As a rookie detective, I still had lots to learn, and it was fascinating to watch Omak analyze the video. Omak observed the suspect’s uneven gait and pointed out his interaction with the little boy. “He’s trying for a high five with the kid. At least he’s not completely heartless.” The high five was left hanging—a high five with his right hand, I noted.

  “See that?” Omak had Kirsten freeze on an image of the suspect writing at the table holding deposit and withdrawal slips. “What do you get from that, Mori?”

  “He’s right-handed,” I said.

  Omak rubbed his knuckles against the dark shadow on his jaw. “True. I didn’t catch that. I’m thinking that he’s touching the counter, only one glove on. Let’s make sure we focus on lifting prints from that surface as well as the counter by the teller.”

  “Got it,” I said, turning around to make sure the technicians were still here. “I’ll talk to them, make sure they pick up everything they can from those areas.”

  I went to the edge of the cordoned-off area and called to the technician, Tonya Miller, who moved cautiously through an area spattered with white and black dust. She wore coveralls over her clothes, and her thin dreadlocks were tied back with a bright-red scarf. Her paper booties whispered as she made her way to me, navigating around three numbered markers on the floor indicating where samples had been collected.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Not bad. I haven’t worked a bank crime scene in years.”

  “Omak noticed on the bank video that the suspect made contact with the teller barrier and that counter where he wrote the note. You should prioritize any prints you find there.”

  “Will do. I lifted a few prints from the table that holds the deposit tickets, but since it’s a public space, they could belong to anyone. It does help to have the shiny surfaces. That smooth stone countertop really grabs prints.”

  I nodded toward the markers. “Find something of interest?”

  “Five hairlike fibers.”

  The tiny hairs at the nape of my neck tingled at the news. A find that might help us build a case. It was one of the things I liked most about police work—puzzling things out. Second only to having a way to connect with people and help them. In my short time on the job, I’d learned that most things a cop did were in the name of service, not enforcement. Sure, it was satisfying to nab the culprit, but the stories that unfolded and minor problems that could be soothed or patched up in the course of an investigation kept me perennially intrigued with my job.

  “Two of the fibers were white, more than five inches,” Tonya added. “That matches the description of your perp, right?”

  “It does.” I pointed to one of the markers. “And the robber was standing right there. He bent down to talk with a little boy waiting in line.”

  “Really?” Tonya glanced back at the spot. “I’ll make a note of that. We should know more when we get them to the lab, but it could bode well for your case.”

  “It could be instrumental in the case.” I tried to contain my enthusiasm as I thanked Tonya and turned away, feeling eyes on me. Cranston was watching from behind a post in the bank. Arms crossed, he wore that scowl of disapproval I had come to know when he’d been my field training officer a few months ago.

  Cranston could always be counted on for a sour response. What was his issue now?

  2

  I ignored Cranston’s scowl—after all, he wasn’t my boss—and returned to the corner cubicle to make notes as Omak and Kirsten reviewed the digital images. Half an hour later, with the important moves of the bandit documented, Omak worked with the bank manager to copy the video footage onto a disk to be used for evidence. I rolled my chair away from the computer terminal, tucked it under a desk, and stretched my spine. Close, technical work could be tedious, but it was all part of solving the puzzle.

  I found Z watching the operation—the technicians inside the crime tape, and the small conversation groups at the fringes— from a desk chair. “Are you hiding over here?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m right in plain view. I was just going over the witness list: bank employees and customers. Omak has released all witnesses, but a lot of them are hanging on. Looks like we’re about done here. You can always tell when the crime scene begins to resemble a frat party.” This was the old Z, the guy I was accustomed to: blunt and animated, with a hint of tartness.

  “Detective Mori, Detective Frazier …”

  A little thrill rippled through me when I heard my title. I hoped it didn’t show, because I’m really not an egomaniac, but my stomach fluttered whenever someone called me detective. Inside, I was still a little giddy about my promotion. After Z and I had worked together to solve the Lost Girls mystery just a month before, Lieutenant Omak had been instrumental in getting us promotions. Not everyone liked the idea of me being the youngest female to make detective in the history of Sunrise Lake, and I knew some on the force resented the promotion of a young black man like Z. Cops like Cranston and Brown grumbled about us under their breath, but I liked to think that was out of jealousy rather than racism. I’d done good work, and I would show them one way or another that I deserved to be a detective.

  “Let’s pull together what we’ve got here.” Omak said, switching his gaze from me to Z. His eyes lingered on my partner. “Detective Frazier, you look terrible. Coming down with something?”

  “Yeah, Detective, you look like you been rode hard,” Cranston chimed in, joining our group. “What gives? You got a tummy ache?”

  Z ignored Cranston. “Just running rough, Lieutenant. Didn’t sleep well last night.”

  Omak nodded. “I need to update the media in a few minutes,” he said, nodding toward the glass doors of the bank. Outside on the street, news vans and satellite trucks with lights and cameras had congregated. “Let’s huddle and figure out what details we can release. No mistakes this time.”

  Omak’s last comment had to be a dig at Cranston, who had taken heat for sloppy work on several high-profile cases lately. Maybe he’d been an effective cop when he was younger, but in the few months I’d known him, I’d gotten the impression he was trying to skate by until his retirement.

  “Detective Mori, I want you leading the field on this one. You’ll report directly to me.” Behind Omak, I saw Cranston frown. Not
that it was a competition, but many of the senior cops hoped to be assigned investigative cases, with the possibility of overtime pay and promotion to the level of detective. I wondered if Cranston had wanted this case, or maybe he was simply annoyed to see me rewarded with it. A champion of the old guard, Cranston wasn’t happy with the way the demographics of the department had changed in the twenty-five years he’d been on the job.

  “What do we have so far?” Omak asked.

  I squared my shoulders and got down to business. “We have statements from all witnesses. You approved the alert we put out,” I told Omak.

  “Can you repeat the perpetrator’s description, in case anyone here hasn’t heard it,” Omak instructed. He had his small black notebook out, probably checking details for the press conference.

  Going back to my notes on the BOLO, I reeled off the characteristics of our Oregon bank robbery suspect: white male, five feet ten; anywhere between 185 pounds and 220 pounds; Uncle Kombucha dark-blue baseball cap; navy-blue or black sweatshirt; faded jeans; white hair or possible wig; small black backpack; dark winter gloves; black-framed glasses.

  “And what’s our timeline?” Omak asked.

  “We have him coming into the bank lobby at five ten PM. We’re still working on the outdoor security images, but since it was dark at that time, the images are shadowed and grainy. He entered at five ten, paused at that table over there, and removed a glove to write a note on a deposit ticket. Forensics is trying to get prints from the paper and pen. He went to the first teller window at five thirteen. Ashley Earnhart was the teller. She’s twenty-four, local, graduate of Sunrise Lake High. She gave him the denominations he asked for from her cash drawer. Then, after he nodded to what she thought was a gun, she handed over ten thousand dollars from the safe below the counter. A weapon was never revealed. The security cameras have him leaving the bank at five seventeen. We think we have an image of him heading down Bonita Street, past the paint store on foot.”

  “Too bad the old coot didn’t slip on the ice patch out there,” Cranston said. “That would have made for a story.”

  “Cranston.” Omak shut him down. “Keep in mind, we don’t know if the old man persona is a disguise.”

  I ran through the other pertinent information as Omak made notes for his press conference. I recommended we keep the details of the note, the robber’s slight limp and his swollen hands out of the press, and Omak agreed. We would search for security footage from other businesses in the area, but most were not as security minded as a bank.

  I took a deep breath. What I had to say next was not easy, though it was probably obvious to everyone here.

  “Sir, I’m seeing some similarities between this crime and the Twilight Bandit.”

  In the silence that overtook our group of cops, Omak looked up from his notebook and focused his eyes on mine. I was on thin ice. No one liked to discuss the Twilight Bandit, a robber who had hit nine banks before a robbery had ended with the killing of a police officer three years ago.

  I swallowed hard, but pushed on. “Same time of day. The robbery happened after sunset, when visibility was low outside the bank. And the perpetrator appeared to be an old man, in his twilight years. Same MO. I’m just connecting the dots.”

  A flicker of tension shot across Lieutenant Omak’s face. His sister Franny Landon had been the police officer gunned down at the last Twilight Bandit robbery. I knew it might open up old wounds to bring up the unsolved case, but over the years the homicide and robberies had remained unsolved.

  “That was three years ago,” Cranston piped up. “Weren’t you still in middle school when that happened, Mori?”

  “It is kind of a stretch.” Z gave me a hard, strained look as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Plenty of perps wait for the cover of darkness, and bank robbers favor disguises. It’s circumstantial.”

  Omak flipped his notebook shut. “Thank you, Detective Mori, I’ve got what I need to address the media. We’re still in the early stages of this investigation, and we’ll proceed according to protocol.” He paused and looked around at all the other officers. “Officially, we are not drawing any similarities between this robbery and the Twilight Bandit. Everybody clear on that?”

  Everyone nodded as Omak turned and headed for the bank’s front door. You had to admire the way he carried himself, confident yet polite, as he stepped up to the lights and microphones. I could hear the clamor from reporters as they pelted the lieutenant with questions. Somewhere out there my roommate, Natalie, and her camera crew jockeyed for a good position. I hoped Natalie would get a chance to land a question in all that mayhem. Must be a slow news day, because even the Portland news crews were waiting for Omak’s remarks.

  Inside the bank on Bonita Street, the glass entryway doors and countertops were dusted with powder, some black as soot, some like a coating of flour. Officers and forensic technicians finished up their work and began packing their equipment. The mood had lightened now that the hard work of processing the crime scene had finished, and several groups of cops and bank employees stood around chatting.

  The bank manager, whom I had noticed milling around the crime scene, answering questions from detectives and comforting his employees, approached me. “Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be listening, but I heard you mention the Twilight Bandit. Do you think today’s robbery is connected?”

  “It’s a possibility we need to consider. I hope you can keep it to yourself. You’re the manager, right? I’m Detective Laura Mori.”

  We shook hands. Polite grip.

  “Martin Lopez.” Broad-shouldered with dark hair and a goatee that resembled a smudge on his chin, Lopez had a very tight demeanor, though personally I’d have been pretty keyed up if my place of business had just been robbed.

  “Not to butt in on your investigation, but I’ve seen the Twilight Bandit before.”

  “Really?”

  “I was a teller down the street at Lakeside Savings several years ago when old Twilight hit our bank, and tonight I noticed some similarities. Same height and body build, and the hair looked about the same. The robber appeared to be elderly, and he struck after dark, like all the others.”

  I studied Lopez, clean-cut and affable, a valuable potential witness. “Were you the teller who was robbed at Lakeside?”

  Lopez shook his head. “No, but it wasn’t busy when the Twilight Bandit came in, and I didn’t have any customers. I was finishing up some paperwork, and I looked up at him as he entered. Didn’t think anything of him at the time—just some old guy—but as he left, I noticed that the hair on the back of his head seemed pretty far off his neck. A wig, I figured. That made me wonder if the old guy look was just an act.”

  “Did you tell the police that?”

  “I did.” He frowned, crossing his arms. “But back then, no one seemed bowled over by my brilliant powers of observation.”

  “Well, I’m impressed that you remember. And I’d love to take a statement from you sometime this week. I’m sure I’ll have some other questions about your staff and typical bank procedures.” I handed him a card. “Do you think they’re the same guys, the Twilight Bandit and the robber today?”

  Lopez paused before answering. “It’s possible. This guy tonight seemed puffier than before, but a man can put on some pounds in three years.” He tugged on the lapels of his suit jacket. “I know I sure have.”

  I smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Lopez. You’ve been very helpful. We’ll get this all wrapped up in the next half hour so you can get the bank locked up and go home.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything else you need. I’m going to encourage the rest of my employees to head on home, unless you need them here.”

  “We’re good. We’ve gotten statements from everyone in the bank. And your staff should definitely go. People need to destress. But here.” I handed him a thin stack of business cards. “If you don’t mind handing these out. If anyone has any questions or recollections, I’d like to hear from them.”

  “I’ll make sure my people know how to reach you, Detective.” Lopez nodded then headed toward the back room.