“I’LL SEE IF THE CAMERA PICKED UP anything,” Yuri said. “You call the police, Cameron. And, Gretchen, check to see if anything else is missing.”
“Don’t worry, Gretchen,” I said. “I’ll just say there was a burglary and that we are in the process of looking around to see what’s been taken. When they get here, just stick to the facts, what you heard and that you were scared because you were alone with your son. They will understand why you ran away, even if that’s all you tell them.”
“But they went through my files and my desk. Isn’t it obvious that they were looking for something specific?”
“They could have been looking for money or more electronics. I don’t know. But you have to decide which is more important, getting some fingerprints or diverting attention away from what they did to your office. Your call. But make up your mind quickly.”
Gretchen went off to look at the rest of the house and decide what to say about why they might have searched her office while I called the police. They asked if anyone was in danger, and when I said “no” they informed me it would be about twenty minutes before they could get someone there. When I hung up, I wondered if I’d told the truth. Gretchen might be in danger, depending on whether whoever took her materials considered her a sufficient threat to want her out of the way. But the situation was way more complicated than that given her indecision about how much she wanted to reveal about the possible reason for the break-in.
Meanwhile Yuri was playing back the feed from the camera. “Damn,” he said. “The thief obviously didn’t know the camera was there, but this guy in the hoodie must have a guardian angel. There isn’t one shot of his face.”
“Let me see.”
Yuri replayed the footage for me. “The kids had the angle wrong for catching a burglar, didn’t they?”
“Well, they didn’t anticipate needing to see someone’s face. They just wanted to catch the cat in the act. They would have done that.”
“So, all we can tell is that there was one male, normal build, probably normal height who owns a dark hoodie and wears gloves – at least when searching a house. No logos on his clothes, no tattoos on the square inch of jaw the camera caught when he checked out the refrigerator. That doesn’t narrow it down much, does it?”
“I’m afraid this isn’t going to help the police at all. Although they are probably going to wonder if the thief was looking for drugs in the freezer. Do you think he thought she’d hide her notes there?”
Gretchen returned. “Well, that rips it. Theo’s laptop, notepad and cell are gone. The bastard. He didn’t need to take Theo’s stuff too.”
“Don’t worry,” Yuri said. “Kids lose electronics all the time. He’ll probably be psyched to buy all new stuff.”
“I hope so. Theo loves his technology.”
Ten minutes later two police officers arrived. By then Gretchen had straightened up her office and packed overnight bags for her and Theo. Since the thief had been wearing gloves, there was no need for them to check for fingerprints. Gretchen did, however, show the officers the image that had been caught on camera. Like us, they didn’t think it would be of much help.
Yuri and I had gone through the house again looking for anything that might give us some clues about the identity of the intruder, but we hadn’t found anything. The younger female officer told us that there had been a lot of robberies in the area of late. “Kids looking to pick up some easy cash. There’s always a market for computers and phones.”
“But don’t most of those kinds of robberies happen during the day when they think no one’s home?” I asked. The minute the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. We wanted the police to think it was a simple robbery. On the other hand, we also wanted them to make some effort to find whoever did it. “I’m just saying, it could have ended badly.” Hint, hint. Be a little more thorough than you might ordinarily be.
When one of the officers noted the time discrepancy between when Gretchen said the robbery took place and how long it took to report it, Gretchen explained that her first thought was to get her son out of the house. That she had called once she knew he was safe. That seemed to satisfy the officers. In fact, one of them said, “You were smart. It’s usually not a good idea to confront a criminal. Things can escalate pretty fast.”
They left with a list of items stolen and a warning to make sure all of the doors and windows were locked. We left shortly after the police did, making sure all of the doors and windows were locked. Not that we thought it would make any difference. It was definitely a case of locking the barn door after the horse was gone. And there wasn’t another horse to lock up.
Back at my place we decided to have more tea before trying to sleep. Yuri complained about my tea selection, said I needed something more robust, not wimpy herbals. I handed him a box of Irish breakfast tea, a bag of Tazo Awake, and some loose-leaf Russian Caravan with an infuser spoon. “Take your pick, tough guy.”
“Someone needs to stay alert,” he said, then added, “Did I mention I’m going to hang out on your couch? We can go to work together. Gretchen, you can work from our office tomorrow. Until we know a little more about who broke into your home.” It sounded like the plan was final, like we had no say. But I wasn’t about to protest. The more I thought about it the more worried I was that Gretchen might still be a target. They couldn’t know if she had another back-up somewhere. Or what information she had in her head.
“Do you think it’s safe for Theo to go to school?” I asked, thinking out loud.
“We could have your mother take the kids tomorrow,” Yuri said. “Once they’re there, it’s probably okay.”
I had a vision of Mom taking on a pair of attackers dressed in dark hoodies, her armed with a sharp tongue and a couple of karate moves learned in a class she had taken last year. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.”
Yuri sipped his tea. “Maybe to be safe we ought to have Theo come with us tomorrow.”
“We can’t hide forever,” Gretchen said.
“Just for a few days. Until we see what the police find and we have a chance to think this through.”
It was settled. Irish breakfast was manly tea. Gretchen and Theo would come to the office with us tomorrow. And we would all be able to function normally after about three hours of sleep. If any of us could sleep after what had happened.
Actually, I think Yuri was asleep within minutes after he laid down on my sofa with a pillow and a blanket. We could hear him snoring softly as we headed for bed. “If you stay tomorrow night, you can have Mara’s bed,” I told Gretchen. “She can sleep upstairs.”
“Maybe I’ll be able to go home tomorrow,” Gretchen said, sounding doubtful and extremely tired. I gave her an old nightgown and she slipped into bed next to Theo while I went down the hall and climbed into the lower bunkbed in Jason’s room where I spent the rest of the night worrying about what was going to happen next.
The next morning Mara was surprised to see Yuri, Gretchen and Theo at the breakfast table. She had slept through all of the excitement. Yuri was already on his second cup of coffee, chatting with Mom as though his being there was the most normal thing in the world. Jason was obviously delighted to have his friend staying with him, but Theo was more subdued. Even so he made quite the case for going to school rather than going to work with us.
“Hey, you’ll be in the pit with a bunch of detectives, isn’t that cool?” Yuri said. I wasn’t at all sure P.W. was going to be thrilled about having Gretchen and Theo in the office, but Yuri made such a strong pitch to Theo that Jason ended up wanting to come along too. I had to promise that sometime in the not too distant future, he could come to work with me. Mom was definitely not thrilled by the prospect, but she held her tongue. You didn’t display family discord in front of others. I wondered if she would refrain from putting articles up on my refrigerator while Gretchen was staying with us. Maybe another magnet would appear so she could put up a separate set of articles for Gretchen. Gretchen was, after all, also a single mother, although in an acceptable profession.
We all got up to go at the same time, bussing our dishes, but leaving the clean-up for Mom. As the others filtered out, she held me back and asked how many there would be for dinner. I had to admit that I didn’t know. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll pick something up.”
Then she asked, “Is Theo in danger?” Again, I had to admit that I didn’t know. “It might be good if Yuri stayed with us until this is resolved,” she said. I wasn’t sure she even knew what “this” was, but I was glad she was okay with the idea and quickly agreed. “We could bring my Futon down and set it up for him in the living room if you want.”
“Thank you, Mom. I’ll let you know if we decide it’s necessary.” She was being a trooper, helpful without demanding to know all of the details. I truly appreciated her support, but I had no doubt there would be hell to pay down the road.
As we approached the office, Theo stopped in front of the small display window to the left of the entrance. The window held a single three-foot long shelf. On it was a stuffed bear wearing a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat and a coat with a cape across the shoulders He held a magnifying glass in his right paw. Above the toy sleuth was a flier that read: “For the man or woman who has everything—give them the gift of vigilance. Special rates for gift certificate detection services.”
The display attracted a lot of attention. Originally the bear had been wearing a beige trench coat and a red plaid hat. Quite a few people had taken the time to come in and point out it was NOT the right hat for Sam Spade or the right coat for Sherlock Holmes. Jenny, a part-time investigator and the bear’s creator, had admitted to me that the bear was her way of ribbing Will about his retro detective coat. Still, succumbing to popular demand, Jenny picked Sherlock over Sam Spade and had made a new outfit for the display. Unfortunately, most of the people it drew in wanted to buy a bear, not hire a detective.
“Come on,” Theo’s mother said, urging him to catch up.
As we went inside and headed toward the pit with Gretchen and Theo in tow, Blaine shot us a questioning glare. But he didn’t yell “stop.” Will, Adele, and Grant were already there. We introduced everyone and explained that Gretchen and Theo would be with us today. Everyone immediately seemed to accept the situation, as if bringing strangers into the office was an everyday occurrence. While Yuri got Theo set up at a computer on the spare desk, I took Gretchen with me to see P.W. When P.W. came around from behind her desk to shake Gretchen’s hand, it looked a little like Gretchen had taken a bite off the wrong side of the mushroom. P.W. towered over her. Her brown vertically striped pants suit accentuated her height, whereas Gretchen’s casual clothes made her seem not only petite but young and vulnerable.
When we explained that someone had broken into Gretchen’s home and had stolen research materials she’d been gathering for a potentially explosive article about a local politician, P.W. graciously said that Gretchen and Theo were welcome to spend the day at Penny-wise. I’d encouraged Gretchen to tell P.W. more about why she might be a target, but Gretchen didn’t offer any further details, and P.W. didn’t press for more information.
“Once you have Gretchen and Theo settled in, I would like to talk with you and Yuri,” P.W. said as we got up to leave.
Fifteen minutes later Yuri and I were seated across from P.W. “Are there some things you need to fill me in on?” P.W. asked. “About your activities, not anything Gretchen wants to keep to herself.”
It was time to unload about a few things. I gave P.W. an update on the threat from Randy Mann, and Yuri told her about the victim’s involvement with a group of protesters trying to stop the oil companies from doing more direct business in the State. “It’s looking more and more like Norcross was spying on the Mann campaign,” Yuri concluded. “If we knew what he had uncovered so far we might know why someone felt threatened enough to eliminate him.”
“Do you think Bobby Mann knows what his brother Randy is up to?” P.W. asked.
“For some reason, I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s more likely he’s Randy’s pawn, going along with the plan because he’s ambitious and is used to being manipulated by his well-to-do family.”
“Do you think Randy Mann could be behind the burglary at Gretchen’s?” The question was P.W.’s indirect way of acknowledging that she guessed at least the general nature of what Gretchen was working on. By not asking for more details, we would be able to maintain the illusion that Gretchen and Theo were in the office because I was doing a favor for the mother of my son’s friend.
“It seems unlikely to me. I mean, Randy Mann could have local connections that tipped him off to what she’s working on, but he seems more like the strong-arm and bribery type to me.”
Yuri said, “Look, I know we are trying to respect Gretchen’s right to keep what she’s been working on to herself, but my investigator instincts tell me it’s related to the same things Norcross was looking into. So big oil and the Mann campaign are at the center of this mess. I got the names of a couple of Norcross’s university friends from Dr. Benson, the prof I had a drink with last night. I say we talk to them and see if we can find out more about what Norcross was up to and if he mentioned anything to them that might point us in the right direction.”
“The police may consider that crossing the line into their murder investigation,” P.W. said. She frowned and looked at the cigarette in the copper ashtray on her desk, but she didn’t reach for it. “Have you talked with Detective Connolly about any of this?”
“That’s on our agenda for today,” I said.
“Then start there.” It was as close as P.W. ever came to giving a direct order about how to handle an assignment in progress.
“Since Gretchen doesn’t want us to tell anyone about the story she’s working on, that makes it difficult.” I said.
“Tell him about what we’ve been hired to do by Bobby Mann and let him know about the ‘visit’ from Randy Mann. And explain that you’re not trying to interfere with the police investigation of the murder but that we have still another client with overlapping interests. You don’t have to be more specific.” She raised an eyebrow. “Gretchen isn’t technically a client, but I don’t see how she can feel comfortable going home until we better understand the situation. And I fear that you two may also have placed yourselves in jeopardy. Although I have confidence in Major Crimes, I believe it is necessary to continue your line of inquiry. Keeping as low a profile as possible, of course.”
“Thank you,” Yuri said.
“And if you need help from any of the others, just ask. This is a priority.”
I called Detective Connolly from the tiny conference room we refer to as “the closet” and put Yuri on speaker. I told him about being hired by the Mann Campaign and about Randy Mann waiting for me in the alley behind my home. “He made me feel uncomfortable, but he was right—we weren’t hired to investigate a murder. But now we have another client, and there may be some overlap between what she wants us to look into and some activities Brian Norcross was involved with. We thought you should know.” Referring to Gretchen as a client seemed like a reasonable exaggeration to justify our actions. I just hoped we didn’t run into a wall of conflict of interests as we poked around in the complicated mess of potentially connected events.
“I assume you don’t want to tell me the name of your new client.”
“No. And I assume you don’t want to tell us where you are on the investigation of the murder.”
“So you can put it in your report to Randy Mann?”
“Well, I guess I would have to report on anything relevant.”
“You’ll have to settle for what you see on the news. You know I can’t comment off the record on an on-going investigation.”
“Of course.”
“I do, however, expect you to call me if you come across anything connected to our murder investigation.”
“Of course.”
“Then we are in agreement. Just one more thing—”
“What’s that?”
“You two should be careful. You may be poking a hornet’s nest. And hornets can sting.”
“I appreciate the analogy,” I said. “We’ll try to keep our distance from any hornet’s nest.”
“You get the idea. I just want you to be aware of what you might be getting into. And don’t say ‘of course’ again. I get it that you are trying to appear cooperative.”
I couldn’t help myself, “Of course,” I said one last time, but with a hint of sarcasm.
“Stay in touch,” Detective Connolly said with feeling, ending the call.
“I told you,” Yuri said. “The man likes you.”