The Ghost of the Past

Jewelry Store

"Have a great night, Armond." A well dressed middle aged woman waved to a gentleman in a three piece suit as she walked out the door of a large jewelry store. He smiled and locked the glass front door behind her before closing the metal security gates and locking them. From there he walked towards the back of the store and set the alarm, turned the lights

off and left for the night.

Several hours later that back door exploded inwards with debris, smoke and fire. Half a dozen men dressed all in black with balaklava rushed through the door with gym bags. They used expandable batons and baseball bats to smash glass cases and scooped up armloads of jewelry. One offender kicked down the door to the back office. For one minute they scooped as much as they could before they all turned and ran out the back door and jumped into an unmarked van. The van took off like a shot as soon as the door closed behind the last man.

Early the next morning the intelligence team met at the jewelry store. The area was a beehive of activity. The police had already set up barriers and the owner was sitting on a bench outside his store with his head in his hands. Hank Voight called his unit to stand away from the activity.

"We have been asked to take this case away from robbery for a very good reason. Follow me." Voight led them around the back of the building to where the thick security door had been blown off its hinges.

"Whoa." Jay Halstead's eyes opened wide at the destruction of the side of the building. "It looks like the door was taken out by an RPG, Sarg."

He went closer to the door and started to examine the destruction. Voight handed out assignments and the team got to work. Kevin Atwater and Adam Ruzek took the login information for the security cameras and went into the small office at the back of the store to download the recordings. Hailey Upton and Kim Burgess took the distraught owner aside to interview him.

"What time did you lock up last night, Mr Bettio?" Hailey asked, pulling out her notebook.

"Around eight oclock, as usual. My assistant Heidi went out the front door. I shut the security gates then set the alarm and locked the back door." Mr. Bettio explained quickly.

"And what time did the alarm company call you?" Kim followed up, noticing how devastated the owner appeared to be.

"About 2 am. When the alarm goes off the police are automatically called. I arrived back here around 230 am and the police were already in the store." Mr Bettio continued.

"Have you had any suspicious customers come through in the past few days? Maybe a single man who came in to look around but didn't buy anything? Anyone who may have raised your suspicions?" Hailey asked, tilting her head to the side.

"No, no one like that at all. I will give you my assistant Heidi's number. She deals more directly with the customers. I work more in the office, we deal in specialized jewelry, custom designs and higher end pieces. I also work with many clients privately to assist them in selling family heirlooms in confidence of course." Bettio explained.

"Do you have any of these special pieces right now?" Hailey raised an eyebrow at the owner.

"Oh dear! I do! I keep those pieces in a safe in my office! I need to go check if they got into it!" Mr Bettio was suddenly panicked as he realized what could have potentially been lost.

"We'll take you in, sir. We have officers in there right now going through your security footage." Kim turned and gestured for him to go ahead of her inside the store. Clearly the patrol officers had kept the owner from entering the store. He started to sob as they went through the doors and he saw the carnage of shattered glass in his showroom. Hailey gently guided him to the office where Adam and Kevin were working on the video. The office was a mess, clearly it had been quickly and violently searched by the robbers. Papers had been thrown off the desk, almost every drawer had been ripped out and dumped on the floor. Pictures had been ripped off the walls.

"I had a hidden safe put in when I first started taking such rare and valuable jewelry pieces. I'm the only one who knows the location and code." He went to his desk and opened the top drawer all the way. He took out a tray with pens, erasers and other stationary and set it on the desk. Hailey shut the door of the small office to prevent any unnecessary eyes from witnessing where the safe was. They heard a click from a secret lever in the drawer and a section of the L shaped desk popped up. The section was on silent rails and the owner raised it up higher, revealing a slender large box. They all looked away while Bettio put his code in before he fell back in his desk chair in relief. The box was full of very antique and ornate jewels.

"It looks like the crew knew there was more in the office but didn't know where to look." Hailey mused out loud. Bettio closed the safe and locked it before removing it from the hidden compartment. He pushed the desk back closed with a click and returned the stationary to the top drawer.

"I think it might be safer for me to lock these in my bank safety deposit box during the investigation." Mr Bettio mused to the intelligence team.

"I think I would agree. Kim, could you and a couple patrol officers escort Mr Bettio to the bank to ensure his safety?" Hailey suggested. Kim nodded as the store owner put the safe into a briefcase and handcuffed it to his wrist. She left the office with him.
"What have you found?" Hailey asked Adam and Kevin as she looked over their shoulders at the monitors.

"Take a look." Adam pressed play on the surveillance. The screen was divided into four sections showing the back door, front door, and one on each of the main display cases. At 0205 hours they watched an implosion and the back door flew inside, off its hinges. They watched the men enter and raid the displays and the one go into the office where there was no camera. They kept an eye on the timestamp. After exactly one minute they all immediately stopped what they were doing and left the store.

"Already have it saved on a drive. There's no camera in here but clearly the one who came into the office did a manual search." Kevin explained. "I'm pretty sure they knew there was something else to look for. But by reputation or inside man?"

"Or woman?" Hailey raised her eyebrow and nodded.