Paint the town red

Chapter II

The work week went by unnoticed, as I spent most of the time dealing with the little things that I I was bothered to entrust. For example, a theft from a local jewelry store, which I investigated and resolved in just a couple of days. Why in a couple of days, if the case is as simple as a piece of cake? Because the records from the surveillance camera from the store weren't issued until after we got the warrant, and getting the warrant takes time.

On the one hand, I'm glad that we mostly have burglaries and robberies, not murders and serial killers on their killing spree – victims both there and there, but the fatal outcome in thefts is much less frequent.

I must say that the case turned out to be quite simple and quite common for our places: a young woman brought a middle-aged man to the jewelry store and began to beg him to buy her earrings; the man turned out to be not such a "money bag" which he pretended to be, and he couldn't buy the desired thing for his companion. So she took offense at him, turned around and demonstratively left the store, and he, using so-called "rush hour" in the store, decided to sneak the trinket, while the seller was distracted by another customer and didn't put the jewelry stand back in the display window.

According to the security footage, it wasn't exactly clear who stole the thing, because, again, the store was full of customers. But, putting 2 and 2 together, it became obvious that the thief was that "sugar daddy-wannabe". He accidentally showed his face to the camera, and then the facial recognition system worked and voilà - the perpetrator was identified. It wasn't difficult to find his whereabouts, because with a man's first and last name, we can easily find him and info about him in all available databases. Having received the address from the IT department, and half an hour later, I and a couple of policemen are already standing on the doorstep of the "fake sugar daddy's" apartment.

He rented a nice apartment. Apparently to impress a young woman and to meet her here while he's in Monaco. How did I know that he rented the apartment? Because on the salary of an ordinary office clerk from Germany it would hardly be possible to buy spacious apartments almost in the center of Monaco. Of course, only if he had not received a huge inheritance, or, well, not swindle with taxes - then he would have money for both apartments and earrings for his mistress.

During the interrogation of the criminal he gave the full information about his girlfriend, which led us to the discovery and return of the stolen jewelry to its owner. And a lover of that fake "moneybag" guy is now facing up to five years in prison for grand theft – the woman has good taste, because the earrings she liked were a decent price. So his vacation is obviously going to take a while, and he will get incredible impressions. And how happy will his boss be when he learns that his employee has become a criminal during his vacation and will be able to return to work after a relatively long time? If he ever has a place to go back to after that at all.

Towards the end of the working day, I filed the case in the archive, and when I returned to my office, there was already Frederick waiting for me and there was a young man with him - that was the same newcomer from the Netherlands. Max, if I'm not mistaken. We greeted each other, shook hands, and the boss briefly introduced us, as if we hadn't examined each other's dossiers before the meeting, and then left us alone in the office. I mean, I'm a pretty talkative guy, but now neither of us is trying to start a conversation, which is why there's this awkward silence in the office.

It is worth noting that in reality this young man looks much better than in the photo. Although I confess that in the photo he looks great. I caught myself staring at him again, so I nodded to myself and quickly walked up to the cabinet with paper maps, thereby pretending to be terribly busy looking for some important paper, but in fact hiding a little reddish cheek: an awkward moment at a first meeting is not exactly what I was hoping for. Actually, I wasn't expecting any awkwardness with him - we're partners, how awkward can it be? We are like Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams of the TV series "Hawaii 5-0" - partners who have to solve even the most difficult cases, and not stand in awkward silence in the office and feel strange tension between us.