Ockham's Razor: A Deductive Riddle

Chapter 15

The rain stopped sometime during the middle of the night. It was now less than 18 hours since Ian had received the note. In that time, Ian's concern over his involvement was ballooning.

It started the night before, when he started mentally rehearsing how he was going to brief his escape route to the Benefactor, Dean and Lauren. It played well in his head, but when he started to say it out loud, it sounded more and more like a real crime. He tried to resolve his own thoughts by applying Ockham's Razor to it. Two options. First, it is a real bank robbery. Despite his note saying don't take anything, Lauren and Dean may have gotten different notes, and he is now involved in a real robbery. Option two is that it is a test of a bank's security, but it is a small bank, in the middle of nowhere, only used by pensioners to manage their meagre funds. His assessment was not good.

Every time he determined a new factor to either of the options, he would reassess the situation. And he would equivocate between two possibilities. And equivocation never made Ian comfortable. Plus, there were factors that he could not rationalise, like the Benefactor's comfort that what they were doing was done for a moral purpose.

He felt that he was beyond the status of plausible deniability. He was too closely involved. He had figured out a solid escape route for a bank robbery. He was, almost certainly, walking into a trap. He did not know the law, but he would have to look up whether legal entrapment was at play here. He was not comfortable.

It did not help that he had spent last night into the early hours of this morning watching crime shows on television. COPS was a favourite under usual circumstances, but given the mood of the moment, he was unusually jumpy at the thought of the police. He hoped that his conscience could be put to rest in the next couple of days. The Benefactor had promised that the reason for this robbery, or apparent robbery, would become evident.

Ian talked to himself as he made his way down Broadway Avenue, along the south end of downtown. On a regular day, he would enjoy the beautiful architecture and the occasional glimpse of the Oxbow River just to his south. But this was not a regular day. The long and short of it is that he is being contracted to do a fake robbery on the bank. This was the only explanation that made sense. Why else was he given only two minutes to do their job, and yet be expected to take nothing from the bank? It had to be a test for the bank. By using outsiders, they could keep the test a complete secret. His head was swimming.

He kept walking down Broadway Avenue. It was a bit windy, but after all, this was Great Plains. The gusts proved to be quite strong, so he tucked his chin inside the collar of his jacket. The wind, blowing from due west, was chilly, but not unbearably so. As he was stopped at a stoplight, he took a quick look around. He was not looking for anything in particular, but rather, just doing his "chick radar" scan to see if there were attractive women around. Anything to get his mind off the notion that he was going to be a bank robber.

It was at this particular light that he saw something peculiar. Someone was watching him. He would have missed it. There was nothing unusual about the group of people where he was looking. There were about eight or nine people gathered by a bus stop. However, all but one were either inside or on the leeward side of the shelter trying to escape the brisk wind. There was one on the windward side. This, in and of itself, was not that out of the ordinary, except this woman would not take her eyes off Ian. It would be easy to think that she had the "thousand-yard stare" going with her eyes focussed in Ian's direction, but she was right there at the bus stop, a mere forty feet away, and there was no mistaking where her eyes were riveted.

She was dressed for the weather, and despite the extra layers, it was easy to see that she was a short, stout, older woman. She did not seem to have much of a neck, and her scowl looked like it was permafixed onto her face. It may have been in response to the weather, but Ian did not think so. She looked very much like a bulldog ready to chase a rabbit. And Ian felt like the rabbit.