The Cases of George Alpha #3 - Stolen Spirits

Bank Robbery Victims

Reinvigorated by the hearty lunch and after contacting Westbrook Construction for an appointment, I decided to do some interviews with Freeheart victims coming to make a report.

In the warehouse Leroy used as a hideout we had found some of the stolen items, mostly from the last robbery. Unfortunately there was no way to tell who they belonged to, as they had all been jumbled together in wooden boxes.

The Freeheart Bank could tell us exactly how much bank cash was missing, but they could not give any information on the personal belongings that were stolen. Most of the space inside the big strongboxes was taken up by safe-deposit boxes, owned by individual customers. Each safe-deposit box had a unique number and a padlock, to which only the owner had the key. Access to a customer's personal box was entirely private, bank employees would only retrieve it and put it back, they did not know what was inside and could not open it.

The only information Freeheart had been able to give was the list of clients and the numbers of the boxes that they owned, so we needed the actual owners to come forward and give us the details if they wanted any hope of getting their property back.

On Sunday we had put out a call in the press, asking that any citizen fallen victim to one of the robberies would present itself to the police station with the necessary credentials. The next day so many people showed up that the queue ran up to the street, the entire precinct had taken turns in doing the interviews.

Five robberies, eleven strongboxes, 161 personal safe-deposit boxes... that was a lot of statements to take. I myself had seen no less than seventeen that Monday, of which three had no proof of ownership but swore the key they held was to a padlock of one of the boxes, six claimed that a complete fortune had been inside their personal box - the details of which they could no longer remember, and only eight had really been able to provide a credible, detailed list of the contents. It was all a bit of a mess.

That afternoon, another seven people had registered themselves at the reception desk and were waiting on the hallway bench. I set myself up in interrogation room two to spend the rest of my day taking statements.

It was five o'clock by the time I fetched the last man. His name was Francis Ronfry and as I led him to the room, I thought he looked vaguely familiar.

'I apologize you had to wait that long, mister Ronfry,' I shook his hands, 'I am detective George Alpha, please be seated.'

'Yes, I know who you are, detective Alpha.'

I took a closer look, trying to recall where I had seen him before.

'You work at the court, don't you,' I suddenly recognized him, 'aren't you a judge?'

He nodded, 'Yes, you were called in front of my court as a city witness last year.'

'Right,' I remembered, 'the case about the woman beating her husband because he had been cheating with the neighbor's wife... and attacking me when I tried to arrest her.'

'Indeed.'

'Well, nice to meet again, sir, although I'd rather it were under different circumstances.'

'So would I, detective.'

'Mister Ronfry, I understand you are a victim of one of the Freeheart bank robberies, and you wish to report the stolen items?' He nodded. 'As we always ask first, can you please show me the bank token for your box.'

Every owner had a unique token with the safe-deposit box number on it, issued by the bank, it was the actual proof of ownership. His token numbered 10214 and I cross checked it with the list we had received. A box with that number was indeed registered to Francis Ronfry, at the Freeheart branch on Forty-forth Street, the last bank to be robbed.

'I think you might be in a spot of luck, mister Ronfry,' I said. 'We believe we managed to recover all the contents of the strongboxes from the last bank, so we should be able to get it all back to you.'

'That is good news, detective.' He looked relieved.

'Everything is still at the lab at the moment and unfortunately the thief did break open all the personal boxes, so we'll need to find a way to connect the right items to the right people. Could you tell me, what exactly was in your personal box.'

He shuffled uncomfortably in his chair, and hesitated. 'This is in the strictest confidence, yes?'

'Of course, sir. We understand the contents of a safe might be very sensitive, this information will only be shared with the lab and any other detectives directly involved with this case. Strictly need to know.'

He nodded, taking a couple of seconds before answering.

'Right,' he said, 'well, there was an old watch, recognizable by the initials ER engraved on the back.'

'That should make it easy to identify.'

'Yes. Then there was also the ring from my previous marriage. It has a big emerald in the center, and two smaller diamonds on both sides, the ring itself is made of gold.'

I wrote down the details of the ring in my notebook. I'd type it all up in the official report that same evening.

'Okay. I suspect we will find several rings, if we are not sure about which one is yours, we'll call you in to go through the items together. Was there anything else in your safe-deposit box?'

'There were also some... pictures.'

'Pictures?'

'Yes, photographs.'

'Okay, how many pictures are we looking for.'

'I think it was thirty or so.'

'Alright, thirty pictures. Can you give me anything more we can use to identify these pictures?'

He swallowed loudly, 'They were pictures of me, and my previous wife.'

'Right, two people on it, a man and a woman.'

'And some other people.'

'Okay.'

'Naked.'

'Oh.' A photoshoot?

'Actively... naked.'

'Ooh.' Nope, a party.

I needed a moment to compose myself.

'These... other people... on the pictures. Would these also happen to be people of a certain renown, like yourself?'

'Yes.'

'Ah. A sensitive matter then.'

Judge Ronfry nodded bleakly.

'On the off chance that we find a lot of similar pictures,' I tried to work my head around the question, 'is there anything else you can give me by which we can recognize the ones that are yours, perhaps without having to explicitly identify the individuals on it...'

I saw him doubt.

'Can you maybe tell me how many people in total were on them?' I encouraged him.

'Um, fifteen, but they are not all on every picture.'

A BIG party.

'Okay, up to fifteen people. Anything else?'

'Well,' he mumbled after a moment, 'it's possible there might also be some anim--'

The door to the room slammed open and Teri poked her head inside, looking angry, 'George, we need you, now!'

I told the judge I'd be right back, hurried outside and closed the door behind me. 'What is it, Teri?'

'It's Leroy Barker! He just shot Rutger and then killed himself!'