Chapter 155: Is This Already a Robbery?
Saturday, April 15th.
The shadow of the Soviet Union's space launch still loomed over America.
However, after the White House, NASA, and a host of experts who seemed to appear out of nowhere spoke repeatedly to the media, the public's excitement had somewhat subsided compared to the previous two days.
The panic was being dispelled.
...
Two o'clock in the morning.
A light drizzle began to fall.
Two shadowy figures moved through the darkness, braving the rain. They slipped along the wall into the parking lot of the Sunset Motel.
They hunched their bodies, crouched low, weaving between cars, finally stopping next to a Plymouth Fury.
The car had a Maryland license plate and appeared to be well-maintained.
Linda Susan Parker took a stolen wire hanger from her coat and gently poked Gary William Mitchell, who was in front of her.
"Hurry, Gary, I feel like someone is watching us."
Her body trembled slightly, whether from cold or nervousness was unclear.
She was wearing a red polka dot dress and short leather boots, with work pants underneath her dress, an outfit that seemed a bit too cool for the weather.
Gary took a deep breath, trying to appear calm.
"No one's watching, everyone's asleep."
He took the hanger, straightened one end with feigned expertise, bent the other end into a hook, and carefully inserted it into the gap at the top of the old Plymouth's car window.
In the darkness, his hands trembled slightly as he fumbled to hook the connecting rod of the car door lock.
Linda nervously looked around. The monotonous sound of raindrops hitting the awning sounded like thunderclaps in her ears.
With a soft click.
Gary pulled hard, and the car door opened.
The two quickly got into the car.
Linda settled into the passenger seat, her breathing shallow. She kept her gaze fixed on the motel entrance. Gary lifted the plastic cover under the steering wheel and, using the faint light of distant neon signs, found the ignition wires.
He stripped the insulation with his mouth and tried to connect the two copper wires.
His hands were a bit stiff, like a chicken foot frozen for twenty years.
The first time he failed, a spark flashed.
He took a deep breath and quickly glanced at Linda beside him.
Linda was still nervously looking around, as if a group of people would emerge from the darkness at any moment and catch them red-handed.
Gary wiped the drops of water from his forehead, unsure if it was rain or sweat, calmed himself, and tried again.
This time, the two copper wires connected steadily.
The entire car seemed to light up for a moment, and then the engine let out a dull roar.
He breathed a sigh of relief, looked at Linda again, a proud expression on his face.
The two looked at each other in the darkness, and after a moment of silence, they both chuckled.
Gary put the wires back, got into the driver's seat, shifted into gear, and the Plymouth sped away like a rocket.
Linda gripped the seatbelt tightly, her eyes filled with admiration for Gary.
The car drove onto the road and quickly disappeared into the night.
Two thirty in the morning.
Due to the rain, the road was empty, with hardly any vehicles in sight.
A black Plymouth Fury sped past.
A moment later, the Plymouth drove back, stopping in front of a 7-Eleven convenience store not far from the intersection.
This was a franchised store.
7-Eleven primarily operated from "seven in the morning to eleven at night," but some roadside franchised stores operated twenty-four hours.
This particular 7-Eleven franchised store was located in a somewhat secluded area, and at this time, it was the only one lit up, as if silently beckoning.
The Plymouth stopped for a moment before driving off again, turning a corner ahead and entering a dark alley.
Gary and Linda got out of the car.
Linda pulled out a red polka dot silk scarf to cover her face, while Gary took out a gray cotton bandana to cover the lower half of his face. After their final checks, they rushed towards the convenience store.
The clerk was dozing at the cash register. At the sound of footsteps, his head jerked up. Before he could fully process what was happening, the cold muzzle of a gun hit his head.
The clerk's body tensed, then relaxed.
He slowly raised his hands, his head almost drooping to his chest, then slowly stood up, backed away, and turned to face the wall.
In the early morning, the rain intensified.
The agitation caused by the Soviet Union's space launch seemed to be largely dampened by the rain.
Theodore, Bernie, and Billy Hawke met with Detective O'Malley at the Fourth Precinct and then traveled together to Maryland.
As they approached the Maryland state line, Detective O'Malley used his walkie-talkie to contact the Maryland State Trooper.
The State Trooper informed them that a robbery had occurred on Rodney Road earlier that morning.
The robbed establishment was a 7-Eleven convenience store.
According to the statement taken from the clerk by the patrol officer in charge of the case, the robbers took a total of eighty-nine dollars in cash, six bottles of Coca-Cola, and four cartons of Chesterfield cigarettes.
Bottled Coca-Cola cost five cents a bottle, and Chesterfield cigarettes were thirty cents a pack.
In this robbery, the 7-Eleven convenience store lost a total of one hundred and one dollars and thirty cents.
This amount was obtained assuming the clerk's testimony was completely truthful and untainted.
Usually, in such robbery cases, clerks would more or less inflate the reported amount.
For a robbery case, one hundred and one dollars and thirty cents is a very, very low figure, even lower than the amount stolen in the first post office robbery case that Theodore and Bernie handled in D.C.
A regular D.C. patrol officer's weekly wage was around one hundred and twenty dollars.
The robbery occurred between two and three in the morning. After the robbers left, the clerk called the police.
Due to the rain, road conditions were not very good, and patrol officers arrived at the scene two hours later.
After briefly taking the clerk's statement, they quickly left.
The entire process of handling the police report did not exceed twenty minutes.
The patrol officers did not take this robbery seriously.
The main reasons were that there were no injuries and the stolen amount was not large.
Even the 7-Eleven convenience store clerk himself was not very enthusiastic about recovering the stolen money or apprehending the robbers.
The patrol officers treated this strange robbery case as a topic of conversation, discussing it with their colleagues on the idle channel after their shift.
This was overheard by the State Trooper who was waiting to meet with Theodore and his group.
The State Trooper felt that this robbery case met the requirements Bernie had mentioned yesterday, so he contacted Theodore, asking if they wanted to go to the robbed convenience store to take a look.
After Theodore inquired about the address, he changed his destination.
The robbed 7-Eleven convenience store was located less than a hundred yards east of the intersection of Rodney Road and 37th Street NE in Maryland.
This place was a bit remote, and it was entirely thanks to the State Trooper's directions over the walkie-talkie that Theodore and his team were able to arrive smoothly.
When they arrived, the State Trooper had already been in the convenience store for a while.
Seeing the Chevrolet and the D.C. Fourth Precinct police car parked outside, the State Trooper came out with an umbrella to greet them.
Theodore asked about the situation at the scene, but the State Trooper just shook his head.
He had arrived more than twenty minutes earlier than Theodore's group, but by the time he got there, the diligent clerk had already mopped the floor spotless and wiped the cash register until it shone.
The shelves had also been restocked, full and neatly arranged.
There was no sign that a robbery had taken place.
The group entered the convenience store. The clerk emerged from behind the counter, his posture stiff and awkward. He seemed to have already learned from the State Trooper that these visitors were police and FBI. His eyes darted between them uncertainly.
Theodore quickly surveyed the convenience store.
The interior space of the convenience store was not large. With so many people inside, it even seemed a bit crowded.
Just as the State Trooper had said, there was no sign that a robbery had occurred.
The convenience store windows were not broken, the shelves were not knocked over, there were no scattered goods on the floor, and the clerk didn't even have a scratch.
Bernie asked the clerk about the details of the robbery.
According to the clerk, there were no customers due to the rain, so he had dozed off at the cash register.
Around two in the morning, he heard footsteps, and before he could even lift his head, a gun was pressed against it.
"It was a shotgun."
The clerk was certain. "The barrel was sawn off, and it had some burrs."
Saying this, he took off his hat, parted his sparse hair, and revealed the scalp on top of his head.
There were a few faint red scratches there.
After showing Theodore and the others, the clerk put his hat back on.
"I wanted to grab the gun under the counter, but it was too late."
"I could only follow the robber's instructions, stand up, and face the wall."
Theodore asked the clerk, "Was it just one person?"
The clerk shook his head, recalling, "Two, it should have been a man and a woman."
"The one holding the gun was the man, and there was another woman responsible for the robbery."
When he mentioned the robbery, the clerk seemed to recall the amount stolen, and his expression became a bit strange.
Theodore glanced at him and asked, "How did you know it was a man and a woman?"
The clerk was silent for a moment.
"I heard footsteps, it sounded like high heels."
"It couldn't have been a man wearing high heels, could it?"
"And the woman also spoke."
"The male robber urged her to take the money, and she responded with a woman's voice."
Bernie asked the clerk if the voice sounded very young.
The clerk nodded, then quickly clarified:
"I'm not very sure, I was scared out of my wits at the time."
He emphasized, "They were pointing a gun at me! They could have killed me at any moment! How could I have been in the mood to listen to voices!"
"Even if Marilyn Monroe was behind me, I wouldn't have recognized her."
He seemed to be reliving the fear, and he shivered as he spoke.
Bernie then asked him about the content of the robbers' conversation and the overall process of the robbery.
The clerk just shook his head, saying he was very nervous at the time, completely focused on whether he would survive, and didn't pay much attention.
Theodore asked him if he had seen the robbers' appearance or what they were wearing.
The clerk repeatedly shook his head, pointing his hand outward.
"How could I dare to look at their faces? What if they silenced me?"
"This place is so remote, by the time someone found out, I'd probably be stinking."
"After the gun was pressed against my head, I kept my head down and didn't dare to look at them."
He then felt the cash register, hesitated repeatedly, and then moved a radio, revealing several fresh scratches underneath for everyone to see.
"These should have been carved by the robbers."
These scratches were not in the previous patrol officer's report and should have been newly discovered by the clerk while cleaning after the patrol officers left.
The scratches varied in depth, crooked and twisted, indicating they were carved in a hurry.
The State Trooper's eyes widened as he looked at the clerk, then turned to Theodore and the others, finally letting out a cold "heh" of laughter.
He had been in the store for more than twenty minutes, and the clerk hadn't mentioned it to him at all.
The few people carefully distinguished, and then vaguely recognized that it was carved with "B & C61."
Billy Hawke read it out, looking at Theodore. "B & C61? What does that mean? A code name?"
Both the State Trooper and Detective O'Malley, who had been active near the state border for many years, pondered for a moment after hearing this and then shook their heads, indicating that they could not immediately recall any organization or individual related to this code name in the vicinity.
Specific details would require returning to the police station to carefully review the archives.
Detective O'Malley had fallen silent since entering the convenience store. His eyes tracked Theodore's movements around the room. This robbery case indeed highly matched Theodore's analysis.
But he was skeptical about the connection between this case and the car thief.
Theodore did not dwell on the symbols for too long. He walked slowly through the convenience store, carefully observing the environment inside.
Immediately to the right of the convenience store's entrance was the cash register, which was a long wooden counter, with very limited space behind it, only enough for one clerk.
On the wall behind the clerk was a cigarette rack, displaying various popular brands of cigarettes.
Chesterfield cigarettes were prominently displayed.
To the left of the entrance were shelves, on which were candies, milk, and other foods. Coca-Cola, as a national beverage hegemon, was naturally placed in the most conspicuous position.
He tried to reconstruct the robbery in his mind, then shook his head.
Over there, Bernie had also finished talking with the clerk, and Billy Hawke next to him was holding a camera, frantically taking pictures of the convenience store.
They tried to extract fingerprints, but when the fingerprint powder was sprinkled, it spread evenly and then flew away with a gentle blow, revealing no fingerprint marks at all.
The store had just been cleaned by the clerk. He had cleaned it very thoroughly.
Coming out of the convenience store, the rain was heavier than in the morning.
Theodore and Bernie got into the car one after another. Bernie reached toward the ignition key when the rear door swung open. Billy Hawke climbed in, shaking rain from his jacket.
He shook the rain off himself while explaining that he felt like he was in prison riding in the same car as Detective O'Malley.
No sooner had he finished speaking than the door on the other side also opened, and Detective O'Malley got in.
Billy Hawke shook his head vigorously, splashing water from his hair all over Detective O'Malley's face.
Detective O'Malley vigorously wiped his face, glared at him, and then directly asked Theodore:
"You think this was also done by the car thief?"
He looked serious. "I haven't seen a single piece of evidence connecting it to the car thief."
"You can't forcibly combine it with the stolen police car case. That won't work."
He was a bit worried, concerned that Theodore, being young and impetuous, would forcibly combine the cases.
Theodore looked back at him, asking in confusion, "When did I say I was going to combine the cases?"
Detective O'Malley opened his mouth, then nodded. "That's good."
After saying that, he turned his head and glared at Billy Hawke again, then got out of the car and left.
Bernie started the car and followed behind Detective O'Malley's car towards the State Trooper's post.
[End of Chapter]