Ramsey believed it. She sighed. “You shop at the Ridge much?”
“All the time.”
“Not anymore,” said Ramsey. “Not this store.”
“I understand.”
“I’m guessing you’ve been caught before. Have you?”
“Not here, but yes, a few times. I only saw a judge once, though. That’s why I’m in therapy.”
“Well, I hope you come across that insight sooner rather than later. I’m not certain I did you a favor by not charging you.”
“Oh, you did. You did. I don’t want to lose my job.”
“What do you do?”
“Juvenile probation officer.”
15
It wasseveral days later that Ramsey saw Sullivan and had a chance to relate the story. She’d called the police out to the store when she arrived for the midnight shift and noted a red Ford pickup parked in the fire lane with an expired inspection sticker and a license plate covered by a plastic yellow Ridge shopping bag. She peeked under the bag, memorized the plate, and gave that information when she called it in. A muddy plate would have been less suspicious than a bright yellow bag, for God’s sake. It took all kinds, she supposed.
As bad luck would have it, she was still on the phone to the police when the pickup driver walked out of the store with five Ultra 4K Samsung TVs and loaded them onto his truck. By the time Sullivan arrived, the Ford was gone. Ramsey led Sullivan up to the office with the monitors and they watched the video together.
Ramsey mostly shook her head at the in-your-face audacity of the thief. She hoped she would never get over being astonished at the sheer gall of the people who walked off with merchandise as if they were entitled to it. “At least we have the license plate,” she said to Sullivan as he reversed the recording for the third time. “That helps, doesn’t it?”
Sullivan pointed to the man on the screen awkwardly pushing his overloaded cart. “Bad buggy wheel,” Sullivan said, chuckling. “See how the cart goes sideways when Drew’s trying to push it straight. He got a little greedy too. He should have left that fifth one on the shelf. I’m thinking he cleared out your inventory.”
Ramsey went to what was important to her. “Drew? So the license platedidhelp.”
Sullivan turned away from the screen and looked at her. “Yes and no. The truck belongs to one Oliver Mansfield. Since it wasn’t reported stolen, there are two possibilities. Either Mr. Mansfield doesn’t know it was taken, or he, or someone in his family, loaned it out. He might not know the use that was made of it. We’ll find that out later.”
Ramsey pointed to the man on the screen who was now loading the pickup. “What about him? You called him Drew.”
“Oh, yeah. About that. He’s Andrew Butterick. I went to school with him. Elementary through high school. He started a grade ahead of me and ended up a grade behind. That explains some things, doesn’t it?” “Does he live around here?”
“I think so. Easy enough to find out. I see him from time to time, but he could live across the river now or in PA. It’ll be no problem to pick him up. I’ll need the info on the TVs.”
“Sure. I can get you that. They’ll all have an inconspicuous number on them, too, that will identify this store, just in case he tries to say he got them somewhere else.”
“Good.” His radio crackled but nothing came of it. He leaned back in the comfortably padded desk chair while Ramsey moved some papers aside and sat on the monitor table. “Sorry I didn’t get here fast enough to catch him in the parking lot.”
“You couldn’t have. No one could have. He was jackrabbit quick. Aren’t you going to call dispatch?”
“In a moment. Don’t you have a report to write?”
She smiled. “In a moment. No night manager. Paul’s assistant called in with a migraine and there’s no replacement. We operate with a skeleton crew on this shift. I’m practically in charge.”
“Good grief.”
“Exactly,” she said wryly.
His gaze wandered over her face, though it was not without feeling the tug of her rich, chocolate brown eyes. Her mouth still hinted at her earlier smile. Her lower lip had a slight forward thrust. It made him want to gently bite it, lick it. That made him think about her neck and so he looked there. She had her hair pulled together in a loose pony and the tail fell over her shoulder and curled at the base of her throat.
“What?” Self-conscious, Ramsey pushed her fall of hair away from her neck so that it disappeared down her back.
“Nothing,” said Sullivan. “I like looking at you. Does it make you uncomfortable?”
