“I’m not jumping that way. Not without evidence.”
“Depending on you to find me some if that’s what’s going on.”
Ramsey nodded once. “I’ll do my job, Paul. I’m getting a cup of coffee. You want anything?”
“A Danish. Cheese.” He looked her over, didn’t see a purse or a wallet. “You need money?”
“I have it.” The offer to get him something from the coffee shop was her way of losing him. She planned to find a loitering employee to take the Danish to him. A few minutes later, armed with a mocha latte and a bright blue shopping basket, Ramsey began her rounds. She started in produce, picked up a couple of Honeycrisp apples and a salad kit. She liked to have something in her basket, but nothing heavy to lug around. She wandered down the meat and seafood aisle and within ten minutes, she had her first suspicious shopper.
The woman, playing the harried mother role with two children underfoot who looked old enough to be in school, was actually directing the kids to put items in her cart. She’d look over a roast, pick it up, turn it, eyeball the price, return it to the refrigerated bin, and move on. The children would pick it up and place it in the miniature yellow shopping cart they took turns pushing around.
Ramsey followed at a safe distance. The woman, who might have been the mother or a modern-day Fagin, chose cheaper items like snacks and soups to put in her own buggy. When they got over to the toys, she let the children choose something for themselves. She dropped the items into her cart, reconsidered after a few moments, and placed them in theirs.
Wondering what the plan was, fairly sure there was one, Ramsey circled around to the self-checkout lanes and took up her favorite position. She didn’t have to wait long for mother and kids to come through. Mother scanned and paid for the items in her cart, and the children followed her, pretty as you please, pushing over two hundred dollars in groceries and merchandise in the direction of the exit.
Ramsey picked up her phone, called Sharon in customer service, and asked her to call the police. Ramsey waited until the mother and children came abreast of the greeter. It never hurt to have an additional witness.
The woman offered receipts that matched her scanned items when Ramsey asked for them and feigned shock when she saw what the children had in their cart. She offered to pay for everything, but Ramsey wasn’t having any of it. This was a well-orchestrated scam, one that undoubtedly had worked more often than not. The children were especially good in their roles, better even than the woman, at looking innocent and remaining quiet.
Karl Longabach answered the call. It took him all of three minutes to determine that the children had no relation to the woman. That meant a call to Child Protective Services and a search for their mother, who turned out to be a known addict who had trafficked her children before for a score.
It was almost noon when Ramsey got to scope out the jewelry counters. She was no longer carrying her basket. She turned it in at customer service for restocking and paid for one of the Honeycrisps since she missed her lunch break.
Taking her time, Ramsey looked over the earrings and was moving onto the necklaces when a male customer came to the counter and inquired about birthstones. He chatted up the clerk, talking about his wife and daughters as he hemmed and hawed about what would suit them best. Ramsey barely attended to him. She was more interested in the female customer who had sidled up to the counter and was taking earrings from the display carousels, holding them up to her ears for a looksee, and then pocketing one pair for every three or four she examined. She was quick too. Ramsey couldn’t be sure she caught every one of her sleight-of-hand moves.
None of the earring pairs available on top of the counter were valued at more than eighty dollars, but at the rate she was pulling them off the carousels, Ramsey estimated that she had taken the Ridge for at least four hundred. The husband and father customer purchased a trinket and moved on. The clerk went to assist the female, but received the “I’m just looking” blow off. Ramsey had to make a choice at that point.
The woman had the merchandise, but her gut told her to follow the man.
It was a good decision. After wandering the aisles in household products, she observed him collecting the earrings the woman had apparently stashed on a shelf behind the paper towels. He removed his ball cap, turned it over, and slid the jewelry in. With a quick flip of his wrist, he returned the cap to his head and started to go toward the front of the store. Ramsey watched all of this from her position at the end of the aisle where she feigned inordinate interest in paper plates and bowls.
She gave the thief credit for avoiding the main entrance/exits and heading to lawn and garden instead. Habitual shoplifters preferred the ease of leaving by the least manned area although some had told her automotive was a better route out of the store.
Ramsey stopped him by asking to see the receipt for his purchase in jewelry, which he took smug pleasure in producing. When she dropped the slip of paper while examining it, he gallantly bent to pick it up for her. Ramsey collided with him as she stooped at the same time. They bumped heads. Hard. She apologized profusely while she rubbed hers and pointed out his cap was almost completely sideways now. He waved off her concern and gave her the receipt. She looked it over, returned it, and then pointed out that he had something hanging from under his cap just above his ear. He brushed off her comment, pocketed the receipt, and began to walk away. She made a bet with herself that second nature and habit would have him adjusting the ball cap within ten steps of leaving her. He did it in six, picking up the cap to reset it on his head.
Earrings, still attached to their placards, cascaded to the floor. Ramsey smiled and touched her right shoulder. “You have one here.”
He stared at her, at his shoulder, and then hastily brushed it off as if it were a spider. He bolted for the exit. The doors obligingly slid open and he sprinted into the parking lot.
“It’s all right,” she called after him. “You’re on camera.” Ramsey watched him slow, then stop altogether when he couldn’t find his car. She saw his female accomplice before he did, standing beside a blue Chevy Malibu three rows to his right. She stopped short of pointing out the getaway car. There’d be a camera shot of that too. Ramsey stepped back from the vestibule and into the store. An associate was already picking up the earrings and bagging them. Ramsey thanked him and finished up, then she went to Paul’s office to watch the cameras, do inventory, and write her report.
She was walking through pharmacy when all hell broke loose. The noise was deafening as a motorcycle and rider came roaring through the front entrance, knocking over center displays and scattering shoppers, and then did a partial slide into the pain relief aisle, gunning his engine.
Ramsey stared, open-mouthed, and retreated to what she considered a safer distance behind the reading glasses endcap. She stuffed the bag with the earring booty between the fiber supplements and took out her phone. There was no possibility that she could be heard above the shouting and stampeding and the roaring of the engine. She dialed 9-1-1anyway. Dispatch knew her number and whoever answered would be able to at least surmise something was wrong and send a car. Better if it were two.
If Paul was up in his office, he’d be able to look out and see the commotion. His call to 9-1-1would definitely bring help.
The motorcyclist cut his engine, bringing momentary relief to Ramsey’s ears and an eerie, unnatural quiet to the store. Ramsey recognized Marlena Templeton’s voice as the dispatcher repeating familiar words.
“What’s your emergency? Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?” Then breaking protocol and asking just as it got quiet, “Ramsey? Is that you? I’m sending cars.”
“There’s a man here in the Ridge pharmacy on an Indian,” Ramsey whispered into her phone. “I don’t see a weapon. He rode right in on the Indian.”
“Say again.”
“It’s a motorcycle, Marlena. An Indian motorcycle. Wait. He’s lifting his visor. Jesus. I know him. It’s that man from the commercials, the one that sells used cars with little to no money down. Fred something or other.”
“Fred Mayhew.”
