as long as I could remember. His parents and my parents were neighbors back in the day before I was born. My mother sort of “adopted” him in his twenties when his parents passed away in a tragic car accident, supplying him with plenty of food and a substitute family.
He and Bonnie looked very serious. As I approached them, Bonnie turned to me and said, “Don’t freak out.” Confused, I asked, “What’s going on?” As I looked past them in the office, I saw papers and books in complete disarray covering the floor. Drawers were left open with files sticking out of them. The cash box was on the floor and empty. A chair was tipped over and Bonnie’s computer was busted to smithereens.
My face dropped. I looked at Tex. He turned to me and said, chuckling, “Let me guess, you and Bonnie were fighting over the last of Rodney’s brownies.”
“Not funny.”
“Okay, then, seriously, you two have to stay out of the office for the time being. This is a crime scene. We’ll dust for fingerprints and see if there is any trace of evidence that was left behind. We noticed the money is gone. When we are done, I will need you to try to figure out if anything else is missing. Meanwhile, I want to get a statement from you.”
A couple of officers were already in the office bagging items and hanging up yellow crime scene tape across the doorway. Tex asked me what time I left on Friday.
“Four thirty, and I saw the mayor in the parking lot on her way to a meeting. She could vouch for me,” I said.
“Easy there, Tonto. I wasn’t accusing you of anything. You could take the money without ransacking the office. Did you see anyone in or around the building on that was unusual?” Tex asked.
“Unusual? Do you mean like Robert Triggers sitting at my window for five straight hours with his pet rock, then disappearing without saying a word?”
“Yes, kind of like that.”
“I wasn’t here over the weekend and the only unusual person that was in on Friday was Mr. Triggers, but police officers kept walking by to make sure I was safe. You could ask them if anyone saw him leave, because I didn’t see where he went.”
“What time do you think he left?”
“He left my window about two o’clock or a little after.”
Tex interrogated me some more about Mr. Triggers. The interrogation included questions about his demeanor. I told Tex that Triggers seemed upset at first that I couldn’t give him all the records he had wanted on Friday. Maybe he broke in looking for them. Perhaps he thought I was lying about getting the records from off-site storage.
I wondered if Triggers did this. He certainly knew what our office hours were. I tried to envision how he got in the building. I started making up scenarios in my head of the crime. I imagined him breaking through a window after dark dressed all in black, wearing a ski mask. I pictured Triggers smashing the door handle with his rock. Maybe he stumbled on the money by accident while looking for records when he broke the lock on the file cabinet where we keep the cash box. So much for my prediction that it was going to be a good day.
I was snapped back into reality with the sound of Bonnie’s voice. “Earth to Chelsey.”
“Huh?”
“Where did you go just now?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I’m thinking about whether or not Triggers broke in here.”
“Maybe you should invest in a more secure safe for the cash or anything of value,” Tex suggested.
“Maybe things happened for a reason—maybe this break-in is enough to convince the powers that be to put money in the budget for a safe,” I said.
“If there anything else you think of, just call me.”
“Wait, before you leave…how did they break in?”
“Your door was kicked or pushed in. It’s so lightweight, it wouldn’t take much strength to bust open. The main building doors were either left open or someone knew how to open door locks without a key.”
“Okay, thanks.” So much for my daydream
Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Howard Curtis