Chapter 28: Crime Scene
On the way to Chillicothe in Clench’s pickup, Clare told him about her idea for turning the Greenline depot into a little wine bistro.
“Even if the tracks don’t reopen, I think it’s a great idea.”
“You think you might give up the railroad siding idea because of this theft?”
“Oh no, I think this is a one-time thing. I mean, I know we’ll find out who did it and it won’t keep happening. There’s bound to be theft once in a while. Of course the business with Ali and the helmet is unusual but that doesn’t mean I’m closing shop.”
“Of course not. Well, I’ll think about the depot. Talk to my dad about it. We’re going to open a shop and have tastings but didn’t really think about anything like a bistro. It’s OK to have customers and tourists come but we don’t want people hanging around to drink. They don’t necessarily go to wineries to drink, though, except for the ones looking for lots of free samples. But using the depot sounds like a good idea. If the right person runs it. We wouldn’t want to run a bar or café but maybe someone in the family would be right for it. Maybe my brother and sister. I guess you don’t want to?”
“No. But I’d like to have a place like that in town.”
They found the freight stationmaster, who said they did indeed have security cameras. He had viewed the tapes and would be happy to show them to Clench and Clare. The outdoor station lights had been broken but the street lights provided some illumination as the thieves unloaded. The box cars had been shunted to a siding, and once the engine and the rest of the train cars left the station, the box cars were left beside a warehouse but not unloaded. The siding ran between the warehouse and a street, so the cars were unloaded into trucks by six men. It took a long time to unload all the parts for a house, even a small house, into two big trailers. Two of the men were wearing suits but even they did some work.
“Wait a minute,” Clare exclaimed. “Is it possible to focus in on faces?”
“Yeah, but it might not be real sharp. Who do you want to look at?”
“The two guys in suits.”
The stationmaster made some adjustments and enlarged first one, then the other face. They were not very clear but Clare thought she recognized them.
“I think those might be the two men who came into the store impersonating an FBI and a CIA man. They didn’t change their clothes. I think that’s them. They both had dark hair and these men in the video seem to be about the same height and build as those two guys.”
“Can you get a license plate from these tapes? We’ve got a couple of semis plus a car. Did you see the car your guys came in, in Greenline?”
“No, I wasn’t paying attention. And no one got license plate numbers anyway. But Jeanette, the waitress, noticed them driving away so she might remember what the car looked like, maybe even the make and model. I could call her.”
“I guess they don’t have a night guard at that station?” Clench asked.
The stationmaster admitted they didn’t. “It’s not unusual for shipments to load or unload at night in the warehouse but the freight isn’t usually the kind of things people want to steal even for pawn or fencing. There aren’t any houses nearby. The other businesses nearby are closed at night. So we rely on cameras, but that’s just after the fact, of course. There’s no one watching. We’ve never had a big loss like this, though. Sometimes a warehouse worker will pilfer something during the day. Of course we’ve only been getting these big house shipments this year. Never before that.”
“Well, someone might steal a house for themselves,” Clare said. “But it seems more likely that someone would steal it to sell. Considering the price of houses, they could make a lot of money, even selling at a low price. And if they drive it to another state or a few states over, probably there would be no questions and they’d make a lot of money even with the cost of trucking.”
“But who would do it? Someone who knows about your business? Who knows your delivery schedule? And if these are the same guys, why would they want the helmet?” Clench said.
“A lot of people know about my business and the Sears kit houses. I have hundreds of customers, some of them from out of state.”
“Well, there are six men in that video. Odds are that someone is stupid or careless. They knocked out the outdoor station lights but not the camera. They’re not wearing masks. They’re wearing gloves because they’re doing heavy work, so I guess they wouldn’t have to think about fingerprints. Doesn’t look like they took off the gloves to bust the locks on the box cars.”
“I suppose the Chillicothe police looked around, but I’d like to take a look too,” Clench said.
“Sure, no reason you can’t,” said the stationmaster.
Clare followed Clench out to the siding area. Clench bent over and looked at the warehouse door, the tracks, the ground. There were no footprints because it was all gravel.
“I need plastic bags and gloves out of my truck,” he said.
Clare volunteered to go get them while he kept searching. When she returned he put on plastic gloves and picked up cigarette butts and dropped them into separate plastic bags.
“Lucky some of these guys smoke.”
“Maybe the cigarette butts are old,” Clare suggested.
“Maybe, but I saw a couple of the guys smoking on the tape.”
“Did they have anything to drink? Cans of pop, bottles of water?”
“No beer or liquor?” Clench said, smiling.
“That’s for after work,” Clare said primly.
“Yeah, they were drinking something but it looked like some of them brought their own water bottles. They were big guys, have to be to do this job, so I’m thinking maybe they’re gym rats and are used to carrying insulated water bottles, not the throw-away kind. Which your average thief does not. The guys in suits weren’t that big.”
“Most of them did look pretty big. But I’d be surprised if the gym rats smoked cigarettes.”
“Well, here is a pop can. Not health pop. The local police weren’t very thorough,” Clench said. “Don’t know how old this can is — it still has a little something in it.” He started to shake it out on the ground then stopped. “I guess there’s a chance of some DNA in the pop.” He stuffed a plastic bag into the opening then put the can in another bag.
“Do you see anything else?” he asked Clare.
“Nothing that you didn’t already get. Cigarette butts and a pop can.” Clare wandered off the graveled track yard over to the street next to it and looked around. “It was kind of breezy last night, maybe something blew over here. Here’s a piece of paper. You want to pick it up? I don’t have gloves.”
Clench picked it up and looked it. “Huh. A phone number. Akron area code.” He dropped it into a plastic bag. “See anything else?”
“No. How were the station lights broken? I assume not with a gun, since somebody could have heard it even though this neighborhood is pretty dead at night. A rock?”
“There are plenty of rocks. Let’s look around the lights.”
“You don’t expect to find fingerprints on the rocks, do you? Or maybe special light-breaking rocks imported from someplace else?”
“Smart ass. Sometimes I look for things that I don’t know will be there. If I knew it all in advance there’d be no need to look.”
“A good policy,” Clare said.
“Well, no fancy rocks. If there’s nothing else, let’s take these to the police for fingerprinting and maybe DNA testing.”
“OK. You mean here in Chillicothe?”
“Yeah, it happened here, we found everything here, and they’ll have more facilities than Greenline, although they’ll probably send it off someplace else anyway.”
They found the police station, where Clench made a report and turned in all his plastic bags.
On the way home, Clare said, “I know someone could sell the stolen house kits for quite a bit of money. But why not just buy the
m from me and then sell them? The cost of trucking would be the same, and they’d still make a huge profit with no risk.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Actually I’ve had a couple of requests from contractors to buy houses for resale, but when I found out I said no to selling in large quantities. The point is to give people a chance to buy their own house cheap. Of course most people want a builder to put their kit together, but then I can sell direct to the home buyer and let them get their own contractor. I do make a profit but it’s still really cheap. So the thieves must be going to jack up the price really high.”
“I wonder if the house will go up for sale advertised as a Sears kit house? If so, then it might be possible to trace the thieves that way.”
“Maybe. If they’re smart they won’t do that.”
“We could get some help there. Get Roxy and Jerry Jenkins to run stories asking people to keep an eye out for anything advertised as a Sears kit house or, um, an authentic art deco bungalow or anything like that.”
“OK. Go to it oh jazzmen.”
“What?”
“Oh, it’s a line from a poem by Carl Sandburg. I guess I’m tired. I’ve still got to make a report to Sheriff Matheson, and call this number you found.”
Clare made a note to look it up later, and to call Jerry and Roxy.