Chapter 7 Jagg
JAGG
Colson grabbed the cell phone from my hand.
“Where the hell did you get this video?” he demanded.
“Lady across the street.”
His gaze shot to mine. “Cora Hofmann?”
I dipped my chin.
“What the?… We already interviewed her. Hell, I personally interviewed her. She said she didn’t see or hear a thing that night. Until we showed up, anyway—which, by the way, I was informed kept her cats up all night. The woman hates the police, that much was obvious.”
I shrugged.
“Tell me now—how did you get this, Jagg?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Oh yes it does. I’ve got half a mind to drive over there right now and charge the old lady with obstruction of justice.” His eyes narrowed. “What did you have to do to get this?”
“I’ve got an actual video of the Black Bandit and this is what you want to talk about? Who cares how I got it?”
“You agreed to go on a date with her daughter, didn’t you?”
I lifted my cup to my lips.
“You sly son of a bitch. Just remember how that worked out for you last time with… what’s her name again? Oh yeah, Susan. I remember because I was the one who booked her into jail for breaking into your house and stealing your underwear. Susan Stalker. People still call her that, you know.”
“Her last name is Smith, and that was my priciest pair of Hanes, by the way.”
“Yeah, they really upped the ante when they went tagless. God, you’re cheap.”
I snatched the phone from his hands. “Listen, if you’re not—”
Colson grabbed the phone back and hit play.
We watched the green-tinted feed from a night-cam that Ms. Hofmann had set up in her backyard to capture activity around her birdhouse.
A widow of twenty years, the woman was a nature fanatic, with multiple cameras set up to record deer, raccoons, and a feral cat that kept getting into her—quote—damn trash.
I’d watched the video so many times I could recite the exact second the oak tree swayed in the breeze, the moment three leaves tumbled down two seconds later, and the reflective eyes of a raccoon in the corner of the frame a second later.
And in the distance, through a break in the trees, a blurred silhouette emerging from the shadows, slipping through the back door of Mystic Maven’s Art Shop—after taking only three seconds to pop the lock.
Exactly one minute and six seconds passed before the Black Bandit emerged through the back door again, holding a black bag, and slipped into the woods.
Ninety seconds after that, lights from Lieutenant Seagrave’s patrol car bounced off the trees.
And the grand finale—one minute and fourteen seconds later—his lifeless foot flops onto the ground in the bottom of the frame.
Colson watched it two more times before speaking.
“This raises a lot of questions—timing, for one.”
He didn’t need to say it. It was the one thing that didn’t add up for me either. If the Black Bandit had already gotten what it came for—the fourth Cedonia Scroll—and exited the building in a clean getaway, why had the Bandit circled back and killed Seagrave?
Had the Bandit gone back for something? Then ran into Seagrave, where an altercation took place? If so, why wasn’t that caught on camera?
“It’s impossible to make out the height or weight of the Bandit, too.” Colson hit replay for the third time. “It does, however, confirm three things. One, the images from the street cam. Two, the fact that Ms. De Ville needs to get better locks. And three, the timing that the heist occurred.”
“Not just that, Colson. Look closer. Investigate.”
The lieutenant rolled his eyes, then focused back at the phone. A minute ticked by. My patience cashed out as the video played for the fourth time. I yanked the phone from his hand. “Damn dude, stay with your day job.”
I fast-forwarded to the spot I’d replayed more than a hundred times. “Our Black Bandit has a limp.”
Colson’s brows pulled together. “What?”
“He has a limp. Watch as the Bandit jumps off the back steps as he’s leaving the building. He favors his left hip.”
Colson leaned inches from the screen as I replayed it again.
“I’ll be damned. You’re right. You can see it right there.
” He pointed to the screen. “After he jumps, he drags his left hip and there’s even a limp as he disappears into the woods.
” Colson shook his head and leaned back.
“I’d ask how you noticed that, but based on the bags under your eyes, I’m assuming you haven’t slept more than ten hours over the last three days. ”
Two, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Nice work, Detective. Alright, what’s your profile so far? Because I know you’ve already built one.”
I tossed my phone on the bar and leaned back.
“I think the Black Bandit has a strong interest in art, or appreciates it at least. I think he practices witchcraft, is a Wiccan, or at the very least, drawn to it. I think it’s someone smart, crafty, who enjoys beating the system.
As for age, I’m torn. Coupling the fact that most thieves range from teens to mid-twenties and the speed of the Bandit, I’m leaning toward young. No older than thirty for sure.”
“But the limp? Old people limp.”
“My gut tells me it’s an injury, not one from age.”
“It’s a good lead. Motive?”
“Could be greed—they want the scrolls for either money or bragging rights. Or, it’s something to do with Seagrave.”
“Personal, then? You think the Bandit lured him there? It was a setup?”
I shrugged. I had no reason to assume it was personal other than the nagging feeling in my gut.
Colson sipped his beer. “I’ll have Tanya see what she can dig up from Buckley at the hospital. See if anyone has come in recently with a left hip injury.”
Our attention was pulled to shouting from the pool tables in the back.
“You hit my damn stick.”
“Kinda like I hit your mom last—”
I grabbed Colson’s beer bottle and sent it shattering inches from the drunk cowboys’ heads. The bar went silent. Gaping, the rednecks turned toward me and Colson. Colson’s hand rested on the hilt of his gun.
I turned back to the bar. “Another coffee and another beer, Frank.”
Frank dipped his chin, a subtle ‘thank you,’ for not having to spend his next hour dealing with a bar fight.
“It’s on the house,” he said with a wink.
The bar remained hushed, eyes boring into my back. I was ready to go. Where, I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to get the hell out. Be alone. Figure out who the hell was the Black Bandit.
Our drinks were delivered, three chocolate chip cookies came with mine.
I eyed Frank.
“The wife made them.”
Colson snatched one up.
“Don’t forget to eat,” Frank said, eyeing me back.
“That’s what she’d always tell me when I was working a case.
A drop in blood sugar can make anyone crazy.
” He nodded toward the cowboys, now busy picking up shards of broken bottle, then he tapped the cookie plate. “Eat. Don’t insult my wife now, son.”
I took a damn cookie and set it on my napkin. Frank nodded in approval, then pushed the plate to Colson who devoured the third cookie faster than the first.
“Not bad, Frank, but I know a chocolate chip cookie when I try one and this ain't it.”
Frank grinned. “They’re gluten free. And they got carrot and flax-something in them.”
“What’s flax-something?”
“Some sort of seed. I think.”
“What the hell is so wrong with gluten?” I asked, a question that plagued me ever since the gluten-free section had replaced my beef jerky section in the grocery store.
“What the hell even is gluten?” Frank answered back with a question of his own.
We all shrugged simultaneously.
Colson studied the cookie on my napkin, shaking his head. “Seeds in gluten-less chocolate chip cookies, Seagrave shot to death. What is the world coming to?”
“Stick around here a few more hours and there’ll be plenty of theories.”
“Don’t doubt that.”
“On that note.” Frank tapped the bar. “Better get back to work stocking the shelves for the crazy weekend coming up. Damn hippies. Enjoy the flax.”
Colson groaned as Frank walked away. “The Moon Magic Festival. Hotels are already booked solid. Supposed to have double the attendance of last year. And with the freaking burn ban right now…” he shook his head. “Chief McCord is rounding up extra volunteers to monitor the grounds.”
“It’s being held at Devil’s Cove, right?”
He nodded.
Devil’s Cove was a secluded cove off Otter Lake.
Beyond the steep cliff that encircled the cove was a clearing where local concerts and festivals were occasionally held.
Miles and miles of forest surrounded the clearing, making it ideal for avoiding noise complaints and for setting up roadblocks to catch drunk drivers.
That year, though, it became an ideal place for a wildfire.
But a wildfire wasn’t my concern.