Troubles in the Big Apple for the Scratchin' Thieves

        Vinyl was driving her black van up Edgewater road until she turned right in a small, discreet dirt path that lead through Garrison Park, right after the scrap merchant. She followed the path hidden by the trees for a good  minute or two before she and Patty arrived in front of an abandoned looking train depot under the bridge of Buckner boulevard.

“Home, sweet home,” Patty said softly before she got out of the vehicle to open the garage’s door.

While Vinyl parked the van inside the garage, Patty was jumping to reach for the door’s handle, which she had lifted too high for her when she opened the door. Vinyl couldn’t stop herself from chuckling as her friend flayed her arms in the air mid-jump, hoping it’d somehow made her jump higher.

Should I remind her there’s the chain to open/close the door right next to her? Vinyl asked herself mentally before she heard the sound of another vehicle coming closer. “Patty, wait! I think Jack and Claude are back,” she called before glancing outside.

        Just like she thought, Jack’s orange pickup truck was heading toward the garage’s entrance. When the pickup was parked next to the van, Jack stepped out of the vehicle to walk up to Vinyl while Claude went to help Patty closing the garage’s door.

“How did it go, Vi’?” Jack asked with curiosity.

“Like clockwork, Jack!” Vinyl replied happily. “Easily found more than ten thousand bucks in the pianist’s vault,” she explained with a smile while Jack whistled softly. “What about you?”

“Claude raided Patterson’s wife’s vanity, come have a look,” Jack said before going back to her pickup with Vinyl in tow.

         In the meantime, Claude took a few steps on the wall before jumping to grab the handle of the garage’s door, only to end up suspended in the air because the door didn’t budge due to Claude’s low weight, something that made Patty laugh loudly.

“WOHOHO!” Vinyl let out in amazement as Jack showed her the content of Claude’s backpack. “That’s a lot jewels,” she commented. “I think you and Claude are the winners today.”

“Well, maybe not,” Jack said hesitantly. “Cops showed up and saw us leaving in the pickup.”

“How come the cops showed up?” Vinyl asked. “If you took care of the alarm with Patty’s app, you shouldn’t have had problems with them…. Unless someone saw you climbing the wall, of course,” Vinyl suggested with a pensive frown.

“Yeah, about the app...” Jack explained the problem they encountered with the security system and how she had ‘solved’ it and she had managed the cops.

“So, you beat the three cops up after having broken their walkie-talkies, cut their car’s CB radio’s cord, and cut their car’s tires open,” Vinyl summarized after Jack ended her tale. The blonde simply nodded. “Well, since you didn’t get trouble on the way here, they mustn’t have given your pickup description yet,” she added with a shrug.

“At worst they know Ah have an orange Dodge pickup,” Jack said softly. “Dodge pickup trucks are common in town, so Ah was thinking of stripping the orange, repaint the truck, and change the number plates. To be sure!”

“Good idea,” Vinyl said before a very loud clang startled her and Jack. “What the hell are you two doing?” she shouted at Patty who had finally managed to close to door by clutching onto Claude, thus adding enough weight for the door to come down, making them both fall on the ground.

“Duh, we’re closing the door, silly,” Patty replied with a roll of her eyes from underneath Claude.

“Let’s just take stock of what we got,” Vinyl said after a short, heavy silence as she rubbed her eyes in annoyance.

        Vinyl went back to her van to take her and Patty’s bag from the van while Jack took her and Claude’s from her pickup. The four then headed out of the garage to enter into the former depot’s warehouse.

Except it didn’t look like a warehouse anymore. Ever since the four girls had decided to make their hideout of the abandoned train depot many years ago, the empty and dusty warehouse had turned into a decently furnished loft. Sure, the walls were bare of any paint, the floor was dirty and dusty, but they had a fully equipped kitchen, a few couches and chairs around a large coffee table, a desk for each one of them and a small dog house near the kitchen. It wasn’t much, but it was their home, and they liked it.

Patty’s desk was covered by electronic parts and her faithful pink laptop she had affectionately named “Pinkie”; Claude had the simplistic miniatures of both Mr Patterson’s property and Mr. Horzowski’s apartment, they had used to prepare this morning burglaries on top of hers; Vinyl’s was occupied by the many blueprints Patty had hacked at some point; On top of Jack’s desk was lying the many tools she used to clean her knife and the few guns the group kept here. Despite the four girls hoping they’ll never have to use any of them, Vinyl and Jack were intransigent on keeping them perfectly functional. Knowing who their debt holder was, it was a safe precaution.

“GUMMY! MOMMIES ARE HOME!” Patty shouted excitedly the second the group entered the living area.

        After her shout, there was some hissing sounds coming from the dog house. A two and a half feet long green alligator, wearing a deeper green dog collar with a bone shaped medallion around its neck, dashed out of the dog house toward the four women, waggling its scaly tail happily.

“Awwww! He’s all happy to see us!” Patty coed affectionately as she kneeled on the ground to pat gummy’s head, earning pleased hiss from the small alligator.”Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?”

“Ah know Ah said many times already,” Jack said as Patty asked Gummy to shake-a-claw, something the reptile did. “But, we really should take him to the vet.”

“Jack, we’ve been through this already,” Claude said in annoyance while Vinyl rolled her eyes and lifted her hands in the air, silently saying she wouldn’t take part in that conversation.

“Why do you want to take him to vet?” Patty asked with worry. “He’s not sick, is he?”

“Well, it ain’t really normal for an alligator to behave like he does right now,” Jack commented as Gummy was sitting up and begging in front of Patty.

“I don’t see a difference from how he usually is,” Patty said, not getting what Jack was implying.

“That’s mainly the problem, Sugar,” Jack said impatiently. “He’s an alligator, not a dog!”

“I know that, silly!” Patty said casually. “I mean, look at him! Green scales, claws, a large maw, reptilian purple eyes. He has nothing of a dog!”

“Well, if ya don’t count the behavior,” Jack snarled.

Patty glared at her blonde friend. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“We’re probably the only people in the world to have an alligator who thinks he’s a dog. That’s what it means!” Jack retorted.

“So, because he’s different than the others, you want to take him to the vet?!” Patty asked angrily before picking Gummy in her arms to hug him. “I bet it’s because his daddy and mommy thought the same as you that he ended up in the sewers where I found him!”

“Sure, because New York is the home of irresponsible and horrible alligators parents,” Claude commented from the bar chair she was sitting on, only to be ignored by the two arguing women.

“And, I didn’t hear you complain whenever he brought you your slippers, like a good dog would do,” Patty argued angrily.

“Patty, Ah don’ call him accidently whipping one of ma boots next to ma feet “bringing ma slippers”.” Jack replied apathetically.

        Jack and Patty continued to argue about the rightness of their pet alligator’s state of mind. At some point, Patty put Gummy on the kitchen’s countertop. The alligator slowly walked up to Vinyl who was leaning on the countertop, a can of soda in her hand. Gummy gently nudged her elbow before Vinyl softly chuckled, and scratched his chin tenderly.

“So, what did you do when we were gone?” Vinyl asked while Gummy was hissing of pleasure.

        Gummy’s reply was to jump from the countertop to the ground, landing heavily with a low thud. Then, he rushed to his dog, no, alligator house before coming back to Vinyl’s side with the handle of a large, slightly wet,  red purse in his maw. He let the bag fall at a very surprised Vinyl’s feet.

“Where on earth did you get that?” Vinyl asked slowly as she picked the purse up.

*******

At the same moment, in the police post at the North of Central Park.

“So, let me see if I got this right, Miss.” Officer Benson said calmly, his eyes on the deposition he had just written. “You were relaxing near the bank of the Harlem Meer in Central Park…” he glanced at the woman in front of him who quickly nodded. “When, suddenly, a small crocodile bursted out of the water, “barked” at you…”

“Well, he was doing those crocodile sounds, but it look like he barked,” the woman with messy white hair said uneasily. “Kinda like this,” she added before letting out a mix of a bark and a hiss. “See?”

“Huh-huh,” Officer Benson let out with a nod. “Then, that barking crocodile grabbed a handle of your purse and pulled until you let go….”

“Yes! Then, he returned into the water, wagging his tail like a dog!” the woman nearly shouted in impatience. “That’s what I’ve telling you for the past half-hour!”

“Are you sure that’s what happened?” Benson asked doubtfully.

“YES! You have to believe me!” the woman with messy white hair said as she grabbed the officer’s collar and pulled him close. “I am not crazy!”

“Suuuuuure, you aren’t,” Benson let out slowly, while not much convinced by what he was saying.

*******

“Well, I don’t know how you pulled that off, Gummy.” Vinyl opened the fridge after having checked the interior of the purse. “But, you deserve a little reward!” she pulled out a decently sized, juicy steak from the fridge. “There you go!” she said affectionately, throwing the meat in Gummy’s expecting maw.

        While Gummy was enjoying his treat, Patty and Jack were still arguing about his “condition” under the curious gaze of Claude, whose head was going from right to left as if watching a tennis game. Vinyl sighed before grabbing the four backpacks along with the purse before heading for the best chair around the coffee table, on which she threw the fives bags.

She sat on her chair with a relaxed sigh before hearing a hissed whimper coming from her feet. Vinyl didn’t need to look down to know what their pet wanted. She smiled before tapping her thigh softly, causing Gummy to climb her legs before curling himself on her lap to have a small nap. As her favorite alligator was comfortably installed, Vinyl glanced at her friends.

“Girls, cut it out!” Vinyl said with a firm tone, instantly stopping the argument between the tall blonde and the pink haired nerd who both turned around to look at her. “Patty, for the last time, Gummy does not behave like a normal alligator!” she saw that Patty was about to tell her off. “And, that’s just fine! We will not take him to a vet for that! Jack,” she called for the blonde. “Yes, that’s weird, but I’d rather have an alligator who thinks he’s a dog than a normal alligator, or a dog who thinks he’s an alligator!”

“Well, now that you put it like that,” Jack said uneasily.

“Now, that we cleared that off, get your asses over here! All of you!” Vinyl ordered. “We have stuff to do, and I’m not counting all this stuff by myself!” she pointed at the five bags on the coffee table.

“Where did that purse come from?” Claude asked in confusion as she sat on the couch with Patty, who seemed to be a little jealous that Gummy was on Vinyl’s lap.

“Gummy brought it,” Vinyl explained while patting on the sleeping alligator’s head. “No idea how he did that though.” she shrugged. “That’s just one more mystery about our little, scaly friend.”

“Let’s start the counting,” Jack said before grabbing Claude’s bag and opening it.

“WAOW!” Patty shouted with eyes the size of ping pong balls. “That’s all the jewels Mrs. Patterson had?”

“In her home, yes,” Claude said triumphantly. “That means you and Vinyl will have to do the dishes for the next two weeks!”

“Oh, because you think we didn’t get more than you did?” Patty asked cheerfully.

“As much as I hate doing the dishes, Patty, I think we didn’t get as much as the worth of the bag of jewels,” Vinyl commented casually. “I hope Alard won’t mind this payment partly in nature though. No way we can sell that much jewelry without catching too much attention,” she added in a low tone.

“NAHA! None of what they got matches what YOU got!” Patty pointed at Vinyl with a small grin.

“What exactly did she get?” Jack asked curiously.

Vinyl softly chuckled. “I don’t think that counts, Patty.”

“What counts?” Claude asked in confusion.

“Vinyl scored with the Pianist’s girlfriend!” Patty explained cheerfully while the others’ eyes widened in surprise.

“..... Come again?” Jack said softly.

“What exactly do you mean by “scored with the pianist’s girlfriend”?” Claude asked with interest, her eyes fixed on Vinyl.

“She didn’t want to tell me earlier,” Patty said while she and Claude scooted closer to Vinyl to pressure her.

“You made out with her or what?” Claude asked eagerly. “Come on, you can tell us!” Vinyl sighed with a small grin before raising two fingers up. “Twice?!”

“Woooo! Details please?” Patty asked excitedly.

“Details are for me and her to know,” Vinyl replied playfully, but her voice was firm enough that Claude and Patty figured it was no use to press the matter further.

“Ah hope ya didn’t leave any traces behind, Vi,” Jack said casually while counting the roll of bills she had pulled out from one of the bags. “

“Don’t worry, Sleeping Beauty was kind enough to erase traces of my passage without me asking,” Vinyl said with a wink before inspecting the bag full of Mrs. Patterson’s jewels. “Hmmm, might have to check to make sure there aren’t any unique pieces from some famous jeweller or something… Can you check, Patty?” she asked as she threw the bag at Patty.

“Sure thing!” Patty nodded before grabbing the bag while standing up to get to her desk.

“Nice catch on the 17 inches laptop, girls,” Claude commented as she pulled out Horsowski’s former Macbook out of Patty’s bag.

“Ah hate the Apple Company!” Jack muttered angrily when she noticed the apple-shaped logo on the computer.

“We know, Jack! We know!” the three replied simultaneously with a short chuckle before the four girls went back to making inventory of what Gummy and them had stolen in the morning.

*******

        On the eleventh floor of the NYPD headquarters on the 1, Police Plaza, were installed the labs of the police scientific department. That’s where Commissioner Sherman Shields had joined the crime scene investigation squads to hear their reports on the two burglaries that hadhappened earlier that day.

“Now, what can you tell us about the one at Judge Patterson’s house, Twila?” Celeste Heliopolis, the chief of the scientific department asked the ebony-toned woman with a pink highlights in her shoulder long, black hair.

“Sadly, not much,” Twila said with disappointment as she went through her notes. “Spencer and I looked the cameras footage before they deactivated, there’s not a single image of one of the two thieves on it.” she said sourly after pointing at the slightly younger man with spiky black hair beside her.

“We did find some rather deep footprints in the gardens just behind the wall,” Spencer commented slowly. “We believe they found a blind spot in the cameras and exploited it by climbing the wall.”

“Wasn’t that wall at least three and a half meters tall with metallic spikes on top?” Sherman asked his younger siblings with curiosity.

“Indeed it was,” Twila said with a nodded. “I know it doesn’t sound feasible, but that’s what the evidence showed.”

“Go on, then,” Celeste invited as Sherman gave a curt nod to his younger sister.

“We found out how they deactivated the cameras, but it’d not have needed to be a genius for that,” Twila said with a pissed snort.

“They simply ripped the whole panel off the wall,” Spencer explained at the sight of his two superiors and other two colleagues’ cocked eyebrows.

“Could you repeat that, Spencer dear? I think I misunderstood what you said,” the woman with long, perfectly styled dark auburn hair asked after blinking a couple of times in confusion.

“S-sur-sure thing, Rarity,” Spencer stammered with a small blush, much like every time Rarity spoke to him. “I inspected what was left of the surveillance grid, which wasn’t much by the way, and it clearly showed that someone violently pulled it out of the wall.”

“How subtle,” Rarity commented sarcastically.

“How did they get in after that?” the last woman in the room, a young, beautiful blonde with incredibly long hair, asked quietly. “Did they break the window or something?”

“No, they had managed to pickpocket the house’s keys before going over the wall!” Twila replied angrily, causing the blonde to shy away behind her long hair.

“She’s a bit mad because Patterson said that the one who stole his keys looked a lot like her,” Spencer explained when Twila’s retort earned her a new set of cocked eyebrows. “Only that the thief didn’t have the pink highlights in her hair and she was a bit smaller than her.”

“Understandable, but still not a reason to snap at Chylene like that,” Celeste commented sternly.

“I know,” Twila admitted slowly. “I’m sorry, Chylene. It’s just…. We’ve got nothing!”

“What do you mean?” Sherman asked in confusion.

“What I said, Sherman!” Twila said impatiently. “No fingerprints, no hair, no DNA, nothing that could give us a solid lead on the culprits!” she threw her notepad on the table in frustration. “The only things we know are: that the tall one weighs about 170 pounds, is about 6 feet tall, speaks with a fancy Manhattan accent, can beat up three cops in less than thirty seconds; that small one looks alot like me; and that they simply came in a orange pickup truck that they’re probably painting in another color as we speak!”

“Twila, calm down!” Celeste said firmly. “I know it’s your first case as a principal investigator, but you don’t have to snap just because they didn’t leave enough evidence for us to work with!” Twila slowly nodded before sitting back on her seat with an angry pout. “What about the one at Mr. Horzowski’s duplex, Chylene, Rarity?”

“Materially speaking, we don’t have much more than Twila on her case,” Rarity said while searching through her file. “A few scratches on the guardrail of the fire escape. From what they said in the labs, they could have been caused by some some special hooks for climbing which can be found in basically any sports shop in town. The duct tape they used to keep the window together can be bought in every hardware store in the world,” she explained in a soft, yet annoyed voice.

“Just like for Mr. Patterson’s house, no fingerprints, no hair… If it weren’t for the note the burglar left and the mess he made in the living room, you could swear no one other than Mr. Horzowski and his girlfriend entered the apartment.” Rarity passed copies of the note she had found in the open vault.

“Wow, that’s actually pretty bold!” Spencer commented in slightly admirative tone as he finished reading the note.

“Gotta admit he sure wasn’t scared,” Twila commented. “The last PS could mean the thief’s one of the girlfriend’s exes, right?”

“Hum, actually,” Chylene chimed in quietly, a small blush on her cheeks. “Ms. Bluenote kissed the burglar during the theft by accident.”

“Beg pardon?” Spencer, Sherman, Celeste and Twila asked in disbelief.

“Well, apparently her boyfriend had left the room, leaving her without blanket and the window open,” Chylene explained. “She felt someone bringing the blanket and on her and thought it was her boyfriend, so she…. She kissed him as a thank you while she was still half asleep.”

“Oh,” the four let out in surprise.

“And here I thought gentlemen burglars only existed in novels,” Rarity commented with a short giggle. “Though that explains why the thief was so generous on complimenting Ms. Bluenote in his note.”

“Not that she wasn’t complimenting him either,” Chylene said softly. “But that was more to make her boyfriend mad than anything else. He had been pretty mean to her when they found the note,” she explained softly.

“Indeed, she did stress the fact that the robber was a fantastic kisser!” Rarity added with another giggle.

“And you didn’t find trace of the burglar’s DNA on Ms. Bluenote?” Twila asked with curiosity.

“I did take a sample of her spit,” Chylene said. “But she confessed she had taken several mouthwashes after the incident. As much as good of a kisser he was, she didn’t really like being kissed by a stranger.”

“I guess that I can understand that,” Twila said softly. “So apart from the note, we got nothing?”

“Exactly,” Rarity replied with a nod. “Say, Chylene, what can we deduce of the thief’s profile with that note?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Chylene said in apologetic tone. “I can say from his handwriting that the note was completely improvised and written in a rush. The same could be said about that disc the thief left behind. All that were the result of an unexpected incident: the thief kissing Ms. Bluenote.“ Chylene couldn’t stop herself from blushing at the mention of the word kissing. “It’s that interaction that caused the change of music that warned Horzowski that something was wrong, and the note that he found later on.”

“Why would he do something like that?” Sherman asked with curiosity. “That must have maximized the risk of getting caught!”

“I think the thief wanted to catch their attention, especially Ms. Bluenote’s,” she explained in a professional, yet quiet tone.

“It does look like a declaration addressed to the miss, now that you make think about it,” Sherman commented as he reread the note.

“So, he was hitting on her after he robbed her boyfriend?” Twila asked with disbelief.

“You could say that,” Chylene replied calmly. “It might also have been a trick to focus Horzwoski’s attention on something else, giving enough time to escape,” she supposed as she passed her hair behind her ear. “Maybe a little bit of both, but more interested in getting the girl’s attention.”

“I think you’re right about that, Chylene,” Celeste commented. “If he just wanted a distraction, I don’t think he would have apologized for taking her jewels. That was just an opportunity for him to compliment Ms. Bluenote.” She slowly smiled. “Quite nicely, I might add.”

“So, our robber is a lady-killer?” Rarity asked. “That englobes around half the population in New York, talk about useful news,” she added when her blonde colleague nodded.

“At least, it’s still news,” Sherman commented softly.

“Wasn’t it a tad overconfident of him to leave such a message?” Spencer asked, his eyes fixed on the note.

Chylene shook her head. “Bold? Surely! Overconfident? I don’t think so!” she said firmly. “That message is as much for us as it was for the two victims. He must have known we would read it and try to analyze it. What can we deduce of important from that letter?” Chylene didn’t wait for a reply. “Nothing!”

“We can say that he’s a seducer! We can say that he likes electronic music over Chopin! That he’s the kind of thief who steals a computer but who’s kind enough to sent back the personal data later on!” Chylene shook her head. “That’s worth nothing! Plus the way he signed: the one who just robbed you! He’s mocking us, because he knows we have nothing to get him!” Chylene stated firmly before blinking as she realized she had stood up during her explanation. “Well, that’s what I think it is,” she added in a sheepish whisper as she sat back on her chair.

“So, he’s a seducer with attitude?” Rarity asked.

“Most likely,” Chylene replied quietly. “I know it doesn’t help really help us, but that’s all I could gather from the note.”

“Well, that’s two burglaries without any lead to the culprits,” Celeste commented with sigh. She rubbed her forehead while thinking about something. “Did the two victims have anything in common?”

“Not really,” Spencer commented. “Patterson’s a judge and Horzowski’s a pianist. Not really related jobs in my opinion.”

“Why do you ask?” Sherman asked with curiosity.

“Two nearly perfect burglaries both happening at around 6am on a Sunday?” Celeste replied sharply. “A bit too much for a coincidence, no?”

“Kinda,” Rarity admitted slowly.

“Hang on!…. I think I read something….HAHA!” Twila said excitedly as she flipped through the two files. “Both of them had their alarm installed by Monitronics, and in both burglars the security system was deactivated first, even if was by different methods,”

“I think we’ve got a lead now,” Celeste said with a small grin. “Twila, Spencer! Go Monitronics’ office and see if someone broke through their security!”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Twila and Spencer said as they stood up before exiting the meeting room.

“What about Chylene and I, Madam?” Rarity asked.

“Go over what they collected in Judge Patterson’s house, and see if Chylene can profile the burglars, they left more elements for her to work with than in Horzwoski’s duplex.” Celeste ordered calmly.

“Understood, Madam,” Chylene and Rarity nodded before also going out of the room, leaving the chief of the scientific department and the police captain alone.

“You think Twila and Spencer are going to find something at Monitronics?” Sherman asked slowly after a short silence.

“If my intuition is correct,  they’ll find nothing,” Celeste muttered with a deep, annoyed frown.

“You think they did it?” Sherman asked, frowning as well. “That’d be a first time they’d actually have done something with someone still inside the house, or that someone actually saw one of them,” he said slowly.

“It’s not like they never changed their modus operandi before,” Celeste retorted sarcastically.

“Celeste, why are you so sure that it might be….”

“One hundred thirty-eight!”

“What?” Sherman asked in confusion.

“That’s the number of unsolved burglary cases in the last eight years,” Celeste explained slowly. “If we add the two of this morning, that’ll be one hundred forty,”

“Hang on, how can you be so sure those from this morning will be unsolved?”

“Do you know what the first hundred thirty-eight had in common?” Celeste asked, ignoring the captain’s question.

“No, I don’t,” Sherman replied.

“We never had a single clue on who culprits were,” Celeste said matter-of-factly. “That’s the sole common feature in all those burglars! The victims didn’t have anything in common: some were among the super riches, others were in the middle class. They even didn’t all involve insane amounts of money. In some cases, the alarm was deactivated by cutting the power down to the entire building. In others, the robbery happened under the sounds of the alarm bells.” Celeste stood up and walked up to a window. “The thieves came in, took what they wanted, and simply disappeared without a single trace into the shadows of New York,” she stared outside in silence.

“Why are you so moody, Celeste?” Sherman asked with worry. “It’s not like you at all.”

“I know,” Celeste admitted with a sigh. “It’s just that that group is annoying me to no ends! For eight years they’ve been ridiculing us!” she growled while closing her fists.

“Celeste, we don’t even have proof that band of expert thieves even exists,” Sherman said softly.

“I know we don’t, but my guts are telling me it does, Sherman,” Celeste said firmly. “It exists and one day they’ll make a mistake. A huge mistake! And, I’ll be there to handcuff those punks who’ve been playing with us for so long!” she growled in determination.