Fine Time to Leave (part 1)

A short cop story.

I was sitting in my closet-turned-office, when my personal phone rang, with the caller identified as “Kevin HD.” Kevin is the loss prevention officer at Home Depot. After a couple of years on patrol, Kevin and I are on a first-name basis. I’ve hassled him about planning to steal from his store because their security is so anemic, and they’re spineless yes men kowtowing to corporate idiocy because they refuse to stop thieves. He’s subtly noted that I’m filling out my uniform very well, “looking like a bag of frosting.” I answered the phone and we bantered for a minute, then he asked, "Hey, do you know this guy?" He then sent me a picture from their surveillance.

The guy was a short white man with blonde hair, a scraggly beard, and a pensive look on his face. He looked like he knew he was doing something wrong but was also very comfortable doing it. His brows were furrowed, and his chest was puffed up. He had to look of a man who’d spent a long time working with his hands. Behind him was a taller, fat guy wearing a green shirt and a dirty, black leather cowboy hat. He looked like a guy who just stepped on the path of a downward spiral. He had methy eyes, unreasonably intense. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the beginning of the end for that guy. 

Kevin said that they took this stuff about a month ago. I told Kevin that the shorter one looked familiar. Kevin told me they had been using credit accounts for local businesses, claiming to be from Anderson Builders. A manager for Anderson Builders called Kevin after their bookkeeper noticed the discrepancy.

After our conversation, Kevin sent me the surveillance clip of the two men checking out at the store. They walk out of Home Depot with two carts full of merchandise. The carts contained various oscillating saws, tools, and a bunch of seemingly random impulse items: end cap stocking-stuffers for the dope-head laborers. The cashiers let them through without any hassle, so they were making out pretty good on somebody else's dime. 

Once I reviewed the video, I saved a few frames, and sent them to our social media manager. Within a day, the image was shared by our local newspaper and neighboring agency. I also showed the pictures to a few fellow officers at the police department. One of our detectives immediately recognized the shorter man as Joe Miller. So, I looked up Joe Miller in our arrest and documentation system and found a couple of arrests with his name as the suspect. I found a phone number, an address, and dug a little more using open-source social media, the most elegant of cop tools. 

I noticed Joe moved around a lot—he was from Florida but currently in North Carolina. Given his track record, he was allegedly a pretty serious gangbanger, kind of a shot-caller at one point. He hadn’t had anything on his record for the past few years. Prior to that, he was convicted of armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and a flurry of other drug-related charges. 

I gathered as much information as I could, and gave him a call. Joe answered immediately. A friend of his had sent him a picture of the post online, so he knew the call was coming.

"Joe, this is Detective Delaney.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“I guess you know why I'm calling?"

"Yeah. I saw yall put up my picture.”

"So what's going on? It looked like you were laying low for a while. What're you doing this shit for?"

“I dunno. It was stupid.”

Immediately I thought, “this is the easiest interview in the history of investigations. The guy is expecting my call, identifies himself as the guy in the picture, and admits making a mistake: case closed.”

Something was off. A guy with his reputation and track record always has an angle. I continued on with general questions for which I already knew the answers. It’s always helpful to get someone to lie to me, so I can know what it sounds like. It can be a lilt in their voice; a change of cadence. Suddenly, someone will only respond with sentence fragments. A lot of folks will repeat your question right back to you before they fabricate an answer for it. From what I could tell over the phone, Joe didn’t lie to me once.

Joe proceeded to tell me that he had been working pretty steadily for a while, making good money doing custom woodwork. He was subcontracting for a number of businesses. One of those businesses decided not to pay him in full for the work he did, so Joe, being a man of a DIY ilk, decided to go to Home Depot where he knew this business had an account. He figured he would get his earnings one way or another. Joe never had an issue doling out street level justice, and that trait hadn’t disappeared as he tamed.

After I listened to Joe jump through all my hoops, I was confident that he was telling me the truth. Joe really went to Home Depot, said he was with Anderson Construction, and gave a fake name. He was really surprised when it worked the first time—they didn't even ask for ID. He mentioned that he thought up a canned story about leaving it in his car. “If they would’ve asked me for ID, I was just going to tell them I'd be right back and leave.” But, they just let him walk right out. 

I said, “It must have been pretty disappointing to go to the trouble of remembering the employee who actually held the account, only to check out with the least curious cashier in the store.”

Joe, caught off guard, hesitated to laugh. He was still trying to figure me out. He didn't know if I was going to be the type of officer who helps a guy out of the hole he’s dug, or am I throwing dirt on him when he’s standing in it?

Joe continued, and stated that when he left that day, he thought it was too easy, and waited about a week for it to catch up to him. It didn't. In his words, he was “just trying to get their attention” at Anderson Construction. When they didn't respond to his thievery, he thought, "I kind of need some more tools for this other job." 

That was the moment that Joe woke a long-dormant demon, and a few years without getting in trouble with the law is a long time in criminal years.

I could hear something in his voice, but didn’t know what it was. I felt like I wasn’t getting a full enough picture of what led up to this moment, and what happened afterwards. So, I said “Joe, why don’t you come in here tomorrow? This is a lot for me to get my head around, and it sounds like you’re the kind of guy who’d prefer to deal with this man to man, anyways.”

“Are you going to arrest me if I come in?”

“Joe, as long as you don’t tell me where you buried bodies, I promise you’ll walk out of here bracelet-free. But, you’ve got to shoot me straight. I’ll keep you in the loop every step of the way. Just don’t dip on me. Do not mistake my kindness for weakness, and I won’t for you either. Sound fair?”

“That’s fair. Can I park in the back, so no one sees me?”

“Yup. Park at the Insurance Company next door, and walk over. Call me when you get here, and I’ll walk you in. Just get here before 5:00.”

“Sounds good.”