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Filamena Young is a freelance writer, novelist, and full time mystery-buff. She has been reading and enjoying everything from cozies to hardboiled detective novels since she was a very young child. She runs a 'writers support group' -– a work shop with aims towards publication. She is also an active participant at Critter.org. Some of her longer pieces are available on demand at her website.

The Baked Bank Job by Filamena Young

From the Case Files of Jack Doe: 547D - The Baked Bank Job

So, there I was, locked in a bank vault with five bank employees, a young welfare couple, and a corpse. I looked around at the assembled cast and realized I'd better start coming up with some pretty clever observations before the cops showed up and started asking questions. After all, I am one of the most well known PI's in this lousy city, and if I didn't have answers when the cops started asking, I might never hear the end of it.

Plus, you know, justice for the dead guy.

The robbery itself was sort of a blitz attack. Four armed men wearing masks charged in the doors, swarmed all over the bank manager––now dead––and got the loot ready and out the door in record time. They were well spoken, college-educated . Matter of fact, by the ages and the fact that they were still using their SAT vocabulary I had to guess they were still in school. It was clockwork and smooth, and I had to wonder if they didn't have an inside man. Still, the little guy––isn't there always a little guy?––couldn't stop giggling. Couldn't stop snickering like a doper. Wasn't hard to imagine he was, in fact, just that. I think the manager recognized him; he had that look in his eyes when he met eye-to-eye with the giggling robber.

That's where it all went wrong. The giggler started shrieking that they were done, that the manager knew who they were. The women started screaming, bullets started flying, and when all was said and done the manager was dead and the rest of us were locked in the vault.

"There's a silent alarm, right? Someone knows we're in here, don't they?" I asked one of the employees who wasn't crying.

"I, I think so." Her voice shook and she kept looking at the body. Her eyes, pretty and green in a simple open face, were caked with ruined mascara. She was maybe the manager’s junior by twenty years or more. Still, I had this sense that they'd been sleeping together. It's worth noting here, of course, that I also noticed she wore no wedding band, though the bank manager clearly did.

"The security company checks in regularly. They'll notice I'm not responding pretty quick and call in the cops." The woman speaking then was a security guard. She'd fumbled her gun, dropping it in the face of the higher caliber pistols in the hands of the robbers. She was small and a little overweight, and I think she was in the wrong line of work. From her overly long fingernails to a dramatic if somewhat tasteless mini-beehive, I had to wonder if she didn't see herself somewhere far from the ill-fitting blue pants suit and cumbersome belt. It wouldn't be a stretch, I thought, that she might want a get-rich-real-quick way out of the blue-collar world. Like, say, bank robbery.

Also, there was a pair of girls, maybe 32 between the two of them, hugging each other and crying hysterically. They worked at the counter- a sort of step up from a cashier position down at the grocery store, and I had to guess as they wept and shivered they never thought they'd be in a situation like this. Still, they were young, and wouldn't have been the first young girls in the world to be taken advantage of by older sophisticated college boys.

Near the girls, and similarly weeping, was one of the assistant managers. I knew he worked at the bank only because the customer service representative, the blond sleeping with her boss, had introduced him that way, but briefly. He was a thin young guy just pushing twenty-one. On his day off from the bank, though in it anyway, he wore straight-legged pants just a little too tightly and a turtleneck that didn't leave his nipple rings to the imagination. Unfortunate, really. He smelled strongly of patchouli when he passed me, and while it wasn't a good reason not to like him, I rarely need good reasons. He'd screamed and cried when the manager was shot down and pushed and flailed when we were all herded into the vault. I think he was still crying.

I eyed the couple I had determined were a welfare lot, some distance from the check cashing place they usually went to. I over heard the wife say so to the husband just before the gunman broke in. She was small and had a crooked tattoo over her left shoulder; he was taller, but still just as skinny and was about covered in tattoos. Prison style. He'd done time and it was as clear as the spiderweb inked on his elbow. They sat close together and away from the others, eyeing the rest of us suspiciously and whispering to each other. It wasn't any of my business, probably, so I didn't try to eavesdrop.

I looked around the vault one more time and decided I knew just who the police should be talking to.

The door opened after another minute and I got to my feet, making a beeline right for Detective Whatshisnuts. He laughed and started to joke about me being there. I waved him off and pulled him away from the rest.
"This is was an inside job," I told him.

"You don't say?" He was already looking sweaty; he got like that when his cases got complicated. "You gonna lay it out for me Jack, like my own personal hero?"

I brushed that off too. "You need to be talking to the assistant manger." I surreptitiously nodded to the skinny nervous guy.

"You're off on this one, man. What about the guy with the tattoos? I know him. I sent him up myself ten years ago for armed robbery."

I looked back. "Maybe you did, but fact is, the gunmen were young guys with brains. They wern't thugs, and they didn't have this planned for them by a thug. The blond might have pulled something funny, but still no connection to the robbers. Likewise, I can't figure how the guard might have met a bunch of druggie college boys. The girls just don't have a motive."

"So what makes you so sure this assistant manager was involved?" He looked me over skeptically. I'd gotten used to that look, so I went on.

"He's the right age and about the right education level. Really, it's the smell, detective. The smell. He came in on his day off stinking like patchouli. There's only one good reason to wear patchouli, and that's if you're trying to cover up the smell of pot. He stunk of it, so he must have just put it on. Picture it like this: the inside man meets up with his doper friends out front. They're looking for some extra cash for their extracurriculars, and he's got just the job to help them out. They share a joint to cool their jets, he heads in first to make sure the coast is clear, but not before tossing some of that stink on himself to avoid being clearly a druggie. Only, Tiny has some other crap in his system and freaks out with the power of a gun in his hand. Somebody dies."

The detective gave me a long look, sized up the assistant manager and then spoke to the uniforms with him. "Let's talk to him first––this might get wrapped up faster than we thought."

THE END