A World Without Secrets (28 page)

After breakfast I opened the file folder Schoenberg had left and read through the reports it contained. There was little I didn't know, or suspect, but I read every word. When I reached the end, I was sure their investigation had stalled completely. Well, that was why I was here after all.

I didn't know how long I was going to be in Amsterdam, so I planned to take a taxi to the museum instead of getting a rental car. But before I left the hotel, I used tweezers to remove all the tracking devices from my suit coats and jacket and place them in tiny evidence packets. I slipped one evidence packet in a pocket of the coat I was wearing, and the rest went into a drawer of the desk.

While passing through the lobby on my way out of the hotel, the desk clerk called my name and held out an envelope. When I walked to the desk, he said, "This was left for you this morning, Mr. James."

I thanked him and headed for the exit as I opened the envelope. Inside I found what appeared to be a license issued by the DNR to carry my weapons in the Netherlands. It had the same picture as found on my FBI ID, so the DNR must have gotten that from Washington, and it listed the serial numbers of both my weapons. It was encased in plastic, as were most IDs in recent years. I slid it into the pocket in my badge wallet behind my FBI ID. There was also an EFP in the envelope. I hoped I wouldn't have to travel outside the country, but it was useful to have in case travel was necessary.

They must have passed my photo around at the museum before I arrived because as soon as I entered a guard addressed me by name and asked me to accompany him to the security office. I was greeted warmly by the head of security, Captain Rudy Van der Burg, who invited me into his office. Kurt Locher, the insurance company security man, was already seated there.

"Good morning, James. I thought you might stop here this morning. I was just reviewing everything we know with Rudy."

"Tea or coffee, Mr. James?" Captain Van der Burg asked.

"Coffee would be great," I said, "and I prefer Colt."

"Colt?" Van der Burg said as he poured a cup of coffee from a brewing pot on a side table.

"That's my first name. It's short for Colton."

"Ah, and you must call me Rudy."

"Okay, Rudy," I said with an ingenuous smile, then added, "thanks," as he placed a mug of steaming coffee on the edge of the desk just in front of the chair I had selected. I made use of the sugar and cream containers that were on the desk in front of Locher, then sat back with my coffee and took a sip. The coffee was considerably stronger than I brewed it, but it was delicious.

Rudy was as different in appearance from Captain DeRosa as could be. Rather than a battlefield commander, he looked like a kindly old toymaker. He had a thick mustache that extended slightly beyond his chubby cheeks and a pot belly that would make a stove jealous. Locher on the other hand reminded me a lot of William Kovacs in New York. Perhaps there was an appearance requirement in the job description for senior insurance company security executives.

"James, I want to apologize for the behavior of Chief Inspector Schaake yesterday," Locher said. "He's upset that his people were unable to solve the crime and more than a bit irritated that we've turned to outside help. His office has been promising a big breakthrough for months, but so far they have nothing. He's a good cop, but he'd hoped the FBI would send you as a liaison investigator who would report to him while in the Netherlands."

"I understand his position," I said, "and I prefer Colt."

Locher smiled and said, "Sorry. Colt it is. We use last names in the office, and it's become a habit. Call me Kurt."

"Okay, Kurt. We use last names at the FBI also, but when I'm working a case, I prefer a bit more informality if the others on the case allow it. As to Schaake, it's not uncommon for local law enforcement to be upset when they find themselves being— supplanted— in an investigation. It's a blow to their professional pride that others view them as having been the least bit incompetent. But he has had more than eight months to find the thieves and shouldn't object to others being brought in who might be able to offer a fresh perspective."

"Yes, I agree. So, any ideas? Schoenberg said that he passed on the Interpol file from Ambrose. It's probably as complete as Schaake's."

"Yes, I reviewed the file this morning," I replied. "It seems very complete. I'd like to tour the crime scene today and then the roof and back alley."

"The back alley?" Rudy said. "There's nothing back there. The crime team examined it and found nothing. There weren't even any tire tracks, so the thieves apparently weren't in a hurry to escape."

"Which might mean they had one or more accomplices whose job it was to notify them if the police became alerted to the crime."

"There's no way to know that," Kurt said, "since the police weren't alerted until six a.m. when the guard shift ended and the next team came on duty. It's standard procedure to test the alarm system for two seconds using internal alarm bells only. When the system failed to sound, both shifts began investigating. The test lights indicated that the system was operating properly, but it had been shorted out. These people were pros."

"Don't you have a roving patrol during the night?"

"It was discontinued due to budget cutbacks after the new alarm was installed," Rudy said. "I told them all I needed was two more guards and we could do hourly sweeps."

"You'll get your two people now," Kurt said, "or the premiums will rise tenfold beyond what the salary costs would be. If the police had been notified a few hours earlier, they might have been able to catch these guys. As it was, the gang could have been in Dusseldorf before the theft was even reported."

I finished the last of my coffee, and as I put my cup down, I said, "Shall we get started?"

"Yes," Rudy said, "but I have to notify Maarten Pieter Hilhorst, our Director of Collections. He wishes to come along. We will also be joined by Stef Dekker, the owner of the alarm company who installed our alarm system, and his son, Henk. They're presently with Director Hilhorst."

"Fine. Let's get started."

Ten minutes later, the six of us were in the area where the theft had taken place. I recognized it immediately from having viewed the robbery on the gizmo so many times. A different exhibit filled the space but Rudy had temporarily closed the section off to visitors. He pointed out where the criminals had entered and where the pictures had hung.

"We thought this was the most secure part of the museum," Rudy said. "It's true there's a skylight here, but it was welded closed and the roof is four stories above the ground. They brought some sort of torch with them and cut through the tack welds, but the alarms should have alerted the guards to the break-in. We have infrared passive and motion detectors, and each picture has a contact switch connection that's impossible to override. But once the alarm system was disabled, the sensors were useless. Stef can explain exactly how they overrode the system."

Stef Dekker looked more like a workingman than company management. Standing about five foot nine, he appeared to be in good health and moderately good physical condition. He had intelligent eyes, so I was confused when his son, the spitting image of his father less thirty years or so, began to act as interpreter while his father educated us about the alarm system in Dutch. Henk Dekker told us his father was fluent in Dutch, German, and French, but knew little English, while his own English was excellent.

I listened to the translated explanation about the alarm and understood most of what was said. My only question at the end of the presentation was, "So the thieves managed to override a system believed to be impregnable. How do you explain that?"

The elder Dekker shrugged his shoulders and shook his head even before his son translated the question.
So he does speak English
, I thought.

I wandered around for a few minutes, thinking about the alarm system and getting a better feel for the layout. Parked off to the side was one of those portable platform scaffold units they use to change light bulbs in high ceiling fixtures. It was like a scissors jack and rose up electrically for the maintenance people.

"Was that unit used for the escape?" I asked Rudy, pointing to the scissors scaffold."

"No, that unit wasn't here that day. It was on another floor. I had it brought up so you could see where they cut through the skylight welds. The thieves must have used ropes to climb down and then back up. Shall we examine the skylight?"

When I nodded, he motioned to a maintenance worker standing with the machine. The man brought it over and positioned it beneath the skylight. It only held four people, so the two Dekkers weren't able to join us. Once we were in, Rudy used the controls to raise us up to the skylight some twenty feet up.

There were two new, very solid-looking locks hanging from heavy hasps that also looked brand new. Rudy unlocked both and set them on the floor of the scaffold, then raised the skylight up and secured it in place with a steel bar so it couldn't crash down on us while we were examining the area.

I had watched the crime repeatedly, so I had information they didn't. I did my best Sherlock Holmes impression, less the magnifying glass routine, as I examined the skylight. Finally, I said, "Is this blood here?" as I pointed to a small red stain in the untreated trim woodwork where the skylight unit met the roof. I knew the previous investigators hadn't paid attention to it, although they'd dusted the entire area looking for fingerprints.

"We didn't find any blood," Rudy said as he looked closer. "It's probably from the workmen who fixed the skylight afterward."

"Then perhaps we should have it examined," I said as I pulled out my pocket knife and sliced evenly into the soft pine wood. "If it's from the museum workmen, we can discount it." The narrow smear was about an inch long and wasn't from a fingerprint. I bisected it and then slid the sharp blade under the left half to separate it from the trim. It lifted up and sliced off like any wood shaving should. I left the other half in place so the police would be able to testify that the blood had definitely come from the skylight trim. I dropped my shaving into a small plastic evidence pouch I had brought along, then handed it to Kurt, who moved slightly to examine it in the best light.

"It certainly looks like blood," he said. "Of course, it could be paint."

"Except the trim work isn't painted, and nothing else is that color. Can you have it checked with Schaake's people, or should I turn it over to Interpol?"

"I'll take it over to the Chief Inspector's office personally," Kurt said. "You really think it's blood?"

"If it's not, it's a pretty good imitation. In any event, we can't discount it until we know for sure. If it is blood from one of the thieves, we might have the first solid clue to the identity of our perps."

I already knew it was blood because I had seen one of the thieves react when he sliced himself as he was climbing through the skylight. In cutting through the weld tacks, they had left jagged edges. They were all wearing gloves, but this cut happened in the uncovered area between the glove and the jacket cuff. It was really just a scrape, and it hadn't bled profusely, but it might be enough to identify him. Any other blood had probably soaked into the lining of the glove or the jacket cuff.

There was nothing else of interest up there, but I killed some more time just to appear thorough before saying I had seen enough and would like to see the roof. We weren't about to try to climb out the skylight, so Rudy resealed the opening and lowered the scaffold.

As soon as we were down, the elder Dekker said something in Dutch. The son said, "He wants to know what you found." They had been watching us from below while we were on the scaffold.

Normally, I would be non-committal in an investigation, but we needed to make something happen on this case, so I said, "A bit of blood. We should be able to identify one of the thieves from the DNA. The case is almost solved." The son never translated for his father, but the old man understood. I could see it in his eyes.

We used a stairway to reach the roof. The door that opened to the outside looked like it could withstand a small army of thieves trying to enter the museum that way. I did my brilliant investigator act for a while, but there really wasn't much to see on the roof after I examined the skylight from outside. I was able to acquire a feel for the layout though. That had sort of been missing because it had been so dark the night of the robbery and I hadn't viewed the scene during the day.

I wrapped up my crime scene investigation in the alleyway behind the museum after thanking the Dekkers for their information and saying goodbye. Two overhead doors at a loading dock provided museum access for deliveries, and there was a steel entrance door that looked like a cousin to the one on the roof. I was sure this one could withstand a battering ram attack from an ancient army. The alley was easily wide enough for a tractor-trailer to enter and back up to the loading area. I resumed my inscrutable detective pose and walked back and forth across the area, stopping occasionally to look at something such as marks on the road before continuing.

After about ten minutes of wandering around, I bent over to examine something I had discovered quite by accident. I withdrew a pair of tweezers from my pocket and picked up the object carefully, then dropped it into a fresh evidence pouch. It appeared to be a button from a jacket. I hadn't been looking for it, but there was always the outside possibility that it had come off the clothing worn by one of the crooks. Rudy, Kurt, and Hilhorst came hurrying over when they saw my actions.

"Did you find something, Colt?" Rudy asked.

"A button."

"A button," Hilhorst said. "Just a button?"

"Yes, but you never know what might be significant."

"But we're half a block from the museum. And that button could have been there for years."

"We're only about forty-meters from the loading dock. And the button might have only been there since the night of the robbery."