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“You were talking with customers, you took a coffee break, a couple of bathroom breaks . . .” reported Jared, who seemed to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder. “Anybody could have grabbed that egg at pretty much anytime this morning.”
“Did you notice anything?” Lucy directed her question to Jen, thinking she was most likely the brightest bulb in this dim group.
“Not really,” admitted Jen. “There was the usual rush at opening, merchants making deposits, getting change, that sort of thing. And there’s always old folks checking on automatic deposits from Social Security.”
“So it was busier than usual?” asked Barney.
“The bank was crowded, we both had lines of customers,” remembered Jen.
The chief glanced around the space, making calculations. “So your view of the basket was blocked for much of the morning?”
Jen nodded. “That’s right.”
“Well,” he began, with a sigh, speaking to Bert. “I’ll write up a report and soon as it’s ready you can come by the station and sign it.”
“That’s it?” asked Bert. “No fingerprints? No CSI team?”
Chief Kirwan shrugged. “I suppose you’ve got CCTV? We could take a look at that.”
“Absolutely!” Bert jumped at the possibility. “The camera’s right up there.”
“So it is,” said Barney. “Covers the tellers.”
“But not the seating area,” added the chief, shaking his head.
“Well, the tellers would be the most likely to be involved in a robbery,” said Bert, rather defensively.
“Right, right,” admitted Kirwan. “We’ll take a look at the video, but I don’t expect it to be very helpful.”
“I suppose you had insurance,” suggested Barney, by way of consolation.
“Yes, yes. I’ll have to check on our coverage,” said Bert, not sounding terribly confident.
Lucy snapped a few photos of the basket, focusing on the void left by the purloined egg, then followed the officers out of the bank. “Any chance of recovering the egg?” she asked, catching up to them by their cruisers.
“Off the record, not a chance in hell,” said the chief.
“But the department will make this case a top priority,” asserted Barney, who was the department’s community outreach officer. “We are very confident we will identify this brazen and callous thief and return the sculpture to its rightful place.” He smoothed his brush cut and settled his cap on his head. “This perpetrator will soon discover that crime doesn’t pay in Tinker’s Cove.”
“Can I quote you on that?” teased Lucy.
Barney didn’t get the joke. “Absolutely,” he declared, with a nod that jiggled his jowls.
* * *
Ted wasn’t impressed when Lucy called to fill him in on the breaking story. “It’s probably just a prank, Lucy.” He paused for a moment, then offered some advice. “What you need to do is cover the story behind the story. It’s no secret there’s been a lot of friction at the Chamber. I wouldn’t put it past one of the discontented members to pull a stunt like this.”
Lucy wasn’t convinced, she thought there was a big difference between grumbling and committing grand larceny, but when she followed up by interviewing Corney she discovered that Ted was on to something. “This isn’t simple theft, it’s sabotage!” she declared. “It’s a blot on the Chamber. Whoever did this doesn’t want the Chamber to succeed.”
“Are you sure about that?” pressed Lucy, who had stopped by at Corney’s office in the little tourist info center on Main Street. “Why would anyone want the Chamber to fail?” She imagined the Chamber’s membership as a congenial group of local businesspeople with similar interests who gathered monthly over cocktails.
“There’s a lot of dissension in the ranks,” confessed Corney. “Not everyone was on board with the Easter Basket promo.”
“Why not?” asked Lucy, genuinely puzzled.
“It seems everybody is so fired up these days. The members are like everybody else, divided into two camps. Two warring camps.”
“But they all have small businesses here in town, doesn’t everyone benefit from the Chamber’s activities?” asked Lucy, becoming aware that Corney was actually deeply troubled. “You’ve been president forever, it’s like you are the Chamber,” she continued. “Everyone knows what a super job you do.”
