be easy to put together. They would need to be experienced and trustworthy, and almost certainly well known to whomever planned the heist."
"Speaking of men, I'm convinced one of the crew was a woman."
"I think you're right. She had to be one of the guards at the door who remained with the hostages when half the crew entered the vault. There aren't many women in this game. That might narrow our search considerably, assuming she's been in trouble before." Solomon leaned back and crossed his legs, his face much more thoughtful. "I can't think of any female bank robbers crossing my radar," he added.
"I can ask Jord to look into it," I said, making a note to call him. No doubt, he already saw the footage but I wondered if he noticed the physical differences that made the female robber stand out to us. She wasn’t significantly shorter or stereotypically feminine in her body shape or even how she was dressed. She had strong shoulders, wore the same clothes, and acted quite familiar with her weapon. No, it was just something about the way she moved that caught my attention. Something elusive I couldn't really put my finger on.
"I think some of the crew are ex-military," said Solomon. He tapped his pen against the notepad again. "Several of them moved in a surreptitious way and they all deferred to this guy." He pointed to the screen where he paused it, indicating one man. "He's commanding the situation. They all answer to him."
"Except for this guy." I used my pen to indicate the man almost out of the camera’s view. "He shot Officer Andersen. He didn't search the security guard properly and when there was action, he must have gotten carried away. They didn't intend for that to happen. I'm sure they didn’t plan to hurt anyone but it did expedite their need to quickly identify Charlie Sampson. The shooting scared everyone."
"He could be the least experienced of them all. Perhaps not military, although he seems to know how to handle a gun. He's hotheaded too. Maybe someone who failed boot camp? A relative of one of the other thieves? Perhaps one of the crew suggested bringing him on for extra manpower."
I ignored his comment about failing boot camp because a few years ago, I did exactly the same thing. I made a rash decision to join up, and a sensible one to leave. The Army and I agreed on both counts. "Could be a weak link. Maybe he watched too many action movies and thinks he's a tough guy, since he's definitely not the brains behind it," I said.
"Agreed. My money is on the leader; I think he devised the whole thing. Either he wanted the item they stole, or someone approached him to put together a team. He's the linchpin to the whole operation. Find him and we’ll have everybody up and down the chain," said Solomon.
"The problem with that is I don't see any identifying features." I edged the recording forward until we had a body shot of the man we identified as the leader. Even with him in full view, it wasn't like watching in High Definition. "They are covered head to toe in black, and all dressed identically. I don't recall seeing a flash of skin or a glimpse of hair color. I was face down most of the time so I didn't see anyone’s eye color either. Most of them didn't talk so I couldn't identify any accents and the two that did sounded fairly generic American. No Southern drawl or East coast twang to make them stand out. The rest of the crew might even be foreign, for all we know."
"That's possible but pretty unlikely. We have plenty of home-grown criminals for hire," Solomon replied.
I pulled a face. "Such a comforting thought."
Solomon swiveled the chair and reached for my hand, apparently unconcerned about anyone walking in to witness PDA at the office. Although it was common knowledge we were married, we kept the mushy stuff to a bare minimum. For both of us, being professional was paramount. I had the added worry of someone accusing my investigative successes to being directly related to my extra coziness with the boss. So far, no rumors of that kind ever surfaced to my ears but I still remembered those days all too well. When I first started, my new colleagues thought I was an empty-headed nobody without an ounce of investigative skills. "You kept your cool all