B is for break in

There were a series of burglary in the rich residential enclave of Wimbledon Heights. Wimbledon Heights was located in the town of Little Lake and was divided by Wichita trails which ran through the centre of the residential area.

The local cops increased the patrols which lead to reduction in the number of burglaries but not completely eliminated. The burglaries happened during day time when most of the folks were gone to work and kids off to school. It was a quick thing with the break-in and exit not taking more than a few minutes. Most of the homes in the area had alarms but by the time it was verified and cops called in the thieves were gone.

There were town meetings and politicians getting calls from the rich contributors to the election funds which resulted calling in help from the county.  Jim Just got a call from the Mayor of Little Lake and Mike Harvey Senior Detective from Denton County was assigned the case.

"Work your magic" said Jim assigning the case to Mike.

"Yeah let me get the pixie dust" replied Mike sardonically.

It was a lazy afternoon with heat index creeping up in spite of it being spring. The hot Texas sun obviously had not gotten the memo about not raising the temperatures up in spring. Mike trudged back slowly to his pod with chicken fried stake from his lunch still a huge lump in his stomach. He should not have had such a huge lunch, now reading the file was going to take a huge effort thought Mike.

He thumped the file down and went in search of coffee. With luke warm coffee he started scanning the pages in the file.  The file contained copies of various calls made by the alarm company and the follow up done by the patrolling cops. There were no eye witness to the crime and hence no vehicle number or probable suspects to trace. The thieves it seemed had the whole process under control where in they made their exit before the cops entered the complex.

Mike leaned back in his chair and put the feet up on the desk. He sat back ruminating all the facts that he had gleamed from the file. It was an interesting case he mused.

"Mike…" someone called

He got up with a jerk and landed his feet on the ground with a thud.

"You were sleeping"

"Thinking" said Mike with a sheepish grin.

He got up saw it was late in the day. He grabbed the file and decided to head out.

*********

Next morning he decided to drive down to Wimbledon Heights. It had rained the previous night bringing down the heat index, Mike rolled down his windows letting the cool breeze blow in.

He took the exit for round grove from I-35 and started driving west. Round grove was a long loop that circled the twin towns of Little Lake and Lakeview; with every road in the two towns an offshoot from it.  Little Lake was towards the west of Round grove and Lakeview to the east. As one drove on Wichita trail for about a mile one would reach the entry on the South side for Wimbledon Heights. The entry was just a huge arch with name of the residential complex embossed on it.

As he drove in, Mike could see the stark difference between Wimbledon Heights and rest of the town. The trees were greener and lawn was manicured; the houses if you could call them that were mansions. There were jogging and bike trails all around the complex; he also passed a club house with tennis courts, a small lake and of course a golf course.

He drove around getting a feel for the lay of the land. Every road from Wichita ran into a dead end with a bigger McMansion at the end of the drive or merged into other roads that looped in side the complex.

It was an Aha moment thought Mike.

************

Later that day he started going through the file with the residential map. The break-in happened irrespective of there was security or not. Items stolen were game boxes, DVDs and any cash or jewelry left unsecured. Most of the break in happened between 10am and 2Pm when the residential area was the quietest.

He called the local cop shop at Little Lake.

"Do you have bike patrol?"

"Yeah" said the officer

"Instead of cars, can you have cops at either end of Wichita trail on bikes?"

"Sure"

"Also, let them not be in uniform and infrequent intervals"

They hung up.  Mike got busy with other cases and files on his desk.

*******

Mike had his bike hung on his SUV the next day and knew he needed the exercise. What better place for that than Wimbledon Height, he thought. He stopped at the local precinct and discussed his plans with the Deputy Chief.

"Worth a try" said the Chief

 Mike as per plan was to operate from Little Lake police station. The next call in from the alarm company, he was to join the patrol. First few weeks were quite or they were false alarms.

Mike started looking at the break in analysis more closely. There were about thirty incidents in last few months and it happened in houses with alarm and without alarm. That gave him a thought; he walked out of the cubicle into the captain's office.

"Can you get me a list of alarms registered with the town?"

It was a requirement in most towns that if you have an alarm it be registered with the local police. If it is not registered and there is an alarm outbreak or break in then the visit from your friendly neighborhood cops would cost as much as five hundred dollars.

"I will have it emailed to you"

Mike sorted the file by alarm companies. Most of the households had registered with AXT which was a national based company while there were a few registered with Johnson Alarms.  He did a Google on Johnson Alarms and found it was a new company established about six months ago. Their monthly fees were also cheaper compared to the national chain.

He picked up the phone and called AXT. After a lot of routing he finally got hold of the technology officer at the local office. He fixed an appointment with him for the next day.

Early next morning he was in sitting in the conference room with the technology officer from AXT. After brief initial pleasantries Mike decided to dive into the matter.

"Can you provide me a list of employees who quit your firm in last few months?"

"I can email it to you" said Anand

"Do you have a lot of turnover?" asked Mike

"Very few officer" replied Anand

"I see that you have a good competition from Johnson alarms for the market share" said Mike

"Johnson White the CEO used to work with us"

"Why did he quit?"

"He was laid off" said Anand

"Was there a bleep in the system?" asked Mike

"What do you mean?" asked Anand looking surprised by the question

"Our response unit and the residences are not more than 10 minutes away and by the time we reach the location the burglars are long gone."

Anand was quite. After a long time he said "We are looking to see if there is a glitch"

"Let me know, when you finish your analysis" said Mike

Mike knew Anand was hiding facts probably because it will have an impact on the business.  He also knew they lost quite a few customers because of that in the past few months. The beneficiary was Johnson Alarms which significantly did not have a single break in on its watch.

After Anand left he decided to increase his search to find if there was similar break- in   other towns. He found there were sporadic cases in other towns in the Dallas metropolis. Enough of sleuthing Mike decided to go on a bike ride in Wimbledon. He parked his vehicle and took his bike down.

It was still a pleasant morning with hot summer still a few weeks away. He saw a few joggers and bikers on the trail. It was a weekday and hence the trails were quieter. He had cell phone plugged into his ear as he biked down the trail.

Mike continued his journey enjoying the smell of spring still in the air when his phone rang. It was a message from the control room at Little Lake about a break-in on Morris road which was just half a block away from where he was biking. He pushed the pedals down the trail. As he neared the entrance into Morris from Wichita he saw a young man hanging around with a phone plug on his ears. He stood looking into the horizon on either side of Wichita trail. It made sense. The patrol unit was at least another ten minutes away.

Mike biked slowly down the hill as if he was out for his morning perambulation.

"Excuse me" he said as he tapped the shoulder of the young man. The man was startled.

He jumped back surprised.

"Give me the phone" he said using the cop tone.

The guy started to run. He was young and fast. Mike rushed after him on the bike and as he reached close to the runner he extended his feet out. The guy tripped and fell out on his face on the trail. Mike jumped off his bike and was on the back of the fallen man who was now bleeding from the fall.

"You are under arrest son" said Mike

"For what?"  

"What is your name?" asked Mike getting a grip on the guy.

"Josh"

"Let us go" said Mike as he called in for back up.

**********

The patrol car reached the site late as the burglars had vanished into thin air. Mike had Josh sit in one of the interview room and cranked up the air conditioner. He set it at a high of 82 and let Josh sweat for some time confused and afraid.

In the mean time he dialed the last number on Josh's cell. Before he could respond he had an angry voice on the other end yell at him "Dude where the heck are you?"

"Is this Todd?"

There was silence.

"Who is this?"

"Todd your friend met with an accident, this is the police"

"Where is he?"

"He is at the Little Lake emergency centre. Can you please come over there?"

"Sure"

Mike hung the phone. He went to the Captain and gave the news about the development.

"I will keep a patrol unit at the emergency centre and also track down the address for Todd"

Mike nodded his consent. It has been about thirty minutes since Mike left Josh in the warmed up interview room. The heat in the room and an anxious heart beat must have cooked Josh to medium rare.

"Show time" said Mike to no one as he grabbed a bottle of cold water, walking into the interview room.

"How are you Josh?" asked Mike placing the bottle on the table

"Hot and thirsty"

"Your friend Todd is coming in" said Mike still holding the bottle of water.

Josh looked confused tired and all of eighteen.

"Why?"

"Let me lay out the cards. He has confessed and said you are the ring leader"

"Son of a bitch, it was his plans to help Uncle John"

"You mean Johnson White"

"Yes" said a sullen Josh

"Was Johnson involved in this?"

"Ask Todd"

The next few days were frantic with long hours and lot of interviews. Anand from AXT was called back and he confessed to a system glitch.

"There was a sub routine written in which delayed the alarms for a few seconds before the control room was alerted"

 AXT was able to provide evidence that these were written from log in which was not deactivated. The system administrator from AXT confessed to have taken a pay off from Johnson Alarms to reactivate cancelled log-in for Johnson White.

"I was under the impression it was more for copying programs etc and not for criminal activities"

There were a flurry of arrests and Johnson Alarms was shut down.

*********

"So another case closed" said Jim later that week

"Yeah, as I age the pixie dust takes time working" replied Mike