Page 55 of Mission: Possible

"I hope you can tell me. Maybe they were simply more experienced."

As we talked, we traveled through the small rear lobby and down the stairs into the basement. The vault door was closed and I waited while Charlie entered a code in a digital keypad, then input his palm print. The door unclicked and Charlie pulled the thick door open, standing back to let me inside the windowless room. I stared at his hand for a moment and he looked at me. "I wondered if they might cut it off," he said with a sigh.

"Don't dwell on it," I said, turning to assess the mess. Debris was scattered across the floor. Bits of twisted metal, a lock without its casing, a single diamond earring, sheafs of paper... everywhere I looked something was out of place. "How did you plan to organize all this?" I asked.

"I thought we would bring in a long, folding, table and assemble everything on it," said Charlie. "It's old school but it should work. The paperwork should be easily identifiable. Everything else—" He threw his hands up in defeat.

"I like that idea. I can help do that as I take a look," I said. "Can you get a table?"

"I can't leave you in here alone," he said, opening a small box on the wall. He pulled out a corded telephone and asked for the table to be brought down. "The bank insists on having phones in the vaults in case anyone ever gets stuck."

"Does that happen often?"

"It's happened a couple times."

"I'm going to start looking through the debris."

Charlie glanced around, appearing uncomfortable. "I have to ask that you don't photograph anything, but you can take notes. We have to respect our clients’ privacy."

"Understood," I said. I would have preferred photos to sift through later but I came prepared with a notepad and pen. There was no point in sketching the scene since I wasn't an artist and it could only result in an ill-informed squiggle. I preferred to take notes since the list might become useful later. Although, I decided as I sank to my knees, it might also be an absolute waste of time. What if the stolen box contained one single item, and that item was long gone? "How about if I notate the items and then pass them to you to display on the table?" I suggested. "We can document and display them at the same time."

"That would speed things up considerably, sure. I have the time. Ahh. Here's the table."

Two employees arrived with a long, folding painter's table. They set it up against the far end of the room, then stepped out, giving me curious glances. I could understand their interest; they probably wanted to know what was going on too.

I started with the smallest item nearest me, the diamond earring, and recorded it in my notepad before passing it to Charlie. Surprisingly, the task wasn't boring, just slightly laborious as the list grew. I sifted the remains of box debris from the obvious contents. Birth records, property records and old letters comprised the bulk of ephemera, along with a crumpled coin magazine, a bundle of cash in euros, and a startling array of naked photos. Several passports had the same photograph with different names. I pondered that before handing them to Charlie as I found them. That was not the mystery I was here to solve, although I did jot down the names, just in case.

There was a lot of jewelry made from all kinds of different stones and styles which, to my untrained eye, looked very valuable. I found several flash drives which I handed to Charlie although I wished I could’ve seen what was on them. There was a small handgun wedged under a metal sheet. "I think you should speak to the police about this," I said as I covered my hand with a tissue before picking it up. I lay the gun on the table rather than handing it to Charlie.

"I'm not sure about that. Clients pay for the privilege of privacy."

"It could have been used in a crime," I said.

"What if the robbers left it behind?"

We both looked at the small handgun. It was nothing like the weapons the robbers toted. However, being a weapon found in the aftermath of a robbery would give Charlie some plausible deniability if the gun were connected to a patron of the bank. "Then you should definitely call Detective Graves down here," I said as I moved away, checking to see if anything else were gun-related. I didn't find any bullets or a gun case so I moved onto the last remaining items, adding a thick folder containing a stamp collection, some very old books, and a few more fragments of jewelry to the table. A pile of mangled metal lay on the floor beneath, the material twisted and warped beyond repair, which gave me an idea.

"When did you last have the boxes maintained?" I asked.

Charlie shrugged. "Some thirty years ago I’m told, and they've never needed any maintenance. The only upgrade is the palm scanner outside the door and that was upgraded at least a decade ago. The boxes with the fingerprint scanners were renovated at the same time."

"Any other workers down here in the last few months? Electricians? Plumbers? Pest control?"

"No, no one."

So much for the idea that someone lied their way inside, although it did increase the possibility of an inside job. I didn't tell Charlie that, although I wondered if the idea occurred to him. Instead, I gazed at the array of items unduly liberated from their boxes and wondered what could possibly be more valuable than these? For the price the client's paid for privacy, their stored items were hardly exciting.

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in Solomon's car, reviewing my notes when my phone rang. Instead of Lily calling me back to remind me to call her, it was Austen.

"Can you come to the house?" he asked, a trace of urgency in his voice that had me sitting up straighter.

"Yes, of course. Is everything okay? Is your wife okay?"

"Stable and no change. The nurse told me if I didn't go home, shower and change, she would forcibly evict me and not let me return until I did. I got home at midnight and started looking for a bag to take back to the hospital with some of Sophie's things for when she wakes up and I found something."

"Oh?"

"It's... Lexi, I don't know what to make of it. Could you come by and take a look?"