Southern Cross by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online

jumped ahead. “We just had another ATM robbery, I’m sorry to say. I’m going to let Deputy Chief West give the details.”
    “Victim is an Asian male, age twenty-two.” West looked at her notes. “Pulled up to the Crestar ATM at 5802 Patterson. Nobody else was there. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, says duct tape was suddenly slapped over his eyes, a gun jammed into his back. A male, he couldn’t tell race, demanded money. By the time the victim removed the tape, the perp was long gone.”
    “The duct tape is different,” Hammer said.
    “Absolutely,” West said.
    “That makes six ATM robberies,” Hammer said. “Four on Southside, two in the West End. An average of one per week since early February.”
    “Let me just say that I’m extremely concerned about this latest one, assuming it’s related,” West spoke up. “Let’s just go through it. We have the first four ATMs late night or early morning when it’s dark. There’s a male-female team. She diverts by asking the victim where the nearest post office, pay phone, whatever, is. The male appears, opens his jacket just enough to show the handle of a gun and says, I want the money you took out of the machine. Maybe the gun’s real, maybe it’s not. The perp takes the money and runs.
    “Then we have a fifth ATM in Church Hill. Again, when it’s dark out, but this time the male perp actually displays the gun. He gets into the victim’s car, turns out the interior light so the victim can’t see his face. Threatens if the victim ever tries to help cops ID him, he knows the guy’s plate number and will find him and kill him. Then he forces the victim to drive several blocks. The perp jumps out with the money. Now we’ve got an ATM in the West End, and this time it’s daylight. I’m seeing a possible pattern of escalation here. An escalation that could end in violence.”
    “We got anything more on these cases?” Cloud asked.
    “Not anything helpful. Some of the victims think the female perp’s black, some think he is, and vice versa. Age unknown, assumed to be juveniles. No sign of a vehicle, if they use one,” West replied. “Bottom line is we don’t know.”
    “And bank tapes?”
    “Of no use.”
    “Why not?” Hammer asked.
    “In the first one, all you see is the back of her and it was dark,” West said. “On the next four you don’t see anything at all.”
    “And the cameras were functioning?”
    “Nothing wrong with them.”
    “And the one this morning?”
    “Seems fine.”
    “Anybody have anything even remotely similar going on in other parts of the city?” Hammer then asked.
    No one did.
    “What about third precinct? We haven’t heard from you, Captain Webber,” Hammer pushed ahead.
    “Some Russians opened up an antique store on Chamberlayne, near Azalea Mall,” Webber said. “They haven’t done anything illegal yet.”
    “Any reason to think they will?” Hammer inquired.
    “Well, it’s just this Russian thing going on.”
    “How do we know they aren’t gypsies?” burglary detective Linton Bean asked.
    “Can gypsies be Russian?”
    “Seems to me they can be anything as long as they drift around and con people.”
    “Yeah, but the ones we’ve had coming through here are mostly Romanian, Irish, English and Scotch. The Travelers. Well, that’s what they call themselves. They get real pissed if we call them gypsies.”
    “How ’bout if we just call them tramps and thieves?”
    “I’ve never heard of Russian gypsies.”
    “My sister went over to Italy last year and said they have gypsies over there.”
    “I know for a fact they got Hispanic ones in Florida.”
    “See, that’s the whole thing,” said Detective Bean. “There’s no such country as ‘Gypsy.’ You can be from anywhere and be a gypsy, including Russia . . .”
    “What are we doing about this problem?” Hammer interrupted.
    “Stepping up patrols in neighborhoods like Windsor Farms, where you have mostly older people with