St. Patrick's Day Pearls

Written by Doug Fellin, Published on 12/26/2008, Re-published on 3/24/2010

This is the story of how I solved the mystery of the stolen green pearls.

I got involved for two reasons: first, it was my family's jewelry store that was robbed just a few days before St. Patrick's Day; and second, the local teachers were in conference, so I didn't have to go to school.

Anyway, the thief only took one thing: a string of green pearls that was going on display during our town's St. Patrick's Day celebration. The mayor asked us if we would keep the necklace safe. After all, we had great security for a small store: alarms, cameras, and our night guards, Tom and Earl, and Earl's Jack Russell terrier, Rufus.

My Dad told me the police had narrowed the list of suspects to four people: Tom, Earl, Robert – the armored car driver – and Christopher, the last employee to leave on the night of the robbery. The police questioned all four but couldn't find any evidence to charge any of them with the crime.

It had to be one of them, though, because no one else could get by our security. I mean, there’s only one entry to the store and it had an alarm that would go off if opened. Each window had alarms on them, too. The only entryway not alarmed was Rufus' doggy door, but there was an outside camera that kept watch on that. Dad also had an x-ray scanner that all employees had to go through after each shift so that nothing could be smuggled out in a bag or in their clothing. If that wasn't enough, Rufus wasn't allowed to wear a dog collar to work, in case he got any crazy ideas.

No alarms were set off the night of the robbery. The videos of the outside of the building looked normal and the x-ray scans showed that no one had taken out anything they shouldn't have. In place of the real pearl necklace, a fake glass one was left behind. The store was searched from top to bottom, but no trace of the real pearls was found.

I decided to conduct my own investigation, since it seemed the police had given up.

I started with Tom, the first night watchman. He comes in at 6 p.m. According to him, nothing special happened the night of the robbery. He said Christopher, the sales clerk, was checking on the necklace when he arrived. Tom said he went in to look at it and to help Christopher count up the bank deposit (which he often did).

When Robert, the armored car driver, arrived, Christopher asked Tom to put the necklace away for him. After Tom finished that, he went back to work counting up the money with Christopher.

Afterward, Tom locked the front door behind Christopher and Robert and went to his favorite chair in the lunchroom where the outside camera monitor is kept. Every hour after that he made a lap around the inside of the store: first to the front where all the less expensive jewelry is kept and then to the back of the showroom where the most expensive things are. At about 10:00 p.m. he ate dinner – his famous meatloaf (famously disgusting). He then went back to work until Earl (and Rufus) arrived at 1:30 a.m.

Tom and Earl both went into the office and checked on the pearl necklace. Earl scanned him through the x-ray machine and Tom went home. (I went over to the scanner and looked up the scan for that night; there was no sign of any pearls on the scan saved in the machine.)

Next I waited to talk to Earl. Tom had to wake me up at 1:30 a.m. when Earl came to work. He showed me the cabinet where the pearl necklace was kept. The police kept the fake pearls as evidence, so the cabinet was empty. I found out that Tom, Earl, Christopher and my dad all had keys to the cabinet lock.

Earl told me the same story Tom did: that they both checked on the necklace before Tom left for the night. Earl admitted that he didn't know if the green necklace he saw was real or fake, since he had never seen green pearls before. He had x-rayed Tom and everything looked normal. He made the same rounds as Tom and ate his breakfast at around 5:30 a.m. He told me that Tom had given him some of his gross meatloaf but that he slipped it to Rufus. He said Rufus really liked it. The next thing he remembered was my dad arriving to get the store ready for business. It was Dad who noticed that the necklace was gone and contacted the police.

That was as far as I could get with Earl since Tom was waiting to take me home. I said goodbye to Rufus and went home to bed.

The next day I interviewed Christopher. He was the last regular employee to see the necklace. We went on a walk around the building while we talked, and Christopher was careful to avoid the results of Rufus' potty breaks.

Christopher explained that he checked on the necklace at the end of the day just before Robert, the armored car driver, came for the store's weekly bank deposit. Tom was there for his night-guard shift, so he helped count the money. The only thing at all out of the ordinary was that one bundle of money was wrapped with string instead of a rubber band. Apparently, Tom found the string in the cash-box and so he used it instead of a rubber band. It was no big deal so he scanned Robert, and the deposit, through the x-ray machine while Tom finished putting the necklace away. He followed Robert out and went home for the day.

Now I just had one more person to interview. At lunchtime, I walked over to the restaurant where Robert was eating his lunch. He explained that he arrived at the store like always and met Christopher in the office. He said that the cabinet with the green pearls was open since Christopher was checking on them. Robert also said he looked at them briefly, while Christopher was there, but never picked up the pearls. He, too, noticed the string-wrapped bundle of cash when he was collecting the deposit, but didn't think it was that strange. Some of the stores he collects money from use string occasionally to wrap their money, when they run out of rubber bands. After the jewelry store, he said he just went back to picking up deposits on his route around town.

I felt like I was getting nowhere, so I returned to the store to look at the x-ray scans stored in the machine. No one had removed anything they weren't supposed to. The police had the security video from the night of the burglary so I decided to take a look at the one from the day after. I turned it on fast-play and watched customers as they appeared to run in and out of the store. In the video, Tom showed up, cleaned up a little after Rufus, and went back to his car. Then he came back and went inside. Next, Christopher left for the day. Later, Earl and Rufus showed up for work and Tom left. Still later, Rufus came out his door, squatted on the grass a few times, and did other dog stuff. I stopped the video. I realized I had found the answers.