What followed over the next few weeks was a long relatively quiet lull. Grabar and Larceny were still in the general area as tips of supposed sightings of two Black Rat people popped up here and there, but by the time Officer Barnes and I or any of Columbia Falls' other officers could get to the spot, the two had gone. We'd also learned that they'd take to going through yards if they felt it would help them escape as a couple witnesses here and there reported. They were also beginning to operate at night more often as our station and other departments in the area began to work with Agent Heer's suggestions on how to catch them.
Unlike the Washerman case, where the FBI and County Sheriff's Offices maintained rather close contact with our station in Columbia Falls, Agent Heer was constantly driving around to meet with every local station or County Sheriff's office. He moved about quickly and constantly, which I presumed was to inform the other police units in the area on the details of Grabar and Larceny's activities. And to a certain extent, that was probably the best thing to when comparing the two cases.
Washerman had come to Columbia Falls as part of his crusade to defend animals, and his target had been the ranchers of Columbia Falls. While he had camped in Glacier and commuted into Columbia Falls, we knew that he would probably remain easily within driving distance of our jurisdiction as he had only carried out two of his "campaigns" to save the cattle being raised in the area. And there were more then two ranchers in Columbia Falls. Grabar and Larceny by contrast were burglars.
Their sole interest was money and a big score. But from what Agent Heer had told us, they were smarter then most other burglars and knew when to move on when the heat got too hot. They even traveled quite a ways to pawn off the things they took that wasn't cash. Now that was fairly standard behavior for burglars and thieves. Find some antique or something that would be worth money and pawn it as quickly as possible for cash. What was the most commonly done in these cases though, was that the burglar would try to pawn what he'd stolen in the closest pawn shop. Grabar and Larceny were practically driving across the state to do that. This of course benefited them as the pawn dealers in that area weren't going to expect the goods being sold to them to be stolen.
And so the aim of our patrols was to tighten the proverbial nose and catch them while they were in route to either a new site to rob or to wherever they were pawning the goods that they'd already stolen. And in theory, looking for them wasn't that hard a proposition. Some of the things they'd taken would make them look rather conspicuous if they carried it by hand, and in addition to the distances that they were traveling to pawn things that weren't cash, they had to have a vehicle. And a vehicle wasn't too easy to hide. Especially if it saw routine use.
That, of course brought a couple of conclusions to mind. The first was that they had someone in Columbia Falls that they knew that was helping them. Someone that was letting them use a garage and have "safe" place to stay when they weren't active. However, given that they were from the west coast of Washington State originally, we didn't think that that was likely. The second was along a similar vein in that the two had jumped to violent crime and had either murdered someone or had taken someone hostage in their home to use it as their base. But, given what Agent Heer had said about their past, that didn't seem likely either.
The last possibility was that he was camping out somewhere now, either in Columbia Falls or in some other town in the area. And that left a whole host of places to check. Hotels, fields, there was even the idea to run a sweep through Glacier. The park was presently closed for the winter, but given that Larceny and Grabar were willing to trespass on other people's homes, it wouldn't be out of the question that they'd stashed their vehicle somewhere along a road and walked into the park away from the park's main entrances. So far though, no one had had any luck.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Do you think we'll catch them today?" I asked to Officer Barnes a day or two after Agent Heer had given his briefing on the details of Grabar and Larceny's case.
There was a supposed sighting of the two. They had walked into a convenience store, bought a packet of nuts and a couple bottles of some sports drink, and left. The convenience store owner had reported that they left entirely on foot and headed toward a smaller residential area.
"Maybe," Officer Barnes shrugged, "the tip said they were on foot and eating... surely we can catch up."
I nodded and looked out toward the road ahead of us. The convenience store clerk was pointing town a nearby street as we drove past. Officer Barnes paused just long enough to get verbal directions from the clerk.
"We might be in luck," Officer Barnes commented, "that road's a dead end. We'll have them trapped like rats."
"Probably because they ARE rats," I quipped.
"Details, details," Officer Barnes shrugged and we moved along.
It turned out though, that we weren't in luck. As we arrived at the end of the dead end road, there was no sign of them trapped in the area. We where around the back end of several homes, all of which had put up large wooden fences to mark their property boundaries. Some of them looked like they'd been painted to match the trip of the house. At times like these, I wondered why they'd put a road in here like this. There were no back gates on the fences and there were no dumpsters for trash. There wasn't even any snow piled up as if the road existed as a place for the city to dump it during the winter.
"Why is this a dead end again?" I wondered, "there's no back door to any of these fences..."
"If memory serves me, the houses were built along the sides here so that they'd face either the main street we'd just come from or another row of houses in that direction," Officer Barnes sighed as he pointed in one direction, "with a small local convenience store at the end... it went belly up about ten years ago competing with the one that our thieves just visited and was torn down. The land was sold to some other housing company and they built and sold another house there where the store used to be. And for some reason the new owners matched the other houses in the area... leaving a road that isn't quite needed... no one tears it up because skateboarders like to use in the summer."
"And burglars like to escape down it," I grumbled as we got out of the car.
"Yep," Officer Barnes nodded.
We did a back search of the area to make sure we were on the trail of Grabar and Larceny and not some wild goose chase. Sure enough we did find their tracks and a slightly scratched up series of fence boards on the north side of the dead end. Easily looking over the top of the fence, I could see that the tracks then went across the backyard and onto another street. I then noticed a man standing by a sliding glass door looking out.
"Excuse me," I called to him, "Could I ask you a question for a moment?"
"Not without a warrant!" the man answered as he came out.
"No, nothing of THAT nature is necessary," I replied, "I want to know if you saw anything."
"By "anything" I assume you mean a pair of rats that hoped my fence, dumped junk in my yard and then left?" the man asked.
I glanced down to see a series of shoe imprints going from a spot near the fence to the house and back. There was also an indentation that something had been dropped there.
"Yes," I nodded, "do you know which way they went?"
"They went to this old white car that wasn't parked there yesterday," the man answered, "they drove off just a few minutes ago."
"There goes catching them," Officer Barnes grumbled.
"At least we know what color of car to look for," I commented, "that would help things."
"Knowing the exact model would be better," Officer Barnes replied.
"Do you know what type of car it was?" I asked the man.
"Some Ford model, I think," the man shrugged, "never saw it before, never cared, didn't look all that close."
"I see," I sighed, and then said to him, "thank you!"
I turned to Officer Barnes and sighed, "an old white Ford... that's a bit better."
"Not much," Officer Barnes answered.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"I don't like this," I said nervously one night a couple of weeks later.
Officer Barnes and I were responding to a burglary call that occurred first thing in the morning. No sooner had Officer Barnes and I signed in for the day then the call came in. This time it was from a trailer park on the south end of town before one began to go beyond the town's city limits. Again it was a burglary call, and given things, it was likely that Grabar and Larceny had struck again. There had been the occasional sightings of Grabar and Larceny in town or in various areas, but as was Officer Barnes and my "pursuit" of them from the convenience store, they'd managed to leave the area by the time anyone arrived. And now they had struck again, first thing in the morning... or worse, during the night.
We arrived at the trailer park to find a middle aged woman in her bathrobe standing at the door. She seemed to be a frightened wreck.
"Oh my God, officers!" she gasped as Officer Barnes and I got out of the car, "it was them! They Rats that have been burgling people! It was them, I know it was!"
"Are you sure?" Officer Barnes asked as we approached.
As we approached, I checked the scents in the area. If it was Grabar and Larceny there scent would give them away. It still struck me how people who had become Animal People would pay so little attention to the fact that they were leaving their scent behind. Things had been going as such that Officer Howard was seriously considering asking for a K9 officer to come up from Kalispell and to begin a serious tracking effort, but that wouldn't fully work until we could get something that we know they had touched. I was only able to recognize what could be their scent because I remembered Molly's and my meeting with the Gen-U-Tech worker, Michelle. The scent I had detected was similar, which allowed me to single them out. The K9 officer likely wouldn't have that scent in his memory. And thus we'd need to find something they'd touched for the dog to track.
"Who else would it be?" the woman wondered, visibly shaking.
"Their scents are here," I told Officer Barnes as we came closer.
"I see," Officer Barnes said with a sigh, "can you tell us what they took, ma'am?"
"They took my life savings!" the woman lunged forward and hugged Officer Barnes to her, "I had my life savings in a cookie jar in my kitchen! I got up this morning and it was gone!"
"Was it there when you went to bed?" I asked, hoping to get some inclination as to when the crime was committed.
"Of course it was," the woman answered.
"Did you hear them come in?" I asked.
"Not entirely... I heard some scratching noises in the night and it did wake me up," the woman answered, "but I've had mundane problems with mundane rats and mice the past, so I tried to get back to sleep and I'd set traps in the morning. Then I got up and found out that my life savings was stolen! I did have a rat problem they were much bigger! And I slept through it! They could have killed me! I'm so scared."
Officer Barnes carefully wrestled out of her hug. She was clearly terrified, and Officer Barnes had to make sure that he didn't do anything that would hurt her.
"From what we've been told, these two are not confrontational or violent," Officer Barnes told her, "and we're doing our best to catch them."
"Then where are they?" she demanded, trembling with fear.
"We believe they're moving about the area and trespassing on private land when they're around here or staying in hotels where no one is looking for them," I spoke, "that could mean they're going as far as Canada. We're tightening the proverbial noose around them. And sooner or later, they'll be spotted when there is an officer close enough to either start a pursuit or bring them in."
"If it's you, could you eat them? I hate rats!" the woman asked.
"That's not how justice works, I'm afraid," I told her, "If Officer Barnes and I catch them they will be brought in alive to face trial."
"I'd imagine there wouldn't be enough meat on them, anyway," Officer Barnes quipped.
"But you'll get them?" she asked.
"Some one will get them," Officer Barnes assured her, "their good luck will eventually run out."
While Officer Barnes continued to console the woman, I took the time to walk around the trailer. Mostly I was checking to see if there were any possible signs of forced entry. As had been the case in the previous burglaries and in the information that Agent Heer had given us, there was no sign of forced entry. If the woman had locked her doors, they had managed to quietly pick the locks. That part wasn't the major issue. The major issue revolved around the fact that this was done during the night. All of the previous cases had been done during the day, but this one was done at night. It was different.
And in that, there was a problem. Burgling a house that was empty during the day was one thing. It allowed the theory that Grabar and Larceny were peaceful and non-violent, but by burgling a home at night created the potential for their crimes to escalate. Most people were at home at night, which increased the chances of a confrontation. True, there were places that ran night shifts, but to my knowledge there weren't all that many in Montana. So if they were operating at night, the chances were now higher that they'd run into someone and that their crimes could beyond burglary.
"We have to catch them," I said to myself as I went back to where Officer Barnes was, as I got to him, "their entrance matches their known MO... no obvious sign of forced entry."
"I'm scared," the woman whimpered from her door.
Officer Barnes meanwhile only sighed.
"Don't worry, I doubt they'll come back," Officer Barnes told her, "and we will get them."