Chapter 6

               By the time Friday night rolled around, more than one of the quartet of detectives believed he held the key to solving the mystery at the Red Moon Café.  Lounging comfortably in the den at Crabapple Farm with the Yankees game playing on the television in the background, they discussed what they’d discovered.  Jim spoke up first.

               “I don’t have crap,” he admitted, pushing a freckled hand through his russet hair.  “There was nothing in the paper all week, no crimes remotely like this in the last two years, and the only crime with a baseball bat involved a domestic dispute.”  His disgust with the lack of a breakthrough was obvious.  Eyebrows puckered in anxiety, he glanced from one of his friends to the other, pointing his finger at each of them in turn.  “I swear if any of you even breathe a word to Trixie about what a lousy sleuth I am, I will find some way to make you regret it.”

               “Dude, if we tell Trixie, we’ll have to surrender our man cards,” Mart informed him.  “Don’t feel too bad.  I learned enough to make up for your lack of clues.”  He doffed an imaginary hat in Jim’s direction with a quick cluck of his tongue.  “Using my superior detective skills, I was able to finesse from Dad that the Wongs do not have a line of credit at his bank.  They do have a modest start-up loan for some equipment, which is of course, secured by liens on said restaurant fixtures.  He believes they are a sound business risk, had a strong business plan, and primarily operate with almost positive cash flow probably augmented by a business credit card for remittances to some suppliers.”

               “Cripes, Mart,” Dan threw a pillow at him.  “Say it in English; otherwise all you’re telling us is nothing.”

               “The Red Moon Café is financially sound,” Mart summarized with a bow.

               Brian concurred.  “Cindy Wong pretty much told me the same thing when I was there,” he informed them.  “She said other than the cost of the computer that was stolen, her insurance covered the cash, and the credit card merchant provided her a new machine.  The old machine was smashed with the previously aforementioned baseball bats.”  He nodded towards Jim.

               “So we have a financially sound business that lost a computer, a credit card machine, and some cash,” Jim summarized.  “All in all, nothing too crippling.”

               “Except she has all her books and records backed up,” Brian added.  “She said she’d be able to recreate everything.”

               “Speaking of computers,” Dan interrupted.  “Have you ever noticed that ancient cash register that Lytell uses in his store?”

               The trio around him snorted.

               “You mean that hideously depressing, Titanic-proportioned glorified adding machine,” Mart rolled his eyes.  “The ugliest cash register ever produced by NCR Corporation.”

               “Yeah,” Dan grinned.  “That one.  His baby.  Apparently, the bookkeeper for the Wongs tried to convince Lytell to upgrade to a computerized point-of-sale system and ditch Old Glory.  Lytell refused and as a result he doesn’t quite trust the woman.  He went with a different bookkeeper because she dared to ask him to join the 21^st century.”

               “The bookkeeper?”  Jim leaned forward and his eyes narrowed.  “Who was the bookkeeper?”

               “You remember, Jim,” Brian prodded.  “The woman with the huge owl glasses who was there when they were robbed.”

               “Oh yeah ….” Jim nodded and frowned as he recalled the woman.  “She was upset because Spider wouldn’t let her leave, right?”

               “That’s the one,” Dan confirmed.

               Brian looked around the room.  “It wouldn’t surprise me if Mrs. Wong didn’t get a new bookkeeper after all this.  She’s apparently madder than hell over Spider’s unwillingness to believe her account of the story. Her bookkeeper wasn’t able to corroborate what she told him.”

               “What doesn’t Spider believe?” Jim asked.

               “That the three suspects were females.” Brian grinned at his compatriots.  “Cindy swears they were young women and she could tell from their hands.  Her bookkeeper says that’s nonsense and that’s why the newspaper account never mentioned the suspect’s gender.”

               “Maybe they were cross-dressers,” Jim suggested, remembering some of the stranger crimes he’d read about.

               “Nope, she said they were females, disguised as young men.  In fact, she said if they’d worn gloves she probably wouldn’t have realized, but that their hands gave them away.”

               Almost at once all four men looked down at their own hands and then at each other’s hands.  "It would be pretty hard for Honey’s hands to look anything like ours,” Brian offered. 

               “The lovely Diana’s extremities would never be mistaken for the rough calloused metacarpals of a man,” Mart informed them loftily.

               “They weren’t wearing fingernail polish were they?” Dan asked. 

               Brian shook his head.  “Not that she mentioned, but she swears she’s right and she seemed to think Ms. Ashby was an idiot for not realizing the same thing.”

               “Ashby.  Tammy Ashby.”  Jim spoke the names slowly and then snapped his fingers.  “That’s who that was!”

               “Who what was?” 

               “The woman that looked so familiar in New Salem when I went up there with Regan on Sunday.  She was using the ATM machine and I couldn’t place her.  That’s who she was.  Tammy Ashby.  The Wong’s bookkeeper.”

               The three friends exchanged looks.  “How did you notice her?” Mart finally asked.

               “She was acting mysterious …” Jim started to say.  He stopped and groaned.  “Oh, gleeps, that sounded just like Trixie, didn’t it?”

               “Unfortunately, yes.”  Brian grinned.  “Continue, James.”

               “She was looking around a lot, like she was watching to see if anyone noticed her and then she approached the ATM at a strange angle, she just didn’t walk right up to it.  I lost sight of her for a few moments and when Regan turned the truck around, she was stuffing a wad of cash in her purse.”

               “She was avoiding the ATM camera,” Dan informed him.

               “You can avoid the camera?” Mart asked in disbelief.

               “Was she wearing a hat or a hoodie?” Dan pointed his finger at Jim.

               Jim nodded.  “Yep, she sure was.”

               He turned and looked at Mart.  “You can avoid the camera.  No, I’m not going to tell you how to do it, just believe me, it can be done.  She had a large handbag, didn’t she?  Or was it a gym bag?”

               “A handbag,” Jim confirmed.

               The four men stared at each other.  Mart was the first to speak.  He cleared his throat.  “Gentlemen, are we saying that Tammy Ashby is a person of interest in this case?”

               The trio of faces around him nodded slowly in agreement.

               “What’s next?” Brian asked reasonably.  “We go down to the police station in the morning and tell Spider what we think?”

               Dan and Mart both hooted in derision.  “Yeah, right.  So he can dismiss us just like he did Trixie?”

               “Come on guys, we have to do something,” Jim said.  “You’re not suggesting we keep investigating, are you?”

               “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” Mart said.  “We just have a hunch.  No proof.  By the way …”  He turned to look at Brian.  “Didn’t the robber say anything to Mrs. Wong?  You know, ‘give me the money’ or something like that?  Couldn’t she tell from the voice it was a woman?”

               Brian shook his head.  “They used a voice changer.  It only sounded gravelly.”

               "They were deliberately trying to throw her off,” Jim said.  “That’s enough for me right there.  It had to be three women.”

               “Three women who are probably friends with Tammy Ashby,” Dan said darkly. “After all, she’s the bookkeeper. She’d know the payroll was at the store right then.”

               “Yep, and that also explains the urgency to get the computer,” Brian said.

               “What urgency to get the computer?” Jim frowned. 

               “I forgot to mention.  Cindy told me they asked for her computer first.  Like it was what they were really after, the cash was almost an afterthought.”

               "That’s it!”  Jim snapped his fingers.  “The story I read about credit card fraud.”  He turned and looked eagerly at Mart.  “Didn’t you say your Dad mentioned that since the Wongs don’t have a line of credit they probably having a business credit card for paying suppliers?”

               “Affirmative,” Mart replied.

               “One of the stories I read about crimes in Westchester County …” Jim was falling over himself with eagerness.  “It was about fraudulent use of credit credits. I’ll bet you guys a milkshake that Tammy Ashby was using the Wongs’ credit card to withdraw cash and the computer was stolen to hide that fact.”

               “But Mrs. Wong has a back-up,” Brian reminded him.  “She won’t get away with it.”

               “She will if she does the back-up restore and it goes horribly wrong,” Mart offered.  "Trust me; it’s not enough to just do a computer back-up.  Every so often you need to take it to the next step and restore your files from your back-up.  All Tammy has to do is set the books up again and hit delete. “

               The four men stared at each other in horror.  Then they almost tripped over each other in a mad dash for the door.