Title: The hold up
By
Author: John M. Floyd
ZERO STARS. ZERO. ZIP. NADA.
Tag line: The thief should have known better than to
try to outwit Angela Potts and Sheriff Jones!
Police characters: Sheriff Charles Jones.
The gist: Sheriff Jones arrives at the pawn shop five
minutes after the call was dispatched as a robbery. Just as Jones had begun to
interview the clerk, in walks Angela Potts.
She said she saw him in his patrol car, light bar flashing, and she
followed him. Then she added that she
needed a new toaster anyway. The clerk
pointed Mrs. Potts to the appliance section. Jones said, “She isn’t here
shopping for a toaster, she’s here to interfere with police business.” Then Jones asks the clerk what the sign meant
(Pawn-E Express) but she didn’t know.
The owner was not there but the clerk had just called him.
Jones took a
statement from the clerk. She said a
tall, bearded robber came in 15 minutes earlier, waved a big hunting knife
under her nose, and demanded all the cash in the safe. He had on a wool cap,
sunglasses, and work gloves, which he never took off. He stuffed the cash into a grocery sack, then
asked her for her wallet. He had no accent. He didn’t take her money, he just
looked at her driver’s license.
Mrs. Potts
asked how he could read her driver’s license with sunglasses on. The clerk said he took it out of its little
plastic sleeve, held it up to the light, then returned it and threw the wallet
at her. “Now I know who you are,” he
said, “You better keep your mouth shut or I’ll be back.”
Sheriff
Jones snorted, “I wouldn’t worry about that.
He’d know there’s not much you could tell us anyway.”
The clerk
said the robber tucked the sack of bills under his arm and ran off down the
street. She didn’t see a car.
Sheriff Jones
said, “Do you mind if I take a look around?” Mrs. Potts asked the clerk if the
vehicle parked outside, a Ford Bronco, was hers. She answered yes. Mrs. Potts then asked her to take her keys
out of her purse and unlock the car because the sheriff wanted to take a look
in there. Sheriff Potts said, “I do?”
Mrs. Potts said she suspected the cash was in the Bronco.
Crime scene: Pawn
Shop.
Clues: The robber wore work gloves.
Suspects: The
store clerk or some robber guy.
Red herrings: None. But if there were any, I bet they would be
awful.
Solution: If the robber wore gloves he wouldn’t have
been able to manipulate the license out of the little plastic holder.
My two cents: Right away, right at
the tag line, I noticed WW is billing Potts before the sheriff. “The thief should’ve known better than to try
to outwit Angela Potts. And, oh by the
way, the town sheriff.”
There are
soooo many things that don’t make sense in this silly little story.
Pawn shops
take toasters? You can buy a new one at
Walmart for $8.99. Anyway I thought it
odd that Jones said Potts was there to interfere with police business when half
the time he takes her to the crime scenes in his cruiser, and the other half he
calls her to meet him there.
Pawn-E
Express sounds like Pony Express to me.
But what do I know. And what that has to do with the robbery is not
clear to me. Or anyone else for that matter.
Sheriff
Jones snorting at a victim seems a wee bit unprofessional. Ya’ think?
Sheriff
Jones said, “Do you mind if I take a look around?” Earth to Sheriff. It’s a crime scene. You’re SUPPOSED to look around.
When Potts
told the clerk that the sheriff wanted to look in her car, Sheriff Jones said,
“I do?” At this point my eyes begin to hurt
from so much rolling around.
The police
can’t look in your car without your permission or a search warrant but of course Mrs. Potts was probably bluffing to see
how the clerk would react. Because she’s
brilliant and the sheriff is a dummy.
So no
security camera in the store I suppose, and the clerk knows the combo to the safe. Yep, that’s happening. More eye
rolling.
I don’t know
about the rest of the world, but I can see fine when I’m wearing
sunglasses. That’s why they let me drive
a car when the sun is shining.
“Now I know
who you are,” he said, “You better keep your mouth shut or I’ll be back.” Duh. I
know that the clerk made that up but doesn’t the author realize if he wanted to
find her he would just come back to the pawn shop where she worked and he
wouldn’t need her home address? Wait, I think my left eye is stuck up
there. No, it’s okay, it came down.
So let me
get this straight. The story goes the
robber took the license out of the plastic case, looked at it, and then put it
back into the plastic case all nice and neat? What a polite thug. Don’t see many of those. And he didn’t take her money? The author needs this handling of the license
in the story to make his clue work but they way he tried to achieve that was so
poorly executed that everyone in the universe had to suspend their disbelief. Now one eye is twitching.
The pacing
was poor, the writing was unimaginative.
Believable characters? Naw. This week they weren’t even acting like their
usual selves. Well, okay, I take that
back. Sheriff Jones was clueless as
usual. The clue (that the robber handled
something he couldn’t possibly have with those gloves on) wasn’t bad but it got
sucked up in a vortex of stupid. The
police work was off. There was no
motive. None.
This story is no bueno. Now, excuse me while I go get some ice for my eye. (I’ll get you
for this, John.)
