Chapter 25 – A Tangled Mess

After Officer Rodney made his announcement that he didn't know who Harold was, Lee and Amanda struggled to make sense of everything. They had exchanged hard looks with each other immediately after they heard this new information, but neither of them seemed to be able to comprehend what had just happened.

"Wait, what? So you were talking about Louie this whole time?" Lee finally managed to sputter out as he quickly swiped his hand through his hair. "You think Louie is the brains to all of this? Come on, the kid is an idiot."

"LEE!" Amanda scolded him. "Officer Rodney, we are really confused. Harold runs this park. He has been here forever. Is it possible that you have made a mistake?"

"I don't think so. Look, let's go down to headquarters and talk this out there," Rodney suggested. They all agreed that it was the best thing to do.

After making sure the lantern was out, they made their way back out of the cave. It was a quick walk back to Rodney's car and then they were on their way to the Police Department. No one said anything on the drive there. Once they were inside an interrogation room, Lee let loose.

"I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but you have the wrong guy. Harold runs that park. Harold makes all the decisions. No one could possibly be involved in smuggling goods in there without Harold knowing about it. There is no way that Louie is the head of this operation. He's an immature kid. He has ridden on Harold's coattails this whole time and that is the only reason he even has a job there. I'm telling you, someone messed up with this thing," Lee insisted.

"Are you done?" Rodney asked with an amused grin.

Lee slumped into the chair beside the one Amanda had sat down in and said "Yeah, I guess so."

"Good! Let me tell you what we know and then maybe it will make more sense. So about a year ago, we started getting complaints from the residents in some of the neighboring towns that things were disappearing from their homes. At first, it was just small things, but over time, they became more valuable things. No one could figure out who was taking them or how they managed to know what to take. The victim was usually an older, wealthy person. So we tried to track it down that way but came up empty. Then one day we got a break because old Mr. Streeter's VHS player was stolen. Mr. Streeter can be a little senile but he had just purchased that VHS player the day before. He was so proud of it so he showed it to everyone on the bus on his way home. Later on, many of the bus passengers that day came forward to confirm that they had seen it. The next day, Mr. Streeter reported it was missing. Of course we thought at first that he had misplaced it. We helped him search his whole house and couldn't find it."

Officer Rodney paused to catch his breath as he was excited that he might finally be able to close this case. He continued, "Well, a few days later, Mrs. Breasley reported some jewelry missing. Her favorite aunt had just died and willed several valuable pieces to her. She carried the box with her for days as she grieved the death of her aunt. She had to be away for a few days so she decided to leave the box on her kitchen table where it would be safe. When she got home, the box was gone. It was all beginning to make sense especially as the stories continued with more and more people coming forward to report missing items. We would ask them when they last saw their items and it always came back to the same answer."

"What answer? I don't understand," Amanda admitted. "What made sense? Who was doing it? Louie?"

"Why Jacob, of course," Officer Rodney stated.

"Jacob? Those three men at the campsite mentioned him too. Who is Jacob?" Amanda asked.

"He drives a bus. In fact he drives the only bus within 50 miles. I'm surprised you haven't met him," Rodney explained.

Amanda felt the prickles of goose bumps beginning to form on her arms at the mention of the bus driver. "So are you saying that Jacob went around stealing all that stuff from people? How is that possible?"

"Oh you would have to know the people who live around here. They are trusting souls. Most don't bother locking up their homes even when they sleep. We finally figured out that Jacob had started a smuggling partnership with Louie. I'm sure all of it was Jacob's idea originally. He had the access to the goods, but he didn't have a way to hide the stuff. I'm sure those three men that you saw are the ones they hired to go into the homes and actually steal the items. Jacob has them load it into his bus where we believe he stores everything in the back while he does his routes until he can sneak it into the park. When people try to sit near the back, he always tells them that he has items that he has to deliver back there and asks them to sit near the front. The men are more than likely at his beck and call as the jobs are usually not able to be planned ahead of time. This is probably part of the reason why they are angry. I'm also sure the three of them are not paid nearly enough for taking all the risks that they do. Louie and Jacob use those men to keep suspicion off themselves. Once it becomes dark enough, Jacob probably picks them up so they can unload all the items into the cave. We believe that Louie and Jacob tell those helpers just enough to keep them interested but not enough of the operation so they could take over any kind of control. What we are pretty sure of is that they load the boat at night, but then Louie delivers all of it to Lake Delton. Again, that keeps anyone else from knowing his contacts. We did track Louie one night to Lake Delton so we knew the stuff was being stored at the estate until Louie's contact received it. The problem has been that we couldn't locate where they hid it in the park. We were always concerned that if we tried to follow the bus, they would move the operation. That is why your discovery is so huge for us."

Lee had gotten up while Rodney was talking and begun pacing. As Rodney finished his explanation, Lee confirmed witnessing that the operation seemed to run exactly as Rodney had described. Then he stated, "So then they deliver it to Willie who is their contact and he is likely the true brains of this thing. I'm telling you, it isn't Louie."

"Actually Willie was forced into this scheme. Office Rodney continued explaining. "It turns out that Louie was blackmailing Willie. At one time, we thought that Willie might be in charge also, so we brought him in for questioning and put a lot of pressure on him. We found out that Louie had learned that Willie was trying to take possession of Louie's uncle's estate. He had hired a lawyer to try to prove that the uncle is suffering from a mental illness. Louie used that information to force Willie to store the boxes in the garage until they could be moved safely to his contact who would then sell the goods on the black market. After we talked to Willie, he got scared and told us that he had no idea that the boxes contained stolen goods. We tried to convince him to help us, but we didn't have any evidence really to hold him otherwise, so he was allowed to leave. As we staked out the estate the following night, we witnessed the two of them have a huge blowout. In the end, Willie threw Louie off the estate and told him not to come back. We believe that the only thing Willie is really guilty of is trying to orchestrate the theft of the estate by trying to prove that Louie's uncle is mentally unstable.

Amanda's mind was on overload by now. "You have to slow down. This is too much. I have never seen anything like this. It's crazy. I feel like we walked into the middle of a tv mystery show," She insisted.

"I don't understand, where did I lose you?" Rodney asked.

Lee stepped in and offered "With just about everything you just said."

Amanda took back over and said "Let's start over. Are you talking about the big estate on the backside of the village? Is that the estate that belongs to Louie's uncle?"

"Of course. It is really the only estate there," Rodney confirmed.

Amanda looked at Lee before continuing. "Harold owns the estate. That means that Harold is Louie's uncle. If he is his uncle though, how does he not know about this smuggling thing? Willie was trying to take the estate away? I guess that does make sense. He seemed very angry that Harold didn't seem to care about the place. Harold seems very unstable at times so it would be possible to maybe convince a judge that he is having mental issues. We also witnessed the night that Willie threw Louie off the property. We could see they were arguing, but didn't know why. Now that makes sense too. Wow, this really is a tangled mess."

Lee kept shaking his head in disbelief as he blurted out, "It really is like being a part of a Scooby-Doo mystery, only much more complicated. I keep wondering when the ghosts are going to begin chasing us." Lee made a weak attempt at some humor.

"Well now that we have the location of the cave, we can start to tighten up the nooses on the remaining people involved. In fact, I can't wait to bring Walter in next to question him," Rodney gushed while seemingly not noticing the Scooby-Doo reference.

"Walter? Oh yeah, right, Walter," Amanda remembered that he was another one of Louie's partners. "What part does he play in all of this?" she ventured to ask.

"Why he's Louie's fence of course."

TBC