The Witching Hour Phone Call - 3. The Stand Off

Inside the panic room, one of the robbers saw the blank video screens, “Those work?”

“Of course.”

“Turn ‘em on.”

Eight screens lit up. Three were inside, each pointing at an exterior door. Four more looked out from each corner of the roof of the house. The last one was a view of the basement outside the panic room’s door. Jerry surreptitiously enabled the view screen in the basement that showed the interior of the panic room. He hoped at some point the police would search the basement. Unfortunately, that screen was enabled after the first sweep of the SWAT team. He had to wait.

The two partially facing the front of the house showed the SWAT team milling about, and an ambulance pulling away.

“Gino must have bagged himself a cop. Why didn’t he come in?”

“Don’t know.”

The big man turned to Jerry, “Can those things turn around?”

“Yes.”

“Show me the roof.”

Jerry manipulated all four exterior cameras to show a portion of the roof.

“Are there any blind spots?”

“No.”

“Show me the front yard, all of it.”

Once again, Jerry moved the camera angles around. One picked up the body.

“Damn it. He got hit.”

“Is he dead?”

“I can’t tell from this...”

Jerry zoomed in from the northwest camera.

“Fuck. That looks like a bullet hole. Your life expectancy just shrunk, pops.”

Jerry swallowed loudly. He knew he would have to act fast if he got an opportunity to disable his captors.

A couple minutes later, they watched four cops head toward the side door as the SWAT van rolled away. The cops came back in and shortly thereafter appeared on the monitor showing the basement.

“What are they looking at, pops?”

“Um, there’s a shelf there with some tools on it.”

That was true, but the tools didn’t prevent the four cops from seeing the inside of the panic room on that monitor. They moved away, hoping there might be a blind spot in one of the corners.

One cop spoke quietly to the other three, “K, we’ve got two perps. I gotta believe the half-naked old man is the owner. We just gotta wait them out.”

“Um, Corporal Norman, if there’s a video screen out here, don’t you think there’d be one in there showing us?”

“Damn. Yeah, very likely.”

The corporal stepped out of the corner and waved his hand in a motion indicating ’open the door.’

“Don’t lie, old man. You’re dead right here if you do. Can they see or hear us?”

“Yes, there’s a camera in here. They would be able to hear us if the sound was enabled.”

“Turn it on.”

Jerry flipped a switch, “It’s on.”

“We got plenty of food in here, we can wait you out longer than you can stay.”

“Can you hear us?”

“Yeah.”

“We got three shifts, it ain’t gonna be just us four out here. I suggest you lay down your weapons and come out.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

While the robbers' attention was on the cops outside, Jerry was typing a message that would display on the outer screen:

'9-1-1 will open door. But wait, you’ll know when to come in. Scratch your ear if you see this, corporal.'

The corporal scratched his ear.

Jerry quietly tapped another button. This one started removing the air out of the panic room. The robbers couldn’t react in time once they realized something was happening and both passed out within two minutes. The big guy got a shot off, but fortunately missed Jerry. Jerry was standing near a tiny hole that was pumping pure oxygen into the room very slowly. He would have had another minute or two before he passed out as well.

Fortunately the four SWAT officers were watching for some kind of signal from the old man. They were obviously surprised when the two perps hit the floor. They recovered quickly, however. The corporal punched 911 on the keypad that Jerry had left exposed. The four of them quickly entered the panic room and cuffed the culprits. When the door opened, the airflow was programmed to return to normal. The robbers were shocked to find themselves captured when they came to moments later.

“That was quite a trick, Mr. Parkington.”

“Thank you. I tried to think of any scenario that might have come up and built in fail-safes. Fortunately, being locked in here with the likes of these two was something I planned for. Never thought I’d have to use it though.”

******************************

Meanwhile, outside, the coroner arrived to take Gino’s body away.

Trevor called the officers back to their cars, “Bring it in officers, I think we’ve done all we need to tonight. SWAT might have a long wait.”

The other four policemen met Trevor at the cars and were talking over the situation when they saw the SWAT team come out of the house, dragging the two would-be robbers between them. Jerry followed a minute later; he needed to put pants on.

Moments later, the SWAT van reappeared.

Trevor was surprised the situation came to such a quick conclusion. The SWAT corporal described what transpired to all the officers and the rest of the SWAT team.

The two perps were put into the back of two patrol cars and were driven away. Then it was just Trevor and Jerry.

“Geez, Jerry, a panic room that has booby traps?”

“Yeah. I have over six hundred thousand invested in art. I needed some way to keep it safe. They were after the Renoir. How they knew I had it, I haven’t got a clue.”

Epilogue

The robbers were charged with breaking and entering, attempted robbery, false imprisonment, unlawful restraint, and felony murder. They were convicted of each count.

One of them worked at the Portland Museum of Art, and had access to rare art purchase records. His partner had once performed some work at Jerry’s house and had seen the Renoir copy.

They each received life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Officer Owens recovered completely.

Trevor Benton received a commendation for performance above and beyond the call of duty, and two years later was promoted to detective when Simon Gallagher moved on to a chief detective role in Portland. Trevor became Detective Gennaro Saggio’s partner.

The End