The White House's Missing Item By Seth Johnson

     "Officers Bob and Joe, please check in.” A female voice said over the radio in the police car.

      “Yes, this is Officer Joe; we are on our way back to the station with the suspect in custody. We’ll be there in about 20-25 minutes.” Joe replied.

      “Copy that.” The voice acknowledged.

        How did they catch me? I wondered. At this point in time, I was sitting in the back of a police cruiser. You may be thinking, why was this man arrested? Did it have anything to do with the mystery item that was stolen from the white house last week? Well I’m here to tell you that I had nothing to do with the stealing of that mystery item. I, like everyone else, don’t even know what it is.

       I’ll put you curiosity to rest and I’ll just tell you the story. I’ll tell you why I was arrested. I’ll also tell you why I’m the only one who got arrested for it.

       It all started about a month ago, I had just taken my dog for a walk…

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     “Okay Rover,” I said, opening the gate to my backyard. “In you go.”

     The dog rushed past me into the yard. I laughed at how eager he was to play. Then Rover ran over to my back door, he started barking and growling through the window. I frowned, confused.

     “What is it, boy?” I started to walk over to the door.

     I looked through the window on the back door. Crap, I thought what are they doing here? I thought I told them we were finished. I opened the door and stormed over to where three of my old partners were sitting around my table, eating my food. They barely looked up when I reached them.

     “Hey, Ralph, how ya been?”

     “I thought I told you we were through!” I said, almost shouting.

     “That’s no way to treat old friends.”

     “You said it, we’re old friends. We aren’t friends anymore.” I said.

     “Fine, we’re just here for one reason--there is a job to do at the Mall of America."

     "No. No, Tom, there is not a job at the Mall of America. There isn't a job anywhere. You know why? 'Cause I'm done with jobs. I'm retired from being a criminal." I told him firmly.

     "You can't be everywhere at once." Tom began in a threatening voice. "It would be a shame if something happened to your new lady friend."

     I looked at him, shocked. "How did you find out about her? I haven't told anyone about her."

     "I have my ways. Here's how this is going to work. In exactly 27 days, we are going to rob a jewelry store in the Mall of America. Until then, your girlfriend is going to be in the company of our friend, Keith. You remember him. The day after the job is done, Keith will release your girlfriend. 'K?" Tom informed me.

     I went over this in my head. I thought over every detail. Seconds after he told me this, I agreed.

     "Great, we're going to start tomorrow morning." Tom said. 

     Finally, all of my old friends left.

     "Perfect." I said to myself. "I'm coming out of retirement to save my girlfriend."

     I looked at my dog, "I must be crazy."

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     It was two weeks after Tom, Herald, and Fred had forced me into robbing the Mall of America. We had finished going over all of the blueprints for the jewelry store. We had our way in and out. I was walking through the mall, holding my camera. I took pics of all of the security camera's near and in the jewelry store. I looked through the window at the front of the store, and finally I understood why they wanted to rob this particular jewelry store. At first, I couldn't figure out why they wanted to rob this store, there were so many other jewelry stores that had much more expensive jewelry in them. But looking at the jewelry in the window of the store, I saw this beautiful, expensive necklace.

     There were three rows of sapphires and diamonds. The first row had seven small sapphires, surrounded by smaller diamonds. The second row had four medium sized sapphires, surrounded by smaller diamonds. The bottom row had one large sapphire also surrounded by smaller diamonds. It was so beautiful.

     Putting my camera back inside of its case, I walked inside of the store. I walked over to the register. The lady sitting there looked up from the book she was reading.

     "Hello, how can I help you?" She asked cheerfully.

     "I'm just here for an estimate. How much is the necklace in the window worth?" I asked curiously.

     "It's worth about seven million." She replied, like this was a common question.

     I thanked her and left. Seven million dollars for a necklace. Man, what is this world coming to? I thought. 

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     Finally, the day of the robbery came around. By this point, I was severely fed up with the whole thing. When we got to the store, everything went according to plan. I walked in and started asking the lady at the register questions about the necklace. Tom went and stood in front of the necklace outside of the store, blocking it from the view of the other people in the mall. Fred was in the security room disabling the security camera's in and around the jewelry store. Herald got the second hardest job of them all, he had to grab the necklace and replace it with a counterfeit without the lady noticing. The hardest job was keeping the lady's attention on me.

     I finally ran out of things to talk about and looked around her desk for subjects to make conversation about. I saw an interesting feather pen laying there. I started talking with her about it. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Herald made the switch. We all got out of there quickly. We made it safely back to the safe house-my house.

     You might now be wondering, How on earth did he get arrested? I thought he would get arrested while trying to steal the jewels. Well, as you can see, that's not how it happened. 

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     When we got back to my place, we parted ways as likely enemies. Tom called Keith and had him release my girlfriend. Now I'll go ahead and describe what stealing from the Mall of America was like for me. I had as much fun stealing from the Mall of America as I would have if I was walking through the middle of the battlefield and was shot by my girlfriend.

     Anyways, getting back to the subject at hand, when I was finally alone, I let my dog back into my house. Then I sat down at my desk and turned my laptop on. I was really curious about this missing item that everyone was talking about. I did as much research as I could on my own. I was interested in this story that I called an old friend of mine and asked him to look into it. You see, this old friend was the best in the business at getting through firewalls and hacking websites without leaving 'footprints' that he'd been there.

     Two days later he called me back.

     "Larry, did you find out what was stolen from the white house?"

     "Yes I did." Larry replied, he let out a laugh. "It was a blue feather pen." 

     "A blue feather pen?" I asked with astonishment.

     "Yeah, even more embarrassing for the white house, is that it was a woman that stole it."

     "A woman stole a blue feather pen from the white house? You're kidding?" I asked, stunned.

     "Yeah," He stopped for a minute to look at the computer screen again. "Wow, she's also suspected to be living in Minnesota." 

     "Larry, I think I know who stole the pen."

     "Are you serious?"

     "Yes, I've got to go." I said and hung up.

     I walked over to the door and grabbed my keys. I ran to the car and jumped in. Ten minutes later I was at the Mall of America. I ran into the jewelry store and dashed over to the register. 

     "You stole that feather pen from the white house!" I accused her.

     "Yes I did, and you stole the necklace from the window." She countered.

     "No, I didn't."

     "You may not have stolen it personally, but you were with the criminals that did."

     I decided on a better course of action and rushed back out the door. I ran down the escalators and rushed back out to my car. I drove straight to the police station. I ran to the detectives desk.

     "I know who stole the item from the white house."

     "How do you know who stole it, if you don't even know what it is?" The officer at the desk asked.

     "I was chatting with this woman on the internet in a secure browser. And this next part might have been a criminal act, I'm not really sure. While I was chatting with her, I was pretending to be a criminal myself. I told her of some of the "crimes" I had committed. When I was done boasting, she told me that she was a criminal as well. She said that she had stolen a feather pen from the white house. She said it was worth three million dollars. At first I didn't believe her, but as she continued talking, I started to believe her. In the end I was convinced she was the one who had stolen the missing item."

     "Well, it's worth checking out." He said a minute later.

     So I gave him the stores name and the lady's name--at least the name that was on her name tag. Then I left.

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     So here I am, in the back of a cruiser being taken to the station. Apparently, they went and checked her out. They didn't find the feather pen. Right before they left, she told them that some of my friends and I had stolen a necklace that had been in the window. She said that we had replaced it with a fake. She showed the officers the fake, and they came and arrested me, no questions asked. They said they saw me taking pictures of the security camera's. 

     I guess you really do learn something new everyday. Today I learned that I should not take pics of security camera's without dying my hair and wearing a mask. When we get to the station, as long as they say I can take my dog with me (like that's going to happen) I'm going to rat on my "friends".

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     Well it's been two days since I was brought to the station. Since my girlfriend was being threatened, (she confirmed this) I was released and my "friends" were arrested. The lady at the jewelry story was found guilty after an investigation on her was finished. It looks like everyone had a happy ending.