Cheetah Girl

Late nights are always sketchy.  There is a limited number of managers in the store, very limited, and way less people shopping.  Few witnesses in case something goes awry.  It feels very Wild West-y, like anything could happen and the law may be out of town.  There are less people to watch, but a greater likelihood that whomever is in the store is probably stealing something.  The less supervision is why late night thieves exist.  They know as well as anybody that there is a greater chance they will get away with boosting an item here or there.  It’s also the time when people with later shift jobs get out of work.  Jobs that rarely provide health insurance but require a heavy amount of manual labor.  Jobs where dealing with the general public can slowly wear away at a person’s soul because when people think you’re their servant, they are not kind.  Don’t get me wrong, the average person is civil, but there is an overwhelming number of people who are just ruthless when it comes to people in the service industry.  That’s a study for a different day.

On this particular night, things seemed extra slow.  This meant I saw her as soon as she walked in the door.  She was funky looking.  Bleach blonde hair in a few spiky buns on the top of her head, dark black eyeliner lining her bottom lash line, a flowy black tank top donning ‘Fierce’ on the front in silver letters, a flannel shirt tied around the waist of her cut off jean shorts, and military-style boots.  I would have totally dug this style, and probably this chick, if it wasn’t for her skulking movements.  Her eyes darted back and forth as she wove through the aisles.  The fanny pack on her hips was slightly unzipped when she entered the cosmetic aisle, and she was leaning hard on the small cart she’d grabbed.  She perused the makeup, fingering eyelashes, eyeliner, eyeshadows, all eye accoutrements, before selecting a few of each.  She put each on in the back compartment of her cart, and continued her selection.  She grabbed expensive face toner, lotion, eye cream, all the makings of a great skincare routine.  I was borderline jealous of how dewy her skin would be, but then I snapped back to reality.  

She was so jittery, if I didn’t know she would be stealing, I would have thought she’d been on a coffee bender shortly before entering the store.  I called the night manager, and was lucky enough to have one of my favs, Leo.  He was super competent, very respectful and I knew he’d be enthusiastic.  “I’ll be right over!” he said excitedly.  This is what I was looking for.  It was always fun when people were into it and not scared.  Scared meant mistakes and if I wanted to keep my job, I really couldn’t afford any screw ups.  “What cha’ got?” Leo asked, clapping his hands together and rubbing them in anticipation.  “Check this one out,” I pointed to my screen.  “Definitely shady,” he said, as he took a seat in the chair to my left.  “How’s the night going so far?” I asked.  “Pretty good, kind of slow.  I just closed down a couple departments, but there’s like no one in the store,” he replied.  “No one except this chick,” I said back.  

At this point she’d moved on to the hair care section.  She grabbed some expensive color treatment shampoo and conditioner, then a few hair masks, a couple boxes of hair dye, and some scrunchies.  She placed these in the large part of her cart.  “Now I’m not so sure,” I told him, “she has way too much stuff for that tiny Fanny pack.”  On cue, she grabbed a couple of nail polishes, and shoved them into the pack, immediately zipping it up.  “Okay, okay, so she definitely is,” I  shrugged victoriously.  I was confused.  I really didn’t know where she was going to put everything else she’d picked up, and she wasn’t done.  “Maybe she’ll put it all in her clothes,” Leo offered.  “She does not have enough pockets for that,” I replied.  As if she heard us, she answered all our questions by selecting a cheetah print gift bag and a quippy tote bag.  Leo smiled at me knowingly, and I nodded slowly, relishing the rightness of my call.

“Did she just pick up an angel?” Leo asked, “seems ironic.”  “Well maybe her usual intentions are good, but not tonight,” I laughed.  With a pretty full cart we watched as this woman made her way into one of the many empty aisles of the store.  She didn’t seem calmed by this fact, so she kept on the move as she picked up handfuls of selected items and haphazardly stuck them into the tote bag.  When that filled up, she propped open the gift bag and followed suit.  All the while she was zig zagging through aisles, as if she was being followed.  I mean, she didn’t obviously know about the camera coverage.  She only seemed worried about other customers, not the eyes in the sky.  At least, she never looked up, only around and around and around, again and again and again.  Useless.  She was still going to get caught.  She finished loading all of her merchandise into the bags, parked the cart, and hurried towards the door, scooping the bags on her way.  She carried them as if they were her new purses, slung over her shoulders.  “This is it, you ready?” I asked Leo.  “Oh, you know I am,” he replied.  I pushed the chairs out of our way, and we headed for the closest exit.  Leo was fast, but he never overstepped me.  

I caught up to the woman first, but Leo was right on my heels.  He knew I had to do the talking, and he let me.  “Miss,” I called.  She picked up her step.  “Miss,” I called again.  This time she turned around.  “Who me?” she asked, touching her fingers to her chest, “I gotta go.”  “Um, no, Miss you need to come with me,” I said.  “No thank you, that’s okay,” she replied.  “Um, no, Miss,” I said, putting my fingers around the bags on her shoulders, “we need to talk about all the merchandise in these that wasn’t paid for.”  “No, that’s okay,” she returned, dropping the bags into my hands, turning on her heels and beginning to walk away.  “Miss, there are still some nail polishes in your fanny pack.  I’m going to need those back as well,” I told her.  “Oh, yeah.  These?” she asked, taking the nail polishes from her pack and handing them to me, “sorry about that.”  “That’s okay,” I said, “let’s just go get this all sorted out.”  “No thank you,” she responded, taking a brisk pace away from me.  “Miss, if you run, I’m going to have to call the police,” I yelled after her.  She shot me a thumbs up as she took off running.  I looked back at Leo and smiled.

“She’s running towards the apartments,” I told him, “keep an eye from a close distance, but don’t chase her.”  I had to call the cops, which meant I had to stay relatively close to the store or I’d lose service.  If I used my cell, I’d have to dial 911 instead of dispatch, and there was a slim to none chance that the police would arrive in time to find her.  “Dispatch,” came a voice.  “Hi, I have a white female, she exited the store with about $300 in concealed merchandise that she didn’t pay for.  She’s currently running through the apartment complex across the way,” I told her.  “I’ll get someone headed your way.  Stay on the phone with me so I can get some more information about her appearance and direction of travel,” she told me.  “No problem and thank you,” I replied.  I relayed the girls visuals to the dispatcher, and I could already hear sirens.  Damn, that was quick.  They peeled into the apartment lot, and I hung up with the dispatcher.  I grabbed Leo and we headed back to the office.  “They’ll come get us if they find her, in the meantime, let’s get all the information together for them,” I told him.  “On it, I’ll take the merchandise and get it rung up for you,” he smiled.  “You’re the best,” I told him.

What felt like mere moments later, I got a phone call from a local number on my cell.  I picked up the phone to the familiar voice of one of my regular officers.  “Hey, we got her.  I’m gonna come grab you in the cruiser so you can do a drive by,” he told me.  Whenever the police picked up a suspect of mine based on a description, they would have to drive me by to make the identification.  This meant the suspect would be cuffed, sitting on a sidewalk wherever they grabbed them, and I’d be driven by them in the backseat of a police vehicle with tinted windows to protect my anonymity.  Kind of a funny thought, because at this point, the suspects had usually been running from my approach, so I was pretty sure I was not anonymous to them, but whatever, this was the procedure.  The officer picked me up and we exchanged niceties as he drove us to the apartment complex.  There she was.  Blonde, cuffed and punk rock, seated on the sidewalk.  “That’s her,” I said, “she was oddly pleasant during our brief interaction.”  “Well, that makes sense,” he replied, “she probably didn’t want you to call us.  This woman’s got quite a rap sheet, and she’s only a little over 30 years old.  How much did she get you for?” he asked.  “Just shy of $400,” I told him, handing him the receipt.  “Well, she’s in for a long night, but we aren’t.  Already have all of her information input into the system,” he smiled.  “And, your wonderful store security person has all the other information you’ll need compiled with a bow on top,” I quipped, handing him a folder of evidence.  “You’re the best,” he said, dropping me back at my office.  “Let me know if you need anything else, and stay safe officer.  See you soon,” I told him.  “I hope not,” he joked.