Chapter 99: The Tattoo Sticker Clue

Yesterday after work, at Agent Norton’s eager invitation, Roan bought a small gift and drove over to Norton’s house for dinner.

The meal was simple and unremarkable, but the atmosphere was wonderfully warm.

Agent Norton had a wife who worked at a private clinic, along with a sweet little daughter, and they were just as welcoming to Roan.

The system gave Roan an excellent rating for yesterday’s outing and awarded him four potions in all: two antidotes and two night-vision potions.

Roan genuinely liked the antidotes. Like the hemostatic potion he had been hoping for but had not managed to draw lately, they could be indispensable at a critical moment.

But the night-vision potions...

Roan scratched his head. If a mission took place at night, he would simply mount night-vision goggles on his helmet.

If it was a daytime mission, there did not seem to be any use for a night-vision potion at all.

“Forget it. I’ll keep them for now.”

After thinking it over and finding no real use for the night-vision potions, Roan saw no harm in storing them away, so after a brief moment of consideration he placed them in the storage slot.

“Are you sure you want to say you don’t know?”

Lacey’s voice broke into Roan’s thoughts. Faced with Mrs. Maren’s refusal to cooperate, Lacey’s expression was far from pleasant.

“I’m sorry, Agents, I really...”

Mrs. Maren kept shaking her head. She was only a strip club owner, plain and simple, and she truly did not understand the things the FBI was asking about.

“Very good.”

Before Lacey could speak, Roan, whose attention had already shifted back, let out a light laugh. He patted his thigh, stood up on the spot, and said directly to Mrs. Maren:

“Congratulations, Mrs. Maren. You’ve now successfully violated federal law by lying to FBI agents, deceiving FBI agents, and refusing to cooperate.

Now, hold out your hands. We’ll start by chatting in the FBI interrogation room, and then you can go enjoy a little rest in prison.”

At Roan’s words, Mrs. Maren’s expression changed at once, and she looked up at him.

“You...”

“We’re not interested in the girls here, and we don’t want to deal with this crap, okay?”

Seeing her expression shift, Roan first gave a chuckle, making it clear that such matters belonged to the NYPD and he had no intention of stealing their work.

Then his smile vanished in an instant, and he said coldly,

“Right now, we only want to arrest that bank robber crew!

We’ve already gotten some leads. Some of the girls under your roof have seen those bank robbers, which is why we came to find you today.

If you keep refusing to cooperate, then we’ll search this strip club again and again!

I hope every bit of business here is lawful and aboveboard, and that you personally have not the slightest connection to any gang.

Otherwise...”

Hearing Roan’s words, and seeing the chill in his face, Mrs. Maren’s expression shifted repeatedly. After a few seconds of silence, she said in a low voice:

“Agent, my girls are all good girls. They absolutely had nothing to do with any of the illegal things you just mentioned.

But they’ve seen a lot of customers. Maybe they’ve seen the people you’re talking about before. I can go ask for you.”

“Good. Go ask those good girls right now.”

Roan grinned slightly and nodded, extending a finger toward the office door.

Mrs. Maren left the office looking grim, and Roan sat back down in his chair.

Lacey, who had watched the whole exchange, pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed.

“Why does it always have to be this way? We have to threaten them several times before they’ll hand over information, or agree to work with us.

Why can’t these people just be straightforward?”

“No choice. We’re the FBI, and their asses are never clean,” Roan said with a shrug.

The two sides were naturally opposed. It was perfectly normal for them to have misgivings, to feel afraid, and to refuse to agree immediately.

It was not as if FBI agents had never encountered someone who pulled out a gun and fought back.

The year was only 2005; things were still manageable. Using verbal intimidation on gang members was still fair game.

But in another ten-odd years, once technology had advanced and those bizarre organizations had begun springing up all across America, ordinary FBI agents going out on investigations would have to carry high-definition portable body cameras, just like police officers.

Otherwise, even if the FBI caught a criminal, if some procedural error appeared in the body-cam footage, the criminal would still have a sliver of a chance to turn the case around.

The famously notorious O. J. Simpson murder case in Los Angeles had been caused by the police’s suspected illegal evidence collection and other procedural errors, which rendered much of the evidence unusable and ultimately led to Simpson being found not guilty.

One could only say that in America, anything was possible. This country was essentially one giant social laboratory.

After waiting in the office for a long time, so long that Lacey had begun to suspect Mrs. Maren might already be running for it out of fear, the office door finally opened.

“You came too early. Everyone was home resting, so I was a little late.”

Mrs. Maren walked into the room with a young white woman and a young tan-skinned woman, and pointed at them.

“Agents, these two girls may know the information you’re looking for.”

“Good.”

Roan nodded, signaling for the two women to sit down, then turned his gaze to Lacey.

Lacey did not hesitate. She briefly explained when the first robbery had occurred, then asked,

“Before that, did someone ask you to scout out the bank? Do you remember who that person was?”

“There was something like that, yes, but it was so long ago that I don’t remember the man’s name anymore.”

The white woman shook her head, then added,

“But I do remember that he was white, and he had a shaved head.”

Roan and Lacey were not surprised that the man was white, but the detail about the shaved head still made both of them raise their eyebrows. After exchanging a glance, they turned their attention to the other tan-skinned woman.

“I remember that man.”

The tan-skinned woman, named Julie, licked her lips as she looked at Roan and said,

“That guy’s name was Kevin. He had sticky fingers.”

“Hm?”

Lacey froze, stopped writing, and looked up.

“Sticky fingers? You mean he got handsy with you while you were dancing?”

Seeing Julie’s face, which was not bad at all, at least a D cup, and her long, powerful legs honed by years of dancing...

Roan fell silent for a few seconds. Thinking of her figure and her profession, it almost seemed perfectly normal for some customers to get handsy with her.

After all, some Americans were hardly known for their manners...

Lacey’s eyes lingered on Julie’s chest and legs for a few seconds, and she came to the same conclusion.

“Don’t misunderstand, Agents.”

Noticing their expressions, Julie rolled her eyes and said irritably,

“I’m not talking about him touching me. I mean I saw him stealing.”

By “sticky fingers,” Julie meant that on the day in question, just as she was about to clock out, she saw that Kevin somehow showed up in their makeup and changing room and quietly took a few temporary tattoo stickers.

“Temporary tattoo stickers?!”

At Julie’s words, Lacey was instantly startled. She then immediately turned to Roan and said in a low voice,

“Roan, I remember...”

“Exactly.”

Roan knew what Lacey was about to say. In the second case, a witness had seen a tattoo on the robber’s right wrist.

So Roan straightened at once and asked with a serious expression,

“Do you still remember exactly what that tattoo looked like?”

“Of course!”

Julie nodded and lifted the short skirt over her thigh, revealing a snake tattoo on the upper part of her leg.

“Lots of dancing girls think tattoos are painful, or they don’t want other people to know they do this kind of work because of them.

So instead of getting a tattoo drawn on them by an artist, they often use temporary tattoo stickers.

After all, having a tattoo drawn costs money, and stickers are cheaper.

These snake tattoos are part of our standard stock.”

“Damn it!”

Seeing the snake tattoo that matched the robber’s exactly, Lacey immediately cursed under her breath. Roan did not hesitate either, rising at once and saying,

“Girls, come back to the FBI building with me right now.

I need you to describe what you remember about that white, shaved-headed man and help us prepare a composite sketch.”