Page 39 of Protecting the White Bear

“I’ve got a hand mirror,” Mrs. Richardson said.

The couple trudged off to get the items. Monica wanted to peek in and not waste precious time, but she didn’t want to get shot. Still, if the men stayed there, they could be injured, suffer from critical injuries, and become hypothermic.

Once she had climbed the embankment to get the items from Mr. Richardson, Monica taped her phone onto the tire iron, figuring she could get a better visual using it rather than amirror. At least she still had some power left on her phone. Then she returned to the car and turned the video recorder on. She slipped the phone in through the back window.

Andy and the other officers viewed the video when she pulled her phone out of the car. Both men appeared sprawled out inside the car on the roof's interior when they had rolled. Neither had been wearing seatbelts. It looked like they had been knocked out and were still unconscious.

The army wool blanket was still covering the front passenger’s window frame where Andy had broken the window. He yanked the blanket free and tossed it. Then he shined his cell phone light into the car. “They’re breathing. I see their frosty breaths, but they’re still unconscious. I’ll pull the one brother out first, and then you can take him up to the road.”

“I called for another couple of ambulances,” Roger said.

“Good. They only made this harder on themselves.” Andy strained to pull out the first brother, who had been sitting in the passenger seat.

Once he had him all the way out, the two police officers carried the unconscious man up the embankment.

Monica went down the embankment to help Andy with the other man. Then, they’d need to verify that the bags were in the car and what was in them. Once they had pulled the other man out, Roger ran down the embankment to help, leaving Monica to investigate the contents of the bags. She was glad because her hand and back were giving her fits with all the workouts they were getting.

She took pictures of the bags and opened one, revealing bundles of cash. She released the breath she was holding.Wow.Then she did the same with the next three bags, all containing a ton of cash.

Andy rejoined her and whistled. “We might not have successfully handled the fake kidnapping scheme for the ransom money to its fruition, but at least we caught the bank robbers.”

“Yeah, I’m glad we managed to accomplish that.”

Roger joined them. “The brothers are in the back of two different patrol cars. They’re stirring but still half out of it. From the information we received from the video of the two men, who have been identified as the Williamson brothers, we’ve got them. According to their rap sheets, they’ve been in jail multiple times for store thefts, then decided on bank robberies. They’ve done three of them in the area. That’s not the vehicle they were driving, though. It was a blue Ford Bronco.”

“Which is down the embankment a few miles back at the scene of the accident they had caused,” Andy said.

They all peered at the money.

“Nice haul,” Roger said.

“Okay, I’ve photographed the car and the bags of money. We need to take them with us,” Monica said. “Do either of the men have IDs?”

“Yeah, they both have their driver’s licenses. They both have prison records for bank robberies in the past,” Roger said.

“While some were trapped in their cars back at the accident site, they were a big help to us,” Monica said. “It’s awful that they threatened others with guns to rob a bank earlier.”

“I agree,” Andy said. “Though I can’t help but feel that they only assisted us because they wanted to appear to be law-abiding citizens and didn’t want us to suspect them of a crime. Particularly, since we are law enforcement officers, and they had bags of stolen cash in the Bronco.”

“True. They also needed a working vehicle to get out of the mess they were in. Are you ready to head back toward White Bear? We need to get out of this cold, and we can meet the ambulances to have the men checked out,” Monica said.

“Yes, let’s go,” Roger said.

Andy and Roger carried the bags up to the road.

They put the bags of money in Harvey’s Yukon hatchback. Then Andy continued to drive the Richardsons’ car while Monica moved the Yukon.

The police patrol cars led the way to White Bear again. It wasn’t long before they heard ambulance sirens and saw their emergency lights. Then, more sirens sounded as police joined them. Everyone stopped again to meet up with the emergency vehicles so that they could move the injured brothers to the ambulances.

Monica thought they would never get to where they were going, but she was glad the bank robbers would receive medical care and be incarcerated.

The new patrol cars had two officers each. The EMTs took care of the bank robbers and then loaded them into the ambulances. A police officer went with each ambulance, and they drove off.

Then they were on their way again.

When they finally reached White Bear, tow trucks and more police cars were headed to the multi-vehicle accident site to deal with the wrecked cars. Andy and Monica drove to the police department and parked. Several people and the media were gathered in the parking lot.

Andy and the Richardsons exited their car.

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