It was the witching hour.  Nobody was awake save for Bill Huetter, whose phone had just rudely woken him up at two in the morning. 

“Locked out of your car?”  He asked tiredly. 

“What was the model again?”

“Give me a second to write all of that down,” Bill then looked around his desk for a pen and something to write on.  Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a grocery receipt and quickly jotted down the information, then re-read it back over the phone.  “Expect me there in a half hour.”

Bill quickly got dressed like a fireman on call, and walked down the stairs from his apartment to the locksmith shop he had below. 

On the walls were hundreds of lock cylinders from different manufactures.  The shop was divided into separate categories “automotive, commercial, residential, etc.”  There were also home security systems, wall safes, and car alarms.  The small shop looked out to the street through a display window that ran the length of the storefront, on it a gold image of a generic house key.  Under the key read “Huetter’s Lock Services” and in smaller font “yes, we cut keys.” 

Behind the counter in the back was a large workbench fully equipped for dissembling, picking, and fixing any lock on the market.  This was where Bill had spent three hours each day for the past two decades refining his skills in lockpicking.  There were baskets of various locks he had practiced on, as well as the equipment to create his own challenge locks.  Above the workbench were dozens of awards from national lockpicking competitions won over the years. 

Bill turned on the lights and picked up two carrying cases from next to his workbench.  He then threw a warm blue fleece over his shoulder and exited the shop.  Parked in the alley next to the shop was a white panel van with the Huetter’s Lock Services company logo on the sides.  Bill spent about a minute trying to get the old engine with over 150 thousand miles to turn over.  Finally it started and the air conditioner began to take the chill out of the air.  While waiting for the window to defrost Bill entered the address of the customer on his GPS and pressed “GO,” then allowed the device to find the best route. 

The panel van turned out of the dark alley way and drove down the frosty roads where there were only a handful of other tire tracks that had carved their way into the morning frost.  Despite the occasional early morning wake up call, Bill’s job was usually uneventful. 

He turned on the radio and searched through stations until deciding to listen to the late night news.  There was a segment called Caught Red Handed, where criminals, as the name implies, were caught in the act of some illegal activity and the possible sentencing was read out over the radio.  Most of the stories were not very interesting to Bill, and the radio’s single purpose was to have something else to listen to other than the hum of the engine and the directions given by the GPS.  It wasn’t until Bill overheard a story of a criminal that successfully robbed a pawn shop of tens of thousands of dollars that he grew interested. 

Bill turned up the volume, and listened to the rest of the story.  A lone robber with a large coat and a backpack peddled a bicycle around the back of the pawn shop in the dead of the night, then cut the power to the store.  He then slid a credit card between the back exit door and the door frame and opened the door.  After approximately a half hour of plundering the cash registers, merchandise, and even drilling the safe; he left the store with a bag full of an estimated thirty thousand dollars of stolen goods.  Unfortunately for him, after he used his credit card to get past the back door he forgot to put his wallet back away.  According to the radio station his wallet included his driver’s license, credit cards, and a receipt for the backpack he used in the burglary.

“He is now in police custody awaiting trial for burglary charges,” the radio show host reported.  Why was it that criminals always were so stupid?  Thirty thousand dollars made in under a half hour and he couldn’t remember to take his wallet back with him.  Bill pondered this for a moment, then came to the same conclusion he always did when he asked himself this question.  “It is lucky that locksmiths such as myself are honest men.  With my background and training I could have stolen much more from a far more secure facility and have never gotten caught.”

Early in his career Bill had been a penetration tester for a large security firm.  He would spend weeks at a time assessing the security of an organization and then break into their facility while avoiding detection.  This had first interested him in lockpicking, and after some self-study, he was one of the fastest lock pickers the firm had.  It was only by an untimely ankle injury that ended his days of running around; and he had to end his career as a penetration tester and start his own locksmith company.  While he often did miss the excitement of the job he used to have, he simply couldn’t get around like he used to.  Besides, his job did have some of the excitement of his old career like these early morning calls and some independent contracting with the police. 

Bill quietly drove down the most direct route indicated by the brightly glowing GPS, only occasionally having to “take a left in 0.1 miles.”  Another twenty minutes later and he was at the destination of the customer in distress.  Well, distress might not have been the best word, as the man who was locked out of his car appeared very intoxicated and didn’t seem to know where he was. 

“You don’t plan on driving anywhere do you?”

“Nah, I just forgot my car keys inside.  When I came out for my coat the damn thing was locked.”

Across the street was a second rate dive bar with the ruddy glow of the fluorescent signs advertising the different drinks they had on tap.  Bill still wasn’t sure if the man was telling the truth but thought it wouldn’t hurt to get his coat for him. 

“Can I see some proof that this is your car?”  Bill asked in a routine voice.

“I left my wallet in my coat.”  The drunken man stammered. 

Typical for these types of calls, everything they teach you tells you to confirm it is their property before unlocking it, yet they fail to see most the time the customer’s ID is in the locked property. 

“I will open the car so you can get your coat and show me your ID matches the registration on the vehicle.”

“Okay.” Said the man, clearly not having listened.

Bill took the larger of the two bags he brought with him.  Inside the bag labeled Automotive was a neatly arranged assortment of dozens of tools with functions known only to a seasoned professional.  Bill decided to challenge himself by attacking the lock on the car door, rather than use a simple bypass tool, he knew that would most likely set off the alarm.  The older Toyota Avalon surrendered with less than a minute of work, and the passenger side door slid silently open.

“Now you can get your coat and show me your ID,” Bill instructed as he presented the unlocked car. 

The drunken man looked at the unlocked car for a moment with an expression as if he didn’t know where it had come from, the he exclaimed.  “But that isn’t my car!”

Alright, not entirely unexpected.  The man did seem completely oblivious and this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.  Bill thought to himself as he gave the man an annoyed look and relocked the stranger’s car he had just broken into.  How easy it would be to steal all of these cars?  I just opened a complete stranger’s car parked on the side of street downtown and nobody even noticed.

“Do you even have a car?” Bill asked with an irritated tone.

“Yeah, now I remember it’s over here.”

The two walked across the empty street to another midsized car parked in front of the dive bar.  How did he think that was his car?  The two aren’t even the same color!

This car opened just as quickly, again no alarms.  Bill then presented the second opened car to the drunk just as he did the first time. 

His coat was in fact in this car, along with his ID and a registration under his name.  After assuring Bill that he wouldn’t drive anywhere, the man paid Bill for his time.  Bill had to tell him the rate twice as the drunken man struggled to count out the correct amount.  Then Bill drove back to his home.

It was now past four and the sun was nowhere to be seen.  Bill secured the shop, turned the lights off, and walked back up the stairs to his apartment.  There he undressed and went back to sleep. 

A short few hours later and it was Tuesday morning, and the shop opened at nine.  Bill ate his breakfast of an omelet and toast, and filled the uneventful hours of the morning dusting the shop and practicing picking some locks at his workbench.  Then just before noon he received a phone call from the local police.

“Huetter’s Lock Services.”

“Hello Mr. Huetter, we need your help getting into a hotel room we have a search warrant on.  Let me give you the address now.” 

He took down the address.  The Royal Motel.  Bill remembered the eyesore that sat at one of the exits to the interstate.

“We will need you there at 12:30.  We believe the resident will be gone for at least a few hours.”

When Bill drove to the scene he was met by three police cruisers in the parking lot of The Royal Motel.  Half of the windows on the first floor were broken out and replaced with cardboard, and graffiti splattered the cracking brick wall. 

“Hey Bill!” said a familiar voice out of the corner of Bill’s eye. 

“Great to see you again Deputy Clinton!”  Bill said warmly, “So what is going on here?”  Bill inquired.

“Some local drug dealer is staying in one of the room’s, we need you to get us inside so we can collect evidence without him noticing.  You know, the usual.”

“Why not just get a copy of the room key from the owner of the motel?”  Bill wondered aloud.  After all that would be much quicker and not cost them anything.

“We have our reasons for believing he may be involved too.”

“I see.  Can you show me up to the room?” 

“Sure, room 225.”

Then Deputy Clinton walked with a few other police officers up the flight of stairs to the room in question.  The windows were drawn and the lights dark.  It looked like whoever was staying in this room had installed their own locks, because they were different than those on the other rooms.  It was an expensive lock, but improperly installed, a single kick would probably collapse the door.  However that was not an option because the police needed access without arising suspicion. 

“Shouldn’t be too difficult for you, I’ve seen what you are capable of” said Deputy Clinton.

Why did he say that?  Every time someone tells you something like that, the lock takes another ten minutes, Bill thought to himself amusedly, then sized up the lock with a flashlight. 

After a short inspection he began trying different tools to defeat his brass cylindrical opponent.  It was an exceptionally tricky lock, but not a match for a Bill and his years of experience.  The deadbolt slid open in under ten minutes of manipulation and the apartment door creaked open. 

Inside the stench of cigarettes and burnt rubber hit Bill like a punch in the face.  A few beams of light slid their way past the drawn blinds and gave the rooms its only light.  As his eyes adjusted to the poor lighting he could make out more details in the room.  There were items thrown on the floor, the clear signs of a struggle.  A lamp was dangling from its power chord that used to be on the nightstand, one of the dressers was toppled over, and drug paraphernalia was scattered around the floor toward the back of the motel room.  Then Bill’s eyes fell on the lifeless lump on the floor near the entrance to the restroom.  Several stab wounds were peppered his chest near his heart, and his dried blood caked the floor.  The trail of blood lead to the phone on one of the tables, a sign of his last efforts to save himself.  The bloody mess looked much older than he actually was due to a life of substance abuse, and he lay their half-naked on the floor. 

Once Bill could make out what was inside, he avoided the instinct to slam the door shut and just turned away and trying to keep down his breakfast.  Deputy Clinton took a look inside and his demeanor shifted to all business, then turned back to the other officers. 

“Nobody touch anything in the room!  We need to close the scene off and get a CSI team here immediately,” Deputy Clinton barked to the other police officers, “I recognize the victim, he is the suspect’s uncle, Oppahc.  I spent three years hunting him down when I worked with the DEA.  He was a high drug dealer and escaped convict.”

“Looks like he picked a fight with the wrong person,” one of the other officers joked with a morbid sense of humor as they backed out of the room.

“Probably just a prostitute, half of these cases are just that simple.  Besides, I know the man and that is the only person he man would allow in a room by himself while unarmed and vulnerable.  Shouldn’t be too long before we get to the bottom of it.”

Bill processed this while breathing fresh air and leaning up against a wall for support.  It was at this moment that Bill understood.  There weren’t many smart criminals not because smart people didn’t see the opportunity in crime, but because of the consequences of such a life.  Bill had just seen one of the most successful criminals in the state, who had outsmarted police and even escaped prison, slain in a dispute with a prostitute.