GREAT ESCAPADES

Day One, Thursday, September 10, 1981

The outrageous caper took place in suburban Denver, where a branch of the Alpine State Bank occupied a strip-mall space much like a narrow volume in library stacks. A drive-through alley passed between the bank and Mattress Heaven next door, leaving the appearance of a book borrowed. But certainly nothing was borrowed that morning.

Inside the bank, an elfin woman in her mid-thirties tapped out a personal letter on her IBM typewriter. Branch Manager Dora Ireland typed to look busy, to fill the glacially paced minutes, for no one had come through the front door in the past hour. She reached for her half-eaten sugared doughnut, took another bite, and washed it down with cold coffee from a mug bearing the bank logo.

The only other employee, a teller, accepted a check at the drive-through window. "And how would you like that, Mrs. Zales? In twenties?" asked Claire in her practiced, chatty tone.

Dora peeled the page from the typewriter to admire her letter. As she leaned back, her peripheral vision took in two newly arrived patrons waiting in the armchairs of the small lobby. A gray-haired woman with granny glasses hunched over her knitting. The needles clicked rapidly, producing a blue rectangle that grew as Dora watched. A man in army camouflage fatigues and matching peaked cap sat one chair apart from her. His upper body hid behind the Denver Post. Only his cap showed above the headlines.

Dora swiveled herself face front and called out, "Next, please."

The woman tucked her knitting into a large tapestried tote bag and slid to the edge of her seat. Leaning forward, apparently fighting seventy-plus years, she pushed down on the arms of the chair and stood up. Her flowered house dress hung loosely around her body. She shuffled toward the desk.

"Ah, Mrs. Klimple, Alice Klimple, isn't it?"

"Oh, my!" The woman lit up with a crinkled smile. "You're a good one, you are. I got trouble even remembering my own name, let alone somebody else's. And you only met me the one time."

Dora rose to greet her. "Of course, I remember you. You rented a safe deposit box."

"Got somethin' to put in it today, dearie."

"Certainly." Pressing the hidden desk lock, Dora pulled out her bottom right-hand drawer and retrieved a ring of keys. "If you'll just follow me, ma'am."

Behind Dora's desk stood an L-shaped partition decorated with branches of anodized gold and silver leaves. This divider shielded the vault entrance and its elephantine, armored door from general view. She led the patron around the divider to a wooden sign-in dais and extracted Mrs. Klimple's card from an alphabetized file.

"I'll need your signature first," she said, holding out a pen.

Alice Klimple, in white cotton gloves, wrote her name slowly in a bold, yet shaky script. She returned the pen and held out her box key. "Number 286," she said.

Dora stepped through the vault doorway to unlock and roll back the folding gate. On either side of her, the walls comprised hundreds of double-locked stainless steel doors in four sizes. A long fluorescent fixture bathed the vault in chalky light. On the rear wall of the vault, an internal door concealed similar boxes and drawers. These contained accounting records, loan contracts, legal documents, currency, and coin for the bank's own use. Bank policy required this door to be kept locked at all times. But its combination proved so difficult that the managers frequently left it unlocked, sometimes even ajar.

Dora slid a small stool into position and stepped up on tiptoe to reach number 286. Taking the key from Alice, she turned it in the lock, along with a second key from her own ring.

"Something smells . . . " Dora gasped.

A hand appeared in front of Dora. A large gauze pad clamped across her mouth and nose. A pungent sensation invaded her nostrils. She tried to steady herself against the wall of steel boxes.

"Mmph! Mumph! Ehhhhhaah!"

Dora tried to peel the fingers away from her face, but they gripped like claws, pulling her slowly backward. The stool! Feeling herself tottering on the edge of it, she struggled to regain her balance . . . to find a handhold or a place to anchor her feet. She tried to turn and face her assailant, but the strength of a woman much younger than Alice held her in place. Soon the foreign sweet odor overtook her, and the manager melted into waiting arms that eased her to the carpet.

Mrs. Klimple moved quickly, using wide duct tape to bind and gag the limp figure on the floor. Alice's long limbs stretched easily to retrieve the ring of keys from box 286. Her adrenaline surged, and she leaped over Dora's slight body in her haste to get to the rear of the vault. The large combination door stood ajar. Alice had noticed it when the bank manager first led her into the vault. She swung the door wide to reveal the larger boxes and drawers reserved for the bank's own use.

Alice felt the walls of the chamber pressing in on her like a time-driven vise as she fumbled to locate the individual drawer keys on the ring. Sweat trickled from her hairline down her neck. The vault's commanding silence shattered each time a key turned in a lock and again when she upended drawers on the carpeted floor. In less than five minutes, the contents of a dozen drawers lay spread before her. Selecting only packets of fifties and twenties, she stuffed as many as she could into the compartments of her tote. Methodically, she arranged her two skeins of yarn over the stash with the needles protruding.

Alice emerged from the vault doorway and rounded the partition. Over her shoulder, she called out pleasantly, "I certainly will. Sorry I made such a mess of things. You have a nice day now, dearie, y' hear?" Alice resumed her bent, arthritic posture, shuffled through the bank, and continued out the double set of glass doors to the street.

The waiting man seated in the third chair glanced at his watch, folded his paper, and impatiently shook his head. He got up and left the bank, using his newspaper to push open one of the doors...