Good Thing He Didn’t Hit The Ceiling

(A customer comes into the store. He has a jacket bunched up under his arm. I notice him looking up at the ceiling and approach him to see if he needs help. He doesn’t so I head to the counter. He is still looking at the ceiling and then back at me. I call a coworker over.)

Me: “That guy is freaking me out. He’s up to something.”

Coworker: *heads over* “Hi,. Can I help you?”

Customer: “No, just looking.”

Coworker: “Can I check what you have wrapped in your jacket?

(The customer unwraps the jacket to show that he has a black hair brush with a round hollow handle. Then he leaves the store. I head out for lunch and am sitting in a fast food place when I see the man come out of the toilet area. He again is looking at the ceiling and then around the restaurant. He sees me looking at him and quickly leaves. He still has that jacket under his arm, he heads to another fast food place. Again he notices me noticing him. I head back to work.)

Me: *to coworker* “I saw that guy again. He was acting suspiciously in [Fast Food Place] but as soon as he saw me he left. He was checking out the locations of the cameras, which is what he was doing here, too. I think that he was going to pretend he had a gun. The end of that brush could be mistaken for one.”

Coworker: “Yeah. We discussed it while you were gone and came to the same conclusion. I went down to the store that I saw him come out of and they had also noticed him checking out their cameras.”

(There were no reported robberies in the area. We were ready with our surveillance recordings if there were.)