(Pottawattamie County, Iowa) –  The Council Bluffs Police Department arrested one person who officers said stole thousands of dollars worth of tools early Thursday morning. Investigators said they don’t believe the suspect was working alone. KETV in Omaha reports that when Mark Savage showed up to the job site near Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street to start working on plumbing Thursday morning, he knew something was wrong. He said the front door to the house was left unlocked.

And, he said they found the back door had been pried open. The structure held several tools that were used on the site. A quick call to contractor Dan Ruby determined that those missing tools, which included drills, telescopic light, salamanders and other, HVAC tools, were stolen. But Thursday morning’s weather worked in Ruby’s favor. One of his contractors, a retired Pottawattamie County deputy, found tracks left by the suspects in the snow. The tracks led to a house a few blocks away.

The Council Bluffs Police Department found the suspect inside the home, along with a Radio Flyer wagon and a trash can, which left the tracks behind. Most of the tools were recovered just a few hours after they were stolen. The impact is that the project the contractors were working on, will be set back 2- to 3-weeks because some of the tools were not located.