“You’re really riding those technicalities, aren’t you?” Calvin murmured. “Were you able to find the Kinetoscope owner today?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t try again. It slipped my mind.” I leaned close and whispered, “Do you think these are the same people from this morning?”
He nodded. “I don’t like coincidences.”
“I think… maybe I’m being set up to be robbed, so the owner can try to hold me financially accountable.”
“It seems very likely.”
Of course that didn’t explain the bloody body in the dumpster.
“Nothing else in the store is missing, right?” Calvin continued.
“Not that I can tell,” I answered.
“Do I have your permission to access the security footage for the shop?”
“Sure. To confirm the break-in and murder are the same event?”
“Yes. And perhaps to catch the partner who got away.”
“Exactly,” I said quickly. “Because that guy wouldn’t have cut his own throat.” I motioned excitedly at the back door. “And the new lock you installed could probably be broken by two people. The second individual is likely to be a man as well. They’d have to possess the physical strength necessary to lift the weight of a dead body over their head and toss it into a dumpster.”
Calvin listened patiently with a funny little expression on his face. “I agree with you. Did you recognize the victim?”
“I sawa lotof blood, screamed, and fell off the dumpster.”
“So no?”
“I didn’t get a very good look, no,” I concluded.
“Would you be willing to look again?”
“Since you asked so nicely.”
“Pardon us,” Quinn said, motioning Calvin and me to move aside with a wave of her hand. “CSU wants fingerprints.”
Calvin stepped down the stairs.
I reluctantly left the office doorway, and Quinn and Neil went to the Kinetoscope. He set his kit down, snapped on a new pair of gloves, and rummaged through his supplies.
“Please be careful,” I told him.
“I’m always careful,” Neil said, not looking up.
“Yeah, but if you find a print—the tape used to lift it from the cabinet—I don’t want it to cause any damage to the finish.”
“Seb,” Neil said inthattone.
Calvin came back up the stairs, took my elbow, guided me through the shop, and out the back door so Neil could do his job.
In the alley, the medical examiner was preparing the body for transport. Calvin led the way to the gurney, said something to the woman, and she pulled back the sheet covering the thief-turned-fatality.
I took a hesitant step closer. Light hair and complexion. Young face, dark clothes—
“I know him!” I clutched the film canister to my chest as if I expected he’d suddenly leap to life and grab for it. “This… this is the brat who was in the shop yesterday. The one who was giving me a hard time over nothing and then stormed—” I paused. If I stared at his upper face… ignored the obscene amount of blood…. “He was at the Javits Center.”
Calvin looked at me.
