Free Bending the Rules by Susan Andersen

If more were out when the robbers broke in they might have taken them,” Vuong said, then looked at his partner.
    “The cases in the store are empty.” Nelson picked up the report. “But they’re not smashed, so I’m guessing the owner probably empties them into the safe at night.” He indicated a tall, industrial-strength model bolted into the corner of the workroom. “Or it’s possible the robber forced him to open the cases out front before he shot him.”
    Jase squatted behind the workbench. He inspected the overturned stool and the bloodstains on the floor without touching either, then turned to examine the bench itself. “He had this drawer half open and there’s a thirty-eight special inside. Looks to me like he was shot where he sat before he could get to it. My guess is whoever did this intended a smash-and-grab and didn’t expect to find anyone still in the store at this hour. Are there any security cameras?”
    Nelson nodded. “Two in the retail area. None back here.”
    “We’ll need to check them out—see if there’s anything on them.”
    The lab boys arrived and started searching for trace evidence and setting up to dust for prints. While Hohn organized the patrolmen to try to unearth information on the victim in order to contact the next of kin, Jase went outside to see what he could find.
    In the high-powered beam cast by the Maglite he’d collected from the passenger seat of his car, he found a fairly fresh-looking Double Bubble gum wrapper that may or may not have been recently dropped where the parking area met the narrow alley. He bagged it up. The flashlight beam picked up what looked like a long drift of ash in the through-way between the store and the building next door, and when he crouched down he discovered a cigarette that looked as if it had been lit only to be tossed aside. He slid the filter into another baggie and duckwalked down the passage toward the street one step at a time, sweeping the light from his Mag over every inch before he moved a leg forward.
    The front of the jewelry store was pristine and untouched as far as he could tell, the sidewalk clean and the groomed dirt that would probably be overflowing with flowers in another month or so in the narrow garden boxes on either side of the stubby walkway just beginning to sprout a few early shoots.
    There wasn’t much to be gleaned here and he turned to head back the way he had come to broaden his search of the alley. His Maglite, which he’d lowered when he’d hit the lighted street, flashed over the small patch of landscaping fronting the building next door, and he had taken two steps down the passageway before what he’d seen registered. Then he backpedaled and swung his flashlight at the ground in front of what turned out to be a dentist’s office.
    This flower bed was all chewed up and a can of spray paint lay on its side on the postage stamp–size patch of grass. He carefully picked it up, using only a thumbnail beneath its bottom rim and the very edge of a fingertip upon its blue cap. He turned it toward the streetlight.
    It was a can of Krylon, a brand that could be found at any hardware store in town. But putting a slideshow of impressions together, he thought he was beginning to see a picture.
    It looked like there might have been a witness to tonight’s robbery. Maybe a graffiti artist or a tagger. Not exactly a huge break in the case, considering there must be dozens if not hundreds of them in the city.
    Still, maybe they had their territories. And at the very least, it was a place to start.

CHAPTER SIX
Okay, I have to admit it, today was different. Usually the kids I teach want to be here.
    S ATURDAY MORNING , on the north side of Jerry Harvey’s shop, Poppy faced three kids who stared back at her sullenly, their postures a study of teenage defiance. She turned to give Jason a brief glance, then concentrated her full attention on the teens. “My name is Poppy Calloway,” she said genially. “You