Free Adios Angel by Mark Reps Page A

room
became instantly darkened.  For half a second, while his eyes adjusted, Zeb
could see almost nothing.  Then he noticed a crack of light streaming in
through the doorframe.  Josh flicked the lights back on.
    “Watch your eyes.”     
    Zeb walked to the back door.  His eyes winced from the
sudden change in light.
    “Here’s what I think happened,” said Josh. “There’s
enough of a crack in the door frame to stick a thin piece of metal through and
lift up the two by four.”
    “What about the dead bolt?”
    “Unfortunately, I didn’t pay attention to it.  But
it’s an old lock, a flip down style.  Look at it closely.”
    Zeb reached up and put the bolt through its normal
positional changes.  It slid easily having been recently cleaned and oiled.  He
left it in the open position.
    “The dead bolt could be opened with a second piece of
metal, an angled one--insert through the crack--flip up--pull back--and voila,
you’re in like Flynn.”
    “Two people, you figure?  One for the lock and one for
the two by four?   Maybe a thief and a lookout?” suggested Zeb.
    “That’s the way I had it figured when I first thought
about it,” said Josh.  “But I changed my mind.”
    Using his right hand and left elbow, Josh deftly
removed the large beam from the back door and leaned it against the back wall. 
He pulled the door open into the natural light of the sun.
    “I found only one set of footprints that weren’t mine in
the alley around the door.  They go from the back door to near the dumpster,
where he must have parked his vehicle.  One distinct set of prints coming.  The
same exact footprints going.”
    Josh gave Zeb minute details of the distance between
the prints, the toeing out of the right foot, an approximated foot length and
size, even the number of steps the person had taken.
    “Have you ever been burgled before?  I mean at your
other store.”
    “No.  A few times teenagers have tried to shoplift. 
Never a burglary.”
    “Robbed?”
    “Never.  It takes a desperate fool to rob a gun shop.”
    “I’ll come back and make some impressions of the
footprints.  Was anything else disturbed on the outside?”
    “Nothing that I noticed.”
    A cowbell hanging over the front door clanged loudly
signaling Josh that a customer had arrived.
    “I’m going to have a look around back.  Bar the back
door behind me.  I’ll come through the front when I’m done.”
    The dead bolt clicked and the wooden crossbeam clunked
into the U-hooks.  Zeb’s hand rested against the adobe wall of the old
building.  The French family had built a respectable building, one that would
stay cool in the pre-air conditioning era. 
    Following the footprints in the hardened dirt from the
back door to the dumpster he imaged the route of the thief.  It was a short one
that could have been covered in mere seconds.  Entry into the building with the
right tools would have taken a professional less than a minute.  Across the
street were railroad tracks and a pair of empty, dilapidated industrial
buildings.  Directly across the alley was the back of a windowless storage
shed.  Zeb had been standing there for over three minutes and not one vehicle
had come by.  If the crook cased the alley, he might have guessed he could pull
off the break-in even during broad daylight. 
    The building next door had a boarded up window.  The
plywood cover was stained with pigeon droppings.  In the center of the excrement
was a dried, brown stain.  A thin trail from the center of the stain ran down
the wood.  Overhead, the tin roof slanted toward the alley.  In a metal eave at
the corner of the roof was an abandoned pigeon nest.  Zeb marked the imprints
with orange flags, walked down the alley and around the corner onto the
street.  He kept his eyes open for other clues but saw none.  He re-entered
Josh’s gun shop through the front door.
    “Find anything useful?”
    “Maybe.  Mind if I take a closer look at the