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.
SATURDAY 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 will refer to me as Ms. Calloway. This is Detective de Sanges.” She looked at the lone girl in the group. “Are you Danny or Cory?”
“Cory.” The red lipstick, the heavily mascaraed blue eyes beneath the long, black bangs of an otherwise short, spiky hairdo gave her attitude. But a wash of color upon her fair, fair skin hinted at nerves.
“You’re a surprise.” There was an understatement, but she buried her astonishment in a calm tone. “Lot of people thought you were a boy.”
“No shit,” the scrawnier of the two boys muttered.
Poppy turned to him. “And you are?”
A who-wants-to-know expression was her only answer for a long moment. But when Poppy merely looked at him and de Sanges shifted impatiently at her back, he muttered, “Henry.”
She glanced at her notes, then back up to meet his gaze with a level, carefully nonconfrontational one of her own. “Well, Mr. Close,” she said pleasantly, “as long as you’re a part of this group, you will check your language at the door.”
“Right. That’s fuckin’ gonna happen.”
She put a hand on de Sanges’s arm as he took a giant step to brush past her, aware, even through two layers of clothing, of the strength and heat beneath her fingers. He was closer to them than the fifteen feet she’d insisted upon during their last conversation. She was willing to let it go, however, as long as he let her handle matters without his less-than-sympathetic interference.
The instant he subsided, she released her grip, then moved within a foot of Henry Close herself. He was undersize even for a thirteen-year-old, but he had old eyes and she recognized a hard life when she saw one written on a child’s face.
“Oh, it will happen, Mr. Close,” she said amiably.
“M’name’s Henry.”
“If you learn nothing else while you’re under my supervision,” she said as if he hadn’t interrupted, “you will learn this—we show each other respect. That’s my number-one rule. And a large part of that is avoiding the use of inflammatory language. Another part is to address each other with courtesy. So as long as you are in my program, you are Mr. Close, who is just as valuable a member of Seattle society as Bill Gates.”
“Who, technically,” the third kid said, “is a member of Medina society—not Seattle’s.”
“Yes, who is technically a member of the snooty eastside,” Poppy agreed with an easy grin, turning to the last of her trio, a tall boy with subtly expensive clothing and razor-cut brown hair. “But we like to claim him as our own when it suits our purposes to do so. And you, by process of elimination, must be Mr. Gardo.”
“Most people call me Danny G.”
“As I explained to Mr. Close, we’re a little more formal than most people.”
“What program?” Henry demanded.
Poppy raised her eyebrows at him in inquiry.
“You said as long as we’re in your program. I thought this painting over the tagging gig was just for today.”
“Then you weren’t paying attention when I called to let you know that while you will not be going to jail for defacing the shopping district, you are mine after school and on weekends until I say otherwise.”
“That sucks!”
“Funny, that’s pretty much what the merchants said when they saw what the three of you had done to their buildings.”
“Three of us, my booty,” Cory muttered.
Poppy looked at the young girl, only to find her exchanging some heavy eye contact with Henry. “Do you have something you’d like to contribute to the conversation, Ms. Capelli?”
The girl hesitated a moment, then tore her gaze away from Henry’s, glanced at Danny and shrugged shoulders burdened with a beat-up, much-too-large leather jacket worn over a black hoodie. “No, ma’am.”
“Then let’s discuss you for a minute.”
The teen started. “Nuthin’ to discuss,” she mumbled.
“Now, there we’ll have to disagree.” Poppy smiled at Cory’s unique attire. She wore a flowery black-and-tan dress over capri-length black leggings and she’d paired them with Doc Martens. Sort of Garden Party Barbie meets Urban Warrior. “Can I safely assume you dress as a boy when you go out at night for safety reasons?” she inquired gently.
Cory gave a jerky nod and Poppy allowed the girl to break eye contact.
