A Detective's Guide to the Perfect Crime

VII

"Can we just go back at wait for that stupid subpoena?" Roman sighed, slinging the door open for him and Liz to walk into an antique shop.

"Good afternoon!" She greeted the woman who was working on cleaning some ugly plate. Roman shielded his eyes from looking directly at some of the artworks.  "Could we speak to the owner?"

The woman nodded and hastily disappeared behind a set of shelves. Roman scrunched his face as he looked around at the shop. So small and dusty. It looked like a home you'd find in downtown Queens or the Bronx. Every single open space of shelf or floor was piled high with articles of some sort of historical interest.

It smelled like an unwashed dog. A smell Roman tied directly with old stuff. He pulled an old atlas off one of the shelves. It was older than he was. He could tell by the way it was drawn. Mildew rotted at the inside pages, blotting out some of the keys and notes.

Elizabeth shot him a look as he accidentally tore one of the pages and hastily placed it back on the shelf. He looked sheepishly at her.

"Let me do the talking this time. Mkay?" Liz said.

Roman scoffed and rolled his eyes. "It's an old atlas. No one's gonna look at it anyways. You don't need to tattletale."

She snorted. "No, not that. About the security footage."

Roman's eyebrows creased. "Last I checked, I'm the lead detective on this case..."

"Last I checked, you have a personality as charming as the decaying roadkill outside." She looked him over. "Let me do the talking."

A shuffle came from behind a door. It creaked open and an old man came limping out. The man was probably as old as the dinosaur fossils mounted on the walls. He could've hunted them for all Roman could tell. "Can I help you?" Oh God, his voice wasn't much better. So hoarse and bitter. It made Roman clear his own throat.

"Hi!" Elizabeth grinned, stretching out a hand. "I'm Detecting Winslow, this is my partner, Detective Daley." Actually you're my partner... Roman wanted to correct her.

"Caleb Dunce. What can I do you for?" He shook both hands gratefully.

"Well," Liz began, "there was an incident across the street and we couldn't help but notice that there were employees in here at the time..."

The man's eyes darted from Roman and back to Elizabeth. "You're looking for witnesses?"

Roman nodded. "That or camera footage." He waved his finger around in a wide circle. "You've got quite a few. And more outside."

The man shook a knobby finger in the air as he turned around on his heel. "That I can do. You won't find any snitches over here though. I was at home and the teenagers, my grandkids, were watching the store. I had an appointment." With a mortician, Roman added in his mind.

Elizabeth must've caught him making a face, because he felt her deceptively sharp elbow jab his side. "Fix your face." She scolded under her breath.

"Okay, so," the man led the two detectives to a very cramped room, "this is our footage." He gestured to a wide array of monitors and audio devices. Roman looked around the room. It was highly unusual for it to simply be the security system for an antique shop. Who would want to steal someone's grandma's old glass plates?

"When would you like to see?" The old man sat at the desk and put in a long, complicated series of passwords before finally being able to access the timestamps.

Elizabeth looked at Roman. "Five fifteen?" She said like a question. Roman made a face. Any real detective would know all of this off the top of their heads.