at least he’d blunted its street edge enough to make it sound that way. “Did you witness anything suspicious, Mrs. Cosi? Hear a shot? See the man who mugged your friend—”
“It’s Ms. Cosi, Detective—what’s your name?”
“Franco. Sergeant Emmanuel Franco.”
“Well, I’m not so sure he was mugged, Sergeant Franco. Or if he was, I’m not so sure something else wasn’t happening, too—”
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like you to look at these footprints I found in the snow—”
“Why didn’t you stay close to the victim like the 911 operator asked?” Franco continued as if I hadn’t spoken at all.
“I’m trying to tell you. After I found the body, I followed Alf Glockner’s boot prints, and I’m thinking it doesn’t add up to a mugging.”
Sergeant Franco glanced around the snow. “What prints are you talking about?”
“Follow me. They’re right over here—”
It was still snowing as I led Franco and Langley into the center of the courtyard, but the heavy downfall had once again tapered off into light flurries. I pushed back the hood of my white parka in order to see better. It didn’t help.
“Where are they?” the detective asked.
“They were right here.”
Officer Langley scanned the ground with his flashlight, but the clean trail of prints I’d followed had been obliterated by the mugger, the policemen chasing him, even Langley when he’d stopped to help me.
“Do you see any evidence of the victims’ footprints here, Officer Langley?” Franco asked evenly.
“No, Sergeant,” Langley replied. “Sorry, Ms. Cosi.”
Franco shifted his attention to me. “What is it you think you saw, Coffee Lady?”
“I didn’t think I saw anything. There were footprints here. Alf’s prints. I saw them. It looked to me like he pulled that wooden crate over to those garbage bins—” I pointed. “Then I’m deducing he climbed them to get onto the fire escape for some reason.”
Franco exchanged a glance with Langley. “So it’s St. Nick the Cat Burglar, now?” he said. His expression remained neutral, but his tone was obviously flip.
“Just look for yourself,” I said tightly.
Franco held my gaze a moment, saw that my glare was dead serious, and, with a sigh of obvious male annoyance, flipped on his flashlight. He walked over to the crate and examined the box and the ground. He took a long look at the bins and finally the fire escape above them. As he walked back to me and Langley, an electronically garbled voice interrupted us. Franco lifted his radio to his ear, listened for a moment, and cursed a blue streak. Finally, he turned to Langley.
“Four of you in pursuit and you still manage to lose that perp!”
Langley sheepishly shrugged.
“Fine. You and your partner can do some overtime.” He shook his head. “Me and Charlie aren’t going to be the only ones bracing local skells all night to find an ‘armed and dangerous’ stupid enough to actually pull the trigger—”
“Excuse me, Sergeant, but what makes you think the mugger these men were pursuing is the same person who killed Alf? I found Alf’s body before the mugger ran through here.”
Franco faced me, his denim-covered legs braced in the slippery snow. “Ms. Cosi, some scumbags work in teams. Some move from street to street in the same area, targeting victims. This perp hid Santa’s body pretty well from anyone passing on the street—it’s clear the shooter didn’t expect his victim to be found anytime soon, which would mean he was free and clear to keep looking for victims nearby. As to your friend here, his pockets were turned out, his wallet is missing, and the money box on his little green wagon was looted. Two and two is four. The motive here was obviously robbery—”
“Unless the robbery was staged to make you think this was just a random mugging. What if it wasn’t? What if there was some other reason—”
“Stop!” The harried detective spat his gum into a wrapper and stuck the wad into the pocket of his Yankees jacket. “Listen to me, Coffee Lady. You’re cold, you’re tired, and you’re probably feeling some level of shock or you’re not human. But I don’t see anything out of the ordinary back here in this courtyard—other than the mass of footprints from the police chase. There’s no sign of blood under the fire escape or anything else all that suspicious. The crime we’re investigating obviously took place in the alley and on the sidewalk, where the victim’s little cart was parked. So let us take it from here, okay?”
“I fully intend to, but I do have a theory of