Short Story: The Homeless

“Disable the alarm!” Annebeth shouted to Jhonne as Aron busted through the bank’s windows. “I’m on it,” Jhonne complained as he hurriedly disabled the alarm. Annebeth dared to breathe as soon as the alarms stopped their wailing chorus. “Look there” Aron said, pointing into darkness. There was a silhouette of a man slouched upon a desk, sleeping. Who is that?” Jhonne asked quizzically. Shining her light on him, Annebeth saw he had a name tag that read “Rikishi-Bankkeeper”. “Lucky us!” Jhonne exclaimed. “Keep your voice down,” Annebeth hissed. As they looked around, the only sound was the clinking of keys a they were pulled from Rikishi’s chain. With a twitch of a hand, Annebeth dismissed them to go loot.
Palming his knife, Jhonne stabbed Rikishi.

“What in blazes is that smell coming from?” Rowan asked when he doubled over, gagging. “That my friend is a homeless person,” Argentum stated matter-of-factly. “A homeless person by this bank?” Rowan blurted. “Yeah, what about it?” Officer Kyung wondered aloud. “He may have been a witness to this break in” Rowan replied. “We may as well go interview him just in case.” It turned out that the person’s name was Arthur and he in fact had seen the robbery. “How many people were they? Could you see their gender? How old did they…..” Argentum asked before Rowan interrupted, “Please pardon my companion, we are detectives and would appreciate if you could tell us what you saw last night.” “There were three of them, one girl and two boys. They looked about 25 or so,” Arthur croaked. “Tall, and knew how to hide.” Producing small bag and dumping it out, a deep green emerald set in platinum with diamond inlay. “Check the sewers,” Kyung ordered. “We found bags!,” someone yelled

“Alright then, let’s go inside the bank take a look at what is in the bags,” Argentum said. “No Argentum, let’s just leave the bags unopened,” Rowan replied sarcastically. “Officer Kyung,” a bank teller greeted warmly. “Argentum and Rowan, meet Roy Richardson,” Kyung said while introducing the detectives to the man. “We found some bags and are hoping that you can help us identify what is inside them,” Rowan said. Opening the bags and tipping them upside down on a table, hundreds of glittering gems and jewelry fell out. “My my, I will look at the bank records and return these to their owners,” Roy said.
“Kyung, please gather the bank staff and review the security footage. Argentum, what is that?” Rowan asked when he saw a red smear. “That my dear friend is called blood,” Argentum rolled his eyes. “Roy, are the vaults still unlocked?” “Yes detective.” As they rounded the corner into a vault, a body came into view, sloppily hid behind a shelf. “Look, it’s a body,” Argentum stated matter-of-factly. “Yes, and it has fingerprints,” Rowan replied as he fished out a magnifying glass from his pocket. “They are smeared, but there are three different ones,” Rowan