Read Online The Yoga Store Murder by Dan Morse - Free Book Online

could be inconspicuous as well, having recently held a job stocking produce at a grocery store. But among some Bethesda merchants and beat cops, he was also known to drink too much beer and uncork sexually charged comments to women. “I’m terrified of him,” one of the callers had told Kucsan.
    It was all pretty squishy. None of the callers put Keith near the store at the time of the murder. And Brittany had said the assailants sounded white. But other callers noted that Keith hung out with a short guy and hadn’t been seen at the store where he bought his beer since the afternoon of the murder. The detectives printed out his ten-page, single-spaced rap sheet and talked to Bethesda patrolmen who knew Keith. A portrait of instability emerged. Born in Washington, D.C., he’d graduated from high school and had a long career as an amateur boxer. The arrests started by the time he was nineteen years old: cocaine possession, assault and battery, robbery, carrying a loaded gun, disorderly conduct, beating someone with a stick. Not all the charges stuck, but it seemed clear that Keith Lockett was no stranger to trouble. The detectives found an active warrant charging Keith with furnishing alcohol to a fifteen-year-old. That was relatively small-scale stuff but would allow them to bring Keith in for questioning if they found him. He was definitely someone they wanted to speak with.
    The detectives headed to Bethesda to visit the shops and try to find more outdoor surveillance video. They arrived to find reporters staking out the yoga store, asking for interviews. The detectives declined and called their media-affairs colleague, Captain Paul Starks, who hustled down to Bethesda, then stood outside the yoga store in front of the cameras and announced that detectives were canvassing the neighborhood.
    Around the corner, Ruvin found himself inside a store, speaking with a manager and asking if he knew anyone suspicious in the area.
    “Yeah, there’s this guy, Keith Lockett,” the manager answered. On the morning of the murder, the manager continued, he’d seen Keith and two white guys walking toward the street where the yoga store was, Bethesda Avenue. “He had a backpack, and I’ve never seen him with a backpack before.”
    Ruvin immediately thought of the video images from behind the store: two men, one tall with a backpack, the other short. He walked back to the yoga store, where his colleagues were searching for more clues, and told them about the backpack witness. Sergeant Craig Wittenberger was intrigued.
    More than that, though, the sergeant had a sneaking feeling there was more to be learned right around them. He kept looking, walking up to a table in the fitting area. There were drawers underneath it. The table slid easily and was rotated slightly off center. Wittenberger kicked himself, realizing the table had probably gotten pushed against the wall during the melee. Yet no one had examined the backside, underneath the table, facing the wall.
    With the table now pushed away from the wall, Wittenberger bent down and looked at items on the shelves. He saw two pairs of running shoes without laces. A women’s pair rested on a large men’s pair. What were they doing in a store that didn’t sell shoes? With his gloved hands, Wittenberger placed them on the wooden floor. Both pairs showed traces of small red stains, as if someone had cleaned off blood but not gotten it all. Wittenberger picked up one of the size-14 Reeboks, and turned it over. His eyebrows rose toward his nearly bald head. He carried the shoe to the back stockroom, where the bloody shoe prints were particularly clear. Ruvin followed him. Wittenberger compared the sole to one of the prints. All of the wavy, waffle patterns lined up perfectly.
    You gotta be kidding me, Wittenberger thought.
    “These are the shoes,” Ruvin said.
    The two talked about Keith Lockett and his backpack. Homeless guys carry extra clothes around. That kind of fit. But why leave