Free Blood of Others by Rick Mofina

holster,
did not have the guts to back him up.”
    “Keep it down and take it easy,
will you?”
    “I lost touch with Reggie myself.
He’s fallen through the cracks, Leo. We’ve got to do something for him.”
    “All right. We can look into
that. I’ll talk to some people, but right now you lock on to this case.
Totally.”
    “I want Wyatt out.”
    “No. He’s on the team and you’re
going to have to deal with that. Frankly, I expected a higher caliber of
professionalism from you, Walt.”
    Sydowski shook his head, stared
at his feet and cursed.
    “Fine, Leo. He does what I tell
him to do.”
    “You’re the primary. It’s your
show.”
    “He gets periphery, superficial
stuff and he works alone. The less I see of him the better.”
    Gonzales nodded, removed his
cigar, jabbing it at Sydowski. “And you focus on clearing this thing. Did you
even look at this morning’s papers? Front page. BRIDAL SHOP HORROR. They are
already chewing on my butt upstairs because they’re catching heat on this from
City Hall and the commission.” His eyes bored into Sydowski. “Walt, we’ve got
to clear this case. Got that?”
     
    Sydowski popped a Tums into his
mouth then led the meeting, dissecting the investigation, assigning teams to
examine its key aspects by retracing the final steps of Iris May Wood’s life. They
would go to her office, her neighborhood, they would canvas where her car was
found, talk to her astronomy class, and campus security. They would go to the
bridal shop and question everyone who had anything to do with that store, or
with the woman whose gown was used. They would double-check patrol unit logs
and complaints for the key area, taxis, security people, everything.
    “Somebody out there saw
something,” Sydowski said.
    They had her apartment, phone
records, her computer. Crime Scene still had the bridal store and they were
awaiting results on the search of trash bins near the boutique. So far, no
weapon, no trace, no latents, nothing. It was abnormally clean.
    “She got family, Walt?”
    “None that we know of so far.”
    Then there were the other
intriguing pieces, like making her cat and the animal shelter beneficiaries.
They would interview shelter people, run background. And how the security
cameras in the bridal boutique failed to record anything. The same for the
exterior cameras of other businesses in the area.
    “This was too ritualistic, too
organized to be a random, impulse thing. It may be fantasy-driven, could be he
knew her or knew her type. I mean it appears she lived a quiet life
alone with her cat. She may have been selected. She could also be a
message, signifying something he hates or fears. Maybe he was somehow wronged.
Whatever he is, I’ll bet my pension he’s going to do it again.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Because we haven’t caught him
yet.”

TWELVE

     
    Reed’s story was the line, running six columns
under the San Francisco Star’s flag over a large color photo of canvas
covering the corpse in the display window of Forever & Ever. The secondary
art showed a model in a Veronica Chan wedding gown, taken from a feature the Star did on Forever.
    Reed shoved his cereal aside. His
stomach heaved as he compared his work to his competition. The Chronicle had killed him, victory staring back at him from a color head-and-shoulders
photo of Iris May Wood, confirmed by sources to be the victim found in
the Union Square bridal boutique. Reed’s story failed to ID the victim.
    Reed switched on the TV set on
the new kitchen counter and surfed through local morning news shows. All quoted
the Chronicle, flashing Iris Wood’s picture. He had been beaten. Why did
he not trust his gut? He had a lead on her name late last night and a
tip that she worked downtown at an insurance company. He couldn’t get anyone to
confirm it at deadline. Who confirmed it for the Chronicle? Reed
devoured their story. It confirmed that Wood worked at American Eagle Federated
Insurance. Reed