Free Sullivan's Justice by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

lot of other houses and the foothills. He knocked down the value to eight hundred.
    Hank entered the master bathroom. He caught the odor of either cologne or some other type of beauty product. Reaching inside the shower, he sniffed a bottle of KMS Velocity shampoo. The smell matched. This murder was fresh. Either the victim or the suspect had taken a shower and washed his hair. He reached in and stuck his fingers in the drain, pulling up a wad of damp, dark hair.
    Moving to the toilet, Hank lifted the lid and stared. The porcelain smelled like bleach. His eyes went to the chrome handle. Not even a smudge. Something had happened here. He could feel it. Practically sticking his head inside the bowl, he noticed something green in the far left-hand corner. As he looked closer, he saw that there was also a streak of red. He darted out in the hallway. “Get in here,” he said to one of the crime scene officers. “I think she vomited in the toilet. Scrape it off and send it to the lab.”
    “Looks like the remains of a salad,” the man said, producing a specimen cup.
    He went downstairs and stepped out on the patio. It had an overhang, the kind that generally came with the house. The boards were open, so the sun and rain would come through. He saw an object on the ground and bent over to pick it up. It appeared to be a top to something. “Hey,” he said, seizing another tech by the arm, “what do you think this is?”
    “Lens cover,” he said, extending his hand to take it. “Must have fallen out of someone’s bag.”
    “Book it into evidence,” Hank instructed him. “Maybe the killer took pictures as souvenirs.”
    Mary appeared beside him. “Charley called. He should be here in fifteen minutes.” Her dark eyes scanned the interior of the house through the sliding glass window. A patrol sergeant was organizing a team of men to canvass the neighborhood again.
    Hank stepped into the shadows at the far side of the house so they weren’t constantly interrupted by the other officers. He unwrapped a toothpick and shoved it in his mouth. He hadn’t smoked in four years, but he was only a year off what the teenagers called “quit gum.” He had trouble concentrating without something in his mouth. Oral fixation. He wouldn’t mind keeping his mouth busy on Mary, but she was out of his league.
    “Want some?” she said, holding a paper cup filled with coffee. “It’s disgusting, but we’ve got plenty of it.”
    “Nah,” Hank said, placing his hand over his stomach. “Tell Scott to drive the husband to the station. Vernon has seniority, you know. You should have notified him. Captain Holmes will want him to be second lead.”
    Mary threw her arms out to her side, sidestepping beside him as he made his way back to the house. “Vernon isn’t here,” she told him. “He turned his pager off. What kind of homicide detective is that? Besides, I heard he was trying to get a position with the FBI. Give Vernon the reins and a caravan of FBI agents will be here by tomorrow morning.”
    She had a point, Hank thought. He didn’t like Vernon Edgewell himself. He had no self-motivation. If someone didn’t tell him what to do, he did nothing. Although he had a dozen commendations from his days in patrol, he fell short as a detective. He needed the immediacy of the street. Homicide required patience. Other than a major case like the one they were investigating, most detectives worked alone, plugging away at a case for years until they either solved it or closed it. If a man was so inclined, he could goof off and never get caught. The only reason the captain kept assigning Vernon cases was so he could fire him when he dropped the ball.
    Vernon was a pitiful detective, but the FBI had received a glowing recommendation. That’s the way it worked in civil service. A superior could transfer an incompetent officer and end up working for him a few years down the line. Passing him off to another agency was faster and less