Free The Ancient Breed by David Brookover

for hair that we can run DNA matches on?”
    “Bingo.”
    “Mind if I take a look back there?” Neo asked and pointed toward the bedroom.
    “Be my guest.”
    One of the lab men raised a hand. “If you two are going into the bedroom, you’ve got to wear hairnets,” he explained.
    Neo winced. “Whoa! Have you ever seen a black man wear a hairnet?” he asked indignantly.
    “I’ve never heard of a red man wearing one, either,” Crow joined in. “Did you lab boys ever see John Wayne fighting Indian warriors who wore feathered hairnets?”
    “As a matter of fact, gentlemen, I’ve seen Indians and big bad black guys both wearing hairnets,” the agent retorted.
    “Yeah, where?” Neo demanded.
    “In a little Fort Myers reality show called ‘crime scene’”. The agent tossed them each a folded hair net. “Just your sizes, guys.”
    The two lab agents snickered as Crow and Neo slipped on their hairnets. Scowling, the Orion Sector agents examined the bloodstains on the carpet inside the bedroom. At first glance, nothing else appeared unusual. The bed was made, although the bedspread was wrinkled in the center. Crow’s brow puckered when he imagined what Clay Corey and Blossom must have done to muss it.
    “What’s this gray crud in the waste basket?” Neo asked as he lifted the small plastic container and placed it on the dresser.
    Crow shrugged. “Crusty stuff?” he offered.
    The hairnet agent poked his head into the bedroom. “Those are long-dead crustaceans, and it appears as if your niece and her boyfriend had scraped them off something today.”
    Neo nodded. “Makes sense. Otherwise the wastebasket would’ve been emptied by housekeeping yesterday.”
    “Very astute, Supervisor Doss. Keep that up and you’ll be promoted to a real FBI agent any day now.” The hairnet lab man and his partner guffawed loudly.
    “Funny. Real goddammed funny,” Neo shouted.
    Crow couldn’t help but laugh too.
    “You guys are all pretty pathetic comedians,” Neo huffed defensively, but shortly he joined in the laughter.
    After their laughter died away, Neo noticed a bath towel wadded into a ball on the dresser top beside the wastebasket.
    “Hey, did one of you comedians check out this towel?” Neo asked.
    Both men entered. “Yeah, we did. It had the outline of something rectangular pressed into it.”
    “By the depth of the depression, whatever was setting on it was pretty heavy,” added the other lab agent.
    “Can’t you run some tests to identify what was on the towel?” Crow asked.
    “We can tell you what it was made of, but couldn’t tell you what it was,” replied the hairnet agent.
    Neo slid latex gloves on his massive hands and explored the dresser drawers. Blossom’s purse, containing her credit cards and traveler’s checks, was tucked in the rear of the top drawer and appeared undisturbed. Clay’s wallet was beside it, crammed with cash and shiny new credit cards.
    “Obviously this wasn’t a motel invasion,” Neo said. “Those guys want cash and credit cards. And as a rule, they don’t kidnap their victims – they just kill them.”
    “Yeah. We’re getting nowhere at the speed of light here,” Crow lamented. “When a wrinkled towel is our best clue for determining the motive for this kidnapping, we’re having a real bad day.”
    Neo agreed. “And we don’t even know what wrinkled the towel.”
    “Whatever was sitting on it was obviously valuable enough for the kidnappers to take it along.”
    “Now that’s a big help.”
    Frustrated, they returned to the living-dining area and immediately yanked off the hairnets.
    “One aspect of this case bothers me,” Neo said thoughtfully.
    “Only one?”
    “Yeah, like why did they shoot Clay? He wasn’t armed and there were three of them. Shooting Clay in that scenario just doesn’t add up,” Neo explained.
    “I know. Sounds a little like a crime of passion,” Crow agreed. “But I can’t picture one of Blossom’s old boyfriends