Free Kiss of Death by P.D. Martin

it.
    Sloan unscrews the vial. “Open wide please, Mr. Fischer.”
    Todd does as instructed and Sloan uses the cotton-bud end to scrape the inside of his cheek, before slipping it back inside the container, sealing it and placing it in the evidence bag.
    â€œThat’s it.” She gives him a quick smile.
    He looks at Sloan, then me. “Now what?”
    â€œWe’ll take this to the lab for comparison with the evidence we found on Sherry’s body and we’ll be in touch.”
    â€œI still can’t believe she’s…dead.” He takes a deep breath and his body tenses with grief. “You will find whoever did this, won’t you?”
    â€œWe hope so, yes.” Sloan knows better than to make guarantees or to tell him that he’s still one of our prime suspects. Agreeing to give his DNA and admitting he saw Sherry last night don’t make him innocent.
    â€œSo, as far as you knew, she was heading home at 1:00 a.m.?” I confirm.
    â€œYes. That’s what she said, and she drove off in that direction.”
    â€œAnd she never mentioned what she was upset about?”
    â€œNo.”
    We thank Todd Fischer for his time, give him our cards and leave, picking our way over the piles of old papers and magazines that cover the floor between kitchen and front door.
    â€œSorry about the mess,” Todd says at the door. “I’ve given up trying to keep it even half-decent looking.”
    â€œThat’s fine, Todd.” I hold my hand out. “Thanks for your help.”
    He shakes my hand and Sloan’s before closing the door.
    In the car, Sloan buckles up. “So we’ve got an ex-boyfriend who admits to having sex with her only a couple of miles from the crime scene. It’s not looking good for Todd Fischer.”
    â€œI don’t know.” I start the car. “My gut instinct says he’s innocent.”
    â€œMaybe. But it sounds like there was a new man on the scene and maybe Fischer was jealous…and angry.”
    â€œWhat about the bite marks? They clearly point to someone from the vampire community. And now we’ve got confirmation that Sherry had some contact with that world. Even if it was just for research.”
    Sloan raises her finger. “But Todd knew. He seems like a smart kid to me. Smart enough to make it look like a vampire attack.”

Four
    Sunday, 4:30 p.m.
    O nce I’ve dropped Sloan, it’s on to the Federal Building and my desk. In the end we decided the professor had to wait. Sloan needs to start logging her requests and getting the DNA sample moving and I want to find out more about Anton Ward and vampires. Besides, I’d like to interview Carrington at UCLA. It’ll be interesting to see how he responds to a police and FBI visit in the middle of a class.
    At my desk I open the file and turn over the first few crime-scene photographs. Rosen printed them out on regular paper, but the digital images are high resolution. The next document in the file is on Sherry Taylor, starting with the missing persons report. According to the report, she’d told her parents she was going out with Desiree Jones last night—but Desiree was with her family and had no idea she was Sherry’s cover. I bet that shocked Mrs. Taylor. And despite this, she still seemed so confident that she knew her daughter’s associates and comings and goings. You’d think her faith would be starting to crumble a little bit. So where was Sherry from 9:00 p.m. to midnight last night? At the Goth nightclub like ToddFischer said? Or was there some other mystery date? These are questions we need to answer, but first things first…the file.
    I read through the three-page missing persons report filled out by Officer Saporo from the LAPD. Even though she’d really only been missing for a few hours when the parents reported it, Saporo still did it by the book. He wasn’t too worried about a twenty-year-old