it.
Sloan unscrews the vial. âOpen wide please, Mr. Fischer.â
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.
âThatâs it.â She gives him a quick smile.
He looks at Sloan, then me. âNow what?â
âWeâll take this to the lab for comparison with the evidence we found on Sherryâs body and weâll be in touch.â
âI still canât believe sheâsâ¦dead.â He takes a deep breath and his body tenses with grief. âYou will find whoever did this, wonât you?â
âWe hope so, yes.â Sloan knows better than to make guarantees or to tell him that heâs still one of our prime suspects. Agreeing to give his DNA and admitting he saw Sherry last night donât make him innocent.
âSo, as far as you knew, she was heading home at 1:00 a.m.?â I confirm.
âYes. Thatâs what she said, and she drove off in that direction.â
âAnd she never mentioned what she was upset about?â
âNo.â
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.
âSorry about the mess,â Todd says at the door. âIâve given up trying to keep it even half-decent looking.â
âThatâs fine, Todd.â I hold my hand out. âThanks for your help.â
He shakes my hand and Sloanâs before closing the door.
In the car, Sloan buckles up. âSo weâve got an ex-boyfriend who admits to having sex with her only a couple of miles from the crime scene. Itâs not looking good for Todd Fischer.â
âI donât know.â I start the car. âMy gut instinct says heâs innocent.â
âMaybe. But it sounds like there was a new man on the scene and maybe Fischer was jealousâ¦and angry.â
âWhat about the bite marks? They clearly point to someone from the vampire community. And now weâve got confirmation that Sherry had some contact with that world. Even if it was just for research.â
Sloan raises her finger. âBut Todd knew. He seems like a smart kid to me. Smart enough to make it look like a vampire attack.â
Four
Sunday, 4:30 p.m.
O nce Iâve dropped Sloan, itâs 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, Iâd like to interview Carrington at UCLA. Itâll 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, sheâd told her parents she was going out with Desiree Jones last nightâbut Desiree was with her family and had no idea she was Sherryâs cover. I bet that shocked Mrs. Taylor. And despite this, she still seemed so confident that she knew her daughterâs associates and comings and goings. Youâd 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 firstâ¦the file.
I read through the three-page missing persons report filled out by Officer Saporo from the LAPD. Even though sheâd really only been missing for a few hours when the parents reported it, Saporo still did it by the book. He wasnât too worried about a twenty-year-old