Free First Kill by Lawrence Kelter

handkerchief.”
    “Her assailant’s?” I asked excitedly.
    “Probably, but the only DNA evidence on the handkerchief belonged to the victim—lipstick and saliva.”
    “Why do you think it may have belonged to the assailant?” I didn’t want to sound vulgar, but I could see the need a streetwalker might have for a large handkerchief or a pack of Kleenex. Yuck! Rodriguez and I continued to climb the stairs while I spoke with Tully.
    “Because, Chalice, spectrographic analysis revealed the presence of chloroform residue.”
    “I see.” We were now on the top landing. Rodriguez was waiting for me to get off the phone. “What about the blood-smeared twenty-dollar bill? Where’s the DNA report on that?”
    “No match on the CODIS system. The DNA is male, but it’s not in the national database.”
    Rodriguez whipped his pointer finger, indicating that I needed to wind up the call. “Got to go, Tully. Anything else?”
    “Yeah, one thing, Chalice … the DNA on the twenty indicates he could be Asian—thirty-seven-percent probability based on the genetic profile.”
    “Asian,” I repeated. “Thanks, Tully. Bye.” I stashed my cell phone. Rodriguez and I made eye contact, and then I knocked on Blick’s door. I waited a moment. “Mr. Blick? Maxwell Blick?” I knocked on the door again.
    I finally heard footsteps approaching the door. “Who’s there?”
    “It’s the police, Mr. Blick. We’d like to ask you a few—”
    I heard a plink noise, and then a grunt. The door shuddered as if someone had fallen against. I looked at Rodriguez and saw that he had interpreted the signals exactly as I had—Maxwell Blick had just been shot.

Chapter Eighteen
    A bloodstain marked the bull’s eye on his back. Blick was dead by the time we got into the apartment. I stared through the window at the rooftop across the courtyard. It was a sniper’s dream come true—a secluded courtyard perch so that he could take all the time in the world. The killer merely had to wait for the right moment to pull the trigger. A terrible thought crossed my mind; by calling Blick to the door, we had given the shooter the perfect angle of trajectory into the narrow apartment.
    I called Sonellio and apprised him of the developments while we waited for the crime scene team to arrive. I found five sealed throwaway phones in Blick’s closet.
    Rodriguez approached and looked over my shoulder at the cell phones. “You think he had stock in Verizon?”
    “Of course he did,” I chuckled. “I don’t suppose you found another cell phone, one we could dump to obtain his phone records?”
    “Negative.”
    “Why was Blick so concerned about security that he used a fresh burner every day?”
    “They’re cheap,” Rodriguez said.
    “They’re not that cheap. Ever meet a frivolous PI?”
    “Frivolous PIs? No. Never. Everyone of them is as tight as a clam’s ass.”
    Clam’s ass? My brow furrowed while I tried to picture a mollusk’s sphincter. I couldn’t. “So he must have been working on something big. I mean, you don’t throw away a phone everyday if you’re merely following a lothario around town, right?”
    Rodriguez seemed confused. “Lothario?”
    “Yeah, you know, a married guy with a wandering penis.”
    “Huh?”
    “A philanderer.”
    “Oh.”
    “Well, you get my point, right? I mean we have Emma Sands, who did high-society fundraising, and Cronan Hartley, an upper-crust attorney.”
    “And Blick was tailing Hartley.”
    “It feels like a game of high-stakes murder to me.”
    “What about Fey, the streetwalker?” Rodriguez asked.
    “I don’t know exactly how she fits in yet. I’m not sure how any of it fits.” I rubbed my eyes. “My head hurts and I’ve got dinner plans.”
    Rodriguez grimaced. “Gee, a headache and dinner plans. It sounds like someone is trying to create an alibi as a pretext for not having sex.”
    “Yes, that’s it,” I said in a mocking voice. “I’m going on a date, and I’m telling my