Blood Ties Read Free

nasty night could reasonably be expected to have scrubbed everything squeaky clean.
    Ellen’s taste in homicides ran to dimly lit walkups, where the bedroom carpet was matted with fiber evidence and the light switch was always smudgy with fingerprints. It all might end up as nothing, but it gave you hope and something to do, and you didn’t have to stand around thinking about how clever this particular nut job was beginning to seem and how if you caught him at all it would probably be just dumb luck.
    Ellen was reasonably sure he had killed at least twice before. There were at present two uncleared homicides of women, both apparently random and both what might best be described as recreational murders—someone’s idea of fun—but there was nothing specific in their methods or physical circumstances to connect them. Nothing except a certain polish to both performances.
    The first victim was three months ago, a seventeen-year-old hooker, but already beginning to be known to the vice squad, who worked the downtown hotels and had turned up in a bathtub at the Marriott. Somebody had stuffed the muzzle of a .22-caliber pistol about four inches up her rectum and then fired off two rounds, hollow points that disintegrated without hitting anything vital but had torn her insides apart so that she bled to death in seconds. No evidence of sexual assault and, needless to say, nobody heard the shots, nobody saw anything, there were no prints and no trace of the weapon, and the room hadn’t been rented in three days. A “Do Not Disturb” sign was found hanging from the bathroom doorknob.
    The murderer, who thereafter was referred to by Sam as “Our Boy,” couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start because, as it happened, the victim was known to Ellen.
    Four years before, while she was still in her first year with juvie, Ellen had arrested a thirteen-year-old named Rita Blandish for shoplifting at a gourmet food shop in North Beach. It was the second time in less than a week the manager had caught her at it, so he detained Rita in his office and called the police.
    She was a dark-haired little thing, vaguely pretty and still on the innocent side of puberty, and she was clearly terrified. She sat on the chair beside the manager’s desk, tears running down her face and her eyes wide with dread.
    While her partner sat with the manager and filled out the complaint form, Ellen took Rita outside to their car.
    Once she had the girl in the rear passenger compartment, which was as secure as any jail cell, Ellen climbed into the front passenger seat and twisted around to look at her prisoner through the clear plastic barrier.
    â€œWhat did you steal?”
    Immediately Rita began shaking her head, so fast she might have given herself whiplash.
    â€œI didn’t steal anything,” she almost shouted. “I was gonna pay for it.”
    Ellen made a sound that was just short of an exasperated laugh.
    â€œYou know, you’re not going to do yourself any good by lying, so let me rephrase the question. What did you steal?”
    â€œTwo cans of tuna fish.”
    Instantly Rita began to cry again, and Ellen was left to wonder why any little girl who hadn’t even had her first period yet would steal tuna fish. Candy, yes. Something fancy and expensive, sure. But not tuna fish.
    She couldn’t help herself. Ellen felt sorry for the little tyke.
    â€œYou know, it isn’t going to be that bad,” she said. “How old are you?”
    â€œThirteen last August.”
    And here it was October. As old as that.
    â€œWell, nobody’s going to assume that you’re a career criminal at thirteen. Have you ever been arrested before?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen you’ll probably only get a little probation. And when you turn eighteen your juvenile records are sealed. It isn’t going to follow you through life.
    â€œSo, why tuna