Page 61 of Lethal Seduction

“It might help?”

The phone on his desk rings. The light that blinks with each ring indicates the call is coming from outside the precinct, and I reach for it to answer. I’m a fraction of a second too late as Joe snatches up the receiver.

“Hello?” he says. “Homicide.”

I watch as Joe’s eyes dart back and forth while he listens to the person on the other end. I can’t make out what they’re saying, but reading his body language, it isn’t good news. After a few acknowledgments from Joe as he jots down notes on a pad, he hangs up the phone and turns to me.

“There’s been another murder.”

My heart skips a beat. The deep creases of his furrowed brow push my stomach down, and a pit of anxiety forms.

I sit up straight in my chair. “Related to our case, I’m guessing by the look on your face.”

He nods.

“Should I be worried?” I ask. “It’s not… Patrick, is it?”

Joe quickly waves his hands, dismissing my fears. “No,” he says. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out, but there are some interesting developments.”

“What are we working with?”

“Older man at Seas the Day Country Club, found floating face down in the water trap at hole six of the golf course.”

“Seas the Day is where Patrick works. Do we know who was killed?”

“Body was identified as a,” he double-checks what’s written on the notepad, “Tom Ballard.”

“TheTom Ballard? As in the actor from all those old spaghetti westerns?”

Joe nods. “The one and the same.”

“Damn, he must be what? Eighty years old? Maybe older?”

“There’s more.”

Oh geez, it must be a whole lot more by the look of disgust on his face. “Joe? What’s up? I haven’t seen that look on your face in a really long time.”

“There were puncture wounds across his chest, back, belly, and groin. The forensic team is still running tests back at the lab to determine what kind of weapon could have made them, but the old man suffered. None of the wounds were fatal, and they were all made while he was still alive.”

“Shit,” I say. “Is there more?”

He nods. “There was foreign DNA found in the victim’s wounds. Semen, to be specific. They’re going to run the results and cross-reference from the database, but it could take a few days.”

“Are we still at square one, then?” I ask. “Until we get the results of the DNA tests, we have nothing really to go on? This is all pissing me off, Joe.”

“Same,” he says. “We need to go down to the crime scene and start interviewing people.”

The phone rings again, and this time I’m quicker.

“Homicide,” I say.

“This is Officer Dante. I was just speaking with Joe, and after we hung up, there was a development.”

I motion for Joe to come back over to the desk. I place the call on speaker since there isn’t anyone else in the office.

“Dante, you’re on speaker. Both Joe and I are on the call now.”

“Great,” he says. “We have found fingerprints and were able to upload them straight away. Took a few minutes to run them through the database, but we got a hit. Ninety-nine point six percent chance they belong to a Richard Dickerson.”

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