Angel's Tip by Alafair Burke

recruited to help investigate a series of murders tied to an Internet dating company. By the time the case was solved, a serial killer was arrested, a Russian identity-theft ring was busted, and one of the best cops Ellie would ever know was dead. And apparently other cops knew her name as a result.
    “What happened to Casey?” Mariah asked.
    “Retired. Last month.”
    “Don’t tell me. He’s finally going to Scottsdale.”
    “The movers are coming next week.” Rogan turned to Ellie and explained. “My last partner. Jim Casey. He’d tell anyone who’d listen he was retiring to Arizona.”
    “That his only wish was to die on a Scottsdale golf course,” Mariah said.
    “With a gin and tonic in hand,” Rogan added.
    “You getting along all right without him?”
    “Hatcher here’s good peeps.”
    Ellie gave a tiny mock bow of gratitude.
    “Well, at least you didn’t wind up with that lazy slug Winslow.”
    Ellie struggled to place the name, then remembered Lieutenant Eckels’s remark—that she would have been the one stuck with Winslow if it hadn’t been for Rogan.
    “I take it this case belongs to the two of you?”
    “What have you got so far?” Rogan asked.
    “Well, I can tell you the vic wasn’t killed here.”
    Rogan’s lips set into a line of disappointment. All crime scenes were important. Any could yield evidence. But it was the primary crime scene that was most likely to yield blood, saliva, semen, hair, fibers, and fingerprints—all of the physical evidence that jurors increasingly insisted upon, now that the fictional world of the multiple CSI shows had become ingrained in the minds of ordinary people.
    Mariah pointed to a male officer who was photographing the dirt in front of him. “We’ve got a whole bunch of footprints in the area in front of her body—all with treads, consistent with athletic shoes. But fortunately, our runners didn’t crowd the body. They gave her some space. Closer in to the corpse, we’ve got another set of footprints—smooth bottomed, not likely an athletic shoe—pointing into and then away from the body. One guy. He carried her in, dropped her, then walked out.”
    “Any chance you’re going to tell us the shoe is one of a kind,” Rogan said, “custom-made at the foot of the Swiss Alps?”
    Mariah smiled and shook her head. “It looks like any footprint you’d see on a Ballroom Dancing 101 instruction chart. Oval toe, square heel. No markings. About as generic as it gets.”
    “How do you know she didn’t walk over here with him, then he walks out alone?” Rogan asked.
    “Chelsea was wearing high heels,” Ellie said.
    “Lucky for us.” Mariah walked a few feet to a blue plastic storage bin resting on the ground just beyond the yellow crime tape. She reached in and pulled out a larger baggie containing a pair of high-heeled sandals. Ellie recognized them as the shoes Chelsea had been wearing that morning.
    “These bad boys would have left behind an imprint like a big exclamation point.”
    “Anything else?” Rogan asked.
    “We picked up a bunch of garbage lying around—Coke cans, cigarette butts, that kind of crap. We’ll look for prints. Have you guys talked to the ME yet?”
    “Next stop,” Rogan said.
    “Well, I’ve got one piece of good news for you. I took the shoes, but the ME took the clothes. But before they carried the vic away to the bus, I dusted her shirt. I pulled one latent off the underside of the top button of her blouse.”
    “Chances are, she was the one to leave it behind.”
    Mariah nodded. “Probably, but that’s not the best part.” She paused to make sure she had their full attention. “When I was working on her blouse, I saw a stain that may or may not have been seminal fluid.”
    Rogan rubbed his palms together. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
    “Don’t go getting too excited. The girl could’ve dripped a smoothie on herself, for all I know. I can run the print in a couple of hours, see if