Blood Money by Laura M Rizio Page B

felt particularly bad for the two girls—Celia had adored them and had enrolled them in a Catholic school. Theytook piano and ballet lessons. And Kirby wasn’t able to answer the neighbors’ inquiries. What were the girls going to do without their devoted mother? He shrugged his sagging shoulders. How would he know? What did other kids do whose parents were murdered?
    There were no leads in the case—not yet, and maybe never. In a neighborhood where junkies roamed the streets, where drug dealing was routine and drug dependency was almost a residency requirement, people were not anxious to talk to the cops. This case was no different than any other where some poor son of a bitch was killed for the price of a fix. It was hit, kill, grab, and run. The motive was a quick buck. Celia’s purse had been found five blocks away.Her wallet was found in a trash can in a different location, behind a convenience store. There was no cash—just a slip showing a two-hundred-dollar withdrawal from savings. That was a hell of a lot of money for some crackhead. Celia’s credit cards were still in her wallet. This was unusual. This was no stupid, murdering thug. He’d left no trails to follow. Whoever it was, he had murdered her for cash and was smart enough not to steal her cards or her car. And that was the thing about the case which troubled Kirby. Usually in this neighborhood credit cards would be taken and quickly sold, often providing the only leads.
    Kirby shook his gray head and put on his dime-store reading glasses. He pulled his coat collar up and began to review his notes. The time of death was estimated between ten and eleven p.m. The body was clean—no bruises or scrapes, nothing to indicate a struggle. The angle of the knife wound showed she had been attacked from behind; she had probably never seen her attacker. Her carotid artery was cleanly severed. With her esophagus severed, she had been unable to breathe or call out for help. She had died quickly. Thank God.
    It was frustrating—another crime that was likely to remain unsolved, like so many others. And there he was, as usual, trying to do the impossible, trying to paint a face on a faceless murderer, trying to find a nugget in the ocean. Fat chance.
    He clumsily slid into the seat of his black Mercury Marquis and picked up the handset of the police radio. It felt good to sit in thewarmth of the car. His belt was too tight, and his feet hurt. His stomach hurt, and the Kevlar vest he was wearing made him feel heavier than usual. How many more years of doing this? he wondered. Perhaps he could stand it if he lost some weight, he thought, as he sank into the black vinyl.
    “This is Kirby. Yeah, I’m parked on Butler near Eighth. It’s a real picnic out here—a model neighborhood. That’s right.” He chuckled. “Dick, I need a tow truck right away. Yeah, it’s going to the crime lab for a workup. Preliminary dusting just revealed the victim’s prints. No leads—yeah, it sucks. We’re just running in circles, as usual. I’m getting too old for this. No. No boyfriends. No jealous lovers.”
    He paused to hear the unsolicited theory of the young dispatcher: Celia was a hooker, killed by her john. What the fuck did Dick Harrison know? He was a fucking rookie: twenty-four years old, still wet behind the ears, just starting on the force, and just about good enough to do what he was told. So what if he had a certificate in criminal justice? Kirby had been on the force for twenty years, fifteen in homicide, and he was tired. He’d seen more dead bodies than a Viet Nam vet.
    “The best shot we have right now is to make a lot of busts. These junkies will sing for a deal. There’s plenty of crack houses out here—one on Eleventh. Yeah, tell the lieutenant I want to talk to him about this. Yeah, I’ll be at the district in an hour.”
    Hooker! Kirby laughed, shaking his head as he lit a cigarette and threw the match into the overflowing ashtray. The burning match