"Katherine Kurtz & Scott MacMillan - Knights of the Blood 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

of his head. Demitter was the only person in the LAPD to call him "Kingfish" to his
face, which was probably why Sprague refused to work with any other partner.

"Come on, Brother Andy, let's head back to the station."

Demitter grinned at his partner from under a thinning thatch of carrot-red
hair. "Yassum, boss."

Back at the station, the two police detectives reviewed their files for the
umpteenth time.

"Okay," Demitter began. "Let's go over all of this again."

"Right," said Sprague, walking over to the chalkboard set up against one wall
of their cramped office. "Here's what we've got."
 He reached across to his desk and picked up an envelope marked "Los
Angeles County Coroner," pulling out photos of the three victims, which he taped
across the top of the chalkboard. Demitter fumbled in one of his coat pockets and
produced a Polaroid photo of the most recent victim, taken earlier that morning at
the crime scene. He tossed the Polaroid to Sprague.

"Here, might as well make the collection complete."

Sprague looked at the photo for a minute or so, then taped it up next to the
glossy morgue shots.

"All right. Now we have four victims, all killed in the same manner, and all
found in the same neighborhood." Sprague fiddled with a piece of chalk. He and
Demitter had gone through this procedure with each of the previous killings, and
would continue to do it until the murderer was caught. Somewhere there had to be a
clue, a lead that would point them in the direction of the killers. "What else have
we got?"

"Age. All in their late teens or early twenties." Demitter leaned back at his
desk and looked at the ceiling. "All about the same size, between five foot ten and
six feet tall. Same weight, 160 to 175 pounds."

While Demitter recited the vital statistics of the group, Sprague's precise
printing made neat columns of facts under the four photos.

"And," Demitter continued, "no one has come forward to claim the bodies,
and Missing Persons doesn't have anything on any of them."

Sprague turned to his partner. "That's almost as weird as the killings. These
aren't street kids. They're in too good shape for that. But no one's looking for them.
We hear back from the Army yet?"

Demitter rummaged through some papers on his desk. "Yeah. And the Navy,
Air Force, and Coast Guard, too. I don't know about Number Four there, but the
first three aren't AWOL."