The reports are already out the door.” He coughs again. “Wait a second. Are you working that?”

“Yes.”

“An actual murder? I thought they only sent you out when a brother officer eats his gun.”

“I’m off the odd jobs for now, and I’d like to keep it that way, all right? So you wanna help me out on this or not?”

He gives a theatrical sigh. “Not really. But go ahead anyway.”

So I tell him about the bloodstained sheets underneath Octavio Morales, the ligatures tied to the mattress frame, and the obvious conclusion that someone was tied to that bed. If the second victim’s blood can be distinguished, I need to know everything the sample can tell me, from type and gender to a possible identification.

“You’re not asking for much,” he says. “Seriously, though, can’t your own people handle this?”

“Oh, they’ll get to it just as soon as they can. But we’re sending our dna work out, and that’s what this is going to take. We’ve got blood, but no body, and I think the whole key to this killing was that person tied to the bed. If I can identify her, that’s the ball game.”

“Her?”

“I’m assuming.”

“Well, listen, I can’t promise same-day service on the dna front, but if you want me to expedite the basics, I can do that. That would tell you if you have another victim, give you gender and so on. Running the profile through codis, though, that’ll take longer. But provided you can rush a sample over, I’ll make sure it happens. All right?”

“Perfect, Alan. I’ll bring it myself.”

I thought taking Main the whole way would be clever, avoiding freeway traffic, but by the time I finally reach Holcombe I’m having second and third thoughts. The Harris County medical examiner is just a stone’s throw from the Astrodome – assuming you have a good arm – but I can’t seem to get there in the bumper-to-bumper.

If you’d told me at age twenty-one I’d spend a good portion of the next quarter century sitting in traffic listening to talk radio, I’m not sure I’d have had the strength of character not to drown myself in the toilet bowl. One of those phrases from Rick Villanueva’s speech comes back to me. It’s time for Houston to get moving again. When Bill White entered the mayor’s office promising to do just that, I voted for the guy – and have twice more since then – never thinking this was more than a campaign promise. Nothing could get this city moving, unless you count a slow crawl.

During the news break, I turn up the radio volume.

“In the disappearance of northwest Houston teen Hannah Mayhew,” the announcer says, “hpd officials announced today the formation of a new multi-agency task force to continue the search. A spokesman for the department refused to comment on rumors surfacing over the weekend that reported video footage of the teen’s abduction in the parking lot of Willowbrook Mall.”

Even though I work for HPD, just a couple of floors away from the center of gravity on the Mayhew case, this is the first I’ve heard about a task force. That’s media pressure for you. Wanda’s people, the ones with experience in these matters, haven’t found the girl yet, so the powers that be decide to throw more manpower at the problem, confusing an already Byzantine jurisdictional map. A task force might sound good, but it just means more people to keep in the loop, more warm bodies without Missing Persons experience.

All the sudden I’m feeling grateful that my own missing female – assuming there is one, and that she’s in fact a she – doesn’t merit as much public interest as the girl on the cable news. It’s bad enough having to deal with Lorenz. And possibly Bascombe.

By the time I reach the ME’s office, Rush Limbaugh is off the air and a new guy’s repeating everything he just said. I switch the radio off, grab my sample, and hustle inside.

Bridger’s lab is a lot nicer than the one I’ve just come from downtown, which always reminds me of a high school science classroom being run by student teachers. Here, everything is bright white and gleaming, an exemplar of sterile technology. None of the encrusted surfaces you see in our own lab, and none of the sexy mood lighting from tv. Every time I cross the threshold, a tremor of sci-fi excitement goes through me.

“You wait here,” he says, pointing me into his office. He relieves me of the sample as we pass.

“You’re gonna do it this minute? I want to watch if you are.”

He pauses. “What part of ‘wait here’ didn’t you get?”

Although he’s my brother-in-law and I impose on him at will, Bridger can’t help being intimidating. In his mid-fifties, handsome, with rimless eyeglasses and hair as white as his lab coat, there’s something downright objective about the man, like whatever he says must be so. Which is why, when the district attorney’s office has to put an expert on the stand, they always want it to be him. He speaks with the authority of science, even one-on-one.

So I kill some time flipping through this morning’s Chronicle, the only piece of paper on Bridger’s desk accessible to the layman. Not surprisingly, Hannah Mayhew’s on the front cover, bottom fold, looking as blond and wholesome as she did on the flat screen. I dig for the sports section only to find it’s missing. Someone must have snatched it, because Bridger’s never taken much of an interest. I’ve had to explain to him twice who Yao Ming is.

As I’m shuffling through the pages, Sheryl Green pokes her head in. She stares at me like I’m a lab specimen, then she frowns.

“Where is he?” she asks, answering her own question by glancing back into the lab. “What is this, then, your break time?”

“He told me to wait.”

I’m not sure if Dr. Green is Bridger’s protégée these days or his chief rival, but I do know she’s never cared much for me. Before my fall from grace, I camped out on Bridger’s doorstep all the time, cadging for one favor or another. Sheryl reacted pretty much the way Jesus must have, arriving at the temple only to find money changers setting up shop. Lucky for me there were no whips handy.

With a sigh of resignation she drops a thin folder on Bridger’s desk, taking the opportunity to glance over whatever paperwork happens to be faceup. Then she sees the Chronicle in my hand, her eyes tracking the headlines.

“Can you believe all that?”

I glance at the front, making sure it’s Hannah Mayhew she means, then treat her to a commiserative headshake. “Yeah, I know.”

“If that girl was black like me,” she says, “or just ugly like you…”

“Tell me about it. That’s why I’m here.” I jab my thumb in Bridger’s general direction. “I’ve got a bloodstain I’m pretty sure belongs to a female victim, from that shoot house off of West Bellfort? I can’t even get anybody to look at it.”

Not precisely true, but I don’t often find common ground with this woman, so I’d like to make the most of it.

“That houseful of bodies?” she asks. “Four victims?”

“Possibly five. I think the guys who did the shooting took her with them.”

Her eyes narrow. On the phone, Bridger hadn’t seemed too impressed by the possibility, but Green is intrigued. I explain what I’m after from the test: confirmation of my hypothetical victim for starters, and eventually an id.

“That’s a long shot,” she says. “Running a profile through codis would get you hits for known homicide victims, offenders, military, unidentified samples from other crime scenes, that kind of thing – ”

“I know how it works.”

“Then you know how unlikely it is you’re gonna identify someone from the blood on those sheets. Unless you have something to compare it with.”

What can I say? I answer with a shrug. “I’ve only got what I got.”

“Then you don’t have much.”

Just as she turns to go, Bridger appears in the doorway. “You’ve got something, anyway.”

He hands me a printout, which I spend all of two seconds examining. “How about an executive summary, Doc?”