AREA 51: Project Sapphire: An AREA 51: Project Novella by F.X. Regan

Author:F.X. Regan [Regan, F.X.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Duke Street Press
Published: 2023-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

He didn’t know which hurt worse. His back from the flimsy mattress or his head from the half a fifth of Cutty Sark he picked up from a package store on the way to the motel last night. The only thing he'd had for dinner. He checked out and asked the desk clerk where the closest breakfast joint was. He was only a greasy meal, some black coffee, a fist full of aspirin, and a couple of cigs away from feeling much better.

Before he left the diner, he used the pay phone to call Jenkins in Robbery-Homicide back.

“I was hoping you’d call me. I think you need to come in here for this one.”

***

“I found the file on the Eve Longstreet murder,” he told him when Morrison arrived at LAPD headquarters. “Guess what? She’s not the only one. Another blondie. Misty Swanson, I think that’s a stage name, was murdered a couple months before Eve. Same M.O. Aspiring actress, came from the east coast somewhere, twenty something, dragged into an empty building and slashed multiple times. The crime scene boys got a bloody print from the scene, but nobody has done anything with it yet. In fact, the whole case fell through the cracks. The detective who had the case was fired for being a drunk. One of the last of the Black Daliah team.”

“So that’s at least four we know of,” Morrison told him.

“How soon can you do something with the print?” He was thinking about the knife his own assailant left impaled on the floor of his hooch last night and that it might contain a print as well. And what kind of a story he’d have to come up with to get the print to this guy, if he could even successfully recover it.

“I got the guys working on it now and I’m going through our files of known assailants. See if we can get a match with a suspect we’ve printed before. I’ve got a pretty good copy I’m going to send special delivery to the G-men this afternoon. I know these feds though; they are going to want the original.”

“Don’t send the original. Not yet,” Morrison told him. “I’ve got some recovered prints in my files I’d like you to take a look at.”

“Let’s go get them now. We don’t have a lot of other leads to go on.”

This required another quickly thought up lie. “Can’t do it. I have a couple important interviews already scheduled this afternoon. How about I swing by same time tomorrow? I’ll bring the prints then.”

He was locked in. This hinged on there actually being a print on the knife he could retrieve to give to him. I’ll think of something between now and then, he thought.

Black Jack looked through the Longstreet and Swanson files. They were both thin with nothing except for the most basic of leads covered. He was disappointed because at least back in Washington, D.C., LAPD had a better reputation than this. Especially RHD. He wondered

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