Blood Ties by Nicholas Guild Page B

want with a few strands of his hair except a DNA sample? But, once she had it, it would be useless unless she had another sample, taken from a crime scene, to which she could match it.
    There had been no suspect DNA recovered from the bathroom at the Marriott and none from the car trunk in which Kathy Hudson had been found. So far, the autopsy findings on Sally Wilkes hadn’t been posted, but Tregear would have been prepared to bet very serious money none had been found there either.
    He wondered if she had any plans to tell her partner about the hair samples.
    Of course both of them thought that he was their killer, an idea he had made no attempt to discourage, but they had nothing tangible that connected him with any of these murders. They had only the information he had given them and Inspector Ridley’s tenuous hunch.
    Tregear was in love with Inspector Ridley’s hunches. The instant he first saw her, up on Skyline Boulevard when she got that photographer to film him, he had sensed that she was not a by-the-book type.
    In the slightly more than twenty-four hours since she had pulled up his DMV records, Tregear had learned a good deal about her, and a streak of rebellion ran through the details of her life like a flaw through a diamond. The child of money, she was a working cop who gave every indication of living on her police salary. The performance records written by her immediate superiors were generally glowing, shadowed only here and there with oblique references to a less than perfect respect for authority and proper procedure: “Patrolwoman Ridley certainly merits promotion to Assistant Inspector, where her independence of mind will find more scope.” “Inspector Ridley’s first year in Juvenile Offenders has been generally satisfactory, even exemplary. Like so many of our better officers at the beginning of their careers, she has at times exhibited an understandable degree of impatience with the workings of the juvenile justice system.” There was even a complaint, which the judge had dismissed out of hand, from a drug-addicted father whom she had threatened with mayhem if he didn’t stop abusing his daughter.
    Alas, so things went. There was justice, which dwelt in Heaven, and then there was the law, in this case represented by the San Francisco Police Department. And Inspector Ellen Ridley seemed to feel the tension between them as a kind of private travail. Thus, impatient of constraint, she had ignored the rules and followed her nose to Fisherman’s Wharf, hoping to pick up the scent of a murderer.
    Well, good for her.
    But could it be that now, as she and Inspector Sergeant Tyler drove away together, perhaps she was just a shade less confident? Tregear was not much given to vanity about his effect on women, but he was observant—he could read the signs. And he had detected a chord of sympathy in Ellen Ridley which, under happier circumstances, might have emboldened him to ask her if she might care to share a few glasses of wine with him.
    At least, he felt permitted to suspect, she would not be utterly crushed to discover that Sally Wilkes had been murdered by somebody else.
    And that, probably, was the best he could hope for.
    Still, she was a pretty woman—prettier at close range than she had appeared to be up on the coast road—and it was a pleasure to remember her. He liked her hair. It was an unusual color, a mix of red and brown which couldn’t possibly have come out of a bottle. It was almost a pity she wore it so short, but it framed her face and somehow emphasized the delicacy of her features. She had beautiful, clear skin and a mouth that just hinted at a streak of sensuality in her nature. And her eyes, large and light brown, were lovely.
    But today was probably as close to her as he would ever manage.
    As he sat alone in his living room, holding an empty teacup, Tregear was forced to admit to himself that there were times when he found the