--and I think it'll be great if it works out.
I wish you luck. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to call the office."

As he went out to the desk phone, I gave him a silent thanks. Words of
encouragement were hard to come by at that time.

I turned and went back towards the clean-up room.

She didn't look as though she were asleep. They never do. She looked
dead. She'd been head down in the sewer, and the blood had pooled and
coagulated in her head and shoulders. Now that the filth had been
washed off, the dark purple of the dead blood cells showed through the
translucent skin. She would look better after she was embalmed.

Doc Prouty was holding up a small syringe, eying the little bit of
fluid within it. "We've got him," he said in a flat voice. "I'll have
the lab run an analysis. We're well within the time limit. All we have
to do is separate the girl's blood type from that of the spermatic
fluid. You boys find your man, and I can identify him for you." He
put the syringe in its special case. "I'll let you know the exact
cause of death in a couple of hours."

"O.K., Doc. Thanks," said Inspector Kleek, closing his notebook. He
turned to one of the other men. "Thompson, you notify the parents. Get
'em down here to make a positive identification, and send it along to
my office with the print identification." Then he looked at me.
"Anything extra you want, Roy?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Let's go check the files, huh?"

"Sure. Can I ride with you? I rode in with Thompson; he'll have to
stay."

"Come along," I told him.

* * * * *

By ten fifteen that evening, we had narrowed the field down
considerably. We fed all the data we had into the computer, including
the general type number of the spermatic fluid, which Dr. Prouty had
given us, and watched while the machine sorted through the
characteristics of all the known criminals in its memory.

Kleek and I were sitting at a desk drinking hot, black coffee when the
computer technician came over and handed Kleek the results at ten
fifteen. "Quite a bunch of 'em, Inspector," he said, "but the
geographic compartmentalization will help."

Kleek glanced over the neatly-printed sheaf of papers that the
computer had turned out, then handed them to me. "There we are, Roy.
One of those zanies is our boy."

I looked at the list. Every person on it was either a confirmed or
suspected psychopath, and each one of them conformed to the set of