"What is it, Lieutenant?"
"We're pretty sure of our man. Scrapings from the kid's fingernails gave us his blood type. The computer narrowed the list down quite a bit with that data. Then, a few minutes ago, one of the boys found the kid's clothes stuffed in with some trash paper in the back stairwell of a condemned building just a couple of blocks from where we found her last night.
"And—get this, Inspector!—she was wearing a pair of those shiny patent-leather shoes, practically brand-new, and they have prints all over them! His are over hers, since he was the last one to handle them, and there's only the two sets of prints! We just now got positive identification."
"Grab him and bring him in," I said. "I'll be right down. I want to talk to him."
His face fell a little. "Well, it isn't going to be as easy as all that, sir. You see, we'd already checked at his last known address, earlier this morning, before we got the final check on the blood type. This guy left the rooming house he was staying in—checked out two days ago, just a short time after the girl was killed. I figured that looked queer at the time, so I had two of my men start tracing him in particular. But there's not a sign of him so far."
I untensed myself. "O.K. What's his record?"
"Periodic drunk. Goes for weeks without touching the stuff, then he goes out on a binge that lasts for a week sometimes.
"Name's Lawrence Nestor, alias Larry Nestor. Twenty-eight years old, six feet one inch, slight build, but considered fairly strong. Brown hair, brown eyes. Speaks with a lisp due to a dental defect; the lisp becomes more noticeable when he's drinking." He turned the page of the report he was reading from. "Arrested for drunkenness four times in the past five years, got off with a fine when he pleaded guilty. He molested a little girl two years ago and was picked up for questioning, but nothing came of it. The girl hadn't been physically hurt, and she couldn't make a positive identification, so he was released from custody.
"Officers on duty in the neighborhood report that he has frequently been seen talking to small children, usually girls, but he wasn't seen to molest them in any way, and there were no complaints from parents, so no action could be taken."
Lieutenant Shultz looked up from the paper. "He's had all kinds of jobs, but he can't hold 'em very long. Goes on a binge, doesn't show up for work, so they fire him. He's a pretty good short-order cook, and that's the kind of work he likes, if he can talk a lunch room into hiring him. He's also been a bus boy, a tavern porter, and a janitor.