LAPD Homicide-Robbery Detective Bill Lassiter looked down at the body lying on the bathroom floor. "One shot through the left ear. No exit wound."

"At least we know where the bullet is," his partner, Detective Sheila Morrison, said.

"Guess so." Lassiter looked out the small window. "Where the hell was the shooter?"

Across the alley from the window loomed the solid wall of the adjacent building, not more than twenty feet away.

Morrison had to get up on her tiptoes to look out. "Good question. What is this, the fifteenth floor?"

"Yeah." Lassiter ran his hand through his black hair. "The only way I can figure was he came down from the other roof, hung there until he made the shot, then pulled himself back up."

"Why couldn't the shooter have come through the front door?" asked the young forensic investigator.

Lassiter shrugged. "I suppose he could have, but he didn't leave that way, 'cause the door's locked from the inside. Besides, how do you explain the bullet hole in the glass?"

"He could have shot it from here after he did the vic, then left out one of the other windows."

"Have you looked at the other windows?"

"Uh, not yet. I just got here."

"They haven't been opened in months. Besides, the glass on the floor proves the shot came from the outside."

The forensics investigator looked down. "Oh, right. Didn't think of that."

Morrison chuckled. "Don't worry, Chang, you'll learn." Then she turned to her partner. "Let's go have a look next door."

"Right."

As they were leaving the apartment, the corner's team arrived.

"There's a bullet in the vic's brain," Lassiter said. "Tell Garcia to send it to ballistics."

The coroner's assistant glared at Lassiter. "I think he knows how to do his job."

Lassiter grinned back. "I know he does."

"Let's go, Bill," Morrison sighed.

They left the coroner's assistant shaking his head and frowning.