By Blood Written (30 page)

What happens then?”

Collier let out a weary sigh. “The guy walks.”

“Exactly,” Sandlin said, sliding the search warrant across the desk to Collier. “I’m doing you a favor. You know I want to work with you, and if this was just a quiet little everyday homicide, I might let it slide a little. But this case is going to be high-profile. We’re talking Court TV, Larry King shit here. You better get yourself right with God, my friend, because you’re going to be in the middle of a hurricane if you decide to run with this.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Collier said, picking up the paper. “I understand that. Believe me.”

“So,” Sandlin asked, shifting gears, “how’s your gut doing?”

Collier slipped the warrant back into his briefcase. “So-so. The over-the-counter stuff quit working and I had to go back on prescription.”

Sandlin leaned back in his chair, smiled, and rubbed his right hand in a circular motion around his paunch. “You should’ve had the surgery, Bob. I had my Nissen six months ago and haven’t had an attack since. You know they do it with a laparoscope now. Three tiny little pinpricks. Two days, you’re in and out.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Collier admitted. “I’ve just been too busy. Besides, I hate surgery.”

Sandlin smiled broadly. “You know, after the surgery, you can never throw up again.”

“Great,” Collier said, trying to hide the dejection in his voice, “something to look forward to.”

Since his first story on the Alphabet Man had been picked up by the AP, the
New York Times
, the
Washington Post
, and about a dozen other newspapers and television stations, Andy Parks found himself occupying a place several rungs higher on the local journalistic feeding chain. He’d parlayed the story into a transfer to the Nashville office, where the
News-Free Press
kept an office in Legislative Plaza. He could walk to the capitol or, if he was feeling especially energetic, all the way to the courthouse.

This afternoon, he was feeling especially energetic. As so often happened in this part of the country, the transition from a long, gray, dreary winter into a glorious, warm spring had happened overnight. Andy had gotten lucky and found a decent parking place in the lot on Capitol Hill. Rather than lose it, he decided to enjoy the walk.

Halfway to the courthouse, just past the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, his cell phone rang. He fished it out of his jacket pocket and flipped it open.

“Yeah,” he said, dodging an old lady on the sidewalk.

“I’ve got something for you,” a sweet, feminine voice said.

Andy smiled.

“Wow,” Andy said, grinning. “I’ll bet it’s something I’ve been wanting for a long, long time.”

“Silly,” the voice chided. “You have a dirty mind. I appreciate that in a man, but it’s not what I was referring to.”

“Damn.”

“But it is something you’ve been wanting for a long, long time.”

Andy held the phone tighter to his ear as a loud garbage truck went roaring by, belching black smoke. “Well, I’ll say this much. You’ve got my interest piqued.”

“Guess what the DA took to the grand jury today?”

Andy stopped, ducked into the entrance alcove of a gray granite building. “What? What’ve you got?”

“The Exotica Tans murders,” the voice said. “The DA had a meeting with the head of the Murder Squad on Friday and they went to the grand jury this morning.”

“Holy shit,” Andy muttered. “Who’re they charging?”

“Well, there hasn’t been an indictment issued yet, but the DA wants them to charge … Are ya ready for this?”

Andy gritted his teeth. “C’mon, don’t tease me.”

“Ever heard of a best-selling author named Michael Schiftmann?”

Andy felt his forehead scrunching up involuntarily. “Uh, yeah, I think so. Never read his books, but—wait? Are you telling me—?”

Andy shook his head, hard, as if trying to clear out the cobwebs.

“He’s got a series of books that are all, like, letters and stuff, you know? Like
The First Letter
,
The Second Letter
, and so on, right? And the guys over in the Murder Squad think this best-selling writer guy is, like, killing chicks and then writing about it. Freaky, huh?”

Andy leaned against the cold granite of the building and pressed his back into it. “Can you get me details?”

“I’ve got a CD with the transcript,” the voice said, in an almost singsong fashion.

Andy’s head whirled. He hadn’t read any of Michael Schiftmann’s books, but he’d read reviews, scanned the best-seller lists, had heard of the guy. He was famous. He was rich.

And he was a murderer.

Not only that, a serial killer.

If Andy could break this story, he’d be so out of Chattanooga, they wouldn’t even see his dust. He could see himself on MSNBC, CNN, Fox, maybe even one of the majors.

“Lydia, you are so yummy. I just want to put you in my mouth and let you melt.”

“That could be arranged, you know.”

“When can we get together?”

“How about eight tonight? The Blue Moon?”

The Blue Moon Cafe was a wonderful, yet out-of-the-way restaurant where Andy often went when he didn’t want to be seen with someone. It was on the river, the restaurant actually built on a dock in the water. You could eat outside, at dimly lit tables, and never be noticed by anyone except the person bringing your drinks and food.

“I’ll be there. Probably an hour early.”?

“Oh, and Andy?”?

“Yeah?”?

“This one’s going to cost you,” the voice said. “Five hun?-

dred, cash.”

Andy smiled. It was cheap at the price. He’d have paid ten times that.
Dumb bitch
, he thought.

“Sure, baby,” he said sweetly. “Cash.”

Max Bransford was trying to get his desk in order before leaving for home, even though he felt that making sense of the piles of paper in his office was a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic.
Suddenly the door to his outer office slammed open and Gary Gilley burst past the secretary and into his office.

“They found it!” Gilley announced.?

“What?”?

“The rental. Schiftmann’s rental car. It was turned in by?

a client at the New Orleans airport. NOPD’s impounded the car.”

Max stood up. “Their forensic guys had a look at it?”

Gilley nodded. “They found some staining in the trunk carpet. They took a Hemident swab. It showed positive.”

“Hemident,” Bransford said.

“I know, I know, it’s just a field test. Doesn’t even distin-guish between human and animal blood, but unless some guy carried his groceries home in the trunk and his pot roast leaked all over the place, there was something bloody in the back of that car.”

Bransford stood there for a moment, and then a broad grin spread across his face. “Get on the horn to NOPD and tell

‘em to keep the car. We’re on our way to get it. I’ll call Collier and let him know. And then I’ll call the TBI lab and tell them to get ready. Oh, and I’ll call Hank Powell at Quantico and Howard Hinton down in Chattanooga.”

Gilley grinned back, then lifted his hand in the air. Max shook his head. “No high-fives, Gary. We’ll high-five when we find out the car Michael Schiftmann rented in February has bloodstains in the trunk that match what we found in the Mapco Express Dumpster and that it all came from those two girls.”

Gilley nodded. “Okay, Loot. If I’m gonna head to New Orleans, I guess I need to haul some ass.”

Thursday afternoon, Nashville

Andy Parks went over his notes one last time before making the call. He got up, locked the door to the press room in Legislative Plaza, then made the call from his cell phone. As far as he knew, he was the only reporter in town who had an inkling of the story that was about to break out of the Metro courthouse.

He intended to keep it that way.

“You’ve reached the office of the District Attorney General,” the computerized voice announced. “If you know your party’s three-digit extension, you may dial it at any time.”

Andy pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed the 0 key.

“Please hold,” the voice announced. A few moments of silence followed that soon stretched into almost a minute.

Finally, a human voice came on.

“District Attorney’s office. How may I direct your call?”

“General Collier’s office, please.”

“Please hold.”

This had been easier than he expected. Only two gate-keepers, with one to go.

“General Collier’s office,” a second female voice said.

“Yes, this is Andy Parks of the
Chattanooga News-Free
Press
. I’d like to speak to General Collier, please.”

“I’ll see if he’s available. Please hold.”

Please hold
, he thought.
Like I have any choice.

These sorts of calls always made Andy just a bit anxious.

Even though he had the requisite amount of self-assurance, ego, and arrogance required of most journalists, there was something in his personality that dreaded confronting people in high places with things he knew they would not want to talk about.

“I’m sorry,” the female voice said. “General Collier is very busy right now. If you need any information, he says feel free to contact the DA press liaison at extension 7436.”

“Great,” Andy said. “Would you mind asking General Collier if the press liaison can give me some information about the impending indictment of a
New York Times
best-selling author in the Exotica Tans murders? Because if he can’t, I’m going to run with what I’ve got in tomorrow’s paper.”

A long, leaden silence followed from the other end. Andy sat there, waiting for the next move. The voice on the other end was the first to flinch.

“Could you hold a moment, Mr. Parks?”

Andy smiled. “Glad to.”

Andy looked down at his watch and counted the seconds before Collier came on the line. It took just under fifteen.

“Goddamn it!” Collier’s voice was barely under control.

“Parks, are you aware that grand jury proceedings are by law secret and protected. It’s illegal for you to even know what they’re discussing, let alone the details!”

“You can take that up with my anonymous source,” Andy said evenly. “In the meantime, I’ve got more than enough to run with this. It’ll be in tomorrow’s edition, and all I want from you is comment and reaction.”

“I’ll file charges,” Collier sputtered. “I’ll seek an injunction …”

“Remember the First Amendment?” Andy asked. “Last time I checked, it was still in force.”

“Who’s your source?” Collier demanded. “You have to tell me.”

Andy laughed.

“I’ll go before a judge. I’ll have you held in contempt.”

“Go ahead,” Andy said. “I can’t imagine better publicity.”

Collier made a noise on the other end of the phone. Andy could swear he was growling.

“Would you be willing to deal?” Collier asked finally, his voice softer.

“What’ve you got?” Andy asked.

“This is off the record, okay?”

“Wait a minute, you can’t sucker me into—”

“I’m not trying to sucker you into anything. I’m just trying to see what it’ll take to convince you to hold off for just a little while.”

Andy thought for a few moments, letting Collier sweat.

“Okay,” he offered. “Off the record.”

“And in return, you hold off on the story for forty-eight hours. Two days, that’s all I want. You hold off publishing the story until Saturday morning at the earliest. By then, we’ll know if there’s even anything worth publishing.”

“Intriguing,” Andy said. “Deal.”

“We found his car.”

“What?”

“The rental car. Schiftmann was in town for a book signing at Davis-Kidd the night of the Exotica Tans murders.”

“I knew that,” Andy said. “I’ve already confirmed that.”

“And he rented a car, or rather the publisher rented a car for him.”

“Okay.”

“We found it. Tracked it down.”

“All right. And?”

“There was blood in the trunk.”

Andy felt a knot in his gut. “What?”

“The car was found in New Orleans. We impounded it, brought it back to Nashville. It’s out at the TBI lab right now.

They’re typing and cross-matching the bloodstain in the car with the blood we found at Exotica Tans and on some other evidence that I really can’t talk about right now.”

“How long’s that going to take?”

“They got the car to the lab about ten last night. We’re waiting for preliminary tests now. DNA tests will take a few days, maybe a week, but we can get a type fairly quickly.”

“So if the blood in Michael Schiftmann’s rental car matches the blood found at the murder scene, then—”

“The grand jury will issue an indictment no later than Monday. If you hold off, I’ll let you know the lab results in time for you to break the story over the weekend.”

“What if the blood in the trunk doesn’t match the scene?”

“Then,” Collier said, his voice somber, “you have no story and we have no case.”

“When do you expect the results?” Andy asked, scribbling on his notepad.

“They moved this one to the front of the line. I expect to hear something no later than noon tomorrow. Maybe even today.”

“Okay, we’ve got a deal. I do nothing on this until I hear from you. But I expect to hear something from you one way or the other by five o’clock Friday. Grab a pencil and I’ll give you my cell phone number. I’ll have it with me. Call anytime.”

The news that Schiftmann’s rental car had been found in New Orleans pushed Hank Powell into high gear. He sent out an e-mail to each lead investigator in every town where the Alphabet Man had hit, suggesting that they track down Michael Schiftmann’s rental car records and attempt to recover the cars. He had a meeting with Deputy Assistant Director Dunlap and got him up to speed. The fact that the case seemed finally to be breaking seemed to lessen some of the pressure coming from above. Hank had pushed the limit with his bosses. Their patience was wearing thin. He was glad to be able to go to them with something good.

That Friday morning, the call he’d been waiting for finally came in.