By Blood Written (7 page)

“That depends,” Taylor said, looking down at the manuscript. “It all depends on the pages.”

“Fair enough,” Michael Schiftmann said. “I’m staying at the Midtown Motor Lodge on Eighth Avenue and Fifty-sixth. I’ve got enough money to stay two more days, and then I’m on the dog back home. I’d sure like to know something before I leave, if that’s possible.”

“And where is home?” Taylor asked.

“Barberton, Ohio,” Michael replied.

“Never heard of it,” Taylor admitted.

“Nobody has. It’s working class, industrial. Close to Cleveland.”

“Oh,” Taylor said.

“Yeah.”

Taylor stood up, offered him her hand. He took it and held it firmly as they shook.

“Mr. Schiftmann, I’ll call you.”

Perhaps it was that Taylor Robinson had only about a dozen clients on her roster, not one of which was actually making a living as a writer. Perhaps it was something in Michael Schiftmann’s eyes or voice or the way he stood or the way he sat that convinced her he was somehow different from the parade of frustrated novelists who moved from agent to agent like hungry wolves roaming an unforgiving landscape. In any case, Taylor spent the rest of the afternoon reading Michael Schiftmann’s book proposal, and after that she called a friend who worked at the publishing house that had published his first five books.

Taylor Robinson learned that Michael Schiftmann’s agent had never pushed for him, had sold him cheaply into a house that was famed for paying little and promoting even less.

His books had languished first in the warehouses, then on the shelves, and finally on the tables containing stacks of remaindered books that were sold practically by the pound in discount stores and buyers’ clubs. The ones that were still lying around after that were pulped, ground back into mash, and recycled for another writer’s words.

Not one of them was still in print. Michael Schiftmann’s career as a writer was history. The nominations and prizes, the reviews and the praise meant nothing. Taylor Robinson was experienced enough to know that there was a lot more to publishing success than writing well and producing good books. But never had she seen a writer more ill-treated.

After reading Michael’s manuscript, Taylor Robinson decided to change that. In
The First Letter
, the series debut, Michael introduced his protagonist, known only as Chaney.

In Chaney, Michael had created a protagonist who was the personification of true evil, a man for whom murder became an act of artistic and personal liberation. Yet he was also a charming, intelligent, and erudite man, with a sense of style and taste that couldn’t help but endear him to readers. As Michael was careful to establish from the beginning, Chaney’s victims never exactly deserved their fate, but they weren’t entirely innocent, either. It wasn’t what Taylor could call a new moral code—just as there are no new stories, there are no new moral codes—but the story, in its unusual approach to style and voice, reflected the ethically ambiguous state of the world today.

More important, the book was a damn good read. Taylor convinced Joan Delaney to let her take him on as a client.

That night she phoned Michael at his hotel and told him that if he’d have her, she was willing to take him on. And while she couldn’t guarantee him a slot on The List immediately, she could promise him that no matter what, she’d break her back for him if that’s what it took.

Taylor sold the first book for ten grand, not much in the pantheon of contemporary book deals, but it was a hardcover deal to a publishing house that took its writers seriously and promoted the hell out of them.
The First Letter
was published just in time to hit the bookstores for Christmas. The first reviews were astounding. The reviewers either loved the book more than anything that had come off the line in years, or they vilified the book so passionately that one couldn’t help but go buy a copy to see what all the hubbub was about. What the reviews didn’t do for the book, word of mouth—that most powerful of all publishing promotional tools—did. The book earned out its advance in a month and was sold to nine foreign publishers, then into a hefty paperback reprint deal that garnered enough to allow Michael to quit his job as a proofreader for good. The second in the series went for seventy-five thousand, the third for a hundred and a quarter. The fourth book sold for two hundred thousand dollars and missed The List by only a couple of slots. She’d gone back to contract for Michael Schiftmann a year and a half ago and gotten him a neat three hundred thousand for
The Fifth Letter
. By then, momentum alone carried the book onto The List.

Taylor Robinson had worked herself bleary-eyed for Michael, and she had brought him from a third-rate publisher to the top of the heap. They’d worked closely together, with Taylor bringing all her editorial talent and skills to bear on the books. They had become true partners in a life’s work.

And now, with this contract, she was set to make him rich.

So, Taylor Robinson wondered that icy February afternoon in her overheated office, why was she so uneasy?

Monday afternoon, Nashville

Master Patrol Officer Debbie Greenwood carefully wheeled her blue-on-white Ford Taurus squad car down the exit ramp off I-40 and onto Charlotte Avenue just a few short blocks down the hill from the Tennessee State Capitol. The sun had finally burned off the worst of the gray cloud cover that seemed to hang over Nashville for weeks at a time during the winter months. A dazzling, clear blue sky, accompanied by temperatures in the mid-thirties, had begun to melt off the worst of the black ice that Greenwood knew was waiting to ensnare careless drivers at the foot of the exit ramp.

Shaded by the freeway bridge and the traffic passing overhead, the ramp always seemed to be the last place to show pavement again after a thaw. Since the cold front had moved in five days ago, bringing with it the worst ice storm in a decade, Greenwood had already written up a dozen accidents at this very spot.

The light on Charlotte changed to red, and Greenwood lightly tapped the brakes of the Ford. She felt the rear wheels begin to slide and was instinctively beginning her counter-steer when the wheels caught and the car slowed. Four years on the force—and four Februarys patrolling the dangerous winter streets of Nashville—had taught her to stay ahead of the curve, to anticipate the dangers that might lie in front of her. More than once, that instinct had served her well.

The light in front of her changed, and Greenwood slowly lifted her foot from the brake pedal. True to form, though, a kid in a Toyota to her left raced the yellow and ran through the light just as her squad car began moving.

“Typical,” Greenwood groused, briefly considering pulling the car over and issuing a ticket. But it was cold outside, and she was near the end of a long shift. The overtime gods had been good to Debbie Greenwood this winter, but one can have too much of a good thing. Feeling slightly guilty at letting the kid off, in addition to irritated, Greenwood pulled out onto Charlotte Avenue and turned left, heading away from downtown and out toward Centennial Park.

A half mile or so down, Greenwood wheeled her squad car into the parking lot of a convenience store that perched on the edge of a large housing project. The store had been robbed three times this year already, and the desk sergeant had asked that all patrol officers try to do a drive-by at least once a shift. Greenwood didn’t mind; the coffee was hot and fresh, and the clerks were always glad to see her.

As she parked the car, she spotted an elderly black man in a ragtag overcoat, torn stocking cap, and dirty, worn Nikes pushing a grocery cart down the sidewalk through the gray slush and onto the parking lot of the convenience store.

Greenwood smiled, knowing what was coming next. Like most of the other Central Sector patrol officers, she knew that despite a lifetime in prison, the old man—known only as “Pops”—was completely harmless, if a bit disconcerting at first.

Greenwood parked the squad car and sat there for a few seconds with the motor running. As Pops struggled to push his grocery cart through the slowly melting frozen mud, Greenwood turned the car ignition off and stepped out of the Ford. A bitter wind caught her square in the face, causing her to shiver and pull her jacket tighter around her shoulders.

“Hey, Officah!” Pops called out from the other side of the parking lot.

“Hey, Pops,” Greenwood answered. “You keeping warm?”

“Yeah, but I just got me one question.”

Greenwood smiled, knowing what was coming. “What is it?”

“You ever let a ol’ niggah eat yo’ pussy?”

Greenwood cleared her throat, thankful that the parking lot was empty except for the two of them.

“No, Pops, can’t say I ever have.”

The old man smiled a toothless, pink grin at her. “Well, you evah decide to, you call me, ya hear?”

“Sure thing, Pops. I’ll let you know.” Greenwood turned toward the front door of the market. “You want a coffee?”

she yelled back over her shoulder.

Greenwood knew Pops had been banned from the store years ago. If he wanted anything from inside, somebody else had to get it for him.

“Just like me, baby!” he yelled. “Hot and black!”

Greenwood assumed that was a yes, but truth was, you could never be sure with Pops. She entered the store, nodded to the clerk, made small talk, and walked around the store a couple of times. She was close enough to the end of her shift that if she killed a few more minutes, it would be time to head in and sign out. Just another day at the office.

Greenwood poured two Styrofoam cups full of coffee, added a packet each of sugar and artificial creamer to hers, then capped them both. The clerk—a pretty, young African-American woman—offered her the coffee for free, but Greenwood smiled and made her take a five. The woman made change, thanked Greenwood for coming in, and smiled pleasantly back at her. It felt good that the girl was glad to see her.

Out on the sidewalk, Greenwood dodged the few icy patches left on the concrete and walked around the front of the store to the corner. Pops’s grocery cart was pushed up against the cinder-block wall next to a large Dumpster. Hanging out of the Dumpster, she saw the baggy seat of the old man’s pants, followed by his bony legs dangling from his two-sizes-too-large trousers and wondered how the hell he ever managed to stay warm.

“Gotcha coffee, Pops,” Greenwood announced.

The old man pushed himself out of the Dumpster, his feet sliding as they hit the frozen ground. Suddenly the old man let out a whooping sound as he struggled to regain his balance.

“Man, dey’s some nasty shit in deah!” he yelled.

Greenwood held out the cup of coffee toward him. “Be careful, it’s slippery out here.”

“You gots to see dis,” the old man said.

“I don’t gots to see nothing,” Greenwood said. “It’s a Dumpster, Pops. Of course there’s some nasty shit in it.”

The old man ignored her outstretched hand. “No, lady, you gots to see dis. I ain’t seen nothing like dis since dey had da riots in ‘76.”

Her curiosity piqued, Greenwood took a couple of steps closer to the grime-and filth-encrusted Dumpster, thankful that at least with the brutal cold, there was no smell.

“Pops, what the hell are you—”

Greenwood stopped as the old man backed out of the Dumpster gate again, this time unraveling an ice-encrusted, stiff pair of green coveralls splattered with dark, nearly black, coppery stains.

“Look at dis,” the old man shouted. “Somebody done got stuck dis time!
Whooo-whee!
“

“Pops,” Greenwood said slowly, cautiously, every instinct telling her that this was not your usual convenience-store garbage. “Listen, buddy, I need you to put that back where you got it and move over here away from that thing. You hear me, Pops?”

“But I can wear dese and dey’s some cans and shit in deah, too,” the old man whined. “I git me some money …”

“We’ll get the cans out later,” Greenwood said. “Come on over here and get your coffee, Pops. C’mon, it’s cold out here. You need to drink your coffee.”

Pops smiled at her, stepped over and took the coffee out of her hand, and licked his lips.

“Stay close by, Pops. I’m just going to take a look in there, okay?”

Greenwood pulled the Maglite off her utility belt and walked carefully toward the Dumpster. The late-afternoon sun was setting just off the horizon; dusk was barely ninety minutes away, and already this side of the building was heavily in shadow. Greenwood approached the Dumpster carefully, not knowing what to expect, and then sidled up to the door and peeked in, the Maglite’s sharp, focused beam playing over the surface of the garbage.

Most of the contents of the Dumpster was the usual rub-bish: broken-down cardboard boxes, plastic soda containers, cans, a couple of discarded whiskey bottles, and piles of amber beer bottles. And on top of the trash—a heap of rags, crumpled up, frozen with something that looked enough like dried, frozen blood for Greenwood to realize her shift wasn’t as close to being over as she thought it was.

She reached for her Handie-Talkie to call in, then thought better of it. Her instincts were at work again, and her instincts warned her that the news media, freelancers, and a host of private citizens supplemented their dreary lives and endless winter cabin fever by keeping a police scanner going at all times. The city was due for an eight-million-dollar grant to convert over to a high-tech digital communications system that was impervious to the analog scanners, but the money had been held up by a political catfight in the legislature.

Greenwood reached inside her jacket and pulled out her cell phone. She raised the tiny antenna, punched in a number, and held the phone to her ear. She held on while the phone rang twenty times before someone answered.

“Murder Squad,” a voice said, “Chavez speaking.”

“Detective Chavez, this is MPO Deborah Greenwood, Central Sector.”

“Hello, Greenwood, what can I do for you?” The voice sounded young, with a slight Hispanic accent.

“I thought I’d better call on the cell phone rather than go through dispatch. The desk sarge this morning gave us a handout on those two girls that were killed down on Church Street Friday night.”