Steven Womack - By Blood Written

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.”

“Early Saturday morning,” Chavez said. “What’ve you got? “

“I’m down at the Mapco Express on Charlotte Avenue just off the I-40 interchange. Got a local Dumpster diver down here who came across a pile of bloody rags and clothes. I just happened to be stopping by for coffee and he led me here. I don’t know if it’s anything or not, but thought I’d better call.”

The voice on the other end was suddenly tense. “Officer-

what did you say your name was?”

“Greenwood, Deborah Greenwood.”

“Officer Greenwood, I want you to secure the scene, keep the guy who found this nearby, and sit tight till we get there.

And nothing goes out over the radio, got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good,” Chavez said. “Now give me your cell phone number in case I need to get to you before we arrive.”

Greenwood gave her the number, then grabbed her pad and scribbled down Chavez’s cell phone number.

“And Greenwood,” the voice said.

“Yes?”

“You done good.”

Greenwood smiled. “Thanks, Detective Chavez.”

Special Agent Hank Powell got the call on his cell phone just as he was pulling into the parking lot of Nashville International Airport to catch his flight back to D.C. He had spent the last two days working with the Nashville police reviewing the case history of the Alphabet Man, detailing the other eleven crime scenes, and working to establish the kinds of linkages and clues the homicide detectives should be searching for.

Powell clicked off his cell phone and drove past the entrance to the rental return parking lot, all the way around the outskirts of the massive facility, and back onto the freeway headed downtown. By the time he got to the Mapco Express, the homicide detectives had the entire parking lot cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape and were holding off a phalanx of media vehicles interspersed with curious onlookers, most of them young and black.

Powell flipped his badge wallet open at the uniformed officer controlling access to the parking lot, signed the crime-scene log-in sheet, and parked his rental next to an unmarked white Crown Victoria. On the other side of the lot, near the corner of the building, he saw Lieutenant Max Bransford and Detective Gilley huddled together, vainly trying to keep the wind off them.

“What’ve we got?” he asked, approaching the two men and pulling his overcoat tightly around him.

“I think we got lucky,” Bransford said. “That uniformed officer over there-” Bransford pointed toward Officer Greenwood, who was leaning against the hood of her Ford Taurus as Maria Chavez stood next to her scribbling in a notepad.

“-just happened to be doing a drive-by of this place when some wacky old guy who makes his living in the en-trepreneurial recycling industry came across a pile of bloody clothes inside that thing.”

Bransford pointed behind him. Powell took two steps to his left and spied the Dumpster over Gilley’s shoulder.

“What’ve you found?” Powell asked.

Gilley flipped open his notebook and looked down at his notes. “The lab techs are still in there scouring the place out.

But so far we’ve got a bloody, torn jumpsuit, a pair of white socks with bloodstains, a couple of bloody white towels that are consistent with the type of towels we found at the tanning parlor …”

Powell felt his heart begin to race. Of the thirteen murders committed by the Alphabet Man, this was the first instance of any of his effects being found. For the first time, the police had found his dump site.