Steven Womack - By Blood Written

Priscilla rearranged the books in order of publication. “I was up all night,” she said proudly.

It shows … Maria thought.

“And I’m sure that if I got the fifth one and reread it, it would only back up what I already know.”

Maria leaned forward on the small table, her elbows perched on the edge. “Miss Janovich, I don’t mean to doubt your word here, but can you understand how tenuous this is? Do you see how little this is to go on? I mean, how little sense this makes? I don’t know this guy”-Maria looked down at the paperbacks-”Michael Schiftmann, but he’s obviously, like, a famous writer and stuff. If the guy’s on the best-seller list, why would he go around committing these murders.”

“If you read the books, my dear,” Priscilla Janovich said, slipping into teacher mode, “you’d know the answer to that question already. He kills because it’s the right thing for him and because he likes it!”

The old woman’s words echoed in Maria’s mind. She remembered the first briefing she’d been given by the FBI agent, whose name she couldn’t remember because it was too early in the morning and she still hadn’t had her tea yet.

Even though Priscilla’s choice of words made the hair on the back of her neck prickle, it still didn’t overcome her common sense, every bit of which told her this old lady was crazy and her story was ridiculous.

“Look, Miss Janovich, I’ve made notes on what you’ve told me and I’ll enter it in the record,” Maria said. “But we can’t pursue something like this when-”

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Priscilla demanded sternly.

“Well, it’s not that, it’s just that we have to have more sub-stantive evidence to go on. Sheer speculation isn’t enough.”

“Why don’t you read the books?” Priscilla asked. “See if it doesn’t make sense to you.”

“I’m very busy, Miss Janovich,” Maria said defensively.

“We’ve all got a lot to do around-”

“That’s no excuse!” Priscilla snapped.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I just don’t think I can do anything on what is obviously speculation. I mean, we don’t even know this guy. And anyway, these murders you’re talking about that were allegedly recorded in this guy’s books, they’re outside our jurisdiction. We can’t do anything about that.”

“What about those two girls on Church Street?”

Maria nodded her head. “See, there you go. Good point.

We don’t have anything to connect him to those murders.

Nothing.”

“Oh yes you do!” Priscilla exclaimed.

Maria felt her blood pressure rising. She had to extricate herself from this as quickly as possible. There was too much work to do.

“What?” Maria asked. “What have we got to connect him to these murders?”

“Well,” Priscilla Janovich said in a huff. “How about the night those two girls were killed he was in Nashville?”

Maria stopped cold. “How-how do you know that?”

“I met him,” Priscilla announced in triumph.

Maria thought the old lady really had gone off the deep end now. “Oh,” she said, patronizingly, “and where did you meet him?”

“At the Davis-Kidd bookstore in Green Hills,” Priscilla said, smiling. “He was doing a book signing. Just check the newspaper. Better yet, call them.”

An aggravated Lieutenant Max Bransford hung up the phone, pulled his massive bulk out of the worn desk chair, and went to the open doorway of his office.

“Bea, you seen Chavez anywhere?”

Bransford’s longtime secretary looked up from her computer screen. “No, sir, not all day.”

“Damn it,” he muttered, walking past her and out into the hall. He walked twenty feet or so down the hallway and stuck his head in the squad room. Four detectives sat behind desks, each with his head buried in a folder.

“Hey, any you guys seen Chavez?” No one looked up.

“Chavez, guys. Remember her? Short, brunette, slight Hispanic accent, carries a gun. I just got a call from Hershel over at the ME’s office. She was supposed to be there an hour ago to pick up the tox screen reports on the Grant murder.”

Jack Murray looked up. “I saw her this morning, Loot.

Had to run upstairs to Print Division. Passed by the break room up there.”

“The break room?” Bransford asked.

Murray hesitated. “Yeah, Loot, the break room. She was laying on the couch.”

Bransford felt the pressure from his jaw grinding his teeth together. “She sick?”

Murray shook his head. “Didn’t look like it.”

“What was she doing then, son?”

“Uh, she was reading a book, sir.”

“Reading a book …” Bransford said slowly. Murray nodded. Bransford turned and headed down the hall to the lobby.

Reading … Lying on a couch … In the middle of the day …

This was just weird enough to arouse Bransford’s curiosity. He walked down to the main lobby, then climbed the staircase to the second story. He ran his ID through the card reader outside the second-floor main entrance, then opened the heavy metal doors. He went down one hallway, turned left, then went down another hallway past the Fingerprint Division. He stopped at an open door, his bulk filling the doorway.

Inside the small room, on a couch against the far wall, Maria Chavez reclined with her head on the armrest facing away from the door. She held a paperback book open between her hands. On the floor next to her was a stack of file folders, a legal pad covered in scribbles, and an open felt-tipped pen.

Bransford cleared his throat loudly, which elicited no response at all from Chavez. Bransford cleared his throat again and took two steps toward the couch. Chavez bent her head while still lying down and looked over her shoulder.

She spied Bransford, quickly raised up on her hips, and put both feet on the floor.

“Oh, hi, Lieutenant,” she said. Maria still held the book open on her knees. Bransford looked at the spine of the book and read the words: The Third Letter . Bransford thought she looked a little zoned out, almost in a trance.

“Hello, Maria,” Bransford said calmly. “You want to tell me what’s going on here?”

Maria Chavez stared ahead for a second, as if still someplace far away. Then she looked back up, directly into Max Bransford’s eyes, and he saw an intensity and a clarity that he’d seen in another person’s eyes only a few times in his life. It was the look of epiphany.

“What was that FBI agent’s name?” she asked.

Bransford studied her for a few moments. “Powell,” he said finally. “Hank Powell.”

She looked away. “Yes, Powell …” Then she turned and looked back at Bransford. “We have to call him. Now.”

“But why?” Bransford asked.

“Sit down, Max,” Maria said, motioning with her head to the chair next to her. “You’re not gonna believe this.”

Monday afternoon, Washington, D.C.

Hank Powell stepped out of the director’s office, strode quickly past the receptionist without speaking and through the doors into the outer office, then through that room and out into the hallway. His face was set in stone, which belied the churning in his gut. His temples throbbed. The back of his neck burned as if he’d been too long in the sun. His right hand clenched the black leather portfolio like someone was without warning going to mug him for it. His left fist was a knot of muscle and bone.

Once out in the main hallway, he took a deep breath as he walked to the elevators, trying to center himself, trying not to give anything away to the other starched and suited robots passing him in the opposite direction. All he wanted was out of there, back to the safety and relative quiet of his office at Quantico.