Steven Womack - By Blood Written

“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.