By Blood Written

  By Blood Written

  Steven Womack

  Steven Womack

  By Blood Written

  PART I

  THE TOUR

  CHAPTER 1

  Saturday night, Manhattan

  She fought the urge to scream; after all, there were people downstairs.

  The blaring music-loud, driving retro punk-and the relentless din of party chatter probably would have covered her cries, but some last, long-buried remnant of propriety wouldn’t allow her to let loose.

  On his back, underneath her straddled legs, gazing up as she shook and trembled, he knew she was barely holding it in. He felt her thighs tighten, the quadriceps harden-ing, breath quickening. Her eyes closed tightly, the squint deepening into furrows that would, in another decade or so, be crow’s feet. Her blond hair-long, straight, expensively coiffed-danced from side to side as the air in her lungs compressed with the constricting of her chest. She leaned forward and dug her fingernails into his chest, the sharp, manicured edges digging through the first layers of skin and stopping just short of bloodletting.

  He smiled at the pain and thrust upward into her. She was delicious, exquisite, all the more intense thanks to the lines of coke they’d done a half hour earlier. She’d matched him push for push, rhythm for rhythm, until the energy swept over her like the tides that foretold a hurricane’s leading edge. And when the storm finally broke, when the air burst out of her lungs like an explosion, there was only the suppressed yelp of her release and then collapse.

  She lay on him, exhausted, sliding against him in their sweat. Like posting, he thought. Like steeplechasing …

  He reached behind her, around the small of her back and below, and dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her hips.

  It was his turn now.

  He pushed her up then pulled her down, arching his back, jamming himself into her rhythmically, in time with the pulsing energy that was growing within him. Despite her enervation, she struggled to match his pace, to help him find his center. She wanted that, realized she wanted that even more than her own release, and she had wanted release more than anything, she thought. She smiled as she felt his muscles tighten below her.

  Once he let go and allowed himself to float free, his moment came as it always did.

  When he decided it would.

  They rested there a full ten minutes without speaking. She felt herself drift in and out, in that sweet, postcoital languor-ousness that she had so seldom known. The floor beneath them vibrated with the pounding bass and the frenzied dancing of the party downstairs.

  “God,” she murmured sleepily. “That was great.”

  He moaned softly in agreement.

  “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?” he whispered.

  “You know,” she said, her voice rising shyly. “You know, go so long …”

  He smiled. “I like to make it last.”

  She nuzzled into him, her hair draping over his face, tick-ling his nose. They were still locked together.

  “I like it that you like to make it last.”

  He shifted under her, moved his arm to wipe her hair out of his face. “Should we get back to the party?” he asked.

  “We don’t want to appear unsociable.”

  She giggled. “What? You think they haven’t already noticed?”

  “Probably. Why don’t we get dressed anyway?” It was not a question, although she didn’t realize it at the moment. She pressed her palms into his chest and eased herself back into a sitting position.

  “God,” she whispered. “I could almost use a shower, I’m so-”

  He brought his hand up from between them. The fingertips were wet, red.

  “Oh no!” she burst out. “I’m so sorry! I can’t believe this!

  I’m not supposed to start until tomorrow. Goddamn it, this is so embarrassing.”

  She turned her head, self-conscious and awkward now, and started to jerk away from him. He felt himself sliding out of her and decided this was not the way he wanted to end it. He grabbed her by the waist and locked her down.

  “Hey,” he said. “It’s no big deal. Really. Doesn’t bother me at all.”

  With his right hand, he touched her chin and pushed it softly, until she faced him again. The effort left a red smudge on the side of her face.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said gently. “Don’t worry about it, see?”

  He slid his right hand down his belly, to where the two of them were joined. When he pulled the hand back, it was bright red. He drew a coppery, crimson line down the middle of her sternum, between her breasts, the width of two of his fingers, down to her navel. Then he curled his torso toward her and gently, sweetly, ran his tongue up her chest. He nuzzled her breasts, daubing the wet red over them. When he pulled away, there were sanguineous liquid smears on his lips, his chin, the end of his nose.

  “See, no big deal,” he said softly. “It’s natural. Just a part of you.”

  Her eyes started to fill and she let herself fall forward into his arms, pressing him down onto the bed.

  “God,” she whispered. “You’re so special.”

  He stared at the ceiling, his arms loosely around her. “I know,” he mouthed silently. “I know.”

  He had almost drifted off when the pounding started. He came up out of the netherworld between slumber and wakefulness to the spraying hiss of water against tile punctuated by the bass of someone slapping a hollow-core door open-palmed.

  “Yeah, hold on,” he yelled, half asleep. He grabbed a robe and threw it on. How long had he been out?

  He cracked the door of the darkened bedroom and stared out sleepily. The woman on the other side of the door was at least six inches shorter and seventy pounds lighter than he, but her irritation seemed to fill the space around her. Her hands were on her hips, petulance on her face.

  “Well?” she said. “I’m really annoyed with you.”

  He looked down, feigning embarrassment. “Taylor, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

  “Looks like she wore you out.”

  “We were just-” he stammered. “Things just got out of-”

  “Don’t explain. I don’t want the details. Your guests are wondering if you’re going to be back down this evening.

  This party is, after all, for you.”

  He grinned and shook his head, throwing a long shank of hair back off his forehead. “Guess you caught me, babe.”

  “Michael, who is she?”

  Michael Schiftmann, in whose honor the party downstairs was being held and over which control was rapidly being lost, shrugged. “I don’t know. She told me, but I forgot. At least I think she told me.”

  “How long is she going to stay in my shower?” Taylor Robinson demanded. “She’s not moving in, is she?”

  “Calm down, sweetheart, I’ll get rid of her. We’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  “See that you do. Jesus, Michael, Audrey Carlisle’s downstairs. Give a little thought to your career.”

  Michael smiled at her, his white, even teeth almost glowing in the dim light. “If I didn’t know better,” he murmured,

  “I’d think you were jealous.”

  Taylor’s jaw tensed. “Don’t be silly,” she snapped. She squinted and stared intently into the shadows that surrounded Michael’s face. “What’s that on your chin?”

  He tucked his chin into his chest and slid behind the door.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Taylor, you’d better, uh-”

  “Better what?”

  “You might want to bring me a set of sheets.”

  Taylor sighed. “That bad, huh? Okay, I’ll change them.”

  “No,” Michael interjected. “No. I’ll do it.”

  Taylor laughed. �
�Well, at least you haven’t gotten so swell-headed you can’t clean up after yourself.”

  “C’mon, give me a break. I was just having a little fun.

  Maybe it got out of hand.”

  Taylor turned toward the linen closet at the end of the hall.

  “I guess you’re entitled to it,” she said as she walked away.

  “After all, it’s not every day you finally get a book on the Times best-seller list.”

  “And you know what they say, don’t you?” Michael called after her. Behind him, from the bathroom, the water stopped.

  Taylor stopped and turned, facing him. “What?”

  Michael grinned. “You never forget your first time.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Saturday night, Nashville

  “I never thought I’d say this, but thank God it’s so cold,” Detective Gary Gilley said as he shivered in the frigid wind of a February night. “Imagine the stink if this was July.”

  Lieutenant Max Bransford fumbled with his disposable butane lighter, cupped his hands around it, and struggled to light his thirty-eighth Marlboro of the day. Bransford compulsively tracked his daily cigarette intake. Each week, he tried to lower his average in a now months-long attempt to cut down. He braced himself against the wind that had roared out of Canada days earlier from near the Arctic Circle, swept through the Great Plains and Texas, then circled as it always seemed to through the mid-South on its way up the East Coast. Nashville, Tennessee was three degrees colder tonight than Toronto.

  Bransford leaned against the side of the building and shielded the lighter. After a few seconds, he managed to get the end of the cigarette lit. He and Gilley were ten feet beyond the yellow crime-scene tape, a safe enough distance not to contaminate the scene with ashes.

  “I wish them son of a bitches would get here,” Bransford griped. “My wife’s going to have my ass if I don’t get home soon.”

  “That’s not a problem I have very often,” Gilley said.

  “Given that my wife wants as little of my ass as possible.

  What the hell … Feeling’s mutual, I guess.”

  Bransford looked at his watch. “What time did they leave?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I just know what time we called them.

  They’ve had time to get here. It ain’t but a couple of hours to Chattanooga even if you’re not in a hurry.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” Bransford said. “Maybe they ain’t in a hurry.”

  “Would you be?” Gilley asked offhandedly. He turned back toward the small building, to the doorway where a uniformed officer stood guard blocking the entrance from the news media and curious onlookers.

  Irv Stover, the paunchy, late middle-aged forensic investigator from the medical examiner’s office, exited the building. He wore an ill-fitting white shirt, a stained tie, and a down ski parka that made him look like Alfred Hitchcock doing a clumsy imitation of the Michelin tire man. He strained and managed to step clumsily over the crime-scene tape without tearing it, then approached the two detectives and hunched his shoulders against the wind.

  “We can tag ‘em and bag ‘em as soon as those Hamilton County boys get a look. Where the hell are they?”

  “Beats the shit out of me,” Gilley said.

  “Wish they’d get here,” Stover said. “There’s a movie on Showtime tonight I want to catch.”

  Behind the three men, the blinking neon sign above the doorway flashed EXOTICA TANS over and over in the deepening night.

  “That damn thing’s giving me a headache, Gary,” Bransford said, turning away from the vibrant hot-pink, blue, and red neon. “Reach in there and turn it off, will you?”

  Just then, a white and blue squad car with the markings of the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department pulled into the parking lot. It came to a stop, and a large man in a gray suit, with a blue ski parka as an overcoat, exited the car.

  “Hey, Hint,” Bransford called.

  “Hey, Max,” the man called back. “Sorry we’re late.

  There’s a helluva wreck on I-24 down around Manchester.”

  “Howard,” Bransford said, motioning, “this is Detective Gary Gilley, Metro Murder Squad. Gary, meet Sergeant Howard Hinton, Chattanooga Homicide.”

  The two homicide investigators shook hands as Hinton gazed at the crime-scene tape flapping slowly in the icy wind.

  “So where’s the party?” he asked.

  Bransford motioned with his head toward the crime-scene tape.

  Hinton sighed. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Irv Stover reached into the large side pocket of his ski parka and extracted a plastic bag. “Here,” he said. “You’ll need these.”

  The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department detective opened the small bag and pulled out a pair of slip-on disposable booties and latex gloves. Stover turned, walked back toward the white ME’s van as Bransford, Gilley, and Hinton stepped wearily over the crime-scene tape and into the building where the two slaughtered girls lay. They walked through the tiny reception area with the cheap, office furniture warehouse desk and tacky green vinyl sofa, then down a narrow hallway lined with cheap paneling, their gloved hands clasped behind them to avoid inadvertently touching anything. A pasty-faced investigator carrying a large strobe-equipped Nikon and a heavy camera bag backed out of a door to their right. There wasn’t enough room in the dimly lit hallway for the men to pass each other. The crime-scene tech took three steps backward to make room for the three detectives.

  “You guys about finished?” Bransford asked.

  “Yeah,” the tech answered. “Just wrapping up here.”

  Bransford turned to Hinton. “This’s the first one you come to. Be careful,” he warned. “The floor’s still kinda sticky.”

  “I’ll watch it.”

  The three men stepped single-file into the room, Bransford leading, with Hinton in the middle, and Gilley a couple of steps behind. The room was perhaps twelve by fifteen feet in size, dimly lit and musty. A table with various lotions, oils, and sex toys nestled in one corner. Against the opposite wall, a massage table was covered in a blood-soaked sheet. Sprawled across the sheet was the mangled body of a barely recognizable young woman, her legs spread-eagled over the sides of the table, her ankles bound to the table legs with thick cord. Her arms were splayed out to the sides, her wrists tied to the front two table legs with the same type of cord. Her lips were pulled back over her teeth, frozen in an encrusted, horrific rictus.

  Gilley averted his eyes; he’d seen as much of the victim as he needed. Bransford stepped aside, stopping just short of the thickened pool of nearly black blood. Hinton stepped around him and stared.

  “She mutilated sexually?” he asked.

  “Irv said severe vaginal and anal tearing.”

  Hinton turned. “Irv?”

  Bransford, fatigued, shook his head and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Sorry. Irv Stover, the fat guy outside. Forensic investigator from the ME’s office.”

  “He got a probable TOD?”

  Bransford nodded. “Eighteen hours at least. Maybe longer.”

  Hinton turned, squinted. “That means late last night, early this morning. When were the bodies discovered?”

  “About five-thirty this afternoon. One of the girls got suspicious when she reported for work and couldn’t get in.

  The lights and the heat had been turned off. She called the manager, who drove over, opened the place up, and found the two girls.”

  “Hmm, strange,” Hinton offered.

  “This part of town is pretty deserted late at night. Any potential customers would see the lights off and just keep on going.”

  “You get a statement from the girl and the manager?”

  “Yeah,” Gilley answered. “They’re clean. We took their statements, sent ‘em home.”

  Hinton turned, gazing at the carnage before them. His thoughts turned briefly to how young the girl was, and how beautiful she must have been. He forced himself back to cop mode, to clear his mind
, to observe clinically and record every image.

  “Got an ID?”

  “One Allison May Matthews, twenty-two years old, student at Middle Tennessee State University. No sheet on her.

  Her clothes and purse were in a room down the hall, in a changing room, along with the other girl’s stuff. Money still in her purse. Money still in the strongbox up front as well, so it wasn’t robbery.”

  “I could have told you that over the phone,” Hinton said.

  He stared a moment longer at the scene in front of him, remembering the first time he’d ever seen a dead body. There was something about a corpse that just wasn’t real, he’d always thought. Maybe it was the strange, skewed angles that lifeless limbs often took; perhaps it was the pallor. Nothing alive ever got that shade of gray. Hinton had depended on that thought to keep him together through some gruesome nights, to disassociate from the horror he’d seen in his life.

  “She wasn’t a pro,” he speculated. “Just picking up a few bucks spending money. Paying her way through school, maybe.” Hinton turned and faced Gilley. “Call her family yet?”

  “Chaplain’s on his way,” Gilley answered.

  Hinton stared at the wall above the girl. A single block letter-M-was inscribed neatly over the table in a crimson so deep it was nearly black.

  Hinton turned. “Let’s check out the other one.”

  Gilley stepped out of the room and down the hall to make room for the other two. “You guys don’t mind, I’ll take a pass. I’ve seen enough.”

  “That bad?” Hinton asked.

  “Worse’n the other one,” Bransford said, his voice low.

  Hinton padded down the hall, the plastic booties sliding on the scuffed linoleum. Bransford followed a few steps behind, then paused as the Chattanooga man stopped at the doorway to the room.

  “Jesus,” Hinton muttered.

  “Yeah,” Bransford said. “Looks like the ME’s got a head start on the autopsy.”

  The girl had been gutted like a field-dressed deer, a deep Y-incision down the front of her torso to her navel. The skin was peeled back, her internal organs obviously removed, scrambled, then shoved back in the cavity.