By Blood Written Page 23

  “No judge is going to issue that kind of warrant without an indictment.”

  “In the state of Tennessee, if there’s enough there to jus-tify a probable cause search, then a sympathetic judge can do it. And it can be done in secret, as part of the grand jury hearing.”

  Hank’s head throbbed. This was a big, major, earth-shaking screwup. “Yeah, and how long will it stay secret, Max?

  You know what this is going to do when it hits the media.

  We’re going to have a circus on our hands.”

  “I know that, Hank,” Bransford said. “That’s what I told the major. This is the kind of cluster fuck that can cause us to lose our amateur standing. You gotta be a pro to fuck up this bad.”

  “Can you put this back in the bottle? Get them to hold off maybe even a few days?”

  “Too late,” Bransford said. “The DA red-balled this one right into the grand jury. I finished testifying an hour ago.”

  Hank Powell moaned. “Okay,” he said. “If they think they’re good to go and ready to launch, who am I to get in the way? I’m going to get on the horn and call my boss and tell him to hunker down.”

  “Hang in there, buddy. We’re both gonna have to keep our heads down.”

  Hank felt the coffee churning away in his gut. “Mine already is.”

  Taylor stood at the kitchen counter, her eyes burning from lack of sleep, her neck stiff. She poured another cup of coffee, took a small sip, and grimaced. The coffee made the already foul taste of bile in her mouth even worse. She poured the coffee into the sink.

  She sat down at the counter and stared at the clock for a few moments. It was almost eleven-thirty in the morning and she was still in her bathrobe. Ordinarily, she’d have put in three or four hours in the office by now. But that was after nights when she actually slept.

  Not like last night …

  Michael was still upstairs asleep. Lately, he’d been staying up even later than usual, watching old movies on television or reading, and usually with a drink in his hand. He’d been at her apartment for almost two and a half weeks continuously now. For the first few days it was like a honeymoon, but lately they’d not even been going to bed at the same time.

  Taylor just couldn’t stay up half the night, then get up at seven to be at work by eight. And Michael couldn’t go to bed before about two at the earliest.

  Last night, she pretended to be asleep when he finally came to bed at three-thirty. He nuzzled her neck, kissed her shoulders. After a few moments of no response, he’d rolled over and was soon snoring.

  And she lay there the rest of the night, staring up into the darkness, unable to turn her brain off, unable to let go.

  At five in the morning, shortly before the sun came up, she found herself wondering if it was even possible that the FBI agent could be telling the truth, but she pushed that thought out of her mind as quickly as it came in.

  She’d gotten out of bed as quietly as possible, then gone downstairs and sat in an easy chair, her feet up on the coffee table, staring into the darkened spaces of her loft. At some point, she might have dozed off for a short time, but it wasn’t the good, hard sleep she needed. It was like skating over the surface of a pond when what you needed was to dive in.

  She heard a shuffling upstairs and water running. She pulled her bathrobe tighter around her as, a few seconds later, Michael came down the stairs in a T-shirt and a pair of running shorts. He walked over to where she was sitting, leaned down, and kissed her on the top of the head.

  “Hi, gorgeous,” he said cheerily.

  “Morning.”

  “You’re not going to work today?” He opened the cabinet door and took out a large coffee mug.

  “Later,” she answered. “I wasn’t feeling all that well when I woke up. Didn’t sleep well.”

  “You were sleeping pretty good when I came up,” Michael offered, pouring a cup. “I tried to wake you up, see if you wanted something to sweeten your dreams. But, alas.”

  “What time was that?” Taylor asked.

  “I don’t know. Sometime around three, three-thirty.”

  “Kind of late, wasn’t it?”

  “Well,” he said, pausing to take a sip of the hot coffee, “I decided to stay up until eight London time so I could call the agent.”

  Taylor looked up. “And?”

  “Looks like it’s a done deal, my darling. That two-bedroom flat in Earl’s Court is where you and I can stay on our honeymoon if you want. I have to fly over in a couple of weeks for the closing. Maybe you’ll come with me?”

  “Michael,” she said cautiously, “are you sure this is such a good idea? You bought the condo in Palm Beach and now a flat in London?”

  He sat on a barstool across the counter from her and leaned in toward her, smiling. “Look, until you got me a decent book deal, I’d never even been to London. I fell in love with it! And now we’ve got the money. Let’s enjoy it. I’ve got a lot of time to make up.”

  “You have the money,” she said. “Not us.”

  He reached over and took her hand in his. “Soon it’ll be us. And we have to decide about the house, too. You haven’t even seen it.”

  “I know,” Taylor answered. “I’ve just been too busy. Besides, I’m not sure I’m ready to give this place up. I worked so hard for it, and I’ve made it so much mine.”

  “So I’ll let the house go and we’ll live here. Whatever makes you happy.”

  Taylor’s face went blank for a moment, as if she’d left the room for now but would be back later to claim her body.

  “This is all happening so fast,” she murmured.

  Michael’s forehead knitted up into hard wrinkles. “Hey,”

  he said softly. “Something the matter?”

  Taylor abruptly stood, almost jumped, out of the chair and walked over toward the sofa. She stopped in the middle of the room, turned and faced him, and looked at him hard.

  “We have to talk,” she said.

  Michael stared back at her for a moment. “Sounds serious.”

  She nodded. “Yesterday, in my office, this man came to see me. He was from the FBI.”

  Michael’s eyes narrowed. “FBI? You sure?”

  Taylor nodded again. “I saw his badge, his credentials.

  He’s an FBI agent in charge of an investigation. And he was asking me questions.”

  “Questions? What kind of questions?”

  “About you, Michael.” Taylor’s voice dropped off, silence hanging uncomfortably between them.

  “What about me?” Michael asked, his voice a low monotone.

  Taylor’s eyes started burning again, whether from lack of sleep or stress or a combination of both, she couldn’t tell.

  But she felt herself tearing up and made herself fight the welling up behind her eyes. She turned away from Michael for a moment.

  “I don’t even know how to say it,” she said.

  Michael got off the chair and started toward her. She held out a hand, palm toward him. He stopped.

  “Just say it,” he said.

  She turned back to him, shaking her head. “This is crazy.

  I almost want to laugh, but I also want to scream. I just want to scream my goddamn head off. Michael, he says you’re a murderer. He says you’ve been traipsing around the country killing women.”

  Michael Schiftmann stood there, stock-still, for what seemed like a long time, his hands at his side, his face expressionless.

  “The Alphabet Man,” he whispered.

  Taylor sucked in a huge gulp of air and almost started to choke. “You? How did you- How did you know?”

  Michael sighed, a long, weary release of air and tension that seemed to fill the room. “Where do you think I get the plots for the Chaney novels?”

  Taylor squinted at him, her arms wrapped around herself now, clenching and holding herself tightly. “What? What did you say?”

  “I said,” Michael spoke louder, “that the plots to the Chaney novels are based on the Alphab
et Man murders. I’ve been following this guy for years. I’m fascinated by him.

  Hell, I’m obsessed by him. I have a book carton full of clip-pings and research I’ve done on the guy. This FBI moron has got it exactly one hundred and eighty degrees back-as-swards. I’m not the Alphabet Man. I just rip him off to sell books.”

  Taylor’s jaw dropped. “You mean that you-?”

  “I’m embarrassed,” Michael said. “I’m not the creative genius, the artist, the guy with the original story. I’m just a hack writer who takes real life, embellishes it, and throws it out there to the public, who gets suckered into buying it.”

  Taylor dropped her arms to her side and started laughing.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “You’re not a killer.”

  “No, I’m just a hack.”

  She came to him, arms outstretched. He took her in his arms and held her tight as she laughed almost hysterically.

  “I’ve never been happier in my life to be with a hack.”

  “Oh, great,” Michael said, laughing now. “Thanks for being so agreeable.”

  She put her hands on his chest and pushed herself away.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not a hack and you know it. Every great writer, up to and including Shakespeare, has based fiction on actual events.”

  Suddenly Taylor’s face went stern, dark. “But that makes me even crazier, that that stupid bastard from the FBI would come around here slinging that kind of crap around. We ought to sue him! Sue ‘em right now!”

  Michael, grinning, shook his head. “No, that’d be the worst thing we could do. Why draw attention to this and give them the satisfaction? They can’t prove a damn thing.

  They’re just desperate. Like I said, I’ve been following this case for years, and I’ve managed to dig up some insider stuff through contacts here and there. This is a political hot potato for these guys. It’s making them look real bad.”

  “Yeah,” Taylor agreed. “They’re just desperate.”

  Relieved, she came to him again and settled into his arms.

  He held her tightly, his arms around her, the two of them rocking gently back and forth.

  “If we do nothing,” Taylor whispered. “This will just go away.”

  Michael Schiftmann pulled her even tighter. As he held her, he stared at the exposed brick wall that made up one whole side of Taylor’s loft.

  “Yes,” he whispered back. “This will all go away. Don’t you worry.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Monday afternoon, Nashville

  T. Robert Collier, now serving his seventh term as the District Attorney General for Davidson County, the Twentieth Judicial District of the State of Tennessee, could always tell when a situation was starting to get to him: The prescription medication he took to control his chronic gastro-esophageal reflux disease quit working. Even the blandest of foods, let alone the things he loved, like pizza, coffee, and martinis, would erupt without notice into the back of his throat like a volcano spewing lava.

  As he stood in front of Judge Marvin Sandlin in the quiet solitude of the judge’s private office, he felt his diaphragm start to convulse in that wavelike pattern that usually meant an attack was imminent. He wished that he’d ordered something else besides the lasagna for lunch.

  “Bob, you can’t be serious,” Sandlin intoned. “I’ve been an attorney for almost thirty years and in the judiciary for half that time, and this is without a doubt the most outland-ish story I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  Collier nodded. “Yes, Your Honor, I agree. It’s a corker.

  But I think we’re pretty solid on this one, at least solid enough to present you with the request.”

  Sandlin, who had run unopposed for judge of the General Sessions Court, Seventh Division, a record four times in a row, leaned back in his high-backed leather chair and gazed across his desk almost in a kind of wonder.

  “I’ve read two of the man’s books,” he said. “And my wife, who’s a bigger reader than I am, has read them all. She stood in line for two hours the last time he was in town to get an autograph.”

  “And it’s our contention that after that book signing where your wife stood in line, Schiftmann returned to his hotel room, changed clothes, went back out later that night, and drove about twelve blocks to Exotica Tans, where he brutally murdered two young women.”

  “My God,” Sandlin said, his voice low. “The man’s famous. He’s rich. He’s a celebrity. For God’s sake, he’s been on the Today show!”

  Collier nodded. “I know all that. But he’s also a murderer and we’re just one step away from proving it. If you’ll just sign on the dotted line, Your Honor.”

  Sandlin looked down at the paper lying before him on his broad, polished mahogany desk. It was a search warrant, demanding that Michael Schiftmann provide samples of hair, saliva, and blood for DNA analysis. Sandlin studied it for a moment, then looked back up at Collier, his eyes narrowing.

  “And what has the grand jury said about all this?”

  Collier felt his stomach rumble, and a heartbeat later, the acid taste of bile in the back of his throat. “We presented the case to them this morning.”

  “And?”

  Collier tried not to squirm. “The matter is still under consideration, but so far they’ve done nothing.”

  Sandlin nodded, understanding. “I get it. You took your best shot with the grand jury and it went nowhere. So now you’re back fishing. I hate to disappoint you, Bob, but this case has all the earmarks of a first-class disaster. This is all supposition, hypothesis. You’ve got no witnesses to place the suspect at the scene of the crime, no fingerprints, no forensic evidence, no motive, no chain of evidence. All you’ve got is theory, and a theory that’s about as plausible as the plot to one of this guy’s novels.”

  “But that’s it, Your Honor,” Collier said, his voice rising.

  “It is the plot of a novel, his novel! This guy’s doing his own firsthand research into murder. He’s basing the plots of his books on murders he’s committed himself!”

  Sandlin shook his head. “That may very well be true. I read the article in the Times on this serial killer, this Alphabet Man. But you can’t use the supposition and circumstantial evidence from one murder as evidence in another.”

  Collier started to say something, but Sandlin held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Bob. But you’ve got no probable cause. Say I issue this search warrant and you get a DNA sample that matches the sample at the murder scene. What happens if his attorneys, who by the way will fear no evil because they will undoubtedly be the meanest sons of bitches in the val-ley, challenge the validity of the search warrant in the first place? Then you’ve poisoned the well, and the only thing that can tie him to the murders is thrown out, disqualified.

  What happens then?”

  Collier let out a weary sigh. “The guy walks.”

  “Exactly,” Sandlin said, sliding the search warrant across the desk to Collier. “I’m doing you a favor. You know I want to work with you, and if this was just a quiet little everyday homicide, I might let it slide a little. But this case is going to be high-profile. We’re talking Court TV, Larry King shit here. You better get yourself right with God, my friend, because you’re going to be in the middle of a hurricane if you decide to run with this.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Collier said, picking up the paper. “I understand that. Believe me.”

  “So,” Sandlin asked, shifting gears, “how’s your gut doing?”

  Collier slipped the warrant back into his briefcase. “So-so. The over-the-counter stuff quit working and I had to go back on prescription.”

  Sandlin leaned back in his chair, smiled, and rubbed his right hand in a circular motion around his paunch. “You should’ve had the surgery, Bob. I had my Nissen six months ago and haven’t had an attack since. You know they do it with a laparoscope now. Three tiny little pinpricks. Two days, you’re in and out.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” Collier admitted. “I�
��ve just been too busy. Besides, I hate surgery.”

  Sandlin smiled broadly. “You know, after the surgery, you can never throw up again.”

  “Great,” Collier said, trying to hide the dejection in his voice, “something to look forward to.”

  Since his first story on the Alphabet Man had been picked up by the AP, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and about a dozen other newspapers and television stations, Andy Parks found himself occupying a place several rungs higher on the local journalistic feeding chain. He’d parlayed the story into a transfer to the Nashville office, where the News-Free Press kept an office in Legislative Plaza. He could walk to the capitol or, if he was feeling especially energetic, all the way to the courthouse.

  This afternoon, he was feeling especially energetic. As so often happened in this part of the country, the transition from a long, gray, dreary winter into a glorious, warm spring had happened overnight. Andy had gotten lucky and found a decent parking place in the lot on Capitol Hill. Rather than lose it, he decided to enjoy the walk.

  Halfway to the courthouse, just past the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, his cell phone rang. He fished it out of his jacket pocket and flipped it open.

  “Yeah,” he said, dodging an old lady on the sidewalk.

  “I’ve got something for you,” a sweet, feminine voice said.

  Andy smiled.

  “Wow,” Andy said, grinning. “I’ll bet it’s something I’ve been wanting for a long, long time.”

  “Silly,” the voice chided. “You have a dirty mind. I appreciate that in a man, but it’s not what I was referring to.”

  “Damn.”

  “But it is something you’ve been wanting for a long, long time.”

  Andy held the phone tighter to his ear as a loud garbage truck went roaring by, belching black smoke. “Well, I’ll say this much. You’ve got my interest piqued.”

  “Guess what the DA took to the grand jury today?”

  Andy stopped, ducked into the entrance alcove of a gray granite building. “What? What’ve you got?”

  “The Exotica Tans murders,” the voice said. “The DA had a meeting with the head of the Murder Squad on Friday and they went to the grand jury this morning.”