Free By Blood Written by Steven Womack

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