Free By Blood Written by Steven Womack Page A

recycling industry came across a pile of bloody clothes inside that thing.”
    Bransford pointed behind him. Powell took two steps to his left and spied the Dumpster over Gilley’s shoulder.
    “What’ve you found?” Powell asked.
    Gilley flipped open his notebook and looked down at his notes. “The lab techs are still in there scouring the place out.
    But so far we’ve got a bloody, torn jumpsuit, a pair of white socks with bloodstains, a couple of bloody white towels that are consistent with the type of towels we found at the tanning parlor …”
    Powell felt his heart begin to race. Of the thirteen murders committed by the Alphabet Man, this was the first instance of any of his effects being found. For the first time, the police had found his dump site.
    “And, best of all,” Gilley said, “two pairs of latex gloves covered in what appears to be blood. One of the four gloves is torn.”
    “Jesus,” Powell said. “That means maybe one of the girls managed to scratch him, tear a piece off one of the gloves, and he had to change.”
    “Meaning,” Bransford said, finishing Powell’s thought,
    “that maybe we’ve got some of the killer’s blood on that glove as well.”
    Powell looked around, scanning the scene. “It’s getting dark out here,” Powell said. “Can the lab get some lights up?”
    “Already in progress,” Gilley said.
    Powell turned to Bransford, knowing that he was the ranking officer at the crime scene and not wanting to step on anyone’s toes, but also not wanting to mince a single word as to the importance of this discovery.
    “Max, we need that Dumpster scraped and swabbed all the way down to the paint. I know it’s miserably cold out here and this is rough duty, but this is our first chance to really nail this bastard on some forensic evidence. There may be hair, saliva, fingerprints. Hell, we don’t know.”
    “We’re going to get it all, Hank,” Bransford said, reassuring him. “But it’s going to take time. I think our best bet is to have the Dumpster hauled downtown and have the techs go through it in the garage.”
    “Works for me,” Powell said. “But let’s get a thorough search of the area around it before we move it. There might be footprints, tire tracks.”
    “That’ll be a tough one, Agent Powell,” Gilley said.
    “There’s a lot of foot traffic here, this being the closest convenience market to a housing project. Some of this ice has melted, which is going to distort any tire tracks. Plus lots of discarded bottles, cigarette butts. Hell, people are just trashy, you know.”
    “Get what we can, as much as we can, now, before it’s too late,” Powell said, urgency in his voice. “We can sort it all out later.”
    “Okay,” Gilley said, nodding. “We’re also canvassing the neighborhood, and we’ve got the manager inside going through his time cards to see who was working the cash register late Friday night, early Saturday morning. Maybe this guy dumped his clothes, then came in for a six-pack and a loaf of bread afterward.”
    “What about surveillance cameras?” Powell asked.
    “None on the exterior,” Gilley said, waving his hand around the parking lot. “The manager’s pulling the tape out of the interior camera.”
    “Is it a looping tape?” Powell asked, knowing that if it was, the traffic from the night of the homicide would be long erased.
    “The manager doesn’t know,” Gilley said, grinning. “He’s new, never had to do this before.”
    “Great,” Powell said. “We’ll just have to check the time and date stamps. And, look, I just thought of something.
    Who touches a Dumpster? I mean, you’re gonna throw stuff in there, you try not to touch anything. So dust the area around the metal door for prints, then fume it with iodine, ninhydrin, silver nitrate, whatever. You guys got a laser in the lab?”
    Bransford nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Shoot it with that, then. Maybe there won’t be as many prints on there as we think. At