Monday morning, Nashville
Andy Parks hit the pedal on his rust-streaked, ancient Datsun 280Z and prayed the brakes would hold one last time. He meant to have the car serviced before leaving Chattanooga, but he’d gotten too busy-as usual-and simply hadn’t gotten around to it. The pedal had been soft for weeks, and now with the wet cold of the last few days, they’d begun squealing terribly each time he touched them.
The construction on I-24 around Nashville wasn’t helping.
The traffic was bumper-to-bumper and a light mist was falling that Andy hoped wouldn’t turn to snow anytime soon.
He knew he couldn’t afford to spend the night in Nashville.
His boss at the newspaper had told him yesterday afternoon in no uncertain terms that he was about to max out his mea-ger expense account. The Chattanooga News-Free Press wasn’t known for hard-hitting reporting or for spending tons of money in pursuit of the news. This was different, though.
This was the kind of story that was guaranteed to get attention, maybe even a Pulitzer nomination, and in any event a ticket out of Chattanooga and away from that sorry excuse for a newspaper. And at twenty-seven years of age, with five years of dues paying already behind him, Andy Parks was ready for a bigger market.
The brakes screeched as the traffic came to a stop just before the Davidson County line. The outlying counties of Nashville, especially Rutherford and Williamson, were some of the fastest-growing counties in America and they each had the traffic to prove it. Andy came to a stop behind a tractor-trailer rig and tapped his fingers nervously on the steering wheel. He looked to his left, where a blond behind the wheel of a bronze Lexus smoked a cigarette and stared straight ahead. Behind him, the massive grille of a tractor-trailer rig loomed in his back windshield.
Forty minutes of stop-and-go traffic later, Andy parked his car in the garage across from the Justice Center and walked out into the icy sleet falling steadily on the city. He strode quickly toward the James Robertson Parkway, then cut right across the plaza and through the revolving door into the main lobby. A bulletproof kiosk blocked the way into the heart of the building, with a heavy sheriff’s department deputy-shaved head, regulation brown uniform-ensconced inside. It reminded Andy of the entrance to a prison.
“Yeah?” the guard asked through the small, slotted metal vent.
Andy reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and held his Hamilton County press pass up to the glass.
“Andy Parks,” he said. “Chattanooga News-Free Press.
I’d like to see Detective Gary Gilley.”
The guard stared at the pass for a moment, then slid a clipboard out through a small slot in the glass.
“Sign in,” he said, “and I’ll need to see a driver’s license.”
“But my press pass-” Andy insisted.
“I’ll need to see a driver’s license.” The guy didn’t even look up at him again.
Andy pulled out his license, signed the visitors’ log, then slid the clipboard and his license back through the slot. It sat there for maybe fifteen seconds while the guard completed filling out some other form. Andy cleared his throat, which had no visible effect on the guard. Finally the guard reached up, took the clipboard, examined it, checked the license, then slid them off to one side of his desk. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a yellow tag that read VISITOR and slid it through the window.
“Attach this badge to your coat lapel,” the guard recited without looking at Andy again. “Keep it visible at all times.
Stand over there. Someone will come and get you.”
Andy took the badge and wished he’d stopped for a cup of coffee before parking the car. He was sleepy, fatigue like a brittle cap jammed too tightly on his head. He crossed the large lobby and only then noticed there was no place to sit.
Not exactly user friendly, he thought.
He leaned against a column and rolled his neck around on his shoulders, trying to work some of the tension out.
Then he stretched and arched his back, trying not to look too odd, but needing to loosen up. He wasn’t used to being up this early, and the drive in from Chattanooga, over an icy and nearly closed Monteagle Mountain, had taken a lot out of him.
Andy Parks paced the lobby for fifteen minutes, with little to break the monotony. Arriving police officers, city officials, or friends of the guard’s were ushered past without question. Visitors were uniformly hassled and made to wait.
Andy was about to say something to the guard when the door opened and a young woman about his age walked through and into the lobby. She was perhaps two inches shorter than he, with dark eyes, skin only slightly paler than a cafe au lait, and jet-black hair.
“Mr. Parks,” she said, walking up to him.
“Yes,” he said. “Andy Parks, Chattanooga News-Free Press. Detective Gilley?”
“No, I’m Detective Maria Chavez. Gilley’s out in the field this morning. Did you have an appointment?”
“No, I came up here kind of on a spur-of-the-moment deal-”
“You should have gotten an appointment,” Chavez said.
“We’re really busy.”
“I know,” Andy said, smiling at her. She was pretty, he thought, and if it took being nice to a cop to get what he needed, he was willing to make the sacrifice. “That’s why I’m here.”
Maria Chavez looked at him without speaking, a question on her face.
“I came to talk to Detective Gilley about the murders of those two girls over on Church Street.”
“Oh, that,” she snapped. “We can’t say anything to anyone about that. That investigation is at a critical point right now, and we aren’t speaking to the press or anyone else.”
Maria reached into the back pocket of her black wool slacks and extracted a business card. “If you’ll loan me a pen, I’ll give you the name of the press adjutant for the department. When we have an announcement, he’ll put you on the call list.”
Andy took the ballpoint out of his shirt pocket, clicked it, and handed it to her.
“When might that be?” he asked as Chavez scribbled on the back of her card.
She looked up. “Not anytime soon, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t expect to hear anything soon.” Maria Chavez handed Andy the card.
“Sorry you made the trip for nothing,” she said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Maria Chavez turned and took two steps toward the door when Andy said, loud enough for anyone in the lobby to hear: “So, Detective Chavez, what are your chances of catching the Alphabet Man?”
Maria Chavez stopped in her tracks and froze. Andy could swear he saw goose bumps on the back of her neck. After a moment, she turned and walked back to him.
“What did you say?” she asked, her voice low.
Andy smiled at her. “J was two years ago in Chattanooga, then K was last year in Dallas. And you guys had L and M
early Saturday morning. Don’t you think it’s kind of creepy that the guy pulled a double for the first time?”
Maria Chavez’s eyes widened, and for a moment it seemed she was trying to say something and nothing would come out.
“Look,” Andy continued. “I’m exhausted, it’s freezing outside, and it’s pretty darn cold in here. Can I buy you a cup of coffee somewhere?”
Maria stared at him. “Do you know the city?” she whispered after a few seconds. “West End Avenue?”
Andy nodded.
“Centennial Park?” she went on, her voice barely audible in the cavernous lobby. Andy nodded again.
“There’s a McDonald’s next to it,” she instructed. “Meet me there in half an hour.”
Andy checked his watch and smiled at her again. She really was quite pretty. “Great,” he said. “We’ll be there in time for an Egg McMuffin.”
“How the bloody, goddamn hell did he find out? ” Max Bransford yelled, slamming his fist down so hard on his heavy wooden desk that the ashtray bounced twice before settling down. The ashtray was clean; the Justice Center had been smoke-free for years, but Bransford kept the ashtray around as a souvenir.
“Max, he ain’t going to tell us that,” Gary Gilley said, holding his hands out in front of him.
“It’s my fault,” Maria Chavez said, standing next to her colleague. “I’m not even sure he knew for sure that the guy painted the letters, but when he saw the look on my face, that confirmed it.”
“It’s not your fault, Maria,” Gilley said.
“Why did you talk to the guy in the first place?” Bransford demanded, his face reddening. He shook his head from side to side. “You know, I don’t need this shit. I really don’t need this shit, guys. I’m too old for this.”
“Lieutenant, I was the only one here,” Chavez explained.
She was trying hard not to beg, but she feared her voice was giving her away. “You weren’t here, Gary wasn’t here. And this guy was ‘Alphabet Man this,’ ‘Alphabet Man that …’
No telling who heard him. It was a judgment call and I had to make it. I had to get him out of here and talk to him to shut him up!”
Gilley leaned forward and placed his hands, palms down, on Bransford’s desk. “Max, we were never going to keep this quiet forever. It’s too big. I’m surprised they’ve been able to keep it under wraps this long. I mean, hell, Max, this guy’s a stone-cold serial killer who’s been working all over the damn country for years!”
Bransford sighed, then reached up with his beefy right hand, and with his thumb and forefinger began massaging either side of his neck just under his jawbone. He’d read somewhere that massaging in that place would bring down a heart rate, and right now Max Bransford needed that bad.
“You guys have been watching too many cop shows,”
Bransford said. “This is a violation of procedure, it’s going to make us look like idiots, and when the shit starts flowing downhill, I’ll try to stop it at my desk, but I can’t guarantee a goddamn thing.”
“Lieutenant,” Chavez said, “I’m sorry.”
Bransford looked at her. She wasn’t stupid, but she had been on homicide only a few months, and this was the first big case she’d ever seen. The first one of national scope that had come down the pike in a long time …
“When’s the story going to break?” Bransford asked.
Chavez winced. “Ten days,” she said. “Two weeks at the most.”
“One thing we’ve got going for us,” Gilley said. “At least it’s the Chattanooga paper. Nobody reads that rag unless they’re looking to find a coupon for toilet paper.”
“You’re fooling yourself, my friend,” Bransford said.
“We’re up to our nether regions in amphibious reptiles. The only thing you can do now is get out there and find this fuck.
Meantime, something tells me I better get on the horn to Hank Powell up at Quantico.”
Gilley looked across the desk at his boss and for a brief moment almost felt sorry for him.
“Want me to do it, Max?” he asked.
Bransford shook his head. “Nope, this’s what they pay me the big bucks for.”