LITMIR.BIZ

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note had come, right on the heels of the word that a body was found in Nashville. This one was alarming.

       A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

       Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

       By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

       He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

       P.S. Do you get it yet?

      Chilling, yet she was oddly exhilarated by the words.

      Now that the word was out, that the Southern Strangler was on the loose and had killed three girls, she understood that the messages left with the bodies must correspond to these notes. After realizing the pattern, she’d gone back and marked the first entry Susan Palmer, then corresponded the notes to the names of the dead. She wondered for a moment about why she would be getting these messages. But she threw that thought aside as quickly as she had it; what did it matter? She was going to get the scoop.

      This new message made her blood race. She was going to be a star.

      This fourth note could reference the missing Nashville girl, Shauna Davidson. She’d cover the story tonight—on the heels of the murder, the missing person’s case would generate a lead story on the ten o’clock news.

      Whitney realized she didn’t have any information that would lead her, or the rest of the media, to believe that Shauna Davidson was anything but missing. With the last three girls, she only received the messages after the girls’ bodies had been found. Maybe this one had been found dead and they weren’t reporting it. But no, they wouldn’t be holding that kind of information back.

      P.S. From your backyard. That struck a chord in her immediately. My backyard. It wasn’t meant in the literal sense. He was too elegant for that. The other postscripts referred to locations. Her backyard must mean her hometown. Nashville.

      That meant that she, Whitney Connolly, and she alone, knew that Shauna Davidson was dead.

      She headed for the shower. She’d take a little extra time putting herself together for tonight’s broadcast. She felt certain the whole town would tune in for her and the biggest story in Nashville tonight.

      Chapter Eleven

      Jerry Grimes met Baldwin as he came out of security in Hartsfield International. Baldwin took in the gray hair, the white face, the slight pinching around the mouth and knew that Grimes was taking this latest disappearance hard. He stuck out his hand and gave him a smile, trying for cordiality.

      “Grimes, you are getting grayer by the day.”

      Grimes looked vaguely alarmed for a moment, as if he hadn’t realized that age was leaching the black out of his hair. Then he recovered and ran his hands through the silvery strands. “Well, at least I still have some. That’s saying a lot in this job.”

      They walked out the doors to Grimes’s waiting car. He had left the car on the curb in the departures area. FBI got special privileges at airports these days. A uniformed officer stared with frank curiosity as they climbed into the sedan. Grimes removed the FBI placard from the windshield of the car. Pulling away from the curb, he got down to business.

      “Okay, here’s the deal. Media has the story, the locals couldn’t keep it quiet. They’ve found the hand, it’s been sent to the medical examiner, as well. We’ll head straight to the morgue in this little town, Adairsville. I want to hurry up and get there, so buckle your seat belt.”

      All that bravado, Baldwin thought. Oh well. The ride went quickly, their conversation desultory. Grimes had theories about the cases, and Baldwin heard him out, though each one was as implausible as the next. Satan worship seemed to be Grimes’s favorite. He finally stopped talking and the car went silent, each man lost in his own thoughts.

      They arrived within an hour. Miraculously, the traffic had been relatively light through downtown Atlanta, and they branched off onto I-75, finding the exit for Adairsville easily. Grimes shot the car off the exit, and as they drove west toward the center of town, he pointed out the crime scene. Not that Baldwin could have missed it. Media vans lined the right side of the divided highway, a makeshift tent lean-to the focus of all their cameras.

      Baldwin shook his head at the media trucks. They may have been able to contain the stories in Alabama and Louisiana, but it didn’t look like they were going to be able to do that anymore. He started mapping out a strategy to use the media for their own purposes.

      Grimes dropped Baldwin in front of a small, anonymous office building, promising to return as soon as he’d arranged a place for them to stay. Baldwin understood, not many people wanted to attend an autopsy. A young man who looked to be barely out of his teens met him in the lobby of the building. Introducing himself as Arie, he showed Baldwin to the autopsy suite. Arie handed him a gown and gloves, then took a seat on a stool next to the table, a notebook in hand. Baldwin took the last few steps into the room and saw the dead girl.

      Shauna Lyn Davidson had not gone gently into that good night.

      Her body was stretched out on a stainless-steel slab, her head cradled in a hard plastic U. She had bruises on her face, on her body. A large chunk of hair was missing from the right side of her head. Her nose was misshapen, a lip split. All the signs pointed to a struggle. Shauna had been badly beaten, a departure from the previous murders. He had a brief second of wonder—a different MO could mean a different killer. Normally, Baldwin would look to the hands to see what kind of shape they were in. In this case, all he saw were bloodied stumps. Definitely the same suspect.

      The coroner was a jovial man, at least ten years past retirement age. His face was red from exertion, his hair white and straggly, his pants two sizes too small for his waist. He didn’t look like he missed too many meals. He stripped off a glove and stuck out his hand. Baldwin took it, surprised at the strength of his handshake.

      “I’m Doc Allen. Sorry you had to come all this way. We’re ready to do the examination if you are. Already started, actually, just waiting on you to cut. All set? Good. Arie, you’ll transcribe?”

      The spotty boy nodded in response. It was time to do homage to the dead.

      Autopsies were Baldwin’s least favorite activity. But he stuck it out, listening with half an ear to Doc Allen prattle on. Only every third or fourth sentence had something to do with the body he was working on.

      “So, I hear you’re from up Tennessee way. Like it up there? I had a visit once, saw the Grand Ole Opry, oh, lookie there, hyoid’s fractured. Strong hands to do that. Anyway, went to the Opry, saw that Marty Stuart guy. Didn’t have any idea how little bitty he was, doesn’t surprise me though. Lots of these folks are shorter in person. Definite saw marks on the ulna and radius, I’m thinking a straight-edged blade, maybe even a scalpel. Disarticulated right above the radiocarpal joint. So we went to this place called the Loveless Café…”

      Baldwin tuned him out. He needed the background information on Shauna. Try to piece together a reason that she’d become the Strangler’s fourth victim.

      Doc Allen was finishing up now. Shauna’s brain had been removed, ready to be fixed in formalin. The cause of death was apparent. The beating she’d taken was pretty bad, but she had been strangled so severely that her hyoid bone had snapped in two. That took a great deal of pressure to do. Baldwin imagined the killer, angry, excited, pressing harder and harder while Shauna struggled beneath him. Watching the life slowly drain from her eyes, enjoying the show. Baldwin was getting pissed off at this guy. Good.

      Doc Allen seemed to want to keep talking, but Baldwin pointed to the other table, where a small item was covered by what he could swear was a simple store-bought handkerchief. Lord save me from small-time operations, he thought. The doctor bustled to the table and whipped the fabric back with a flourish, like a waiter removing the cover from a dinner dish.

      “Here’s your hand. Well, it’s not yours, of course. Word on the street is you’ve got a wackjob

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