Blood Will Tell, page 1
PRAISE FOR
BLOOD WILL TELL
“Fans of suspense thrillers won’t want to miss this one! A mix of compelling characters and twist and turns that will keep you reading until the last page is turned.”
—Thomas Whitaker
“Blood Will Tell captures the reader in the prologue with a young woman’s murder that foreshadows later violence. Blood, DNA, and Native American culture are central themes that mystify forensic investigators.”
—Ray Collins, author of The General’s Briefcase
“Had to read in one sitting, could not put down! This novel keeps you on the edge of your seat!”
—Kelley Shaffer
“Paul Bailey weaves an intriguing story in this fast-paced cliffhanger that is hard to put down. Blood Will Tell has main characters that quickly become the friends we want to root for, while the real villains are sublimely cloaked in this whodunit mystery. It’s an enigma worthy of a late-night finish as the suspense will keep you turning the pages. I highly recommend this book.”
—Brandon Currence, Author of The Maine Consecration
“Blood Will Tell is an exceptional read. A true page-turner. Well crafted with interesting characters and a compelling story. I could not put it down until I finished the last page!”
—Les Lo Bough Jr., Author of Synergy
“I enjoyed reading Blood Will Tell! The characters are interesting and well thought out. I love a good mystery book and love even more when I can’t figure out who done it. Every time I thought I had figured it out, a plot twist and I was wrong! I love that in a book. Paige is a wonderful main character, and I enjoyed getting to know her. Great read, and I look forward to the next one!”
—Keri Tavenner
“Blood Will Tell is an enjoyable read! From the first pages that set the scene of murder and intrigue, to the final pages that leave me wanting more, I was hooked! Follow Paige Decker through the twists and turns of this wonderful murder mystery. I enjoyed this page-turner and highly recommend it! Would love to read a sequel.”
—Kim Burcham
Blood Will Tell
by Paul Bailey
© Copyright 2023 Paul Bailey
ISBN 978-1-64663-983-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblßance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The names, incidents, dialogue, and opinions expressed are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Published by
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800-435-4811
www.koehlerbooks.com
This book is dedicated to Sue and James Perry.
PROLOGUE
TEN YEARS EARLIER . . .
There was much to do and very little time. The body needed to be cleaned and scrubbed to an immaculately unsoiled and unsullied perfection. Her golden hair would be dried meticulously, then brushed to a shimmering sheen. She would be laid to rest, cherished, and enshrined. She wasn’t the one, but she was close.
The water steamed, almost too hot, but no matter, she wouldn’t feel it. It had taken longer than expected to cleanse the cabin, but all that remained now was the girl. The sound of crunching gravel came through the open window into the bathroom as the killer turned off the water. Running to the living room, the killer peered out of the window. A young man, remarkably thin and strikingly familiar, walked around the front of a Jeep and headed for the house, almost to the porch. No time to escape through the back door. The killer ran to a small closet behind the new but abhorrent sectional couch. The killer closed the bifold door almost shut, just as the front door opened.
The young man went three feet into the room and realized there was something wrong . . . very wrong. He backed up in disbelief then stopped, trying to remember his CPR classes and the steps on how to handle emergencies. Step one: take a deep breath; he had that covered. Step two: count to ten. Step three: check for danger. He quickly scanned the room and, in his shock, missed the killer hidden less than twenty feet away.
He hesitantly approached the body as if she could suddenly come back to life and take his. Close enough now to smell the odious aroma of death, he put his hand to his mouth and gagged, holding back the acidic vomit. Slowly, he stepped back taking deep cleansing breaths. He approached the body again, this time placing his hand on the girl’s wrist. In a panic, he randomly searched her arm for a pulse, not sure where to put his finger. Giving up on the wrist, he went to her neck, trying to find her jugular. He put his finger cautiously on her impossibly bent neck. He gave up. Dead. As he straightened up, his finger brushed a bandage taped to her arm, smearing a little blood on him. Panicked, he wiped his finger on her arm above the wound. The killer almost rushed from the closet and would have killed the young man but waited. The young man grabbed his radio, dropping it to the floor in his state of shock, and scrambled to pick it up. Pressing the call button, his voice quivered. No signal. He went onto the porch and tried again, still no go. He descended the steps and stood next to his Jeep, finally raising someone.
Wasting no time, the killer stepped from the closet and headed toward the back door, passing the corpse on the way. Then the thought of the young man’s vulgar finger on her arm brought the killer back. Bending over the body, the killer ripped the bandage off her arm, rolled it in a ball, and stuffed it in a pocket. Wiping blood from the wound on an ungloved finger, the killer erased the young man’s bloody print.
† † †
“Why are we here?” Adrian Ramirez asked from the passenger seat of the patrol car, which sat fifteen miles west of Emory, Illinois.
“Do you mean in the existential sense of why we’re here?” Officer Oscar Friedman asked.
“No, I mean why are we sitting outside a state park waiting for speeders? Most of these vehicles are towing a boat or a trailer.”
“True, my young apprentice, but, as you’ve noticed, we’re sitting ten miles from the nearest entrance to the park. Just far enough for the speeders to be chomping at the bit to get around those campers and trailers. There is a perfect spot for that about a mile from here—a long stretch of road where you can see any cars coming. Once clear of the slower traffic, our speeders will fly by here where we’ll be waiting for them.”
“That is a well thought out speed trap, I’ll give you that,” Ramirez complemented.
“You will find everything I do is well thought out. Keeps me alive, and is going to make me a detective someday.”
“In Emory? Give me a break.” Ramirez laughed.
“Mark my words, rookie. I’m going to be the first detective in this Podunk town.”
“Noted,” Ramirez said.
“Ah, here we go.” Oscar pointed at a sedan approaching them. “Turn on that radar gun. I think he may be doing ninety.”
Ramirez clocked the car at ninety-one, and Oscar fishtailed onto the road behind it. Flipping on the lights and siren, Ramirez wrote down the license plate number and reached for the radio mic to call it in.
“Is he going to bolt, or is he going to pull over and accept his fate?” Oscar asked, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. Finally, the driver began to decrease his speed and pulled onto the shoulder. “Good choice.” Oscar released a breath of adrenaline-fueled air. “Go get ’em, rookie. I’ll wait for dispatch to call back.”
He didn’t have to wait long. Ramirez was barely out of the car before Elaine’s voice came over the radio. “No wants or warrants on the vehicle.” Elaine didn’t add “over” or “out.” She wasn’t much on following radio protocol. Just hearing her voice got Oscar’s mind back to the sex they’d had the previous evening, and now wanting more.
Oscar and Elaine had been having an affair for the past six months. At first, Oscar had hoped it would run its course, and their desire would fade, as did most of his office affairs. They’d remain friends and enjoy their little secret. But that hadn’t happened, and Oscar didn’t know what to do. Elaine’s husband was his boss, and Oscar could kiss his promotion to detective goodbye if Scott found out. Forcing his thoughts back to the job at hand, he stared from the squad car to Ramirez dealing with the speeder.
Approaching the vehicle as it had been drilled into him at the academy, Ramirez unsnapped the hammer thong on his gun. “Turn off your vehicle, sir, and place your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them,” Ramirez instructed the driver, who complied. Ramirez looked at the back seat. It was empty, except for a briefcase and a crumpled fast-food bag. Ramirez stepped closer and twirled his hand in a circular motion, indicating the driver should roll down the window.
“License and registration, please,” Ramirez ordered. “Nice and slow.” The man reached into a full glove compartment, coming out with his registration. Pulling his license from his wallet, he handed it to Ramirez, who examined the picture on the license and confirmed the registration was for the vehicle. Satisfied things were in order, he pulled out his ticket pad and flipped to the first page.
“Do you have any idea how fast you were going?” Ramirez asked as he started writing.
“Oscar, we have a situation,” Elaine’s voice lacked its usual calm-in-any-emergency tone.
“What kind o f situation?” Oscar asked, thinking it was going to be one of those days.
“Doug Parker just phoned and said there’s a body in one of the cabins at the park.”
“Call the coroner—or animal control,” Oscar quipped with a chuckle.
“Oscar, this is serious. Doug thinks she’s been murdered.”
“What the hell? Murdered? There’s never been a murder in Emory, as far as I know.”
“I’m just telling you what he said, and you better get to the park ASAP. I have Doug on the phone, and I’ll radio you back with directions to the cabin.” Oscar hung up the mic and got out of the car.
“Let’s go!” he yelled to Ramirez, who stared back at him, confused and unmoving.
“I said, let’s go!” Oscar yelled again. Ramirez returned the driver’s documents, shrugged, and joined Oscar in the patrol car.
† † †
The officers pulled up behind one of the two Jeeps parked in front of the cabin. Doug Parker and his nephew, Carl, stood on the porch.
“What’s going on, Doug?” Oscar climbed up the steps to join them while Ramirez hung back, his hand resting on the butt of his gun.
Doug nodded toward the door. “Carl found a girl in the cabin when he got here this morning.”
“We’re going to take a long look inside.” Oscar pointed to Ramirez. “You two stay here until I say you can go.”
“Now wait a minute,” Doug objected. “Carl found the body, not me. He can stay here. We’ve been standing around here for fifteen minutes waiting for you, and I have work to do.” He started off the porch.
Oscar blocked his way. “Don’t make me arrest you, Doug, ’cause you know I will. You just sit your ass down in one of these porch chairs until I say you can go.”
Oscar entered the cabin, Ramirez slightly behind. They noted the body, then did an interior search, finding no one else. Sensing he’d missed something, Oscar returned to the bathroom, Ramirez following.
“What are you doing?” Ramirez asked as Oscar stared at the bathtub, then reached down and put his hand into the water.
“This water is still warm. Someone, probably the killer, was here when Carl arrived. He might still be nearby,” Oscar said, turning to Ramirez. “Let’s check the perimeter.”
Exiting through the back door, the two officers found dense woods on either side of the cabin and a pristine lake shimmering in the morning sun. The boat dock was empty, as was the water in front of them. Completing a quick perimeter check, they found nothing indicating the direction the killer had gone. They did discover an overgrown path on the side of the cabin leading into the woods.
“Follow it for a half mile, or so,” Oscar told Ramirez. “Someone has to stay here, and I’m too damn old to be running around in the woods. Be careful. I think the killer is long gone by now, but you never know.”
Returning to the girl, Oscar called Elaine to send a forensics team. Taking a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, he pulled them on. He examined the victim’s neck, confirming what he already knew. It was broken, snapped, but most likely the victim hadn’t died instantly; she would have suffocated. He inspected the wound next. It was on her upper arm, and by the sticky square around it, he knew it had been bandaged at one time. A closer look suggested it might have been a tattoo. He checked the bindings; they were tight enough to dig into the skin around her wrists and ankles. The knots were common, so no clues there. The thing that stuck in his mind then was her shoeless feet. He found no shoes in the cabin.
Oscar went outside where Doug and Carl waited. “I know where I can find you, Doug. Get on out of here.”
“You could have told me that about thirty minutes ago.” Doug fumed.
Oscar walked over to Carl, taking Doug’s seat, pulled out a small notebook, and began asking him all the usual questions.
† † †
Ramirez followed the trail into the woods, convinced, as Oscar was, that it was a lost cause. Ten minutes later, Oscar’s voice came over his radio.
“Adrian, are you lost? Do I need to send someone after you?”
Ramirez ignored his ribbing and toggled his walkie. “I found another cabin about a mile from there. I’m going to see if anyone’s home.”
“Okay, but then get your ass back here. The forensics team will be here soon, and we need to get this place taped off before the public arrives.”
Ramirez noted a Ford Explorer parked in front of the cabin as he approached the steps. He pulled his notebook from his pocket and copied the license plate number. Reaching the door, he knocked and waited for a response from inside. Getting no answer, he headed for the side-yard steps that led to a dock behind the cabin. He stopped upon hearing a lock disengage on the door as it opened a crack.
“How can I help you?” a timid voice asked from behind the door.
Ramirez came back to the door, pointing to his badge. “I’m Officer Ramirez from the Emory Police Department. I’m investigating a crime that happened at the cabin about a mile from here. Can I come in for a moment?”
“This isn’t the best time.” The door opened a little wider, revealing a woman in her early thirties, her body wrapped loosely in a towel, water droplets still clinging to her skin.
Ramirez blushed and looked away, then cleared his throat. “Um . . . have you seen or heard anything unusual this morning?”
“Define ‘unusual.’”
“Miss, there’s been a murder, and if you’ve seen or heard anything strange during the past few days that may help us find the killer, I would appreciate it.”
“It’s missus. My husband is fishing. We arrived late last night, and as you can see, I was in the shower.”
Ramirez saw no reason to waste more time. “If you think of anything, call us.” Ramirez handed her his card through the door.
Ramirez headed back to the victim’s cabin, lost in thought about the murder. What a mess this was going to be. A murder in Emory was big news. The press was going to swarm like bees to honey, and Oscar would probably make good on his prediction that he would become the first detective in Emory.
Ramirez got back to the task at hand. He hadn’t seen any indication his first time through that the trail had been traveled recently, but he again searched the ground for fresh footprints and nearby trees for newly broken limbs. Within fifty feet of the cabin, Ramirez spotted a mound of dirt ten feet off the trail. Looking farther, he saw another one. Obviously, the dirt had been dug up and put back, and he chastised himself for not finding it earlier. He found a sturdy stick on the ground and began digging. It quickly broke, so he walked back to the squad car for his utility shovel. He noted the forensics crew had arrived, but he was eager to unearth the dirt mound. More digging revealed a piece of cloth, maybe a bedsheet. Ramirez dug deeper, uncovering what looked to be the wrapped head and neck of a body. Pulling at the sheet, it shredded in his hand, leaving behind the hair of a corpse. He bolted from the body and vomited. He took a minute to regain his composure, then returned quickly to the cabin where Oscar was directing the forensics crew.
“Oscar,” Ramirez said. “There’s more.”
1
Turning the corner onto Superior Street, Paige Decker was blinded by the early morning sun rising above the towering structure of Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She blinked the tears from her eyes, absentmindedly brushing her cheek. She crossed the street, tossing her blond hair back as she joined the flow of pedestrians on the serpentine walkway leading to the hospital entrance. A wail of sirens echoed as ambulances rushed to the emergency entrance on the building’s south side. Although this wasn’t an unfamiliar sound, the number of vehicles foretold a potential catastrophe. Paige had ridden the elevated or L train to the hospital and wasn’t aware of the morning traffic reports. As she stepped through the automatic doors into the air-conditioned hush of the hospital, she prepared herself for the worst.
George, the boisterous seventy-year-old volunteer stationed inside the front door, confirmed her fears. He informed everyone entering the building about a multi-car accident on Interstate-94. Not stopping to gather more information, Paige gave George a nod and a wave of her ID badge. She skirted around the people clustered at the information desk and made her way to the emergency department. As a psychiatrist, Paige usually wasn’t needed in emergencies unless asked to determine a patient’s mental health. In this case, the magnitude of the accident compelled her to offer assistance. She approached the circular command center of the ER, where Jennifer, the head trauma nurse, directed the chaotic scene. Paige scanned the doctor-on-call board, looking for the name of the psychiatric doctor on duty.
