Judas Kiss

J.T. Ellison

had been set up for the field command station. “Fine. Call me whatever you want. Just put that degree in. I spent too much money not to use the title.”

“Anyway, ” Taylor said, getting their attention back from their game. “Sam, we were about to make entry on the scene. I haven’t been inside yet. Parks says the victim is a female Caucasian, pregnant and toasting. So let’s get this over with, okay?”

Fitz looked over to the neighbor’s house. “I think I’m go

Taylor watched him go. Good. Two birds, one stone.

“We set, Parks?”

Parks nodded. “Tim’s here too, ready to go.” Tim Davis was the lead criminalist for Metro Nashville police. He’d started in the Medical Examiner’s office as a death investigator, then moved over to Metro in anticipation of their eventual establishment of a crime lab. Taylor always enjoyed working with the young man. He was very serious about his craft.

“No time like the present.” Taylor started for the door, Sam right behind her. The videographer was on the narrow porch, camera on the boards between her feet, ready to document their walk through. Taylor didn’t recognize her. Tim Davis was waiting patiently, kit in hand.

“Hey, Tim,” Taylor said.

“Morning, LT. Dr. Loughley. Have you met Keri McGee yet? She’s going to be doing the video feed for us this morning.”

A su

Taylor held her hand up. “It’s good to have you. I’d Judas Kiss

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shake, but I’m already gloved. Welcome to Nashville. You just stick to my six and we’ll be fine. If you need to boot, try to get back outside and don’t screw up the scene, okay?”

“Sure thing, ma’am.”

Taylor fought the urge to snap. Jesus, girl, don’t call me ma’am. I’m not old enough to be your mother. Instead, she smiled and stepped into the house. Rotten chicken. That’s what the first olfactory note identified. Just as quickly, the coppery scent of blood, the stink of putrefaction and decomposing flesh, and a sweet, almost perfumelike scent. Not air freshener. Hmm. Taylor’s eyes adjusted as her subconscious mind worked its way through the instinct to flee. It wasn’t a natural smell, and her heart raced for a moment. A normal first reaction, borne of self-preservation, would be to get the hell out of there. A couple million years of evolution warned her—there’s danger here. She’d felt it before, knew it would pass in a second. She let herself adjust, breathing through her mouth. Sam was by her side, doing the same thing. They were trained to make it go away. Taylor let her eyes wander the room in front of her. She was standing in a marble-floored foyer. There was a table against the closest wall with pictures in silver gilt frames—happy, smiling newlyweds against a summer-wooded backdrop. The stairs were directly to her right, hardwood covered in an ivory Berber ru

J.T. Ellison

Every few inches there were tiny crimson footprints. Little heels here, little toes there. They looked like mouse trails, in and out, back and forth, leading up and down the stairs, into the great room, and Taylor could see they trailed into the kitchen on the far side of the dining room. They were everywhere; some light, barely pink enough to mar the carpet, some outlines or edges. Closer to the stairs, a few were dark, almost seeming they would be wet to the touch. Sam drew in a deep, sharp breath.

Taylor forced her brain to shut off that emotional center which would allow her to acknowledge the desperation the child must have felt to be wandering around the house, her mother’s blood on her bare feet.

“This is Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson,” she said aloud for the benefit of the video camera. “I am the lead investigative officer at this crime scene, 4589

Jocelyn Hollow Court. I’m going to do one pass through the lower part of the structure.” Nodding at Sam, she went to the right, into the dining room, avoiding the blood. Sam picked her way after Taylor. Tim and Keri followed, the group moving as one, silently assessing.

The footprints wended their way through the dining room, under the table, and back into the kitchen. There was no rhyme or reason to the pattern, just a nomadic line of passage, typical of a youngster moving aimlessly about her home. Some areas were just faint impressions, blotches, and some were well formed. That made sense to Taylor. The blood would wear off after enough steps. With a child, her uneven toddling tread would account for the inconsistencies.

The dining room had a door that separated it from Judas Kiss

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the kitchen, but it was propped open with a stuffed cat doorstop. The door was white, a six-paneled French style, covered with what looked like cherry juice finger-paints. Taylor knew what they really were; the little girl had swept her bloody hand along the door as she walked from room to room.

The kitchen was baby-proofed, with locking mechanisms on all the below counter cabinets. The smell of rot was more prevalent, and Taylor spied a Wild Oats bag with a package of chicken in the deep stainless steel sink. Well, that accounted for the stink downstairs. If the victim hadn’t talked to her sister for two days, and the chicken was coming back to life, then there was a good chance she’d been dead at least a day. Taylor only put chicken in the sink if she needed to defrost it and had the time to do so. That would give a convenient timeline—a day to thaw and a day to start smelling. Though it just as easily could be the victim came home from grocery shopping and didn’t get all the packages stored before her assailant appeared. They’d need a liver temp or a potassium level from the vitreous fluid for something more accurate, but it was a start. Never assume, that was her mantra. Fruit in a basket on the granite countertop, an empty carton of organic fat-free milk, an empty yogurt container…if Taylor was going to guess, it looked like the victim had just finished eating breakfast before she vacated the room and got herself killed.

An answering machine hung on the wall, the red light indicating new messages blinking.

“Be sure someone gets those messages,” Taylor said to Tim.

Sam made a noise in the back of her throat. “I was 42

J.T. Ellison

pla

The videographer didn’t comment, and Taylor shot her a glance. Keri wasn’t fazed, was simply documenting. Excellent. Taylor caught Sam’s eye and smiled. Always the jokester.

“Let’s head up.” Taylor walked slowly from the kitchen through the great room, back to the foyer, the group in her wake. The stair had a landing halfway up and turned to the left. There was blood smudged up and down the stair ru

“Baby that small can’t get up and down with a normal stepping motion. She’d have to drag herself up step by step, on her hands and knees, slide down on her bottom. If she was covered in blood…”

“Oh.” The image was vivid in Taylor’s mind. Placing their feet in between the splashes of color, they made their way to the second floor.

“Baby gate isn’t up,” Sam noticed. “Get a shot of that, would you, Keri?”

“That explains how she was able to wander the house.” Taylor took in the setup.