“Just be very, very careful,” I said. “You’re all making decisions that can affect the rest of your lives.”
“It really is about two of my friends,” she said. “I thought if I told them you said it, they’d listen.”
I laughed.
“You’re very influential,” she said with a wry, self-satisfied smile. She patted my hand and stood up.
“I’ll leave you alone now,” she said. “Thanks.”
When she had climbed back onto the bar chair and laid her head down on the counter next to her school books, I said, “Go get in bed. At least get a couple of good hours.”
She glanced toward the back and the small living quarters she refused to call home, then back at me. “I’d rather just stay here.”
I nodded and smiled at her.
Before I finished my first cup and just about the time Carla dozed off, the cowbell above the door clanged and Anna walked in.
It was the only time in my life I could recall not being happy to see her.
She spoke to Carla, then walked over and slid into the booth across from me.
We sat in silence for a long moment, staring at each other. Her huge brown eyes took me in, and though there was only acceptance and compassion in them, I didn’t like the reflection I saw.
My embarrassment at her seeing my weakness was compounded by how much I needed her, but the self-loathing I felt couldn’t compare to the pain her presence inflicted.
“You okay?” she asked.
“No,” I said bluntly.
“Can I do anything?”
“No,” I said again, shaking my head.
“Have you been drinking?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And more than just coffee.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I shot her a quizzical look.
“For what you saw,” she explained. “For what you’re feeling.”
I couldn’t tell her that part of what I was feeling was anger and frustration at not being allowed to stay and investigate, at being treated like a chaplain and not a cop. In the light of what had happened to Nicole, my self-centered, sophomoric feelings seemed even more silly and superfluous, my hypocrisy more pathetic. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, I was telling her how I wanted to stop investigating so I could concentrate on chaplaincy.
“I can’t know what you’ve seen or what it’s done to you,” she said, “or how much pain you must be feeling.”
I didn’t say anything, just tried to get some of what I needed from the energy of her full attention. Desiring her so strongly and not being able to have her hurt so badly that I couldn’t tell which was stronger, the wounds or the wanting, and I wondered if I had the ability to inflict the same unseen injuries on her.
“But it’s just an excuse you’re using,” she said.
“What?” I asked, my anger flaring.
“You’re drinking because you want to,” she said. “Fine. But don’t use that precious little girl to justify it.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s late,” I said. “I’m a single man. You’re a married woman.”
“John—”she started before I cut her off.
“I’m not your concern,” I said. “Don’t come chasing after me in the middle of the night. Have some self-respect.”
“John,” she said, her stunned tone filling the single syllable with more pain than I thought possible.
“Go home to your husband,” I said.
Which she did, and, as I sat there alone in the comfortless silence, her absence was as palpable as her presence had been.
8
After waking up late at Rudy’s following a fitful few hours sleep in my booth, I raced down the empty stretch of pine tree-lined highway between my trailer and the prison. White clouds filled the sky and the air was fresh and cool, especially for May.
A quick shower had helped revive me, but my head throbbed, aching with every beat of my heart. As I drove, I thought about Nicole and the nightmares her death had resurrected. Like an old black and white film in an empty auditorium, they flickered in the theater of my mind.
I’m running up Stone Mountain, my heart slamming against my breast bone from exertion and the fear of what I’d find when I reached the top. I’m weary and unsteady, a mixed drink of bone-tired fatigue, mental exhaustion, and vodka coursing through my veins. Still I run as fast as I can, but I’m too late. When I reach the top, he releases her, and her body slides down the cold solid granite, following its contours like a tear in the crevices of a wrinkled face.
It was why I didn’t sleep much... why it wasn’t restful when I did, and why I was speeding to work on the empty highway with a hangover and didn’t see the flashing blue lights until they were suddenly reflecting off my rearview mirror.
I pulled my truck to the side of the road and rolled down my window by hand since my old Chevy S10 didn’t have power anything, even when it was new nearly two decades before.
Since my dad was the sheriff of Potter County, and everyone in the small county recognized my truck, I had never been pulled over before. I glanced at my watch. When I looked back up, I caught sight of a young deputy in an ill-fitting green uniform swaggering toward me like John Wayne. The walk alone was enough to let me know it was my younger brother, Jake.
When he reached my window, he flipped open his ticket book and withdrew the small piece of toothpick from the corner of his mouth.
“This ain’t I-75, hot shot,” he said. “You ain’t in Atlanta anymore.”
I shook my head in disbelief. The only thing more absurd than the obviousness of his observation was the fact that it came from Jake, who more than anyone reminded me of just how true it was.
I found his slow, thick drawl more grating than usual, and though the last thing I needed this morning was getting into it with him, I lacked the restraint to resist.
“Thanks for the reminder, Officer,” I said, the sarcasm coming out with an edge that had nothing to do with Jake.
In my mirrors, the official lights on top of his car blinked ominously like silent alarm signals, and the passing drivers slowed to look, shaking their heads or blowing their horns when they recognized us.
Jake and I had never been close, but the enormous gulf between us had grown to infinity because I had moved away and he had not. Before, I had simply not quite fit in. Now, I was an outsider, and in addition to everything else, the gap between us had in many ways become cultural.
“Are you giving me a ticket or what?” I asked in frustration. “I really need to go.”
“What’s the rush?” he asked. “Inmates can’t wait until they’ve had their breakfast to get their religion?”
Sighing heavily and shaking my head, I cranked the truck and put it into gear.
“It’s Dad,” he said.
I killed the engine.
“He radioed and told me to stop you. He said he needs to talk to us. He’s on the way.”
He then swaggered back to his car, where he stayed, his lights still flashing, until Dad arrived a few minutes later.
My first thought was that something had happened to Mom, for it wouldn’t be much longer until someone’s needing to talk to me would involve the news no child wanted to hear. When Dad pulled up without the lights of his Blazer flashing, I could feel a little of the tension leave my body.
As he pulled in behind Jake, I got out of my truck, and we met beside Jake’s car where he leaned against it the way cool cops do, the toothpick back in his mouth.
“Sorry to hold you up, Son,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I said. “What is it?”
Jack Jordan, the longtime sheriff of Potter County, Florida, looked younger than he was, his thick gray hair parted on the side, his dark skin deeply lined, but not wrinkled, and his deer-brown eyes soft and kind. He was fit and trim, especially for a man his age, and strong, but humble, content with a simple life of service, his authority resting gently on him like comfortable clothes.
“Tell me about wh
at happened last night,” he said.
I did.
“Why weren’t we included in the investigation?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t either,” I said. “They sent me home.”
“Do you know how I found out?”
I shook my head.
“At the coffee shop,” he said. “I’m tired of not being included in the cases that involve the prison.”
“It’s as bad as havin’ a fuckin’ military base in our jurisdiction,” Jake said.
Waiting with nothing to say, I shifted my weight, noticing the wet grains of sand that stuck to the sides of my shoes and the dewbeaded grass blades clinging to the tassels on top. All around us, in the midst of seemingly endless rows of pine trees, the forest was waking up. Birds darted between the trees, piercing the last of the sun-filtering fog.
“I’m not saying I have to run the investigations,” Dad said, “but not to ever even be included makes me wonder if maybe something’s being covered up. I don’t know, it’s just disrespectful and...”
“You’re right. It is,” I said. “I should’ve called you, but I was in no condition. I’m sorry.”
The peaceful morning sounds of the rousing woods were interrupted by the crude mechanical noises of a diesel engine as a loaded log truck flew past us. We all turned our heads and closed our eyes as its wind-wake swirled sand and bits of trash around us, stinging our faces and tossing our hair.
“I’m not blaming you,” he said.
“I know,” I said, “but you’re right. You should be included.”
“Hell, yeah, he should,” Jake said. “It’s his county.”
Ignoring Jake, Dad said, “I’ve got a meeting scheduled with your warden, the secretary of the department, and a representative from the governor’s office.”
I nodded, not knowing quite what to say.
“Sorry to hold you up,” he said again, hesitating, and I knew there was something else he wanted to say.
I waited.
He looked down the long stretch of empty highway, then back at me. “In the meantime we’ll be doing a little investigation of our own.”
I nodded.
“And I’d like your help,” he said.
I could tell he found it difficult to ask, and I felt an awkward embarrassment for him.
“You helping with their investigation?” he asked.
“Whether they want me to or not.”
“Will you keep me informed?” he asked. “Let me do my job and be involved?”
How could I say no to the man who had never said no to me?
Nodding vigorously, I was amazed at how, even as a grown man, I still longed to please him and yearned for his approval.
9
“Have you seen the news?” Pete Fortner, the institutional inspector asked.
Obviously uncomfortable in dress shirt and tie, Pete was a short man with a round middle, thick wavy black hair going gray, glasses, and a couple of chins. He looked like a little boy playing grownup as he sat in Stone’s enormous executive chair at the head of the table.
I shook my head wearily.
We were sitting in the conference room in the admin building where, in a few minutes, he was going to take my witness statement and interview me, recording both on audio and video tape.
Pete was sitting where Nicole had, and my mind intermittently superimposed her image over his. When we weren’t talking, I could hear the sounds of crayons rubbing paper and the echo of Nicole’s voice in the room.
“Top story on every station,” he said. “Front page of several papers. Governor issued the Caldwells an official apology and condolences and thanked them for all they’re doing for God and our great country.”
I shook my aching head in disbelief. I still couldn’t believe it. Perhaps I was in shock. Maybe it was just denial. Whatever it was, I was experiencing a disconnect, a form of spiritual self-preservation, for nothing made me question my faith in goodness—in God—like the death of a child.
The admin conference room was adjacent to the warden’s office. In fact, one of Stone’s doors opened into it. It was a large, plush room with an oak bookcase with glass doors built into the back wall and a massive matching conference table in the center. The handcrafted table and bookcase, with their detailed carvings and smooth, glossy finish, were far too extravagant for a state agency, especially a prison, but it was precisely because this was a prison that we had them. Like most things around here, including the prison itself, the furniture had been built by inmates—these by the best craftsmen available at the time.
“Amazingly enough, Stone’s still got a job,” Pete continued. “Somebody’s lookin’ out for him. Regional director, I guess. Of course, if he hadn’t followed proper procedure to the letter, no one could’ve saved him.”
“Proper procedure?” I asked.
“NCICs, clearance memos, approval of the regional director.”
“He had all that, did he?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Unless you know something I don’t, which has been known to happen from time to time.”
“He didn’t do the background checks or run a single thing through the proper channels.”
Behind his glasses, Pete’s eyes slowly grew wide.
“You know Bobby Earl’s head of security is Stone’s nephew,” I said.
He nodded. “What I just learned this morning is that Bobby Earl’s related to the regional director.”
“So they let their relatives come into a maximum security prison with a minor without following proper procedure and a little girl got killed,” I said, more to myself than Pete.
We were silent for a moment, then I said, “I know you don’t have to, but I’d appreciate it if you’d call Dad occasionally and let him know what’s going on out here—especially when there’s a murder.”
“Sure, no problem,” he said. “I’ve thought I should do that, but I just forget. I’ll start doing it. I promise.”
“Thanks.”
As usual, the conference room was cold, its window covered with condensation. Through it, the officers standing in front of the control room and the inmates cleaning the visiting park looked distorted, like objects seen through a raindrop-dotted windshield.
“Okay. You ready?” he asked.
I nodded, and he turned on the recorders, introduced himself, noting the date and time.
“Let’s start with what you did when Mrs. Caldwell came out of your office screaming,” he said.
And, cognizant of the red record lights on the audio and video devices, I told him my story:
“I motioned for Coel to get backup, my mind splitting into two halves, and I heard two distinct voices. One said, preserve the crime scene. The other, preserve her dignity. So, I tried my best to do both.
“I stepped into the office and closed the door. I then knelt beside her and checked her pulse, though it was purely academic. There was no question that the battered body before me was lifeless.
“Reaching into the garbage can next to my desk, I withdrew part of a plastic sandwich bag and used it to pick up the receiver and punch in the security emergency number.
“Within seconds, security officers poured into the chapel and helped Coel quiet the crowd of unruly and upset inmates, a few of whom had gathered around Bobby Earl and Bunny and had begun to pray for them.
“In a matter of minutes, the chapel was empty of inmates, and only Coel, myself, and the Caldwells remained. I helped them up off the floor and onto the front pew where they sat in silence, tears rolling down their cheeks.
“I stepped back into my office to look around when the trauma support team’s first responders ushered the Caldwells out of the chapel.
“Then I heard a sound like someone attempting to open the door, which was followed by a quick knock and I looked up to see the institutional inspector, Pete Fortner, through the glass pane in the door that opened in from the hall. I noted that the door was locked. The inspector came in. You know the rest.”
Through the moist window behind Pete, I could see that the small group of officers standing in front of the control room were laughing and cutting up like this was any other day. Their insensitivity and the inappropriateness of their actions enraged me, and I had the urge to go out and pick a fight with them so they could beat me up.
“Did you notice anything unusual at the crime scene?” he asked. “Or on or about the victim?”
The victim.
I thought about Nicole again—saw her drawing, pictured her wide smile, heard her small voice.
“The corner of something sticking out from underneath her left side.”
“Any idea what it was?” he asked.
“A greeting card, I think. I give them out to the inmates each month. There was a stack on my desk at the time of... the murder. I assume they’re still there.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Over on the floor under the window was what looked to be a small pink marble.”
“Do you know what it was?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Could it have been a piece of candy?”
I thought about it. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess it could’ve.”
“Okay,” he said. “Good... Had you worked with the Caldwells before?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t know them. Still don’t, not really. I mean, I’ve seen them on TV a time or two, but Mr. Stone set up this program. I wasn’t notified about it until the day it was scheduled to take place.”
“So you had nothing to do with the program?”
“Nothing.”
“Why were you there?”
“Just checking in on them,” I said. “When a program’s being conducted by someone I don’t know, I try to stop by. And since this service had the unprecedented dimension of having a child involved...”
“Did you disturb anything at the crime scene?”
I shook my head. “Just what I told you. I closed the door, felt for a pulse, and used the phone.”
“Thank you,” he said. He then switched off both recording devices and sat back down. “So what the hell really happened?”
“The warden approved an ex-offender and a minor to enter the institution without going through the proper procedure or providing adequate security,” I said, “and the minor got killed.”
Six John Jordan Mysteries Page 21
