Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  A few steps and I was close enough to kick him in the face, which I did. I wasn’t sure if it knocked him out or not, but it was hard enough to encourage him to remain on the ground a little longer. I then kicked the gun away from him, glanced back at the man on the porch who was still down, and knelt beside Keli, Kayla coming up behind me as sirens sounded in the distance.

  “What’d I miss?” Merrill said.

  He and Anna walked up as two EMTs were loading Keli onto a gurney, while a few others were evaluating the two men under the watchful eye of Dad’s deputies.

  “A little gunplay,” I said.

  “You must not’ve played fair,” he said. “You the only one didn’t get shot.”

  “Kayla remained unleaded as well,” I said.

  Merrill laughed.

  “Laugh it up,” Keli said, her voice soft and strained. “It’s all fun and games until someone gets shot.”

  “You find out what they wanted with Miles?” Merrill asked.

  I shook my head. “They’re not making much sense.”

  “Well, hell,” Merrill said, “you shot one, kicked the shit out the other.”

  “How’d you get so violent?” Anna asked.

  “Cartoons and video games,” I said. “Misspent youth.”

  “Guys,” Keli said, “can we get back to the fact that I was SHOT?”

  “In a minute,” Merrill said. “Right now I want to know how John knew.”

  “Knew what?” I said.

  “That Keli was about to commit several felonies and didn’t just have PMS.”

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  “And if it had been PMS?” he said.

  “Things wouldn’t have gone so smoothly,” Anna said.

  “Or,” Keli added, her voice even weaker now, “turned out so well.”

  The Blood-Red Rec Yard Ruse

  I used to be a cop. Of course, that’s like saying I used to be an alcoholic, and though I wasn’t active at either for very long, both are more about who you are than what you do, so I guess you could say I’m a cop in recovery.

  The title on my business card these days reads Prison Chaplain, but in my heart—some part of my heart anyway—I’ll always be a cop, which is why my Florida Department of Corrections co-workers often call on me for services that are other than clerical.

  Like today, while I was in the middle of a counseling session with Todd Robbins, a racist inmate whose religion, after being processed through the dark filters of his head and heart, was transformed into a dangerous self-righteous hatred.

  “Preacher, you know what the good book says, ‘Do not love the world nor the things in the world.’ Now how you gonna argue with that?”

  Todd Robbins not only looked like an inmate—heavy from the starchy diet, muscular from the weight pile, with short, badly cut hair—he also had the look of a killer. The two pale green, teardrop tattoos at the corners of his vacant eyes testified to the fact even if his life sentence hadn’t.

  “I’m not arguing anything,” I said. “You brought it up. All I’m saying is that the passage you quoted is about oppressive systems—political, economic, religious—not individual people or the planet, both of which God said were good when she created them.”

  “SHE?” he yelled, the sharp smell of tobacco burning my nose as his breath shot across my desk. The cheap tobacco sold in the Potter Correctional Institution canteens had stained his tongue and the tips of his fingers so badly they looked jaundiced. “You mean HE, don’t you?”

  “That’s just as appropriate,” I said.

  “Well, which is it?” he asked.

  “Both,” I said. “Or neither, but—”

  He shook his head and let out a small, mean laugh. “Now God’s a woman?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying,” I said, my sense of futility registering in my voice.

  “That’s what you said.”

  “No. God is no more a woman than a man. What I’m saying is that God is both masculine and feminine. If not, we wouldn’t be in God’s image.”

  When I moved back home to Northwest Florida after being a cop and a cleric in Atlanta, I never would’ve imagined I’d become a prison chaplain. But God works in mysterious ways, and when I fell from grace in Atlanta, this is the grace I fell into.

  Of course, most people wouldn’t call leaving a wife, a good job, and a nice home in North Atlanta to live alone in a dingy trailer in Northwest Florida grace.

  “Adam was created in the image of God,” he said. “Not Eve. Eve was created from Adam ... Like a copy of a copy, it’s not as good as the original. That’s why God gave men authority over women.”

  His brand of benighted religion was prevalent in prison and I was weary of it, and though it was pointless to do so, I couldn’t resist the temptation to get into it with him.

  “Oh?” I said. “I didn’t know she had,” then added with a smile, “and I don’t think they do either.”

  “Damn,” he said as he stood. “You’re so full of shit ... Now look what you’ve made me do. I’m talking like the heathen I used to be.”

  I smiled. Like dry rot seeping through a fresh coat of paint, his true self had once again bled through his carefully constructed facade of religiosity.

  “It’s amazing how often that happens, isn’t it?” I said. “If you’re ever interested in figuring out why, there’s a twelve steps group that—”

  “That shit’s of the devil—diggin’ around in the past. My past is under the blood of Jesus Christ. It’s as if I never done nothin’.”

  I wanted to ask if he thought the same were true for victims and their families, but instead said, “But your past is obviously affecting your present. It’s why you have so much anger in general and toward women in particular.”

  He looked at his watch. “Fuck you,” he said, jumping up. “I can’t take any more of this.” He was opening the door to leave when the phone on my desk rang. He stopped.

  “Chaplain Jordan,” I said into the receiver.

  “Some white boy done gone and gotten hisself killed on the rec yard,” Merrill Monroe said, an underlying amusement in his voice. “Ain’t that some shit? How ’bout gettin’ your crime-solving cracker ass down here ’fore Pete and his fellow fuckups do?”

  I stood to leave immediately. I trusted Merrill with my life. He had, in fact, saved my life on more than one occasion. He was the biggest, blackest boy in our class at Pottersville Elementary School, and our friendship, which began then, had continued through the two decades that had followed.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said to Todd as I stood and walked around my desk.

  He closed the door. “’Fraid I can’t let you do that,” he said.

  He smiled as he pulled the small metal object from his pocket. The shank, a screwdriver filed down to resemble an ice pick with bad intentions, gleamed even in the dull greenish light of the fluorescent tubes.

  “What’re you going to do to me?” I said, trying to make my voice sound tight and frightened.

  “Just relax,” he said, “and say a little prayer for that big nigger you hang around with. For yourself, too, if you don’t do what I tell you.”

  I cringed, as I did every time, at the use of the N-word. After living in the South my whole life, a small Deep South town most of it, I still always found it shocking. In addition to making me late, he was also making me mad.

  “Oh, God. Oh, no. What’re you gonna do to me? Please don’t hurt me,” I said frantically, attempting to sound hysterical as I continued edging slowly toward him.

  “Settle down. I ain’t gonna hurt ya. We’re just gonna set here about twenty minutes and it’ll all be over. Then I’m gonna leave. And you’re gonna forget I’s ever here.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ve forgotten already. You’re right, I do need to pray.”

  When I was within reaching distance of him, I said, “In the name of the Father,” beginning to cross myself, up then down, “the Son,” and then to the left, “and th
e Holy ...” Coming from left to right at the same time I said “Spirit,” I snapped out a hard left jab that connected with his chin. His head jerked back, striking the door, then bounced back. When it did, I hit him again—this time with a hard straight right that hurt my hand. His head repeated the previous motion and he dropped the shank, which hit the thin carpet with a muffled thud a moment before he did.

  In less than a minute, I was rushing out of the chapel with Todd Robbins draped over my shoulder, his shank in my pocket. I paused only long enough to lock the door and glance at my watch. It was 2:45 p.m.—nearly time for shift change, evidenced by the correctional officers entering and exiting the institution, many of whom gave me quizzical glances as I rushed passed them carrying Robbins on my way to the rec yard.

  “Chaplain, what is it?” a new officer named Dale Johnson asked. “Can I help?”

  “Yeah,” I said as I handed him Robbins. “Would you please take him to Medical? Tell them I’ll be back in a few minutes to fill out a report. Tell them to watch him. He’s dangerous.”

  “Sure, okay,” he said. His face was a small round puzzle and his back bent under the weight of Robbins. “He’s heavier than you made him look.”

  Walking as fast as I could, it would take me at least five minutes to reach the rec yard. I picked up my pace, and was soon approaching the center gate.

  Every gate in a prison is actually two gates with a holding area in between called a sally port. The gates are controlled electronically by an officer in a tower or control room.

  The moment I was buzzed through the two center gates, I sensed it. It permeated the air like a foul odor. The smell was the unmistakable aroma of death, and the vultures had begun to swarm. Energy was in the air. Excitement. And the taste for blood.

  The gate leading to the rec yard and the adjacent fence was lined with inmates, all trying to get a glimpse of the body on the softball field. It took a minute for the officers in Tower III to see me and buzz me through, and when they finally did, the inmates standing next to it tried to press through. I discouraged them, and ran through quickly before they figured out that I couldn’t stop them if they insisted.

  The rec yard was nearly empty, which on a beautiful, sunny day like today meant that the inmates had known there was going to be trouble. I ran over to the softball field, jumping the fence rather than running around to the gate. Inside the fence, on the grassy part of the outfield just beyond the shortstop position, were ten inmates and two officers, which didn’t seem fair to the officers, but one of them was Merrill Monroe—still the biggest, blackest man around—which didn’t seem fair to the inmates. The other officer was a woman named Chappel who worked with George Reed, the recreational supervisor. She was as pale as if her body had been drained of its blood, her eyes were glazed over and unfocussed, and her brown correctional officer uniform trembled on her small, shaking frame. Still, she looked better than the bloody body lying at her feet.

  The ten inmates were on their knees in a straight line facing away from the body, their hands clasped behind their heads. I recognized most of them. They were all members of the white supremacy gang Rebel Nation, the very same gang to which Todd Robbins belonged. I had never known them to be violent—ignorance was their specialty.

  Only Merrill could get ten racist inmates to kneel in submission without a weapon. The surprisingly compliant inmates were not only all white, but were also all lifers. My guess was they weren’t putting up a fight because they couldn’t possibly escape, they had nothing to gain and nothing to lose. They had only one life to give.

  When my eyes met with Merrill’s, he nodded toward the body. “Welcome back,” he said with a smile. “How was chaplain training?”

  I moved in for a closer look.

  “They didn’t cover this,” I said.

  He laughed.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked. “I can’t believe there aren’t a hundred officers down here already.”

  “Will be any minute,” he said. “Called you first.”

  The body, for that’s all it was anymore, had been badly beaten, presumably with a baseball bat, and the blue inmate uniform covering it glistened wetly in the afternoon sun. The face was unrecognizable. The blood-covered bat still lay just a few feet away from the body, next to it a pair of the black brogan boots the inmates wore.

  “Why are his shoes off?” I asked.

  “They beat ’em off?” Merrill said with a shrug. “Or maybe he got hit by lightning. I hear that happen sometime when people get struck.” His face remained expressionless, but there was sarcasm in his voice.

  As I looked up at him, I was again reminded of how palpable his physical presence was. His upper body was a perfect V, broad shoulders tapering down into narrow hips, the light brown shirt of his uniform stretching tightly over the muscles in his shoulders, chest, and arms, especially the large round biceps which appeared perpetually flexed.

  “Hell,” he said with another elaborate shrug, “I don’t know. You the fuckin’ Father Brown around here.”

  Returning my attention to the body, I said, “Something’s not right.”

  “You mean ’sides the fact he dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He is dead, ain’t he?”

  “I’m pretty sure,” I said, then glancing over at the Rebels, added, “Whatta they say?”

  “They say he dead, too.”

  Looking back up at Merrill, I gave him an expression that let him know I was ready for a real answer.

  “Say they just found him like this, but they the only ones on the rec yard. Ain’t that a coincidence?”

  Returning my gaze to the inmates again, I asked, “So how’d they get that blood on their uniforms?”

  “Say they tried CPR and shit to save his life. Say they loved him, he was one of their homies and that they wouldn’t hurt him for anything.”

  “Who is he?”

  “What’d you say this con’s name is?” Merrill asked the leader of the gang.

  “Billy Ray Dickens.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, beginning to shake my head.

  “You know him?” Merrill asked.

  “I know all of them,” I said. “They don’t miss Tuesday night Bible study, and ...”

  “That’s right,” the leader said. “Chaplain’s all right, he helps us out when we need it. Like ole Billy Ray, here.” He nodded his head back toward the body of Billy Ray.

  Merrill cut his eyes over toward me. “So what’d you do for ole Billy Ray, here?” he asked as he nodded down toward the bloody mass of flesh at his feet.

  Standing again, I said, “His nine-year-old daughter was raped this past weekend by the man living with his ex-wife. They called me in Saturday night to try to help him deal with it.”

  “You did a good job, too, Chap,” the inmate said again. “You straight up in our book.”

  “You sure about that?” Merrill asked. “You know he’s part black, don’t you?”

  I glanced over at Chappel, who seemed oblivious to everything that was going on. She stared vacantly in the direction of the body. I walked over and patted her on the back, then led her a few steps away and sat her down on the ground facing away from the body.

  “WHAT?” the inmate yelled. “He’s as white as I am.”

  “He look white, but he way too cool not to have some black blood flowing through his narrow white ass,” Merrill said.

  “Right on, bro,” I said in my best uptight white guy voice. Looking over at the inmates, I added, “Of course we’ve all got African blood flowing through our veins.”

  Merrill smiled broadly, pure pleasure registering on his face.

  “WHAT?” the inmate yelled again. “How the hell you figure that?”

  I motioned for Merrill to field his question.

  “Two ways,” Merrill said, ticking the points off on his massive fingers. “Your racist great granddaddies fucked their little slave girls and they became your great grandmothers. But more to the point, you dumb s
on of a bitch, human life originated in Africa.”

  The inmates began their protestations, but stopped as they heard the gate buzz open.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” Merrill said.

  I turned to see thirty light brown shirts pouring through the first gate and into the rec yard sally port. The moment they were all inside, the first gate would be closed, the gate on this side would open, and they would be here.

  “They’ll be here any minute,” Merrill said. “Whatta you think? Which one of them did it? Or did they all do it?”

  “I really don’t understand,” I said, kneeling down beside the body again. “They really were close. I can’t see any of them killing one of their own.”

  “Unless he did somethin’ they didn’t like,” Merrill said. “Maybe this how they let you out the gang.”

  I only vaguely heard him as I concentrated on the body before me. Cigarette papers and a small bag of tobacco protruded from his shirt pocket, above which was the patch that bore his name: Billy Ray Dickens DC# E13334. I had to look closely to see because it was covered with blood.

  Starting to get up again, I noticed his hair.

  In life, Billy Ray had light brown hair, roughly the color of my own. In death, his hair was nearly black. This was, of course, due to all the blood that covered it. However, when I started to stand, I saw a small piece of hair at the base of his neck that was dark brown—nearly black even, and it lacked the glossy, wet look of the other blood-soaked hair. I lifted his head slightly and pushed back the matted hair to find the strands that had caught my eye. They were dark brown, and they were dry. I moved in closer to smell his hair. It smelled of the artificial fruit flavor found in cheap shampoo.

  My mind started racing as I sat up and began examining his hands. They were clean—nails trimmed, fingertips white. I smelled his hands and then his uniform. It was all starting to add up.

  “What the hell you doin’?” Merrill asked.

  “Here, smell this,” I said pointing to the least bloody spot on the inmate’s blue uniform.

  Reluctantly, he smelled it. “Smell like that cheap ass shit they smoke to me.”

  “Now this,” I said as I held the inmate’s hand up.