Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  “He say why?”

  “Says he wore out his last pair and is scheduled to get a new pair this week. And get this. The shoe prints we found in the blood were made by a pair of boots that belonged to Justin.”

  I thought about that for a moment.

  “He wasn’t wearing them when we found him,” he said. “He had on tennis shoes. Boots were under his bunk.”

  I said, “So, what, he lost most of his blood, got up, stood in it with his boots on, then changed into tennis shoes before he got into his bunk?”

  “This one’s a dandy, isn’t it? Can’t imagine we’ll ever figure out exactly what happened. Be daises if we do.”

  My head hurt, I was tired, and the continual conundrums of this case were getting to me. After a while, I said, “He had on boots when he returned from his visit.”

  “You sure?”

  I nodded. “I can still picture him walking in.”

  Daniels shook his head. “The hell we gotten ourselves into?”

  “Did you talk to Hawkins?”

  “Yeah,” Daniels said. “Says he didn’t do it.”

  “You cross him off the list? How many we down to now?”

  “Says he came in from medical, went straight to his bunk, and went to sleep. Didn’t even stir until the officer woke him up, searched him, and took him to a cell in the other quad. Said he knew about Menge, of course, but didn’t work his case. Says if he did what they said he did, he’s sick, but he wouldn’t kill him over it.”

  “Compassionate guy. What about Martinez?”

  “He was at Mass because he’s been a good Catholic since he was a boy. He’s very devout—when he’s not committing murder and violating women. Says if Menge was gonna testify against him it’s because I was settin’ him up. Says he’s an innocent man who’ll be gettin’ out soon and he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.”

  “I see a pattern emerging,” I said. “Everyone’s innocent and being set up.”

  “It’s alarming. How could our criminal justice system have come to this?”

  I held my hands up, palms facing him. “One mystery at a time.”

  I found myself relaxing around Daniels, enjoying his company. The very fact that we were able to quip and banter showed how far we had come. Previous times with him—both at family gatherings and in work situations—had been strained and humorless. If any humor had occurred it was mean spirited and at my expense.

  “I should’ve talked to Martinez,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking. You shouldn’t’ve had to do that.”

  “It’s okay. I’m still gonna get him the right way. Now, if I saw him on the street . . .”

  “Any word on the woman who was in there before the service yet?”

  They both shook their heads.

  I looked at my watch, then glanced out the window toward the sally port.

  “We keepin’ you from somethin’?” Daniels asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Be sure to let us know when we are,” he said. “Wouldn’t want a little thing like a murder investigation to get in the way of your plans.”

  “Thanks.”

  He shook his head. “How about you? You got anything?”

  I nodded, and told them about Michael Pitts.

  “There’s Pitts’ motive,” Daniels said. “Concealment of a crime.”

  “We gotta find that fuckin’ disc,” Pete said.

  “If it exists,” Daniels said. “Sounds like penitentiary lore to me.”

  “Merrill thought the same thing,” I said.

  “You’re talking with him about my case?” Daniels asked.

  I glanced at my watch again, then nodded.

  “I’d rather you not do that.”

  “I know.”

  “So you’re going to stop?”

  I smiled. “Right away.”

  I stood up.

  “Where’re you going?” Daniels asked.

  “To see if I can find out about the disc.”

  “You need backup?” Pete asked.

  “Not likely,” I said. “It’s Jacqueel Jefferson.”

  “Why don’t we come anyway?” Daniels said, starting to stand.

  “Because,” I said, “there’s a chance he might talk to a chaplain. There’s no chance he’ll talk to an inspector. If you really want to help, you can fill in here. Do some counseling, say some prayers, spread some love.”

  “Think my time would be better spent taking another crack at Sobel and Pitts,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I’m goin’ to hell, but if I did what you suggest there’d be no doubt.”

  16

  “I didn’t have any reason to kill him,” Jacqueel Jefferson said. “Hell, I even help make that little home movie of his.”

  We were seated in the entrance of the security building while the transport officer pulled the van into the sally port. Jefferson was cuffed and shackled and would soon be transported to Broward County for an outside court hearing.

  “I heard about that,” I said. “Any idea where the disc is?”

  He shook his head. “If I did, I’d tell you. I liked Justin. I didn’t have any reason to kill him.”

  “Doesn’t mean you didn’t do it. Someone could’ve hired you.”

  “I’m not that type of ho. Someone did offer to pay me to eighty-six his narrow white ass, but I told ‘em I’d rather earn my money the old-fashioned way.”

  Jacqueel Jefferson was so emaciated, his skin stretched so tightly across his bones, I wondered if he was terminally ill. He peered out at me warily from sunken eyes, his bald head gleaming in the dull flourescent light. He was in his mid-twenties, but looked to be dead.

  “How’s that?”

  “Blow jobs,” he said with a big smile. “Takin’ it up the ass. I make a good livin’ in here eatin’ sin. Didn’t need his money.”

  I was sure his explicit comments were supposed to shock me, so I didn’t even blink. It wasn’t just that I heard far worse every day, I didn’t want him controlling the interview.

  “Whose?” I asked.

  “Whose sin?” he asked.

  “Whose money?”

  “Mike Hawkins.”

  “You sure gave him up fast,” I said.

  He shrugged, his chains rattling against each other. “I don’t like his racist ass. Lot of black folk go missin’ in Pine County. Hawkins’s old man done most of ‘em, but I hear old junior’s done his fair share.”

  Through the steel-reinforced glass of the door and the chain-link fence and razor wire of the pedestrian sally port, I watched as the front gate of the vehicle sally port opened and the transport van pulled in, the second gate never opening, never giving the inmates inside even a glimpse of a world without steel. The front gate then rolled back to its closed position as the officer parked and secured the van.

  “So Hawkins wanted him dead? But who did it?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. I still don’t know how they did that shit.”

  “Whose smart enough to pull it off?”

  He shook his head. “Theys some dumb motherfuckers in this place.”

  I smiled. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “You go ahead and think I’m stupid if it means I won’t take the fall for cuttin’ that cracker up.”

  “Anybody else we should be lookin’ at besides Hawkins?”

  “His bitch.”

  “Whose?”

  “Menge’s,” he said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Sobel. What if he got tired of being the woman? Or what if Menge been lookin’ at some fresh meat?”

  “Had he?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. But he was one horny bastard. Wore Sobel’s ass out. Shame, too. Such a fine ass.”

  “But as far as you know, they got along well?”

  “Enough for con queens. I never heard either of ‘em complain. And they never gave me the time of day. Guess they don’t like dark meat.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Pot
ter.”

  A loud electronic hum and click sounded as the new chief correctional officer of the institution, Colonel Rish, was buzzed into the holding area where we sat. He glanced at me when he walked by, but didn’t say anything. He walked over to the door of the hallway that led to his office, but surprisingly, the officer in the control room became distracted with paper work and forgot he was there.

  “Sergeant Potter?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer at first. He was too busy trying to scratch his nose, which with his cuffed hands chained to his waist wasn’t easy to do.

  When the lock finally did buzz, the colonel snatched the door open, marched through it, and slammed it shut.

  “He the dirtiest son of a bitch in here.”

  “Who?”

  “Potter. Worse than any convict. Do whatever the hell he want. Gets away with anything.”

  “What does that have to do with Menge’s death?”

  “Menge wrote his ass up,. Wasn’t gonna take it no more. Justin never act like no inmate. Always fightin’ for this or that. Potter threaten him all the time.”

  “Did you see a woman in the PM unit on the evening of the murder?” I asked. “Before the Mass.”

  He nodded.

  Not many women went into the PM unit. It was probably a classification officer, a psyche specialist, or someone from the business office. There was a good chance he knew her.

  “You recognize her?”

  He shook his head, seemed uninterested. “Naw.”

  “She an employee? Someone you’d seen before?”

  He shook his head, then looked over at the door.

  The transport officer was buzzed into the holding area. “It’s time to go, Jefferson.”

  “It’s a convenient time to be going to outside court,” I said.

  “Yeah. The entire criminal justice system is conspiring to get me out of the institution so when you finally figure out I the one what killed him I’a be workin’ on my tan in Miami.”

  “You had to know about this the night of the murder.”

  He raised his eyebrows in appreciation. “You may be right. But seriously, try to have this thing wrapped up by the time I get back. I hate confinement. Bein’ alone all day. Nothing or no one to do.”

  “I imagine it is tough on a people person like yourself,” I said.

  17

  “I used to work for your dad,” Brad Rish said. “Back before they built the prison. I hadn’t been out of high school long. I was a deputy for almost three years.”

  Brad Rish, the new colonel of PCI, was a well-built man in his early forties with fine, wispy hair and a thin mustache. Almost the opposite in every way from the previous chief correctional officer he replaced, Rish was friendly, intelligent, and a native.

  “Your dad’s a good administrator,” he continued. “I try to pattern my leadership style after him. He puts his people first and always backs ‘em up.”

  We were under the small covered area behind the security building. Rish was seated on the aluminum bench, which, like all the chairs, benches, and tables in the institution, was bolted down. He was smoking a short cigar and watching as inmates came up to the property room window to send out packages or settle property disputes. I had been walking back to the chapel from talking to Jacqueel Jefferson when, without preamble, he had started talking to me.

  For a moment neither of us said anything.

  Finally, as if it had just occurred to him, he said, “Was inmate Jefferson botherin’ you?”

  Now we came to the real reason he had stopped me.

  “We were just talking.”

  “About what?”

  I shot him a look. The question was inappropriate, and I tried to let him know. “Various things.”

  He nodded.

  The inmates in front of the property window were unusually quiet and orderly, the sergeant inside calmer and more patient. The colonel’s presence, even while taking a smoking break, had a potent effect.

  “You working the Menge homicide?” he asked.

  “Just helping Daniels,” I said. “His case.”

  He nodded. “He told me you were. You two’re related somehow, aren’t you?”

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  “They say you’re a good investigator,” he said. “You’d just moved to Atlanta when I went to work for your dad and all I heard from everyone was what a loss not having you was.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that.

  “But I’d think it’d be hard to be a good chaplain and conduct an investigation.”

  “Never said I was good.”

  “Everyone else around here does. Everywhere I go I hear how good you are—no matter what you do.”

  His voice had filled with what sounded like a challenge.

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” I said.

  “I don’t,” he said, then smiled, but a hardness had changed the timbre of his voice. “And I wouldn’t want you to lose that good reputation of yours.”

  “Well, thanks for looking out,” I said, and started to leave.

  “Wait,” he said, standing and extinguishing what was left of his cigar. “Step in my office for a minute.”

  Without waiting for a response, he opened the door to the security building and walked in. I followed.

  When we were seated in his office, he said, “I understand my predecessor gave you some trouble.”

  “He wasn’t crazy about me helping out with investigations.”

  “Well, I just wanted you to know that as long as your chaplaincy duties don’t suffer, you won’t have any problems from me, and if I can ever help you I will.”

  Though he was responsible for the overall security of the institution, I didn’t answer to Brad Rish—I worked with the assistant warden of programs and answered directly to the warden—and his comments were overreaching and challenging.

  “I’ll take you up on that. Officer Pitts and Sergeant Potter were both in G-dorm the night Menge was killed.”

  His forward leaning face and raised eyebrows told me he wanted more.

  “What can you tell me about them?”

  “Nothing. I’m still trying to meet everyone. I wouldn’t know them if I ran into them out of uniform.”

  Unlike the previous colonel, Rish kept his office clean and organized. Nothing was out of place. None of his many marksman trophies or numerous framed citations had even the slightest hint of dust on them. There were no piles of paper, no stacks of file folders, no indication that any work actually took place here, though I knew it did.

  “Why was it just the two of them?” I asked.

  “I asked the OIC about it . . . Said it couldn’t be helped. They were just so shorthanded they were operating in critical. He called several officers at home, but couldn’t find anyone willing to come back in.”

  “I thought if it was critical they didn’t have a choice?”

  “Well, maybe they didn’t answer their phones. Point is, he had to work with what he had. I’m sure if he spoke to officers that weren’t willing to come in, he wrote them up.”

  “Did Menge write Potter up recently?”

  His gaze quickly darted over to the grievance on the corner of his otherwise empty desk. Realizing his mistake, he quickly looked back at me, but it was too late.

  “No,” he said, but it lacked conviction.

  “You sure?”

  “Positive,” he said.

  “What about Pitts?”

  He shook his head.

  “There’s a rumor of a video showing Pitts giving Menge a particularly brutal tune-up.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  “And?”

  “I’d like to see it. But until I do, it’s just a rumor. Prison’s full of them. I’ve heard a few on you.”

  I smiled. “But you don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “Let me tell you what I do believe. I believe in backing up my men. Just like your dad. The single worst thing
for morale in such a difficult job is having a colonel who won’t back you up.”

  I understood what he was communicating, and it contradicted what he’d said earlier about being supportive and helping me when I needed it.

  “But there’s a big difference between backing up and covering up,” I said.

  He twisted his lips, raised his eyebrows, and shrugged. “Sometimes not as big as you might think.”

  18

  When I stepped out of the security building, Merrill was waiting for me with a big smile on his face. His expression was one of genuine pleasure, and it made him look like the little boy I had known in childhood.

  “Guess who’s in the infirmary with cuts and scratches?” he asked.

  “One of the inmates in the PM quad the night Menge was murdered.”

  “Yeah. Carlos Matos. And guess who lined up a little two on one interview with him?”

  “You.”

  “And guess who gonna play the bad cop?”

  “You again,” I said. “It’s a lot harder to pull off in a clerical collar.”

  “You good at this game. We need to get your ass on Jeopardy or some shit like that.”

  As we walked toward the medical building he said, “You goin’ to Atlanta this weekend?”

  “Leave later today.”

  “Things workin’ out between you and your new old lady?”

  “Better than I ever would’ve expected,” I said.

  The inmates walking along the sidewalk toward us split apart like the Red Sea for Merrill to pass through as if he were Moses himself, but it wasn’t the rod of God they feared. Some of them spoke to him, but he didn’t acknowledge any of them, just continued talking to me. I nodded to them, but it didn’t seem to be any consolation.

  “So you not gonna do anything about Anna?”

  “What can I do?” I asked. “We’re both married.”

  “What marriage got to do with destiny?”

  I stopped, a broad smile spreading across my face in reaction to the man who never ceased to amaze me. “Romantic bastard, aren’t you?”

  “Some kind a bastard,” he said.

  “I’ll always love Anna, but what I now have with Susan—or have the potential to have is . . .”