Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  Turning to the back corner, she said, “Is that a video camera?”

  I nodded.

  “So the whole thing’s on—”

  “There’s no tape in it,” I said.

  She frowned and shook her head. “That would’ve been too easy,” she said.

  “I guess so.”

  “You want me to put it in my cabin for safekeeping?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “Really.”

  “It’ll need to be processed like everything else,” I said. “We need to be very careful not to disturb anything.”

  She nodded, and looked around the room some more.

  “Do you feel that?” she said. “There’s a... presence here.”

  I nodded. “It’s palpable.”

  “You rarely encounter this kind of concentrated evil, do you?”

  “Well, I work in a maximum security prison, so I do actually, but I know what you mean.”

  “There’s something truly wicked going on. We’re all in danger. It’s ancient and it’s evil. Sorry, but it’s so strong.”

  I waved off her apology and nodded my agreement.

  “What’s in the chair?” she asked.

  “I was just about to take a look when you knocked.”

  “Well, don’t let me stop you.”

  Careful to avoid the blood, I crossed the room again, this time with Kathryn in tow. Holding on to my arm, she walked right behind me, pressing herself into me when I stopped at the chair.

  Slowly, I sifted through the clothes, Kathryn looking over my shoulder. Stacked on a pair of shoes with socks in them were a pair of women’s jeans, a button-down white shirt, bra, and panties.

  “Isn’t that what Tammy was—”

  “Yeah,” I said, “it is.”

  Next to the neat stack of clothes, a Bible, a book of Catholic rites and rituals, a bottle of holy water, and a rosary looked to have been dropped unceremoniously. With the very tip of my index finger, I lifted the cover of the Bible by its edge and looked inside. Near the bottom corner of the first page an embossed logo read “Library of Father Thomas Scott,” with the initials TDS in the center.

  “What does it say?” Kathryn asked.

  I told her.

  She shook her head. “There’s got to be some mistake. He could never—someone must be trying to set him up.”

  “Could be, but we all saw her leave the dining hall with him just a few hours ago.”

  “Which is probably why someone thought they could set him up.”

  “Possibly, but for what? We don’t even know what we’re dealing with here.” Nodding toward the bed, I added, “That could be his blood.”

  If it were possible, she grew even paler. “Oh, God, please no. It can’t be.”

  “I hope it’s not,” I said. “My point is, we just don’t know.”

  “Yes we do,” Steve said from behind us.

  We turned. He was standing in the open door, eyes wide, hands shaking—and not just from the cold.

  “Tammy’s dead,” he said, his voice breaking, “and Father Thomas killed her.”

  11

  The canopy covering the narrow blood-stained path blocked out much of the moonlight, and we stumbled on exposed pine, oak, and cypress roots as we slowly negotiated our way around the lake. Occasional breaks in the foliage caused intermittent patches of the path to be bathed in a pale phosphorous glow that washed out the grass and leaves and made the splatters of blood on them look black.

  Steve was in front with a large black metal flashlight he had retrieved from his Explorer. I was following close behind, attempting to step where he had. Kathryn had gone to call for backup and an ambulance.

  “How much farther?” I asked.

  “Not far,” he said. “Guess I should get my other gun back.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “the weight of it in my jacket pocket feels pretty damn good.”

  “Thought you were supposed to be comforted by his rod and staff.”

  I let that one go and we walked along in silence for a few minutes.

  The wind sounded like whispered voices warning us to turn back, and I could’ve sworn I heard a lonely loon across the lake.

  “Was he attempting to hide her down here?” I asked.

  “Not when I found him.”

  “Why didn’t you bring him back with you?”

  “I want to take pictures of the scene just the way I found it,” he said.

  “You didn’t have cuffs, did you? How’d you subdue him?”

  “Didn’t have to.”

  “What makes you think he’ll be there when you get back?”

  “You’ll see.”

  What I saw was two people unconscious and covered in blood, but it was Tammy’s blood and, unlike Father Thomas, she would never regain consciousness.

  They were in a small moonlit clearing next to the Intracoastal Waterway. Father Thomas was slumped against the base of an oak tree, his head hanging down, Tammy, several feet away facedown in the dirt, her naked, blood-splattered body looking black and white in the moonlight.

  Though there was little doubt, I had to ask, “Are you sure she’s dead?”

  He nodded. “I checked.”

  “I’m very sorry,” I said.

  “Thanks. We weren’t very close, but still...”

  We were quiet for a while, the sound of our breathing joining the frogs and crickets and wind whining though the woods all around us.

  After a few moments, he pulled a small camera out of his jacket pocket and began to snap pictures of the crime scene, methodically working from wide, establishing shots all the way down to close-ups. The bright flashes of light added an eerie dimension to the already horrific scene, its intermittent overexposure of the bodies as disconcerting as lightening without thunder. When he was finished taking the pictures, I said, “Can we lay him down now and take a closer look at his wounds?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “but what wounds?”

  I carefully laid Father Thomas onto the cold, damp ground, wondering if he might not have been better in his previous position, and checked him for abrasions and contusions. Scratches covered his face, cuts and bruises, his hands, and a gash in his head left blood in his hair and a bump beneath.

  “Bump on his head’s pretty bad,” I said. “Must be what knocked him out.” Glancing back at the tree, I saw traces of blood and hair on the end of a broken branch. “Looks like he hit the tree.”

  Pulling out his camera again, Steve took pictures of the spot from various angles.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” he said. “He binds her to the bed and starts to do stuff to her. At some point, something happens—he goes too far, she changes her mind—something, and they begin to struggle. In the process, she gets beaten and cut up pretty bad and loses a lot of blood, but somehow she fights back and gets free. She runs out of the cabin, down the trail, bleeding all the way. He follows her. She makes it here to the clearing, they fight some more, and either he hurts her some more and accidentally stumbles and hits the tree or she pushes him into it.”

  “It’s a theory,” I said, “but why run down here instead of to another cabin or a dorm for help?”

  “Disoriented, dazed, confused—being half-dead and several quarts low’ll do that to you.”

  “You sure you’re okay to work this one?” I asked. “Maybe you should—”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve got to work it. No way I’m turning family over to someone else. Why be a cop?”

  “I know, but the case needs someone with some objectivity.”

  “Like you?”

  “No. Didn’t mean me.”

  “Well, whoever you meant, just forget it,” he said. “I appreciate your help so far and I know what you’re saying’s right, but it’s not gonna happen, so just drop it.”

  I dropped it.

  “Father Thomas is not a young man,” I said, “and he’s spent many years living a very s
edentary life. You really think he could catch her if she were running away from him?”

  “She had to be weak from all the blood loss.”

  “Still.”

  “You know how these things work,” he said. “Never an answer for everything.”

  “Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to find one.”

  He looked over at Tammy again and shook his head. “Still can’t believe she’s dead.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “Fuckin’ raped and beaten and stabbed—”

  I thought about that.

  “What?” he asked.

  “If this is rape or sexually motivated—”

  “If?” he asked. “He had her strapped to the fuckin’ bed. She’s not wearing any clothes.”

  “But he’s wearing all of his,” I said. “Think about it.”

  “Maybe he got dressed before he came out here to throw her body in the waterway.”

  “Doesn’t fit with your other theory of her escaping somehow and running out here and him following her.”

  “So?”

  “So if she was already dead, who knocked him out?”

  “Maybe he tripped, dropped her, and hit his head on the tree.”

  “Look how far away she is.”

  “So he put her down and was going back for something and tripped and hit the tree.”

  “With the back of his head?”

  “Maybe he turned around to look at her body again and that’s what made him trip. We’ll ask him when he comes to.”

  “What about a murder weapon?”

  “What about it?”

  “Where is it?” I said. “It’s not in the cabin. I didn’t see it on the path. It’s not here in the clearing.”

  “He could’ve thrown it in the waterway already.”

  “I’m just saying there’s a lot that doesn’t add up.”

  “Always is,” he said.

  “So you keep saying.”

  Sister Abigail appeared at the edge of the clearing and I turned to face her.

  “Is he...” she began.

  “He’s unconscious,” I said.

  She knelt down beside him. “Why aren’t you helping him?”

  “Please don’t touch him, Sister,” Steve said. “We don’t want to contaminate any of the evidence.”

  She looked up at us in a shame-producing shock. “He’s hurt. He needs help.”

  “Which is on the way,” Steve said. “Don’t you think I want to cover Tammy up?”

  She glanced over at Tammy, then back up at Steve. “But there’s nothing you can do for her. Tom’s still alive.”

  “And not withstanding the fact that he killed my cousin,”

  Steve said, “I want him to stay that way.”

  Her eyes widened. “Is that it? You’re not helping him because you think he killed her?”

  “That has nothing to do with it. I’m gonna process the crime scene and conduct the investigation by the book.”

  “Because he didn’t kill her. He couldn’t have and you know it. It’s obvious they’ve both been attacked.”

  “With all due respect, Sister,” Steve said, “Tammy’s been murdered, not attacked. And all he’s got is a bump on the head and a few scratches.”

  “I’m telling you,” she said, “he didn’t kill her.”

  “I know it’s hard for you to accept,” Steve said, his voice patronizing, “but I’m telling you what the facts say.”

  “The facts?”

  “The evidence, the crime scene,” he said. “I’ve been doing this a while and—”

  “I’m telling you he didn’t do it,” she said. “And it’s not just that he wouldn’t, but that he couldn’t. He’s not capable.”

  “That’s what everyone always believes about people they know, but—”

  She shook her head in frustration. “Listen to me, please, and be quiet. I’m not talking about morally. I’m saying physically. Physically he couldn’t do it. This is supposed to be a secret so please don’t tell anyone, but Father Thomas is very sick. He doesn’t have long to live. He doesn’t have the strength to do what has been done to this poor girl.”

  Steve shook his head in disbelief. “What’re you saying?”

  “That you better come up with a different theory to fit your facts, because Tom couldn’t have done this and his doctor will testify to it.”

  12

  “Don’t say a word,” Ralph Reid said to Father Thomas.

  Father Thomas had just regained consciousness a moment before and was about to respond to Steve Taylor’s first question when Reid intervened.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Steve said.

  The crime scene techs from FDLE taking measurements and collecting evidence all around us stopped momentarily to listen. There were six of them, wearing white jumpsuits, latex gloves, and vinyl slip-on booties over their shoes with the identifying “Police” pattern in the print. They worked quickly and quietly, seemingly oblivious to us until now.

  “As counsel, I’m advising him not to talk to you yet,” Reid said.

  “You’re an attorney?”

  “Among other things.”

  “I don’t need an attorney,” Father Thomas mumbled.

  He was lying on a stretcher being examined by the same female EMT I had seen on the pier the previous morning. We were all standing around him. Across the clearing Tammy’s body, still facedown on the damp ground, had been covered with a white sheet.

  “Oh, yes you do,” Reid said. “They think you killed Tammy.”

  Father Thomas’s eyes widened. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I—”

  “Need to talk with me before you talk with them. Do you want me to represent you or not?”

  Father Thomas looked up at Sister Abigail, his eyes searching hers for reassurance.

  “Let him, Tom,” she said.

  “Is that the way you want it?” Steve asked. “‘Cause I can’t help you if you lawyer up—and doing it so quickly only makes you look guilty.”

  “See what I mean?” Reid said. “That’s the mentality you’re up against.”

  The night air was cold and moist, clumps of fog clinging to the bare branches above us. Beyond the clearing the woods were loud, as if to remind us we were trespassing into a living, largely unseen world we no longer belonged to.

  “He works for Tammy’s family’s company,” Steve said.

  “And he’s part of the family,” Reid said, jerking his head toward Steve, “but for now, we’re the only players in this little drama. You can get another attorney later if you want to, but at least let me help you through these crucial first hours.”

  Father Thomas nodded. “Okay,” he said, “but I didn’t kill her.”

  “Then just tell us what happened,” Steve said.

  Father Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but Reid said, “Later. At the station. Let him get checked out at the medical center and give me a chance to confer with him, then we’ll cooperate fully.”

  Father Thomas closed his mouth and nodded his head.

  Steve let out a frustrated sigh and simply said, “Okay.”

  FDLE had set up several large halogen lights, and the entire clearing was lit up like a rescue operation, which made the woods beyond seem even darker, and cast eerie, elongated shadows onto the now trampled ground.

  “And I’d like Chaplain Jordan there,” Sister Abigail said.

  “What?” Steve and I both asked in surprise.

  “You’re the one who asked for his help,” she said to Steve. “I’m just saying since he’s been involved from the start and since the victim is your cousin, let him continue at least through your initial interview with Tom.”

  I looked at her, my face a question.

  “You can handle that, can’t you?” she asked.

  “Of course, but I thought you—”

  “I asked for his help because there was no one else,” Steve said. “Now I have all the help I need.”

&n
bsp; “You don’t question his ability to be objective, do you Steve?” she asked, leveling her gaze onto him.

  “Any professional can be objective,” he said, “but he’s no longer a professional.”

  “Sure he is, and you know it.”

  “But—”

  “To avoid even the appearance of impropriety,” she said. “Why are you so resistant to just having him present? I would think you’d want to have every possible—”

  “Okay, okay, he can observe, but that’s all.”

  While the EMTs finished examining Father Thomas and FDLE finished processing the scene, Sister Abigail, Ralph Reid, and I stepped away from the others.

  “I thought you wanted me to avoid things like this for a while?”

  “Mitigating circumstances,” she said.

  “There always are,” I said. “That’s sort of the point.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her expression hardened. “Can you handle it or not?” she said, a new edge accompanying her curt voice.

  “I’m just curious about why you changed your mind?”

  “There’s no way he killed her,” she said, “and I was afraid they would trick him into saying he did. Not even consider that someone else could’ve done it.”

  “You really an attorney?” I asked Reid.

  He nodded. “Haven’t practiced in a while, but I’m the real deal.”

  “How’d you even know what had happened or where to find us?” I asked.

  “Kathryn told me,” he said.

  “Where is Kathryn?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. She just told me to get out here and take care of Father Thomas.”

  “She’s probably seen enough for one night,” Sister said.

  “Speaking of taking care of Father Thomas,” I said to Sister, “as a defense attorney, that’s his job, but I’m not a defense attorney and I won’t even be acting as one.”

  “What’re you saying?”

  “I’ll be looking at the evidence, following it wherever it leads.”

  “Which is what I want you to do.”

  “Even if it points to Father Thomas?”

  “Yes, but it won’t.”

  “Well,” I said, as the EMTs began to roll Father Thomas out of the clearing and down the path, “we’re about to find out.”