Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  When she had gone, I withdrew one of the sandwiches and ate it as I read another entry.

  Sometimes I really like the people here. Sometimes I think they’re all right. A little strange, but good people. Well-meaning. Sincere. Simple and honest.

  Dull as debutantes, but not out to take advantage of you like most everybody else you meet. But other times all I can think about is how they stole my land. How I’d be set for life if they weren’t here. That’s taking advantage of people—even if they don’t know it, but somebody here does. I know it. Someone here orchestrated the whole thing. Why else would Uncle Floyd give them all this land? Of course, when he did it, it wasn’t nearly as valuable, but it was still one hell of a generous gift, though. And he wasn’t like that. He didn’t just give stuff away. Hell, his motto was ‘You can’t spend it and have it.’ And he wasn’t religious. Someone tricked him or bribed him into giving all this land and the old buildings and so many donations over the years. They may’ve fooled old Floyd, but they’re not gonna fool me.

  So far I couldn’t see any reason to believe that Tammy Taylor was extremely disturbed, let alone possessed, and then I read an entry that gave me chills.

  I fell like lightening. Cast down. Thrown out. Expelled. Now I wander the dry places looking for a new home. And I’ve found one in this hollow space inside this stupid bitch. She thinks she’s just tripping, but she’s not the only one living here anymore. And soon Tammy won’t live here at all. She’ll just be a shell—the body. I’ll be the soul. It feels good to be incarnated again. I so enjoy the corporeal. And oh the things I’m gonna do with this body. Fuckin’ wear this cunt out. Take my revenge. Blood will spill. Death will come. They won’t know what hit them until they’re dead. I AM GOD. I AM POWER. I AM FIRE. I AM HELL. Wait now. Be patient. Don’t get carried away just yet. The best attack is a surprise one. And boy is Father Fuckup and his little band of buttfucks in for the surprise of their pathetic little lives.

  An icy wind blew in off the lake and right through me, the sound of a thousand whispered voices in it––taunting, mocking, harassing.

  “Why didn’t you help me, John?” Tammy said softly.

  It was as if her lips were at my left ear––nearly touching but not. Had I not seen that no one was there, I would’ve sworn there was.

  In my right ear, the playfully demented voice of a wicked child said, “You’re going to die soon too. Ring-a-ring-a-roses. A pocket full of posies. Ashes. Ashes. John is a dead man.”

  The laugh that followed was worse than anything said by the child, and Tammy began to cry.

  “Shut up bitch or I’ll hurt you some more.”

  She stopped.

  I did too.

  Refusing to give in to fear, I returned my attention to the journal, this time reading aloud.

  I found myself wondering if what I was reading had even been written by Tammy. What if someone else had written it after her death and left it for me? I’d be more persuaded to believe it if there were more consistency––and if I weren’t hearing voices. The abrupt transition from Satan-like speak to typical teenage angst was jarring.

  Will I ever find the right guy? Everyone says he’s out there, but... I don’t know. I thought it was Clyde. I guess it still could be, but he’s such a jerk. Sometimes I don’t think he even loves me at all. Others I think he does, but he just doesn’t know how to treat a woman. I am a woman. I have needs. I have desires. I need him to think about me for once. Consider what I want, what makes me happy. Maybe I should just dump Clyde and get busy finding Mr. Right. Can’t do it in here. I’ve got to finish up and get back out there. Of course, when I’ve finished what I’m doing, I bet I’ll have many more prospects. I’ll be able to take my pick. They’ll probably just want me for my money (and my honey hole, they always want that), but they won’t get much of either unless they convince me that they really love me. They’re gonna have to prove their love for me. Do what I tell them. Tommy Boy’ll do anything for me, and he doesn’t even know I’m about to be a very rich girl, but he’s too... I don’t know, he’s just not Mr. Right, but that doesn’t mean he can’t help me do what I need to do to get in a position to attract Mr. Right. And it’s not like I’m just using him. He gets what he wants. What every man wants. I’ll keep giving him pussy payments and he’ll think he’s been well rewarded. And he has. Mine’s no ordinary pussy. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got hell itself between my legs, sucking not just semen, but life out of the pricks that keep poking in there.

  “What’re you reading?” Kathryn asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I’ve probably written much worse in my novels.”

  “Did you write this?” I said.

  “What?” she asked, sitting down on the swing beside me.

  “To help Father Thomas.”

  “John,” she said with a wry smile, “we can’t go on with suspicious minds.”

  I smiled back at her.

  “But seriously, there’s a few things I need to tell you, and I’ve got a few questions about the case.”

  “Good,” I said, “because I have some for you too.”

  25

  “I stopped by your room before coming out here,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Not the neatest person in the world, are you?” she said. “Either that, or it’s been ransacked.”

  “Ransacked? Who uses the word ransacked anymore?”

  “I do. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten to use it before. I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

  “Well, I’m pretty neat,” I said, “so evidently it was...”

  “Ransacked?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I was giving you another opportunity to say it.”

  “You don’t seem too worried about your room.”

  “Didn’t have much in it. Nothing of value. I’m sure they were looking for this,” I said, holding up Tammy’s journal.

  “Who all’d you tell about it?” she asked.

  We were still sitting on the swing, facing the small, bouncing waves on the surface of the lake. Even in the wind, I could smell a hint of her perfume—something I hadn’t smelled in our previous encounters, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was wearing it for me.

  “I’m sure most everybody knows by now,” I said. “But I think I only mentioned it to Father Thomas, Ralph Reid, Sister Abigail, Keith Richie, Brad Harrison, and Amber. Plus, there’s the person who put it there in the first place, but it’d be hard to see why they’d give it to me and then take it back.”

  Her hair was like that of a little girl, thick and a light blond the color of straw. The brisk breeze blowing through it whipped it, giving it that sexy, just-out-of-bed look, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to wake up beside her.

  “Wonder what they’re so anxious to keep hidden?” she said.

  “Won’t know until I finish. May not then.”

  Glancing down at the exorcism books between us, she said, “You reconsidering what happened?”

  I thought about what I had read and its impact on me. I couldn’t easily dismiss the experiences and conclusions of Dr. Samuel Peters. A lot of people viewed much of what people claimed to be spiritual phenomenon—everything from hearing God’s voice to demonic possession—as mental illness, but surely Peters would know the difference.

  “Your boyfriend asked me to brush up on the subject and break it down for him,” I said.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Steve. I’m practically a nun.”

  She pushed her hair out of her face with the fingers of her cream-colored hands, the nails of which were painted a soft pink. Like the perfume, I didn’t recall her nails being painted on our previous encounters and wondered if I had just been distracted. Her hands looked cold and I wanted to take them in mine to warm them.

  “Speaking of which,” I said, “I wanted to ask you about the abbey. Is it own
ed by the Catholic Church?”

  She shook her head. “It’s an autonomous non-profit organization. It’s far more interfaith than it seems right now because so many of the other teachers and workers are away for the holidays.”

  “I got the sense while talking to Brad that he’s Pentecostal.”

  She nodded. “We have a Jewish teacher on staff who’s away for Hanukkah, and a Buddhist monk who works as a counselor in our drug rehab program. Then you got me. I don’t know what the hell I am. A Judeo-Christian Buddhist Pagan artist.”

  “How has the church allowed Father Thomas and Sister Abigail to be here so long?”

  “They started it. I think they have a special dispensation from the bishop, but the truth is everyone knows they wouldn’t go anywhere else and I’m not sure anybody else would put up with them. They’re used to doing things their own way. They fuss like siblings, but they have a lot of respect for one another. I’m not sure what Sister’s gonna do without him.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Cancer. Treatment would’ve given him a little more time, but he opted for quality not quantity. I really don’t think he could stand the thought of leaving this place. He wants to die here.”

  “You realize that having nothing to lose makes him more likely to have committed the crime.”

  “I realize it might seem that way, but it’s not. He’s been working hard to prepare himself for the life to come. He’s too close to it to... I’m telling you he wouldn’t—couldn’t do it.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said. “If Gulf Coast wants this land back, can it just take it?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”

  “What if St. Ann’s closes?”

  “I’m really not sure, but that’s exactly what would happen if they stopped their support, so as usual, the big greedy corporation has all the power.”

  We were silent a moment, during which she seemed to be trying to work out something in her mind, chewing on her top lip as she did. As I waited for her, I scanned the windswept world around us—the light chop on the surface of the lake, the twisting and turning Spanish moss on the waving branches. Everything was movement, like a sacred dance to a silent orchestra, more felt than heard.

  When she turned and looked at me from the depths of her dark brown eyes, neither of us spoke for a long moment, and I had to resist the urge to lean in and kiss her full, soft pink lips.

  “I wish we had the tape,” she said. “I guarantee it’d show he’s telling the truth.”

  “Maybe.”

  “The fact that it was there shows he didn’t plan on killing anyone.”

  “Not planning to do it and not doing it are two different things.”

  26

  We were in the clearing when we were attacked.

  Tired of sitting, we had decided to take a walk around the lake, but as if being pulled back to the crime scene, we found ourselves drifting down the path in that direction.

  Beneath the ancient oak canopy, the shaded path was colder than the water’s edge from which we’d come and we walked close to one another for warmth.

  She was wearing a gray FSU sweatshirt, jeans, and a jacket, the pockets of which held her ice-white hands.

  We walked slowly, enjoying one another’s company, as the sun began to sink behind the pines.

  “Hard to believe something so profane happened in such a holy place,” she said.

  “Not if you believe the devil did it. What better to profane than the holy—in fact, what can you profane except the holy?”

  “The world’s such an enchanted place,” she said, glancing up the slope to our right at the sunlit tops of oaks and pines ablaze with the fading brilliance of the day. “Don’t you feel far more connected to the Mystery when you’re out here?”

  “Actually,” I said, an involuntary shudder running through me, “I do.”

  “We can’t rush past the sacred so easily out here. We’re not so insulated from her. What is it the Kabbalah teaches?”

  “That all of creation is within God,” I said.

  “I love that. The universe hasn’t even been born yet. We’re still inside the womb of God.”

  Caught up in the moment, or using it as an excuse, I stopped abruptly, took her by the arms of her jacket, pulled her to me, and kissed the mouth that had just said such beautiful things. And the beautiful mouth kissed back.

  “That took you long enough,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Why you think I’m saying all this Kabbalah shit? Figured it’s an aphrodisiac for a man like you.”

  She then withdrew her cold hands from her pockets, pulled my face back to hers, and kissed me again.

  “Yeah,” I said as we began walking again, “I definitely feel God out here.”

  She smiled. “Goddess.”

  “Of course.”

  We walked a little way longer in silent rapture over the moment we had just shared, and I began to worry about what I had done.

  “I just went through a bad breakup and divorce,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “And at least some part of the reason is I’m still, and probably always will be, in love with a woman I can never have.”

  “Jesus. It was just a kiss,” she said.

  I smiled. “Just wanted you to know.”

  “Newsflash, I know you’re damaged goods,” she said. “Who the hell isn’t? I’m a big girl. I won’t break. We can kiss, do some heavy petting––hell even fornicate a little. I won’t stalk you. I won’t try to replace...”

  “Anna,” I said.

  “I won’t try to replace Anna, okay?”

  “I’m stupid,” I said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have...”

  “No, you’re sweet, but my guess is you try to take care of everyone, and not everyone needs taking care of.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Maybe I should kiss you again to show you I can do it without trying to take care of you.”

  “Well, if you think you should,” she said, stopping at the point where the path became the clearing.

  “I do,” I said, and I did.

  It was a nice kiss—even better than the first two—or it was right up until the guy with the knife cut in.

  He grabbed her from behind, putting his arm around her body and pulling her away from me, as he put the knife to her throat.

  I tried to remain calm, not react until I had a better handle on what was going on. He was just holding her, not cutting, not dragging her away.

  He was a shortish, thick, muscular man with an acne-scarred face and a buzz cut.

  “Old jealous boyfriend you forgot to tell me about?” I asked her.

  She didn’t respond, and I could see the fear in her eyes quickly approaching frenzy.

  “Just stay where you are and be cool,” he said to me. “Nobody’s gonna get hurt.”

  “Oh, that’s where you’re mistaken,” I said.

  “We just want the book,” he said.

  “We?” I asked, wondering if he was referring to voices inside his head or if he had an accomplice.

  “Hand me the book,” he said.

  “Hand it to him, John,” Kathryn said.

  “This?” I asked him, holding up the journal. “This is just some love poems I’ve been working on. You want me to read a couple to you?”

  “I ain’t playin’,” he said. “Hand me the fuckin’ book now.”

  “Or what?” I asked. “See, that’s the second time you’ve given me an order without a threat. I know. I know. You’ll argue that the threat is implied. And I’m not saying you’re wrong, but don’t you think it’d be far more effective if you said exactly what it is? You might even try growling a little when you say it.”

  “Give me the fuckin’ book or I’ll fuckin’ slit her fuckin’ throat,” he said, his voice angry and menacing.

  “That’s it,” I said. “Much better.”

  I considered my options. The distance
between us was too great for me to rush him. He could cut her before I could even reach them. I wasn’t sure what he’d do if I didn’t give him the journal, and I wasn’t sure he did either. He was probably working for someone else, and they probably just told him to get the book, not what to do if I wouldn’t give it to him. Still, Kathryn was too upset to be any help and I couldn’t let this go on much longer. My best bet was to give him the book, get Kathryn back, then take the book from him.

  “Last chance, funny man,” he said.

  Kathryn screamed as the tip of the blade pierced her skin and a small dot of bright red blood appeared on her neck.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “We’ll trade. Take the knife away from her neck and I’ll put the book on the ground. Then I’ll back away from it and you let her walk over to me. Then you get the book and run for your life.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, pulling the knife away from her neck, “but don’t you try anything slick.”

  I placed the journal on the ground and took two steps back from it.

  “Back up some more,” he said.

  “Let her go first,” I said.

  He released her and I took another step back.

  “Now, let her walk to me and I’ll continue to back away from the book.”

  He did.

  She took a few steps away from him, panicked, and began to run. He tried once to grab her, but missed and decided to go for the book instead.

  By the time Kathryn had reached me, he had snatched the book and was running toward the opposite side of the clearing.

  I smiled. Only water beyond the trees over there. He was trapped. The Intracoastal was too wide for him to swim across and he was too big for me not to catch him if he tried.

  “You okay?” I asked Kathryn.

  I had my arm around her and she was holding on to me, her body trembling with the wash of adrenaline.

  She nodded.

  “Can you run back to the abbey and let me go after him?” I asked.

  She started to nod, but her eyes grew wide, then she flinched.

  A sudden jolt from an unseen object swung with force connected with the back of my neck and I fell down face-first, the oak limb that had hit me landing beside me on the ground.