The Blood-Dimmed Tide (John Joran Mysteries Book 22)

by Michael Lister

  3

  Anna stands, lifts her leather legal pad portfolio, and unhurriedly makes her way over to the podium.

  She exudes calm and confidence, strength and stateliness, and if I were Gary Scott I’d already be considering dropping my case.

  Her tailored, fitted navy pants and blazer are stylish and modern and hint at her athletic beach volleyball body. Her longish dark hair is down in sleek waves, and she is breathtaking.

  Her composure seems to suggest that she is as comfortable here in this moment as at home in her sexy drawstring pajama pants and soft cotton tank that I find so irresistible.

  Even if she weren’t my wife I’d want her as my attorney—and if she were just my attorney then I’d want this trial to last forever.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, first I want to thank you for being here. I truly appreciate your civil service in such an important case—especially in a time when so much of the region around us is struggling and suffering. This case, and therefore your service, is far, far more weighty than you’ve probably yet realized—and not just to Mr. Jordan and his family, but to our society as a whole. We are blessed to live in a nation of laws. We are fortunate that we as citizens actually have oversight in the way we are policed. That’s rare in the world, and that makes what you’re doing truly significant.”

  For the past few years, the first years of our life together, Anna has been in mom mode. Her focus has been on our small children and our home and little else. And this after suffering severe trauma while pregnant and a difficult, premature delivery. And before she had fully recovered mentally, emotionally, or physically from that, her ex-husband began stalking and harassing her. She has not only been away from work and the public sphere but it has been an extremely challenging time. So for her to have the poise and confidence and skill on display here today shows just how incredibly strong and resilient she really is.

  “Speaking of John’s family . . .” she says, “among the many mistakes and inaccuracies plaintiffs’ counsel made during his opening statement was my name. My family name was Rodden, but my married name is Jordan. I’m Anna Jordan, and I have the honor of not just being John’s attorney, but his wife. And as his wife and as his lifelong friend before that, I know John Jordan better than anyone, and I can tell you without hesitation, reservation, or qualification that John is far and away the best person I’ve ever known. He is a man of honor. A man of compassion. A man of extraordinary decency. He has spent his life helping others—as a minister and counselor, and as an investigator. He’s a man who has spent his life in pursuit of justice, and no one in this courtroom today wants justice more than John.”

  She pauses but doesn’t take a sip of water or even look down at her notes.

  During her preparation for this case, she shared with me that she was going to address the fact that she wasn’t just my attorney but my wife as openly and honestly and as early in the case as she could. She also said that, given our relationship, she was going to refer to me as John instead of Mr. Jordan or Investigator Jordan—something she believed would have the added benefit of further humanizing me with the jury.

  “Skeeter,” she begins, but stops and starts again. “Sorry, Mr. Scott—Skeeter was his high school nickname. Mr. Scott had to acknowledge to you, though it didn’t do his case any favors to do so, that John is a good man. And he is right. John is. But where Mr. Scott’s narrative went off the rails completely was his suggestion that John has some sense of superiority or a god complex about what he does. Just the opposite is true. John is truly humble. I’m not talking about the false humility of a certain type of public figure, but the true humility that causes him to continually remain open and searching for truth and answers, to always seek the input and advice of others, to continually question his own assumptions and conclusions. He’s the opposite of the self-righteous man on a self-imposed mission with a sense of certainty and impunity that Mr. Scott described. And throughout the course of this case you will hear from the women and men who have supervised and worked with John, those who are truly in a position to know, and they will tell you that what I’m saying is true. And with regards to this notion of John being a rogue cop . . . In the decades I’ve closely observed him as a detective, I’ve never seen him investigate a case he wasn’t asked to. Just as he was in this one. There’s nothing rogue about John. Now . . . John is a non-conformist—as Emerson noted, what man who is truly a man, isn’t?—but this doesn’t mean he just does what he wants to with no oversight or input. It means while gladly accepting all that, he doesn’t become guilty of the group-think that is so dangerous to what is true and right. And again, we will demonstrate all of this as we put on our case and give an answer to the baseless charges that John was negligent or reckless in any way.”

  I could be imagining it—or more likely projecting it—but it seems to me that the jury, not to mention the judge and the rest of those present in the courtroom this morning, are far more engaged with Anna than they were with Gary Scott. The feel of the room is different, and there appears to be more eye contact and nodding of heads.

  “The actions John took on April 20, 2018 were brave and intelligent and saved lives, but they also resulted in the death of a young man. A fine young man, who was obviously brave and heroic himself, but who, as the young so often are, was misguided in his efforts. As difficult as it is to say, as painful as it is for his friends and family to hear, it was the misguided and reckless actions of Derek Burrell, not John Jordan, that led to this tragic accident. And that’s what it is—a truly heartbreaking and tragic accident. And I can tell you that apart from Derek’s parents, Bryce and Melissa Burrell, no one is more heartbroken about this tragic accident than John. It’s understandable that Bryce and Melissa are devastated and looking for someone to blame for what happened. And of course they want to blame someone—anyone—but their son for what happened. We all would. But that’s why you’re here. You, the jury, have to look past the pain and heartbreak and unimaginable loss to see the truth of what happened. And the truth of what happened is that in the middle of a school shooting, Derek Burrell bravely, heroically, but mistakenly rushed to his truck, grabbed a weapon—something that was illegal to have on school grounds—rushed back into the school and began firing that weapon. And in addition to whoever else he fired at, he fired at John. He fired first. He fired more than once. And even believing that Derek was the active school shooter—and if you think about it, he was, just not the one who was there to kill fellow students—John still tried just to stop and not kill him. Unfortunately, one of the rounds ricocheted off of Derek’s weapon and hit and killed him.”

  When she pauses there is only the low hum of the air-conditioning. No coughs. No creaks. No rustling of paper.

  “The pain of losing a child has to be nearly unbearable,” Anna says. “John and I have three children of our own, and we can very easily put ourselves in the place of the Burrells. We can empathize with them, and our hearts genuinely do break for them—John’s especially. More than you can know. Feeling compassion for them as we do, we can imagine the desire to lash out, to look for someone to blame, someone to get back at, to destroy if possible. And though we can imagine that, I hope if we were ever in their position—a position none of us ever want to be in—I hope we would resist the urge to try to inflict pain on someone else out of our pain. Again, I get the temptation to do so. But . . . I hope you as the jury can feel for the Burrells without feeling the need to make an innocent man pay for what they’re feeling.”

  “You have no idea what I’m feeling,” Melissa yells from her seat at the plaintiff’s table.

  Anna looks over at her, looks directly at her, showing nothing but understanding and compassion, but says nothing, merely waits for the judge to address the situation.

  Judge Whitehurst says, “Ms. Burrell, I’m going to excuse that outburst because, like Ms. Jordan has just said, we all feel for you, but you need to remember that you brought this case, you asked for this, and that means you
’re going to hear and see things during the course of this case that you’re going to want to react to, but you simply can’t. I’m trying to my best for you and your family, your son, and Mr. Jordan. That’s my sacred duty. And as part of that I can’t allow outbursts in my court. You don’t have to be here for this. You can step out any time you need to. But if you’re going to be in here you have to withhold your reactions just like everyone else. Understand? You don’t think Mr. Jordan wanted to respond to the things Mr. Scott was saying about him? I guarantee he did. But he didn’t. And neither will you.”

  Melissa, who is crying softly, nods her head.

  “We’re sorry, Your Honor,” Scott says, half standing, holding his suit coat to his midsection as he does. “It won’t happen again.”

  “See that it doesn’t, Counselor,” the judge says to him, then to Anna, “Please proceed, Ms. Jordan.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” Anna returns her attention to the jury. “What Ms. Burrell just did is completely understandable. No one can know what she’s going through. Not me. Not you. No one. But that outburst is the very thing I was talking about. She and her husband want to lash out, to strike back, and they’ve chosen a good man to do it to. A man involved in the terrible tragedy and horrible accident that took their soon, yes, but a good and innocent man nonetheless.”

  Melissa Burrell’s pain is palpable, her outburst heartbreaking, but Anna couldn’t have handled it any better.

  “Speaking of innocence. Did you realize that every time a law enforcement officer uses his weapon, there is an investigation? Every single time. And unlike what Mr. Scott suggested, it wasn’t conducted by the women and men of John’s own agency, not those behind Mr. Scott’s imaginary blue wall of silence. No, John’s actions were objectively and thoroughly investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement—a state agency with a stellar reputation that conducts investigations like this one all over the state. And with all their experience and expertise and with no allegiance to John or his department, but only to the truth, they cleared him, determining he was innocent, concluding that this was a tragic accident. And I’m confident in this trial you will reach the same conclusion.”

  She pauses here to give weight and resonance to her words and the point they are making.

  “I’ll just leave you with this,” she says. “After law enforcement officers waited outside of Columbine and Parkland and other places while children were being killed inside, a brave officer didn’t hesitate to run into the firing line of Potter High School. He’s a hero. Not a villain. And he was fired at—more than once—by a large young man with a shotgun who was refusing to comply with his lawful orders to put down his weapon. And all of this was after John had been told by another law enforcement official that Derek was the shooter they were after. Context is everything, and these are the circumstances surrounding this shooting. During a school shooting, a very large young man with an illegal shotgun was actually firing at a police officer—that’s two crimes being committed—and the experienced officer only returned fire. Didn’t shoot first. And he attempted to merely wound the shooter so he could disarm him and save lives. As sad and tragic and upsetting as the death of Derek Burrell is . . . it’s not due to any negligence on John’s part. It’s wrong that Derek is dead. But that isn’t the same as John being guilty of wrongful death. I wish Derek would have remained in his classroom like he was instructed to do. I wish he had never climbed out that window and gotten his gun and come back in and started shooting. I wish he hadn’t shot at John. But if anyone is to blame for any of it . . . it is the school shooter who started this massacre in the first place, not the brave officer who put his life on the line to help save the lives of our high school students and teachers. Thank you.”

  Tampa Bay Times Daily Dispatch

  Hurricane Michael in Real Time

  By Tim Jonas, Times Reporter

  Much of the affected areas still have no cell phone signal, no running water, and no electricity, and many residents are still unaccounted for and could be alive beneath the massive piles of rubble and debris.

  Drone and helicopter footage dramatically reveal the few handfuls of structures still standing in Mexico Beach, where the monster storm made landfall.

  The Florida National Guard is working its way into the most impacted areas with 13 helicopters, 16 boats, and 1,000 high-water vehicles.

  Florida emergency officials say they have rescued nearly 200 people and checked 25,000 structures since Hurricane Michael crushed portions of the Panhandle last week.

  In a briefing at the state emergency operations center in Tallahassee on Friday evening, authorities said they had wrapped up their initial rapid searches and had begun more-intense searches including inspecting collapsed buildings.

  Mark Bowen, head of emergency management for Bay County, said “Everything that people depend on for their daily lives has not just been disrupted, it’s been absolutely destroyed.”

  Many of the injured were taken to hard-hit Panama City, 20 miles northwest of Mexico Beach. Gulf Coast Regional Medical Center treated some, but the hospital evacuated 130 patients as it ran on generators after Michael took out power, part of its roof, and shattered its windows.

  According to the US agriculture department, Hurricane Michael severely damaged cotton, timber, pecan, and peanut crops, causing estimated liabilities as high as $1.9 billion. Michael also disrupted energy operations in the Gulf of Mexico as it approached land, cutting crude oil production by more than 40% and natural gas output by nearly a third as offshore platforms were evacuated.

  Michael was the most powerful storm to hit the United States in more than a quarter of a century, and the single most powerful to strike the Florida Panhandle. Striking like a coiled serpent, Michael sprang quickly from a weekend tropical depression to a Category 5 storm by the time it came ashore.

  4

  The drive back from Pottersville is slow and depressing.

  The hurricane-ravaged landscape looks war-torn and post-apocalyptic.

  The thousands and thousands of acres of planted slash pine forests lie decimated.

  Downed trees in every direction, most of them snapped in half. Their top halves lean down to the ground or onto other trees, the splintered place that still tenuously connects them to the base looks like exposed slivers of broken bone partially protruding from skin split open by the violence of the break.

  What less than two weeks ago was a vibrant timber crop worth billions now resembles a giant, jagged thorn bush thicket in a lifeless wasteland.

  Pottersville was on the outer northwest wall of the storm and received very little damage, and we’re now driving in the direction of ground zero of one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the continental United States.

  The slow-moving traffic on the rural two-lane highway not only has far more volume than usual, but the vehicles that make up the increased inertia are the type that tend to decrease speed—trucks of every imaginable shape and size towing trailers of every imaginable shape and size, vans full of volunteers, semis loaded down with supplies, ambulances, cop cars, military Humvees, and TV news trucks. And the rusted, junker clunkers of out-of-work contractors, repairmen, and roofers looking to be the first to capitalize on both the desperation of the situation and the insurance and FEMA checks footing the bills for the first fledgling attempts at recovery.

  “You were even more magnificent than I imagined you would be,” I say, “and my imagination set the bar impossibly high.”

  In the seat next to me, Anna smiles, pats my arm, and thanks me.

  “It was something to see,” I add. “You’re such a gifted attorney. Thank you so much for what you’re doing for me.”

  “How was it for you?” she asks. “Had to be hard to hear the things Skeeter had to say.”

  I frown and give her a small nod because I can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound either dramatic or flippant.

  “How did you feel about how it went?” I ask.


  “Juries are difficult to read. It’s so easy to be wrong, but . . . I felt like it might have been a good beginning for us. It’s just opening statements and won’t mean as much as literally everything else, but . . . I was pleased overall. I definitely have some ring rust but I’ll get back into trial shape soon.”

  “I don’t think you have any ring rust at all,” I say, “but if you do—not only did it not show, but poor Gary Scott doesn’t stand a chance. I mean, really, how the hell do you improve on that?”

  “You’re sweet and biased, and whatever we do we can’t underestimate Skeeter. He’s deceptively good and he rarely, rarely loses a case.”

  Her words land like a digging body-blow that takes my breath away, as the very real possibility of losing this case comes down on me.

  I know she’s right. I know that the jury will see the grief and devastation of the Burrells and want to exact some sort of retribution on their behalf. I also know that regardless of the circumstances and mitigating factors, I am responsible for Derek’s death, and I am the one they will want to make pay.

  “Hey,” Anna says, “we haven’t lost yet. Don’t go there.”

  “Can’t help it,” I say. “It’s pretty much where I live these days.”

  “I know and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that it happened. I’m sorry that you have to live with it. But just keep reminding yourself that all you did was return fire at someone who was trying to kill you. He was in the wrong. Not you. His actions created this terrible tragedy. Not yours.”

  It’s sweet of her to say, but it was my actions too, and we both know it. I can’t rationalize it. Can’t justify it. Can’t escape it.

  At a certain point along the highway, all the leaning and fallen trees begin to lean and land in the opposite direction.