I waited.
With no weapon and two women in close proximity, I didn’t have a lot of options.
He moved toward me and Hahn, which meant he was moving away from Red and the cash register.
He wasn’t here to rob the place. “You Jordan?” he asked.
He wore black jeans, black cowboy boots, and a long-sleeve black button-down shirt. A white vest with black stitched designs was open to reveal a horse-head bolero at the top and matching belt buckle at the bottom.
“Yeah,” I said. “Not the basketball player, the nobody.”
He smiled. “Only one M.J.”
“King of pop might not agree,” I said.
He nodded very slowly as he seemed to consider what I had said with far more earnestness than it was worthy of.
“True,” he said. “Very true, señor.”
“You consider everything that carefully?” I said. He seemed to consider that.
“Seriously?” I said.
He sat down across from me and next to Hahn, but didn’t acknowledge her in any way. She slid over as far as she could.
He leveled the .45 at me, but I only saw it in my peripheral vision. My eyes didn’t leave his.
The pungent odor pouring from his pores mixed with the scent of what I recognized to be a popular body spray. The unpleasant alchemical affect was one of aging ethnic food and drugstore deodorizer roasting in a hot car.
The body spray was advertised to drive women wild.
So far Hahn had somehow found the strength to resist. “Pretty calm,” he said. “That come from spending so much time with guys like me?”
“What kind of guy is that?”
“Type does what needs to be done, amigo—sometimes for other people.”
“Oh,” I said. “An errand boy.” He smiled. “Been called worse.”
“I bet.”
Hahn was obviously scared, but she was holding her own just fine.
Without acknowledging her, he lifted her coffee cup and drank from it, wincing as he did.
“That is very bad, jefe,” he said.
“Everything here is,” I said. “It’s sort of their thing.”
“Somebody needs to shoot the clown behind the counter,” he said.
I looked over at Red, who was still unaware that anything was going on, then back at the cowboy.
“So what errand brings you to this joint? Chicken, pizza, beer?”
“You,” he said. “I am here for you, jefe. I have been asked to gently remind you that you are a chaplain not a . . . Just mind your own business and not that of others. Only trouble for you in it.”
“Others and trouble are my business,” I said.
“This is just a warning,” he said. “But you only get one.”
“Then could you be a little more specific?” I said. “I got a lot goin’ on right now. It’d be embarrassing if I got killed for stopping the wrong thing.”
“Let us just say it involves issues of life and death, which is a good thing for you to remember.”
When he glanced back at Red, his eyes came alive for the first time. “Goddamn, but I like gringo redheads.” He glanced back at Hahn. “I mean no offense, señorita.”
“You delivered your message,” I said. “Any particular reason you’re still here?”
He seemed to contemplate that for a long moment, rubbing a thumbnail against his smooth jawline as he did.
“You see this?” he said, lifting the gun. “This lets me do whatever I want. Stay where I want for as long as I want.”
He held the gun like they did in the movies. “You ever shot anyone?” I asked.
He didn’t respond.
“It’s harder than it looks,” I said. “Even at a target, but especially at a living human being. And to kill a man. It’s like nothing you’ve ever known.”
“The hell kind of preacher are you?”
“The convict kind,” I said. “But I wasn’t always that.”
He nodded appreciatively. “Explains a lot. Well . . . is what it is. Just remember what I said. Okay, amigo?”
He stood and moved away quickly. A moment later, he was out the door, the small bell jingling causing Red to look up for the first time.
“You okay?” I asked. Hahn nodded.
“Sorry about all that.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay.”
Without thinking, she started to take a sip of her coffee, but I stopped her.
“His prints are on your cup,” I said. “Safe money says he’s got a record.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
“If he Hispanic,” Merrill said, “possible he connected to Miguel Morales? Like maybe it was about him?”
We were standing in front of the convenience store in the nearly empty parking lot.
“Could be,” I said. I hadn’t considered it, but I should have. “Couldn’t find a connection between him and Lance but . . .”
“What about the other Kings?”
“Didn’t even know they existed at the time,” I said.
“Need to find out now we do.”
The night was dark and damp, grayish clouds intermittently obscuring a small wedge of moon.
Hahn had gone home. Red remained oblivious.
In my right hand was a paper bag with the coffee cup the gunman had touched in it.
Hahn had been shaken up when she left, but she was more angry at my persistence in asking what she was doing in Danny’s dorm the night he was killed, than anything else.
Driving home later, my phone rang.
“Hey.”
It took me a moment to place the soft, sad voice. It was Cheryl Jacobs.
“Hey. How are you? I was going to call to check on you, but—”
“I’m struggling. Would you mind . . . I mean . . . Is there any way . . . Could I talk to you for a few minutes?”
“Of course.”
“Sorry to be a bother.”
“Absolutely no bother at all.”
“Nights are the worst. I do okay during the day. Get through. But . . . when the sun sinks . . . so do I.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’ve been there.”
“I have no one now. There’s . . . no one. A mother’s supposed to die before her son. He’s supposed to be at my funeral with his wife and kids there to comfort him, supposed to console himself that I had a long life, that it’s the natural order of things.”
I wasn’t so sure the natural order of things helped all that much. I thought about Mom, about how difficult I was finding her imminent death.
Thou know’st ’tis common; all that live must die. You must know that your father lost a father. That father lost, lost his.
A hollow argument. At least Hamlet found it so.
Convention, tradition, the natural order of things offer little consolation in the devastating face of deep grief.
I nodded, though she couldn’t see me, and continued listening, and I was struck by how much of my life I spent doing those two things. Nodding and listening. Listening and nodding. Wasn’t much else to do most of the time—particularly in situations like this.
“In my entire life I’ve never wanted to die before,” she said.
“You do now?”
“I do,” she said, and paused for a moment before continuing, letting her words hang there in the dark, damp night between us. “Don’t worry, I’m not . . . I don’t mean . . . I’m not really considering it. I’ve just never even had the feeling before.”
“I understand.”
“You ever felt like killing yourself ?”
“I’ve never had that exact feeling, no.”
“I now understand a little better what Danny went through. I couldn’t at the time. And I couldn’t do anything for him. Just got him a good counselor and kept loving him.”
“How many actual attempts did he make?”
“A few. Not sure exactly. Some may’ve been accidents . . . or . . . I don’t really know. But he got better, got past all th
at, and . . . I just hope he didn’t sink back down into . . . You don’t think he did, do you?”
“I don’t.”
“It’s so cruel . . . I mean if someone made it look like . . . they must’ve known he had been . . . You’re so easy to talk to, so nonjudgemental and understanding. I feel like I can tell you anything.”
“You can.”
“I feel like such a failure as a mom. Everyone else has always thought that. This is the first time I have.”
“Why do you?”
“I don’t know. I guess . . . even if he was murdered . . . he wouldn’t have been in prison if it weren’t for . . .”
“Addiction,” I said. “My mother is an addict—or was, but she’s not responsible for my addiction.”
“Yours?” I nodded.
“But you’re—”
“In recovery . . . It’s far less of an issue in my life now, but I’ll always be an addict—and that’s not my mom’s or anyone else’s fault.”
“Thanks. Thank you. Could you . . .” she began, then trailed off. “You think you could . . . Would you mind helping me with Danny’s memorial service?”
“Of course. I’d be honored.”
“You’re kind of all I’ve got right now.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Everybody’s a whore,” Carla Jean said. “I’m just honest about it. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t no street walker. Not some Meth Head Mandy, do anything for a fix. Just keepin’ it real by sayin’ I get paid for services rendered like any other job.”
We were at a mostly empty no-name bar just outside the city limits.
It was late.
I was at the end of the bar, a Dr. Pepper with grenadine in front of me. Carla Jean, who was the weeknight bartender, was behind the bar, leaning in toward me as we talked, her braless breasts pressing against the countertop.
People referred to Carla Jean Columbus as the town’s most brazen whore, but I found her unapologetic truthfulness refreshing. I just wondered if her brazenness was born of self-acceptance and peace or defensiveness and self-delusion.
“Everything comes down to money,” she said. “Everything. It’s how the world works. What are we willing to do for money. Well guess what. I’m willing to fuck for money. I like to fuck. I’m gettin’ paid to do something I like. And I don’t do it if I don’t want to. I don’t do anything I don’t want to.”
“You say who and you say when . . . and you say who,” I said in my best Julia Roberts.
She looked confused. “Huh?”
“Line from Pretty Woman.”
“Oh.”
At the opposite end of the bar, a distance that seemed worlds away, an extremely wrinkled old lady with a faded pink golfer’s hat on and a middle-aged man in a blue mechanic uniform sat next to each other drinking alone.
“What can you tell me about that night at the farmhouse?”
She couldn’t tell me much. It was the same as all the rest. Men taking turns with her, mostly good guys, an occasional asshole, easiest money she’d made in months.
“Did you know the blonde girl?”
“The one that got killed? No. Least I don’t think so.
Who was she?”
“That’s what I’m tryin’ to find out,” I said. “That and what happened to her.”
“I didn’t even see her,” she said. “Didn’t know she was there ’til y’all showed up askin’ questions about her.”
“I thought you let her in.”
“Let her in what? It’s not my club.”
“The farmhouse. I was told you let her in the back door.”
“Well I don’t know who told you that but I didn’t let anybody in. And I didn’t see no blonde girl.”
“You didn’t let her inside? You sure?”
“Positive. I didn’t let anyone in at any time the whole time we were there.”
I thought about what it meant that Carla Jean hadn’t let the victim inside and how it impacted the inquiry.
“So you have no idea who she was or why she was there?” I asked.
“My guess . . . she was crashin’,” she said. “Bet you anything. Tryin’ to make a buck, tryin’ to take money out of my pocket. She heard about the party and figured she could sneak in on our action. That or someone brought her.
Decided he’d pimp her out to those horny old bastards.”
Maybe someone really did bring her to embarrass or even blackmail one or more of the men running for office. Maybe Dad wasn’t paranoid, just political.
“Still can’t believe she was killed,” she said. “I mean, fuck. Am I in danger?”
I fell asleep beside Anna later that night thinking about the blonde––wondering who she was, why she was there, why she was killed, why her body was staged next to the prison fence, and why her body would then be stolen on its way to the morgue.
If she never entered the farmhouse what did that change? The suspects? Those with means and opportunity?
I woke up a little while later, mind racing.
Placing my hand on Anna’s bare thigh, I laid there in the dark, listening to her breathing, observing the thoughts ricocheting around inside me.
Two murders.
One premeditated. The other impromptu. Is that right?
Two murderers.
One patient. The other impulsive.
One plots and plans, watches and waits. The other snaps, acts, reacts, lashes out, explodes.
Is one killer mature and the other juvenile? Or does it have more to do with the means, motive, and opportunity than the makeup of the man?
Any of this true? Does it fit the facts, the actions of the killers, the circumstances of the cases? If so, what does it say about them?
Who are these figures I can’t quite make out?
What did they unwittingly reveal about themselves? What signature did they leave? What clues?
What do they want? Why did they do it? Greed?
Lust? Envy? Psychopathology? Fear of being found out? For what?
Will either of them do it again? What’s the key to catching them?
What do their victims reveal about them? I know so little about the ones and next to nothing about the other.
Need more info.
Do you? What if you don’t? What if you already know everything you need to?
Do I?
I awoke the next morning with no insights or answers.
Over breakfast Anna said, “Stealing the body hides her identity and effectively makes it impossible to catch the killer.”
I nodded. “I don’t disagree, but why not just do that from the beginning? Take the body and hide it or dispose of it right after you commit the murder––like many murderers do? Why take the time to load it up, take it to the prison, lean it against the fence, risk being seen or caught, just to steal it a few hours later?”
Chapter Thirty
“Somebody killing Suicide Kings or just trying to off Phillips?” Merrill asked.
“Not sure. Danny was in Lance’s bunk,” I said. “So . . .”
“Why?”
“Liked the mattress better. It’s thicker or something.
Felt safer in the top bunk.” Merrill shook his head.
It was the next morning. We were standing near the internal gate. Inmates were going to and from breakfast at the chow hall. Most of them were quiet in the coolness of the early morning, moving sleepily through a routine as rote as dressing, but some were already mouthy—miserable and anxious to spread it around.
“Some these bitches wake up lookin’ for a fight,”
Merrill said.
“Not something they can sleep off,” I said.
We were quiet a moment, continuing to watch the long lines of wasting potential. Whatever their lives had been before, whatever they would be again, at the moment, they were on pause, prison a parenthetical in their existence like a drunk’s weekend blackout—except when they woke up from this they’d remember every brutal detail.
“
You get the Confinement log from the night of the attempt on Lance?” I asked.
He tossed two sheets of paper toward me and they drifted down into my hand. The top one was a copy of all staff members and officers who visited Confinement that night.
I pulled a pen out of my coat pocket and circled the names of those who’d also made an appearance in A-dorm the night Jacobs was killed.
“Usual suspects?” he said.
“Those in Confinement when the attempt was made on Lance and in A-dorm when Danny was killed are Jamie Lee, Bailey Baldwin, Dr. Juan Alvarez, Donnie Foster, Mark Lawson, and . . .”
“And?”
“Hahn Ling.”
He smiled. “You know how to pick ’em.”
“Pick ’em? We had a few dates—and that’s been a while. And only because the one I really picked wasn’t available yet.”
“Is now, ain’t she?” I smiled.
“How’s it going with you two?”
“Before we got together I had an unrealistic expectation of what it would be like, a fantasy, a dream of perfection.”
He nodded.
“It’s a billion times better than that,” I added.
He smiled. “Happy for you. Y’all both deserve it.”
“Thanks.”
“What about inmates who were at both?” I looked at the second sheet.
When my eyes grew wide, he said, “What?”
“Danny was in Confinement the night the attempt was made on Lance.”
“Doing what?”
“Passing out food trays,” I said.
“No way he got in his cell, but . . . be a hell of a coincidence if it just a coincidence.”
I nodded without looking up from the logs. “Brent Allen was also there,” I said. “Motherfucker can’t kill his own rat ass, but he can kill his friends?”
The captain on duty standing near the food service building called one of the inmates out of the chow line and began to yell at him about needing to shave. The inmate claimed to have a shaving pass, but couldn’t produce it. The captain sent him back to the dorm without any breakfast.
“Allen was actually in Confinement,” I said. “Got out the next day.”
“The plot thickens.”
“It gets even thicker. He was in the cell next to Lance.”
“And he didn’t mention it to you?”
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