True Crime Fiction

by Michael Lister

  Back outside with Bobby.

  “No way somebody could run in, snatch him, and get out again before being seen,” he said.

  “Unless––” I began.

  “There is no unless.”

  “Unless both women were distracted by something at the same time that lasted longer than they realize.”

  “Think of the split-second timing that’d have to be involved. The chances are slim to none. But add in the killer knowing they were distracted or just happening to do it at that moment . . . It’s impossible.”

  “Unless,” I said.

  “I’m telling you there is no unless,” he said. “Unless what?”

  “The killer created the distraction.”

  He started to say something but stopped. After a moment he smiled. “Suppose it’s possible.”

  “There are probably far more, but I can think of two other possibilities so far,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “LaMarcus was playing closer to the woods than they realized,” I said. “Both of those scenarios just mean the eyewitnesses only have to be a little off about a relatively small point.”

  He shook his head. “Never known an eyewitness to get anything wrong.”

  I laughed.

  “And the other possibility?” Bobby asked.

  “The killer came up along the house under the windows where Ida and Jordan couldn’t see him and took LaMarcus back that same way. LaMarcus could’ve been even closer to the house than they realized.”

  “But he would’ve seen him approaching,” Bobby said. “Why didn’t he scream? Say something?”

  “Because it was somebody he knew and trusted.”

  “Like the dad,” he said.

  “Or the friend,” I said. “Maybe like the boy we just borrowed to re-create it, he thought it was a game.”

  19

  “Williams always dumped his victims’ bodies far from where he picked ’em up,” Bobby was saying.

  We had walked through the wooded area on the back side of Ida’s property and were now on the paved road of Flat Shoals Estates, the subdivision behind it, slanting down a hill to an empty cul-de-sac and another wooded area beyond.

  Unlike the flat sand and dark dirt Florida terrain I was accustomed to, Georgia was all red slopes and orange slants of clay hills.

  “Now just remember,” Bobby said, “none of these houses were here.”

  Each structure was built at the end of an unnecessary curved driveway on an incline rising from the road. Three slight variations and sizes of the same brick front, vinyl siding surround, cookie-cutter version of mid-level starter homes.

  “Be easy to go to the wrong home in a subdivision like this,” I said.

  “Happens a lot,” he said. “We get calls all the time from people complaining about belligerent drunks breaking into their houses.”

  We reached the end of the street, stepped across the cement sidewalk and through a small wooded area in the midst of which was an enormous concrete drain pipe.

  “This is where the body was found,” he said. “Lying here inside this culvert like he was just taking a nap. Couldn’t tell anything was wrong until we rolled him over and could see the small nylon rope around his neck.”

  “Still had his clothes on? Had he been messed with sexually?”

  “All his clothes were on but his pants and underwear were down some and sort of wadded up. Like someone had pulled them down and then didn’t get ’em back up just right.”

  “Had he been molested?” I asked. “Raped?”

  He nodded.

  “How long after he went missing was it before he was found?” I asked.

  “Less than three hours.”

  “Who found him?”

  “The partial retarded kid I told you about. Carlton Fields. Claims he was kicking a soccer ball in the cul-de-sac and it rolled in here. Came in after it and saw LaMarcus. Couldn’t wake him up. Went and told his parents.”

  “I see why you suspected him,” I said.

  “Do far more after today,” he said.

  We stood there taking it all in for a moment, neither of us saying anything.

  “See what I mean about this not fitting Williams’s pattern? Body dumped so close to where he was snatched. And there are other, even more compelling reasons for it not being Williams.”

  “You said body being dumped––he wasn’t killed here?”

  He smiled. “You’re pretty sharp for somebody studying for the priesthood.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or didn’t know I wasn’t, but decided he probably didn’t care and it certainly didn’t matter.

  “Wanted to show you this first,” he said. “’Cause it’s the order we saw it in. Now I’ll show you where he was killed.”

  “He was killed here,” Bobby said.

  We were back behind the daycare, in the wooded border on the right side of the property where he had run from when he came out to reenact the snatching of LaMarcus.

  “So he was killed right after he was taken, not far from the spot where he was taken,” I said. “Somethin’ Williams never did that we know of.”

  “There was a small clearing inside here where he used to play,” he said. “Sort of like a fort or hideout. Wasn’t much. Just a little patch of clay where he’d play with Tonka trucks and matchbox cars surrounded by the bushes. Only a few feet wide.”

  “And Carlton?” I said. “Did he know about it? Play in it with him?”

  “Probably. Never confirmed that. Did I let a kid get away with murder?”

  “So why’d the killer move the body after he killed him here?” I said. “Why not just leave him here?”

  “Why’d he come back and move him?” Bobby said. “The body laid here for a while before it was moved to the drainage ditch. So either the killer stayed here with him or left him and came back and moved him.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Not much about this argues for it being part of the other pattern killings.”

  “And I haven’t even gotten to the biggest reason we ruled Williams out,” he said.

  “Which is?”

  “Remember I said we found a rope around his neck? There were some other marks too, indicating he was strangled, but . . . all of them happened post-mortem. Like the killer was trying to make it look like the others.”

  “So how’d he die?”

  “What did I tell you it looked like he was doing when we found him in the drain pipe?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Cause of death was listed as undetermined for a long time,” he said. “Wasn’t until toxicology came back that we knew. He was put to sleep. The killer gave him something. He fell asleep. And never woke up.”

  20

  “Should my boy have been on the list?” Ida asked.

  I shook my head. “I honestly don’t think so.”

  Tears crested her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

  We were alone in the daycare center, seated in two rocking chairs on the reading rug, Jordan and the other teachers outside watching the children play in the late-afternoon sun-dappled yard.

  “Serial killers create a series, follow a particular pattern,” I said. “Ritual killers observe certain rituals. If they deviate, it’s out of necessity not choice.”

  She nodded, wiping her cheeks and eyes.

  “It’s possible Wayne Williams killed LaMarcus,” I said. “It looks like he was in the area that day, but I don’t think he did. I really don’t. I think whether Wayne Williams is innocent or guilty of the pattern cases on and off the list is irrelevant to what happened to LaMarcus. Someone else killed LaMarcus, someone still out there.”

  Her frown and the shake of her head seemed to communicate resignation more than anything else.

  “Are you . . .” I began. “Were you hoping . . . for . . .”

  “Always thought if I could get ’im on the list or convince people he suppose to be . . . I might find out one day what really happened. Nobody gonna do anyt
hing now . . . not if he not one of the . . . not part of the . . .”

  “I don’t think anybody’s investigating any of the killings,” I said. “On or off the list.”

  “You are.”

  I nodded. “I am.”

  “But if my son wasn’t killed by the Atlanta Child Murderer, doesn’t that mean you not gonna investigate what happened to him?”

  “Just the opposite,” I said.

  She looked confused.

  “If you’ll let me and you’re willin’ to help me,” I said, “I’d like to just focus on finding out what happened to LaMarcus.”

  “Let you?” she said, her face brightening. “Willin’? Boy, don’t be silly. I’d be mighty . . . Thank you. Jesus. Thank you.”

  “Chances are I won’t be able to turn up anything the police haven’t,” I said. “I don’t have the access, expertise, or resources they do. All I can do is look at it with new eyes. Bring a fresh perspective. I can focus on it in a way they can’t––or couldn’t. Not that they’re doing anything on it at the moment. That’s why I’m letting go of Wayne Williams and the other cases for now. LaMarcus will get all of everything I have to give. And I won’t stop. Not until I find the killer or die before I do.”

  “Thank you,” Jordan said. “I can’t tell you what it means to us.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  By the time I had reached my car she had caught up with me.

  “I hope I can help bring some closure,” I said. “Seems to me you could really use something good in your life.”

  She looked down but I caught sight of a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me.”

  “Was just a random thought.”

  “I want to hear it.”

  “I . . . I just had the thought that you’re the something good that’s come into my life. You are, aren’t you?”

  “If I’m not,” I said with a smile, “I’ll do until something good comes along.”

  “Are you as good as you seem?” she asked.

  I thought about it for a moment. “I am what I seem. I’m not attempting to seem something other than what I am, but we’re all better and worse than what we appear to be.”

  “I guess we are,” she said.

  We were centered between two sounds. On the one side, the ruckus, rowdy, joyful noises of children playing filled my left ear and her right. On the other, the whoosh and whir of traffic zipping by in both directions on Flat Shoals Road.

  “Larry’s not as bad as he seems,” she said. “I know most people only see one side of him, but there’s another, better . . .”

  I didn’t respond.

  She looked down again, this time without the sweet smile.

  “I meant that most of us are capable of more and less selfishness than we seem," I said, "that we can be more altruistic and assholey depending. Bullying, abuse, addiction, mental illness, sociopathic behavior all fall far outside of that.”

  “Assholey?” she said with a smile.

  “I study a lot of psychology.”

  21

  That night, after basketball and fish sticks with Martin, a little reading in a homicide investigation techniques textbook Frank Morgan had let me borrow, and catching up on a couple of chapters in my theology book, I took LaDonna Paulk out on a date.

  The daughter of Don and Clariece, LaDonna was a central part of the family-run church, singing on Sundays and taking some classes with the rest of us during the week at EPI. Considered Chapel Hill royalty, she was a beautiful dark-eyed girl of nineteen or twenty with short black hair and a stable, settled maturity about her I found refreshing.

  I wasn’t taking her out in an attempt to get my mind off the unavailable Jordan Moore, but I could think of worse unintended consequences.

  Told by the rest of the guys in the dorm that I had to take her somewhere nice, I got a recommendation from Randy Renfroe, the college’s director of student affairs and the person who seemed to know more about Atlanta than anyone I had encountered, scrounged up all the money I could find, and took her to a place downtown I couldn’t afford.

  After she ordered, I ordered a salad and water, lying about my stomach bothering me, but could tell she wasn’t buying it.

  We talked for a while about Atlanta and the college and my transition, before our conversation turned to the church and religion.

  “I really appreciate your approach,” I said.

  “My approach?”

  “Fully committed but levelheaded,” I said. “Like your dad. There’s so much hysteria and bishop worship.”

  She smiled. “Guess it’s inevitable.”

  I shrugged.

  “You don’t think so?”

  “You’re right. A certain amount is, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Probably shouldn’t be saying this to the bishop’s niece, but . . .”

  “You can say anything,” she said.

  And I felt like I could. She was easy to talk to and, like so many people in her family and in the church, open and nonjudgmental.

  “It’s not exactly discouraged,” I said.

  She nodded.

  Our food came and she immediately halved hers and insisted on sharing it with me.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “We didn’t have to come here,” she said.

  “You kiddin’? I love this place.”

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  I did.

  “What’s the name of the restaurant?”

  Unable to come up with it I began to laugh.

  After we finished our overpriced meal and were leaving, I realized how close we were to the hospital.

  “Would you mind . . .” I began. “I hate to ask, but . . .”

  “What?” she said. “Just say it. But just know I’m not puttin’ out on the first date after only half a meal.”

  I laughed a long time at that, nodding appreciatively at her, catching the mischievous glint in her eye.

  “Would you mind if we ran by Grady for a few minutes? Sorry, but there’s someone I really need to see and I’m not sure if––”

  “Of course,” she said. “It’s fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  While she graciously waited in the lobby, I went up to see Roger Lawson, a vibrant, young, talented filmmaker––at least that was what he used to be. Now he was a gaunt, weak, weary man, unable to lift his limbs without pain.

  When I walked into his room, I was struck, as I always was, by the smell. It was the smell of decay, of defecation and disinfectant, of death and the process of dying.

  Roger was dying of a new disease, a disease seemingly so selective it was only targeting gay men. I had been warned. I was taking my life in my hands. There was uncertainty as to how the death sentence was passed from person to person, and for all that was known I could be getting it right now just by breathing the same air as Roger.

  As was often the case, he was asleep when I came into the room.

  I stood there quietly for a while, a silent witness to his suffering.

  He had been abandoned by his family and friends. His boyfriend and one of their best friends had already died from the same disease earlier in the year.

  “John,” he whispered.

  “Hey,” I said, stepping closer and taking his hand.

  I resisted the impulse to ask how he was feeling or doing or to make smalltalk of any kind. I was here to listen, to be near, to be present.

  “A . . . preacher came by . . . today,” he said. “Think . . . it was . . . today.”

  His voice was weak and airy, and came out in small, halted, breathy bursts.

  “Baptist or Pentecostal . . . I . . . think. Should’ve seen . . . him. Put . . . on . . . a . . . hazmat suit to come . . . in and tell . . . me . . . I was an abomination . . . and going . . . to hell.”

  I sh
ook my head. “I’m so sorry. Wonder why they let him in?”

  “Some of the doctors . . . and . . . nurses agree with . . . him.”

  “Guess religious assholes don’t have a corner on the market on stupid.”

  His smile looked more like a grimace but his eyes showed the intent of the expression.

  “You . . . really don’t think I’m . . . going to hell?” he asked. “Sorry I ask you every time.”

  “If God’s love is conditional, if she loves you less than I do and capriciously and vindictively flings people into hell, would you even want to go to heaven?”

  “I . . . don’t want . . . to go to . . . hell.”

  I realized how theoretical and unhelpful my question had been. There was nothing comforting or reassuring about it. It was too abstract, too academic, and I felt bad, felt as if I was failing him.

  “You won’t.”

  I genuinely and sincerely believed he wouldn't. But that's all it was––belief. It occurred to me that the preacher telling him he was going to hell and me telling him he wasn't weren't nearly as different as we seemed. We were men of conviction, of faith, of belief, and I found it deeply disturbing that we differed not in kind but type.

  “I’m so scared,” he said.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I want my mama to love me again.”

  And more than anything in the world at that moment that’s what I wanted too.

  “I appreciate your approach,” LaDonna said when we were back in the car, flying down I-20 toward Decatur.

  I laughed. “Am I being mocked?”

  “Only a little. Just in the way I said it.”

  I shook my head.

  “I mean it though,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “No, I really do. I mean you’re too earnest, too serious, and I think you hold yourself to a standard that’s too . . .”

  I laughed. “The whole appreciating my approach thing is not coming through.”

  “’Cause I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”

  “If you’ll recall, that was the only part when I said it to you.”