True Crime Fiction

by Michael Lister

  Next up was a youngish, buttoned-up black man with glasses and an honest to God pocket protector. “I was reading Crime and Punishment this week and came across this–– ‘The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God.’ When I first read it I really liked it. Even highlighted it and wrote it down. But the more I read it, the more I just wasn’t sure. I mean . . . is it true? Doesn’t really seem true except maybe for some of the time.”

  “God is close to a broken heart,” an elderly black lady said, “an ever present help in our time of need.”

  “Those are just platitudes,” the professorial-looking man said. “Just ’cause someone said it doesn’t make it true.”

  “It’s in the Bible,” she said. “That’s what makes it true.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s true,” a middle-aged white man said. “Pain. Pain is truth. It’s so true sometimes there seems like there’s nothin’ else. I just . . . I’m not sure I can keep going like this, feeling like this. I’m not sure I even want to.”

  “I didn’t just lose a child,” Ida said when it was her turn. “I lost a grandchild too. My son was the victim of violence and I still don’t know who did it. There’s no . . . Talk about pain. Talk about darkness and a demon that won’t leave you alone. Then to see your grandchild suffer for all of her short life and then die . . . It’s too much. It doesn’t ever go away. Not ever. But it does become just barely bearable. Just barely. It does. Trust me. Hang on. Don’t give up.”

  “Why?” the middle-aged white man asked. “So I can get to barely bearable? That’s what I have to look forward to? That’s not enough.”

  Sitting among the ruins, listening to the raw bone pain pour out, feeling the overwhelming oppression of loss and grief, despair and hopelessness, I realized just how little loss I had undergone, just how pain free my relatively easy existence had been thus far, and on top of every other difficult emotion I was experiencing, I also felt guilt.

  “I don’t see how y’all do it,” I said to Ida and Jordan after the group had concluded, its members dispersed back to the despair that was the norm of their lives.

  We were walking down the long, light blue-carpeted hallway of the K Center toward the door.

  “To live with the . . . with what you do . . . then to . . . take in all the pain and grief of the group. It just seems . . . too much.”

  “Sometimes it is,” Ida said.

  “It really does help to share it,” Jordan said. “To feel heard and understood, to get to give that back to others in a similar situation.”

  I wondered which I could do to help more people––ministry or investigation. How could I combine my interests, talents, and opportunities to make some small difference in the time and place and circumstance I was born into.

  “Thank you again for all you’re doin’ for us,” Ida said. “You can’t know what it means, how it helps, but . . .”

  I waited, unable to imagine what was coming next.

  “We lived this way a long time. We gonna get by. Don’t you be puttin’ too much undue pressure on yourself.”

  I must have inadvertently expressed I wasn’t following.

  “We don’t have any expectations,” Jordan said. “We’ve resigned ourselves to not knowing what happened to LaMarcus and why.”

  “Well, I haven’t,” I said. “I can’t. I won’t.”

  “‘For now we see through a glass, darkly,’” Ida said, quoting Saint Paul, “‘but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ Sometimes we just don’t get to know.”

  “I can’t accept that,” I said.

  She shook her head and frowned.

  “You live long enough, you’ll learn to.”

  38

  Later that afternoon, Bishop Paulk’s secretary, Dottie Bridges, had called the college and asked me to come to the bishop’s office as soon as I had finished cleaning the classrooms.

  I arrived in the dimming, dusky early evening to find Bishop Paulk and Pastor Don waiting for me.

  The entire K Center was quiet, the other offices empty, the rest of the staff having gone home for the day.

  As usual, both men were in suits and full clerical collars.

  Having just come from work, I was in faded jeans, a gray Magic Johnson sweatshirt, and a pair of New Balance Worthy 790s with purple and yellow Laker color highlights, and I felt underdressed and out of place.

  They were friendly and welcoming and asked about my classes and work at EPI and my life in general, Bishop Paulk behind his enormous desk, Pastor Don and I in the two chairs across the desk from him.

  “How’s your investigation going?” Don asked.

  I told them.

  “You must really be getting somewhere with it,” he said. “Getting close to the killer.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “We received another call from someone claiming to be the killer,” Earl Paulk said.

  “Really?” I asked, my mind racing. “Wow. That’s . . . Was it the same guy?”

  “I can’t be sure,” he said. “It’s been a long time. But . . . I just don’t know. It could be, but he sounded different somehow.”

  I nodded and thought about it. “Of course it could be unrelated to anything I’ve done.”

  “Actually, he mentioned you by name,” he said.

  “Really?”

  I just thought my mind was racing before.

  Who could it be? I had talked to so many possible suspects. Was it one of them or someone I wasn’t even aware of?

  “What did he say?”

  “That he had called me before, that he needed help, that he wanted to stop, that you were stirring it all up for him and the memories were haunting him and he couldn’t take it.”

  I thought about who I had spoken with that would know of my connection to Chapel Hill and Bishop Paulk.

  “You have any idea who it could be?” Don asked. “Got a leading suspect?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “What would you do if you were given the chance to talk to him?” Earl asked.

  I noticed he asked what would I do not what would I say, and I wondered if that was intentional.

  “What would I do?”

  “How would you handle it?”

  I really didn’t know. I had imagined various scenarios, of course, but not very seriously, not in any but the most fantastical ways.

  “I’m not sure exactly.”

  “Would you talk to him as an investigator or as a minister?”

  “I don’t know. I . . . Honestly, I often find myself torn between the two, but . . .”

  “Are you more interested in temporary justice or his eternal soul?”

  I knew the answer immediately, but took a beat to give it because I didn’t want to sound flippant. “Both,” I said.

  “There’s got to be a place for both,” Don said.

  “I hope so.”

  “But when they’re at odds,” Earl said, “which will you choose?”

  I didn’t respond, just thought about it.

  “I’m a minister,” he said. “First. Last. Always. I want to help him if I can.”

  I nodded.

  “He says he’s gonna kill again if he doesn’t get help.”

  My heart started pounding even harder.

  “You interested in helping me help him?”

  I said I was, but thought we might have differing ideas of what that meant exactly.

  “He said he’d come see us––you, me, and Pastor Don––if and only if all three of us were here. And no one else was. No cops. No staff. No one. Only us. He said for us to be here at the church every night this week and when he was ready and convinced there were no cops, he’d come by and talk to us.”

  The excitement shooting through me was like a drug. I couldn’t believe this was happening. This was why I was here––the earlier phone calls to Bishop Paulk the reason I was standing in his office at this moment.


  “You willing to stay with us here tonight and every night this week until he shows?” Don asked.

  I was nodding before he was even close to finishing the question.

  I’d have to figure out a way of getting Martin fed, and I’d miss my time with Jordan, but this was something I had to do.

  “And to be here as a churchman and not a lawman,” Earl said.

  I wasn’t either. Not really. But I knew what he meant, and I nodded, though it was somewhat disingenuous. Whatever I was, whatever words fit better than churchman and lawman, I could never be either or, never be only one or the other, and I suspected he knew it.

  “We’re not saying you can’t be who you are,” Don said. “Just that you understand and respect what we’re about. We’re going to do our best to get him to turn himself in––”

  “But we’re not setting a trap for him,” Earl said. “Not going to try to make an arrest ourselves and we don’t want you to.”

  “I understand.”

  Sitting quietly in the enormous empty building waiting for a killer to call was creepy and unnerving.

  Earlier in the evening, Norma Paulk, the bishop’s wife, had brought us dinner. After eating, we had settled in to wait––sitting, standing, walking around the office.

  Waiting.

  For the first few hours, we had talked about the case and Kingdom Theology and the challenges I would face attempting to do both ministry and law enforcement. Later, we had each pulled a book from the shelf and read in silence. Now we just sat and waited.

  I had been unable to communicate with Martin or Jordan and I wondered if they were worried.

  No call came that first night.

  At a little after two in the morning on the second night, the killer called back and said he wasn’t coming that night either, but that he had been watching and was encouraged to see that we had not involved the cops. If that continued he’d come see us soon.

  Weary and welcoming the release, we rushed out quickly toward the opportunity to get some actual sleep in our beds, and it wasn’t until after the Paulks had left together that I remembered I had parked on the side of the building––something I had done for a few minutes privacy with Jordan before going in.

  The night was dark and quiet, very little visible back here, no sound but that of the wind.

  Beneath thick clouds that covered the moon and the stars nothing stirred, nothing contradicted my sense of utter isolation.

  As I walked around the back of the enormous K Center in the blackness of the night, I kept imagining the killer jumping out of the darkness to strangle or stab or rape or brain me, and I could feel the fear starting to seize me up, mind and body.

  The grass of the hilly ground was damp with dew, the soft sounds of my footfalls barely perceptible, but I thought for sure I heard others in the short distance over my right shoulder.

  There’s no one there. It’s just your imagination, your fear. Don’t look. Just keep walking.

  Unable to help myself, I spun around and scanned the area as best I could.

  No one was there that I could make out, but I could only see a short distance into the dark.

  Turning back around, I picked up my pace, walking so fast it was nearly a run.

  My footfalls were louder now.

  And so were the others. Or the others I thought I heard.

  I wanted to run but was unable to do anything other than what I was doing.

  When I reached the edge of the building, the vast parking lot was visible––hundreds and hundreds of empty spots and there in the not too far distance a lone automobile, appearing eerie and abandoned.

  As frightened as I had been back behind the K Center in the dark, I realized that I was far more vulnerable in the long lighted walk across the lot.

  I pictured predator and prey on a shimmering African plain––a small gazelle separated from the herd, a sleek cheetah, the fastest land animal on the planet, designed for this, for the chase, for the kill.

  Feeling far more exposed than at any other time in my entire life, I stumbled down the hill and began my trek toward my vehicle.

  Not far into it, I began to jog. Not long after that, I began to run.

  Glancing over my shoulder often, scanning the area all around me as best I could, I ran awkwardly, unsteadily, disjointedly, my body stiff with fear, my blood thick with adrenaline.

  It wasn't until I was well into my run that I noticed the other car in the lot.

  About a hundred feet away in the far rear corner, a black Oldsmobile Cutlass with darkly tinted windows had been backed into the parking spot, its nose pointing toward my car, a tiny trail of exhaust rising up and vanishing into the night air behind it.

  I was too close to the car to turn around, but even if I hadn’t been, the church building behind me was locked, unable to provide any sanctuary.

  I ran even faster.

  I could feel myself losing my balance, about to trip, to fall face first into the ungiving asphalt.

  But somehow I managed to stay on my faltering feet.

  As I ran, I continued to scan the entire area, but most of my focus and mental energy was trained on the Cutlass, which had yet to move.

  When I finally made it to my car and was safely inside, I felt foolish, but not foolish enough not to check my backseat and speed away, my eyes darting to my rearview mirror often as I did––particularly toward the parking spot in the back of the lot where the dark car still mercifully remained.

  The call came at midnight on the third night.

  The loud, abrupt ring piercing the silence, startling.

  Bishop Paulk’s voice was dry and quiet and sounded sleepy.

  My pulse kicked into overdrive, adrenaline spiking into the red, my mind reeling.

  Am I really this close to the killer?

  “There’s no one here but us,” Earl was saying into the phone. “You have my word. I even sent our security guard home for the evening . . . It’s not a trap . . . I want to help you. That’s all I’m interested in. I want you to know God loves you no matter what you’ve done . . . No, I . . . I do. I truly believe that.”

  I stood and began moving around a bit.

  “Yes, he’s here. Don too.”

  Bishop grew quiet, listening to what I assumed were our instructions.

  “We’ll do that. Just like you ask, but I don’t want anyone getting hurt. We’re operating in good faith. Are you doing the same?”

  He waited.

  “Why not meet with all three of us? Or let John and Pastor Don go home and just meet with me . . . Okay. Just don’t hurt those who’re trying to help you.”

  When the bishop hung up, he kept his hand on the receiver for a long moment, seemingly contemplating the conversation.

  “Well?” Don said.

  “He wants us to split up. One at each door. Wants to make sure we don’t gang up on him. He’ll approach one of us and if he’s comfortable, whoever he chooses can lead him to the other two.”

  “He’s just separating us so he can pick us off one at a time.”

  “Why? Why would he do that? He says we’re to stand at three different doors but that we can keep the doors locked so we can see him approaching and know it’s not an ambush.”

  “Something’s just not right about it,” Don said.

  “He kills children,” Earl said. “He’s probably not a threat to us, but even if he is, we’ve got to try to stop him. God will be with us.”

  “What do you think, John?” Don asked.

  “That you’re both right. Something’s definitely not right, but we can’t let that stop us from trying to stop him.”

  “Why is he really separating us?” Don said.

  “It could be what he said, but . . . I think it’s far more likely that he has another motive. What if he’s not really wanting help at all? What if he thinks I’m getting too close, thinks I know more than I do, and he’s really just trying to get me alone.”

  “That makes far more se
nse,” Don said. “Would explain why he wanted you here.”

  “Don and I can just go down,” Earl said.

  I shook my head. “I think we should do it just like he said to. There’s no way I can just stay up here. If there’s even a chance to talk to him, to . . . I’ve got to try. We can be extra careful and keep the doors locked until we see him.”

  Bishop Paulk stood, withdrew a key from his desk, and handed it to me. “He wants you at the front door, in the vestibule near the bookstore, me in the back, and Don on the side. Don’t take any chances. Be safe. Don’t open the door until he shows you he’s unarmed. Let’s pray before we go.”

  The three of us joined hands and the bishop prayed for our protection and that we might help the man God was bringing to us tonight.

  I slowly walked down the dark, empty hallway of the K Center toward the front door far more afraid than I could ever remember being before.

  I was inspired by Earl and Don’s bravery, and I was excited about the possibility of confronting one of the killers who had haunted me for so long, but more than anything I was scared. So scared I shook with it.

  The only illumination came from the blood-red glow of the illuminated Exit signs and the power indicator of the emergency backup lights.

  The enormous building, which held thousands for worship services and really did resemble an airplane hanger, felt vacuous, its continuous creaks echoing through the emptiness, reminding me how very alone I was.

  I moved gradually, gripping the key like a weapon, edging toward the front and my fate.

  Who was waiting for me? Was it LaMarcus’s killer? Pelton? Storr? Anthony Alex Williams, Jr? Ralph Alderman? Maybe it really was the killer and maybe I had no idea who he was.

  Up ahead, about another two hundred feet or so, I could see just a bit less dimness, as ambient lighting from outside found its way through the glass doors and into the vestibule.

  As I drew closer, inch by inch, step by step, I felt more and more dread bearing down on me, heavy, oppressive, suffocating.

  When I was less than a hundred feet away, I said a prayer of my own. Please protect me. Don’t let me die just as my life is getting started. Please help me catch LaMarcus’s killer.

  Reaching the vestibule, I reminded myself––the doors are locked. Don’t get too close to them. Stand sideways. Move about. Don’t be an easy target. Keep your eyes wide and unfocused. Alert on movement.