Raised the way I was, by Jack Jordan, where I was, in the South, I was trained from an early age to respect and defer to elders, especially my dad, so of course that’s what I do—but this time, not without a little bargaining.
“We can talk about the case first,” I say. “But only if you promise to talk to me about the other stuff afterward.”
He nods.
“I have your word?” I say.
“My word,” he says, still nodding.
“Okay.”
“I’m sure you have questions for me,” he says, “but my first question for you is are you in? Are you gonna help me investigate it?”
I nod. “I am. I will. I will have to work it around several other things—including a family vacation that starts today, but yes. I’m in.”
“I know you’ve got a lot on you,” he says, “but this is important. The clock is ticking.”
Always pushing. A chief character trait of Jack Jordan is that he pushes. It’s often subtle, often gentle, but it’s always there. He’s always working on something and always pushing it, pushing at it, pushing you to help him with it. This is going to be no exception.
“The clock has been ticking for forty years,” I say.
“Well, yeah, but it’s about to run out. And I’m not just talking about my . . . the health stuff I’m dealing with. Do you know how many unsolveds in the Panhandle I think might be the work of Bundy?”
I shake my head.
“Five that are a very strong likelihood and another four that are at least a possibility. So why am I working this case and not them?”
“This was your case.”
He nods. “For a while it was. You’re right. But I plan to eventually work all the cases—and hope to solve them before I’m through.”
“So why this one first?” I say.
“It’s not just that this one was my case, it’s that it’s my fault it didn’t get cleared back when it should have. All the suffering of Janet’s family, especially her mom—but of Ben’s family too. All of it. It’s my fault ’cause I didn’t do my job, ’cause I didn’t stick around to close it when I should have.”
I nod.
“But that’s not why the clock’s ticking. And it doesn’t have as much to do with my clock ticking as you think. It’s because of the newly elected state’s attorney. She has promised to bring charges in the case. Hell, it was actually part of her campaign platform. She has a mandate to clean house, end corruption and the good ol’ boy network. She’s accusing me of a cover-up, of letting Ben go because his dad was a friend of mine. She plans to file charges against him any day now.”
“Are you sure he didn’t do it? What made you clear him?”
“I don’t think he did it, but I’m not as sure now as I was back then. If he did it, I want to be the one to find out and build the case against him. If he did it, he and his dad made a fool out of me.”
“What made you clear him?”
“Why don’t you read the rest of the book first and see what you think, and then we’ll talk about it,” he says.
I nod. “That’s a good idea. Is it okay if I take it with me to Mexico Beach and read it as I can this week?”
“Yeah, but I was hoping you could finish it today and we could start working on it tomorrow.”
“I’ve promised Anna not only to go on this vacation but to be fully present with her while I’m there.”
“But—”
“That part is nonnegotiable,” I say. “But, I should have plenty of time to finish the book soon. And I’ll only be a half hour away. Maybe I can get away for an afternoon and we can drive to Jackson County and reinterview some witnesses.”
He’s obviously not satisfied by that, but he nods his resignation as he frowns and lets out a little sigh.
“Anything you want to ask me?” he says. “Anything stand out to you at this point? Or do you want to finish the book before we really delve into it?”
“Tell me about the blood in the car,” I say. “What made y’all think it was Janet’s?”
“It was AB negative—just like Janet’s. It was female. Which is about all they could tell us back then. Why?”
“My first question of a supposed murder where there is no body. . .” I say. “Is she really dead? Was it her blood? Did she fake her own death in order to disappear?”
He nods. “I considered that but maybe not enough. There was nothing in her life and background—at least that I found—that made me think she would want to disappear. I mean nothing.”
I think about it. We should dig deeper there to make sure that was actually the case.
“But the real reason I believed then that she was dead and still believe now that she is . . .”
“Yeah?”
“AB negative is a very, very rare blood type—the rarest—and no one could lose as much blood as was in that car and survive. The ME said so.”
64
For my entire life, my dad has been as stable and consistent as anyone I’ve known. He has his quirks and he’s held me at arm’s length, but he’s been constant—an unmoving anchor in our family, a fixed star in the night sky by which I have navigated my life.
For that to now be changing, shifting beneath my very feet, has me off balance, searching for stability and footing, finding none.
“What made you go to the doctor in the first place?” I ask.
We are similar in our avoidance of doctors, hospitals, and medication.
“Clothes kept growing,” he says. “They were fallin’ off me and I couldn’t figure out why. Was tired all the damn time. Weird swelling in different part of my body—neck, underarms, stomach, and I was keeping a fever. It wouldn’t go away. All that for long enough’ll send anybody to the doctor. Even me.”
I smile. “Just not as hardheaded as you used to be.”
“That’s a risk factor,” he says.
“What is?”
“Old age. I’m less stubborn ’cause I’m less everything these days. Two main factors for CLL is oldness and whiteness. Tick those two boxes for damn sure.”
“Did you read the information Brown sent with your blood work?” I ask.
He shrugs.
“You don’t know for sure you even have it.”
He smirks and gives me a get real expression. “Pretty sure.”
“He wants to do a bone marrow test to make sure.”
“Yeah,” he says, “I don’t know about that.”
“What’s not to know?”
“May just let it run its course. If it’s my time, it’s my time.”
“The literature he sent said depending on a few factors, it can be treatable.”
“Just not sure I want to spend my final days in a sterile room having poison pumped into my body.”
“That’s not how it would be. Plus it could give you many more days.”
“Could.”
“Yes, could. Could give you more time to work this and other cases. Could give you far more time with your granddaughters.”
He nods noncommittally. “I’m just so damn tired as it is.”
“But that’s most likely the leukemia. That will get better once we deal with it.”
“Maybe,” he says, his mouth twisting into a half frown. “I don’t know. I think I’d just rather get my house in order, finish up what I can—including Janet’s case.”
“At least have the test and follow-up appointment with Brown so you can make an informed decision. Seems the least you can do for me if I’m going to solve your case for you.”
His face breaks out into a big smile that makes him look twenty years younger and much less pale and frail.
“I’ll do you one better,” he says. “You solve this damn case, and I’ll do the damn treatment.”
65
I arrive home expecting to find Anna packed and ready to ride, but instead find her cleaning.
“I figured you’d be in the car waiting,” I say.
Taylor is in her highchair a
t the kitchen table eating Cheerios with her small fingers; Anna scrubbing the grout of the tile floor near her.
She looks up at me with tears in her eyes.
I immediately kneel down beside her.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Mom fell and broke her wrist while she was packing up the car,” she says.
“Oh no. How is she? Where is she? Does she have to have surgery? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she says. “I’m being silly again. She’s going to be okay. They’re not sure yet whether they’re going to have to operate.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” I say. “What do we need to do? Go up there? Do they still plan to go to the beach?”
She shakes her head. “That’s what I’m most upset about. The damn vacation. I was so looking forward to it. I . . . I just . . .”
“Need it,” I say.
“Obviously,” she says. “Look at me. I’m tearily cleaning the freakin’ grout.”
I smile.
“At least it’s good news for you,” she says. “Not only do you not have to leave your dad or the case, but you don’t have to spend a week in a beach house with my parents.”
“Listen to me,” I say. “I know how much you’ve been looking forward to this, how much you need it, deserve it. There’s no way we’re not going. Unless your mom needs you up there, we’re still going.”
“Really?” she says, a small smile dancing at the corners of her lips.
“Really.”
“I figured you’d use this as a chance to get out of going, that you’d be so relieved not to have to go that you’d—”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t do that.”
“So we can go?”
“Unless you’d rather stay and clean the grout.”
She pretends to consider it, acting as if she’s torn.
“Do you think we need to go to your folks? If we do, we can—and we’ll turn even that into a vacation all its own. One way or another, you’re getting away and relaxing.”
“I’ll double check, but she said she’s okay, that there’s nothing we can do. They told us to go ahead and use the cottage, but I didn’t think you’d want to.”
“Do you?” I ask.
“You know I do.”
“Then you should know I do too.”
Dropping the small brush she is scrubbing with, she lunges toward me, arms outstretched for an embrace, wrapping me up in a big hug, but I’m unable to keep my balance from my kneeling position and her momentum carries us back. We fall to the floor, her on top of me.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I nod. “But I think my skull may have put a chip in the tile.”
66
The late afternoon sun splashes bright orange on the cumulus clouds above it while all around it the deep plum-colored sky slowly devolves into darkness.
Stillness. Peace. Breathtaking beauty.
I’m alone on an empty stretch of beach.
A weekday toward the end of August, school in, tourists from Alabama and Georgia returned home, nearly all of Mexico Beach is open and uninhabited these days.
Sitting on sand so white, so soft, so fine it has the consistency of refined sugar without the stickiness, I am mindful of my breathing and my thoughts.
Before me the green waters of the Gulf roll in and back out again, their crash and splash joining the airy sound of the wind to create an aural tunnel of forceful white noise, pierced intermittently by the screech and squeal of seagulls.
Closing my eyes momentarily on the elegance and magnificence, I breathe even more slowly. In and out. In and out. Conscious of my breathing. Mindful of my thoughts.
I’ve come to this secluded section of Mexico Beach to meditate and pray, to recalibrate and reconnect—activities that too often get crowded out by less important endeavors during my days.
Though I was less than enthusiastic about this retreat from the routine of our daily lives, I need this every bit as much as Anna, and I am grateful to be here.
Like a child fighting falling asleep—something else I too often do—my life would be far better if I would relax into opportunities like this one instead of fighting against some of the very things that are so good for me.
Over the course of my life, my spiritual practice has evolved and expanded, shifted and changed, but it has always included this—prayer and meditation in the splendor of North Florida nature.
Thoughts come and I let them go, observing but not engaging with them.
I breathe in the beauty.
I express my gratitude and my love.
Everything about my experience is restorative and nurturing, and I realize, as I always do, just how much richer and sweeter and deeper my life would be if I would just insist that this be a more consistent part of my daily routine.
Later toward evening, Anna and I walk hand in hand along the water’s edge, and it is as much an act of worship and spiritual practice as my time alone on the beach had been.
“Can’t tell you what it means to me that you insisted we still come,” Anna says.
Taylor is asleep in the baby sling wrapped around her body, her small head nestled against Anna’s breasts.
It’s after sundown and the quiet quality of evening bathes everything with an ethereal light and sound, like a palpable presence of transcendence flowing in and through and out of us.
“I was an idiot to be hesitant in the first place,” I say.
We had already talked at length about my dad and her mom and even the Janet Lester case earlier in the day. Now it was time for all of that—along with everything else—to remain at bay and let it be, for a short while at least, as if we are the only two people on the planet.
“Sorry I’ve been on edge lately. It’s like some of the shit we went through is finally catching up with me.”
“You’re handling everything extremely well,” I say. “Don’t hesitate to share it with me and let me help, and if you feel like you need to see a counselor, we’ll find you the very best.”
“I’m married to the very best.”
We pause long enough for me to kiss her, then continue walking.
“You’ve been through so much,” I say.
“Speaking of being married to the best,” she says. “I know we are married in every way that truly matters, but . . . I’d like to do it officially.”
“I guess I always figured we would as soon as your divorce from Chris comes through,” I say.
“It arrived in the mail this morning.”
I stop and drop to a knee without letting go of her hand.
“Anna, I have loved you since the moment I first met you when we were just children. I have always loved you. I will always love you. Of all the women in all the world, you are the woman to me. The only woman. You are my dream girl, my best friend, my partner in everything. You are my everything. I never again, not for one moment, want to experience life without you by my side. Will you marry me—”
“I will.”
“I wasn’t finished.”
“Oh, please finish.”
“—as soon as possible,” I say.
She smiles as tears trickle down her cheeks.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes. I thought you’d never ask.”
She kneels down with me and we embrace and kiss, careful not to wake Taylor as we do.
67
Janet Lester had decided it was time, determined she was ready, while dancing with Ben to “How Deep Is Your Love” by the Bee Gees at the Sweethearts’ Ball.
She had made him wait long enough, hadn’t she?
Ben was a good guy, and he really cared for her, but he wasn’t going to wait forever. He’d been sweet and patient, but she could tell he was really beginning to get frustrated. Them not doing it was becoming a big deal.
And what about her? Hadn’t she waited long enough? She was eighteen. It was time for her too. She was the last of her friends to still be a virgin.
“I’ve got a
surprise for you,” she whispered in his ear as they slow danced beneath the disco ball, a million tiny spots of light slowly swirling around them.
She was wearing a beige dress with lots of ruffles similar to one she had seen Farrah Fawcett wear at a recent Hollywood premiere. He was wearing a brown suit with a beige shirt that matched her dress. They were surrounded by several other slow-dancing couples, but none that had been together a fraction of the time they had.
“Oh yeah?” he said. “What’s that?”
He seemed distracted and maybe even a little disinterested—two things he seemed more and more these days.
Maybe it was because he was already drinking, but that wouldn’t explain why he had been acting that way in general lately. More and more all the time.
Her waiting too long would explain it though. Had he lost interest in her?
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know . . . you just seem a little . . . distracted.”
He shrugged and shook his head, but didn’t say anything to allay her concerns.
Was the song, the song that was playing when she decided to give herself to him, actually a warning? Should she have been questioning how deep his love was?
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’. Why?”
“You just seem . . . I don’t know. Like maybe you’re . . .”
“I’m what? Let’s just enjoy the song. I really dig it. You know? You’re just trippin’ tonight for some reason. You tired from last night? Or has bein’ the queen gone to your head already? Just chill.”
They danced in silence some more, her waiting to see if he’d mention the surprise.
He didn’t.
Because he didn’t care or because he was really enjoying their dance?
She was thinking of giving him her virginity, she’d bought a special negligee for the occasion and everything, and he totally didn’t care.
Maybe rather than this being the night she gave herself to him, maybe this was the night they’d call it quits.
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