True Crime Fiction

by Michael Lister

  I nod. “Sounds solid to me,” I say, though I question how much time he’s taking with each step.

  “As we’re searching around, I see this kid watching us from the next mansion over. I mean . . . he’s not just watching, he’s . . . he’s not taking his eyes off us. And the way he’s looking . . . I know something’s up. I ask Miss Nadine, the nanny, who he is. She says his name is Caden Stevens that his family is vacationing here from Montgomery and that he and Mariah and Brett have played together some. He’s maybe eleven. Brett is ten, and Mariah is nine—but hell, from what I gather she’s more mature than both of them. Was, I mean. So . . . here again this is a judgement call, but I take the time to go over and talk to Caden. Have you seen Mariah this morning? Do you know where she is? Did you know what she was planning? And I can tell he’s lying to me. He knows something. So what do I do? Do I interview him, press him on what he knows? Do I call for the dogs? I did both.”

  “Hard for anyone to argue with that,” I say.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised. But anyway, I figured, hey, it’s gonna take a while to get the dogs out here—I mean out to the Cape. They’re coming all the way from Gulf CI, so I make the call and while I’m waiting for them, I interview little Caden.”

  211

  Large raindrops begin to fall and we dash over and take shelter on the front porch of the church. The porch, like the steps leading up to it, is smooth, bare concrete and holds up the tall white columns that hold up the high overhang.

  “Lived here all my life,” he says. “Never seen so much rain in one summer.”

  I nod and look out at the huge old bell mounted on the sign in the front with the Methodist cross and flame on it, the fat raindrops splatting hard on the black metal surface.

  “Caden’s a good kid,” he says. “You can tell. “Respectful. Good manners. Sort of quiet and shy. Has a gentleness about him. Wasn’t a formal interview or anything, so I just spoke to him outside of the house, kind of informal like. Didn’t ask the parents’ permission and they weren’t present at first. He told me he liked Mariah a lot. Enjoyed hanging with her a lot more than Brett. Swore he had no idea where she might be. I had a hard time telling, but I felt like he was telling the truth and keeping things from me. Figured if we didn’t find her soon, he’d warrant a second, more formal interview.”

  I thought the same thing while reading his report and noted that Caden hadn’t been interviewed again and had returned home with his family to Montgomery, Alabama.

  “I wasn’t even really finished talkin’ to him when I see Ashley and Trace over in their rental talking very animatedly into their phones. I tell Caden I’d like to talk to him again in a few minutes and walk over to see what’s going on with Trace and Ashley. When I ask what’s happening, Trace gives me nothing but attitude. Says I’m moving too slow, not taking it seriously. Said if he was white or Mariah wasn’t mixed I’d have my fat ass in gear. He was off the phone by now, but Ashley was still on. Told me she Googled what to do when a child goes missing and it said after reporting it to local law enforcement, call NCMEC and report it to them and that’s what she was doing.”

  NCMEC is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

  “Said while she was doing that, he called his lawyer and publicist and had them contact the FBI and the media,” Andy says. “I felt like I had just stepped on a landmine and it was just a matter of time before it blew me to bits. I ask them to come back inside with me. I wanted to call Reggie and let her know what was going on before she saw it on her damn TV set. If I made a mistake it was here. After my little chat with Caden, he and his parents sort of followed me over to Trace’s and then a few other people gathered and when we went inside, they came in too. ’Course I didn’t know it was a crime scene. Didn’t know anything but that there was a little girl who left a note and ran away.”

  “There was no way for you to know it was a crime scene,” I say.

  He frowns, shrugs, and nods. “Since we had an hour until the dogs would arrive and all these people wanting to help, I told them to divide up in teams of two or three and start searching the area, beginning at Stars Haven and moving outward. While they did that, I called Reggie and told her what was going on. Even though she was on medical leave I knew she would want to know—given everything, including the money and fame of the dad involved—which is why I was gonna do it anyway, but with them calling the damn FBI and the media, I knew she had to know and the sooner the better.”

  I nod. “You were right to call her.”

  “She said I should’ve done it sooner.”

  I smile. “She’d have to be completely incapacitated not to want you to call as early as possible with something like that.”

  He shrugs. “Yeah, well . . . I called very early in the process.”

  I nod.

  “Anyway, so everybody’s searching as we wait for the dogs and more people arrive—some of Ashley’s family I think.”

  According to the murder book, Ashley Howard grew up very poor in Wewa—where most of her family still lives. At seventeen she got pregnant by Justin Harris, a young man from a wealthy family in Port St. Joe. The two had a short, tumultuous marriage, but had figured out a way to coparent pretty well over the years. In fact, Justin, who’s a real estate agent on the Cape, is who Trace and Ashley used to book their rental in Stars Haven.

  “Trace and his manager—an ex-con named Irvin Hunter who was staying in the house with him—kept berating me for not doing more, said they were gonna have my badge, questioned why I didn’t care more and concluded it was racial. Most of that came from the manager. Self-important prick. Trace . . . seemed, at least at times, genuinely upset and sort of lost, and others . . . like he was acting—saying and doing what he thought he should. I don’t know . . . take it for what it’s worth. That’s just my observation and we both know how often those can be wrong.”

  “Did the additional people—Ashley’s family and others—join in the search or . . .”

  “Ashley and Trace stayed at the house while the others searched. So did the manager and the nanny—and of course Brett was somewhere around. So when the family got there—and it was just the mother, a brother, and a sister—they stayed at the house with Ashley, didn’t join the search. ’Course they were all over the house. I just didn’t know enough at the time to keep them from . . . I wish I had treated it like a crime scene. I should have. I’m not sayin’ I shouldn’t, but . . . given what I knew, what I had been told and presented with . . . I made the best decisions I could.”

  “I know you did. So what happened next?”

  “Since we were just waiting I decided to make the most of the time and get as much information out of everyone as I could. Told them they could really help me by answering honestly and telling me anything they could think of. I asked about any conflict or problems between Mariah and anyone in the family. They said there was none. I reminded them of what her note said, and they said there had been an adjustment period since Ashley and Brett had been around more. Mariah got less of her daddy’s attention and Ashley took on a more parental role. But nothing major. Nothing to warrant any of this. What about Mariah’s mom, I asked. They said she has absolutely nothing to do with her, that she’s an addict and toxic person and lost custody back when Mariah was very small. Any other friends or family in the area she might go to? They said no. All her friends and family were in Atlanta. Everybody was on edge—even Ashley’s family that had just gotten there. Lot of nervous energy in the room. Tension. Lot of the interaction was intense—and not just with me, but with each other. I got the sense that Ashley’s family embarrassed her and she wished they weren’t there. Don’t think Trace wanted them there either. But Irvin, the manager, ran interference for him, and Trace kept leaving the living room where we were, disappearing for a while. Guess he was walking off his nervous energy or something. Anyway, wasn’t much interaction between him and Ashley’s family.”

  “How long was Trace gone at a time?” I a
sk.

  He shrugs. “Not too long. Longest time was probably ten minutes. Most of the time it was a lot shorter—like five or three. He wasn’t in there when the other note was found.”

  The other note is the ransom note that changed everything.

  “Ashley’s mom, Arlene,” he says. “Arlene Lafontaine was telling a story about the time Ashley ran away as a child when Nadine the nanny came running in the room screaming. She was holding a piece of paper in her hand, sort of flapping it around. As she’s bringing it over to me, Trace rushes into the room and snatches it out of her hand. ‘What is it?’ I asked. She said it was a ransom note she found in Mariah’s room. Trace, who was reading the note, lost it. Threw a glass ashtray through the glass top coffee table. Everyone else started panicking. The whole scene was pandemonium.”

  According to her statement, Nadine went into search Mariah’s room again and decided to make up the bed while she was there. As she did, a ransom note fell out of a fold in the bedspread.

  It read: I’ll make this simple so even an ignorant thug like you can understand. I have your daughter. If you want her back it will cost you $250,000.00. That’s a very small amount because I want to do this fast and easy. I know you have a lot more, but that’s all I want. I’m not greedy, have no desire to be nigger rich like you. I don’t want no gold teeth or spinning rims or any shit like that. Your song says you will never leave her again. Well, maybe not, but she’s left you. You say you will never hurt her again, never let her down. We will see if you really mean that. I don’t want to hurt your little girl. Don’t make me. Just gather the money and I’ll call you with where we’ll meet to make the trade. Don’t test me boy. Don’t call the police. Don’t tell anyone. You do and it’s lights out for the little mixed girl. Just get the little chump change together and wait for my call. Be smarter than you seem and don’t fuck this up. Your little girl’s life depends on it.

  “What’d you do then?” I ask.

  “Cleared the house,” he says. “Got everyone out, which wasn’t easy. Put the note in a plastic evidence bag—even though three or four of us had already touched it. And called the detective on duty, Arnie Ward. From that point forward, all I did was secure the scene and wait for the cavalry.”

  212

  Our home is visible from the Methodist church on Main Street.

  So the entire time I had been talking to Andy, I had not only been keeping an eye on our house, but missing Anna and the girls and wanting to be with them.

  After concluding my conversation with Andy, I swing by the Dixie Dandy and grab Anna’s favorite breakfast food from the deli and surprise her with it.

  While Daniel does physical therapy with Sam and the girls play in their room, Anna and I have a picnic on the floor of my library.

  My library is unlike any room I’ve ever had in any previous house. It’s in the converted formal living room in the front corner of the house. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line three of the four walls. The fourth has glass enclosed shelves of the barrister variety with my signed first editions in them. They are shorter shelves and stop about three feet from the ceiling. Their tops are filled with art objects and family pictures, behind them framed photographs hang on the wall.

  “This is so good,” she says, crunching on a piece of crispy bacon. “So sweet of you. Don’t you want some?”

  I shake my head. “Just want to watch you enjoy it.”

  Though there are a couple of chairs, we are as usual sitting on one of the two large rugs on the center of the hardwood floor.

  “How’d it go with Andy?” she asks.

  I smile and shake my head again. “No shoptalk,” I say. “Not now. Let’s just enjoy each other and the food. I do want to talk about the case with you—especially once I know more. Maybe tonight. I was thinking . . . I’d really like to get Sam and Daniel involved somehow.”

  She nods vigorously, finishes chewing and swallowing and says, “I love that idea. And I love no shoptalk right now too. But let’s extend that to no household or kid talk too.”

  “How’d you sleep?” I ask. “How do you feel?”

  “Slept great. Feel good. Even better now that my honey paid me a surprise visit with bacon.”

  “I told you when you married me there would be bacon.”

  “I guess I just took that to be sexual like most everything else you say to me.”

  “Sometimes bacon is just bacon.”

  “You sayin’ if I lock the library door and we manage to get a few more uninterrupted minutes, I won’t get lucky?”

  “I am not now, nor I have I ever been, saying anything of the dang kind.”

  “We are still on our honeymoon, aren’t we?”

  I nod emphatically. “Least for another fifty years or so.”

  “So we’re sort of duty bound, wouldn’t you say? Sneak in and check on the kiddos without them seeing you while I savor these last bites and when you come back, lock the door.”

  Johanna and Taylor are playing happily and intensely, and when I return to the library and lock the door, Anna and I do the same.

  When we are finished, I say, “Why thank you, Mrs. Jordan.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Jordan. You know how much I love to score on the library floor.”

  213

  Once Mariah’s body had been discovered, Arnie Ward, the investigator who caught the case, had been partnered with an African-American FDLE agent named Lakeisha Colvin, but when Andy Finch first called in the cavalry, Arnie alone rode in.

  Arnie is in court today, so we meet during his lunch break.

  Arnie Ward is a decent man and a solid detective. Conscientious and hardworking, he plods along checking the boxes, filing the reports, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s of each case. He has a small, limited tool box—one without creativity or intuition—but the tools he has he uses often and efficiently.

  There are people in this world who do not look like what they really are. Arnie isn’t one of them. His average build, clean shave, clear eyes, barbershop haircut, drugstore aftershave, sensible shoes, and utilitarian clothes offer no conflict or contradiction to the soul or mind of the man beneath them.

  “Sure wouldn’t’ve hurt my feelings any if you’d’ve caught this one instead of me,” he says.

  We’re sitting on the tailgate of his white F-150 on the side of the courthouse beneath the only shade we can find, taking advantage of a few moments without rain.

  “To be honest,” he says, “I’m glad you’re lookin’ into it now.”

  Unlike many of the men I meet in law enforcement and virtually every other field, Arnie isn’t egotistical or interested in recognition, and I know he won’t be defensive as we discuss the case.

  “Case like this . . .” he says, “is too important, too complicated to be left to just one detective. I’m glad we have agent Colvin and I’m glad we have you.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “I appreciate that. And I’m not here to second guess or be critical of anything that’s been done. Just trying to gather and evaluate the information, not the investigation.”

  He nods.

  Between us, a series of plastic Tupperware type containers hold a wide variety of homemade dishes that appear far too fresh and sophisticated to be simple leftovers.

  Arnie is also the kind of man who brings his lunch every day.

  Each morning, his wife prepares a full, large meal for him and places it in a complex array of plastic containers, and each day at lunch, Arnie sits at his desk and eats every bite.

  “Sure you don’t want some?” he asks.

  The container he’s holding and eating from now appears to have some sort of Salisbury steak with a thick brown gravy and mashed potatoes. A smaller container with the lid off balances precariously on his lap and has steamed vegetables that he stabs and eats in between bites of the meat and potatoes.

  I nod. “Thank you.”

  “Okay, so . . . I’ll make this quick ’cause I don’t have much time. Judge wants to fini
sh the case today, which is all right by me. I drove out there, wondering what was really going on and if I should call in the FBI or FDLE or what. No reason to if she was still in the area, but if she had been taken out of the state and this thing was going to involve several agencies and jurisdictions, we’d need them. The call I made was to wait until I got out there to see what we had. I should have called Reggie at that point, but I thought Andy Finch had, so I didn’t. But I should have anyway. She’s right to be mad at me about that. Hell, I shoulda called Langston at least and he would’ve called her, but . . . I was so focused on what I had to do, on what I was going to be dealing with.”

  Langston Costin is the Chief Deputy, who has been in charge since Reggie has been out on medical leave.

  “Turns out . . . I didn’t make the wrong call exactly,” he says. “We didn’t need the FBI because we really didn’t have a kidnaping, but . . . if I had called Reggie sooner—or Langston—they would’ve probably called in FDLE crime scene lab from the beginning. Would’ve been helpful to have them there sooner.”

  I nod.

  Before us, the courthouse is busy—citizens coming and going, conducting their business with the court, the clerk, the property appraiser. Out on 71, as vehicles pour into town, most of them with Georgia and Alabama tags on them, they slow as the road widens and the two lane highway becomes the four lane parkway. They slow, but not nearly enough.