INNOCENT BLOOD: a John Jordan Mystery Book 7 (John Jordan Mysteries)

by Michael Lister

  “Probably, but she never called when she did, so . . .”

  “Guess that’s true.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “I got your number from your mom.”

  In the darkness of my smallish room there was only the sound of the oscillating fan and Anna’s voice.

  “Are you mad at me?” she asked. “Did I do something?”

  “What would you have done?”

  “Nothing to my knowledge.”

  “I better go,” I said. “Thanks for calling.”

  She sighed.

  “You haven’t told me how you like Atlanta, how everything’s goin’, nothin’.”

  “We’ll catch up soon,” I said.

  “I’m worried about you, John.”

  “Don’t be. Really.”

  “Can’t help it. Feel worse now than before I called.”

  “Good night, Anna.”

  “I . . . I love you, John.”

  After a few hours of tossing and turning, worrying and thinking the worst, I pushed my weary body out of the bed and stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen.

  To my surprise, I found Aaron Iris sitting at the rickety old table eating Cap’n Crunch and reading our theology textbook, a tiny trail of milk on the table between the bowl and his mouth.

  “John the Revelator,” he said.

  He was a pudgy, pale-faced freshman with large glasses and strawberry-blond hair, good natured if a bit grating.

  “How’s it goin’ Aaron?”

  “I’m too excited to sleep too,” he said.

  “About?”

  “Being here. Being a part of such an amazing movement, learning Kingdom Theology, preparing to take this fresh revelation to the world.”

  “Oh that,” I said.

  “Whatta you plan to do?” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “In ministry. With your life. Where are you called? What are you called to do?”

  I shrugged. “No idea.”

  “Really? I want to be on staff here one day.”

  “You and every other student in the school.”

  “You don’t?”

  I shook my head.

  “But there’s no other place like this in the whole world, no other man of God like the bishop.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “What’re you thinkin’?”

  “Something special is happening here,” I said. “Truly. And so much of what Bishop Paulk is preaching is––”

  “You don’t agree with all of it?” he said. “How can you not agree with all of it? What do you have a problem with?”

  “I’m just . . . Be careful, man. That’s all I’m sayin’. Just be careful not to get so caught up you make idols out of places and people.”

  “Okay, sure, but I want to know what you disagree with.”

  “I agree with far more than I disagree with,” I said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the message of compassion and social justice, community and responsibility.”

  “But?”

  “The message and structure is too authoritarian, too paramilitary in a way,” I said. “And too dogmatic. As much as Bishop Paulk is destroying dogmas from previous traditions, he’s creating new ones. Maybe all men and movements do it. But it’s dangerous.”

  He shook his head. “Why’re you here?”

  “What?”

  “If you think all that. Why are you here?”

  “I guess because the brochure didn’t mention there wasn’t room for dissent and disagreement.”

  When I arrived at Safe Haven the next morning, the same security guard met me at the gate with the same demeanor and disposition.

  “Deja vu,” I said.

  “Huh?” he said, blinking behind his glasses.

  “We did this same thing a few days ago.”

  “Did we?” he asked.

  “Really?”

  “You need to move your car and––”

  “It’s okay, Ralph,” Jordan said, walking up. “He’s expected.”

  Jordan had stopped some ten feet or so back from the gate and I rushed over to where she was standing.

  “Thanks for expecting me.”

  “Sorry about last night,” she said.

  She was as radiant as the morning, her simple, unvarnished beauty gently resting on her like a light dew upon the earth. But she appeared to be weary and a bit frazzled too.

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

  We starting walking back up toward the building.

  Kids were already playing on the playground, their sleepy faces fresh, their drowsy movements measured, less energetic and enthusiastic as they had been when I had seen them before.

  “I don’t want to cause you any more trouble than you already have,” I said, “but I had to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m okay. I’m embarrassed, drained, a little sore, and––”

  “Did he––”

  “Just some shoving and shaking,” she said.

  “Shoving and shaking is not––”

  “Can we not talk about it right now?” she said. “I’m just so happy to see you. Makes everything better. I knew . . . I knew you were the kind . . . I knew you would check on me. I knew I was right about you.”

  “You were right,” I said. “I’m a decent human being.”

  “You’re so much more than that. I can tell.”

  Our eyes locked.

  “Be careful,” she said, “or you’ll restore my hope in the human race.”

  “Whoever killed LaMarcus Williams took him right here from his backyard with his mom close by,” Bobby Battle said. “Wayne Williams never did anything like that. He preyed on street kids who thought they were hustlin’ him.”

  We were standing behind the daycare center in what was once LaMarcus Williams’s backyard.

  It was later that afternoon, hot, humid, the sun beating down on us, the rumble of thunder rolling in the far distance.

  Bobby Battle, the lead detective in the open unsolved, was walking me through the case, explaining why LaMarcus didn’t make the list.

  He was roughly the same age and size of Frank Morgan, but that’s where the similarities ended. Where Frank wore comfortable, sensible shoes, Sears slacks, a simple cotton button down, and an out-of-date tie, Bobby was stylish and slick, expensively and smartly dressed, more a Miami Vice cop than an actual working detective.

  “Even still, first thing I did after Williams was arrested was looked at him hard for this,” he said. “And I’m not saying he didn’t do it. I’m just saying it doesn’t fit his pattern.”

  “You could’t rule him out completely?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “He had no alibi and check this out––he did come very close to here that same day.”

  “What?” I asked, my voice rising, pulse quickening.

  “Says he was downtown at the Omni passing out flyers for his band.”

  “He was. I saw him.”

  “Huh?”

  I told him.

  “Wow. So there you go, we know where he was earlier in the day. Said when he got asked to leave there he headed down this way.”

  Did what I had done cause LaMarcus to lose his life?

  “Says he came to pick up a piece of recording equipment from a musician who lived about a mile from here.”

  “Where?”

  “Down off Waldrop,” he said. “Not far from here.”

  I experienced a flutter and feeling of excitement and connection, a new feeling then, but one that would happen more and more often over the years, in ah-ha moments, in moments when the blurry Polaroid that was my mind would finish developing and come into focus, moments when a few individual puzzle pieces would be laid in place, finally revealing the whole.

  “Where Curtis Walker was found three months later,” I said.

  “Fuck me. That’s right. It was the other en
d but Williams could’ve picked out the spot when he crossed over the bridge, filed it away for later.”

  I nodded.

  “Goddamn,” he said. “That could really be somethin’.”

  “Question is, did he come over this way before or after that and kill LaMarcus?”

  “I just don’t think so. According to the mom, she and her daughter, adopted white girl named––has your last name––Jordan, were keeping an eye on the boy while cooking a meal and wrapping Christmas presents. Swears one of ’em had an eye on him every second, but even if that’s not true, it was a daring abduction.”

  I nodded.

  It was nap time at Safe Haven. All was quiet, still, peaceful.

  The area around the yard was wooded on all three sides.

  “Back behind here there’s a subdivision,” Battle said, pointing with his radio to the trees and undergrowth lining the back of the property. “But when LaMarcus was taken they had just begun the development. Roads and sidewalks were in, a couple of houses under construction, but nobody lived back there.”

  “So if not Williams, a worker on one of the crews sees LaMarcus at some point,” I said. “Starts fixating, fantasizing, planning, watches him from the woods, then snatches him.”

  “That was one theory. We checked everybody out, assuming we actually found everybody, and came up with two suspects––drywall guy named Vincent Storr and painter named Raymond J. Pelton.”

  “And?”

  “Both alibied out. Never even found enough to bring ’em in.”

  “Other suspects?”

  “Looked pretty hard at the dad,” he said. “Well, the kid’s sperm donor. That’s about all he ever did for the kid. Anthony Alex Williams, Jr. Sold and installed car stereos. Was mostly a front for dealing. A lady friend said he was givin’ her little Anthony all afternoon. Always thought she was lying but never could get her to blink.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Neighborhood kid. Carlton Fields. Older kid. Not quite right. Not full retarded but . . . Played with the younger kids, including LaMarcus. Parents wouldn’t really let us at him and I didn’t have any reason to force them to, but . . . I don’t know. Always thought there was somethin’ there.”

  “You kept track of ’em over the years?”

  “The suspects? Not really. Wish I had time. This ain’t the only open unsolved I got, and I got more current cases than I can work effectively.”

  “I really appreciate you takin’ the time to go over it with me.”

  “No problem. Frank says you’re good people. You come up with anything, you bring it to me.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Then let’s take a look at what’s really interesting about this case.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “So,” Bobby said, “LaMarcus is playing in his backyard. His mom and sister are watching from the windows. The child murders are high profile by now, so everybody’s keepin’ an eye on their kids––’specially somebody like Ida Williams, who’s part of STOP, right?”

  I nodded.

  “He’s right here where we are,” he said. “Fifteen feet from the window. That puts him some twenty feet or more from the wooded border on each side. And then poof . . . he’s gone. Vanished into thin air.”

  I looked around the yard. It was still exactly as he was describing.

  When I looked at the windows in the back of the house, Ida and Jordan were standing there watching us.

  I gave a small wave and frowned apologetically.

  They both smiled and waved.

  I walked over to the window and Ida opened it.

  “I’m sorry about this,” I said.

  “For trying to find out what happened to my boy?” she said. “Don’t be.”

  “For stirring it up.”

  “It stays stirred up,” Jordan said. “Always. Every single second of every single day.”

  “We appreciate what you’re doing,” Ida said.

  “How long before the kids go out front to play?” I asked.

  “Just a few minutes. Why?”

  “Can y’all have someone watch them for a few minutes and help us with something?”

  “Sure.”

  I turned around and took a few steps back toward Bobby.

  “Do you mind if we try something?” I asked.

  He looked at his watch.

  “It will only take a minute.”

  “Sure.” He nodded.

  Five minutes later, I was inside the empty daycare center with Ida and Jordan.

  The interior walls had been removed when the house was converted into a daycare, but Jordan was seated in approximately the same spot she had been when she was a teenager helping her mother wrap her little brother’s Christmas presents. Ida was standing where she had stood.

  The windows they were looking out of were exactly the same as they had been on the day LaMarcus disappeared.

  Out in the yard, about fifteen feet from the window, a boy about LaMarcus’s size was standing, waiting.

  Both women had assured me that they were okay with this and they had chosen the best, bravest boy to stand in for LaMarcus. I was still concerned, but my need to know, to see, to get answers was overriding everything else.

  “If at any time you want us to stop, just tell me,” I said.

  “Okay, but we’re fine,” Ida said. “I promise.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Now, when I say go, Ida, I want you to walk from what was the dining room to the kitchen without looking at––without looking through the windows. Jordan, I want you to look down like you’re wrapping a present. Don’t look up until your mom says now. Ida, when you reach what was the kitchen window, I want you to pause just a moment then look up and yell now. Okay?”

  They both nodded.

  I leaned out the window and yelled, “EVERYBODY READY . . . AND . . . GO.”

  As soon as I yelled go, both women did as instructed.

  From the wooded area on the right, Bobby Battle ran as fast as he could toward the little LaMarcus stand-in. When he reached him he grabbed him, hoisting him over his shoulder, and began running back to the woods.

  He had only taken a few steps when Ida yelled, “NOW.”

  Jordan looked up. So did Ida. And Bobby with the boy dangling over his shoulder stopped in place.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Jordan broke down and began to sob.

  I walked over to her as Bobby put down our little helper and escorted him to the playground in the front.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “No,” Jordan said. “Are you kidding? It’s the best thing ever. I always thought if I had just not looked down, not even for a second, LaMarcus would’t’ve been taken.”

  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 wron
g.”

  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.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “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?”