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

by Michael Lister

  The dull ache in my head felt just bad enough to be mildly annoying, but occasionally it throbbed, the pressure pounding with my heartbeat, the pain shooting down my spinal cord.

  “Well, look who it is,” Ralph said. “Who could’ve predicted this? The man with too much time on his hands.”

  “You sure you’re not happy to see me?” I said. “I brought you an eclair.”

  “I wouldn’t say no to an eclair,” he said, “but listen to what I have to say first and see if you still wanna give it to me.”

  “Okay.”

  He stepped outside the fence and away from the gate to speak to me.

  “These poor ladies have been through enough,” he said. “They don’t need you to keep dredging up the most horrific nightmare they ever lived through . . . giving them false hope, raising their expectations . . . all for nothin’. It’s never gonna be solved. Not ever. ’Specially by the likes of you. All you’re doin’ is wasting time and doin’ harm to two people I care about. And why? ’Cause you’re new in town and need somethin’ to do, need some attention from a sweet mama and a pretty girl? Well, the cost is too high. And I’m not gonna let you keep doin’ it. Understand?”

  “I understand what you’re sayin’,” I said. “And I genuinely appreciate your concern. I do. Ida and Jordan deserve it. They do. But I’m not doin’ what you’re accusin’ me of. It has nothing to do with me not having enough to do or wanting attention, and I wouldn’t be doin’ it if I didn’t think I could help figure out who did it.”

  “Never happen,” he said.

  “And you think I’m wrong to even try?”

  He nodded. “Because of what it’ll do to them. This ain’t no game or some movie or somethin’. This is people’s lives. Good people. This isn’t theory or book stuff. This is the real world where people are barely makin’ it and you can do damage they can’t come back from. And if you’re just tryin’ to sleep with Jordan, stop it. This ain’t the way to go about it and you don’t need to anyway. She’s married and too old and too good for––”

  “Who is?” Jordan asked as she walked up. “Who’s too old and too good for who?”

  “Ma’am?” Ralph asked.

  “Who is?”

  “I . . . I was just . . .”

  “I went by Willie’s,” I said, holding up the bags. “Trade you a little sugar for a little info.”

  She turned her attention away from Ralph and onto me, smiling in the process.

  “Sounds good. Ralph, we’ll talk about this later. Give you time to remember what you meant.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turned and began walking away. I followed, pausing long enough to open the bag and extend it toward Ralph.

  “Eclair?” I offered.

  “Seriously?”

  I nodded.

  He started to reach for one but stopped. “You gonna snatch the bag back when I––”

  “NO,” I said. “Honest offer. Don’t make the lady wait. Grab one. Hell, grab two.”

  He did.

  “What was that about?” Jordan asked.

  “Just him being protective over you and your mom.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He doesn’t approve of what I’m doing. Thinks I’m stirring things up. Wasting time. Raising false hopes. And he questions my motives. Particularly where you’re concerned.”

  She smiled. “Sorry about that. I think he’s always had a bit of a crush. And he is very protective over Mom and me and the kids and everything Safe Haven. Feels like it’s his job to keep us all safe––and I guess it is . . . but he goes way beyond . . .”

  “What’s his story?”

  “Been our neighbor for as long as I can remember. Lives right over there.”

  She turned and pointed behind us to the small red brick house on a hill beyond the many fences of Safe Haven.

  “He was so helpful when LaMarcus went missing, calming us, searching the area, dealing with the police. After we found out LaMarcus was . . . gone . . . he helped me and Mom in every way imaginable. He was a cop at one time, but has worked security at South Dekalb mall for . . . well, since I can recall. That’s what he was doing when Mom decided to open Safe Haven and offered him the job. He knew how important it was to her to make the safest place possible for children and he took a pay cut to take the job.”

  I opened the bag of cookies and offered it to her. We each took some and ate them as we looked out across the empty playground and Ralph kept looking at us.

  “Damn you, Willie,” she said, shaking her fist in the air in mock outrage. “Why do these cookies have to be so good?”

  I laughed and we ate some more.

  “I talked to Mom,” she said. “Got some more info for you. Seems like that may be the best way for her. Just let me know what you need, and I’ll ask her when I know it’s an okay time and let her tell me in her own way and on her schedule.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “So you don’t think I’m wasting time or stirring up things and raising false hopes?”

  She shook her head. “The thing Ralph and so many others don’t understand is how much it stays stirred up. If you’re wasting anybody’s time it’s your own, but I don’t think you are and I appreciate everything you’re doin’. Just the fact that you’re interested, that you are––that someone is still doin’ somethin’ about it . . . not just filing it away as another unsolved murder of a black boy . . . It means more than you’ll ever know.”

  I nodded, my heart filling, my spirits being buoyed again.

  “I do hope Ralph was right about one thing at least,” she said.

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “I hope your motives in regards to me are not as pure as they appear.”

  I smiled. “I wasn’t aware they appeared pure at all, but if they do . . . just remember . . . things aren’t often what they appear to be.”

  “Thank you for saying so,” she said. “It’s sweet.”

  We fell silent a moment, munching on the small cookies, enjoying each other’s company, taking in the magnificent mid-morning sun and the way the fall foliage basked beneath it.

  “Mom said that LaMarcus worked very hard to keep his little hideout a secret. And he must’ve done a good job because I didn’t know about it. But as I said, I was a self-involved teenager. Mom knew and kept an eye on him when he was in it––but he didn’t know she knew about it. After the killings started, he wasn’t allowed in it because she didn’t want him out of her sight.”

  “That was something I meant to ask you before," I said. “Why didn't y'all look in there first? When he first went missing, why not look in his hideout before y'all did anything else?”

  “We did. I mean we thought someone did. I was just finding out about it. The whole thing was . . . everything was pandemonium. We were all just rushing around like crazy. I thought Mom checked it. She thought I did. It was . . . It never got checked. At least not in time.”

  I nodded.

  “Before that,” she continued, “he used to play in it a good bit. The only other person she knows for sure who knew about it and played in it with him was Carlton.”

  “Carlton Fields, the neighbor boy who found . . . the . . . LaMarcus?”

  She nodded.

  “He not only knew where it was but played in it with LaMarcus?”

  “Uh huh, but you can’t suspect him. He’s the sweetest boy in the world, a true innocent. He functions at a pretty low level, but he’s guileless.”

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “Well, it won’t be hard to do,” she said. “His mom’s back in school and is always looking for someone to keep him on Tuesday and Thursday nights.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  After leaving Safe Haven, I went back to EPI to find a phone.

  Pam Palmer, the college’s registrar, was just leaving for lunch and said I was welcome to the use of hers and the privacy her office afforded.

  I called Bobby Battle again. Th
is time at the station.

  “Last night’s conversation went so well,” I said, “figured I’d call you again.”

  “Sorry if I was discouraging,” he said, “but I’m a straight shooter and I’m just lookin’ out for you. Shit we deal with is no joke.”

  “I know,” I said, just to be saying something.

  “Got a lot goin’ on,” he said. “What can I do for you.”

  “Ralph Alderman,” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “Why’d he leave the force to become a mall cop?”

  “He’s a fuckup. Always was. Didn’t fuck up quite bad enough to become captain but just bad enough so that he had to go.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Wasn’t just one thing. It was a lot of shit over a long period of time. Take your pick. Some personal, some professional, some procedural, some just being a fat ass with an annoying personality.”

  “Did you look at him for LaMarcus Williams?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Not even briefly to exclude him?”

  “No,” he said. “Hell, he helped us. Functioned like one of the team. Why?”

  “Just askin’. Tryin’ to be thorough.”

  “Come on,” he said. “What’d he do to make you suspect him?”

  “Nothin’. Just––”

  “Probably should’ve looked at him,” he said. “Don’t bust my balls about it. I would if the investigation was now. I’ve learned a thing or two since then.”

  “Can we look at him now?”

  “We?”

  I didn’t say anything, just waited.

  “I’ll dig around and see what I can find out, but chances are he’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

  “But if there’s even a slim chance . . .”

  “I said I’d look into it. Take the win. Quit tightening the noose around my neck, and be grateful.”

  “I am. Thanks. What about a current cop? Larry Moore?”

  “You don’t think he had anything to do with it, do you? Larry’s got no class and a bad temper but he’s no child killer.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “Just asking about him. He’s married to the victim’s sister.”

  “Then more’s the pity for her,” he said. “Guy’s a major asshole. But he’s a decent enough cop. I think. He ain’t gonna break a sweat bringin’ in a bad guy, but he ain’t crooked or anything. Far as I can tell. Okay, fun chattin’ with you, but I’ve got to run.”

  After I hung up with Battle, I walked into the empty chapel and prayed and meditated for a while, then downstairs to the janitor’s closet and the cleaning cart awaiting me there.

  For the next few hours I vacuumed and dusted the classrooms, scrubbed and mopped the bathrooms, vodka pouring out of my pores, the pounding in my head increasing, as I thought about how and why LaMarcus Williams died and who might have done it, about Wayne Williams and if he was guilty or not, who would and would not make my list, were I to make one, about the nature of justice and the way of the world, about Jordan Moore and Ida Williams and the suffering only a mother can know, about my own mother and father and my home and––

  “So why do the innocent suffer?”

  I turned to see Jordan standing in the doorway.

  “Hey. What’re you doing here? Is everything okay?”

  She nodded toward the chalkboard in the front of the classroom. On it was written Why do the innocent suffer?

  The class belonged to Pastor Jim Oborne, one of the most popular and academically rigorous of the EPI instructors. It was the single remaining remnant of an inspiring and invigorating lecture and discussion about the nature of suffering.

  “I had a short break so I walked down to have you tell me why the innocent suffer, why the wicked are rewarded, why the good are punished.”

  I laughed.

  “Well, I came to see you, but I would like to know.”

  “Wouldn’t we all,” I said.

  “Seriously,” she said. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “There are a lot of theories, but . . .”

  “None you buy?”

  I shrugged. “Only one,” I said, “but the truth is asking why is mostly a waste of time. Knowing the why of suffering won’t change it, won’t change anything. Dealing with suffering, sitting with the suffering, alleviating suffering, when and where we can . . . that’s far more . . . useful.”

  She nodded, narrowing her eyes, pursing her lips––agreeing but still considering it too. “Makes sense. A lot actually. But . . .”

  What could I possibly tell this woman about suffering?

  “I have to know the one thing,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The one theory you buy about suffering.”

  “Freedom,” I said. “I don’t just mean human beings. I mean the entire universe. If freedom is built into everything . . . it allows for the possibility of everything––including suffering. Including the suffering of the innocent. Freedom means there’s order but there’s also chaos. There’s love but there’s also indifference. There’s altruism but there’s also selfishness. There’s unspeakable joy but there’s also unimaginable horror. I don’t know. That’s just another bullshit theory like all the others. Means nothin’ to nobody in the face of true suffering.”

  “So true,” she said.

  “What? That I’m full of bullshit?”

  “NO, I meant––”

  “I know what you meant,” I said.

  “Spend less time wondering why we suffer and more time dealing with suffering,” she said.

  I nodded. “Exactly. More time helping ease the suffering of others.”

  “Well, you’re certainly doing that, John Jordan,” she said. “You’re certainly doing that.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I finally found Vincent Storr a few days later.

  He was working on remodeling an old farmhouse on Flakes Mill Road near Ellenwood, ripping out pinewood paneling and replacing it with sheetrock.

  Except for the traffic on Flakes Mill, the area was quiet and had a rural feel––scattered houses on wooded lots, some of which were fenced with livestock in them.

  Before I moved up here, I would never have imagined such an area in Metro Atlanta so close to downtown.

  I parked on a white gravel driveway beneath an enormous oak tree that dappled the yard and part of the house with mid-morning sunlight, and walked toward a worker cutting sheetrock board on the front porch, the gravel crunching beneath my shoes as I did.

  When I asked for Storr, he said, “What’re you? An illegitimate child who’s just tracked him down?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “He’s right inside,” he said. “Go on in.”

  As I opened the door, he yelled, “VINCE. VINCE. SOMEONE HERE TO SEE YOU.”

  Storr was a tall, meager man with wispy, thinning black hair, deep, dark, sunken eyes, and the very heavy, very dark stubble of a five o’clock shadow at ten in the morning.

  He wore white painter’s pants, a loose white crew neck undershirt, and penny loafers––all of which, and every inch of him, was covered in white sheetrock dust.

  He was holding a bucket of mud in one hand and a trowel in the other, eyeing his work on a seam where two boards joined together.

  The beautiful white pine board paneling was still up on one end of the room and I admired it a moment before I said anything to him.

  “Why would you pull down that and replace it with sheetrock?” I asked, shaking my head.

  “Only one reason,” he said, looking around and lowering his voice, “niggers.”

  I was taken aback by his blatant racism before a total stranger and the sad assumption associated with it, but I did my best not to let it show. I needed to see and hear from the real Vincent Storr, unadorned, unguarded, unsuspecting.

  “I hope you’re plannin’ on takin’ the wood with you.”

  “Take wood everywhere I go, if you
know what I mean,” he said. “But, nah, fuckin’ boss is takin’ it.”

  “Figures,” I said, shaking my head.

  “What can I do you for?” he asked.

  “Lookin’ for a painter,” I said.

  “Only do sheetrock.”

  “Think you’ve worked with him before. Raymond Pelton. I really like what he did on a house over off Flat Shoals Road.”

  He looked at me, narrowing his eyes suspiciously and studying me. “What house?”

  “One in Flat Shoals Estates. Did you work with him on one over there?”

  “Sheetrock crew is long gone by the time painters come in,” he said. “Don’t know no painter named Pelton.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said.

  “Why would you think I would?”

  “Someone told me,” I said.

  “Someone told you, huh? Who?”

  I could tell he wasn’t buying it and I felt like an idiot. I should’ve prepared better, should’ve had a contingency plan in case the first one didn’t work, but as it was there was nothing I could do but try to double down on the losing hand I was backing.

  “Guy doin’ some work over at the church I go to. Chapel Hill.”

  He nodded. “Guy got a name?”

  “I’m sure he does, but I didn’t get it. Do you know the subdivision I’m talkin’ about? It’s behind where that kid got killed.”

  He seemed to think about it for a long moment. “Oh, yeah, the little niglet. Now I remember. I did meet a painter on that job. Had to go back and patch a wall the flooring guy fucked up and I met him. Pelton. Bet I can find him. Just leave me your name, address, and phone number and I’ll have him get in touch with you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Here,” he said, handing me a pen and a scrap of paper, both covered in a fine white powder.

  The worker I had encountered on the porch brought in two pieces of sheetrock, set them down against the far wall, and walked out again without saying anything.

  “They never caught whoever killed that kid,” I said as I wrote down my info.

  I tried to make the remark seem offhand, casual, idle, but that wasn’t how it sounded to me.