Blood Cries; Blood Oath; Blood Work

by Michael Lister

  Though we are beneath the shade of an oak tree, the heat from the hot August sun is still stifling, the humidity hovering around a hundred percent, and the ice in Ken’s whiskey looks like the polar icecaps filmed with time-lapse photography techniques.

  “Y’all sure y’all don’t want a drink?” he says.

  We both nod.

  “Thanks, but we’re okay,” Dad says.

  “Look at us, Jack,” Ken says. “We’ve gotten old as fuck. The hell that happen?”

  Dad shakes his old head slowly, sadly.

  And once again I think of the Mellencamp line, perhaps the truest he ever penned. I know time holds the winning hand. I can tell by the lines on our faces.

  “Hell, it’s not like our sons are young,” Ken says, cutting his eyes over at me. “Though yours is younger than mine—and faring a hell of a lot better. Be grateful for that, Jack. Be . . . very . . . Count your blessings, man. It’s a rough, raggedy-ass world. Chews us all up like we’re mulch. You seen my boy yet?”

  Dad nods.

  “He’s sadder ’n I am. And that’s . . . sayin’ somethin’.”

  Tears well up in his blue, bloodshot eyes.

  “He lives in a tent. A fuckin’ tent. ’Course he may have anyway. Always loved camping—in the backyard, in the woods. Always rather stay in a tent than . . . But if Janet hadn’t been . . . If they had stayed together . . . they’d have a house. He wouldn’t be so . . .”

  He shakes his head slowly, looks down at the whiskey he’s drowning in.

  His life and that of everyone he loves has been decimated. Violent crime is like a category five hurricane hitting the coast, utterly and mercilessly catastrophic.

  We are quiet for a long, pain-filled moment.

  “Can’t believe you’re still tryin’ to solve the damn thing, Jack,” Ken says. “I really can’t. I mean, goddamn, don’t you ever give up?”

  “That’s the thing, Ken,” Dad says. “I did. I shouldn’t have, but I did. And I can’t live with that.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised at what you can live with,” Ken says.

  “You thought of anything over the years that we should’ve done that we didn’t?” Dad asks. “Anyone we should’ve looked at that we didn’t—or not close enough.”

  Ken shakes his head, then takes another long draw on his cigarette and pull on his drink. “Not a damn thing. I think we did all we could back then. I know my boy didn’t do it. I think it’s a safe bet Bundy did. It’s just . . . one of those things. Sometimes you can do all you can and life still fucks you in the ass. And there ain’t a thing you can do about it. Not . . . a . . . dang . . . thang.”

  “If it wasn’t Bundy . . .” I say.

  He shakes his head. “Everybody still believes it was my boy, that I covered it up, that your dad helped me, but . . . I swear to God on my boy’s life I didn’t. And Jack’ll tell you he didn’t cover anything up. We just didn’t. I’ve heard ’em say that we planted the bag in the woods to make it look like it was Bundy.”

  It’s a possibility I had wondered about myself—not that Dad had done it, but I’ve wondered if Bundy wasn’t responsible, if the killer could have tried to make it look like he was.

  Dad shakes his head. “People are so stupid.”

  “Do I fit in the category?” I say.

  Dad looks at me.

  “I don’t believe you did it, but I have wondered if it was done by someone. The killer, maybe.”

  “It’s absolutely impossible for anyone to have,” Dad says.

  “Why’s that?”

  “When Janet was killed, no one knew Bundy was responsible for Chi Omega or Kimberly Leach and no one had any damn idea Bundy was driving down I-10 from Tallahassee to Pensacola. Hell, they didn’t know who he was when they arrested him or for a day or so after he was in custody.”

  I nod. “Sometimes people are stupid,” I say. “Sometimes they just don’t have all the facts.”

  They both smile.

  “That’s the biggest reason I believe it was Bundy,” Dad says. “That kit found in the woods that had her blood on it. Always thought it had to be Bundy because no one else would even know to try to make it look like him. I think the Visqueen found near the interstate with traces of her blood on it also supports it being Bundy.”

  Ken nods. “We got as close to closing this one as we could,” he says. “Only two things missing are Janet’s remains and Bundy’s confession. And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think we’re ever gonna get either of them. Bundy’s dead, and with him any hope of finding her.”

  31

  Dad is quiet and looks to be in pain.

  We are back in the truck, leaving the sad little corner of purgatory Ken calls home.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  “What is it? Do you need to—”

  “I can’t believe that’s Ken Tillman,” he says. “I can’t believe how he’s living.”

  I nod.

  “How . . . everyone we’ve talked to is. The grief. The loss. The . . .”

  “Hollowness?” I offer. “Desperation? Disintegration?”

  Thoreau’s line comes to mind. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

  “I’m a foolish old man,” Dad says.

  I glance over at him. I’ve never heard him say anything quite like that before.

  “I’m throwing effort after foolishness in some vain attempt at redemption or . . . And I’ve pulled you into it.”

  “I’m happy to be here,” I say. “I think what we’re doing is worthwhile.”

  “Ken’s right. Glenn’s right. They’re all right. It’s too late. I’m trying to . . . fix something before I die that—”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  We enter the historic downtown district and in many ways it’s like driving back in time—a small Southern town with a vibrant main street of restored old buildings, a quaint quality exuding rural charm.

  “I had my chance. I failed to do it when I might actually have been able to. Now I’m just wasting everybody’s time. Just . . .”

  I’m sure Dad has been critical of himself before. He may have even expressed it to someone, but not to me, not like this. I’ve never heard him be as open and vulnerable and emotionally honest as he is in this moment.

  We continue past the old St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and cemetery that played such a pivotal role in the Civil War battle here in 1864, and a series of big, beautiful and beautifully restored antebellum homes.

  “The time to close the case was when I had the chance, when there were still leads and witnesses who remembered what happened and . . . Not when it’s gone cold. Hell, that’s the understatement of the day. It’s four decades cold. Hard to imagine a case any colder.”

  “Then you’re not trying,” I say. “Zodiac. Jack the Ripper. Cain and Able.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I am too. ’Cept for the Cain and Able bit. Figured a little levity might not hurt.”

  Driving through Marianna, I’m reminded just how much beauty and charm is present here, and I wonder again how so many truly terrible and tragic events could’ve happened here—the torture and lynching of Claude Neal, the horrors that happened at Dozier School for Boys, the savage murder of Janet Leigh Lester.

  “Look at the shape all these people are in,” he says. “The condition of their lives. All of them. Not just Ken, but Ben and Verna and Ronnie and Kathy. And it’s at least partly because I didn’t do my job. I . . . I not only didn’t finish the task I was assigned, I . . . left and never looked back. All these years I kept telling myself I’d come back and solve it one day, but even when I was lying to myself about that, I never once thought about these poor people, never imagined for one moment they could be suffering to the extent they are because I fucked up. Because I failed them.”

  “I appreciate how you’re feeling,” I say. “I do. And I get it. I’d probably
feel the same way. But you took the case as far as it would go and that’s all you could do.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “Whatta you mean? I thought you did.”

  “I left before it was done. I . . . It doesn’t matter. Take me back to the hotel. I’m done.”

  “But—”

  “Go be with your family. Don’t waste any more time on this. Enjoy your vacation. I should’ve never asked you to help clean up my mess. I’m sorry I did.”

  “You’re just feeling—”

  “I’m done talkin’ about it,” he says.

  And he is.

  I continue to try to get him to talk for a while, but it’s futile.

  If we had a different type of relationship, if we were closer, if we were less like distant father and son and more like adult friends, more like intimate peers, I could have insisted that he talk to me, that he let me help process what he’s dealing with and going through.

  As it is, we are family but we are not close, intimate, peer-like friends. I don’t doubt Dad’s love, respect, and support. In fact, I know he’d do anything for me—anything but let me help him on any kind of emotional or psychological level. He’ll let me help him work the case but not with his inner life of thoughts and feelings. Our dynamic, the one he established when I was a child and continues to insist on to this day, is one that avoids the true intimacy that comes from shared vulnerability.

  32

  After dropping Dad off, I search for a quiet place to go through the folder of pictures Kathy had given us.

  I feel bad for Dad, and wanted to stay to talk to him, but he insisted that he needed to be alone and wanted to sleep. I reluctantly acquiesced but told him I’d check on him a little later and that Anna and I would bring him some supper.

  I drive down Caverns Road to Citizens Lodge Park and sit in a gazebo by a lake and spread the pictures out before me.

  The disparate images range from poorly lit and poorly shot and poorly developed pictures from the night of the party, to the artistic photography of Janet Lester.

  The snapshots from the party are dim and blurry, but show much of what the witnesses have described. Kids in late-seventies attire hanging out, drinking, dancing, makin’ out, mackin’ and mean muggin’ for the camera.

  Janet is not in a single picture from inside the farmhouse, though Ben is in several—as are Kathy and Charles Fountain and Valarie Weston and Gary Blaylock.

  There are no shots of Sabrina Henry, which I find strange.

  The only image that appears to have Janet in it makes her look like an apparition accidentally imprisoned on film as the photographer attempted to capture something else.

  Turning toward her car, seen in profile, a twirl of light. Cream crinkled-texture blouse, lace yoke. Camel, tan, and rust floral-print skirt, deep flounce at the bottom.

  Eerie. Ethereal. Evanescent.

  The picture was taken from inside the farmhouse, a glare from the glass window creating a frame in the foreground and adding an odd light to the entire image.

  Behind the swirl of floral print and light, her red Mercury Monarch appears possessed like a chariot from hell.

  Later, Anna picks me up and we head to Tallahassee to see Sam Michaels.

  We are in her Mustang GT on I-10, taking the same route as Bundy had the night of Janet’s death, only in reverse. She is driving while I look at Kathy’s photographs and murder book.

  Anna has spent the day caring for her mother, helping around her house, and is as happy as I am to be able to get away together for the evening.

  It is doing little things like this together, these seemingly inconsequential, average, mundane activities, that makes life so much sweeter, richer, and fuller. Just being together, being partners in all things.

  Ordinary life in the company of an extraordinary woman is anything but.

  “How’s your mom?” I ask. “How are things up their way?”

  “She’s okay. Not as incapacitated as we were led to believe. I really think it just came down to Dad wasn’t babying her quite the way she wanted and she was disappointed about missing our vacation and wanted to see us. But she’s doing well enough I had no problem leaving Taylor with them tonight. How’s your dad?” she asks. “The case.”

  I tell her.

  “So is that it?” she asks. “Y’all stopping the investigation? The fact that you’re looking at those pictures and the murder book suggests otherwise.”

  I smile. “I’m not stopping. I don’t think he really is either. I bet by morning he’ll be back on the scent and we’ll pick up right where we left off.”

  She shakes her head and frowns. “It’s gotta be so hard for him. To see just how wounded all these people are and to feel responsible in some way.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I hate to think of him alone in that hotel room. You told him we’d love to have him at the ’rents place in Dothan?”

  I nod. “He really wants to be alone, but I’ll keep tryin’.”

  She glances at the photographs in my lap.

  “Anything helpful?” she asks.

  “Maybe. It’s definitely good to have a context and some visuals. Certainly feel like I know and understand Janet even more. She had an amazing eye—particularly for portraits.”

  “Any evidence she was at the party?” she says.

  “Yeah. Look at this.”

  I hand her the picture. She holds it up above the steering wheel and glances back and forth between it and the road.

  “Wow. Haunting.”

  “When I called Kathy to talk to her about it she said it had always spooked her, said maybe Janet wasn’t at the party that night after all, only her ghost after she was killed.”

  “It is uncanny,” she says, handing the picture back to me without taking her eyes off the road. “Especially given what happened to her that night.”

  33

  Sam Michaels and Daniel Davis live in an old two-story wooden home on a small hill in a heavily wooded lot in Tallahassee.

  Daniel was once a religion professor and ritualistic crimes consultant. Sam was a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Now Daniel is a full-time caregiver; Sam, the one he’s giving care to.

  Sam, who I had worked with on a serial case back in the spring, suffered a brain injury as the result of being shot at point-blank range. For a while, her doctors believed she wouldn’t wake up from the coma she was in, but not only did she do that, she’s undergoing mental and physical rehabilitation and making progress—none of which came as any surprise to anyone who knows Sam.

  The high-ceilinged, hardwood-floored living room of their home has been converted into a recovery room. Couch and coffee table removed, a hospital bed has been placed in front of the empty charred fireplace. Beside it, a single chair for Daniel is the only other piece of furniture in the room.

  The hardwood floors creek as Daniel leads us into the room, and Sam opens her eyes, turns her head slightly, and looks up at us.

  “She’s having a good day,” Daniel says.

  Sam’s eyes widen and flicker with recognition as a smile plays on her lips.

  “Hey, partner,” I say. “How’s it going?”

  “You look so good,” Anna says.

  Sam smiles wider and nods her head ever so slightly.

  Every time we see her she’s getting better and doing more.

  “You’re doing so well,” I say. “You’ll be trackin’ down bad guys again in no time at all.”

  She tries to nod again.

  “I heard the FDLE case clearance rate has plummeted since you’ve been sidelined,” Anna says. “They need you back as soon as possible.”

  Daniel, who is out of Sam’s sightline, has tears in his eyes, and I can’t tell if they’re tears of sadness or happiness, but can’t imagine they’re not both.

  He looks pale and exhausted, the ends of him frayed like an old rug.

  “So here’s what we’re gonna do,” Anna says. “I’m g
onna sit down here beside Sam for some girl talk. Daniel, you’re going to give John a list of everything you need. I mean everything—from toilet paper to tea bags—and while John is shopping and picking up a delicious dinner from Ted’s for us, you’re going upstairs and taking a nap.”

  And that’s exactly what we do—except while I am out, in between picking up household items for Daniel and Sam and grabbing dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill, I drive around the area where Ted Bundy lived and took lives while he was here—including Chez Pierre, Chi Omega, and where his rooming house, The Oak, had once been.

  Jack Jordan reenters his hotel room after going out for some food and a walk. Though he had rested and napped earlier when John had dropped him off, he’s still drained and depressed. Maybe even more so now.

  The room is dark and cool. The drapes are drawn and the only light is a narrow strip coming from the slightly ajar bathroom door.

  Kicking off his boots, tossing his hat on the chair in the corner, and emptying his pockets on the bedside table, he collapses on top of the covers with all his clothes still on.

  The room smells the way most hotels do—of commercial cleaners and air fresheners, of emptiness and stillness and staleness, of a running window unit, and of previous guests, some of whom had broken both federal and state laws and had smoked in here. And not just cigarettes.

  Given his fatigue and depression, given the multilayered smells in the room, given his advanced years and compromised health, it’s little wonder he neither sensed nor smelled that there was somebody already present when he had entered the room.

  He wants to sleep, to succumb to the safety of unconscious oblivion, but all he can think about is Verna and Ken and Kathy and Ben and how damn depressing their lives are, about Janet and how her death and disappearance go unavenged all these years later.

  Guilt. Failure. Regret. Pain.

  He feels his own pain, of course, but it’s their pain that he finds overwhelming.

  Did Bundy really do it? How can he prove it if he did? Where is her body? How can he find it now?