I can’t help but love Atlanta, and returning, even alone and under these circumstances brings a certain type of homesick satisfaction that I don’t experience visiting any other place on the planet.
It had been extremely difficult leaving Anna and the girls, but there was no scenario we could come up with that would make this work trip anything but miserable for them if they came with me.
Before leaving, I had set up security for them, which with Merrill in Atlanta with Trace, had been challenging.
Ironically, what wound up working best was Daniel and Sam moving back into the place they had just moved out of. Dad and Jake were also helping—taking shifts when Daniel slept or had to be away. I also had deputies driving by regularly, conspicuously making their presence known. With Chris so close and Randa still on the loose, I wouldn’t have agreed to leave any other way.
My first stop in Atlanta is Myra House.
Located in South Dekalb where I had spent so much time in my youth, pursuing that which I had felt pursued for—murder investigation and ministry, Myra House is a home for battered and drug-addicted women named after Mariah’s mother, Myra Baxley.
Situated at the bottom of a severe slope just off Wesley Chapel Road, Myra House is a sprawling old partially remodeled split-level ranch surrounded by a high chain-link fence and fronted by a guard at a gate.
And though I’m expected and a law enforcement officer, I have difficulty getting in, the overzealous gate guard reminding me of Ralph Alderman, the security guard at Safe Haven, Miss Ida’s daycare, which was less than two miles from here.
“Sorry about that,” Deidre says. “We can’t be too careful. I know it’s a hassle, but it saves lives.”
We are standing near where I have just parked my car in what once was the side yard of this home.
Deidre Baxley, Myra’s sister and Mariah’s aunt, is a small, attractive dark-haired woman who could be beautiful if not for the grief and exhaustion.
“I completely understand,” I say. “And appreciate it. Is the biggest threat from abusive husbands or drug dealers or . . .”
“Lot of people don’t like what we’re doing,” she says. “For a lot of different reasons. Not just the obvious victimizers who feel like they own the victims who live here. Even our neighbors don’t want us here.”
“Really? Why?”
“They’re not against helping victims of domestic violence and addicts,” she says. “They just don’t want us to do it here. Chain link and razor wire and men trying to break in and bullets flying about aren’t exactly good for property values, but let’s get inside. Not a good idea to stand out here like this.”
“Even way back here?” I say. “Why’s that?”
“We’ve had a number of drive-bys,” she says. “Some of the shots hit back here. Look at that tree.”
I follow her glance over to an oak tree with bullet holes in it.
She leads me inside, where I am eyed warily by every woman I encounter.
In what appears to be the main rec room, a handful of women, black and white, young and middle-aged, sit on worn and mismatched furniture watching an afternoon talkshow.
We continue through the house, down hallways and up stairs, the smell I associate with older, inexpensive hotels.
Through the large dining room where two teens who look like girls far too young to be in a place like this are setting the extremely long table and into the kitchen where older women in hairnets and aprons appear to be preparing the evening meal.
Down another long hallway, this one with bedroom doors off to each side.
Finally we arrive at Deidra’s office.
“Come in and have a seat,” she says.
The office is small, clean but cluttered, and smells better than the rest of the house.
Framed photographs, tacked up posters and bumper stickers, hand-painted signs, all bear similar themed slogans: You Hit, We Hurt. A house where a woman is not safe is not a home. A Slap is not a Solution. End the Silence of Domestic Violence. The scars you can’t see are the hardest to heal.
“I’m so sorry about your niece,” I say.
Her sad, weary eyes become even more sad and tired and I can see tears forming.
“Thank you,” she says. “It . . . it feels so familiar—and not just because of what he did to her mother, but because of what he did to her where we were concerned. We’ve grieving the loss of Mariah almost as long as Myra. He took them both from us. Twice. Myra with domination, control, drugs, alcohol, and eventually death. Mariah with sole custody, control, domination, and eventually death. God, I feel like I should’ve used all my tears by now.”
She wipes at the tears creasing the corners of her eyes.
I wait, resisting the urge to speak.
We are quiet for a short while.
From down the hall I can hear women talking. Not unsurprisingly no laughter accompanies their interaction.
“You’re not like any cop I’ve ever seen,” she says. “Seem more like a counselor.”
“I do some of that too,” I say. “My other car’s chaplaincy.”
She looks confused at first, but then nods her head as she gets it.
“I’m well acquainted with loss and grief,” I say.
“Not just professionally, I take it,” she says.
I nod. “Lost two people extremely close to me not two miles from here when I was very young,” I say.
“Never get over it, do you?”
I shake my head. “Not ever.”
“I miss Myra every day,” she says. “Every single day. Mariah wasn’t really a part of our lives—Trace saw to that—but I already feel the loss of her. And that’s just on a selfish level—me thinking about how much I’m gonna miss her—which is nothing compared to the horror of thinking of what was done to her or the despair of realizing that sweet child doesn’t get to grow up and become who she might have been—to fall in love, to have a child, to use her talents. It’s . . . overwhelming to even consider.”
I wait.
“Oh, I guess I should’ve said it first and gotten it out of the way—I know y’all look at everybody especially the family—including the family that’s not even in her life, but I took my parents to the North Georgia Mountains for the holiday. I’m all they have now since Trace took Myra from them and they’re getting older and I spend so much of my time here . . . it was a nice little getaway. We were at the Red Roof Inn in Helen, Georgia if you want to look into it. We were there for three days. I had to come back here for a few hours of the second day. Had an employee who got drunk and didn’t show up for her shift and a new intake, but then I drove back up and . . . we were there when we got the news about Mariah. It’s interesting. We drove straight back right then though it didn’t happen here and she wasn’t here and wouldn’t be for some time, but . . . it’s like we just had to be home. Couldn’t be on vacation after what happened.”
I nod. “I get that.”
“Can’t believe I didn’t get to be in her life more,” she says. “That’s the thing. Her whole life is over. She’s not getting any more. Not another breath. Not another heartbeat. Not another hug. Not another smile. Not another laugh. I missed it. Missed so much.”
“Trace kept you from her?”
She nods. “Kept her from me and my parents,” she says.
“Why?”
She frowns and seems to think about it. “Not just one reason. He has to control everything—his image, his women, his posse, his children. But mostly it’s because he knows we know he killed Myra. He beat her and got her strung out on alcohol and drugs and then he killed her.”
“Are you saying he contributed to her death or that he actually murdered her?” I ask.
“I know you’re not asking a sister to make a distinction like that,” she says.
“Sorry,” I say. “You’re right. I was just trying to get a picture of Trace and their relationship, and what happened.”
“You want to know who Trace is?” she says.
“Look at OJ. I’m talkin’ about back when he was younger, not shot out and crazy like he is now. Controlling. Jealous. Abusive. He didn’t murder her with a knife like OJ did, but he didn’t kill her any less than OJ killed Nicole. Nicole’s death was more violent, but death by overdose is just as dead.”
I nod.
“Have you met him?” she asks.
I nod again.
“Bet he impressed you, didn’t he? Said all the right things. Seems like essentially a good person. He’s a sociopath. A master manipulator.”
I nod again because I can’t think of anything else to do and I don’t want to stop her flow.
“I remember my poor sister reading books about bondage and being a bottom, trying to learn how to be submissive and be tied up. She actually practiced. It was so sad. It wasn’t natural to her. I know plenty of women—and men for that matter who like to be tied up—so it’s not that. It’s that it wasn’t her thing, that he wouldn’t find her thing. It had to be what he wanted. She had to conform and contort and eventually lose herself by trying to transform into what he wanted. Makes me sick to my stomach just to think about.”
I try to think of something to do beside nod, but am unable to come up with anything.
“You going to her funeral tomorrow?” she asks.
“I am.”
“My parents and I would love to be there, but we can’t,” she says. “Can you imagine? Nowhere her grandparents would rather be than at her funeral and they can’t go. Best case scenario would be if his thugs just kept us from going in, but there’s every chance my aging parents, truly decent people, would be assaulted or worse.”
“Would you like for me to talk to Trace or the Atlanta authorities?” I say. “See if I can work it out so y’all can go?”
Tears fill her eyes again. “That’s . . . very gracious of you. It means a lot that you would even try. But there’s no way he’d go for anything like that. He hated us before we started Myra House, but afterward . . . he wants us dead. I took every dime of life insurance Myra had and started this home in her honor to stop other women from becoming victims like her. Not only did he want the money for himself, he certainly didn’t want a place like this named after the woman he beat and shot up and killed. And we’ve been open about Myra’s story, so everyone who comes through these doors or reads about us in the press or online knows what he did to her, who he really is.”
“This is such an incredible thing to do for her, for her legacy,” I say. “You said how decent your parents are . . . clearly you are too.”
She shakes her head. “I’m . . . just a sad person with no life. Since I didn’t plan on living anymore anyway, why not try to let Myra’s life and death give life and hope to others.”
“It’s truly inspiring.”
“Be inspired by the survivors who come here,” she says. “Who leave here and never go back to an abusive relationship or a needle or pipe. They’re inspiring. I’m just the half-dead-inside, too-early-old little mouse who pays the bills around here. The only little bit of light I’ve had in my life for the last few years is the tiny little bit of Mariah I got—a text or email or Snapchat. They were rare—she had to sneak to do even those, but . . . I lived for them, for some small part of Myra to show through her daughter’s eyes or in her smile . . . and now I don’t even have that.”
I feel so sorry for this smart, self-aware, too-early-old, grief-stricken young woman before me, but know there’s nothing I can say or do that would be of much comfort or use to her.
“I’m so very sorry,” I say—because there is nothing else to say.
“She . . . was such a ray of sunshine,” she continues, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Such a free spirit, so loving and . . . man did she know how to have fun. Like I say, I saw her very, very little, but the few times I did was like being around a radiant light that made you radiate with it long afterwards.”
“How would you see her?” I ask. “Where?”
“She’d text me and say she was with a friend at the mall or the movies, and I’d meet her there for a few minutes—usually in the bathroom or somewhere like that. We’re only talking a handful of times over the past couple of years. I was able to take my folks twice. Made their life.”
“I’m so glad y’all got that,” I say.
“That reminds me . . .Mom gave her a pair of earrings—Trace wouldn’t let her get her ears pierced yet, so Mom bought her a pair of clip-ons and gave them to her the last time we saw her. And I gave her a frame I had made of pictures of me and her mom when we were girls and then the two of us with her when she was born. If there’s any way to get them back . . . I know she had to hide them from Trace . . . so I have no idea where they might be—though one time she did tell me she carried them everywhere she went. Anyway, I’d really like to get them back if at all possible. The thought of him having them or destroying them . . .”
I nod. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
“Who do you think killed Mariah?” I ask.
She frowns. “I don’t think. I know. It was Trace. No question.”
“You don’t think it was Ashley or anyone else in the house that night?”
She shakes her head. “I’d bet my life it was Trace and that it was about control,” she says. “They’re saying that there was a note saying she was going to run away. If so, if she’d had enough and was going to get out from underneath his oppressive control . . . all that would have had to happen was him finding out about it and him losing his temper as he imposed his will on her. I wouldn’t call that an accident, but her death could have been unintentional. But death is death. Murder is murder. He did it. It’s on him. He’s to blame. You said you were getting fingerprints and handwriting samples from everyone. Well, my mom and dad and I would be happy to provide them because the quicker you can eliminate everyone else, the better. So you can focus on him. He did it. No doubt in my mind. Like I said, I’d bet my life on it.”
33
“I’m a bottom,” Ashley Howard says. “Trace is a top. It’s why we fit so well together. Are you familiar with those terms?”
Like Trace, Ashely continues to talk openly and freely with me, seemingly without second guessing or editing herself.
I nod. “Yes, but I’d appreciate hearing how you describe them.”
We are in a large formal living room inside Trace’s enormous and exquisite mansion, sitting in high back leather chairs with a view of Trace’s stable of exotic sports cars—most of which I had never even heard of.
The house and everything in it and the cars make me think Trace is extremely overextended. There’s no way he has built up the kind of wealth required for this kind of lifestyle over his relatively short career, and it reminds me of how the ransom note referred to him.
Trace is at the funeral home. Merrill is with him. I hope to still be here when they get back.
Above the large fireplace a huge painted portrait of Mariah hangs in a frame that might actually be made of gold. In it, her genuine smile makes her eyes sparkle and adds an effervescent quality to her flawless face.
I notice there are no pictures of Ashley or Brett in the room.
“Sure. They’re like the roles we play. A bottom is the submissive, the one who is tied up, dominated, told what to do. The top is the one who does the tying, the one who dominates, who gives the order, who’s in control. Trace is a top. I’m a bottom.”
“Do you ever switch roles?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not in the bedroom, no. I think that may have been the problem with his first wife. She wanted to be a top and a bottom. You can’t really be both. I know some people say they switch, but I don’t see how you can. Trace is an excellent top. In command. In control. No one has ever given me the pleasure he has. Not in my entire life. I couldn’t do that. Not what he does. I give him pleasure by submitting to him, by doing exactly what he tells me to. No more and no less. I love being tied up. It’s freeing for me. I’m sure he would find
it . . . it would feel like shackles to him.”
“Do you always travel with your ropes and kit?” I ask.
She nods emphatically. “Always. We’re insatiable. That’s another thing that makes us work so well together. We both love sex. Both love our roles in our sex. I do what he tells me when he tells me. He can say drop to your knees and go down on me anywhere at any time and I do. One of the games we play is having sex is as many different places as possible, places where we might get caught, place where other people are—like in the backseat of a cab or under the table at a restaurant, that sort of thing. But mostly we just have a lot of sex. And love it. I don’t understand people who don’t love sex and get as much of it as they can. But to each his own, right? Why do you think we have a nanny? I need help with the kids so I can be a good bottom. So I can be at his beck and call.”
From what I’ve been told, we’ve so far been able to keep the details about the ropes used on Mariah out of the press, but since Trace had to have seen them when he pulled Mariah’s body from beneath her bed, I would have thought he would have told Ashley about them. Of course, if he or she or they used them on Mariah, they’d know about them anyway. Whatever the case, I’d expect her to mention the significance of the ropes in the light of the case, but she’s not. So far, she’s answering my questions as if they’re the casual inquiries of someone either interested in trying bondage or curious about her sex life. It’s an odd disconnect that I find jarring.
“Are y’all monogamous?” I ask.
“Sort of.”
“How can you be sort of monogamous?”
“Half and half,” she says. “I am. He’s not. I can’t keep up with him. He’s . . .” She shakes her head “He’s a force. Unstoppable, unmatchable.”
“You okay with him not being monogamous?”
“He’s the top. I’m the bottom. He tells me I can’t be, but he can. That’s what goes. He owns me. I am his body and soul. And by giving him what he wants . . . by letting him be free . . . he always comes back to me. Nobody out there will give him what I do, will be for him what I am.”
Blood Ties (John Jordan Mysteries Book 16) Page 12
