MICHAEL LISTER'S FIRST THREE SERIES NOVELS: POWER IN THE BLOOD, THE BIG GOODBYE, THUNDER BEACH

by Michael Lister

  Evidently the crime-scene investigation was nearly concluded when I had been called. The house was virtually empty. I did, however, pass by a young female deputy as I was walking up the stairs, but she didn’t seem to be investigating. I smiled politely at her. She didn’t smile back. She obviously felt the need to establish that she was a serious crime-scene investigator. She convinced me.

  The second story of the house was as immaculate as the first— nothing out of place and no sign that human beings lived there. Every hallway had a long plastic runner covering it, which caused my shoes to make a noise similar to that of a small Skilsaw as I shuffled along them.

  There were three bedrooms. If someone had ever spent a single night in any of them, I couldn’t tell it. The one I assumed was Russ’s, because of its size and attached bathroom, was nearly two times the size of my trailer. The bed, a king-size monstrosity, was at least four feet off the floor with massive spiral posts at each corner and looked to be mahogany. The other furniture in the room seemed to be an eclectic gathering of priceless antiques gleaned from different parts of the world: an armoire, tallboy, full-length free-standing mirror, vanity, and dresser. I was certain their value could have purchased any modest home.

  The walk-in closet was neatly organized. The back wall was covered with shoe bins from floor to ceiling: each containing a pair of polished shoes. Each side of the closet had a rack with clothes hanging on it, suits and dress shirts mainly. I looked around the closet and the bedroom and found nothing unusual. In the bathroom, however, I did.

  Under the expensive porcelain sink with gold and brass fittings, there were three very large jars of Vaseline, four tubes of K-Y personal lubrication jelly, and two rather large boxes of condoms. This was very unusual since Russ was thought to be about as sexual as the lint that gathered in the large black hole of his navel. It was also an inordinate amount. Unless these were tributes to wishful thinking, there should have been more Russ Maddox grist in the Pottersville rumor mill.

  The other two bedrooms were a lot like the larger one, only smaller. They were showroom-clean and decorated like the ones seen in magazines. I made what I thought was a pretty thorough search of the rooms and then went back into the master suite. Looking through Russ’s drawers was like shopping at Macy’s. Everything looked new, and there were several packages of underwear and socks that had never been opened. I thought how embarrassed I would be if someone were searching through my drawer of holey underwear and dirty socks. I walked over and looked under the bed. It was spotless. I was beginning to think that Russ Maddox was a little on the obsessive-compulsive side, but it was just an impression, and I knew the dangers of formulating rash opinions.

  After finding nothing on the back side of the headboard and the mirror, I opened the two doors of the armoire, exposing a 32-inch television, VCR, and camcorder. On a shelf under the TV and VCR, there were several videotapes. The movies ranged from The Sound of Music to Rocky. I pulled a few of the tapes out of the boxes. Their labels matched the boxes. I popped a few of them into the VCR. They were what they had appeared to be. As I started to replace them, I noticed that behind them, lying on their sides, were four of the oversized Disney movie boxes. I pulled them out. There was Bambi, Dumbo, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. I stood them up vertically alongside the other tapes and closed the armoire doors.

  I started to leave the room, and then it hit me. Why would somebody as obsessive-compulsive as Maddox lay the Disney tapes horizontally behind the others? When I saw them, I had figured it was just because they were too tall to fit, but putting them back like the others disproved that. It also proved that there was room for them. I also wondered why a man like Russ Maddox would have Disney movies anyway. I went back and opened the doors again and then the Disney boxes. The labels on the tapes corresponded with the boxes, but they were typed homemade labels and not the printed labels that usually were affixed to tapes in the dubbing houses. Homemade labels would have made sense if the tapes were copied, but if they were copies they wouldn’t be in the Disney boxes.

  I placed one in the VCR. The TV screen blinked from royal blue to a shot of two men having sex on the bed in the very room in which I stood. The camera seemed to be shooting the video footage from where it still sat on the shelf beside the VCR. The room was well lit, and the camera was obviously an expensive one because the picture was crystal clear. It showed a fat white man from the side hunched over a thin black man. The fat white man was Russ Maddox. He was moaning and occasionally blurting out obscenities. The other man, whose face I could not see, was making noises, too, but his seemed to be pain rather than pleasure. However, the two are hard to distinguish sometimes, and I could have been projecting.

  In another minute or so, Russ had climaxed and collapsed, the black man disappearing beneath his blubber. I hit the fast forward button on the machine, and in a few seconds the black man beneath Russ began moving slightly and Russ finally rolled off him. The black man jumped up. When he did, he came face-to-face with the eye of the camera. I paused it on the familiar face. It was Ike Johnson.

  As I stopped the tape, I heard a voice from the hall.

  “JJ, your dad would like to see you downstairs,” the serious young female officer said when she reached the door to the bedroom.

  “Thank you. I’ll be right down,” I said. Quickly replacing the tapes in their original place behind the others, I closed the armoire and walked down the stairs.

  Downstairs I found my dad and brother in the living room talking. The body, along with everyone else, was gone.

  “JJ, the reason I called you is probably obvious. We haven’t had a homicide investigation in this county in several years. And this week we have two mysterious murders. Do you think they could be related?” Dad said.

  “I think it’s possible,” I said and felt guilty for not telling him everything. I wasn’t even sure why I didn’t. It was probably the mode I was in—I wouldn’t say anything to anyone until I knew more. I hated to be less than honest with him, but it wasn’t the first time. “Like you say, it seems a little much to just be a coincidence. Was Russ murdered?”

  “It looks like it. Like maybe he was poisoned. We’ll know for sure in a day or so. What have you found out about the other murder so far?”

  “It’s still just bits and pieces now, but I hope to put it all together soon.”

  “Why the hell do they have you looking into it?” Jake asked. “Aren’t you just the convict preacher?”

  “Yes, I am. And I’m not conducting the investigation I’m just assisting in it.”

  “With your father-in-law?” Dad asked.

  “Yes, Tom Daniels,” I said.

  “I’m just glad to hear you’re using your God-given abilities again. It’s been too long. You are a damn fine investigator. I’d like to have you in our department.”

  When I got out of law enforcement and went into the ministry, it broke my dad’s heart. Since that time, he and Jake had been extremely close, and I had been the odd man out.

  “Thank you,” I said, “but I really am just assisting. I love my work as a chaplain.”

  Jake snickered softly. I didn’t look his way.

  Dad ignored him, too, and said, “If there is a connection, I wonder what in the hell it could be. I mean, what do a black convict and a white fat-cat banker have in common?”

  “If their deaths are connected, we will find out what they had in common. And, thanks for calling me, Dad. It really means a lot.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said. He looked at his watch. “Rudy’s opens in another ten minutes. Let’s go get some breakfast together.”

  “You two go ahead. If you don’t mind, I’m going to look around some more first and then I better get back home.”

  Jake laughed again. Dad smiled and said, “That’s right, you weren’t alone.” The pride in his voice was obvious.

  “Well, it’s not what you think or what Jake thinks anyway. But this man was her uncle, and I need to
go and tell her.”

  “Okay, Son. We’ll let you know something whenever we do. You do the same, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  They left.

  I went and took another look upstairs, got the tapes, and went home.

  Chapter 29

  “I think Captain Skipper has been supplying inmate prostitutes to Russ Maddox. And Ike Johnson was one of them,” I said. I was sitting with Merrill and Anna in her office on the morning of the longest Monday of my life, a day which I began in the company of my friends and ended in the hands of my enemies.

  Anna looked pretty this morning, though a little sleepy. And Merrill looked as he always looked, like he didn’t have a clue as to what was going on around him and didn’t care. But it was just a look. I had seen him look the same way just prior to nearly killing a classmate of ours who had attempted to rape his little sister when we were in high school. Anna did not look as devastatingly beautiful as she usually did. I wondered if it were just that my eyes were still full of Laura. I looked at her again and determined that’s exactly what it was.

  “You want to run that by me one more time?” Anna said.

  “You heard me. And the two people who have died recently both have ties to Skipper and each other.”

  “What do you mean?” Anna asked.

  I told them. When I finished, they were both silent. I could see the wheels turning in Anna’s head. I knew that wheels were also turning in Merrill’s head, but I couldn’t see them.

  “It’s just not possible,” Anna said at last. “There’s no way he could pull it off. It would take . . .”

  “Help from higher up,” Merrill said.

  I shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”

  “At least,” Anna added. “But he couldn’t do it without getting caught.”

  “He could do it without help from Patterson or Stone. They’re never here during the late shift. Besides, he is getting caught,” I said. “We’re catching him.”

  “No we are not. I am just a weak little woman,” Anna said. Merrill and I both laughed as hard as we ever had at anything. “I’m serious,” she said. “We need to call FDLE and let them handle it.”

  “I plan on telling FDLE, and the inspector, as far as that is concerned, but I need to know a little more first.”

  “Like what?” Anna asked.

  “Evidence. Like some proof of money swapping hands,” I said.

  “How are you going to get that?” Anna asked.

  “I was hoping you would have an idea.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  I shrugged. “I would be happy to entertain any suggestions either of you might have.”

  “Why don’t you get his niece’s help? You’ve slept with her recently, haven’t you?” Merrill asked.

  “As recently as last night,” I said, “but enlisting her help would be tricky. And you weren’t supposed to mention it.”

  Anna sat up and leaned forward, her eyes growing wide and slightly wild. “What did you say?” she said to Merrill. Before he could answer, she said to me, “What did he say?”

  “As it turns out, I started seeing Laura Matthers this past week and she is Russ Maddox’s niece.”

  “Whoa, wait just a damn minute. Why wasn’t I aware of this?” she asked.

  “I was going to tell you today. It just happened this weekend.”

  “You all are joking, because I know the next time you sleep with a woman, it will be in a marriage bed.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’ve been having a hard time convincing these jaded men of that.”

  “Why would they think that you did?” she asked suspiciously.

  “When Dad called, Laura answered the phone, and technically we were sleeping and technically we were together, but we were not sleeping together, if you know what I mean.”

  “Your dad called in the middle of the night, and she answered the phone?” she asked in disbelief.

  “She tried to wake me, but couldn’t.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true. It was the first good night’s sleep I’ve gotten in over a year. That was until I was awakened to go to the scene of a murder.”

  “If you slept like that, then this is serious, and I should have known about it.”

  “It was just one of those things that happened. It almost all took place this weekend.”

  “Your weekend was a hell of a lot better than mine,” Merrill said.

  I shrugged. “It was a grace.”

  “She really loves you,” Anna said.

  “You don’t even know her,” I said.

  “I wasn’t referring to Laura, but to God,” she said with a warm smile. Her eyes twinkled.

  “I really love her.”

  “And Laura knows that?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “You said that you saw Johnson on the tape. Was there anybody else on it?” Merrill said, changing the subject.

  “Actually that is the only one I saw, and it was very short. Russ is what you might call a minute man. I thought maybe you would be willing to come over tonight and watch the others.”

  “If it’s all men, I couldn’t do it. You know that,” Merrill said with an exaggerated shiver.

  “I have no idea what’s on the other tapes.”

  “Just the same, you better count me out,” he said still shaking his head as if to rid it of the mental pictures his mind was developing.

  “Sounds like you may have some repressed or latent homosexual desires,” Anna said to him.

  Merrill did not respond. He looked as if he had heard nothing.

  “Are you saying this is a cultural thing, Merrill?” Anna continued. “Like, for example, heterosexual black men can’t tolerate even the thought of homosexuality, black men are more well-endowed, and they won’t perform oral sex on a woman.”

  “Generally, I’d have to say those things are true,” he said.

  “Well, I’ll help you review the tapes if you want me to, John,” she said.

  “I hate to ask you to watch those things, but I’d really enjoy your company.”

  “Okay, it’s a date. I’m a married woman going to a minister’s house to watch homemade porno tapes. Sounds like fun.”

  “People gonna start calling you Jimmy Swaggart,” Merrill said to me.

  I let that one go. “Let’s not call it a date,” I said to Anna. “And I definitely think that Merrill should have to join us.”

  “Yeah, Merrill, you can’t break up the three musketeers,” Anna said to him.

  “The three stooges,” he mumbled.

  “Hey, Moe, so you’ll join us?” I said.

  “I’ll come, but I’m not watching.”

  Anna started to say something, and from her expression I knew what it was going to be. I held my hand up to stop her and said, “We better break up this little meeting before it degenerates any further. I’ll see you both tonight at six o’clock at my house.”

  “Let’s make it seven. I need to eat first,” Merrill said, and with that we were walking out the door.

  I went back to my office and ordered flowers for Laura. I had them write on the card, “The scent of peaches still lingers.” I also ordered flowers for her uncle’s funeral.

  Next, I called her to see how she and the family were doing. Last night, or rather early this morning, she took the news exceptionally well. I first considered that she might be in shock, but later determined that she was genuinely okay.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Laura?” I asked.

  “No, this is Kim. Who’s this?”

  “This is John Jordan. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine. How are you?” she said.

  “I’m good,” I said.

  “Listen, let me grab Laura,” she said. “I know she’s dying to talk to you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I can just tell. She’s like spazzing out over you.”

  “Thank
you, Kim. That’s good to know.”

  In a moment, Laura picked up another extension and, after Kim noisily hung up her extension, said, “Hey, you.”

  “Good morning. How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “Actually, I’m having contradictory feelings. Coming off the high of a wonderful weekend with you and then the shock of Uncle Russ’s death.

  “How’s your mom handling the loss of her brother?”

  “She’s okay. They weren’t real close. He was so weird. He was not really close to anyone that I know of. Still it’s a shock.”

  Scenes from the video shown on the screen of my mind. He was very close with some people, I thought, but had the good sense not to say it. Instead, I said, “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes. Could you come by after work?”

  “I certainly will,” I said, and, though I never made it, I meant it when I said it.

  I said good-bye and hung up just as there was a knock at my door, followed by Mr. Smith bringing an inmate pass in and laying it on the desk before me.

  “Brother Chaplain, I think you better talk with this inmate. You need to hear what he need to say.”

  “Okay, send him in.”

  “Chaplain, I need to talk with you right away,” Jefferson Hunter said when he entered my office. Mr. Smith closed the door, and I motioned for Hunter to have a seat.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked.

  “Chaplain, you know I ain’t down with the religion thing, and I really don’t like white people none much, but I got the four-one-one you need.”

  “No matter what the information is, I cannot pay you for it in any way.”

  “No, I know you wouldn’t. That’s why I’m here. You okay. They’s lots of mean sons a bitches around here, but you different. When my mother passed, you really helped me a lot and I remember that.”

  “Thank you,” I said, not knowing what else to say.