“What can I get you?” Margaret asked.
I shook my head. “She’s not here to––”
“Jack and Coke,” she said.
I looked back at Miss Ida.
“You ain’t the only one what’s been better, boy,” she said.
I nodded and our eyes locked a moment before we both teared up and had to look away.
“Why don’t y’all have a seat at the little table over there in the corner,” Susan said. “I’ll bring your drinks over.”
We did.
“How do you know Lonnie?” I asked.
“Through his sister. She’s a part of our group—or was. Her boy went missing back around the time LaMarcus did . . . back when so many were.”
“What’s his name? Was he on the list?”
She shook her head. “Never turned up dead or alive. Still missing. So never made that damn list. His name is Cedric. Cedric Porter.”
I nodded and thought about it.
Susan brought Miss Ida’s Jack and Coke, topped off my coffee, and smiled at me approvingly––whether about the coffee or talking to Miss Ida, I wasn’t sure. Probably both.
Ida lifted her glass and made a toasting motion toward me without actually touching my cup. She then drank the darkish liquid the way someone who doesn’t drink would––not sipping or shooting but taking a large swallow, which quickly caught up with her.
A quick intake of air, followed by a cough. Another swallow she thought would help, but didn’t. Then more of the same.
“You okay?” I asked. “Want some water?”
“I’m fine. It’s just been a while and they mix ’em up strong in here. I like the burn. I want it.”
Susan appeared with a glass of water, set it on the table, and was gone.
“Thank you,” I said, though I don’t think she heard me.
“Nobody need to make a fuss over me. I’m fine.”
I nodded and we were quiet a moment. “Hotel California” was playing on the jukebox. She took a sip of water––quickly, nonchalantly, as if it embarrassed her to do so.
Hollywood’s not the only haunted hotel. Atlanta is. So is the world.
I thought of sitting on the swings at Trade Winds with Jordan late into the night, her wiping tears as Martin walked up. They were both so small, so frail, so vulnerable in their own way.
“‘What have we, my good friend, deserv’d at the hands of fortune, that she sends us to prison hither?’” I said.
Miss Ida looked confused.
“Atlanta’s a prison,” I said. “Or at least a hotel that can’t be checked out of. The world is one.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“‘Why then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’”
Something Mama Monroe said joined the Hamlet and “Hotel California” mashup in my head. We all doin’ time, baby. Only question is where and how.
“You still investigating the murders?” she asked.
I nodded. “When I’m not in school, at work, or . . .”
“Drinkin’ yourself silly.”
“Yeah.”
“I want you to come back to the group,” she said.
“You still meet?” I asked, my voice full of surprise.
“’Course we do. It’s about all our kids. Always was. Not just mine.”
“You don’t blame me for . . . what happened?” I asked.
“No, child, I don’t,” she said. “No part of it was your fault.”
More relief washed over me than I had experienced since it all happened.
“Will you come back?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I . . . don’t think I can . . . Not yet. Not ever, maybe.”
“We need you,” she said. “From the look of it . . . you need us.”
Chapter Four
When I woke up I sensed someone else in the room.
I rolled over to see Susan Daniels standing, staring at my Wayne Williams wall.
Instantly, his soft, eerie voice echoed through my twinging head. What’s your name, boy? Just ’cause I prefer chocolate don’t mean I couldn’t go for some vanilla.
Dry mouth, dull ache in my head, I felt stiff and sluggish.
“It was dark when we came in last night,” she said. “Didn’t really see any of this. Probably wouldn’t have stayed if I had.”
One whole wall, the largest in the room, was covered with case files, maps, lists, witness statements, evidence reports, crime scene photographs, fiber and other forensic records—all of which was splattered with and connected by the scratch and scrawl of my scribblings.
The wall spoke of obsessive compulsive behavior to anyone listening. She had heard it right away. She’d had experience with it.
“You stayed here last night?” I said.
“My dad’s a cop,” she said, still studying the wall. “Lives in Tallahassee. Worked Bundy.”
“Mine too.”
“Yours too what?”
“Dad. Worked Bundy. He’s the sheriff of Potter County.”
“Probably know each other,” she said. “He a drunk too?”
“More of teetotaler. You stayed here last night?”
“Mine’s a drunk like you,” she said. “Why I’m in Atlanta. Why nothing happened last night. I just didn’t feel like driving all the way back home after I dropped your drunk ass off. And your bed looked too good and warm not to crawl into. I’d never get involved with a drunk or a . . . cop.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“Your wall argues otherwise.”
“I’m a theology student.”
She turned from the wall to face me for the first time. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“Knew there was something . . . Anyway . . . you don’t have to have a badge to be a cop. And that’s three strikes.”
“What time is it? Three strikes?”
“Against you,” she said. “Drunk. Cop. Jesus freak.”
“Didn’t even know I was at bat.”
And I didn’t ask to play ball.
“It’s early,” she said.
“I have class this morning.”
“You need to hydrate and shower. So what’s the deal?”
“With?”
“Why’re you so obsessed with this case?” she said, jerking her head back toward the wall behind her.
“I had a confrontation with Wayne Williams when I was a kid.”
“Oh yeah? Let’s hear it.”
“Family trip to Atlanta. Staying at the Omni. I was in the arcade playing Space Invaders when he came in with his flyers. He approached a scrawny kid playing KISS pinball. Kid shook his head. Didn’t even look at him . . .”
Look at me, little brother, he said.
The kid didn’t.
Williams laid the flyer on the glass top of the pinball machine, blocking the boy’s view and causing him to lose the turn.
You heard of the Jackson Five, ain’t ya? You could be like little Michael.
The boy abandoned his game and walked away with his head down.
Williams followed.
I stepped away from Space Invaders and in front of him.
Said he’s not interested, I said.
Whoa, little man, he said. What’s your name?
I didn’t respond, just held his gaze.
Anger flashed in his face when I still refused to respond.
Just ’cause I prefer chocolate don’t mean I couldn’t go for some vanilla, he said.
“Wow. No wonder you got obsessed with the case,” Susan said, “but I thought it was solved years ago. Williams is in prison, right?”
“For killing two adults,” I said. “Not any children.”
“Give me a brief overview,” she said. “Justify your obsession.”
I did—the former, at least. I had no interest in doing the latter.
The victims, as James Baldwin wrote, were visibly black and actually poor, and here
’s who they were—who they are and will forever be…
Chapter Five
It began in the summer of 1979, when Edward Hope Smith and Alfred Evans disappeared just four days apart. Their bodies were discovered on July 28, in a wooded area off Niskey Lake Road by a woman looking for cans.
Milton Harvey, the next victim, disappeared on September 4, while on an errand for his mother. His remains were found off Desert Road at Redwine Road on the south side by a man picking up cans.
All three victims to this point were fourteen-year-old African-American boys.
On October 21, nine-year-old Yusuf Bell became the next victim when he went to the store to buy snuff for a neighbor. A witness said she saw Yusuf getting into a blue car before he disappeared. The same witness claimed the man driving the car was Yusuf’s father, John. His body was found on November 8, in the abandoned E.P. Johnson Elementary School by a former school janitor searching for a place to urinate. Yusuf was still wearing the brown cut-off shorts he was last seen wearing, though they had a piece of masking tape stuck to them. He had suffered blunt force trauma to the head, but the cause of death was strangulation.
The first female to make the list was twelve-year-old Angel Lenair, who disappeared on March 4, 1980. She had left her house in denim clothes around four that afternoon. She was last seen watching TV at a friend’s house. Her body was discovered six days later in a wooded lot not far from where she lived, in the same outfit she was last seen in. A pair of white panties had been stuffed in her mouth and her wrists were bound by an electrical cord. Cause of death was ruled strangulation.
The next victim, eleven-year-old Jeffrey Mathis, disappeared on March 11, while running an errand for his mother. He was last seen at Star Service Station on Gordon wearing gray jogging pants, brown shoes, and a white and green shirt. A witness said she saw him get into a blue car with two men. His body was found in a wooded area near Campbellton Road, by FBI agents with trained dogs.
Eric Middlebrooks was the next young person to go missing and be found murdered. He was last seen at his home on May 18. He answered the phone then rushed off on his bicycle with a hammer. Supposedly, the tool was for repairing his bike and not to use as a weapon. His body was found next to his bike in a rear garage of the Hope-U-Like-It bar at 247 Flat Shoals Road. His pockets had been turned inside out and his chest and arms had stab wounds. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
On June 9, twelve-year-old Christopher Richardson went missing on his way to an area swimming pool. He was wearing blue shorts, a light blue shirt, and blue tennis shoes. His body was found in a wooded area, in different shorts than the ones he had last been seen in.
Two weeks later, on June 22, seven-year-old Latonya Wilson went missing, followed the very next day by ten-year-old Aaron Wyche.
Authorities had yet to connect the victims and there was little cooperation between agencies or across county lines.
The obvious crisis and the indifference and ineffectiveness of the police led three of the victims’ mothers—Camille Bell, Willie Mae Mathis, and Venus Taylor—to join with Reverend Earl Carroll to form the Committee to Stop Children’s Murders (STOP). This group along with private investigators put pressure on authorities, and soon a task force for Atlanta’s missing and murdered children was created.
The next month, two more children were murdered—Anthony Carter and Earl Lee Terrell.
Then, from August through November of that year, five more murders took place—Clifford Jones, Darron Glass, Charles Stephens, Aaron Jackson, and Patrick “Pat Man” Rogers.
The first known victim of 1981 was Lubie Geter. He disappeared on January 3, and was found on February 5.
Terry Pue, a friend of Lubie Geter, also went missing in January. An anonymous caller told the police where to find Pue’s body.
Two more murders took place in February—Patrick Baltazar and Curtis Walker. Three more in March—Joseph “JoJo” Bell, Timothy Hill, and Eddie “Bubba” Duncan.
Duncan was the first adult to make the list.
Twenty-year-old “Little” Larry Rogers died in April.
From this point forward all the victims were adults.
Though not found until April, Michael McIntosh went missing in March. He left his job at the Milton Avenue Foundry on March 24, and never went back. Reportedly, he was seen alive by friends and family as late as April 1. Sometime around March 25, a man who ran an import shop on Bankhead Highway said McIntosh came into his shop crying, having been badly beaten. The man gave him twelve dollars and showed him where the nearest MARTA station was.
Two other murders also took place in April—that of Larry Rogers and Jimmy Ray Payne.
The next victim, William Barrett, went missing on May 16. His body was found close to his home.
The final victim on the list was Nathaniel Cater, the twenty-seven-year-old whose body was fished out of the Chattahoochee two days after Wayne Williams was spotted near the James Jackson Parkway bridge in the middle of the night. A police team was set up on the bridge because of its proximity to the place where some of the previous victims had been found. Robert Campbell, a police recruit helping with surveillance, was beneath the bridge when he heard what he described as a big loud splash in the water and radioed the cops up top.
Williams, who had just driven across the bridge, stopped and turned and headed back across it.
He was pulled over by members of the task force in the chase car.
When asked if he knew why he’d been stopped, he responded, “This about those kids?”
“I take it you don’t think he’s guilty,” Susan said.
“I don’t think all the cases were solved,” I said. “There’s a difference. And it wasn’t just one case. It was many. And Wayne Williams may have been responsible for some of them, but not all. The investigation and trial were so badly botched, it’s hard to know. It was a very big and important case for him to be convicted the way he was for killing who he did.”
“You mean two adults.”
I nodded.
“You’re not here for school. You’re here to solve the case.”
“Cases. And I’m here for both.”
“Seems to me you’re doing more drinking than investigating these days.”
“These cases will do that to you,” I said.
Images of me and Jordan and Martin playing house, being an actual family, flashed inside my head.
“What happened?”
I shook my head. “Don’t want to talk about it.”
Jordan rolling over to face me in the bed I had come to see as ours, her sweet, loving, longing smile, the quick glance at little Martin Fisher lying on the floor. The most happiness I had ever known.
“You don’t have to,” Susan said. “But it involved a woman. I’d bet my life on it. I can tell by the way you drink. So what’s your theory?”
“About the case?” I said. “Sloppy police work. Lack of coordination. Inane, incomplete list. Political motivations. Overeagerness to assign guilt to one suspect. Questions about Williams’s guilt. Unsolved homicides. Murderers walking free. Missing children still missing. An open wound that’s not healing.”
“For you or the city?”
“Both. Why is everything so either-or for you?”
She smiled, but then it faded as her gaze drifted off into the far distance to something I couldn’t see.
“I babysat one of the victims,” she said. “I guess he was a victim. Really don’t know for sure.”
“Really? Who?”
“Cedric Porter. His mom was young and . . . she wasn’t . . . she wouldn’t’ve won any Mother-of-the-Year competitions. She was one of Aunt Margaret’s best customers. This was when I first moved up here. I was eighteen at the time. Too young to work in the bar. So I . . .”
I knew she was older than me, but until now I didn’t know how much.
“What happened to Cedric?”
“He just . . . vanished. Here one minute. Gone the next
. And he stayed gone. Drove Ada crazy. Kinda like you.”
“Ada?”
“His mama. She says he’s okay. That he just ran away. Had his reasons. Says he still calls her. She won’t leave the house because of it. Just sits there like she’s in prison waiting for his next call.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
“That he’s dead like all the rest.”
“You think someone’s really calling her or is she just imagining it—or making it up?”
She shrugged. “There have been people around when the phone rang and she sounded like she was talking to her son. She swears it’s him, that she knows his voice and that he knows things only Cedric would, but . . . it’s not him. It can’t be.”
Chapter Six
Safe Haven wasn’t safe and never had been, and now it was haunted.
I hadn’t been back since the day Brandon Wright’s body had been found and the place closed down.
The abandoned daycare center on Flat Shoals Road just down from Chapel Hill Harvester Church, where I occasionally attended and went to school, was in Ida Williams’s converted home—the very home her son, LaMarcus, had been abducted from and murdered. And that was just one of the many very bad things that had happened here.
What was once a large front yard, and then a playground, was now a sad, tragic space where rusting, slanting swings squeaked eerily as they moved in the wind, and sandboxes surrounded by litter and tarnished toys were weed filled, splintering and splitting, spilling their sand out onto the grassless ground around them.
I parked near the handful of other cars in the circular driveway, got out, and walked in.
Haltingly making my way up the covered sidewalk, I could hear the echoes of children running, climbing, swinging, jumping, playing, talking, laughing, each and every one unaware how close a killer of children was to them.
Pausing at the bench where Jordan and I had sat together on that first morning, I reached out as if to touch it, as if to make contact with an actual, tangible object that had made contact with her, but stopped short.
BLOOD CRIES: a John Jordan Mystery (Book 10) (John Jordan Mysteries) Page 2
