BLOOD CRIES: a John Jordan Mystery (Book 10) (John Jordan Mysteries)

by Michael Lister

Looking down at him, I saw Jeffrey Mathis, Yusuf Bell, Edward Hope Smith, Eric Middlebrooks, Clifford Jones, Darron Glass, LaMarcus Williams, Martin Fisher, and so many other wide-eyed young black boys without their whole lives in front of them who haunted my dreams.

  “Sure ain’t. Do you like super heroes? I do. Wilbur don’t so much. Says they no such thing. Who’s your favorite?”

  “Probably be Batman,” I said.

  “Mine too. How ’bout that.”

  Through the plate glass window, I could see Wilbur inside the shop, sitting in one of his mom’s unsold old chairs. He appeared to be practicing his bored, disinterested look. But that couldn’t be right. It didn’t need any practice.

  When he spotted us talking, he came to the door and told Kenny to come inside.

  “Bye Mr. John,” he said.

  “Bye Kenny. You take care.”

  “You too now.”

  “Hey, you forgot one,” I said, picking up a well-worn Aquaman.

  “I know why Aquaman ain’t black,” Kenny said. “We can’t swim so good.”

  I thought of Earl Terrell and Christopher Richardson, both boys last seen at or on their way to a public swimming pool, both bodies found in a wooded area some seventy-five feet off Redwine Road.

  When Kenny started to return to get it, Wilbur grabbed him and pushed him inside. “I told you ’bout talkin’ to strangers.”

  He then stepped over and snatched the figure from my outstretched hand.

  “Listen to your brother, Kenny,” I said. “Always be very careful. There are some really bad people in the world.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I was nursing a drink at Scarlett’s when Summer Grantham walked in.

  The drink special tonight was called a One-in-fourteen-hundred—the number of actresses who auditioned during the search for Scarlett.

  I was not having the special.

  Summer, dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and Keds, looked seventeen instead of forty-seven or whatever she actually was. She stood in the doorway until she saw me, then walked over, her long blond hair fluttering in the wake of her movement.

  I must have looked surprised to see her.

  “Surprised to see me?” she said.

  She was wearing a faded Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt that fit her girlish figure in the same way the jeans did—as if designed to do so.

  “I am,” I said, standing and offering to help her onto the barstool beside mine. “How’d you find me?”

  She didn’t take the offer of a seat.

  “I’m psychic,” she said. “Well, that and I asked Miss Ida. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all afternoon. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I just felt you were in danger earlier today. Saw a man in a white suit.”

  “Really?”

  “But you’re okay?”

  “I am.”

  “Sometimes I’m wrong, but it seemed real. I was certain––”

  “You weren’t wrong,” I said. “But I’m okay.”

  “I prayed for you.”

  “I’m sure it helped. Can I buy you a drink? Want to join me?”

  “I can’t stay. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot. Sure you can’t stay?”

  “Take care, John. I mean be careful.”

  She then leaned in, kissed me on the cheek, and was gone.

  Immediately, I could see Susan making her way over to me. She had been eyeing us while we spoke, and now that Summer was gone, she was determined to come over and inquire, though she tried to be subtle about it. Tried and failed.

  “Who was that?” Susan asked.

  She was wearing what she always wore when waitressing here, a red halter top with white lace trim meant to resemble the top of Scarlett’s dress from the movie poster, and blue jean cutoffs with a Rebel flag patch on each ass cheek.

  “Summer Grantham. She’s part of our group.”

  “She’s a cutie,” Margaret said from behind the bar. “Got good energy.”

  When she wore it, Margaret’s uniform was a faux tux patterned after Rhett Butler’s, but she rarely wore it anymore, and didn’t have it on tonight.

  “Group?” Susan said.

  “Missing and murdered kids.”

  “You should take her out, John,” Margaret said. “She’d be good for you. I can tell.”

  “Bit old for you, isn’t she?” Susan said to me, as if only tossing it out as a casual observation.

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Looked like that to me. Looked exactly like that.”

  Lonnie walked in and Margaret moved away to make him the drink he wouldn’t.

  I expected disapproval from him, but he smiled and waved.

  This time instead of just staring at the drink, he picked it up.

  Maybe that’s why there was no disapproval. Was he about to join us in our slow, sweet self-destruction?

  He then raised the glass to me and said, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

  I lifted my glass and smiled.

  Without taking so much as a sip, he returned the drink to Margaret and walked out.

  “What was that about?” Susan said.

  I tapped the brown tape case on the bar beside me. “Casablanca.”

  “Again?”

  “What’s your nationality, John?” Margaret asked.

  “I’m a drunkard.”

  “Makes you a citizen of the world.”

  We drank to that.

  Chapter Twelve

  In all, I drank less than I had been. A good bit less. And though Susan offered to, I was able to drive myself home.

  Home was Memorial Manor, an older medium-sized apartment complex a block off Memorial Drive near the I-285 exit—and, actually, just a walk through the woods from Scarlett’s, though so far I had never walked it.

  As usual, my apartment was empty, my roommate at work.

  Stepping into the darkness, my surroundings felt strange and unfamiliar.

  We hadn’t been here long, and I was still getting used to the place. The bedroom was the only space in the apartment that felt in any way like mine. And it wasn’t just because the living room and kitchen were communal and very sparsely furnished. It was mainly because of how little time I spent here, and how much of that time was spent in my room—which was where I walked straight to now.

  Feeling my way through the darkness, I eased across the living room and down the short hallway to the closed door on the left that opened into my room.

  There was nothing nice about the apartment. I couldn’t afford nice. Hell, I couldn’t afford this not-nice place without a roommate. But after all that had happened, I couldn’t stay at Trade Winds and EPI’s makeshift dorm apartment any longer.

  I had turned to Randy Renfroe, the college’s dean of students and all around helpful guy. With his help, I found this inexpensive place off Memorial Drive and Rick Baxley, a roommate who worked at night. What could be better?

  Memorial Drive connected the two most significant areas of Atlanta for me. On one end, the end that represented the past, were the places where a series of missing and murdered children lived, disappeared, and were dumped. The other end, the end that held a future I knew nothing of at the time, ran into the massive intrusive igneous quartz dome known as Stone Mountain, and the Stone Cold Killer I would one day encounter there.

  I was lonely, felt more alone in this place, my supposed home, than any other, so I poured myself a drink and went to work on my wall.

  I was tempted to dive in to Cedric Porter’s file, but decided to wait to hear what his mother and uncle had to say before I looked at it any more.

  I thought again about Memorial Drive and turned back to connections between the victims of the original case, searching for a geographic pattern on the other end of this seminal street.

  I didn’t have to search long.

  There are many ways to look at victimology—and though the m
ost common is probably the study of the psychological effects on the victims of crime and their experiences with the criminal justice system, I was far more interested in the ways in which the identities, geography, and behaviors of the victims may have led to or contributed to their victimization.

  By focusing on the killer, the task force failed to perceive connections among the victims. This led to the erroneous perception of randomness in victim selection, the belief there was an opportunistic predator roaming the streets of Atlanta picking off those vulnerable souls separated from the herd. But this doesn’t fit with the fact that most of the victims were described as tough, streetwise young people able to fend for themselves—something they had had a lot of practice doing.

  Like most of the problems with the investigation, the lack of consideration of the victims begins and ends with the task force’s inaccurate and incomplete list. The list makes no sense. Who got on it and who was left off was random and illogical. And its parameters kept changing—morphing, evolving, contorting to accommodate some victims and not others.

  I began with Chet Dettlinger’s map.

  Chet Dettlinger was a former cop who investigated the Atlanta missing and murdered children case with a small group of private detectives. So thorough and detailed was his detecting, in fact, that he was at one point considered a suspect by the Atlanta police.

  Of the many invaluable investigative actions Chet undertook, perhaps the most helpful and revealing was the map he made of the case.

  In the summer of 1980, Dettlinger compiled the geographical data into three points per victim on a map—where they lived, where they went missing, and where their bodies were found.

  In doing so, he discovered something astounding.

  A pattern.

  A geographic pattern that revealed the Atlanta Child Murders unfolded on or near twelve major streets that actually link together to form a sort of misshapen boot.

  So the murders weren’t random after all.

  The victims lived and played and went to school in close proximity to each other, and the main road connecting it all was Memorial Drive—the other end of the road I was on right now.

  After plotting the points on his map, Dettlinger decided to drive the streets to see if the lines he had drawn on paper translated into a real pattern on pavement.

  He and Mike Edwards, one of the private investigators helping him, started at the eastern end of Memorial Drive where Christopher Richardson, the eighth victim, lived and disappeared. Driving west on Memorial, they passed the street where a ten-year-old boy named Darron Glass lived, victim fourteen, who is still missing to this day. In two more short blocks they passed the East Lake Meadows housing project where Alfred Evans, victim two, lived. A few more blocks west they reached Moreland Avenue. If they had turned left, they would have been able to drive straight to the place where ten-year-old Aaron Wyche, the tenth victim, died in what was said to be an accidental fall. Instead, they drove on to the next alley where fourteen-year-old Eric Middlebrooks, victim seven, was found near his bicycle.

  Across the expressway was the house where Eric lived and was last seen alive.

  The two men continued west, and just before they reached Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and the state capitol, they could see E.P. Johnson Elementary School where the body of nine-year-old Yusuf Bell, the fourth victim, was found.

  Memorial Drive ended and they made a slight left. At the next traffic light was the block from which Yusuf disappeared. In two more blocks, they took a short detour to the dumpster where nine-year-old Anthony Carter, the eleventh victim, was found stabbed to death.

  Just beyond these two places was the grocery store where Yusuf went on an errand to buy snuff for a neighbor, and beyond the store on Georgia Avenue was Cap’n Peg’s, where JoJo Bell was employed and the place he left from on the day he disappeared, and where Michael McIntosh, the twenty-fourth victim, did odd jobs. It was also where Fred Wyatt, in possession of twenty-fifth victim Jimmy Ray Payne’s prison ID, was arrested, and the address Wayne Williams used as his business location address on his flyers.

  Within the next five blocks, Dettlinger and Edwards passed the homes of Anthony Carter and two other victims. In another moment they were staring at a silver fireplug where Jeffrey Mathis, the sixth victim, disappeared.

  Gordon Street then merged with and became Martin Luther King Drive. Approaching the intersection of Martin Luther King and Hightower Road was the first time they had to use their turn signal. They turned right, and off to their right, just one block away, was the apartment where seven-year-old LaTonya Wilson, victim nine, was kidnapped. It was also the apartment building where the twenty-eighth victim, Nathaniel Cater, one of the two adults Wayne Williams was convicted of killing, lived.

  The two men then proceeded north on Hightower Road to the location where Clifford Jones, the thirteenth victim, was seen entering a laundromat and behind which his body would later be discovered.

  Then after crossing US-278, they passed the Bowen Homes housing projects where a young boy named Curtis Walker, the twenty-first victim, shared an apartment with his mother and uncle.

  Hightower Road broke into two streets at this point—Jackson Parkway and Hollywood Road. They chose Hollywood Road because it was closer to the points where Clifford Jones lived, disappeared, and was found dead.

  Once on Hollywood Road, they passed the apartment where victim nineteen, Terry Pue, lived with his family. A short distance later was the small shopping center at Perry Boulevard and Hollywood Road, where the body of Clifford Jones was found.

  Just before Hollywood Road ended at Bolton Road, they turned left and drove into the parking lot of a Starvin’ Marvin store at Bolton Road and Jackson Parkway. Just six-tenths of a mile north on Jackson Parkway was the Jackson Parkway bridge where Wayne Williams would be pulled over after a loud splash was heard in the Chattahoochee River below.

  Soon after Bolton Road dipped south and merged with Fairburn Road, they were passing the intersection of Nash Road where Milton Harvey, the third victim, lived, and just a block west was the parallel-running Kimberly Road, off of which was the entrance to the housing projects where fourteen-year-old Edward Hope Smith, the first victim, lived.

  Soon they were at the intersection of Campbellton Road (Georgia 166) near the home of twelve-year-old and fifth victim Angel Lanier. Farther east along Georgia 166 were the Lakewood Fairgrounds and South Bend Park where convicted child molester John David Wilcoxen lived. South Bend Park was also where eleven-year-old Earl Lee Terrell, the twelfth victim, disappeared from the swimming pool.

  Both Wilcoxen and Terrell, along with Jamie Brooks, would be suspects—suspects I was convinced should have been looked at much, much more closely.

  They drove on for several more miles—the longest stretch without encountering a location pertinent to the murders. Finally they came to where Redwine Road merges with Fairborn Road. This took them within fifty feet of the remains of two more victims—Christopher Richardson, who was last seen headed for the swimming pool, and Earl Lee Terrell, who was last seen after being kicked out of one—lay in the woods close together near a cluster of large boulders.

  Unbeknownst to them at the time, Dettlinger and Edwards had also driven by the locations where seven more victims—all alive that day—lived, would disappear from, or would be found dead. Their death map drive had also taken them within a block of the house of Wayne Williams.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next afternoon, I attended an AA meeting with Lonnie Baker.

  The meeting took place every day during lunch in the back of his video store, in the fifteen by eighteen room that had once housed his Adult titles.

  Now a storage room, the walls were fronted by metal shelving filled with rental VCRs, video tapes, movie posters and other promotional materials, bulk kitty litter, paper towel rolls, office supplies, cleaning supplies and disinfectant, catalogs, clear plastic protective video box sleeves, and AA books and materials. Though mostly c
overed by shelves, the unpainted sheetrock walls were covered with movie posters. Behind the shelf directly in front of me were partially exposed promotional posters for The Boy Who Could Fly and Top Gun.

  A circle comprised of ten folding metal chairs was in the center of the room, a coffee pot on a small wobbly wooden table between the first shelf and the door. Three men sat on the chairs, each with a paper cup of coffee in his hand.

  I wasn’t a coffee drinker, but evidently that didn’t matter.

  Like Lonnie, the other two men were black and looked to be in their thirties. Unlike Lonnie, they were big men—one short and round, the other tall and thick everywhere including his hands.

  “Hi, I’m Lonnie and I’m an addict. I want to welcome John Jordan with us today,” Lonnie said. “Welcome John. We’re glad you’re here.”

  If the other two men were glad I was there I couldn’t tell. Neither said anything.

  “Roy, will you read the preamble for us?” Lonnie said.

  “Hi, I’m Roy, and I’m an alcoholic,” the large, thick man said in a deep, thick voice. “‘Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.’”

  I shouldn’t be here, I thought. I have no desire to stop drinking. Not really.

  “Thank you, Roy,” Lonnie said. “Jerry, will you read how it works?”

  “Hi, I’m Jerry, and I’m an alcoholic,” the short, rotund man with large, gold glasses said. “‘Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it—then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol—cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power—that One is God. May you find Him now! Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery: