Back to Lazarus (Sydney Brennan)

by Judy K. Walker

  “Shit, that could be,” Mike agreed.

  “Can you do me a favor tomorrow morning and run an Autofind on some of the fire witnesses?”

  “Already taken care of,” he said, handing me and Richard small stacks of print-outs. “That also includes the two witnesses to the bar incident. Once you start asking questions, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some overlap on the witnesses.”

  I started leafing through the pages. “Let’s just hope the barflies haven’t drunk themselves to death yet.”

  It was nearly 1 a.m., so we adjourned for the night. Mike and Richard had to be at the PD’s office bright and early the next day, and while I might be able to sleep in a little longer, I did have a long list of witnesses to contact. We would touch base tomorrow after work (their regular work at the PD’ office, that is), and if I had anyone left to see, we would divvy up the remaining witnesses then. I looked affectionately at the two sets of tired eyes that were not my own. I hoped we finished this up soon. In addition to the stress of being stalked by stinky perv, I was in a constant state of exhaustion, and I didn’t know how much longer these guys could keep working two full-time jobs.

  As tired as I was, I couldn’t think about sleeping until I looked over the report from the fire at Jimmy’s. Like Richard, I wished I had my wipe board with me. The timeline would come in handy right about now. I pulled out my binder of reports and concentrated on two things, Vanda’s time of death and the time of the fire.

  Despite TV shows to the contrary, time of death is by no means an exact science even now, and certainly not in 1980 in the Florida Panhandle. It can best be determined by outside factors—when the body was discovered and when the victim was last seen alive. Rudy and the Sarge apprehended Isaac and discovered the body at 10:45 p.m. It’d be nice to know when the anonymous tip came in, but if it wasn’t in the files I’d already reviewed (and it wasn’t), chances were slim that it would show up in the future.

  The exact time the fire at Jimmy’s started was similarly elusive. The fire department had gotten the call at 10:06 and responded to the scene at 10:15 p.m. The first police officers had arrived 10 minutes later, with additional officers trickling in over the next half hour. Let’s say for the sake of simplicity that the fire started at 10 p.m., and let’s assume Isaac actually did get soot on his hands at the fire. He wasn’t listed in the police reports as a witness. That meant either he was gone from the scene at 10:25 when the police started to arrive, or he was there and no one ever spoke to him, not unlikely in the chaos of a fire scene. The report I was looking at was by an Officer James, but it looked like the whole force had been there, and I’m sure a lot of what they’d done hadn’t been reduced to writing.

  So how had Isaac gotten to Jimmy’s, and why had he gone there? I had a vague recollection, from a report or my conversations with Noel, that Isaac and Vanda had only owned one car. From her reputation, I found it hard to believe that Vanda had stayed home all evening. Perhaps she’d gone out earlier, Isaac returned home and went to Jimmy’s looking for her, but by that time she’d already left for home and they missed each other. Assuming she’d even been to Jimmy’s. And where had Noel been that evening?

  I could ask Noel, and I would if I had to, but that didn’t seem like a very good idea right now. I didn’t know for sure if I was at the top of her shit list, but I probably wasn’t the best person to ask her questions about such a psychologically sensitive subject. She may not remember immediately and get defensive, and she may end up remembering things differently simply because of her anger at me. I also didn’t want to muddy her family waters any more than I already had until I felt sure it would lead to some answers, preferably answers that I could anticipate.

  I didn’t know where Mike lived or how long it took to get there, but I doubted he’d had time to fall asleep yet. He answered his cell phone on the second ring. I told him I need another favor.

  “If you get a chance tomorrow, I need you to check something out for me. I want to know how many cars Isaac and Vanda owned when she was murdered, and if you can get detailed information on the vehicles that would be great.”

  “Sure. No problem. I’m writing it down so I actually have a shot at remembering this conversation took place when I get up in a few hours. Can I ask why, or is it to complicated to explain this early in the morning?”

  “Yes, and yes. It’s just a little hunch that may or may not pan out. I’ll explain later. Thanks, Mike.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  After I hung up, I put on my jammies and went to sleep almost immediately. My sleep coma lasted until the alarm clock cut through my skull like an ice pick at 7 a.m. Tired as I’d been the night before, I’d thought to open the drapes before tucking in. Good thing. Without some natural light in the morning, even the ice pick alarm could not have roused me. After a shower and some orange juice, I might feel almost human.

  I found OJ and coffee in the lobby and wrote out my game plan while I waited for the sugar and caffeine to enter my bloodstream. As I fumbled with my map and witness list, I glared at the two Styrofoam cups. I wasn’t sure which was more watered down, the juice or the coffee, but neither was doing its job. I’d have to count on the sound of Mike’s rattling Jeep to keep me awake as I went on my rounds.

  I struck out with the first two on the list. One was a bad address; the other didn’t know what I was talking about and threatened to sic the dog on me. It was a yippy little thing, afflicted with mange and missing half its teeth, so it was an empty threat, but it didn’t do much to help my mood. As I pulled up in front of the third address, I decided if I didn’t get somewhere with this guy I was going to have to take some drastic measure to salvage the day. Maybe ice cream for breakfast.

  My hips and digestion were saved when Robbie Johnson (no relation to Claire) opened the door. He was an attractive man, slim but not thin, with dark skin and not a hint of gray in his neat close-cropped hair. I identified myself and he invited me in, full of hospitality, as a good man of the cloth should be. I had been surprised by the collar.

  He offered beverages, but I declined. He led me to the living room where we sat in comfortable over-stuffed chairs. There was a slight scent of lemon furniture cleaner in the air.

  “I’m guessing you don’t go by Robbie any more.”

  His white teeth flashed as he laughed. “Well, there are a few people who still call me that, but to most people I’m the Reverend Robert. Just plain Robert will do.”

  “Robert, I’m here about something that happened almost 25 years ago. Do you remember a bar called Jimmy’s?”

  He sighed. “Oh yes, I remember Jimmy’s. There was a period of my life when I spent a lot of time and money there. I’m not proud of it, but I was young and eventually I had the sense to get out. I was very fortunate. A lot of lost people never find their way out of places like Jimmy’s.”

  Religious people make me nervous, and for a moment I was afraid he was about to launch into a sermon. Robert read my mind, or more likely my expression. He smiled.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to give you a sermon on the wages of vice and sin. I’m going to let you in on a little secret.” He lowered his voice accordingly. “I get the impression my God is a lot more forgiving and understanding than the one a lot of people around here pray to.”

  I had to smile back. He was absolutely charming. “So what is it you need to know about?”

  “Do you remember a woman named Vanda who used to hang out at Jimmy’s?”

  For a moment he seemed to forget I was in the room and muttered, “Vanda. That’s like Wanda, but with a V.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He blinked and looked at me. “Oh yes, I remember her too.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “Some of my less forgiving colleagues would call her a Jezebel. I’d say she was a very unhappy woman, perhaps trying to deserve what she’d gotten in life. She was physically beautiful, one of the most physically beautiful women I’ve ever se
en in my life, but she could be a very ugly person.”

  “She spent a lot of time at Jimmy’s, more than I did. I think she was probably there every night. I was working on a road crew, and I’d come over to Jimmy’s with my friends after work. As I said, I was a young man, and naïve. At first I didn’t know what she was up to. I noticed she would disappear into the bathroom with one of the men and come out a few minutes later. It never occurred to me that she was selling herself. The bathroom didn’t even have a door, just a curtain, and I couldn’t imagine someone would have sex there, with all those people on the other side of the curtain.” He blushed and grinned. “Plus I thought it was supposed to take a lot longer.”

  “Did you ever see her husband come in?”

  “Just once. That was the night I finally figured out what was going on. In fact, that might have been the last time I went to Jimmy’s.”

  “Did they fight?”

  “I suppose you could say that. He eventually struck her, but until that point it was very one-sided to be called a fight.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Vanda had just come back from the bathroom with a friend of mine, I think his name was Tony. He was an older man, and I shouldn’t really say he was a friend. We worked together, but I didn’t like him. He was mean-spirited, the kind of man who thinks physical injuries, especially to women, are funny. There must have been about six of us sitting around a table, and we were drinking beer while we waited for a pool table. Vanda went around the table, touching everyone in turn, just a shoulder or cheek. Then she plopped down on my lap. She was wearing a short skirt, and she was drunk. She sort of over-balanced and her legs went up in the air.”

  Robert shook his head at the memory. “Everybody started whooping, so I started whooping too. I didn’t know they were yelling because she hadn’t been wearing any underwear. All of a sudden a man came out of nowhere and grabbed her arms and dragged her off my lap. Vanda fell to the floor, but he kept dragging her toward the door until she bit him.”

  I was almost afraid to ask. “Bit him where?”

  “The calf, fortunately for him. I don’t even think he knew what he was doing until she did that. Then she spit on him and started screaming, f— this and f— that. I’d never heard a woman speak like that before in my life. He said it was time to go home, and she said f— you, I’ll go home when I damn well please.”

  “Did you know who he was?”

  “No, I didn’t have a clue. She got up from the floor and walked back over to our table.” He paused. “This is really important, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.” I didn’t explain. I knew he didn’t need an explanation, just assurance.

  Robert took a deep breath and tried to smile. “At least my wife is out doing the shopping now. I don’t know if I could tell you this if she were here. You have to understand, it’s not because this was sinful or sexual or embarrassing. It was just ugly. It was a very hateful, ugly situation, and I’m glad to say I’ve never experienced anything else with that kind of negative intensity.”

  He took another deep breath. “Vanda came back to the table, and started flirting, talking about which one of us she should be with. Then she wanted to know which one of us could give her the most pleasure, which one of us had the, uh, largest penis. In that moment, things changed. It wasn’t funny or sexy anymore. It was just uncomfortable.”

  “Was that when he hit her?”

  “No. I think he grabbed her arm. He kept telling her it was time to go, but she wouldn’t listen. Then something got into me. I must have thought I was being gallant or macho. Both probably. He was a very large man. I asked him what business it was of his what the lady did with her time. He could have broken me in half, but he did much better. He told me he was her husband, and she was the mother of his child. That put me in my place. I didn’t even know she was married.”

  “Then Vanda began screaming at him again, insulting his, uh, prowess. I think she said something about their child, their ‘brat’ she called her, and he slapped her. It was so fast, I didn’t even see it happen. One minute she was standing, and the next minute she was on the floor. I think he was as surprised as she was. He just left her there on the floor.”

  “Did he say anything before he left?”

  Robert sat, fingers interlaced, trying to capture the words. His voice deepened slightly as he spoke, and his inflection changed, as if trying to reproduce Isaac instead of merely Isaac’s speech.

  “He said that she was a no-good whore, and that if she ever hurt their child he would kill her.”

  With that sound of cold assurance, goosebumps broke out all over my limbs. Robert, still lost in his memories, didn’t notice. My voice brought him back.

  “Do you know if Vanda was using drugs?”

  He considered for a moment. “I never actually saw her or anyone else using drugs at Jimmy’s, but in hindsight I know it went on. Ironically, in my current position with the church, I’m much more familiar with the signs of drug use and abuse than I would have been as a young man. It certainly would explain a lot about Vanda—her dramatic mood swings, her self loathing, why she’d do the kinds of things she was doing when she had a husband and child waiting at home.”

  “Do you remember the fire at Jimmy’s?”

  “I heard about it, but I’d left Hainey by then. My road job ended and I went to stay with an aunt in Georgia for a while, and then I went to seminary. I came back to Hainey about five years later. I have to say, if anything surprised me about that fire, it was that no one was killed. Jimmy’s was a corrugated metal shack with a tar paper roof and no windows. My goodness, it got hot in there. And smoky. They did cut out a hole and install one of those window air conditioning units, but you can imagine how much good that did.”

  I asked Robert about his friends from that time, and the other people on my list.

  “I’m afraid I lost touch with everyone, and when I returned I didn’t try to reestablish contact. That was a different life, a different me.”

  Robert rubbed his hands over the wooden accents on his armchair, back and forth. We both rose, and he walked me to the door. Once he’d opened it, he stood in the doorway, dazed by the sunlight. I’d begun to wonder if I’d have to push my way around him to get out when he stepped aside suddenly and turned to me.

  “Vanda was killed soon after that, wasn’t she? By her husband?”

  I nodded. He looked pained, and I could see his lips moving as he muttered some sort of prayer. “What about the child? What happened to their child?”

  “She was raised by relatives.”

  “It is fortunate that she had family. But that poor child. To grow up with the knowledge—of what? Of uncertainty, I suppose. What other lesson could a child take from such senseless suffering, but that life is uncertain. I shall pray for her tonight.”

  We were standing on his front step now, and he turned to grasp my left hand gently but firmly in both of his.

  “And for you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Great, now I had two motives for Isaac to have killed Vanda, or at least two variations on a theme—anger at her sexual escapades or anger at her treatment of their daughter. It seemed more important than ever to find out where Noel had been that night, but I was still hesitant to contact her directly, for all the reasons I said before and one more. I’m just a big wuss. I hate confrontation, at least in my personal life and on my own account. I can handle and even thrive on confrontation if I’m helping a client, although Noel’s case was proving an exception even on that count. I compromised. I knew she’d be at work, so I called her home number and left a message. Regardless of our personal problems, I needed to talk to her about what happened the night her mother was killed. I needed to know where she had been that night.

  I didn’t have Noel’s work number with me, and she wouldn’t get the message until this evening. Even then, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for her call. I couldn’t wait for Noel to forgive me
enough to speak to me. Instead Claire Johnson moved up a few spots in priority on my list. I gave her a call and made an appointment to see her at 1:30. Afternoon was perfect. I’d missed breakfast and didn’t want to have to rush our interview because I was about to faint from hunger.

  I still squeezed in three more short interviews before lunch, two men and a woman who had been at the fire. No one remembered seeing Isaac or Vanda at the fire. In fact, only the woman had ever set eyes on Isaac, and that hadn’t been at Jimmy’s. A few months before he killed Vanda, there was a period of a couple of weeks that she saw him dropping Noel off at school every morning when she dropped off her own child. They’d spoken a few times, just small talk about their children, and the woman said she could tell who the involved parent was in that household.

  All three of them remembered Vanda, though with slightly different interpretations of her behavior. The men said she was beautiful, wild and crazy, and a lot of fun to be around. The woman said she dressed like a w-h-o-r-e, and that she was no better than she should be. She hadn’t spent as much time at Jimmy’s as the men had, generally only going in to remind her husband to come home, so she couldn’t give me specifics about Vanda’s behavior. Both men admitted that they had suspected Vanda was having sex for money and drugs, that she was rumored to have a bad habit, but emphasized that they had no personal experience with her, or with the drug trade there. Yeah, right.

  I went to grab some lunch after that, both because I was hungry and to get the taste of their hypocrisy out of my mouth. I was of two (or three or seven) minds about Vanda and Isaac Thomas. Whether he killed her or not, I found it hard to muster up much anger at Isaac. I’d never use the words out loud for fear of hurting Noel, but it appeared that her mother had been a crack whore. Murder can never be excused, but she had given Isaac a lot of provocation. There was no evidence he had physically harmed her when, to be quite honest, many men would have. Until, that is, he killed her. If he killed her.