BLOOD WORK: a John Jordan Mystery (John Jordan Mysteries Book 12)

by Michael Lister

  Ralphie, in a complete Batman costume, is in his chair watching Batman on TV. The only part of him visible is the bottom half of his face beneath his cowl.

  Ronnie is already at the bar.

  We are with Verna around the island in her kitchen drinking sweet iced tea.

  “Thank you. I really felt bad. I’m so relieved y’all forgive me. So now that I’m in a better place . . . how can I help?”

  “You mentioned corresponding with Bundy,” I say.

  “Yeah, that was part of what upset me so bad, because I spent all those years writing that monster trying to convince him to confess and to let us know where he hid my baby. If he didn’t do it . . . well . . . what a waste of time that was.”

  “We all spent a lot of time trying to get him to confess,” Dad says, “trying to get him to tell us where to find her. I had three different interviewers try to get it out of him over the years. I even tried to get in to talk to him myself before he was executed, but he refused to talk to me—or anyone else except James Dobson.”

  Just prior to his execution, Bundy, manipulative madman to the end, granted his final interview to conservative Christian radio talk show host and psychologist James Dobson, in which the two famously talked about pornography as a root cause for his multiple assaults, murders, rapes, and necrophilia.

  “Did he write back?” I ask. “What’d he say?”

  “I wrote him for years,” she says. “Lots and lots of letters, asking him not only to confess to Janet’s murder and to tell us where he buried her, but to confess to every murder he’d ever committed so all the families could . . . would know. In all that time, I got one sentence from him. One sentence on a partial piece of paper that read, ‘I’m not the monster you seek. Ted.’ That was it.”

  “I got nowhere either,” Dad says. “He did talk to a few interviewers about his crimes—usually in the third person or in some very vague ways, but not much about victims that weren’t already known.”

  “I noticed there are no bars in Marianna,” I say. “Where does Ronnie go to drink?”

  She frowns and shakes her head. “It’s so pathetic. It’s a guy’s basement. Decorated just like a bar—neon lights, pool table, dartboard, jukebox, lighted liquor shelves behind an actual wooden bar. It’s . . . sad and . . . absurd, but . . . I’m just glad to have him gone. I know that sounds ter—”

  “Batmom,” Ralphie says from the den, “Batman need a Batsnack.”

  “Coming up, sweetie,” she says, jumping up and beginning to prepare his food.

  “Not sweetie,” he says. “Batman.”

  “Sorry, Batman. That’s what I meant. Batsnack coming right up. Will be in the Batcave in no time.”

  She fills a Batman thermos with a purple drink from a pitcher and prepares mini grilled cheese sandwiches in the shape of bats.

  “Feel free to keep talking,” she says. “This will only take a minute.”

  While Dad asks her if she minds if I see Janet’s room, I glance around the formal living room across from us that looks to never be used. Huge framed portraits and photographs hang on every wall. Based on the others I’ve seen, I’d say they’re all Janet’s work.

  Happier times. Ronnie and Verna together, genuine smiles, comfortable affection. Ralphie in various costumes and crime-fighting poses.

  A stunning self-portrait of Janet wearing an outfit not dissimilar to the one she was seen in at the party the night of her disappearance, a vintage remote-shutter-release trigger and cable visible in her left hand. All the images are great, are art, but the one of Janet is truly extraordinary, as if by being both photographer and subject simultaneously she is able to open herself up, expose her naked, vulnerable essence in a way she never could otherwise.

  I step over to take a closer look at it, studying it carefully.

  There is beauty—simple, pure, innocent beauty—but it’s the openness and vulnerability that make the photograph so powerful and a little difficult to look at.

  I feel as though I can see straight through her big brown eyes into her soul.

  Is there pain present? Is this someone being molested by her stepfather? Is this someone capable of faking her own death? Of killing someone else? I honestly don’t believe it is. I don’t see anything in her—as art or artist—that would suggest anything even remotely like that.

  When I return to the kitchen area, Dad is standing and Verna is next to him. Something about the way they stand, the way they lean into each other just a little makes it look like they were once lovers.

  “We’re going to Janet’s room, Batman,” she yells into the den. “We’ll be right back.”

  “No,” Ralphie yells. “My room. See my room first.”

  “Okay. We can see yours first. Do you want to show them or do you want me to do it?”

  In another few moments, a large, old, overweight Batman is easing through the doorway with the aid of his Batcane.

  “To the Batcave,” he says, which is comical given how slowly he’s moving.

  When he’s sufficiently in front of us, we follow.

  “He’s almost always a comic crime stopper,” she says. “Ironman, Spiderman, the Hulk, but Batman is his favorite.”

  He leads us down a hallway lined with bookshelves.

  “Ronnie used to read,” Verna explains.

  The books lining the shelves represent a diverse collection of fiction and history and philosophy and true crime and religion and self-help, with several shelves of farming and farming machinery mixed in.

  “He doesn’t do anything but drink these days,” she says. “Not that I blame him. If I didn’t have Ralphie to take care of that’s probably what I would do. I haven’t been able to read—or concentrate on anything for very long since it happened.”

  Ralphie’s room is absolutely packed with collectables—toys, sneakers, figurines, lunch boxes, movie memorabilia, canes, old records, and antiques of all kinds, including tractors, swords, nunchucks, and, of course, comic books—all in pristine packages displayed as if in a showroom instead of a bedroom.

  “Wow,” I say. “This is very impressive.”

  “Ralphie throws himself into everything he does, don’t you buddy?”

  “I’m not buddy. I’m Batman.”

  “Sorry, Batman. Okay. We’re gonna go look at Janet’s room now. We miss Janet, don’t we?”

  “So bad,” he says. “Miss her so bad. Janet is my sister. Janet takes pretty pictures.”

  “Yes, she does,” she says.

  They both use the present tense, and I wonder why. Is it just because of Ralphie’s childlikeness or how much of Janet is still present in this house, or is there some other reason?

  “You go watch more of your adventures, Batman,” Verna says. “We’ll be back in there in a minute.”

  “I love your room,” I say. “It’s very cool.”

  “Yes, it is. Coolest room ever. Coolest room ever, isn’t it? Isn’t it the coolest room ever?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  As Batman slowly makes his way back toward the den, we turn to Janet’s room.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “It’s just as she left it,” Verna says. “Still. I dust and vacuum once a week without disturbing anything. Like before, I just ask that you don’t move anything, don’t change anything.”

  “We won’t,” Dad says.

  I nod.

  She opens the door and we step into 1978.

  Over the years, the rest of the house had been updated and remodeled more than once, but not this room. This room is a time capsule, exactly as it was the night Janet vanished off the face of the earth forever.

  A single bed with a gold bedspread and rust-colored sheets sits in the corner, its covers tossed to the middle and bunched up. A windowsill with a couple of plants on it. Green shag carpet with clothes and shoes strewn about. An open closet with plaid skirts and flared-bottom jeans hanging on a single bar, boots and shoes beneath it spilling out into the room.

  A small
, narrow built-in desk. A huge plastic camera like you’d see in a department store display hanging from the ceiling above it, looming large, dominating everything else in the room.

  Both her dresses from that weekend—one for the pageant, one for the ball—like everything else, have been left exactly as they were, one draped over the desk chair, the other over the end of the bed.

  “She never kept her room perfect,” Verna says. “But because of how busy she was that weekend, it’s far messier than normal.”

  A bulletin board on the wall above her desk is filled with photographs, mostly taken by her, and clippings from fashion magazines and fancy photoshoots.

  “Family, photography, and fashion,” Verna says. “With a little time left over for her boyfriend, friends, and her horse. That’s how my girl filled her short life. And fill it she did.”

  We look around a little while, but are limited in what we can do and not disturb anything.

  “It’s like I’ve gone back in time,” Dad says. “Like I was just in here yesterday.”

  Verna nods. “I experience that every morning when I come in here to tell her I love her and every evening when I come in to tell her about my day.”

  Dad reaches back and takes Verna’s hand. “I’m so sorry,” he says.

  She squeezes his hand, caressing the top of it with her thumb.

  “Sorry it happened. Sorry I wasn’t able to find out exactly what happened or why or who did it. Sorry I left. So sorry for all of it. Every damn bit of it.”

  She starts to say something, but Ralphie yells for her from the den and she excuses herself to go check on him.

  Dad shakes his head. “Before Janet was killed, she had a little help—Janet, even Ronnie—now she has no one. To go through what she has . . . and still be able to take care of . . .”

  “Batman?” I offer.

  “Yeah.”

  “You two seem pretty close,” I say.

  He nods. “We really bonded while I was working on the case up here. Nancy was younger than Janet but not by much. She was into horseback riding at the time. I . . . I really . . . I was able to put myself in Verna’s place and . . .”

  Eventually, Verna returns. “Batman made a Batmess and needed Batmother to make it better.”

  “You’re so good with him,” I say.

  She smiles and shrugs. “He’s all I’ve got. And it’s easy. He’s easy to love. Fun to do stuff for. Not everyone gets to live with Batman.”

  I nod and smile at her and miss Anna, Johanna, and Taylor something fierce.

  “We’ve seen enough,” Dad says. “Thanks for letting us take a look.”

  He turns to leave, but she lifts her hand to stop him. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What is it?” he asks. “Are you okay?”

  “I held something back,” she says. “I . . . I hid something. I was just tryin’ to protect my baby girl, that’s all. And I was going to tell you back then—only you, no one else—but just about the time I was ready to, you left.”

  “Sorry again that I did,” he says. “You can tell me now. And you can say anything in front of John.”

  She nods. “I know that. He’s a good man like you. I can tell.”

  “So what is it?”

  “I took two things out of her room before the police arrived,” she says. “And I’d do it again. I don’t think they have anything to do with . . . what happened to her, and . . . it would have embarrassed her. She is a private person. Shy, in a way.”

  Dad nods.

  She looks over at me.

  I also nod, and give her an encouraging expression.

  “I took her diary and . . .”

  “And?” Dad says.

  “She had lingerie laid out on her bed. It was new and sweet but very sexy. Had red hearts and lace and looked like a Valentine. Her last entry in her diary said she was excited and nervous because she was going to give her virginity to Ben that night.”

  Dad touches her shoulder tenderly.

  “I don’t think Ben killed my Janet and I don’t think her last diary entry or the fact that she had lingerie laid out had anything to do with what happened to her. And it was too private to . . . I couldn’t let the world see that. I couldn’t.”

  Dad nods. “We understand,” he says. “I’d’ve done the same thing if it were my daughter.”

  “Oh, I know only too well what you’re willing to do for your daughter.”

  Dad looks a little embarrassed. “You should see how John is with his.”

  “You have a daughter?” Verna asks.

  “Two,” I say.

  “Would you do what I did for them?”

  I nod. “I would. That and more.”

  “What I did wasn’t the reason the case wasn’t solved, was it?” she says.

  Dad shakes his head. “I don’t think it was.”

  She looks at me again.

  “I don’t either,” I say. “I really don’t.”

  As they turn to leave, I step over to the closet and look at the clothes.

  Turning back toward me, Verna says, “She had such great taste, such a flair and eye for fashion.”

  I nod. “She really did.”

  “Had she worn the outfit she wore to the farmhouse party that night before?”

  “What outfit?” she says. “Is there a picture of her there that night?”

  “I’m sorry, I figured you would’ve seen it,” I say, reaching into my pocket and bringing out the copy Kathy had given me.

  “No,” she says. “I didn’t know there was one. It would be the last picture ever taken of my baby girl.”

  She takes the photo from me and pulls it close to her to study it.

  In only a moment or so, she is shaking her head and frowning. “I can see why you’d think that was her,” she says, “but it’s not.”

  “It’s not? Are you sure?”

  “Looks an awful lot like her,” she says.

  “The clothes,” I say. “The car.”

  She studies it even more intently.

  “Those are clothes like she would wear but they’re not her clothes. She didn’t have an outfit like that. To be honest, several of her friends tried to look and dress like her. I bet it’s one of them. And the car . . . it has a moon roof. Hers didn’t.”

  “So we have no evidence she was even at the party,” Dad says.

  “I’d say we have pretty strong evidence she wasn’t. The person we thought was her, wasn’t.”

  “Who do you think it is?” Dad asks Verna. “Is it Kathy? She’s the one who gave us the pictures.”

  She shakes her head. “Kathy was influenced by Janet. They were very close. But Kathy never tried to copy Janet to that extent, never tried to look like her.”

  “Who did?” I ask.

  “Wasn’t a close friend. Really wasn’t a friend at all. Sabrina. Sabrina Henry.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  As we leave Janet’s room and start back down the hallway on our way out, Dad says, “I’m gonna slip into the den and say goodbye to my crime-fighting buddy Batman.”

  “He’d like that,” Verna says. “Sheriff Jack is one of his heroes.”

  As Dad walks ahead, I slow my pace hoping Verna will do the same.

  She does.

  “Shame no one is reading all these great books,” she says. “Guess we should find them a better home, maybe donate them to the library. If you see any you’d like, please feel free to take them.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “I might just take you up on that.”

  “I wish you would.”

  “I need to ask you something,” I say. “I’m only asking as it relates to its impact on the original investigation. That’s all. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she says, her voice and expression uncertain.

  “Were you and Dad having an affair before he came here to take over the investigation?”

  She takes a step back, her eyes widening in alarm, but quickly recovers, takes a breath
and regains her composure. “I didn’t know him before he came here to try to find out who killed my little girl. Are we that obvious?”

  “Especially when you’re trying not to be,” I say.

  “Have you talked to your dad about it yet?”

  I shake my head.

  “Are you going to?”

  I nod. “I plan to.”

  “Your dad’s a vault,” she says. “Good luck getting anything out of him. He saved my life. I’m not sure I . . . what I would’ve done without him. He quickly became my everything back then—he and Ralphie. I thought God had sent him to me in my darkest hour. Not only was he the closest companion I’ve ever had, but he was going to bring my little girl’s killer to justice. But it wasn’t long before he vanished just the way Janet had. He was here and then he was gone. No explanation. No warning. Just gone.”

  I nod as I think about it, but before I can respond, a loud crashing sound comes from the den and I run toward it.

  Crossing the kitchen, I can see through the open doorway into the den. Ronnie Lester, a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, is telling Dad to get on his knees.

  “Swore if you ever came into my house again I’d cut your dick off,” Ronnie says.

  His words are slurred, his movements shaky, his bearing unsteady, but in a glance he doesn’t appear to be too inebriated to do what he swore he would.

  I slow down a little, not wanting to run in and startle him, cause him to squeeze the trigger and shoot Dad in the head.

  “We lose our little girl, dying of grief, and you come in and start fuckin’ my wife,” Ronnie says. “GET ON YOUR GODDAMN KNEES. NOW. She was out of her mind with pain and sorrow and you took advantage of her. Didn’t find Janet’s killer. Too busy raping her mother.”

  Dad slowly, unsteadily eases down onto his knees and raises his hands.

  Drawing my gun, I walk into the room slowly.

  Ralphie, in his Batman costume, is sitting in the recliner just a few feet from Ronnie and Dad, watching with what seems like only mild interest.

  Raising my gun toward Ronnie, I edge toward them.