“It’s more’n two months to Halloween,” Jack says. “What the hell were you thinkin’?”
“Clearly I wasn’t,” the man says.
Jack steps back over to him and pulls off his mask.
The man is middle-aged, younger than Jack but too old to be doing shit like this.
Though he doesn’t recognize the man, there is something faintly familiar about him, like a family resemblance to someone he’s seen recently.
“Who the hell are you?” Jack says.
The man shakes his head.
Jack nods, the puts the barrel of his revolver into the man’s forehead. “This may tickle, but don’t move. You so much as twitch, the dingy hotel wall behind you’s gonna know what’s on your mind.”
Jack then reaches around to the man’s back pocket and wriggles out his wallet.
“Brad Barnes. I knew you resembled someone I’d seen in the last few days. You’re the sheriff’s older brother, aren’t you? It’s sad to say and it ain’t sayin’ much, but looks like he got the looks and the brains in the family—what little there were. Your brother know you’re here?”
Brad shakes his head. “Told me to stay away from y’all. Hell, told me to stay away from town for a little while.”
“Turns out not to have been such bad advice.” Jack stops suddenly as if something has just occurred to him, turns and looks at the weapon the man dropped on the bed. “Did you bring my gun back?”
The man nods and Jack retrieves his gun from the bed. After admiring it appreciatively for a moment, he sticks it in the holster on his hip and sings very badly and off key, “Reunited and it feels so good.”
“I was just bringing it back to you,” Brad says. “Felt bad for taking it before.”
“Let’s say for the sake of argument you weren’t,” Jack says. “What’s another reason you might break into my room and mount me like I’s your prom date?”
The man shrugs.
Jack steps back over to Brad and places the barrel of the revolver between his eyes. “Let’s say that I’m dying of cancer. Let’s say I’ve got nothin’ to lose. Let’s say you already broke into my room once and there’s a police report showing it. Let’s say I could punch your ticket right now and call FDLE and tell them what happened and that your brother knew it and is trying to cover up for you. Let’s say that though you dealt this play, I hold all the cards. Let’s say for all those reasons you play along and answer all my questions truthfully—as truthfully as if your life depends on it. Why did you break into my room and—”
“To scare you. Just to scare you and . . . to get you to . . . drop all this and . . .”
“You coulda just asked. Hell, if I’d’ve known how bad you wanted me to leave I’d’ve left days ago. Communication is the key, Brad. How can we know what you want if you don’t tell us?”
Brad looks confused as if he’s not quite sure he’s being fucked with.
Jack pulls the gun back but keeps it pointed at Brad as he sits on the edge of the bed. “Did you kill her, Brad? That why you want me gone so bad?”
“No. Wait. Who?”
“Janet.”
“Janet Lester? No. No way. I didn’t have anything to do with that. I thought she was . . . I had a crush on her back in the day, but never even told her. Was thinking about it, but then she died. I had nothin’ to do with that. Absolutely nothin’.”
“Then who?”
“Who what?”
“If you didn’t kill Janet, who did you kill?”
“No one. No one on purpose. Maybe no one at all.”
“The Jane Doe hit-and-run,” Jack says. “You the one that ran over her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It was my . . . I was on some pretty bad shit back then. But . . . I don’t know for sure. And didn’t want to find out it was me. That’s it. That’s why I wanted y’all to stop lookin’ into it. Glenn said he’d take care of it, but . . . I just wanted to make sure.”
“Why do you think you might have done it?” Jack asks.
“I’m clean now. I am.”
“Well it sure as hell ain’t helping you think any clearer.”
“But then, I was on some really bad shit. I’s all over the place. Glenn was a deputy, then an investigator. Got me out of more than a few jams. I’d’a been in jail if it wasn’t for him.”
“Why do you think you may have been the one who hit her?” Jack says again.
“It was my backhoe. I had my own heavy equipment company. This was just before I lost it. I . . . I was buying drugs rather than making the payments on my equipment. I was doing work for different contractors in the area. Worked on the golf course, the high school, and the Peace Tree thing. A few times I’d wake up on my tractor in the middle of the night not knowing what was going on. Everybody thought my backhoe had been stolen from the golf course that night, but . . . what if my fucked-up ass just thought I was at work? Hard to see a car or even a truck doing what was done to that poor girl. But a tractor . . . She was a transient. What if she was sleepin’ in the garden and I . . .”
Chapter Fifty
Janet was so excited, felt so alive.
Her body hummed with electricity and energy and life.
Could there be a better weekend? Ever?
It was the perfect time for her and Ben to make love, for them to give themselves to each other utterly and completely, for the Valentine king and queen to consummate their relationship, unite their two kingdoms. Totally time.
Any doubt and uncertainty she’d had earlier at the dance was now gone.
Whatever had caused him to act distracted or disinterested or whatever it was had nothing to do with her. And it wasn’t another girl. She could tell. Whatever it was and whatever caused it passed, it was gone as suddenly as it came, and he was back to his normal sweet self. Thoughtful. Attentive. Affectionate. Sweet as strawberry pie—her favorite.
She was excited, but she was nervous too.
She knew just the thing to help with that. And, as fate would have it, it was on the way.
Fate. Was it fate that she won the pageant and they won king and queen at the ball? Was it fate that she and Ben would make love later? Was it fate that they were together? Were they fated to be together forever, high school sweethearts who would one day celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary together?
What was her fate? How much say did she have in it? Were we as free as we seemed or was freedom a total illusion?
She decided she was glad she didn’t know her fate, happy to remain blissfully ignorant—because she couldn’t be any happier, any more blissful. If things were going to work out—her photography and fashion, her relationship with Ben—it couldn’t make her any happier than she already was, and if they weren’t . . . it would ruin a perfectly perfect weekend.
As she saw the Gulf Station up ahead, looming and lit up in the dark night, she wondered if in addition to getting a little liquid courage for her she should get some condoms—just in case Ben forgot.
It’s not liquid courage, she thought. I don’t need courage. It’s liquid relaxer. I just want to relax and enjoy every second of it so it can be perfect like everything else this weekend.
Should she leave the condoms up to Ben? Should she take that chance? Where would she even get some? She was gonna have a hard enough time asking Little Larry for liquor. No way she could ask him if he sold condoms too.
Wonder if the men’s bathroom in the back has a machine?
Was she really going to go into a dirty ol’ gas station bathroom to buy condoms?
No. No I’m not.
Then what?
Kathy will have some.
But borrowing them from her would mean she would know, and she wasn’t sure she wanted that. Sometimes Kathy was so supportive, so . . . just what a best friend should be, but . . . other times she seemed jealous, seemed like she might . . . actually want to . . . Nah, not Kathy.
Chapter Fifty-one
Before I left the memorial, Darlene’s shift
ended and her replacement showed up and she decided to come with me.
We are driving down to Chipola Ford to talk to Little Larry Daughtry, the kid who sold Janet a bottle of Dewar’s and gassed up Ted Bundy’s car the night she disappeared. My phone rings.
It’s Dad.
“Got my gun back,” he says.
Sounds like that’s not all he got back. His voice is stronger than it’s been in days.
“How’d you do that?”
He tells me.
“Impressive,” I say. “You still got it.”
“Not quite ready for the rocking chair or the graveyard just yet.”
“No doubt. So what’d he say?”
He tells me, and I think about it.
Before he’s finished, Darlene looks up from her phone and says, “Ronnie Lester was just released.”
I interrupt Dad and tell him.
“I’m already on my way over to Verna’s. Just a couple of minutes away.”
“If he shows up and starts acting stupid call the police,” I say. “He’s not worth the paperwork.”
“It won’t be a problem.”
My phone lets me know I’m getting another call. I pull it back from my ear to look at the screen.
“I’m getting a call from Anna,” I say. “I’ll come by Verna’s a little later.”
“Take your time. I’m pulling up now. Everything will be five by five over here.”
I click over to take Anna’s call. “Hey beautiful. How’s my girl?”
“Just heard back from one of my Classification contacts in Central Office,” she says. “Clyde Wolf was released from Marion CI yesterday. State of Florida bought him a bus ticket back to Marianna. He arrived this morning.”
Little Larry Daughtry is anything but.
A huge man in every way, he is some six feet six inches tall with an enormous low-hanging gut, as if his chest and stomach had both slid down to just above his waist.
“You look like a Mustang driver,” he says. “I’ve got some sweet incentives I can offer you right now. Get you the best deal anywhere.”
“As much as I’d love a new Mustang, I’m just here to ask you a few questions. I’m John Jordan. We spoke on the phone.”
“Oh, yeah. How are you?”
He shakes my hand and seems genuinely happy to see me—which is probably how he acts with everyone whether he really is or not.
“I’m good. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”
“Happy to do it. It’s so cool you’re helping your dad with this. I sure hope y’all can finally figure it out and . . . I saw y’all found her body. That’s . . . I mean after all this time. It’s just . . . amazing.”
I nod. Little Larry seems the type to keep talking with very little prompting, so I just wait.
“I’ve been thinking about that night ever since we spoke on the phone,” he says. “’Course I’ve thought about that night a lot over the years. Still can’t believe I was that close to Ted Bundy. Dude was a little wired but sure as hell didn’t seem like what he really was. You know?”
I nod.
“I don’t know. I was just a kid, but I wish I’d’ve known it was him or . . . Wish I could’ve done something to save Janet. She was a cool girl. Nice. Sweet. Pretty.”
“Were they there at the same time?” I ask.
His expression makes him look like a kid in school who has just been asked a question he should know the answer to but doesn’t.
“I’m . . . just not sure. They could’ve been. If they weren’t, it was close. They were there within minutes of each other if not at the same time. Neither of them were there long. Didn’t take any time to fill up his little car. And she was only there long enough to buy a bottle from me and let me congratulate her and hug her neck.”
“Congratulate her for winning Miss Valentine?”
He nods. “Yeah. And Sweethearts’ Ball queen. She was . . . You know she was . . . she was excited, I could tell that. Think she was headed to— Well, I know she was supposed to be headed to that party, so she was excited about that, I guess. So full of life. But more than anything, what she was, was gracious. She was so genuinely touched that I congratulated her and wanted a hug. It’s just the type of person she was. Man, I wish I could’ve saved her.”
“Do you remember anything else at all? Can you picture them leaving the parking lot? Was he following her? Was he still there when she left? Just pulling in? Did he leave before her?”
He squints to think about it, seeming to concentrate as hard as he can.
“Let me see.” He closes his eyes. “She was in that red Monarch . . . on her way to the party. I watched her the whole time she was at the station. Always had a bit of a thing for her, you know? She pulled up to the road. Sat there for a moment, though there was no traffic. Not at that time of night on a Sunday. And . . . wait. Wait just a minute. She . . . she . . . Why didn’t I realize that before?”
“What’s that?”
“She went the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?”
“She went the wrong way. She was supposed to be going to that party, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well she turned and headed the opposite direction from it. She went the wrong way.”
Chapter Fifty-two
Little Larry had given me the final piece of the puzzle, the last bit of missing information I needed.
The slowing developing image is now visible, is emerging in vivid, tragic color.
What really happened to Janet the night of her disappearance now unfurls like a flag inside my head, and all I can do is watch it.
As if present to watch it happen, I see what Janet did, the choices and decisions she made, the action she’d taken that had led to her death. It plays in the movie theater of my mind.
“What is it?” Darlene asks. “What’re you . . . thinking? Did he say something that made you—”
I nod.
“What?”
“I always thought Janet had either been picked up or followed by someone at the party or intercepted on her way to it—either at the gas station or somewhere on Highway 71 near where her car was found.”
“We all did.”
“But now we know she went the opposite direction of the party.”
“Yeah? Oh shit. You know who did it, don’t you?”
“I think so. I could be wrong but . . . I think so.”
“Well let’s hear it. Run it past me and I’ll try to poke holes in it.”
“Let’s start with . . . she never made it to the party. We’re now pretty certain about that. And let’s say for the moment that Ted Bundy didn’t do it.”
“Okay.”
“Two questions. Why did she turn in the opposite direction from the party and where did she go?”
“Was she meeting someone else? Brad maybe.”
“She bought the bottle to take to the party. She was headed there.”
“Then what?”
“She forgot something,” I say.
“What?”
“She wrote in her diary she planned to sleep with Ben that night for the first time. I think that’s why she stopped by to get the liquor. But that’s not all she purchased for the occasion. She bought a special negligee to wear when she and Kathy went shopping the week before in Dothan. But sneaking out of the dark house quickly and quietly she forgot it. Her mom said it was still laid out on her bed the next morning.”
“So she never got it,” Darlene says.
“Right.”
“So she was intercepted—only going away from the party and not toward it. She never made it back to her house.”
“She never made it back inside at least. Remember Ronnie Lester had gambling debts and was already abusing alcohol pretty badly.”
“Was it someone he owed money to sending him a message?” she asks.
“He was paranoid and not thinking straight, the way most addicts not in recovery do.”
“He did it?�
�� she says.
“In a way,” I say. “He told Ralphie that bad people were trying to hurt them. Asked him to help him guard the house and not to let anyone in. Ralphie is like an obsessive guard dog over his family and his home, a crime-stopping caped crusader—probably dressed as Zorro. I don’t know if he was asleep and heard something or if he was already in the yard walking the perimeter, but here comes this car with no lights on creeping down the driveway. And he has a sword. He collects them. All of his canes have swords in them. I saw him threaten to pull one on Ronnie the other night when he attacked Dad. But like I say, he could’ve been dressed as Zorro and the sword was just part of the costume. The sword would explain why there was no physical evidence. He didn’t even get in the car. And why there was so much blood and why the cuts and stabs nicked and scraped bone. There’s no way to know what’s inside Ralphie’s mind—he may have thought Janet was working for the bad guys—but I don’t think he realized it was her until it was too late.”
“Oh my God,” she says. “The poor kid. Poor Janet, of course, and her poor mother, but fuck, poor Ralphie too. If you’re right.”
“I think either Verna woke up to check on Ralphie and found him gone or he came and got her, but I don’t think Ronnie ever knew anything about it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and I’ll get to why in a minute. I think Verna was utterly devastated and in shock and . . . realizing there was nothing she could do about losing one of her children, began to work to make sure she didn’t lose them both. She grabs a blanket and a tent and wraps up Janet and all her things. I noticed a lot of true crime books in their collection—and whether they are hers or Ronnie’s, she had seen somewhere in one of them at some point what a rape-murder kit looks like so she makes one from stuff she can gather up quickly in the house. She then puts something down on the seats and drives the car out to a secluded spot on property they own, and with Ralph’s help digs a grave and buries Janet. She then drives to a field out on 71 on the way to the party and abandons the car, tossing the rape-murder bag, which now has a smear of Janet’s blood on it, into the woods nearby.”
BLOOD WORK: a John Jordan Mystery (John Jordan Mysteries Book 12) Page 18
