Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  “I’ve got to talk to you,” she said, her voice flat, her face expressionless. “I know what I’ve put you through, but I’m going to make it right. I wanted you to know I was sorry. I just didn’t know what else to do.”

  Laura stood near the door, watching, listening, protecting.

  “I was just trying to protect Tony, to get him transferred to another institution. Away from Skipper.”

  I nodded.

  “It didn’t work. Obviously. It got him killed. But I’m gonna make it right. I mean for you.”

  “I doubt what you did got Anthony killed. The things he’s been doing, the men he’s involved with . . .”

  “He wasn’t this bad when he went to prison. I mean, he was . . . He had his issues, but . . . the last time I saw him . . . That was someone else entirely.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m gonna make it right,” she said. “Tell the authorities and the press. I’ve wronged you more than any other person ever. I just . . . It was all to try to save Tony.”

  Later in the afternoon, while Laura was helping her mother go through her Uncle Russ’s things, Anna came over to watch the tapes from Russ Maddox’s house that Dad had dropped by earlier.

  “You sure you want to do this?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Don’t move. I’ve got this.”

  She placed the tapes in a stack on top of the television—an old thirteen-inch TV on an old-fashioned TV stand with a VCR on the uneven shelf below it.

  “Dad said he appreciated us doing this. Said he was having a hard time getting anyone in his department to watch them.”

  The first tape was the one I had already seen. It showed Maddox and Johnson together again. We didn’t watch very much of it—I had seen it, and Anna wanted to see as little as possible. I couldn’t blame her. We watched roughly two minutes of it. They were the last two minutes though, and when she ejected the tape, I noticed that there was at least three quarters of the tape unused.

  I eased off the couch and put the tape back in and began to fast forward it. The snow on the screen looked no different in the fast forward mode than it did in the normal play mode, with the exception of the lines at the top and bottom of the screen that looked like wrinkles.

  After about five minutes or so, I ejected the tape, concluding that there was nothing else on it.

  The second tape was of Maddox alone.

  When the first image flickered on the screen, it was of Maddox’s bare chest. It was roughly the color of cotton and covered with white hair. He was obviously leaning over the camera to turn it on. He then backed up, bent down, and looked right into the lens, his fat, out-of-focus face filling the screen. I could see the reflection of the red recording light flashing on his left cheek. He turned and headed toward the bed, and the light could then be seen flashing on his other left cheek.

  Waiting on the bed for him were a remote control and a jar of Vaseline. He pointed the remote in the direction of the camera, and the TV began to play. The sounds of sex began to fill the speakers. They sounded as if they were coming from his TV, and because the video camera was so close to the TV the sound was distorted, but it was still unmistakable. It sounded like the tape we had just watched. Russ was watching himself with Johnson.

  He removed the lid from the Vaseline jar, scooped out a heaping amount, and began to masturbate.

  I fast-forwarded through the rest, only glancing occasionally to make sure there wasn’t anything of evidentiary value on the tape.

  “It’s so personal,” Anna said. “Even more so than watching two people have sex. It’s personal and private and in this case kinda sad.”

  I nodded. “Yes it is.”

  The third tape was Maddox and Johnson again. It was shot in black and white, which, because of the contrast between the two men, looked artistic.

  The last tape showed Maddox with Anthony Thomas.

  Thomas wasn’t the willing participant Johnson seemed to be, and though it was obvious he was in a drug-altered state, there was still a lot of coercion and even a little force.

  When we finished watching the tapes, I felt like I needed a shower.

  “Whatta you think?” Anna asked.

  “I think what you think. Everybody on these tapes is now dead.”

  “Skipper is running a sex slave ring,” she said. “It’s an utterly evil abuse of power and—”

  “Weren’t there five tapes?” I said.

  “I left one of the cases in the box,” she said. “Has smaller tapes inside. Figured they were audio tapes or—”

  “Can I see?”

  She retrieved the tape and brought it over to me. It was not an audiotape, but an eight-millimeter videotape.

  “It’s eight millimeter,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s video but from a different camera than the one in Maddox’s bedroom. It’s not standard VHS like these other tapes. It means that it was shot by somebody else.”

  “Let’s watch it.”

  I laughed. “It takes a different type of VCR.”

  “Who would have one?”

  “Susan still has ours.”

  “Wanna ride up to Atlanta and see if she’ll loan it to us?”

  Just then the phone rang, and I knew it was bad news again. I was almost to the point of not answering my phone anymore.

  It was Dad.

  Molly Thomas was dead.

  37

  Under the massive spreading branches of live oak tree near the bald cypresses lining the banks, Molly Thomas’s car was being pulled out of the muddy waters of the Apalachicola River.

  The crooked, craggy cypresses, both in and out of the water, were silhouettes against the neon orange and pink of the setting sun.

  The swirling, undulating waters patted the red clay of the banks in this picturesque spot, where I had learned to water-ski and later had been baptized.

  It appears that Molly’s car had raced down the hill at high speed and crashed into the river below.

  The yellow crime-scene tape, stretched between two cypress trees near the water, rippled in the small breeze coming off the water, making a small, lonely whipping sound.

  Molly’s car could just be seen breaking the surface of the water. A cable attached to her back bumper was spinning around the winch of the tow truck, pulling the two vehicles ever closer to one another.

  At certain points along the way, the steady hum of the winch was interrupted by the grinding of metal on metal as the river begrudgingly released the car.

  “This the girl you were dickin’?” Jake asked when I walked up to where he, Dad, and two other officers stood.

  Jake and the two officers laughed.

  “Does it look like suicide?” I asked Dad, ignoring Jake.

  He nodded. “No signs she tried to brake or that another vehicle was involved.”

  “You were such a bad lay that she offed herself,” Jake said to even more laughter.

  “Okay to walk down there?” I asked Dad.

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  I slowly walked down to the river’s edge, feeling awkward and self-conscious, stiff and sore.

  The car was out of the water now.

  Molly’s wet auburn hair was matted and hung forward with the rest of her slumping body only held vertical by the seatbelt. The hair covered her face. For that I was glad.

  The driver’s side door was open, the ME beginning to examine the body. Water was still draining onto the ground.

  The strong odor of the river emanated from the car, the smell of fish and tannin and mildew.

  I walked around to the back of the car and studied the bumper.

  It was bent slightly, but there was no way to know when it had happened.

  There were a few dents and some white paint from another vehicle on the back right quarter panel. The paint could have been on the car for six months or six hours. There was no way to know for sure. But I knew.

  This was the work of Matt Skipper.
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  The Quarters, the name given to the black section of town by a certain segment of the white population, was roughly two hundred acres on the south side of Pottersville, only part of which was inside the city limits. A single row of small red-brick duplexes provided by the government for low-income housing was the only part of black Pottersville actually located within Pottersville.

  The low-income housing, known as the black projects, was a mirror image of the government housing on the east side of town, known as the white projects. The only difference in the two projects was color. It was more like a negative than a mirror—the negative of a hateful and ugly picture of racism, tribalism, and xenophobia.

  I drove past the row of identical duplexes and found myself again surprised by how widely the yards varied. In front of most of the dwellings, the yards were barren, a mixture of dirt, weeds, and trash. Others, however, had neatly trimmed lawns and a shrub or two. Most of the houses did not have vehicles in front of them. Of those that did, many were tireless heaps up on blocks and covered with plastic tarps. Two of the units had late-model Cadillacs that gleamed even under the late-evening sun.

  On the corner, around a small fire, three men and a woman—all holding tall beer cans or bottles in paper bags in their hands.

  Across the road and down two yards, at least twenty children were playing various games under the watchful eye of an elderly gray-haired lady rocking on her front porch, occasionally leaning forward and spitting snuff into the front yard.

  When I arrived at Uncle Tyrone’s house, his numerous children sitting on his front porch told me that Merrill and Tyrone were already at his shop. Uncle Tyrone owned a shoe shop just over the tracks in Pottersville. This meant that although he lived on the wrong side of the tracks, Tyrone owned his own business on the right side of the tracks. His was one of only four black-owned businesses in Pottersville and the only one that was located in the white part of Pottersville.

  He wasn’t very far across the tracks, but it was far enough to suit him and close enough to the tracks to suit the white establishment. I had heard some of that white establishment refer to him as a “white negra.” No one had ever said anything like that to me, because they knew what I was—what I had been labeled since the eighth grade when I had fallen in love with Merrill’s little sister, Kyria—a nigger lover.

  “Cousin John,” Tyrone said as I walked in, giving me his usual greeting. “How ya be, boy? Not lookin’ too good there.”

  “I’m okay, Uncle Tyrone. How are you?”

  “I’m hangin’ tough. Hangin’ tough. So let me see your tape. Is it standard eight millimeter or high eight?”

  I reached into my pocket and retrieved the tape. “Standard,” I said as I handed him the tape.

  “Ah, yeah, I can handle this. Right back here.”

  He walked through the faded curtain behind his counter. Merrill and I followed.

  In the back of Tyrone’s store was an office roughly the size of my trailer. It was filled with shelves, which were filled with shoe boxes. On a table that stood against the right wall, there were all sorts of electronic equipment—VCRs, TVs, and stereo components. The eight-millimeter VCR sat on top of a small, square monitor in the center of the table.

  “You the only white man who come in here,” he said, smiling broadly. “Any other think I stole all this shit for sure.” We all laughed, though it was more true than funny.

  He popped the tape in.

  “I have no idea what’s on the tape. Would you mind if Merrill and I previewed it alone?”

  “Just push Play when you’re ready,” he said, and left the room.

  I did.

  The first scene to fill the screen was of a floor whose carpet looked familiar to me. It was the chapel at PCI. There was very little light, the picture on the screen dark and grainy. When the camera tilted up and panned left, it showed Molly Thomas walking hesitantly into the dark chapel. She was shivering.

  Within seconds, Anthony had pounced on her and began to rape her. She didn’t scream very loudly, but you could tell that she was in pain. In between the screams, she tried to reason with Anthony.

  They seemed unaware of the camera’s presence in the sanctuary. One time Anthony looked straight at it without looking into it. His eyes were wild, darting back and forth, glazed and icy as frozen ponds. In a few moments, Skipper came in and snatched them both up, laughing and taunting them as he did.

  The small video did two things. It showed that I was not involved, and that Skipper was. Unfortunately, Skipper was only shown as breaking up the violation and not as instigating it.

  Within another minute, the chapel was empty, and the camera stopped recording. The monitor went blue. I let the tape play a little longer then stopped it. The whole incident lasted less than five minutes.

  “Looks like your ass just been cleared,” Merrill said. “Got that Rodney King shit.”

  38

  The Department of Corrections of the state of Florida incarcerated just under 60,000 inmates at a yearly cost of roughly 1.5 billion dollars. The number of people required to operate this department was 23,732.

  I was among them once again.

  It was an overcast Tuesday morning. I was sitting at my desk, having been reinstated thanks to the footage of the chapel incident and the relentlessness of FDLE agent Rachel Mills.

  It was nice to be back at work. It was even nicer to see Daniels so disappointed at my return.

  As I had expected, Stone and Daniels, and even Rachel Mills, agreed that all the tape showed was Skipper breaking up illegal activity.

  A few members of the staff seemed genuinely glad to see me back, but most, like most of the inmates, were tentative and seemed reserved around me.

  Mr. Smith was excited to me. Well, as excited as he ever gets.

  He said he knew I was innocent and was hoping Skipper wouldn’t kill me. I had hoped that myself, still did in fact. What I didn’t say, because I was trying not to think about it, was that someone else already had.

  I called Laura to tell her the good news. She was, at the same time, happy for me and scared too.

  I was headed down to tell Anna in person—and to talk to her about the case—when I opened my door and saw Officer Charles Hardy standing there.

  “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to see you, sir,” he said. “Several people told me you wanted to talk to me about the morning Johnson was killed, but I’ve been out of town. I’m in the reserves, and they sent us to help with some hurricane damage in Charleston.”

  Charles Hardy was an excellent correctional officer. His crisp uniform and patent-leather shoes showed his military training, as did his comfort with authority. From all appearances and reports he accepted the authority of those above him with honor and never abused the authority he was given over others.

  “I really appreciate you stopping by. I realize this is not your shift, and you don’t have to talk with me. I’m looking into this very unofficially.”

  “I understand, sir,” he said. “I’ll answer any questions you have.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But please call me John. I was just about to walk down to Classification. If you’re headed that way we could talk while we walk.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “That’d be fine.”

  We walked down the asphalt road of the upper compound. We were alone. It was still early. The inmates hadn’t been released from the dorms yet.

  “In the early morning hours of Tuesday, two weeks ago from today, two inmates started fighting in the infirmary,” I said. “We’ve been told you were away from your desk and that Captain Skipper had to come break them up.”

  He nodded.

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  “I’m surprised they didn’t tell you,” he said. “When Captain Skipper came into the infirmary, he sent me to Confinement to pick up an incident report. When I got back, he was gone. Nurse Strickland told me that Captain Skipper had left word for me to take Jacobson to Confinement. So I
turned right around and went back to Confinement, this time with Jacobson in tow. Strange thing was he made me fill out the DR. I wasn’t there. Didn’t witness it, but I had to write the report. I didn’t want to, but I did it. I know how to follow an order. Later, when everything went down in the sally port, I was glad that I was not in the infirmary just before it happened.”

  “What time did you get back to the infirmary that morning?” I asked.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “I was in Confinement until a few minutes before seven. When I walked back up to Medical, Officer Straub was about to go in to begin his shift. I gave him a report of the night’s events. He went in. I walked up front.”

  “Who else was in the medical building that night?” I asked.

  “Johnson and Jacobson, Nurses Anderson and Strickland, the orderly, Jones . . . and another inmate was there for a while.” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes to concentrate on recalling the nearly forgotten name. “Thomas. Anthony Thomas was there for a while, and that’s it. Oh and Captain Skipper. He’s everywhere.”

  More than anything, including the case, I wanted to talk to Anna about contracting the infection, but I just couldn’t. Not yet.

  So we talked about the case, about all that happened, what it meant, who might be behind it.

  “So you don’t think Skipper killed Johnson or Maddox?” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “Why?”

  “Neither death benefits him. Maddox was his best customer. Johnson was his best product. He was making his own kind of killing on the little arrangement, so there was no reason for him to do any killing. It’d be putting an end to a serious paycheck.”

  “Maybe they were going to tell.”

  “I don’t think so. Maddox wouldn’t, because it was his secret too. A secret that he more than anyone wanted to keep quiet. He would’ve lost everything. And Johnson’s an inmate. Nobody would believe him, and he didn’t seem to mind it too much. He was being treated like a king—drugs, alcohol, no work, no trouble.”

  “There’s always the possibility of a motive that we can’t see.”