Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  “As I recall,” he said, “staging is most often done by people who’re close to the victim. They do it to throw us off.”

  “Like the ransom note in the JonBenet Ramsey case,” I said. “And the photos show that her skirt and shirt were up and her panties had been pulled down?”

  He nodded very slowly and deliberately.

  “So if she wasn’t sexually assaulted, which we don’t really know,” I said, “then it probably was staging.”

  “It’d have to be,” he said.

  Beyond the corral, a handful of cows grazed the short green grass. Bunched together, they lazily moved through the field, bending down, pulling the grass with upward and sideward jerks of their heads, raising to chew, then back down again.

  After a few moments of silence, he said, “You’re wasting your talents as a chaplain. How’d you know about staging?”

  “Worked with a profiler from the FBI on the Stone Cold Killer case when I was in Atlanta,” I said.

  I worked for the Stone Mountain Police Department while in college during the late eighties and early nineties, part of which coincided with the reign of a serial killer who became known as the Stone Cold Killer because of his murder weapon—Stone Mountain itself.

  “And on Martin Fisher’s,” I added. “He taught me a lot. Since then, I’ve read his books and others.”

  He nodded.

  “But,” I added, “if I weren’t a chaplain, I wouldn’t be working this case.”

  He shrugged. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “We’ve got to find out for sure if she was assaulted.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The thing is even with her panties down and shirt up, she was facing down, which meant her most private parts were covered up.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, his face expressing his confusion.

  “That’s just what someone close to her would do,” I said. “Stage it to look like a sexual murder, but then preserve her dignity as much as they possibly could.”

  “What the hell is the motive?” he asked. “Is there one, I wonder?”

  The smell of the livestock was pungent, and I realized I was breathing through my mouth.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But the means is probably a clue. She was beaten and strangled to death.”

  We were both silent for a moment, and I shook my head as I thought about what I had said. “Unless...”

  “Unless what?” he asked.

  “Unless it was a sex crime,” I said. “Then the anger wouldn’t’ve been personal. Nicole would’ve merely been an object for it.”

  He stopped kicking the dirt and looked up at me, our eyes locking for the first time. “When I think of what the sick bastard did to her, I want to kill him, John.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “the thought’s occurred to me, too.”

  Just then, his cell phone rang and he answered it.

  While he talked, I walked a few feet away to think about what we knew—or believed—and what it meant.

  “You said not to count out an act of God,” Dad said when he got off the phone.

  “Come again,” I said.

  “You get to talk to Bobby Earl Caldwell tonight,” he said. “How?”

  He smiled and shook his head to himself again. “On national television.”

  34

  I picked up Susan at the newly remodeled Driftwood Motel, which had been forced into renovation because of hurricane damage. From Mexico Beach, we drove east along the coast on Highway 98 through Port St. Joe and into Apalachicola, where we ate at Caroline’s.

  On the drive down, we had mostly made small talk about the events in our lives since we had last seen each other, and our conversation had all the charm of a first date without the mystery and possibility. But as we neared Apalachicola, we both seemed to relax, the iceberg on the armrest between us beginning to thaw, and as we really began to talk, the stranger beside me only occasionally sounded like the person I used to know.

  “Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “You?”

  “I’m a married woman,” she said as if she were appalled.

  For a while, we sat speechless and I considered the beautiful woman across from me as if for the first time. She no longer seemed awkward or uncomfortable with herself, and she obviously had overcome her dislike of silence.

  “Well, aren’t we a faithful pair?” she asked with a smile.

  “That or pathetic,” I said.

  Caroline’s faced the marina, her windows overlooking the choppy waters of the boat-filled bay. The full moon bathed everything in a romantic glow, casting long shadows that seemed alive, its pale particles of light gently slow-dancing on the small waves of the water.

  Earlier in the day, a harvest had been gathered from this place where all life began, that included fresh amberjack, which we ordered grilled with baked potatoes and the sweetest iced tea around.

  After we had ordered, she said, “Dad told me about the case you worked together last summer. He was very impressed with you.”

  “Yeah,” I said sarcastically. “He’s been a fan since way back.”

  Only two other tables were occupied in the small restaurant. At one, an elderly couple sat in silence waiting for their food. They seemed perfectly content not to speak to one another, as if through their long life together they had said all there was to say. In stark contrast, a young couple sitting across from them attempted to talk with each other in between feeding their baby and entertaining their little girl.

  “No, really,” Susan said. “He would never say anything to you, but—”

  “He tried to have me fired,” I said. “And tried me for rape in the media.”

  She shrugged. “So he has a funny way of showing it,” she said. “When it was all over, he said he respected you as an investigator.”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s just as a human being that I disappoint him.”

  She laughed. “Actually, it’s only as the man who broke his little girl’s heart.”

  “I guess I did, didn’t I?” I said. “You were so angry... I thought I repulsed you more than hurt you.”

  The elderly couple’s food arrived, and as their disfigured hands met in the middle of the table when they bowed their white heads in prayer, I wondered if I would ever find someone to grow old with, and if there was any possibility it could be Susan.

  From deep within, a voice whispered that it could never be anyone but Anna, and that it could never be Anna.

  “Are you ready for this?” she asked, taking a deep breath and sighing. “The anger was designed to hide my true emotions, my love and hurt. It’s taken nine months of therapy and support groups to be able to say that.”

  I smiled.

  “And it wasn’t your addiction, but your recovery,” she said. “I could handle an alcoholic. I was comfortable around one of those, but the person you became... well, frankly, he scared the hell out of me.”

  I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  The laughter of the little girl drew my attention away, and Susan and I both turned to see the toddler hurling French fries at her dad, who ate them with monster sound effects that brought a smile to my face.

  Nicole Caldwell’s face flashed in my mind like heat lightning over the Gulf on a hot and sleepless night.

  “Good dad,” I said.

  She nodded. “Anyway, you were so different,” she said. “So... you didn’t need me anymore.... So when you were accused of having an affair, I knew it had to be true because you didn’t want me anymore.”

  “But,” I said, and she held her hand up.

  “That’s how I felt,” she said. “I realize now that it wasn’t that you didn’t want me. It was that you didn’t need me, but I had always seen them as the same thing.”

  My mouth must have been hanging open, because she said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “You’re so different,” I said.

  “Now you know how I felt,” she said. “It was freaky. I was l
iving with a stranger. Plus you had the whole new God-thing going on, too, and that was extra-freaky. You became like this saint. The last thing I wanted around was a saint.”

  “It’s the last thing I am,” I said.

  Our food came, and as we ate the fresh grilled fish in the glow of the full moon, I found myself being pulled to the enigmatic woman sitting across from me. The combination of her familiarity and mystery was even more hypnotic than the moonlight shimmering atop the gentle ripples of the bay.

  But my feelings were out of sync with my thoughts, as if a war were waging between my head and my heart. I felt physical, sexual attraction to someone I wasn’t sure I could ever like as a person again. She seemed so different, but anyone could for an evening.

  After dinner, we continued east along the coast into Tallahassee.

  “Sorry this has to be part of our evening together,” I said. “I just found out late this afternoon.”

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “It’ll be fun. I still can’t believe you’re going to be on Larry King.”

  “Yeah,” I said sarcastically, “if you want my autograph, you better get it now. The price’ll probably double after the show.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “but double of nothing I can afford.”

  35

  The familiar music swelled then faded in the small teardrop earpiece I was wearing, while on the twenty-inch Sony monitor beside the camera in front of me, a shot of the Larry King Live logo dissolved into a live shot of Larry King.

  I was seated in the Channel 7 news room where, via satellite, I was joining four other guests around the country for Larry King Live.

  “Tonight,” he said, “I’m joined by Evangelist Bobby Earl Caldwell. He’ll be here for the full hour to talk about the death of his daughter inside a Florida state prison facility where he was conducting a crusade. Plus, theologians from the new PBS special on Abraham along with John Jordan, chaplain of the prison where Nicole Caldwell was murdered.”

  The monitor in front of me filled with an earnest-looking Bobby Earl Caldwell wearing a thousand dollar suit, makeup, and slicked back hair.

  “Welcome, Reverend Caldwell,” King said. “Before we begin, let me say again how sorry I am about your daughter.”

  “Thank you, Larry.”

  “Now let’s meet our panel,” King said. “First, Rabbi Daniel Rosenberg, author of Abraham: Father of Faith, Father David O’Donnell, author of Abraham: Figure of Faithfulness, and Imam Syed Jumal, author of Our Father Abraham.”

  As Larry King introduced each of them, their faces appeared on the monitor before me. Both the priest and the rabbi were handsome young men in their early thirties, dressed smartly in black suits, the priest wearing a Roman collar, the rabbi wearing a black yarmulka. The Imam was a thin black man in his fifties with graying hair, large glasses, and a white koofi.

  “All three men can be seen on the PBS special Abraham: Father of Nations airing later this month.

  “And from Florida, prison chaplain, John Jordan.”

  Suddenly, the camera was on me, and it was my face filling the screen in front of me, as I assumed it was on screens around the world. It was an awkward moment. My first reaction was to smile, but then I thought it inappropriate, so I just nodded instead. The camera lingered long past the time it took me to nod.

  “Okay,” King said, “first question is an obvious one: What was your little daughter doing inside a state prison facility?”

  “Singing with her mother, my wife, Bunny, as a part of our evangelistic outreach.”

  “But prison?” King said, turning his hand palm up. His eyes grew wide, his brow furrowing as his large glasses rose on his nose.

  “Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has called us to reach out with love to the least of these his brethern—the ones the rest of the world has forgotten about. We’ve done it all of Nicole’s life and never had an incident.”

  “You’ve come under a lot of criticism lately for taking her inside,” King continued, “but there seems to be just as many supporters coming to your defense.”

  “I think they understand Bunny and I are just doing what God’s called us to do,” Bobby Earl said. “And that we took every precaution.”

  “What precautions did you take?” King asked.

  Bobby Earl told him.

  “So, Chaplain Jordan, Nicole was in your office when she was murdered?”

  Suddenly, my face was filling the screen again.

  “Yes,” I said.

  When I didn’t elaborate, King smiled at my awkwardness and announced it was time for a break.

  During the break, Susan walked over from where she had been standing against the back wall of the studio.

  “Let the others talk, too,” she said.

  I smiled. “I’ll try not to prattle on during the next segment.”

  “Chaplain Jordan,” King said when we came back from the break, “do you know if there’re any suspects in the case?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “There are?”

  “Yes.”

  “But no arrest?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “Chaplain, are the Caldwells suspects?”

  “No one has been ruled out,” I said.

  “How does that feel?” King asked Bobby Earl.

  “Just awful,” he said. “Anyone who knows us knows how much we loved Nicole, knows we could never do such a thing. But the good book tells us to expect to suffer for righteousness.”

  “And Nicole was adopted, right?”

  “Yes,” Bobby Earl said.

  “But it doesn’t hurt any less losing an adopted child.”

  “No.”

  “Now, let’s bring in the rest of our panel,” King said. “They’re all members of the group discussing Abraham on PBS in an upcoming special. Reverend Caldwell, last week on your broadcast you compared yourself to Abraham, didn’t you?”

  “Well, I think I was misunderstood,” he said.

  “Let’s take a look at the clip,” King said.

  The screen filled with Bobby Earl preaching in his New Orleans studio. And if there had been any question before, there was no doubt now—Bobby Earl had indeed compared himself to Abraham and Nicole to Isaac.

  For the next few minutes, Bobby Earl tried to explain why he had made the comparisons between himself and Abraham and Nicole and Isaac. The longer he talked, the more defensive he became, until eventually he told Larry King that until God had tested him in a similar manner, he could never understand. No one could.

  “Fair enough,” King said, and took another break.

  “Rabbi Rosenberg,” King said after the break, “what is it about the story of Abraham and Isaac that makes it so enduring?”

  “Well, first,” Daniel Rosenberg said, as his faced filled the monitor in front of me, “we must remember what having an heir meant to Abraham, his culture and religion—it was everything. And God had promised this childless man that he would become the father of nations. But for twenty-five years, his wife remained barren.”

  “Think about how cruel that was,” Father David said, jumping in before the director could cut to him. “Twenty-five eternal years waiting for a child, all the while being called the father of nations.”

  “And now,” Rosenberg said, “after all the waiting, all the testing, all the suffering, all the years of feeling like the biggest fool on the planet, Abraham is given a son—”

  “Only to have God ask for him back,” Larry King said. “Right, Chaplain Jordan?”

  “No,” I said, my face filling the screen. “God doesn’t just ask for Isaac back. He asks Abraham to kill him.”

  As the camera cut back to King, my mind exploded with a terrifying thought: Maybe Bobby Earl had compared himself to Abraham because he had done what Abraham had been willing to do—kill his own child. Was Bobby Earl subconsciously confessing?

  “‘Take your son, your only son whom you love,’” King was saying, “‘and g
o forth up to the land of Moriah and offer him up on a high mountain that I will show you.’ I mean this was the ultimate test, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Father David said, “and he failed it.”

  “What?” Larry King asked in surprise.

  “I think he failed,” Father David said. “I know everyone says what a great act of faith this was on Abraham’s part—how he was willing to sacrifice his only son—but the real test was how he would respond to God, or to the voice inside his head he thought was God. He should have said no.”

  “Wow,” King said, “I never thought of it that way. But it’s kind of like a father sending his son off to war, isn’t it? No one wants to do it, but sometimes...”

  “Wait a minute now,” Imam Jumal said, breaking his silence at long last. “We’ve got to view this from an eternal position. Obedience to God is all that matters. Whatever we give up or even sacrifice in this life will be given back to us a hundred-fold by God in the next.”

  “Amen,” Bobby Earl said.

  “Of course, the Qur’an teaches that it was Ishmael, not Isaac, that God asked for and Abraham offered.”

  Bobby Earl seemed unable to respond to that, and we went to break.

  “So you believe you’ll be back with Nicole one day?” Larry King asked Bobby Earl after the break.

  “Absolutely,” he said, tears filling his eyes. “It’s why I can rejoice. My loss is heaven’s gain. God will reward me and Nicole for our faithful service.”

  “But you know people can’t understand that,” King said. “If Abraham were alive today, and he told us God told him to kill his son, we’d lock him up in a mental institution.”

  “It’s interesting,” Rabbi Rosenberg said, “that the Hebrew word for prophet has a connotation of madness in it.”

  Maybe Abraham was mad, I thought. Just a crazy old man who’d been out in the desert heat too long... Or maybe, just maybe, he trusted God beyond what I can even begin to understand.

  “Really?” King said. “That is interesting, but I guess that’s true, most of the things the old prophets did, we would think of as crazy today, wouldn’t we, Chaplain Jordan?”