Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  “John, I’ve heard y’all talk about this so much I know exactly what happened. You two were standing there when Menge walked back to his cell. You saw him go in. Dad never left your side. He couldn’t’ve—”

  “That wasn’t Menge. It was Chris Sobel. He’d gone to meet with Paula so Justin could stay behind and meet with your dad in secrecy. It’s why Paula said Justin seemed so different. It wasn’t Justin. It was Chris Sobel.”

  “There’s no way. You’ll never make me believe it—never.”

  “I wish I couldn’t prove it, but I can.”

  “How?”

  “By Justin’s stomach contents,” I said, deciding to share with her everything I now knew in hopes of convincing her. “The autopsy shows his stomach was empty. The ME said he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, but the person visiting with Paula ate several items from the vending machine in the visiting park. That was Chris Sobel, not Justin. Justin was already dead by then. It was Chris we saw walk into the quad, not Justin—Pitts even said that’s who he buzzed in at first.”

  She took a step back from me.

  Across the diner, Merrill looked to be finishing up with Pete. As Merrill spoke, Pete continued to eat.

  “You forget how well I know this case,” she said. “Sobel’s prints were in Menge’s cell. He went to Mass late, didn’t have shoes on, and he escaped. Why would he escape if he was innocent?”

  I’m so sorry—and I wish I had more time—but I need you to trust me.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get to the prison. Either your dad’s in trouble or he just killed Juan Martinez.”

  “And of course you’d rather believe he killed someone than—”

  “No. Please. Listen to me.”

  “Why’re you doin’ this? she asked. “If you don’t want to be with me just say. Don’t—”

  “ If you want to ride to the prison with us, I can take you through it step by step.”

  She nodded, Merrill walked up, and without saying anything, the three of us made our way toward my truck.

  In the dark parking lot, Susan said, “Start with motive. What possible motive could he have? Why would Dad kill his star witness?”

  Merrill’s eyes widened, and he looked at me. I nodded, and he shook his head.

  “Justin had decided not to testify against Martinez and instead to testify against your dad.”

  “So Dad killed him? Do you know how many times witnesses have decided not to testify over the years?”

  “You’re right,” I said, trying to make my voice as soothing as possible. “But this is the first one that could hurt him.”

  “What? How?”

  We reached the truck and quickly climbed in.

  “This was a crime to cover up another crime,” I said, which is why I kept thinking about what David did to Uriah. “Menge could testify against your dad for manufacturing evidence and suborning perjury. And I think he was going to. In an attempt to take revenge on Martinez, your dad committed crimes that wouldn’t just cost him his job, but his freedom. He was trying to help and protect your mother. He wasn’t about to let Justin take him away from her. He did this to cover up his previous crimes.”

  I pulled out onto the empty, rural highway and began racing toward the institution.

  “He wouldn’t do that,” she said. “He wouldn’t risk prison.”

  “He was already at risk—exposed because of what he’d done. I think he saw this as his best chance to escape it. He had a good plan, he executed it well, and he’d be the one investigating it. He even asked me to help him—something he had never done before—so he could keep me close, keep an eye on me. The odds were in his favor. He controlled the investigation, kept other agencies out, kept us from getting information from the lab.”

  “Sobel’s the one whose plan’s working. He’s got you believing he didn’t do it and Dad did.”

  I thought about how strong Susan’s denial was. It seemed impenetrable, and I knew it came from years and years of living in a dysfunctional family where everyone pretended everything was okay and denied that Daddy had a drinking problem.

  “He does look good for it,” I said, “because when he came back into the quad pretending to be Menge, he had to go into Menge’s cell. He stepped into the dark cell, unable to see because your dad had disabled the light earlier when he had killed Justin. It’s why Father McFadden couldn’t see inside, said it was darker than the other cells. It’s also why Sobel’s prints were on the light. He had to hook it back up. And when he did, what he saw made him cry out. That’s who we heard. He’s a killer, but we’re talking about someone he loved. I’m sure he was shocked, but he pulled it together very quickly and knew what he had to do to keep from being implicated right then and there.”

  Squeezed between Merrill and me in the seat, she looked up at me, tears filling her big brown eyes, and I could tell that what I was saying was beginning to chip away at her defensiveness.

  “Chris and Justin had swapped uniforms and IDs. Chris ripped his name label off his shirt Justin was wearing. That’s why Chris was missing one. It was also why there was a square patch with very little blood on it on the shirt Justin had on. The blood was on the label. He then moved the body of his lover onto the bed and covered him up—that’s how his body was in one place and his blood in another. It actually helped your dad be truer to what the flyer said—except lividity was already set and couldn’t change. And since death occurred before we thought it did, the blood was already changing colors, the serum separating by the time we entered the cell. Chris got blood on the uniform he was wearing—Justin’s—so he took it off, wadded it up and left it in the corner. There was blood on his boots, too. He took them off and put them under Justin’s bed. He then put on Justin’s only remaining clean uniform, ripped the tag off, and swapped ID’s with him—which is why Menge’s didn’t have any blood on it, but I guarantee there are traces of Justin’s blood on Sobel’s even though he washed it off. For a while he waited, then he called out Menge’s cell number and went to Mass. When Potter sent him back to get shoes, he came back to Mass wearing tennis shoes, not boots—and he hadn’t been buzzed into his cell because it was already unlocked—rigged so he could slip into it after trading uniforms with Justin when he got back from his visit with Paula.”

  I paused for a moment from building the case against her dad clue by clue, but she didn’t say anything, just looked at me with a mixture of anger and disbelief.

  Beside her, Merrill remained silent, as well.

  “Your dad’s also the one who planted the murder weapon in Hawkins’s cell. His mistake was doing it after Merrill had searched it. We knew it had to be planted, but it couldn’t have been done by an inmate. They were locked in another quad by then. All of this fits the evidence. Otherwise, we have a murder being committed in a locked cell in which no one went into or came out of.”

  She shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks now. “What are you gonna do?”

  She looked so vulnerable, so completely helpless, which, along with the fact that she was pregnant, made her pain all the more unbearable for me, and I wanted to take it away. I wanted to comfort her, but there was nothing I could do.

  “I’ll give your dad a chance to prove me wrong.”

  “And if he can’t?”

  “I’m sure a jury will show compassion because of what happened to your mother.”

  Merrill nodded, but still didn’t say anything.

  “So if he can’t prove to you he didn’t do it, you’re gonna turn him in?”

  “Susan, he killed an innocent man.”

  “To protect Mom. Do you have any idea what they’ve been through? He’s all she’s got. She needs him.”

  “He should’ve just taken the hit for suborning perjury. With Menge’s testimony he would’ve lost his job, but served very little jail time. I’m sure he didn’t want what happened to your mom to become public knowledge, and he thought he wouldn’t have any pr
oblem killing Justin and setting up one of the other PM inmates for it. I think he was trying to leave it as an unsolved—which is why he went to such lengths to make it seem like an impossible crime and not frame any one person—which was brilliant. At one time or another, he said he was convinced that nearly all our suspects had done it—including Lisa Lopez.”

  Merrill’s phone started ringing.

  “Whatever he did,” she said, “he did for her. He’s all she’s got. If she loses him . . .”

  “She’ll still have us.”

  “Us?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You really think I could be with someone who could do this to us after all we’ve been through? You think I could just be your wife, have your baby, and pretend you didn’t destroy what’s left of my mom and dad? “

  “What’re you saying?”

  Before she could answer, Merrill said, “Juan Martinez has been shanked. He’s dead.”

  I nodded.

  “They think Hawkins did it.”

  I shook my head.

  “Say he then attacked Daniels.”

  “Is he okay?” Susan said.

  “Hawkins got the worst of it. Your dad’s just a little bruised and scratched up.”

  “We’ve got to stop him,” I said. “He’s out of control. He took Martinez out—setting up Hawkins for it.”

  She shook her head. “Who are you?”

  “May wanna turn around,” Merrill said, “They on the way to Bay Medical.”

  I slowed the truck, pulled off the highway, made a U-turn, and sped back in the direction of the hospital.

  52

  Susan sat rigid and speechless between us, the only sounds she made were occasional sniffles.

  “How long you think it’ll be ‘fore Sobel go after him?” Merrill asked.

  “He may not have known before, but I can’t imagine he hasn’t figured it out by now. Probably just be waiting for the right opportunity.”

  “Like when Daniels is alone and vulnerable,” Merrill said, “laid up in the hospital?”

  We rode along in silence for a few moments, until Susan finally turned to me.

  “Please, John. He was doing it for Mom. Please think about what she’s been through—what he’s been through, what this has done to him. Wouldn’t you do the same for me?”

  Martinez’s bloody smile flashed in my mind.

  “I’m not exactly sure what all I’d do to a man who did to you what Martinez did to your mom, but your dad didn’t do it to Martinez.”

  “He made a mistake. He did a terrible thing, but don’t destroy his life over it. Where’s your compassion? Is it just for inmates?”

  I should have known this would be her reaction. As the child of an alcoholic with years of a sick sense of loyalty, a total commitment to the family myth, she would be unable to do anything that felt like betrayal. In a dysfunctional family, the family itself is everything—guarding its secrets, maintaining its facades all that matters.

  During our reconciliation it seemed as if she had broken out, removed herself far enough from the family to be free of its powerful undertow, but had I been paying attention lately, I would have seen that was not the case. She had become aware, but awareness and action are two different things. She’d been on her way to working through it, but something happened to prevent her parole from parental purgatory. It had to be what happened to her mom. What Susan was experiencing now, had been experiencing the past several months, was one of the many effects of the crimes committed not only by Juan Martinez, but by her dad too.

  “I can’t just ignore what he’s done—for his sake as much as anyone’s. I want to help him. If he had killed Martinez . . . and I think he probably has now . . . but we’re talking about Justin. I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”

  “Not even for me?”

  “I’m sorry. Don’t you see it’s for his own good?”

  The empty road was flat and straight, stretching out for as far as I could see, and I was grateful for what I usually found boring since I felt numb, unable to concentrate on driving.

  “Not for our child?” Susan asked.

  Merrill looked over at me but didn’t say anything.

  “For our family?” she continued. “Because I can’t be with you if you do this. I can’t be your wife or have your child if you could do what you’re about to do to my family—to me.”

  When my parents divorced, I swore I would never do the same thing to my kids. Never. No matter what. It was one of the reasons why Susan’s news that she was pregnant hit me so hard. From the moment I heard it I knew I was out of options.

  “Don’t say that,” I said. “Try to understand what I have to do. We’ve worked too hard, come too far. And we’ve always wanted a child of our own.”

  “I just can’t. I’m sorry. I know myself. There’s no way.”

  “Maybe in time?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, “if you do this, I won’t get over it. Not now. Not ever. I can’t. I couldn’t. Please, for me, for the sake of our family, don’t do this.”

  I had seen Susan like this before. Once she truly made up her mind, she would never relent. She didn’t get like this often, but when she did, I always knew she was not making vain threats.

  “You’re asking him to do something he can’t,” Merrill said.

  “There’s a world of difference between self-defense—even retaliation—and murdering an innocent man just to cover up a crime,” I said. “You’ve got to see that.”

  “Can’t you understand the way our family—your family has been violated? Can’t you understand the desire for revenge?”

  “Of course. He shouldn’t’ve killed Martinez, but I understand. And if that’s all he’d done—”

  “You don’t know he killed—”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  I looked over at Susan again, searching her face for any sign of love, any sign of understanding. There was none. She regarded me with the contempt reserved for the worst of all crimes—betrayal. And I was guilty. What could I say to her, how could I explain?

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “John, if you turn him in, I’ll leave you. I’ll have to—and I won’t have your baby either. I can’t. I just . . . won’t be able to. I mean it. If you could do this to him—to them, to me, then I’ll . . .”

  Tears stung my tired eyes, and my head began to throb. The full weight of what I was doing, of what I still had to do resting heavily on me.

  I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Just kept driving.

  I figured she’d be hurt, even angry, but not at me. I never dreamed she’d act like this.

  “You sure about this?” Merrill asked Susan. “He’s got to do this. You know you forcin’ him in a corner he can’t get out of.”

  She considered Merrill for a long moment but didn’t say anything to him.

  “He’s given up so much for you, for your marriage.”

  I thought of how I had hurt Anna, how sad she looked the last time I saw her, how she was no longer part of my life.

  She dropped her head and began to cry.

  “Please don’t do this. I love you. We can have a good life. We can get through this.”

  “What if I turn him in?” Merrill asked.

  She shook her head. She was resolute. Her decision was final. I would always be guilty of betrayal.

  We fell silent a moment. Eventually, my phone rang.

  I didn’t feel like answering it, didn’t want to talk to anyone, but I knew I had to.

  “This bastard’s dead unless you can convince me he didn’t do it.”

  It was Chris Sobel.

  “What?” I asked, stalling. “Who? Who is this?”

  “You know who. And you know who this is. Convince me he didn’t do it, that he didn’t murder Justin just to save his own ass, or your wife will be down to one parent.”

  “Chris, listen to me . . . “

  Merrill and Susan turned toward me
. They knew what it meant.

  “He’s not going to get away with it. We’re on our way to get him right now.”

  “Then you’ll see him die.”

  “Don’t do it. Don’t let him—”

  The connection was broken. Chris was gone. Daniels was a dead man.

  No one said anything, and we rode the rest of the way in silence.

  As we pulled up to the entrance of Bay Medical Center, Merrill and I looked for Sobel, but didn’t see him.

  “In or out?” Merrill asked.

  “Out. Find Daniels, make sure he’s safe and stay with him. I’ll meet you inside.”

  When we pulled up to the front door, Merrill jumped out and ran toward the main entrance.

  “Stay down,” I said to Susan.

  “I want to be with him,” she said, sounding like a little girl fearful for her daddy.

  As she started to get out, I grabbed her, desperate to protect her, to make one last attempt.

  “The fact that he sent the flyer to me and how well it was planned let’s you know it was premeditated—a cold-blooded act of murder. We’ve got to turn him in—for his sake.”

  Before Merrill could get inside, Daniels walked out. I could tell by the way he greeted Merrill and waved to us, he had no idea we knew.

  Susan jerked her arm out of my hand, jumped out of the truck and ran toward him.

  As Merrill tried to usher them toward my truck, I looked around for any sign of Sobel.

  When they neared the truck, Susan grabbed her dad by the arm and pulled him away from Merrill. As Merrill tried to grab her, she snatched her arm away and swung at him. As she did, his chest exploded and he collapsed onto the asphalt.

  A split second later I heard the distant clap of Sobel’s rifle.

  53

  I dove on top of Merrill.

  Susan screamed. Daniels grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into the hospital.

  Beneath me, Merrill moaned. Blood was everywhere, on his clothes, on the blacktop, still pouring from his chest, and now all over me.