Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  I wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t realize that part of my experience was simply, perhaps profoundly, infatuation with Kathryn, but it didn’t make the experience any less powerful or persuasive.

  I knew too that I was grasping for Kathryn out of loneliness and pain, that at least part of what I was doing was diversion and distraction, but that was something I would investigate later. For as true as that was, it was also true that what I was experiencing, this erotic euphoria, was also an epiphany.

  Perhaps it was being at St. Ann’s, so close to the raw enchantment of the earth, or just being away from the prison and the normal demands of life, or maybe it was confessing my secret to Sister Abigail, but something inside me had broken loose. I felt more free, more fully me than I had in many, many years.

  As Kathryn and I made love, it was as if she had become an incarnation of the divine, as if God were loving me through her. It was an amazing, even mystical experience that seemed to encompass the enchanted world around us, and I was far more grateful than I could express to her. Many people would live their entire lives without ever having such an encounter—and others, like Tommy and Tammy, would never again be given the opportunity.

  “Was that like the best sex you’ve ever had?” Kathryn asked.

  We were lying on the blanket beneath a magnolia tree, only partially undressed, becoming cognizant for the first time of how cold it was.

  “It was okay,” I said, unable to suppress the silly grin spreading across my face.

  She punched me in the arm.

  “What?” I said. “You want me to be honest with you, don’t you?”

  “I’m not even saying it had anything to do with me.”

  “Well, it had something to do with you.”

  “You were possessed,” she said.

  I thought about it. It was an interesting way to put it—especially in light of everything that had happened—but it fit. Maybe I was. Maybe we were. Maybe in another way Tammy had been. Was it so different? So hard to accept? This place was enchanted. Could it not also be haunted?

  “It was a religious experience.”

  “I knew I was good,” she said. “I didn’t realize I was a revelation.”

  34

  When I walked out of my room after having showered and changed, Steve was waiting for me. He was leaning against the hallway wall holding two Styrofoam cups, a small, white wax-coated bag, and a file folder.

  “I got the prelim and doughnuts,” he said.

  We walked over to the counseling center and into one of the empty classrooms where we sat in desks beside each other. Taking the lid off the cup he handed me, I blew the hot, dark liquid and felt the steam rise. The unused classroom was cold and the heat felt good against my face.

  “They’re still warm,” he said, handing me the bag. “The bakery in town makes them fresh twice a day. They don’t have one of those Hot Now signs, but I usually time it just right.”

  I set my coffee down and took the bag.

  “Always said you were a hell of a detective,” I said.

  I withdrew a warm, soft doughnut, its glaze sticking to my fingers, and passed the bag back to him. I then took a big bite that seemed to melt on my tongue before I could chew it.

  “You in love?” he asked.

  Choking, I coughed and took a sip of coffee. “What?”

  “With Kathryn?” he said. “I always had in the back of my mind I’d marry her one day.”

  He looked like a man trying not to look sad, and I felt ashamed of my insensitivity and impetuousness.

  “We just met,” I said.

  “But there’s a spark?”

  “There’s something, yeah,” I said. “I didn’t realize you—”

  “She’s not interested in having anything serious with me. I’m just carrying a torch for her.”

  Few things in life were as pathetic and painful as unrequited love, and the hopelessness of it hit me anew as I thought about it. The person not in love could no more control her feelings than the person who was. I shook my head at the helplessness of the human condition.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  I dropped the remainder of the doughnut on a napkin on the desk. I had lost my appetite. I had known he had feelings for her and still I had... done what I had done.

  “It’s none of my business,” he said, “but if you don’t see a future, please don’t start anything.”

  Unable to speak, I nodded.

  His sadness made him look smaller somehow, as if his physical form was merely a projection of his true self.

  Finishing up his doughnut and taking a big gulp of coffee, he wiped his hands and mouth.

  “Tommy Boy drowned,” he said. “No sign of foul play.”

  “Doesn’t mean there wasn’t any,” I said.

  “No.”

  “It’s what we expected.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “but I was hoping for something.”

  “What about Tammy?”

  “Be a while before we get toxicology and DNA, but we’ve already got a ton of physical evidence against Father Thomas. His blood’s under her nails, hers under his. No surprise there. He was covered in it.”

  “We knew he was,” I said. “What about sexual assault? Sorry to have to ask.”

  He shook his head. “It’s okay. She had definitely had intercourse recently, but it seems to have been consensual. No sign of...”

  I nodded. “Have they determined cause of death yet?”

  He frowned and shrugged. “Lot of injuries. Can’t say which one of them actually killed her. Coroner called it multi-system trauma. She had a combination of ruptured abdominal organs, broken bones, and brain trauma.”

  “What about blood loss?”

  “She’d lost a lot—enough to be going into shock—but he’s not sure if any one thing was enough to actually kill her. It was more the cumulative effect. If she had been taken to a hospital in time...”

  I shook my head and thought about what he’d said. I also thought about him some more. I seemed to be finding it more difficult to talk about Tammy’s death than he was. I knew what he was doing. I had done it myself. Containment. Everything was in a little compartment—including his feelings for Tammy, including considering her anything other than a homicide victim. He could close the lid on that box and think about his cousin as only a case. He could think of himself as only a cop, only a man with a job to do and a deadline in which to do it.

  “I’m not sure he killed her anymore,” he said, “and I think it’s at least possible he’s telling the truth about what happened.”

  “Because of the murder weapon?” I asked.

  His eyes grew wide. “How’d you know?”

  “What else is there?”

  “He says for the majority of injuries, he can’t determine what caused them. Says many of them seem more like rips and tears than cuts—what he’d expect to see from bites, but there’s no teeth marks. Says he can’t explain it.”

  “Does he know the circumstances of the case and what Father Thomas is claiming?”

  He nodded. “You’re saying he was predisposed, but I know this guy—he wouldn’t let something like that cause him to contradict the evidence. And there’s something else. I talked to Father Thomas’s doctor. He confirmed what Sister Abigail told us. Says Father Thomas is too sick and too weak to be able to do what was done to her. Says he would testify to it in court, but won’t have to because Father Thomas won’t live long enough for there to be a trial.”

  “But—” I began, but stopped when we heard someone calling for Steve in the hall.

  “CHIEF. CHIEF. YOU IN HERE?”

  “IN HERE,” Steve yelled.

  Muscle-fat opened the door and looked inside.

  “We got something,” he said, and waited for Steve to ask what.

  “Yeah?” Steve said after a moment.

  “A boat,” he said. “Not far from here. And it’s got blood in it.”

  35

  We did
n’t have to go far to find the boat. It was tied to the end of a floating dock with a yellow nylon rope and part of a cement block at the upper corner of the abbey property in the Intracoastal. The dock—large blocks of Styrofoam encased by weathered wooden planks—was partially hidden by a boathouse and a thick stand of cypress trees.

  Steve and I stood near the edge of the dock, looking around, Muscle-fat a few feet away calling FDLE to process the scene.

  Up a small slope sat the dormitory opposite the one I was staying in, but the boathouse blocked most of it from our view. We turned and looked down toward the lake. We could only see maybe twenty yards before the hill started sloping downward. Neither the lake nor the cabins were visible, only the back of the dining hall.

  “It’s not like anyone could see what was going on at the cabins from here,” Steve said.

  “They could’ve already known,” I said, “or seen from up at the abbey.”

  “How would they know to go to the clearing? Why not just run after them? The boat would take a lot longer.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. The only reason I can think of for them to take the boat is to avoid being seen.”

  He shook his head. “I hate cases like this.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “No. You don’t. I do.”

  We stepped onto the dock, which sank down with our weight and bounced up and down as we walked toward the end where the old green boat had been haphazardly moored.

  “Sure this thing’ll hold both of us?” Steve asked. “‘Course you don’t mind goin’ in the water, do you?”

  I thought about what I had done at the pier when Tommy’s body was found and how long ago that seemed now.

  The embattled boat was full of nicks and gashes, its hull splintering, its paint fading. Its back sank deeper in the water than its front and held several inches of water. A faded orange life jacket and two paddles were in the front. The middle seat and at least one of the paddles showed obvious traces of blood.

  “Could be from someone fishing,” I said. “Could’ve hooked or cut themselves.”

  “Hell, could be fish blood,” he said.

  “No other signs of fish—scales, slime, guts. We need to know who used this last.”

  He yelled for Muscle-fat to go and get Father Thomas or Sister Abigail. Sister Abigail arrived a few minutes later, stopping at the edge of the dock.

  “It embarrasses me to admit it,” she said, “but I have a real phobia of water. Would it be too much trouble for us to talk on land?”

  Easing back down the dock, we joined her.

  “Does this boat belong to the abbey?” Steve asked.

  “Not technically,” she said, “but it’s been here many years. Some trespasser left it on the lake and we’ve had it ever since.”

  “Who all uses it?”

  “Sometimes Kathryn paddles to the middle of the lake in it and writes, but it’s been a while since she has. Keith carried it over here to try to catch some fish over a year ago and it’s never made it back. I guess he’s the only one who uses it, but I can’t be certain. Why?”

  “It has blood in it.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Human?”

  “We can’t be sure, but it looks like it,” he said.

  “You think the killer used it? That would prove Tom really is innocent, right?”

  “We won’t know what to think until the lab looks at it,” Steve said.

  “Why would someone use the boat?” Doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “Not that we’ve been able to figure out,” Steve said.

  For a moment, none of us said anything, then Steve looked up at the back windows of her corner room in the dorm.

  “You didn’t see anyone down here the night of the murder, did you?”

  She followed his gaze to her room, then looked back down at the boat and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t. I went to bed early and any time I got up—for water or the bathroom—I didn’t look out the window.”

  Steve looked at me. “Can you think of anything?”

  “When’s the last time you saw the boat down here?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly, but it hasn’t been that long.”

  “But not the day before yesterday?”

  Her face wrinkled up as she strained to remember. After a moment, she exhaled loudly and shook her head. “I’m just not sure. I may have, but I can’t be certain.”

  “Whatta you thinkin’?” Steve asked.

  “That the boat could’ve already been down by the clearing and the killer used it to get back to the abbey.”

  They both raised their eyebrows at the possibilities.

  “It’d make a lot more sense than someone using it to get there from here,” Sister Abigail said.

  Just then Muscle-fat walked up with Keith Richie. “Here he is,” he said, as if revealing something to us. “And I just got a call from Suzie. A rental place at Lake Grove Landing had one of their boats stolen.”

  “When?” I asked.

  He ignored me.

  “He asked you a question,” Steve said.

  “I didn’t ask. But I’m sure it was the night of the murder. When else could it’ve been?”

  “The two guys who stole Tammy’s journal could’ve stolen it yesterday,” I said.

  Steve shook his head in disappointment at his officer. “Find out when it was stolen.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, pulling out his cell phone and walking a few steps away.

  “Are you finished with me for the moment?” Sister Abigail asked.

  Steve nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

  Steve looked at Richie.

  “What?” Richie said like a man with a guilty conscience.

  “When’s the last time you used the abbey boat?” Steve asked.

  “About a week ago,” he said, “but that’s not the abbey’s boat.”

  “What?”

  “That’s not the abbey boat,” he said again. “I moved it back over to the lake a week ago.”

  36

  Sister Abigail stopped walking and turned back toward us.

  “You’re sure?” Steve asked.

  “Positive,” Richie said. “I know our boat and that’s not it.”

  “Then whose is it?”

  Richie shrugged. “I’ve never seen it before.”

  I knew any minute Muscle-fat would state the obvious.

  “It could be the one stolen from Lake Grove Landing,” he said.

  “Maybe you better show us the abbey boat,” Steve said to Richie.

  “Okay.”

  “And on the way you can tell me why you wouldn’t answer John’s questions this morning,” he said. As we walked past Muscle-fat, Steve said, “Stay here and keep the scene secure until FDLE arrives.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sister Abigail said when we reached her. “How can this not be our boat?”

  “Lot of possibilities,” Steve said. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Whatever the case,” she said, “it’s looking better and better for Tom all the time.”

  She then turned and walked back toward the dorm and the three of us continued down to the lake.

  Like many cops, Steve had a hardness that enabled him to deal with the hardened, and though it was similar, it was not the same.

  “I want you to refuse to answer my questions,” he said to Richie. “Few things I enjoy more than kickin’ the shit outta rapists.”

  Keith Richie was scared and it showed, but only if you were looking carefully for it. Not only was he walking differently—as if his joints had lost some of their flexibility—but the skin of his neck had become splotchy beneath tiny beads of sweat.

  “I’m not the same man I used to be,” he said. “I’m different. A new creature in Christ Jesus.”

  “You and every other convict I’ve ever talked to,” he said. “World would be a better p
lace if we could all just go to prison.”

  “You ask anybody here,” Richie said. “I’ve never done anything that even looked wrong.”

  “Until now.”

  He stopped walking.

  “What the hell you think you’re doin’?” Steve asked.

  “No sense investigating if you’re just gonna pin it on me. You don’t need to even look at the boat.”

  “All these little tactics to keep from answering our questions aren’t gonna work,” Steve said. “So just move your ass and your mouth or getting butt-fucked in the shower because you take the fall for Tammy’s murder’ll be the least painful thing that happens to you.”

  Richie started to protest, but before he had gotten out three words, Steve punched him in the chest. It caught him by surprise and shut him up, knocking him back a few steps and making him gasp, but he didn’t fall down, and when he took a step toward Steve, which his whole life had programmed him to do, Steve slapped him across the face so hard his head whipped to the side.

  Instinctively, Richie swung back, but the punch was a looping right hook that Steve easily blocked, then countered with a digging right uppercut into his gut. Richie fell to his knees, his mouth open as if trying to suck air that wasn’t there.

  By the time the brief exchange was over, Steve was out of breath, and I waited while both men took a moment to regain their composure.

  After a couple of minutes of silence, Richie stood without speaking and began walking toward the lake again.

  Steve and I followed.

  “Were you involved with Tammy?” Steve asked.

  “You don’t have to rape a woman who’s givin’ it to you.”

  “Unless she stops,” Steve said.

  “She didn’t. I was drunk when I supposedly raped that girl in Pensacola. She was too. I honestly don’t know what really happened, but I haven’t had a drink since that night.”

  “That may be true, but we’re not dealing with a rape here. This is murder. And we know you’ve got one hell of a temper and rage control issues.”

  Steve waited, but Richie didn’t say anything.

  “What’d she do to make you so mad?”