Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  She turned to me and touched my face. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you.”

  I thought about all we had shared, the way in which the Mystery had revealed herself to me through this lovely woman. She had been the conduit for an intense sexual-spiritual encounter, but like all graces God uses in our lives, she was the vessel, the sign pointing me beyond her to the boundless beyond. As grateful as I was to her, I wasn’t about to make an idol out of her. She was a gift—one I was thankful for, but my most focused attention and adoration was reserved for the giver.

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for. I’m sorry. Sorry that I left you. I truly thought you were safe there. Sorry for what you went through at the mill. Sorry for all you’ve found out about your family—and I’m very sorry you lost your father.”

  “I can’t even think about us right now.”

  “I know.”

  “But when I’ve had time to process all this—”

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything, just let it be there between us, pregnant with possibility.

  Dropping her hand from my face, she shook her head and let out a long sigh. “I just found them and I’ve already lost my dad. Now, I’ll be losing my mom soon.”

  She began to cry.

  I put my arms around her and held her.

  After a long moment, she looked up at me and asked, “What’s going to happen?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “I have no idea, but anything’s possible. I’m convinced of that now more than ever before.”

  After Kathryn had gone, I stood staring at the lake for a long time, preparing to depart, ready to get away, but in some ways not wanting to leave.

  In homicide investigations, as in religion—or life for that matter—we know so little compared to what we think we do, and we understand even less. There’s a reason why they’re called mysteries. And just because we happen to discover who committed the crime doesn’t mean we really understand much about it. This was nowhere more true than in Tammy’s case.

  I had watched and heard as Tammy displayed superhuman strength, revealed things she couldn’t possibly have known, spoke in languages she didn’t know. What did it mean? Were they signs of demonic possession? Or was there some other more scientific explanation? Was what was revealed the presence of unseen spirits or the unlocked potential of a dark, mostly unused part of the human mind? Not only did I not know, I seriously doubted I ever would.

  Could I live with that? What other choice did I have? It wasn’t likely to change, but then, neither was I. I’d continue to investigate and continue to be baffled and humbled and surprised and in awe of life and the Great Mystery who created it, who sustains it, who is it. What else could I do? I had a strong suspicion that’s what she created me for. And perhaps I could learn to do it with more peace. Perhaps I could do my work and step back as Sister had suggested, letting go of my attachment to the outcome and the angst that goes with it.

  I wasn’t sure how long I had been there like that when Steve walked up.

  “I’ve finished my official report,” he said. “Wanted to run it past you to make sure you don’t have any problems with it. I don’t want FDLE knocking on my door one day soon because you tell them you have questions about my investigation.”

  I shook my head. “They won’t.”

  “I don’t want to, but I don’t have a choice. I’m charging Father Thomas with Tammy’s death.”

  I turned and looked at him in surprise.

  “You got a problem with that?”

  “Yeah. I do. We don’t get to decide what to do with the guilty.”

  “We?”

  “Investigators. We don’t get to punish or exonerate. Only investigate. We’d have too much power otherwise.”

  “I know that, but... just this one time.”

  “You know how many times I’ve wanted to—how many times I told myself I would just do it the one time?”

  “Have you ever...”

  I nodded. “Stone Cold Killer case in Atlanta. It’s one of the reasons I quit the cops.”

  We were quiet a long moment.

  And, as usual, I recalled the recurring nightmare.

  In it, I’m running up Stone Mountain, my heart slamming against my breast bone from exertion and the fear of what I’d find when I reached the top. I’m weary and unsteady, a mixed drink of bone-tired fatigue, mental exhaustion, and vodka coursing through my veins. Still I run as fast as I can, but I’m too late. When I reach the top, he releases her, and her body slides down the cold solid granite, following its contours like a tear in the crevices of a wrinkled face.

  “I killed a serial killer,” I said finally. “A very, very long time ago now. And not a day goes by I don’t regret it.”

  “I’m not charging her mom,” he said. “What’re you going to do?”

  “Stand back.”

  “Huh?”

  “I told you I wouldn’t contact FDLE. You know what I think you should do. You know why. What you do is up to you.”

  “There’s been enough lives lost,” he said.

  “That mean Ralph Reid’s safe?”

  “I’m talking about human life,” he said.

  I shot him a look.

  “I’m not gonna take him out. I’m not.”

  I nodded.

  “So... you can reverse your collar and let what Sister Abigail told you be a sealed confession.”

  I was conflicted about his decision, wishing there was a solution that would allow for both justice and mercy, but I could let it go. At least I was pretty sure I could.

  I nodded again.

  “I figure if I save her mom’s life and her abbey, I might just win her over.”

  “You deserve her,” I said. “I wish you luck. I really do.”

  “I’m just glad she’s not my cousin.”

  We were quiet a few moments, the cold breeze blowing off the lake stinging our eyes.

  “Well,” he said, “whatta you waitin’ on? The case is over. It’s time for you to go home and get on with your life.”

  “It certainly is,” I said. “It most certainly is.”

  Rivers to Blood

  a John Jordan Mystery Book 6

  by Michael Lister

  1

  I was almost home when it happened.

  I had taken the day off, and after mowing the grass between downpours had driven into Panama City to spend the afternoon browsing its bookstores. The pollen I stirred while cutting the grass and the dust I dislodged while deshelving the books had kicked my allergies into overdrive, and I felt dizzy and disconnected as I drove down the long, mostly empty stretch of pine-tree-lined highway toward Pottersville.

  It was early August in one of the hottest and wettest summers on record. Severe thunderstorms—sometimes several in a day—were followed by a full-on assault of the sun, steam rising from earth and asphalt creating sauna-like conditions, intense and inescapable.

  North Florida summers alternate between parched and drenched. There is rarely anything in between.

  I was listening to a book on the fabric of the cosmos, straining my allergy-addled brain to understand some of the current concepts, when I passed the van. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but instinctively glanced in my rearview to see if it bore a yellow DC license plate.

  It did.

  Since becoming the chaplain of Potter Correctional Institution, I had begun to pay close attention to white vans on the highway, knowing the ones with yellow Department of Corrections tags were transporting inmates. Like all activities that took inmates outside the institution, transporting them—whether to the hospital, courthouse, or on funeral furlough—was not only when most escapes were attempted but when most attempted were successful.

  It is extremely difficult for inmates to escape from a Florida state prison. There are just too many barriers—too many locked doors and gates, too many staff, too much chain link and razor wire—but once outside, the barriers decrease dramatically.

&nb
sp; Four electronically locked gates become one van door. Fifty officers backed up by a riot squad become two officers—only one of which has a gun.

  I’m not saying it’s easy for an inmate to escape while on transport—he’s still in cuffs, shackles, and a belly chain connecting the two with a black box covering the lock—just that it’s easier.

  When I realized my wandering mind had missed the last several lines of the book, I paused it. As I did, I glanced in my mirror again to see that the van was nearly out of sight.

  It had stopped raining for the moment, but my back window was still dotted with raindrops, clouds were blocking out much of the afternoon sun, and a low-lying mist just above the road and ditches made seeing much of anything more than a little challenging.

  Yet that’s when I saw it. Or thought I did.

  Brake lights. The van swerving. Maybe even running off the road.

  It was possible I was being paranoid.

  I could’ve just imagined the whole thing, projected what I was looking for onto the faint raindrop-spotted image, but I had to turn around to find out for sure.

  I slowed and pulled off onto the soft, soggy shoulder of the road, water sloshing beneath my tires, leaving black tracks in the wet grass behind me as I eased back on the highway heading in the opposite direction.

  Depending on an inmate’s custody level, there are different requirements related to transport. Close custody and close management inmates have to be cuffed and shackled and escorted by two armed officers. A single unarmed officer can escort a work camp inmate, and the inmate doesn’t even have to be cuffed.

  Most often, however, there were two officers involved. Both sat in the front of the van, separated from the inmate or inmates—there could be as few as one and as many as thirteen—by a metal mesh and plexiglass partition. In the back, inmates were often cuffed and shackled, but never chained to the vehicle. The windows of the van were fitted with expanded metal reinforcements that looked like large blinds, and both the back and side doors were padlocked with hasps welded on the outside.

  I raced back down the highway as fast as I could, the frame of my old truck shaking under the strain.

  Tall grass and weeds filled the shoulders of the road, the seed heads of Bahia stalks glistening even in the low light of the overcast afternoon. Sprouting out of the shoots periodically, mostly next to signposts, rain-streaked and leaning political signs announced the vast number of Potter county citizens who aspired to public office, while water flowed through the drainage ditches like rushing rivers.

  Several of the signs lining the side of the road bore my name, and it was disconcerting to see. I wasn’t the John Jordan running for reelection as Potter County Sheriff, my dad was, and though most if not all citizens knew that, I still felt embarrassed at having my name splattered all over the county.

  Squinting, scanning, searching.

  Looking for lights, movement, anything.

  The only ones I saw were from a vehicle in the distance heading toward me. The bright headlights made it difficult to see anything else, and I had to wait until the gap between us closed and we passed each other before I could start looking for the van again.

  There was nothing on the road in front of me now. Not even a random oncoming car. And the long, flat road seemed to stretch out forever.

  Then, just ahead, near the entrance to a dirt road that angled back off the highway into the woods, I saw skid marks that continued onto the shoulder, becoming tracks on the narrow, muddy, hole-pocked road.

  I followed them.

  2

  The narrow dirt road was dark, the thick canopy of branches, leaves, and Spanish moss blocking out what little light the cloudy evening offered.

  It wound back through the woods toward the river.

  Most likely used for logging many years ago, now the road mostly provided access to the woods for hunters in the winter and to the river for fishermen in the summer.

  The skid marks back on the highway could have been made at any time, but with all the water that had washed over the dirt road this afternoon, I knew the tracks I was now following were fresh.

  The woods surrounding me on all sides were dense and ropy with a seemingly infinite variety of shades of green, every raindrop-dappled leaf glistening in the glare of my headlights as if freshly formed.

  I drove faster than I should have under the current conditions, my truck bouncing through the mud-filled potholes, each bump staining my white truck the color of heavily creamed coffee. Sliding from side to side, the back end fishtailing, I almost lost control of the vehicle several times, but when I saw lights up ahead, I sped up even more.

  The road twisted and turned often, sharp curves at odd angles shortening the sight line to nearly nonexistent.

  On one particularly tricky turn, I almost drove straight off the road and into the woods, and as I came through it, I realized that’s exactly what the van had done.

  And that’s when I did it.

  Without thinking, I jerked my foot off the gas and stomped on the brake. The truck began a hydroplane that spun it around several times before it flipped over twice and slammed into the base of a thick-bodied pine tree.

  It happened so fast I didn’t fully realize what had happened until I found myself hanging upside down, suspended by my seatbelt in the overturned truck.

  I took a moment to move around as best I could to see if anything hurt. It didn’t. I pressed the seatbelt button and I fell head first onto the roof of my cab. Now it did.

  As I carefully crawled over the broken glass and through the passenger window, I could feel tremors beginning to run the length of my body. Stumbling to my feet, I stood for a moment on wobbly legs wishing I had a weapon.

  Slowly and stiffly I began to walk back toward the curve and the new path the van had cut into the thicket.

  The van had missed the curve, driven some thirty feet into the woods, and smashed into an enormous old oak tree.

  The engine was off, but the vehicle’s headlights were still on, their beams refracting a million raindrops, making the sequined forest shimmer and sparkle in a way that seemed almost magical.

  All of the van’s doors were closed and there was no movement. I approached from the rear on the driver’s side slowly, looking over my shoulder often, but stopped when I heard a small plane overhead.

  The engine of the plane seemed to be straining, alternating between a high-pitched whine and cutting out altogether. It sounded to me as if the aircraft were falling from the sky, though I couldn’t be sure.

  I looked up for confirmation.

  At first I couldn’t see anything, but as the sound grew louder, I actually thought the plane might be about to crash right on top of me.

  When I finally caught sight of it again, it was headed down fast at an angle that left little doubt it was about to crash.

  Another moment and I heard what sounded like the plane scraping across the tops of trees, but was momentarily distracted by a noise behind me.

  As I started to turn, I was hit in the back of the head by a heavy object swung with furious force.

  I lost consciousness before I hit the ground.

  3

  When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the van.

  I scrambled to my feet, the back of my head throbbing, wondering how long I had been out.

  Not long from the look of things.

  Though it was difficult to judge on such an overcast day, it didn’t seem to be much later.

  Glancing around for my assailant, I made my way over to the van.

  Kent Murphy, the middle-aged transport officer, was slumped in the driver’s seat unconscious, his light brown CO shirt soaked with blood.

  The passenger seat and the back of the van were empty.

  I carefully opened the door and felt for a pulse.

  He had one. Weak, but there.

  I reached across him, getting blood on my shirt, grabbed the mic, and radioed the institution, describing for them the
situation as best I could with the few 10-codes I knew. I wasn’t sure they understood everything, but 10-20, 10-33, and 10-71 let them know where I was, that it was an emergency, and to send an ambulance.

  I couldn’t decide if I should move Kent, so left him as he was.

  It should take the ambulance less than ten minutes to arrive. While waiting, I went around to the other side of the van.

  Both the front and side doors were closed and the side door was still padlocked, which meant the inmate being transported should still be inside. Cupping my hands around my face, I pressed up against the glass to search the back of the van. All the seats were empty. Moving around and looking from various angles, I could see that the floorboard was too.

  It was possible there had never actually been an inmate inside. Kent could have been returning from dropping one off or on his way to pick one up—but then who hit me in the back of the head?

  I was on my way around the van to check on Kent again when I heard the noise.

  It sounded like faint moaning, and it was coming from the woods out from the passenger side of the van. Stepping over thick undergrowth and fallen branches, and hoping I wouldn’t step on a rattlesnake, I began to move in the direction of the sound.

  The woods were still, the only movement raindrops falling from treetops. Crickets, convinced by the dark storm clouds that it was night, chirped loudly, but the sky was clearing up, the light beneath the pines slowly increasing.

  It didn’t take long to find him.

  Lying facedown, his blue inmate uniform wet, a white guy with reddish-blond hair with traces of blood in it was moving slightly and moaning, as if experiencing a bad dream.

  I was really confused now.

  I had expected to find an officer, not an inmate. How did he get out of the locked van? Who hit him on the back of the head? The same person who hit me? But why? I had figured it was an inmate trying to escape. And maybe it was. Maybe there were two or more. But that didn’t explain how they got out of the locked van. And why leave one behind? Perhaps he wanted to stay. An inmate with a low custody level and very little time left on his sentence had no reason to run. And with no cuffs or leg irons, it was likely he was a low custody, little time, work camp inmate. Maybe the other inmate or inmates knocked him out to keep him quiet for their escape. Maybe he tried to stop them.