“Tracy’s a stuck up bitch,” he said.
I nodded my agreement.
“Let me help you. You were so close to getting out. Why’d you run?”
“You don’t seem to understand your situation,” he said. “I’m gonna—”
“I’m trying to understand,” I said. “I want to help.”
I listened for the approaching motor that signaled Merrill’s return but didn’t hear it. The only sounds besides our breathing were the unseen animals and insects all around us.
“It’s a little late for that now,” he said. “You should’ve helped me when you had the chance.”
“When was that?”
“You know goddamn well when. You couldn’t even be bothered to see me. Now I’m gonna show you how it felt.”
“I would’ve seen you any time you asked. Why didn’t you send me a request?”
“I did,” he said.
“I never got it,” I said.
“Bullshit,” he yelled.
“You think I got it and just ignored it?” I asked.
“I think you’re just trying to stay alive,” he said. “You’d say anything.”
“Have I ever ignored your requests before?”
Though housed at the work camp, his inmate requests regarding religion were sent to me.
He didn’t say anything.
“You know me,” I said. “You think I would—”
He wrapped his grimy hand around my mouth as he heard Merrill heading back toward us.
“Tell Mama I’m sorry,” he said, “and don’t come back out here again. Next time I’ll kill you.”
He then grabbed a handful of my hair, slammed my face into the ground, jumped off me, and ran away.
I rolled over, wiping the dirt from my eyes, and tried to see which way he’d gone, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
I jumped to my feet and continued to look for him but got the same result.
When Merrill ran up I told him what had happened and we began making our way deeper into the swamp, looking for any indication of the direction he had gone.
We walked for well over a mile before we found anything, the swamp growing more dense, seemingly more impenetrable with every step.
Inside a channel that would have been filled with water if the river had been higher, we found a boot print. We couldn’t be sure if he had just made it, but with all the rain lately, it couldn’t have been there long.
Ten-foot-high mounds of dirt and clay formed the banks of the channel, and its soggy bottom had the texture of a recently dried-up riverbed.
Eventually the wind picked up and it began to rain. The breeze blowing down the channel caused the rain to slant in on us, pelting our hands and faces.
Deciding to return to the boat, we climbed out of the channel and headed back in what we thought was the direction of the river, though we couldn’t be certain.
We had taken less than twenty steps on the other side of the channel wall when about a dozen men in camouflage fatigues jumped up from beneath ferns on the ground and out from behind trees, yelling and pointing M-16s at us.
41
Merrill and I both did what we were told, slowly raising our hands and standing still.
It was as if we had suddenly and surreally stepped into a war zone.
The soldiers, Navy SEALs from the look of them, were all dressed in full military field uniforms. In addition to camouflage fatigues, many of them wore camouflage headbands or floppy hats, but a few had helmets with shredded green and camouflage cloth meant to resemble grass and weeds. Ammunition belts crisscrossed their chests and their faces were painted black and green.
Of the twelve men, all were in their early to mid-twenties except for one. I assumed he was the commander. They looked weary and ragged but wild and wide-eyed, as if jolted back to full consciousness by a sudden adrenaline rush.
A few of the really young guys seemed jittery, their faces and hands twitching, and I realized how easily Merrill and I could be shot by accident.
“Steady men,” the elder soldier said.
He wasn’t much older, maybe late-twenties or early thirties, but he seemed far more mature.
“And if you’re feeling tired and twitchy, why don’t you take your fingers off the triggers,” I suggested.
No one responded. Nor moved a finger.
“State your name and purpose for being out here,” the elder one said.
We told him who we were, being sure to slip in the fact that my dad was the sheriff.
“You got ID?” he asked.
We nodded.
“Let’s see it,” he said. “Very slowly.”
We handed our wallets to the guy standing closest to us and he passed them along to the guy standing next to the commander. He looked through our wallets and read the information on our driver’s licenses out loud.
“There’s also some business cards from Potter Correctional Institution that say ‘John Jordan, Senior Chaplain’ on them,” he said.
“Okay, men,” the commander said, “stand down.”
They did.
“Sorry about that,” the commander said, “but we’re not used to seeing civilians this far back in the swamp and we’re a little . . .”
“You Navy SEALs?” I asked.
He nodded. “We train out here because of how close the terrain is to certain countries where we carry out missions.”
“I read something about that in the paper a while back,” I said.
He frowned. “We’re still not sure how that happened. Don’t like to advertise the fact that we’re here.”
As we talked the rest of the men spread out around us, some standing, others sitting on the ground. By their position and posture I could tell some were standing guard.
The canopy of oak trees kept most of the rain off us but we were still getting wet.
No one seemed to notice.
“You have a camp somewhere out here?” I asked.
He patted the large backpack on the ground beside him. “Carry it with us.”
I nodded.
The approaching darkness brought with it a light, wispy fog that rolled in and hovered just above the ground around us.
“What the hell’re you boys doin’ this deep in the swamp?” one of the more Southern-sounding soldiers asked. “Y’all lost?”
“We were chasing an inmate who escaped,” I said.
Their eyes grew wide and they exchanged glances. Those not on watch moved in closer.
“Tell us more about this inmate,” the commander said.
“You seen him?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“He’s a white guy a little shorter than me. Thicker. More muscular. Got a bad inmate haircut—”
“Looks sorta like yours,” Merrill said with a smile.
He didn’t return the smile. No one did. There was a new tension in the air now, its presence as palpable as the fog.
“He had on an inmate uniform at first, but now he’s wearing street clothes,” I said.
“How dangerous is he?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Not sure exactly. But he needs to be treated with extreme caution.”
He shook his head, anger flaring in his eyes, as the muscles in his jaw tightened. “We’ll catch the son of a bitch. Don’t you worry about that.”
“I wasn’t asking you to catch him,” I said. “We have rotating teams from the prison and local law enforcement searching the area.”
“Nobody knows this place like we do,” he said.
“If you happen to see him, let us know, but there’s no need—”
“Oh, we’re gonna catch the little cocksucker,” he said, “and God help him when we do.”
“We want to catch him without anyone getting hurt,” I said. “Including him.”
“I can guarantee no more of my men will get hurt,” he said.
One of the men nearby said, “Same can’t be said for the convict.”
I looked back at
the commander. “No more of your men?”
“We’re missing a man,” he said. “And now we know why.”
42
“You think the guy who was lynched is their missing man?” Dad asked.
It was later that night.
Showered and changed, Merrill and I had come to Rudy’s to eat, which we were busy doing when Dad had arrived to talk to us about what we had learned on the river.
“Said he was black,” Merrill said.
“If it’s not him we’ve got another victim somewhere out there,” I said.
Dad shook his head and frowned, his eyes narrowing with concern. I knew he never wanted anyone to die, that he took it personally if someone in his county on his watch did, but I also knew that at the moment he was also considering its impact on his chances at reelection.
“He’s coming in tomorrow to see if he can identify him,” I said, “but I doubt it’s him.”
“Why’s that?” Dad asked.
“If our guy had been a SEAL we would’ve gotten a match on his prints.”
Dad’s frown deepened as he nodded absently
“Unless they really not SEALs,” Merrill said.
Dad’s eyebrows shot up, his eyes widening.
I nodded. “They could be one of those units that don’t exist.”
“Shadow ops shit?” Merrill said. “Black holes. Secret prisons. Sub-contracted killers.”
I nodded.
“For the sake of the homeland,” he said. “We be takin’ the terror to them.”
Merrill and I sat on opposite sides of the booth, Dad in a chair at the end. The table between us was filled with varying sized plates, all with partially consumed food. We had a full-size plate for waffles and smaller plates for bacon, toast, and hash browns. Merrill was having coffee—and a lot of it. Carla had left the pot so he could refill as often as he liked—which was often. I was drinking Dr. Pepper.
“Of course they might not be government at all,” I said. “They could just as easily be a paramilitary militia of some sort.”
“Oh God, I hope to hell not,” Dad said.
“Hell, they could be the ones doin’ all the killin’,” Merrill said. “Maybe Turtle saw something he wasn’t supposed to. Maybe the other victim wasn’t willing to go along with something they did.”
“If you didn’t find them convincing,” Dad said, “why didn’t you—”
“We found their machine guns very convincing,” Merrill said.
Dad smiled.
Carla was at the counter doing her homework. We were the only people in the place—except for Rudy who was passed out in the back.
“Well we’ll know more tomorrow,” I said.
“If he doesn’t show,” Dad said, “what are the chances we’ll be able to find them again?”
“Merrill and I walked straight to them today.”
“You think Jensen was trying to lead you to them?” Dad asked. “Or them to you?”
I thought about it. It was an interesting proposition. “I guess he could’ve been,” I said. “It hadn’t crossed my mind.”
“Think he wanted us to know they’s there,” Merrill said, “or wanted them to shoot us?”
It had stopped raining but the highway out front was still wet, the damp asphalt gleaming dully in passing headlights.
“Least we know he’s still out there,” Dad said. “We can intensify the search now. You think he’s our killer?”
I shrugged. “Can’t rule out the possibility. He’s got a lot of rage.”
“And yet he didn’t kill you.”
“That’s ’cause he heard me coming,” Merrill said with a smile.
And I realized how scarce his smile had been recently.
We were all quiet a moment.
A gust of wind outside scattered some wet leaves and trash around and made the plate glass window beside us creak with the strain.
“Merrill,” Dad said, “did John talk to you about the primary?”
A sharp pang of guilt shot through me and some old familiar feelings of family betrayal rushed to the surface from the suppressed depths where they had been submerged.
“I haven’t had a chance yet,” I said. “I was going to tonight.”
“I need your help,” Dad said to Merrill. “I’m gonna get beat otherwise.”
Merrill didn’t say anything.
“I know one of the candidates is your cousin,” he said, “but . . .”
“Not sure what I can do,” Merrill said. “Let me think about it.”
“I’m running out of time,” he said. “The primary is Tuesday. Please. John and I really need you.”
I felt uncomfortable and tried to think of a way to change the subject.
“Did John tell you I found out the name of that minister from Marianna, the one you saw, and that he’s still missing?”
Merrill nodded.
“We’re gonna find out what happened,” he said. “I promise you that. Once the election is over, we can really—if I’m still sheriff—we can really concentrate on the case.”
Dad was a good, decent, man, and I hated to see him like this. I knew he was just trying to get reelected, that it was a means to an end, but I sat there wishing there could be other means or that he could be less concerned about the end.
We were quiet again, the tension in the air between us apparent.
Finally, Dad stood and said, “Well, I’ve got to go. Please think about what I said. Things could be better in our county, and I’m working on it, but they could be a whole hell of lot worse too. A hell of a lot worse.”
He took a few steps away, then came back. “I know this is going to sound crazy and paranoid, but I can’t help but wonder if what’s happening—the timing and the manner and all—has something to do with the election.”
I thought about it. I was only mildly surprised by Dad’s paranoia. There was a certain egocentric woundedness in him that surfaced from time to time in the form of a kind of victimhood. What he’d just said was a slightly elevated form of that.
What he was saying was farfetched and improbable, but not entirely impossible, not unthinkable. Far stranger things had been done for far lower stakes.
“Anything’s possible,” I said.
“Well, goodnight,” he said.
He patted Carla on the back as he walked past her and dropped money on the counter beside her for our food. He hadn’t eaten.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
Merrill shook his head and waved off my apology.
“I feel so sorry for him,” I said.
He nodded. “I understand,” he said. “He a good man as far as it go.”
I nodded.
“But he also racist,” he said.
I frowned and nodded. “Not nearly as much as many of his generation around here,” I said, “but yeah, he is.”
“If you ask me to campaign for him,” he said, “I will.”
I thought about all my dad had done for me over the years and I was flooded with feelings of gratitude, sadness, and guilt.
I shook my head. “I won’t,” I said. “I can’t. But he’s right. Things could be a hell of a lot worse and I think objectively––at least as objectively as I can be––he’s the best candidate.”
Merrill nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. And John, thanks for not asking.”
“There is something I do want to ask you,” I said.
“Shoot.”
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t say anything.
“I feel like I haven’t been a very good friend lately,” I said. “I’ve been worried about you. I can tell something’s wrong. Just wondered what and what I could do.”
He nodded. “Nothing you can do right now.”
“You sure?” I asked. “I can do a lot of shit.”
He smiled and it was nice to see. “I’m sure.”
“You’ll let me know if that changes?”
“I will,” he said. “And John, thanks for askin
g.”
43
As soon as Merrill left, Carla came over to the booth and slid in across from me.
“How’s your mom?” she asked.
I told her, aware I was talking to a young girl who had no idea where her mother was. As I did I was reminded again of just how much parents injure their children. Carla was smart, strong, and beautiful, but she was also insecure, fearful of abandonment, and uncomfortable with true intimacy—and probably would be for the rest of her life. There are some truly scary things in the world but nothing can compare to the damage done by parents in the formative years of their children’s lives. This, more than any other factor, was the reason Anna’s pregnancy meant there was no hope of us ever being together. At least not in this life.
“You think she’ll get a transplant in time?”
I shrugged. “It’s not looking good.”
She nodded and frowned, then looked down. When she looked up there were tears in her eyes and she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I knew she was crying about far more than my mom, and I was glad to see her tears. They were rare—and she was someone with more than her fair share of things to cry about.
The lights of the diner were dim—something Rudy had devised to save a little more money, and as usual, it was cold. If Rudy really wanted to save money all he’d have to do was bump up the thermostat, but, in addition to being overweight and always overheated, he was convinced, or wanted to be, that it generated more coffee sales and kept his daughter awake at night.
Carla and I were alone. The jukebox sat silently by. Except for the occasional vehicle passing on the highway outside, it was as if we were the only two people left in the wide world.
Carla lingered, periodically wiping her eyes and sniffling, and I knew she had something she needed to talk about.
I waited.
She would get to it when she was ready. She always did.
Eventually, she said, “Know how we have stories that circulate around here? Sort of like rural legends?”
I nodded.
She turned and looked over her shoulder out into the darkness, and I couldn’t tell if she was scared or expecting someone.
Six John Jordan Mysteries Page 128