The Blood-Dimmed Tide (John Joran Mysteries Book 22)

by Michael Lister

  I turn and follow her gaze over to the small crowd gathered on the other side of the crime scene tape and see that Merrick McKnight is among the reporters and onlookers. He and the other reporters are talking to Raymond Blunt, who is on this side of the cordon beside Phillip Dean who, as usual, isn’t speaking.

  “He was at the trial today,” I say.

  “Who?”

  I let out a little laugh. “Are you nervous to see him?” I ask. “I thought you were the one who broke things off.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I read somewhere that things with former lovers can be,” I say with a smile.

  “That’s helpful,” she says. “Thanks. And I hate that term.”

  “What term is that?”

  “Lovers,” she says. “We were lovers,” she adds, drawing it out and making her voice sound like a ’70s WASP newly initiated in the Free Love movement. “He’s my lover. We’re former lovers.”

  “Well, when you say it like that . . .”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “I have a different context,” I say. “A much older one.”

  “Oh, yeah, what’s that?”

  “Ancient religious poetry,” I say. “Hebrew Bible. Song of Songs. Rumi. ‘Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere, they’re in each other all along.’”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Sounds the same to me.”

  “Well, it’s not,” I say. “Not even in the same realm. But I’m about to step over and speak to your former lover. Would you like to join me?”

  She punches me in the arm, and we begin to drift over toward him.

  “And I’ll buy you lunch if you work lover into the conversation,” I say.

  “I’ll buy yours if you don’t,” she says.

  “I was just tellin’ these fine, outstanding members of the press that we’ll release information to them as soon as we have any to release,” Ray says as we walk up.

  “Hey, Reggie,” Merrick says. “How are you?”

  Ray’s thick eyebrows raise and he gives a sideways glance to the familiarity and even intimacy with which this particular fine, outstanding member of the press addresses the sheriff.

  “Hey,” she says. “How’d you do during the storm?”

  “Both my apartment complex and the News Herald building got hit hard.”

  “So you need a place to stay,” I say.

  “How’s it going, John?” he says.

  “You tell me,” I say. “What’d you think of the opening statements?”

  “Anna ate his lunch,” he says. “Don’t you guys agree?”

  He turns and looks at the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reporters and photographers standing nearby.

  National media coverage of Michael—especially post storm—has been next to nil. But the Tampa Bay Times has had its reporter and photographer in the area since just before landfall, and the Miami Herald wasn’t far behind, and at this point about the only non-local and regional coverage we’re getting is from them.

  “We’re objective journalists,” the only woman in the small group says. “We don’t have opinions. But if I did I’d say your wife is a badass and really mopped the floor with ol’ Skeeter.”

  “John, Reggie, this is Gabriela Gonzalez,” Merrick says. “She’s a reporter for the Miami Herald. And this is Grover Arnold—her photographer.”

  The tall, pale, soft Herald photographer says, “Well, I don’t exactly belong to her. Though she certainly acts like I do.”

  “Sorry,” Merrick says. “Didn’t mean—”

  “Just fuckin’ with you dude,” he says. “It’s all good.”

  “And that’s Tim Jonas and Bucky Swanson from the Tampa Bay Times,” he says, nodding toward the smallish, boyish-looking Tim and the old, grizzled, hippie-looking Bucky.

  “I’m his photographer,” Bucky says, nodding toward Tim. “And I do belong to him.”

  Tim says, “You know what they say . . .” his intense blue eyes twinkling in a way that make him look even more boyish. “When in North Florida . . .”

  “People still own people up here, don’t they?” Bucky says.

  “This is our last day here,” Gabriela Gonzalez says to Reggie, “but I’d love to do a feature on you. Not many female sheriffs anywhere, but especially not in the Deep South.”

  “Where people still own people,” Bucky says.

  “As much as I hate stuff like that,” Reggie says, “I’d consider doing it if it’d keep y’all here. Y’all are about the only coverage we’re getting.”

  “Our editor pulled us after the first week,” Bucky says, “but once we got home and saw the dearth of attention this clusterfuck was getting, young Tim with the big brass balls told him we were coming back up here even if it meant we wouldn’t have jobs when we finally returned home again.”

  “No way he’ll let us stay much longer either,” Tim says. “Big balls or not. And I hate it. Nobody outside of here really understands what’s going on inside here. Nobody’s talking about it much and there’s gonna be no significant help if our coverage doesn’t move the needle some. We’ve seen it before—initial help to deal with the emergency crisis and then . . . very little help to actually recover and rebuild.”

  “What have you got?” Merrick asks, nodding over toward the grappler.

  “Not sure yet,” Reggie says. “We’re waiting on FDLE.”

  “Is it a suspicious?” he asks.

  “It’s a off the record,” she says, mocking him playfully. “But the truth is we don’t know enough to be able to say anything for sure yet.”

  “Give us something,” Merrick says.

  “I told you I would as soon as I could,” Raymond Blunt says as if he’s been appointed media liaison instead of crowd control.

  Observing everything and everyone, wordlessly, implacably, Phillip Dean looks down from his high vantage point in a way that feels invasive and more than a little creepy.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s the least you can do for a former lover.”

  Reggie’s lips twitch and she tries not to smile.

  “A do what now?” Gonzalez says.

  “You couldn’t tell?” Ray says. “I could tell. Just by the way they spoke to each other. Cops know people. Thought reporters did, but . . . guess not.”

  Beside him Phillip smiles but doesn’t say anything.

  “You been holding out on us, Merrick?” Tim Jonas says.

  “Thanks, John,” Merrick says with a smirk.

  “It’s an awkward time to bring this up,” Reggie says to Merrick, “but if you and the kids need a place to stay, you know y’all are always welcome with us.”

  The other reporters and photographers react with whoas and whistles.

  “Thank you,” he says. “That’s really good of you.”

  “Talk about an exclusive,” Bucky says.

  “Again, thanks, John,” Merrick says.

  I start to respond but stop as I see Randa Raffield step up to the crime scene tape about twenty feet away.

  Merrick and Reggie follow my gaze.

  “What the fuck?” Merrick says.

  “I’m gonna go find out,” I say.

  “I’ll call Liberty to see what’s going on and radio our deputies to grab her if she tries to run,” Reggie says.

  8

  “Hey, John,” Randa says.

  She is a mid-thirties white woman with pale skin, auburn hair, and impossible-to-read green eyes.

  “Randa,” I say. “How are you?”

  “I’m good,” she says. “Really good. How are you?”

  Since I arrested Randa, she’s been housed at the jail in Liberty County—the facility all female inmates from Gulf County are housed in because we have a male-only jail here.

  “What’re you doing here?” I ask.

  “Heard you had a body,” she says, nodding toward the grappler. “Just wanted to see what was going on.”

  “But how—”

  “Oh, you mean . . .�
� she says. “I’m a free woman now, John. I was acquitted. I mean, we both knew I would be, right, and it finally happened. Took a while, but . . . that’s to be expected. What was it Dr. King said? ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’”

  I smile at that.

  “I know. I know. It’s a bit grandiose to quote King, but I did get justice. Just like I hope you will in your trial. How’s it going, by the way? I wanted to be there this morning but it didn’t work out.”

  The subject of a popular true crime podcast and many online conspiracy theories and irrational rabbit holes, Randa Raffield was at the center of one of the most compelling and fascinating missing persons cases of the past two decades.

  On Thursday, January 20, 2005, the day of George W. Bush’s second inauguration, Randa Raffield, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of West Florida, crashed her car on a secluded stretch of Highway 98 near the Gulf of Mexico not far from Port St. Joe. The location of the wreck was hundreds of miles from where she was supposed to be. Moments after the accident, Roger Lamott, a truck driver hauling fuel, came upon the scene. Randa refused his help, asked him not to call the police, and said she preferred to wait alone for the towing service she had already called. After pulling away, Lamott called the police anyway. Seven minutes later when the first Gulf County sheriff’s deputy arrived, Randa was gone, vanished without a trace. And she stayed gone until a couple of years back when Merrick McKnight and Daniel Davis started a true crime podcast about the case and asked for my help investigating it.

  One of the more complex and complicated people I know, I still have no idea whether Randa is a damaged vigilante avenger or a psychopathic serial killer. What I do know is that she’s both interesting and dangerous, and that life was simpler while she was incarcerated.

  “What’re you still doing here?” I ask. “Figured you’d be long gone the moment you got out.”

  “This place really grows on you, you know?” she says. “I was already thinking about staying—actually, thought we might work a few cases together or something—but now with the storm . . . I figured I’d stick around and help with the recovery. It’d give me a chance to give back.”

  My phone vibrates and I pull it out and glance at it. It’s a text from Reggie saying that the Liberty County jail said Randa had been released after her case was dismissed. Evidently the state’s attorney’s office had concluded they didn’t have enough evidence to bring the case to trial and, after trying to bluff Randa into taking a deal didn’t work, had to dismiss it. They meant to inform us but then the storm happened and well . . .

  “There’s plenty to do,” I say.

  Reggie walks up and says, “You’ve never struck me as a manual-labor kind of girl.”

  “I’m full of surprises,” she says. “How are you, Reggie? I actually wanted to talk to you about possibly coming to work for you. As you know I’ve been a bit of an armchair—or what is it they call it these days, oh yeah—citizen detective with a pretty good track record. Even bested ol’ John here a time or two.”

  “I’m pretty sure he got the best of you every time,” Reggie says.

  “Well, either way, I think I’d like to try my hand at official detecting. I certainly have unique experiences and perspectives.”

  “Sure,” Reggie says. “Drop by my office after we’ve recovered from the hurricane a little more and we can discuss it. We’ll get you set up with a psyche evaluation and some of the other prerequisites.”

  “I noticed you haven’t made an arrest in the Father Irwin and Joan Prescott cases,” Randa says. “Maybe I could help with those.”

  “We’re going to make an arrest,” she says. “As soon as the initial crisis is over and we have a functioning DA and courthouse again.”

  “Randa fuckin’ Raffield,” Merrick says as he and the other journalists walk up behind her.

  “Hey Merrick.”

  “Haven’t seen you since you kidnapped my best friend,” he says.

  “I keep tellin’ everyone . . .” she says. “I didn’t kidnap anyone. Daniel and I just went on a little getaway together. He could’ve come back anytime he wanted to—and eventually he did.”

  “Hi, Randa,” Gabriela Gonzalez says. “I’m a reporter for the Miami Herald, and I’d love to do a feature story on you.”

  “But unfortunately she’s leaving tomorrow,” Tim Jonas says. “But I’m gonna be here for a while, so I could really give your story the time it deserves. I’m Tim Jonas and I’m with the Tampa Bay Times, by the way. Florida’s largest newspaper.”

  “Wow,” Randa says. “Y’all really make a girl feel good. What about you, Merrick? You don’t want in on a piece of this action for the News Herald?”

  “Want no part of it,” he says. “And I wish you didn’t even know I worked for the News Herald. Stay away from me, my friends, and my family.”

  “You came over to me, Merrick,” she says. “Not the other way around. But don’t worry, I won’t be showing up at the News Herald trying to see you. Of course, from what I’ve heard there’s not a lot of the News Herald left. And you have my word that I won’t take Daniel along on any more excursions—no matter how much he begs me.”

  “Well, we’ve got to get back to work,” Reggie says, trying to conceal her annoyance. “We’ll have a press release ready for y’all later this afternoon.”

  “We’ll be looking forward to it,” Gonzalez says. “And maybe later you and I could sit down for a quick interview.”

  “I have some thoughts on what happened here,” Randa says, nodding toward the grappler and holding out business cards to me and Reggie. “Give me a call if you’d like to hear them.”

  9

  “She already has business cards,” Anna says. “How long has she been out?”

  “Not long at all,” I say.

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Really is,” I say.

  We are in our kitchen. I’m at the stove making dinner. She is at the table preparing for tomorrow.

  “She still fixated on you?” she asks.

  “I’m not sure she ever was, but . . . didn’t seem to be. She did mention maybe working cases together. She actually asked Reggie for a job.”

  “Can you imagine?” she says. “Randa with a gun and a badge.”

  Carla has taken Taylor and John Paul for a stroller ride to Lake Alice Park. We will eat when they return.

  I’ve just gotten off the phone with Sam Michaels, my FDLE friend in Tallahassee, letting her and Daniel know that Randa is out of jail, though I’m sure Merrick has already notified Daniel.

  We’re getting a later start on dinner than we wanted to and I got less done this afternoon because of how long it took with the ME’s investigator and the FDLE crime scene unit.

  I’m trying not to disturb Anna, but when she initiates conversation I tell her things I remember from my day. As I stir the spaghetti sauce into the browned ground beef, I tell her about Reggie and Merrick’s interaction.

  “Really,” she says. “She actually invited him to stay with her?”

  “And she meant it.”

  “But in a I want you back or a I’d do this for anyone after the storm kind of way?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Think he’ll take her up on it?”

  “No idea,” I say, “but I hope he will.”

  She stops what she’s doing and looks up at me with a smile on her face. “You hope they’ll get back together, don’t you?”

  “Of course, I do,” I say. “You don’t?”

  She smiles. “My husband the romantic.”

  “What’s not to love about love?” I say.

  “Where you’re concerned my dear?” she says. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Speaking of . . .” I say. “What’s your stance on the term lover?”

  Later, after dinner and giving Taylor a bath and putting her to bed, Anna and I are in our own bed, each of us sitting up, propped on pillows against the headboard
, our work on the bed in front of us.

  Anna is still working on the case.

  I am looking through the files of every death we’ve had in Gulf County since the hurricane. Both the Philippa Kristiansen and PTSD Jerry Garcia cases not only seem suspicious, but make me wonder if perhaps other deaths deemed accidental might not be.

  At this point, Philippa’s death seems more suspicious than Jerry’s, but it’s possible that neither of them are, that they’re both what they appear to be—accidents caused by the storm. But I can’t be sure, and it’s causing me to look at all the deaths during and after the storm differently.

  As usual when in the bed with Anna, especially when she’s in her soft, sexy pajama bottoms and cotton tank top, I’m finding it extremely difficult to concentrate on anything but her.

  She smells so good, her quiet breathing so deep and rhythmic, and through the soft fabric of her tank top I can make out the faint impression of her nipples.

  “Thank you again for how very hard you’re working on this case for me,” I say.

  “Truly my pleasure,” she says. “I literally can’t imagine entrusting it to anyone else.”

  “Me either.”

  “You finding anything interesting?” she asks without looking up.

  I shrug. “I’m just not sure. I just keep thinking that a hurricane is the perfect time for making a murder look like an accident. I’m probably reading too much into this, but some of these deaths seem so much more suspicious than they were believed to be by the investigators at the time.”

  “What did the ME’s investigator say about Jerry?” she asks. “I wish we knew his real name.”

  “I know. We’re working on finding out what it is. She said that we’d have to wait for the autopsy for any kind of determination but that the trauma to the body, which included a fatal blow to the back of the head, could’ve been done by a 2x4, a baseball bat, or the limbs in that pile. But the FDLE crime scene unit discovered blood and other biological matter on at least one of the limbs, which seems to indicate that striking his head on it is what killed him.”