“Oh my God,” he says. “We always had a nightcap. Always. He insisted on it. And I always slept better when we were out on assignment. It was like this joke . . . no matter how shitty the hotel, I still slept great. He said it was his soothing presence. Fucker was drugging me so he could . . . go out and . . . do what he did.”
I nod.
He shakes his head and frowns. “If I had just . . . realized what was . . . going on. I could’ve . . . saved so many lives.”
“No one in any agency in multiple jurisdictions ever suspected anything,” I say. “You’re being way too hard on yourself.”
“They weren’t sleepin’ with him. I mean . . . you know . . . sharing a room with him. He’s gotta be one of the most prolific serial killers in the . . . in history.”
“He was able to operate under all radars for so long,” I say. “He really used the chaos and confusion and the devastation and depletion of these storms and their aftermaths in a masterful way. And when what he had been doing was finally brought out into the light . . . I think he was going to frame Randa for it all, leave the area, and continue what he had been doing—maybe even altering slightly his MO and signature if he could.”
“Did you read the paper’s statement?”
I shake my head. “Haven’t see it yet.”
“Was a sincere apology. Wonder what kind of liability they’re looking at—sending him out to all these places to . . . murder . . . all these hurting and helpless people. Our leading crime reporter arrives today. Going to take over the reporting. They’re letting me file our final story—something I’ve never done before. Merrick is helping me write it. But . . . what the hell do I say?”
59
Judge Wheata Pearl Whitehurst says, “I understand we have a verdict.”
Her smoker’s throat is phlegmy and she coughs and takes a long pull from her rattlesnake mug.
“We do, Your Honor,” the foreperson says.
My heart is thumping in my chest and all I can hear is the sound of blood rushing through my ears.
I glance back at the full courtroom behind me for a supportive face. I find several. Dad and Verna. Merrill. Jake. Randa. Tyrese. Merrick. Reggie—who even with a bandage on her head is present to offer her support.
The foreperson hands the verdict form to the bailiff and the bailiff carries it to the judge. After looking over it without reaction or expression, the judge has the bailiff take it to the clerk to be published.
As we stand I am shaking slightly, and I take a few deep, slow breaths in an attempt to calm down some.
Anna reaches over and takes my hand.
“Now, before the clerk reads the verdict,” Wheata Pearl says, “I want to remind everyone that this is a very serious matter. What this is not is a sporting event. I don’t want to hear any cheering or outbursts of any kind. Y’all hearin’ ol’ Wheata Pearl on this?”
There are lots of nods in the courtroom. I am unable to because of how much I’m trembling.
The clerk holds the verdict form out in front of her, clears her throat, and says, “Did the plaintiffs prove their case? No.”
Though the clerk continues to read I don’t hear anything after that.
Anna proved her case not only to me but to a jury of my peers.
We don’t celebrate. There are no hugs or pats on the back. If we show any reaction at all it is perhaps the exhalation of relief. The extent of what we do is squeeze each other’s hand a little harder.
Later that afternoon, before we do anything else, we take the money we borrowed, the money we would’ve had to pay if we had lost, and as we had previously agreed, we donate it to the charity that Bryce and Melissa had chosen and we do so under the name of Derek Bryce Burrell in his honor.
This act, which I knew I had to do the moment the idea occurred to me, will cause an even greater financial strain on our family, and Anna is an absolute saint to be so supportive of us doing it.
It isn’t have been the charity I would have chosen, and that’s the point.
This act is not one of contrition or penance, and it doesn’t make me feel less guilty or give me the sense that I’m doing anything other than the least I can do.
As word of the verdict spreads, my phone vibrates nonstop from calls and texts and emails—mostly comments of congratulations from friends and family and requests for a comment or an interview from the press.
After only a few moments I power it off, and leave it that way until much later in the evening.
60
Three weeks to the day since Hurricane Michael ravaged our region, devastated our little town, and altered our lives forever, beneath a harvest-orange sun in a clear baby-blue sky, we work to salvage Halloween.
Since so many of the homes in town are damaged or destroyed, and so many of the neighborhoods are still unsafe, this year’s Halloween festivities are confined to a community carnival on the campus of Northwest Florida Head Start and trick-or-treating on a closed-off section of 2nd Street.
Because no stores in the area that carry Halloween costumes are open and because our town is too torn up for most online deliveries, most of the kids participating are wearing homemade costumes or costumes that have been donated by outside organizations.
Anna and I take Taylor, Johanna, and John Paul to the carnival first and then down to 2nd Street. I carry John Paul, Anna pushes Taylor in a stroller, and Johanna walks between us.
The celebration, which seems to include most of the town, transcends Halloween and gives us all a chance to set aside, however temporarily, our fatigue and frustration and anxiety, and to join each other in enjoying our costumed children.
The carnival consists of face painting and bouncy castles and the kind of sidewalk games that school and church carnivals did when I was a kid—bobbing for apples, ducks in a barrel, and fishing through a cardboard-covered doorway. There are also cakewalks and hotdogs and hayrides.
Later, in the calm, cool evening, we stroll down 2nd Street speaking to our neighbors, bragging on their kids’ costumes—especially the homemade ones, which there are more of this year.
The homes on both sides of this section of 2nd Street are close together and are close to the sidewalks, and we hit everyone—our sweet little angel, cop, and Beatle saying “trick-or-treat” and, after having candy placed inside their plastic jack-o’-lanterns, “thank you.”
I notice that my neighbors and loved ones are as tender since the storm as I am, many of them sniffling or tearing up as we talk about what we’ve been through.
Of all the touching expressions of love and resilience we witness, perhaps the most meaningful of all is how the empty lots along 2nd Street are filled with people who live in other parts of town, some of whom no longer have homes of their own, who have set up tents and decorated them with skeletons and scarecrows, ghosts and witches, and are passing out candy the way they would if they had a neighborhood.
The entire experience is encouraging and inspiring and communal and hope-giving in a way that does something for us individually and collectively to an extent the depth of which is difficult to explain.
“We survived,” Anna says, and I can tell she’s talking about far more than just the storm.
“Yes, we did,” I say.
And not just us, but our family and friends, our neighbors, and our community as a whole.
We are wounded, but alive. We are battered and broken but not hopeless. Life will never be the same here. We will never be the same. But life will go on. We will go on.
As I think about what we’ve been through, what is still left to endure, some Yeats drifts through my mind.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned . . .
In our widening gyre, things fell
apart as anarchy was loosed upon us and we lost our innocence, but in some ways—the most meaningful and significant and crucial ways—our center held and continues to hold, though nothing else does.
Also by Michael Lister
Books by Michael Lister
(John Jordan Novels)
Power in the Blood
Blood of the Lamb
Flesh and Blood
(Special Introduction by Margaret Coel)
The Body and the Blood
Double Exposure
Blood Sacrifice
Rivers to Blood
Burnt Offerings
Innocent Blood
(Special Introduction by Michael Connelly)
Separation Anxiety
Blood Money
Blood Moon
Thunder Beach
Blood Cries
A Certain Retribution
Blood Oath
Blood Work
Cold Blood
Blood Betrayal
Blood Shot
Blood Ties
Blood Stone
Blood Trail
Bloodshed
Blue Blood
And the Sea Became Blood
The Blood-Dimmed Tide
(Jimmy Riley Novels)
The Girl Who Said Goodbye
The Girl in the Grave
The Girl at the End of the Long Dark Night
The Girl Who Cried Blood Tears
The Girl Who Blew Up the World
(Merrick McKnight / Reggie Summers Novels)
Thunder Beach
A Certain Retribution
Blood Oath
Blood Shot
(Remington James Novels)
Double Exposure
(includes intro by Michael Connelly)
Separation Anxiety
Blood Shot
(Sam Michaels / Daniel Davis Novels)
Burnt Offerings
Blood Oath
Cold Blood
Blood Shot
(Love Stories)
Carrie’s Gift
(Short Story Collections)
North Florida Noir
Florida Heat Wave
Delta Blues
Another Quiet Night in Desperation
(The Meaning Series)
Meaning Every Moment
The Meaning of Life in Movies
The Blood-Dimmed Tide (John Joran Mysteries Book 22) Page 26