Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon
Page 21
We were standing in a sparse garden of fake flowers, dotted occasionally by a small tree or shrub.
I was the only one without an umbrella. It wasn’t raining hard. I wouldn’t have cared if it had been.
Pastor Don began with a prayer.
Ida wasn’t crying. No one was.
After reading a few passages of scripture and a poem, Pastor Don delivered an eloquent eulogy, prayed again, his words compassionate and comforting, then committed her soul to God and her body to the ground. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
And then it was over.
Eventually, Ida and I were alone with Jordan.
In the silence between us I could hear all that couldn’t be said. In the distance, the low rumble of thunder barely registered. Not far from where we stood, an American flag on a tall pole snapped smartly in the whining wind, its rigging clanging loudly.
“Got nothin’ to say,” she said at last.
I nodded.
“Well . . . just . . . that I won’t ever get over this.”
“Me either,” I said.
It came out so softly, the wind taking it away so quickly, I wasn’t sure she heard it. I didn’t think it mattered either way.
“You loved her,” she said.
“I did. Part of me still does. Probably always will.”
We stood there for a few moments more, the rain and wind picking up a bit, large drops pelting my head with dull wet thumps I barely noticed. I was soon soaked through, hair dripping, clothes soggy.
“Nope,” she said, “got nothin’ else to say.”
“Me either,” I said. “Except . . . to say . . . I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “Me too.”
She turned to walk away. I stayed behind.
She had only taken a few steps when I turned to stop her.
“Sorry,” I said, “but I need to . . . have to ask . . . Do you wish I hadn’t . . . looked into . . . Would you rather I not have found out who . . . that it was her?”
She stood still for such a long moment I thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Always better to know. Always. No matter the . . . cost.”
She then turned and walked away and I was utterly and completely alone, the half-living among the full-dead, mourning the small, sweet, pretty monster who had done far more damage to me than if she had put me to sleep, for in this waking sleep of living death, what nightmares may come?
I have no idea how long I stood there alone, but eventually I wasn’t alone any longer. Seeming to simply appear out of nowhere, Frank Morgan was suddenly standing beside me.
Like me, he had no umbrella. Like me, he was soaked through––so I knew he had been waiting a while. Like me, he said nothing.
We stood there like that, raindrops wetly thumping us, the soggy ground, and Jordan’s headstone, the American flag flapping in the breeze, an unseen mourner crying for someone unknown to us close enough to be heard, neither of us uttering a sound.
We stood as stonily still and silent as Saint Mark beside us, and we stood that way for a very long time.
I don’t know how long we stood there that way. I only know that during the entirety of our time together there, Frank never said a single word. There was nothing to say and he knew it. What he probably didn’t know, what he couldn’t possibly have known, was how much his silent presence meant to me, did for me. It was as healing as anything that had happened since I had lost everything––my surrogate wife and son, my joy, my confidence, my calling, my way entire––and I would never forget it or him or our random Thursday in the rain.
Blood Money
A John Jordan Mystery Book 8
Copyright © 2015 by Michael Lister
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Book Edited by Aaron Bearden
Book Design by Tim Flanagan of Novel Design Studio
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Books by Michael Lister
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(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
(Jimmy “Soldier” Riley Novels)
The Big Goodbye
The Big Beyond
The Big Hello
The Big Bout
The Big Blast
In a Spider’s Web (short story)
The Big Book of Noir
(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
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How to read the John Jordan Blood Series
The Blood Series
This New York Times bestselling and award-winning series features a conflicted detective—a cop with ties to Atlanta who also works as a prison chaplain in Florida. He’s a man of mercy and justice, compassion, open-mindedness. He’s also a smart, relentless detective.
The John Jordan mystery series is character-driven and realistic—thoughtful mystery thrillers involving the hero’s journey of a good man trying to be even better, as he helps others along the way.
Like John Jordan, the author, Michael Lister, was a prison chaplain with the state of Florida before leaving to write full-time.
If you’re new to the John Jordan series, you can begin with any book, but we recommend one of these 3: Power in the Blood, Innocent Blood, or Blood Oath.
Power in the Blood, the first fiction the author ever wrote, was published over 20 years ago, and though it’s recommended, the books in the John Jordan series don’t have to be read in order.
All the books in the series are novels—mystery, thrillers, whodunits—except for the 3rd book in the series, Flesh and Blood, which is a collection of short stories featuring temporal and metaphysical mysteries. If you don’t care for short stories, feel free to skip Flesh and Blood and continue with the fourth novel The Body and the Blood.
If you decided to skip the short stories and continue on with the novels, we recommend that you read the short story “A Taint in the Blood” in the book Flesh and Blood to find out what happened to Laura Matthers from Power in the Blood.
The 7th
book in the series, Innocent Blood, is a prequel going back to John’s very first investigation. Though the 7th in the series, it can be read 1st or 7th since it’s a prequel.
The 10th book in the series, Blood Cries, is the second in the “Atlanta Years” series within a series following the 7th book Innocent Blood. It can be read 2nd or 10th.
The 17th book in the seres, Blood Stone, is the 3rd book in the “Atlanta Years” series within the series following the 10th book Blood Cries. It can be read 3rd or 17th.
John Jordan is an ex-cop in books 1-10, but once again carries a gun and a badge beginning with book 11, Blood Oath.
All of the John Jordan novels are available in high quality hardback, paperback, ebook, and audio editions.
Interspersed throughout the “Blood” books there are other related books that are part of the John Jordan universe. These books are extremely important to the series and provide essential backstory for characters, connections, and locations of series regulars. Most of all they answer the questions most readers want to know. They include Double Exposure, Burnt Offerings, Separation Anxiety, Thunder Beach, and A Certain Retribution. These are “Blood Series” books without being John Jordan Mysteries.
We hope you will enjoy all the books in the John Jordan series and eagerly await each new entry.
Be sure to join Michael Lister's Readers' Group for news, updates, and special deals on the John Jordan series.
1
I was happy.
I had been happy before but nothing like this. Never anything remotely resembling this.
Moments, glimpses, flashes, always fleeting, always evanescent, always tinged and diluted before had become something altogether different, something absolute, something abiding.
Of course there was much to be unhappy about—both in the macrocosm of the wide world where the wounded, stunted, and sociopathic wanted war and control and more of everything, and the microcosm of my own small world where my dad and I were about to lose our jobs, my mom was about to lose her life, and Anna’s soon-to-be ex was spreading his misery around like a contact contagion––but Anna and I were together, a grace that not only made me beyond happy but put everything else into perspective.
It was a beautiful mid-September evening, a little after four––several hours before the first body would be discovered and then stolen––and Dad and I were riding out to Potter Farm for a quarterly men-only social gathering of not inconsequential political import.
I wasn’t happy about that.
Being away from Anna at a social and political event with only the male movers and shakers––and wannabe movers and shakers––of Potter County and our part of the Panhandle was a special kind of hell for someone like me.
I had never been part of the good ol’ boy club grasping for power and greasing of deals. The truth was I despised it. No matter how mannerly, no matter how seemingly good-natured and benign, the Old South oligarchy was not just corrupt and counter to democracy, but sexist, racist, greedy, and oppressive––a more invisible and insidious incarnation of Jim Crow.
But Dad was up for reelection and facing a very real threat in the general election after narrowly winning the primary, and it’d be political suicide for him not to attend with his supportive sons in tow.
Potter Farm was a forty-acre spread some five miles outside of town and a mile and a half from the prison, with a small lake, a barn, and a rustic old farmhouse.
Vehicles, mostly large luxury trucks, were parked on either side of the winding dirt road that led into the place––and three and four deep in the pasture beyond them.
The setting sun was mostly an orange-and-purple aura behind the farmhouse and barn and the cypress trees lining the lake, its muted glow magical, beautiful, peaceful.
Between the old house and the barn, which was set some fifty yards beyond it, large event tents had been erected beneath banks of generator-powered halogen lights.
As we searched for a place to park, Dad said, “Anything you can do to help me . . .”
I nodded.
“I know this isn’t exactly your kind of . . . but . . .”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“What the hell?” Dad said.
I turned to see what had caught his attention.
Hugh Glenn.
“Son of a bitch’s got some balls,” Dad added.
Hugh Glenn was the Democratic candidate running against Dad, and though this gathering was open to the public, it was being paid for by the Republican Party of Potter County and the four candidates standing for election––Dad for sheriff, Richard Cox for judge, Don Stockton for county commissioner, and Ralph Long for property appraiser.
It was bad form for Hugh to be here, and I wondered if those running against the other three candidates were too.
By the time we parked and were climbing down out of Dad’s shiny new GMC truck, Hugh Glenn had disappeared into the crowd, but Jake walked out to meet us.
“John,” he said.
“Jake,” I said.
Jake and I, like Cain and Abel, were brothers. “How are you?” he asked. “You been able to stop smiling yet?”
I smiled at that and shook my head. “Not yet.”
He was talking about Anna and how happy I was to finally be with her. It was said with more warmth and genuine friendliness that I was accustomed to from Jake—something he had replaced his open hostility for me with since I had helped him out of a jam or two a few weeks back.
“Good crowd,” Dad said.
“Is,” Jake said. “Good sign.”
“Maybe. More likely they’re here for the free food and booze.”
Jake had been here for a while––setting up, cleaning, cooking––and not just because this was his crowd, his friends, but because as a deputy and Dad’s son, his livelihood depended on Dad winning too.
“Fuckin’ Hugh Glenn is here,” Jake said.
“Saw him.”
“And there’s a lot of drinking already goin’ on. I’s you, I’d make the rounds, shake the hands, eat the food, make your speech, then leave before it gets late. No way the after-party ain’t gettin’ out of hand.”
Dad nodded. “Here to do a job. Will leave as soon as it’s done.”
“Well, then,” Jake said, “let’s get to it.”
2
Later, I would think back on every interaction, every observation, attempting to recall every encounter and the thoughts and reactions they elicited, but as I moved through the throng of white men in pressed jeans, Roper Apache boots, and Brushpopper button downs, I had no way of knowing one among them would commit murder later in the night.
The first man I encountered was the head of the Potter County Republican Party, Felix Maxwell.
A largish, colorless man with gray hair and glasses, he had become the head of the party after failing several times to secure a seat in public office––either by election or appointment. He wasn’t particular.
“John Jordan,” he said as he squeezed and pumped my hand. “How the hell are you ol’ son? Whatta you think your dad’s chances are? Pretty good, huh? He could stand to be a little more social, little more friendly, but . . . I’m glad you’re here with him. Means a lot to us.”
“How’d this liberal get in?” someone said as he came up behind me and patted me on the back.
I turned to see Ralph Long smiling at me.
We had been friends in high school but had rarely seen each other since.
He was tall and slim with a bit of a potbelly, in khaki slacks and a navy sport shirt with his name and property appraiser embroidered on it.
“No way he’s a registered Republican,” he said to Felix.
“Actually, ironically, I am,” I said. “Had to switch from Independent to Republican to vote for Dad in the primary.”
“And your good old friend and great property appraiser Ralph Long,” he said.
“I started to, I really did, but then a little voice that sounded like him said he wouldn�
�t want some old bleeding-heart convict-minister voting for him.”
He laughed. So did Felix.
“How are you, man?” he said.
“Good. You?”
“Great. Never been better. It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” I said.
“You were just kidding, weren’t you?” he said. “I need every vote I can get.”
I nodded. “I filled in the little circle beside your name.”
“Thanks man. Please do it again in the general election.”
“Plan to.”
Felix said, “You let me know if there’s anything I can do to convince you to stay registered for the right side.”
And with that they were both gone, on to greet their several other best friends.
I looked around.
In between the two large event tents, an open bar had been set up. Small farm tractors on either side of it held iced-down bottled water and canned soft drinks in their upturned buckets.
I walked toward the tractor on the left in search of a Cherry Dr. Pepper.
On the back side of the house, several enormous charcoal grills on trailers were filled with the best steaks the Potter County Republican party could afford, the smell from them carried by the smoke wafting through the evening air making me salivate.
Negotiating my way through the swarms of men, many with drinks and cigars in their hands, was challenging––particularly while attempting to smile and nod at each one and shake the hand of more than a few.
It would be a while before the steaks and baked potatoes were served, but folding tables with white table clothes held hearty appetizers of fried catfish, oysters on the half shell, venison link sausage, and peel-and-eat boiled shrimp.
The smell of it all made me hungry and I realized I had forgotten to eat lunch. Stopping by one of the tables on my way to the bar, I tossed a couple of catfish filets on a paper plate and kept moving.