Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon

by Michael Lister

  “Tell me some more about him.”

  “He was the sweetest, kindest boy,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, he’d fight like hell for the underdog, for what he believed in. He was sort of scrappy, but he couldn’t do much. He was so little.”

  “He been scrappin’ with anyone in particular lately?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But he was always taking up lost causes, helping the helpless and hopeless, sharing and giving what he had until he ran out. Perfect example––this is his apartment. He’s just letting me stay here and pay what I can, which isn’t a lot. We’re in college together over at Gulf Coast. He’s on scholarship, gets grants and shit. Me, not so much. He shares it all until it runs out.”

  “What’s he studying?”

  “Theater. We both are. It’s how we met. He’s such a great performer. So dramatic. So brave and committed. Was always blowing me away with the places he would go––so vulnerable, so brave.”

  “Are you two romantically involved?”

  She laughed a little and shook her head. “I don’t really go for white guys––especially if they weigh less than one of my legs––and he didn’t go for girls of any color or size.”

  “And you can’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt him?”

  “No. No way.”

  “Nothing he was mixed up in that might have caused him to cross paths with dangerous people?”

  “No. Absolutely not. He was a straightedge, a real clean kid, you know? Never got involved in anything illegal or even sketchy. Only thing he ever did that was the least bit edgy was gay pride stuff. Marches. Sit-ins. Protests.

  Marriage equality rallies. Stuff like that. But even then, he was so sweet about it, so gentle and kind––even to the ignorant assholes on the other side of the issue.”

  “Does he have a boyfriend?”

  “He’s single. Has been a long time. He’s got friends. Lots of them. He sleeps with some of ’em sometimes, but it’s more cool and casual than you can imagine.”

  “Where’d he work?”

  “Full-time student. I mean, he did some performances. Shows, plays, musicals. Like that. Never makes more than beer money and he actually loses money when he does the drag shows at places like the Fiesta in town and Splash Bar on the beach. The costumes are so elaborate and expensive. Wait. I just thought of something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s got a thing for straight guys and . . . oh wow . . .”

  “What is it?”

  “Where’d you say he was killed? He used to meet a closeted country boy from Pottersville out in the woods between here and there. Called him Roughneck Redneck.

  This was a while back. Hasn’t mentioned him in forever . . . I thought he had stopped seeing him. Think he had. But what if he met him again?”

  “Can you think of anything else about him? A name? Description? Anything?”

  She thought about it. “It’s been a while. He was married. Paranoid. Petrified of being found out. Ron. I think one time he said Ron the Roughneck Redneck . . . but I can’t be sure. Got the feeling he was a pretty big guy. Or maybe he just had a big dick. I can’t remember. I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve been very helpful,” I said. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. If you think of anything else . . . please give me a call.”

  I gave her my number and a hug and left. Walking back to my car, I called Richie Cox.

  “Don’t tell me we’ve got another political event,” he said. “I honestly think I’d shoot myself in the face rather than face another one of those dreadful things.”

  “Calling on a different matter.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  I told him.

  “I’m completely out of the closet,” he said. “I’m as gay as a Christmas pageant and everybody knows it. But I truly sympathize with those who can’t come out––or don’t feel like they can. It’s a lot more guys than you think. Public figures. Married men. Preachers. Men who would lose their families and jobs and more if they ever dared to be truthful about who they really are.”

  “Wish we lived in a different world,” I said. “We’re making it one,” he said.

  “Maybe.”

  “Thing is,” he said, “guys living double lives, hiding so much of who they are, can be full of rage and self-hatred. That kind of compartmentalized duality . . . Wouldn’t surprise me if someone like that snapped. You know if they loathe themselves then they loathe who they’re involved with even more.”

  “Can you think of anyone in our area who fits the description?” I asked. “Maybe or maybe not named Ron. Maybe a big guy.”

  “There’s something . . .” he said. “I can’t quite put my finger on it. No one’s coming to mind, but I feel like some part of me knows something and I just can’t remember it right now.”

  “Think of something else,” I said. “Call me when it comes to you.”

  “Will do. And John.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for caring about us fags.”

  I had reached my car and was about to get in when Clarissa yelled to me from her door.

  She loped over toward me, the massive mounds of her belly and breasts bouncing about as she did.

  “His brother.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sorry,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Wasn’t gonna say anything ’cause I’m a little scared of him, but . . . his brother’s a crackhead meth dealer. He was always in trouble––and always tryin’ to get Andy to bail him out, help him out, give him money, let him crash here. I wonder if something his sketchy ass is involved in got Andy killed. If he got Andy killed, I’ll kill him. Swear to God.”

  “Any idea where I can find him?”

  “He works at some shady clinic. When he works at all. Just does it to steal pills. Why does someone like him get to live and a sweet boy like Andy get murdered? The fuck is wrong with this world?”

  43

  Merrill and I were on our way to Alverez’s clinic when Lawson called.

  “It’s Inspector Lawson. They rushed the autopsy and we got a conference call goin’. Gonna patch you in.”

  “Why are you suddenly including me?” I asked.

  “Want this job,” he said. “Need your help. Warden treated me like shit one too many times. Hold on. Here we go.”

  The line clicked and beeped and we were joined by the pathologist.

  “Go ahead, Doc,” Lawson said.

  Because it was a multi-line conference call, the connection was airy and very difficult to hear.

  “The victim was dead before he was hung,” the voice I didn’t recognize said.

  Everything was being made to look like something other than what it was. Murders staged to look like suicides. Same thing done to Andy Bearden and Danny Jacobs.

  “Y’all were right about the lividity,” he continued. “He died facedown and then stayed there for several hours before he was hung. The bruises on his neck indicates strangulation. We also found bruising at the base of the skull where the murderer exerted pressure. The vessels in the neck were occluded, the face and neck were congested and dark red. There were also some abrasions and contusions on the neck from the force required to kill him. It fractured the hyoid bone . . . thyroid cartilage. Everything I found is consistent with manual strangulation.”

  “Which is what we thought,” Lawson said. “Any surprises?” I asked.

  “Yeah, a big one. It’s not in his medical records, but this young man had one of his kidney’s removed.”

  “Why is that a big surprise?” Lawson asked. “Because,” he said, “it was done very recently.”

  The pathologist hung up. Lawson searched through Allen’s file. I waited.

  “Allen hasn’t been to an outside hospital the entire time he’s been locked up,” Lawson said when he came back on the line. “That mean what I think it does?”

  “Either he was taken out secretly, unofficially . . . or it was remov
ed inside.”

  “How the hell could an inmate have an organ removed inside the prison?”

  I told him everything I knew about Alvarez and Baldwin, their shadowy pasts, their suspicious behavior, their involvement with Danny and Lance and Brent, and what I had learned about hypnosis.

  “She can really make ’em stop bleeding and forget they were operated on?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Why would they—”

  “Why do people do most of the evil they do?” I said. “Money.”

  Something inside me jangled ever so slightly. Why?

  What was it? Money. Life insurance policies. Last will and testaments. Greed. Subterfuge. Black market organs.

  Blackmail. That could be it. Money motive after all. Just not through life insurance. Private coercion and humiliation, not public. Private motives, not political ones.

  “What about the scar?” he said.

  “Baldwin probably gives them some explanation to believe while they’re under that she and the doc reinforce when they’re conscious again—tells them it’s a cut or something. I don’t know. I’m just guessing.”

  “I’ve got to notify the IG, FDLE, the—”

  “Yes you do,” I said.

  “Then what?” he asked.

  “Do I try to detain them? Hold them ’til—”

  “Don’t tip them off. Just don’t let them be alone with anyone. Make sure they can’t cut on anyone else.”

  Juan Alvarez had arrived at the clinic he owned in Panama City shortly after six in the evening. No one had gone in or come out since then.

  The front of the clinic, the waiting room and reception area, were dark, but lights burned in the back where the exam rooms were located.

  Merrill and I were parked across the street in the lot of a closed insurance office. Waiting. Ironically, it was my inability to wait that had us here. Soon, several agencies, including FDLE, Potter and Bay County Sheriff Offices, and the Tallahassee and Panama City Police Departments would be investigating Alvarez and Baldwin, but that kind of bureaucratic cooperation took time, moved very slowly, and waiting for it could get more people hurt or killed.

  We were close. I could feel it. We had momentum.

  Waiting would endanger more lives, and truthfully, selfishly, I wanted to see this to the end.

  If the other agencies showed up, Merrill and I would back away quietly. If they didn’t, we’d try not to do anything to jeopardize the case they would eventually try to make.

  “You really think they selling inmates’ spare parts on eBay?” Merrill asked.

  “I doubt they’re using eBay.”

  “Wonder how long they been at it?”

  “Haven’t been at PCI long,” I said. “Couldn’t have done many. No telling what they did before they washed up there. People like them do damage everywhere they go.”

  He nodded. “Think they targeted the Kings or—”

  “Probably start with inmates who spend a lot of time in Medical or Psychology, then narrow those down by blood type and ease of induction.”

  “Ease of what?”

  “Their ability to be hypnotized.”

  Lights shone on the street, and a black Mercedes pulled in and parked near the side entrance of the clinic.

  A young Hispanic man jumped out and ran inside. “We crash the party now,” Merrill said, “or wait until—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, the young man rushed out of the clinic carrying an orange ice chest with red medical stickers that clashed with the cooler.

  He jumped into his car and sped off. We followed.

  He led us out of the downtown district and across town on side streets, Merrill lying back, as often as possible keeping a few cars between us.

  He was probably not expecting a tail, but even if he were, I doubt he could spot Merrill. In any event, he didn’t seem to notice much of anything. He was too busy trying to look cool as he nodded his head to the beat. My guess was the only time he looked in the rearview mirror was to see himself.

  Eventually, he led us to the airport.

  He pulled into long-term parking and we followed.

  He got a time-and-date stamped ticket and so did we.

  Merrill pulled in beside the Mercedes, putting my door next to the driver’s. I waited until he was out of his car before I shoved my door into him.

  The door struck him in the back and slammed him up against his car. But before I could get all the way out the door, he swung around and drew a gun from a shoulder holster and pointed it at me.

  The sound of Merrill’s .357 as he thumbed back the hammer and placed it just behind the guy’s ear got his attention.

  He lowered his gun and handed it to Merrill.

  I climbed out of Merrill’s truck and closed the door. “What’s your name?”

  “Justo.”

  “Justo who?”

  “Alvarez.”

  “How’re you related to Juan?”

  “He’s my uncle. Sort of.”

  “What brings you to the airport tonight?”

  “To visit relatives.”

  “Where?” Merrill asked.

  “Miami,” he said, cutting his eyes toward Merrill nervously, not daring to turn his head.

  “Cool-looking suitcase you got there,” I said, nodding toward the orange ice chest he was holding.

  “It is a present for my mother.”

  “She need a transplant?”

  His mouth actually fell open. “What is it?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Obvious he a brain donor,” Merrill said.

  “You do not understand. It is a special pie I made for her.”

  “You made your mother a pie?” Merrill said. “Well, not me, but my aunt.”

  He was just saying the first thing that came to his mind, and as lame as it was, it was the story he was sticking to.

  “She is very ill and I bring her what she loves when I visit her.”

  “That why it has medical stickers on it?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Si. Yes.”

  “Open it,” Merrill said. “I like homemade pie.”

  “It will ruin it if I open the container.”

  Without moving the gun, Merrill used his other hand to grab the container and hand it to me.

  I broke the medical seal with a key and opened it. Inside was a human kidney on ice.

  “I am trying to save a life,” he said. “Please. I implore you.”

  “Well, hell,” Merrill said, “why didn’t you say so sooner. We didn’t realize you were imploring us.”

  “Please.”

  “Tell us what the fuck’s going on,” Merrill said.

  He shook his head.

  “You rather tell the police?” I asked. “Tell us and you walk.”

  “Don’t tell us,” Merrill added, “you may never walk again.”

  He seemed to consider this a moment.

  Eventually, Merrill hit him in the back of the neck with the butt of his gun.

  “He harvests organs and sells them to wealthy people around the world. They go from here to Miami and then to Cuba or Mexico. Sometime other places.”

  “Who’s giving up their organs?” I asked. Merrill added, “And are they doing it willingly?”

  “Inmates mainly,” he said. “Sometimes women who come to his clinic for abortions. Can I go now?”

  “He use Dr. Baldwin to hypnotize them?” I asked.

  “The prison shrink lady? Yeah.”

  “For anesthesia? To make them forget?”

  “Both, I believe . . . and . . . to stop the bleeding.

  Please. We’re saving lives. No one is getting hurt.”

  “How you figure that?” Merrill said.

  “We are stopping anyway. Uncle wants out. One more. That’s it. Then no more.”

  “One more?” I asked.

  “Si.”

  “After this one?”

  “Si.”

  That’s it, I t
hought. “I’ve got to call the institution.” I pulled out my phone and punched in the number.

  “Why he quittin’?” Merrill asked.

  Justo shrugged.

  “Danny and Brent dying,” I said. “Too much heat.”

  “Don’t think your ass ain’t testifying against these sick fucks,” Merrill said.

  “You said I could go.”

  “No, he said you could walk. I said—”

  Shots began to ring out, pocking metal, shattering glass all around us.

  Merrill and I dove to the ground and rolled for cover. Justo fell to the ground after being shot twice in the chest. He was dead.

  When the shots stopped we jumped up to see the Hispanic cowboy who had warned me off at the convenience store speeding out of the parking lot.

  He yelled, “Hey amigo. I shot someone now, haven’t I? Mother fuck.”

  44

  I was racing back toward the institution in Merrill’s truck.

  He was at the airport awaiting the arrival of the cops.

  “Sure,” he’d said before I left, “leave the black man to deal with the police. What could go wrong?”

  On my way, I called Dad and had him call the sheriff of Bay County and ask him to personally respond to the scene to preclude the possibility of anything going wrong.

  I then called the institution and asked the control room sergeant to find the inspector for me and to let me know if Alvarez or Baldwin try to reenter the prison.

  “John, they’re both already here,” she said.

  “Find the inspector,” I said. “Have him call me as soon as possible.”

  When I reached the institution, I ran to the control room.

  In the parking lot not far from Alvarez’s and Baldwin’s cars, I saw Hahn’s. The way I had things figured, she wasn’t involved in any of this. Was I wrong? Had she been playin’ me all along?

  “Inspector’s not answering his phone.”

  “Keep trying. Tell him I’m in Medical. To get down there as soon as he can.”

  The control room sergeant buzzed me in and I jogged down the dark compound and entered Medical.