Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon

by Michael Lister

  I didn’t have an answer.

  The riot squad was yelling “CLEAR” and other congratulatory exclamations, seemingly oblivious to Hahn. They probably thought it was another inmate.

  I spun around looking for something we could use to reach out from the balcony and pull the sheet rope in so we could grab her, but there was nothing. Anything that could’ve worked could’ve also been used as a weapon and wouldn’t be in an inmate dorm.

  Hahn was hanging above me and there was nothing I could do about it.

  She had kicked a bit at first, but now the only movement was coming from the slight sway of the sheets, the only sound the small, sad creak that accompanied it.

  “Why the fuck you shoot him?” Merrill yelled. No one had an answer for that.

  Someone yelled, “Get a ladder from maintenance down here. Now.”

  It would take too long, do Hahn no good. Helpless.

  Powerless.

  Frustration and futility.

  Unable to do anything else, I stood beneath Hahn, looking up at her.

  And I stayed that way. Long after anything could be done, long after she was dead, I still stood there, being with her mortal remains, being with my guilt.

  I had been unable to save her, unable to prevent her death. I had failed her.

  Now all I could do was stand, stay here with her as long as what was left of her was here. All I could do was be present, bear witness, watch over, grieve, and feel guilty.

  47

  He was killed over money?” Cheryl Jacobs said. “Not even—but to cover up the fact that someone else was being killed for money.”

  I frowned and nodded.

  We were standing under the gazebo extending out over St. Joseph’s Bay. I had just told her all I knew and guessed about her son’s death.

  “How do I live with that?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  It was day’s end, and beyond the bay, the entire, expansive horizon glowed a vibrant coral beneath a clear blue sky, both of which reflected on the gently bobbing surface of the bay waters below.

  I thought about Hahn.

  “There’re things I can’t live with,” I said, “but I do.”

  She turned to me, her hurting, glistening eyes penetrating. “You ever lost a child?”

  I shook my head. She was right. What did I know?

  We were quiet for a long moment, the breeze coming in off the bay stinging our eyes, but not enough to account for the volume of water they were producing.

  I had been unable to do anything for Hahn. I was unable to do anything for Cheryl. Except maybe just to be with her, silently suffering alongside her. Wasn’t much, but it was something.

  “This is all so fucked,” she said.

  I nodded. “Yes it is.”

  We stood there long after the glow of the horizon turned from coral to salmon to apricot to the charcoal gray of dusk.

  Before us now the bay was growing black, a glass darkly reflecting the lights of the small town on either side of us.

  I would stand with her for as long as she wanted, this childless mother, this stricken, inconsolable woman, weeping with those who weep, mourning with those who mourn, grieving with those who grieve.

  I was sad.

  For Cheryl. For Hahn. For my mom. For myself. It was a little later that evening, dusk edging into darkness, and I was sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair down by the river behind my trailer.

  Thinking. Feeling. Processing.

  No bottle. Nobody. Just me and my mind––my sometime enemy, sometime friend.

  Guilt.

  I could’ve saved Hahn. Should have.

  I had been too distracted, too divided, too scattered.

  Between my new relationship with Anna, dealing with Mom’s dying and death, the murder at Potter Farm, the Suicide Kings, the warden wanting my job, and Andy Bearden’s body being found in the woods, I had not focused to the extent I should have.

  I wasn’t blaming anything I had going on––only my approach, only my management.

  I had been given enough time to keep Hahn from dying, but I had failed.

  I had been given the grace of time to repair my relationship with my mom but I had not taken full advantage of it, had done only part of the work.

  I had not devoted enough time and energy to finding out who killed the young woman propped up on the prison fence and had barely begun to investigate what really happened to Andy Bearden.

  Well, I could do it now.

  With nothing left to do in the Suicide Kings case, I could put aside my mourning for my mom for the moment and concentrate completely on the Potter Farm victim.

  Sitting up and taking three deep breaths and letting each one out slowly, I opened more than just my mind to what I knew and what I didn’t know.

  I had something earlier, when I got the little jangling inside about real motive for Brent Allen’s murder. Something. What was it? Money. Life insurance policies.

  Last will and testaments. Greed. Subterfuge. Black market organs. Blackmail. Money motive. Blackmail. That was it. Private blackmail. Private humiliation and coercion, not public, not political. Private.

  Why was she at the farm that night? What was her real motive for being there?

  Had she really not gone into the house?

  Who had killed her? Why? Why stage her body against the fence at the prison? Why steal her body? Had the killer stolen the body? Was it even related? I thought about when it had happened and where. I thought again about what the driver had said.

  What secret did her body hold? Why take the risk of stealing her like that?

  I thought about Judge Cox’s crazy proclamation that it was part of the gay agenda and Don Stockton saying everything ultimately came back to the money motive.

  Ralph Long was in the closet. He was also as motivated by money as anyone I knew.

  Names. Faces. Andrew Sullivan. Chris Taunton.

  Deacon Jones. Hugh Glenn. Donnie Foster. Dad.

  Hugh wanted to embarrass Dad. Who else wanted to embarrass any of the other candidates?

  I thought about possible motives for murder. Money.

  Greed. Jealousy. Rage. Revenge. Sociopathy. Power. To silence. To cover another crime. To––

  That was it.

  The right key inserted, the pins aligned in the tumbler, rotation of the plug, and everything began to fall into place.

  Unlocked. Opened.

  48

  You had sex with the victim at the farm that night,” I said.

  He started to deny it.

  “I’m just telling you what I think,” I said. “But if I’m right, there’s evidence to back up everything I say.”

  Somehow without acknowledging or agreeing with anything I’d said so far, he indicated for me to go on.

  “You had a little more to drink than you normally do,” I said.

  “I shouldn’t’ve had anything,” he said. “I rarely ever do.”

  It wasn’t late but it was dark outside and seemed later than it was. We were in Judge Richard Cox’s home office. Just the two of us, in an otherwise very still, very quiet house.

  “But you did drink and your inhibitions were down. Melanie Sagal told me what you like, what you want to do that your wife won’t do. And the blonde, who never went inside––Carla Jean said she never let anyone in––came on to you in the parking area, near your car, after most everyone was gone.”

  He nodded.

  “Offered to give you what you wanted,” I said. “Said she had always been attracted to me, to my wisdom and the way I used my power. Said she wanted nothin’ more in the world than for me to fuck her in the ass. She was so assertive, so in charge, and I was so turned on.”

  “So y’all got in your big black car and had anal sex.”

  “The best sex of my life,” he said. “I’ve never . . . it was . . . so good.”

  “And when you were done . . . there was a revelation,” I said. “Did you make the discovery or––” />
  “No,” he said. “I was still . . . enraptured.”

  “The reveal came because the whole encounter was a setup.”

  He nodded.

  “You had just had sex––according to you, the best sex of your life––with a man.”

  “I didn’t believe her at first,” he said. “See, I still call her a her. She actually had to pull her panties aside and show me her penis before I’d believe her.”

  “Someone had decided to teach you a lesson,” I said. “To make you question your sexual assumptions and your homophobic rhetoric.”

  He nodded. “She said as much.”

  “Which is why you proclaimed this to be a part of a gay agenda at the debate the other night.”

  He nodded again.

  “And when she showed you her penis?” I asked. “When you looked down there and saw it lying there right above where you had just been . . .”

  “I lost it,” he said. “I hit her. I’m old and not very strong, but I was on top of him and I used my weight to hold him there and I hit him. And hit him. And hit him.”

  “But you didn’t kill him,” I said. “You’re old and weak and were tired and drunk and spent. The most you did was daze him a little.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” he said. “I couldn’t. But how do you know?”

  “After you went inside to call your daughter and wait for her to pick you up––something you did because you were too shaken up to drive, not because you thought you had too much to drink––a witness saw her stumbling toward the barn. You didn’t kill her because she was beaten to death and because she had run––actually, been chased for a long way right before she was murdered, and she fought too, put up a hell of a struggle, which is why rigor mortis set in as fast as it did and the killer was able to prop her up against the prison fence.”

  “But why do that?” he asked. “Why take her to the prison? Why prop her up?”

  “He chased her through the woods between Potter Farm and the prison,” I said. “Probably killed her somewhere near where the woods end on the other side. Saw the prison. Thought it would be a way to remove suspicion from the farm.”

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard where she was,” he said.

  “And you panicked,” I said. “You thought if the ME did an autopsy he’d see she was really a guy dressed as a girl and eventually the whole world would know that the anti-gay ‘marriage is between one man and one woman’ judge had had sex with a man.”

  He nodded.

  “So you grabbed a Halloween mask and a shotgun and followed the funeral home hearse on the way to the morgue, ran him off the road, and stole the body. You then drove to the first dirt road you came to, raced down it until you saw the trailer––”

  “I saw a tree stand first, but when I got out I saw the trailer and . . .”

  “You carried him into the trailer, took all the clothes and makeup and jewelry and wig off of him, then shot a dead man in the head with the shotgun to try to cover up the beating he had taken, the other wounds, and his identity.”

  “I did. I did all that, but I didn’t kill him. I wouldn’t.

  I couldn’t. So who did?”

  “Think about the motive,” I said. “You thought it was a gay agenda.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was an agenda, but a personal not a public one.”

  “Huh?”

  “Richie,” I said. “This was about a son sick of hearing his dad condemn him every time he opened his mouth. He wanted to––”

  “Show you how ignorant you were,” Richie said, stepping into the room. “How wrong you were about us, about me. I thought if you had sex with Andy you’d understand.”

  “Andy?”

  “The guy you fucked, Dad,” he said. “He’s––was a friend of mine. He was in my last play. We hung out.”

  “Why’d you kill him?” his dad asked.

  “He had an agenda of his own,” Richie said. “He wasn’t just doin’ it for me. He threatened to go public, to make sure you didn’t get reelected, to expose the hypocrisy of politicians like you. He recorded you. He was gonna post it on Youtube. Share it with the whole world. Make a mockery of you.”

  “So you killed him?”

  “I tried to talk to him.”

  “When?”

  “While Diane was driving you home. Remember, I followed y’all with your car. ’Cept I didn’t follow right away. I tried to talk some sense into Andy. I found him down by the lake washing his face. He wouldn’t listen so then I tried to get his phone from him so I could destroy the evidence against you, but he ran . . . and I chased him. We fought. I didn’t mean to kill him. I just . . . I was tryin’ to protect my dad.”

  “Your dad?” I said. “Or you dad’s job and the money he’s paid to do it, the money he gives you. See, I think you let your real motive slip at the community center the night of the debate. What was it Diane told you? Try living without the assistance he gives y’all. I think you did it for money, which means if your dad does get reelected, every dime he ever makes will be blood money.”

  Richie reached behind his back and came out with a gun––a small .38 revolver popular for personal protection, the kind I was certain his dad had a carry permit for.

  “He is gonna be reelected, because no one’s ever gonna know what happened,” he said.

  He pointed the gun at me. “Richie,” Judge Cox said.

  “I can’t let you do this to us, John,” Richie said, ignoring his Dad. “I’m sorry. I like you.”

  “You liked Andy too, didn’t you?” I said. “So we know that doesn’t carry any weight with you.”

  “Richie,” his dad said again. “Put the gun down. Now.”

  “I’ve got to do this, Dad. For you. For us. This whole mess is my fault. I can’t let our family fall for some stupid prank I tried to pull on you.”

  “Richie,” I said, “I’m wearing a wire. Everything that has been said is being recorded by my dad’s department.

  They’ll be in here as soon as I give the signal. You’ve got no play. Don’t make things worse.”

  “What’s the signal?” he said. “Wait. Don’t say it. Show me the wire. I want to see it. I don’t believe you.”

  Before I could show him, Dad, Jake, and another couple of deputies entered the room, guns drawn.

  “It’s over, Richie,” Dad said. “Put the gun down.”

  He nodded. And for a minute he looked like he was actually going to do it. But then, in a split second, in far less time than it takes to tell it, he brought the gun up to his temple and pulled the trigger.

  His dad screamed. Diane ran into the room.

  Dad and the other deputies rushed him.

  But there was no use. We were the unwitting witnesses of a successful suicide.

  49

  All the way home I tried to reach Anna, but each time I called, her phone went straight to voicemail.

  My heart was heavy. More for Hahn than anyone else at the moment. But I felt bad for the Cox family too.

  I was beyond exhausted, rawbone weary, utterly depleted, finding even the effortless act of driving too much.

  I had the urge to drop by Mom’s and check on her but it was too late. And then I realized the real reason I couldn’t––and just how too late it really was.

  That made me feel even more disconnected, distant even from myself.

  My senses were overwhelmed, overloaded with loss and violence and death.

  I continued to try Anna, and continued to get her voicemail.

  When I reached our solitary trailer in the second phase of the Prairie Palm Mobile Home Community, I knew why.

  The lights were on inside and out, the front door flung open wide.

  Chris Taunton’s car was beside Anna’s in the yard. I parked and rushed in.

  The place was trashed, obvious signs of struggle everywhere I looked.

  It didn’t take long to search the small trailer. Anna wasn’t here. Neither was Chris.
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  Had he taken her? If he had, it hadn’t been far. Not without one of their cars. Was he attacking her right now? Were they outside?

  I ran out the back door, searching the backyard, down toward the river.

  There was no sign they had been out here.

  The same was true of the front and side yards and nearly a mile in every direction.

  I searched both their vehicles, including their trunks, but they weren’t there either.

  As I neared the trailer again, a deep sense of dread began to set in.

  Where could she be? What had happened? Had she been taken? If so, why?

  Did Chris have something to do with it? If so, why would he leave his car? Even if he had someone else helping him in another vehicle, why would he leave his car here?

  Was it possible Chris had nothing to do with it? Was he as much a victim as Anna was? Did he show up at the wrong time? If so, why take him too?

  It didn’t make sense. None of it did. But it would. It all would. And I wouldn’t stop until it did.

  My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number. “John Jordan,” I said.

  “I have your wife,” he said.

  I didn’t recognize the voice. It wasn’t Chris. “She is safe. She is fine. But if you contact the authorities she is dead. If you tell anyone—anyone at all—she is dead. If you do not do exactly what I say when I say, she is dead.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Do you understand?” he asked. “I do.”

  “Thank you for not making ridiculous threats and absurd proclamations. You are wise. This is going to run very smoothly. You do what I say when I say and you’ll have her back safe and sound very soon.”

  “Can I speak to her?”

  “When I call back,” he said. “When I have her situated. For now I just wanted to make sure you didn’t contact anyone before you knew exactly what was going on.”

  “I won’t call anyone,” I said.

  “I have her ex-husband too. He came up as we were leaving and tried to be a hero. He will turn up dead in the next day or so. It will appear to be an accident. You will know what I am capable of.”

  “I only care about Anna,” I said. “Do what you want to with Chris, but there’s no need to kill him to convince me of anything. I’m convinced.”