“Did you see her at any point?” I asked. “Who?”
“The blonde girl who was killed.”
He shook his head. “Don’t think so. Did catch a glimpse of a girl in the back of the farmhouse but don’t think she was blonde. I was sitting in the front room and it was hard to see. And it was only a short while before the kids came to collect me and my car. We were home before the late local news was off.”
“Notice anything out of the ordinary? Anyone acting suspicious? Anything at all?”
He started shaking his head but stopped. “It’s probably nothin’. And if none of this would’ve happened, I would’ve probably never thought of it again. As we were leaving, Diane’s lights swept across the field and I saw Commissioner Stockton walking toward the woods. It’s probably nothing and I’m not accusing him of anything.
It’s just . . . he had just been inside and to then to stumble out of the house and to be walking funny across the field toward nothin’.”
“Not nothin’,” I said. “The woods.”
I found Don Stockton in the hallway heading toward the county commissioner’s room.
“Got a minute?”
“Sure, pardner,” he said as if I were his best buddy. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m tryin’ to figure out what happened to the girl who was killed at Potter Farm and wondered if you had any ideas.”
“Ideas? About what?”
“Who may’ve done it and why? Did you know her?”
“I never even saw her,” he said. “Give me a name at least and I’ll try to come up with somethin’, but as it is . . . ’fraid I can’t help you.”
“Anybody acting out of the ordinary? Suspicious?
Upset?”
“Not that I noticed . . . but wasn’t really on the lookout for that sort of thing, you know? I’s too busy takin’ your brother’s money.”
“How much is he into you for?”
“We’re square,” he said. “He owes me nothin’.”
“What were you doin’ when you weren’t doin’ that?”
I asked.
“That’s about all I did,” he said. “Winnin’ that kind of money takes more’n a minute or two.”
“But when you weren’t at the table taking Jake’s money, where’d you go and who’d you see?”
“Guess I got up to piss a time or two. Don’t remember seein’ much of nobody.”
“Do you remember anybody leaving the house for a long period of time and coming back?”
“Didn’t really notice, John, but even if I had, I don’t think any of ’em are capable of killin’ anybody––even a hooker––so I wouldn’t point a finger of suspicion at ’em.”
“Why do you think someone stole the body?” I asked.
“Reckon he wasn’t finished with her,” he said.
After leaving the courthouse, I walked over to the sheriff ’s department to discover that Andrew Sullivan was off duty, but Dad was in his office.
“Was hoping to talk to Sullivan,” I said. “Really? Why?”
“He was one of the ones at the after-party,” I said. “And one of the few, according to Jake, who left long enough to have committed the murder and moved the body.”
“I’ll set up a time for us to talk to him.”
“How long were you in there?”
“Where?”
“The farmhouse.”
He shrugged. “Not too long. Shook a few hands.
Said some thank yous. You suspect me?”
I shook my head. “Did you see the victim at any point?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I was just waiting for the right time to mention it. No I didn’t see her. I didn’t see anything suspicious. I would’ve already said something if I had.”
“Who was in there when you were?”
“Jake, Stockton, Andrew, Potter, and Felix were already playin’ cards. If the girls were there they must’ve been in the back. I never saw any of them. Ralph Long was in there running his mouth a mile a minute but nobody was listening. The judge came in and sat for a while but not long. He left before I did. I don’t remember anybody else but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Wasn’t payin’ too close attention. And I was exhausted.”
“Nothing on the body yet?” I asked.
“Nothing. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in all my time in law enforcement. It’s just gone. Have you had any ideas where it might be?”
“Not any you haven’t,” I said. “Put out a description to all agencies in the area. Check all the hospitals and morgues for Jane Does. Beyond that, I’m at a loss.”
“Had any more thoughts on why the body was stolen?” he asked.
“See previous answer,” I said. “None you haven’t.”
I then told him about some of the ideas that had occurred to me earlier in the afternoon as I was walking on the compound.
“The hell you say,” he said. “That’s several I didn’t.
Necrophilia never crossed my mind, you sick bastard.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Later that night I drove.
As Anna and much of the world slept, I ran the roads.
I had too much on my mind, too many things to process, and I felt a restlessness I knew driving Anna’s car would soothe.
Anna’s car was a nearly new Mustang GT—another reason I was jonesin’ to drive.
I was still driving a loaner, a tricked-out black 1985 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS seized by the Potter County Sheriff ’s Department in a big drug bust. Dad had been letting me use it since I wrecked my truck while in pursuit of an escaped inmate.
The Monte Carlo, which had T-tops, pinstriping, a six-inch lift kit, twenty-six-inch chrome rims, illegally dark tinted windows, and a loud dual exhaust, was about as inconspicuous as Liberace at the First Baptist Church’s annual children’s piano recital, and I was sick of it.
Before I left, I created a new playlist for my ipod that fit my dark disposition, which included some Joan Osborne, Emmylou Harris, Jann Arden, and several covers of “Losing My Religion,”
“Ain’t No Sunshine,”
“Paint it Black,” and “California Dreaming.”
The GT had a kickass sound system and I planned to take advantage of it.
As soon as I was on the dark rural highway leading out of Pottersville, I cranked the volume and opened her up, the haunting, mournful sounds of Emmylou Harris’s “Wrecking Ball” a pitch-perfect match for my melancholic mood.
The leather seats seemed to mold to me, holding me in the cockpit-like interior of the iconic car. It’d been a while since I’d driven a powerful automobile, and I’d forgotten just how much fun it could be—especially when equipped with a stick.
The night was dark, only a shadowed rim of moon in a black, starless sky. A low-lying fog hovered just above the highway, the headlights of the GT piercing it, the beams followed hard by the racing pony behind them.
My mind roamed freely.
Anna, love, happiness, the attempt on Lance Phillips, the deaths of Danny Jacobs and the girl at Potter Farm, the cold-case cards, Susan, Chris, Matson, the body propped on the prison fence, Atlanta, always Atlanta, Mom contemplating taking her own life––all shuffling around randomly, then, suddenly, raining down on the green-top table like a deck that got away from the dealer.
I had lost many battles to the noonday demon of depression, but never the war. Never, not even at my lowest, wanted to kill myself. It hadn’t ever even really crossed my mind, at least not in any kind of serious way.
Eventually I reached highway 98 and turned east, heading down the coast.
For a while I tried to figure out the significance of the cards left by the killer, but eventually gave it up and let my mind wander again.
Arbitrary bits bouncing around my brain.
Atlanta. Wayne Williams. LaMarcus. Martin. Jordan.
Stone Mountain. The Stone Cold Killer.
PCI. Molly. Nicole. Tom Daniels. Laura Mathers.
; Justin Menge.
From a now obscure religion class––Confucius teaches there are three ways to learn wisdom: observation, which is noblest; imitation, which is easiest; and experience, which is bitterest.
Paul Tillich’s God above God, what I would call God beyond God. The remembered pleasure of first reading Hemingway and Shakespeare and Graham Greene.
When lights from the city could only be seen in my rearview, I turned off the music and rolled down the windows to listen to the music of the night.
The wind whipped in and out and around the car.
Gulf to my right, slash pine forest to my left, empty road ahead. Waves rolling in and out. Rubber tires on damp asphalt.
Alone.
I found it interesting that at every empty convenience store I passed, the solitary clerks were outside—standing or sitting, smoking or not—all staring off into the distance of the lonely night. Was that which drove them out of the overly lit stores into the dark nights the same thing driving me down the fog-covered highway?
When I reached Port St. Joe, I rode by Cheryl Jacobs’s house on Monument Avenue. Not sure why exactly. Was this where I was unconsciously headed all along?
Her house was a small, square red brick box of a dwelling on a large grass lot absent any landscaping.
To my surprise, no cars filled her driveway or lined her front yard, and through the huge bay window front, I could see she was alone, pacing around, a glass of wine in her hand.
I parked next to the curb in front of her house, pulled out my phone, and tapped in her number.
“It’s John Jordan. Are you okay?”
“No.”
“You really shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“How’d you know I’m—Where are you?”
“Out front.”
“What’re you doin’ here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Come in.”
Chapter Twenty-two
The little light above her front door came on.
I got out of the car and walked up to find her standing in the now open doorway. She was younger than I expected, and pretty, but she looked as if she had packed a lot of living in her short life.
Merrill always said, it’s not the age, but the mileage.
As was usually the case, he was right.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said.
“Me either. I was out driving. Wound up here. When I saw you were alone, I called.”
“I’m glad you did. Come in.”
I followed her into the small, simply decorated house. It was quiet—too quiet, and perfectly still.
Standing on old but clean carpet, we were surrounded by pictures of Danny hanging from the thin, blond paneling—Danny’s various yearbook pictures, Danny in his football uniform, Danny and date leaving for the prom, Danny and his mother, portraits and snapshots of a life lived largely together.
Through an opening above a bar top, I could see her kitchen was empty—no boxes of fried chicken and biscuits, no trays of sandwiches, no Tupperware containers of baked goods, no aluminum pie plates with half-eaten apple and pecan and peach pies in them—nothing a grieving house in the South should have.
“Why are you alone?”
“There are people,” she said. “They would come.” I started to say something, then decided to wait.
Beyond a hint of hardness etched on her face, her eyes shone kind and intelligent, and, of course, sad. So very sad.
“I got pregnant at sixteen,” she said. “Kid with a kid. Paid a hell of a price around here for that. Little slut. Single mom. But I got through it. Went to college.
Eventually both Danny and I were accepted. But when he got in trouble, it started all over again, and I just couldn’t . . . Everyone acted like he was dead when he went to prison . . . That’s when he died for them. No need to tell them now. I’m alone in this tonight because I’ve been alone in this since he went to prison. Nobody’s here because I didn’t tell anybody.”
“I’m sorry.”
The house smelled of loneliness—not bad, just empty—as if one person weren’t enough to stir the air around or make enough odors for the environment to notice.
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. What if it did?”
I smiled and nodded, and thought how many times I had said those same words.
“We’re all alone anyway. I mean, really. Aren’t we?”
“We are.”
“Still, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
“I still can’t believe—”
She wobbled as her knees began to buckle and I stepped toward her.
“Hug me.”
I did.
Standing in the middle of her dim, sparsely decorated living room, I wrapped her in my arms and held her tight.
At first, small tremors ran through her, then she began to shake, then came the sobs, the deep anguished cries, and through it all I just held her. At a certain point, her knees buckled and she collapsed, pulling me down with her, but I never let go.
On the floor, I pulled her even closer to me, felt her tears and snot on my face and shirt. All I could do was hold her, so I did.
There is no sound more desolate, more disquieting than that of a mother mourning the loss of her child. A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because her children are no more.
After a very long time, her sobs turned to gasps, then to sniffles.
Then, as if suddenly and inconsolably embarrassed, she shrugged me off, pushed herself up, tried to stand, fell again, this time on top of me.
“Sorry,” she said. “For . . . everything. I’m a mess. I just . . .”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“Will you help me up?” she said.
“Of course,” I said. And then I did.
“Tell me he didn’t kill himself,” she said when we were standing again.
“I don’t think he did.” She hugged me.
“Oh thank God for that. I know it sounds so silly. Doesn’t change anything, does it, but it means so much to me that he wasn’t so tortured, so desperate, so alone that he took his own life.”
“It’s not silly at all.”
She wobbled again, and I helped her over to the couch and eased her down onto it.
Laying her head back, she closed her eyes and began to breathe like she were falling asleep.
“Have you eaten?” I asked.
Opening her eyes drowsily and squinting up at me, she shook her head.
In another moment, she was out hard, snoring and still half crying in her sleep. Scrounging around her small, sad house, I found a pillow and placed it under her head, and a blanket and draped it over her.
I then went into the kitchen to make her something to eat and drink.
As I rummaged around her kitchen, I saw a pack of cards in a catchall drawer. They were above a pad full of solitaire scores, which made me sad for Cheryl.
The kitchen was small, its appliances dated, its linoleum worn, the varnish of its thin, homemade cabinets fading.
I began to think about the significance of the king of hearts again.
Withdrawing the cards from the drawer, I spread them out on the countertop and looked through them. When I came to the king of hearts it hit me immediately.
I should’ve seen it earlier. It was so simple, so obvious. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t.
Unlike the cold-case decks, which featured a missing person instead of the king, this deck had the actual king—the suicide king.
The king of hearts is also referred to as the suicide king because he’s sometimes pictured holding a knife to the back of his neck or actually stabbed into his head. Originally, the king had an axe, but over the years, the head of the axe was dropped from the picture. What remains looks like a sword—looks like the king is either holding the sword behind or stabbing himself in the head.
With l
imited resources inside, the killer would have to use whatever he could find. The cold-case king of hearts had to stand in for the suicide king.
The message was simple. You think these are suicides, but they’re not. They’re murders. I’m smarter than you. I’m the suicide king.
“What’re you doin’?”
I turned around to see Cheryl standing in the doorway, wearing a thick, light pink terrycloth robe.
“Getting you something to eat and drink.”
“And playing solitaire?”
I laughed. “Trying to work something out. The king of hearts have any significance to Danny or to you?”
She shook her head and shrugged. “Not that I know of. Why?”
“No reason. Just a random, idle thought. Can you eat?”
“A little. Maybe.”
“Have a seat.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure.”
“No. For being here. For . . .”
She looked at me and our eyes locked. I nodded. “My pleasure.”
I thought she might start crying again, but she didn’t.
I stayed with her for another hour or so, then drove home.
Crawling into the warm bed with Anna felt like something I had meant to be doing my entire life.
She roused and we began to kiss.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For?”
“The use of that amazing machine,” I said.
“Anytime.”
“It was an incredible ride. Just what I needed. As I was riding back I got to thinking . . . it cost more than my home.”
“Our home,” she said.
“That’s sweet. We’ll find a better place to call our own soon.”
“I like it here,” she said.
“You’re perfect,” I said, and I meant it. “Whose perfume are you wearing?” she asked. “Cheryl Jacobs,” I said.
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