“What’s that?”
“Justice.”
Ida shakes her head and lets out a harsh, loud laugh. “Qwon never stood a chance.”
3
“Justice and I weren’t really friends,” Acqwon says. “Just more like . . . acquaintances, I guess. We were in the same grade, had some classes together, but we never hung out, never did anything together. Not that I can remember. I bought weed from him sometimes. Probably smoked with him on a few occasions, but . . .”
“Why do you think he did it?”
“I have absolutely no idea—and I’ve spent the last eighteen years thinking about it. That’s what was so shocking about it. Well, the fact that it happened, then the fact that anyone could think I could do it, but after that . . . that anyone would believe I’d go to Justice for help burying the body. I just couldn’t believe it. Imagine someone you barely know accusing you of killing someone and saying they helped you, actually became an accessory after the fact and was willing to go to prison for it. You’d be in shock, wouldn’t you? You’d wonder for the rest of your life what did I ever do to this guy that he would do something like this to me. Wouldn’t you? It was the most surreal experience imaginable.”
Handsome and fit, Acqwon Lewis is surprisingly upbeat, energetic, and youthful. An African-American man in his mid-thirties, he looks and acts at least a decade younger. His eyes are clear and bright, his manner easy and relaxed, his smile, which he flashes often, genuine and infectious.
If he’s a cold killer, he’s the warmest I’ve ever encountered. If he’s an innocent man, he’s served nearly two decades of hard time and shows no signs of anger, bitterness, or frustration. Even in regards to Justice’s betrayal, if that’s what it is, he seems more baffled than anything else.
He’s inside the claustrophobic confinement cell in what is known as the box—a building of bare six by nine cinderblock cells used for disciplinary action. It’s like jail in prison. Inmates who break prison rules are removed from open population and sent to solitary confinement. With none of their property and no contact with anyone but staff and the inmate who delivers their food tray, they spend all day every day in what isn’t all that much larger than a coffin.
I’m out in the hallway outside Qwon’s cell, squatting down on the bare concrete floor talking to him through the open food slot in the massive metal door.
It says a lot for Qwon’s mental toughness and good natured optimism that he can remain upbeat in such a setting and situation.
“Do you think he killed her?” I ask.
“It’s hard to imagine. Really is. Maybe he did. Maybe that’s why he said I did it. Would explain a lot—why he did it, how he knew things about it, but to be honest with you, I just can’t see it. He really doesn’t seem like the type to me. And I can’t imagine he could ever get anywhere close enough to Angel to actually do it. She was tough and street smart and . . . like, real careful.”
“Someone got close enough to her to do it,” I say.
“Yeah, that’s true. I guess they did.”
“Could Justice be covering for someone else?” I ask.
“I thought of that. I guess he could. That would explain it, make sense, but . . . I can’t imagine who it would be. He was a loner. Never had a girlfriend. Didn’t really have any friends. Can’t imagine who he’d do something like this for.”
“You ever ask him?” I say.
He shakes his head. “Haven’t spoken to him since the night they say I killed Angel.”
“Tell me about Angel, about your relationship.”
“To be honest with you, it was pretty casual. We liked each other. Had a good time. But we weren’t like Romeo and Juliet or anything. I cared for her. But I wasn’t like madly, passionately, deeply in love with her. Don’t get me wrong, she was great. And I liked her a lot. I just wasn’t like crazy about her. Truth is, we had just started dating. Plus, she was like this sort of hard, tough, take-no-shit-from-anyone kind of girl. Wasn’t as if you can get really gushy over a girl like that. She won’t allow it.”
“Your sister and aunt said her previous boyfriend was still hung up on her.”
“Oh yeah,” he says, nodding, “in a big way. Eric Pulsifer. Kids called him Pussifer. He was a whiney, wimpy little punk. Guy was nuts. See . . . I would think he did it, but there’s no way Justice would help him or cover for him. That, and I don’t think wormy little Eric could take badass Angel. I know for a fact she whipped his ass more than once while they were together. The whole thing is just inexplicable. Only thing I know for sure is that I had nothing to do with it.”
I think about what he’s said.
“You mind me asking . . . why you’re interested in all this?” he says.
“Ida and I go way back,” I say. “Way, way back. Told her I’d look into it.”
“Look into it? You mean like my case?”
I nod.
“I’m not bein’ smart or anything, I swear, but . . . what could a chaplain do that all the cops, private investigators, lawyers, reporters, and my own sister couldn’t? Wait. What’d you say your name was?”
“Jordan,” I say. “John Jordan.”
“You . . . you’re the one who figured out who killed Lamarcus, aren’t you?”
“Had a hand in it,” I say, nodding.
“And you’re a prison chaplain?”
“Among other things.”
“Aunt Ida and Katie asked you to look into my case and you’re going to, for real?”
I nod.
“Man . . . I’m grateful and all, I am, but . . . wish it could’ve been about eighteen years ago—or even five or ten. Only way I’ll get any post-conviction relief now is if you find new evidence.”
“Maybe we will.”
“Well, if it’s all the same with you I won’t get my hopes up just yet. I’ve found a way to be at peace, even happy most of the time in here, and hope ain’t a part of it.”
“I understand. What is?”
“Having no expectations,” he says. “Acceptance is the path to peace. My equilibrium comes from living in the present moment with no attachments, no desires, just embracing what is.”
“You Buddhist?” I ask.
He smiles and lets out a little laugh. “Katieist. She writes me these long letters and we have these marathon phone conversations, and she mails me these books to read. Not sure what it is, just know that it works.”
“Which is what matters most,” I say. “I’m gonna see them this evening—Kathryn and your aunt. Want me to tell them anything for you?”
He smiles and nods. “Thank you. Yes. Let them know not to worry, that I’m all right, I’m good. Tell them I’m in here over something stupid I didn’t even do and should be out soon. Tell them I’m sorry I couldn’t get word to them to save them the trip, that I feel bad they drove over for nothing. Especially Aunt Ida from Atlanta. Tell them how much I love them and I appreciate them, they’re the only ones who have stuck by me. Let them know their faith in me is justified, that I really am truly innocent, and that someday, somehow everyone will know.”
I stand to leave, take a few steps then turn around and walk back where I was. “Why are you in confinement?”
“I’m on TV again. My case, I mean. Every time my case is on one of those true crime shows, on the news, or in the papers, guards—well, one guard, uses it as an excuse to lock me up. Says it’s for my own protection but it’s not.”
“What show?” I ask. “Which officer?”
“Convicted Innocence,” he says. “It looks at what they believe to be unsolved cases where an innocent person was wrongly convicted for the crime.”
“And you’ve been on others?”
“Yeah. TV shows. Radio programs. Podcasts. Sometimes it’s just like what really happened to Angel Diaz?” He says this last part in his best, deep broadcaster voice. “Other times it’s a look at the entire case. Sometimes they say I’m innocent, others, that there’s a need to find her remains and give her family cl
osure. The lady from Convicted Innocence believes I’m innocent and is trying to get the case reopened. I doubt anything’ll come of it, but it makes me feel good that somebody believes me, that somebody is trying to remind people that Angel’s killer is still out there, that he got away with it.”
“Who do you think did it?”
He shakes his head and lets out a long, heavy sigh. “I have no idea. It’s . . . it doesn’t . . . all this time later and it doesn’t even seem real to me. Only thing I can think of is that she crossed paths with a killer. That walking down Beach Drive she ran into the wrong person. Nothing else makes sense. No one I know would want to kill her.”
“And the officer?”
“Sergeant Payne,” he says. “Troy Payne.”
4
“Chaplain, don’t let that slick bastard pull the wool over your eyes,” Troy Payne says.
He’s waiting for me at the end of the hallway in confinement.
Troy Payne is ignorant and arrogant—that dangerous combination that so often goes together. Jacked up on roids and a life spent in front of mirrors in weight rooms, he’s a thirty-something Neanderthal with feathered blond hair, a gold chain around his neck, and too much cologne.
“He’s smooth and comes across all innocent and shit but he’s a vicious rapist and killer of women.”
Incarcerated since he was eighteen, Qwon has spent as much of his life inside prison as out. He’s never been charged with or even accused of rape, and as far as I know, no one has ever said he killed anyone but Angel.
“Really?” I ask. “What makes you say that?”
“’Cause he is.”
“He was convicted for the wrongful death of his seventeen-year-old girlfriend when he was eighteen,” I say. “He’s been inside ever since. How does that make him a rapist and killer of women?”
“He’s already got you fooled.”
With that he turns and waddles away, his thick, bowed-up body, tight and swollen, making it difficult for him to move, his arms hanging out wide at his sides in the manner of bodybuilders.
Earlier I had invited Ida and Kathryn over for dinner, and though I’m already running late, I stop by my office on my way out and do a quick search of Angel Diaz to try to figure out why her name sounds so familiar to me.
As soon as the first image appears on my screen I realize why the name is so familiar, and it has nothing to do with Acqwon Lewis or his girlfriend Angel Diaz. She just happens to have the same name as one of Florida’s most notorious death penalty cases.
On December 29, 1979, three men robbed a Miami strip club called the Velvet Swing Lounge. During the commission of that crime, while everyone else was locked in the bathroom, the manager, Joseph Nagy, was shot and killed.
Angel Diaz, a twenty-eight-year-old Puerto Rican man was believed to be one of the three robbers. In 1983, his girlfriend at the time told authorities that Diaz had confided in her that he had been involved. In 1986 he was found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, attempted robbery, and felony possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to death.
Diaz was largely convicted on the testimony of fellow Dade County inmate Ralph Gajus, who testified that Diaz confessed in his cell that he had been the one who pulled the trigger. However, Diaz spoke very little English and Gajus understood almost no Spanish, and later Gajus recanted his entire testimony, claiming he lied to get back at Diaz for not including him in an escape attempt.
Angel Diaz maintained his innocence until his death.
But none of this is why Angel Diaz and his case are so notorious that the name was familiar to me.
Angel Diaz is best known for the severity with which the state of Florida botched his lethal injection execution.
On December 13, 2006, the state of Florida’s execution team pushed the IV catheter’s needles straight through the veins in both his arms and into the underlying soft tissue. As a result, Diaz required two full doses of the lethal drugs, and the execution that should have only taken ten to fifteen minutes took over two to three times that.
A medical examiner said that Diaz had chemical burns on both arms, and many anti-death penalty activists claimed what was done to him amounted to torture, cruel and unusual punishment.
It was so bad, in fact, Jeb Bush, the then-governor of Florida, issued a moratorium on executions.
None of this has anything to do with Angel Diaz, the Bay High junior who went missing on January 16, 1999, or her boyfriend Acqwon Lewis, who was convicted of killing her, but I now know why her name was so familiar to me.
On the drive home, I turn on Merrick McKnight’s podcast.
Merrick is a former reporter and the significant other of the Gulf County sheriff and my other boss, Reggie Summers. His true crime podcast is extremely popular—not only because he does such a good job with it, but because the first case he ever investigated on the show was solved. Not only was it solved, but in the process his partner on the show went missing and the guilty party got away. At that point his show changed from In Search of Randa Raffield to In Search of Daniel Davis and eventually just became In Search of. Having a successful resolution to his first case but losing the suspect and his partner as a result was enough to give him the number one podcast in the world for a while, but then another case he covered, the ten-year-old unsolved mystery of a young school teacher from Ocala named Lina Patterson, was also solved and the show’s popularity grew even more exponentially and took on an aura of investigative invincibility.
“Welcome to another episode of In Search of,” Merrick says. “I’m your host, Merrick McKnight.”
Merrick records the shows late at night now, and it sounds like it. As if an overnight DJ on an old fringe FM station, his resonant voice sounds slightly haunted and a little world-weary as though he’s drinking and smoking as he does the show.
“If you’ve been listening to the show, you know that we’re delving deep into the Stetson Ulrich case, but tonight I’m putting that one on pause for a few to circle back to talk about my old partner Daniel Davis and deal with some of the rumors about him I’ve heard lately. But even before I get to that I want to say directly to Daniel, ‘Daniel, if somehow you’re listening or in case you get to hear the show in the future, we miss you, we love you, and we’re looking for you. Call us if you can. But just know that we won’t stop trying to find you. Not now. Not ever. So no matter what the time or date is when you hear this, we are searching for you, brother.’”
We are all searching for Daniel, but so far every lead we’ve followed has led us straight down a dim, dead-end path.
“So . . . now . . . onto the rumors. Let me start by saying that I love the internet, the plethora of portals average people have to both share and receive information. It’s unprecedented in the history of the world and is a powerful force for freedom around the globe. That said, it’s also a sewer system of some of the most hateful, ugly, unhelpful sewage certain types of sick and soulless philistines ever came up with. One I came across today on one of the many subreddits about the case is that this is all a stunt for ratings, that Daniel isn’t really missing, just hiding from the public so we can perpetrate this elaborate ruse on the true crime podcast world, that we never solved the Randa Raffield case, that we made all that up along with Daniel’s disappearance to get the number one podcast on iTunes and elsewhere. Now, I know you sociopaths who write shit like this don’t really care, but Daniel is an actual human being with a wife who needs him and friends and family who love and miss him. We have no idea what’s happened to him or if he’s even still alive.”
Is Daniel dead? His abductor warned me not look for him, not to come after him if I ever wanted to see him alive again, but I began searching for him the moment I knew he was missing—and have enlisted the help of any and every one I can. We won’t stop until we find him, but what will we find? The man himself, his mortal remains, or nothing at all, as in the case of Angel Diaz?
“To suggest otherwise isn’t just irresponsibl
e, it’s cruel,” Merrick is saying. “And I would remind you that we didn’t solve the case, the Gulf and Franklin County Sheriff Departments did. Everything related to Randa and Daniel’s disappearances are part of official police investigations. It’s in their files. It’s in the statements they’ve issued and the press conferences they’ve held. It wasn’t our case. It was never our case. Did the attention we brought to it help get it solved? I truly believe so, but that’s for others to say. But to suggest that we made up all of it for ratings and that our dear friend isn’t really missing is as ludicrous as it is offensive. And I’m asking all of you, our sane, regular listeners to shut shit like this down when you come across it. I wouldn’t want even one official looking for Daniel even a little less because he or she heard it was a hoax. Help us find Daniel. He is really, truly, actually missing and in grave danger.”
5
“Everyone liked or at least respected Angel,” Kathryn says. “She wasn’t a particularly warm person, but she was real—always the same, treated everyone the same. You knew where you stood with her. She came at you straight, no BS, no backbiting, nothing two-faced about her.”
We have just finished dinner and are still sitting around the tall cypress table Anna’s nephew built her, Anna and I on one side, Ida and Kathryn on the other. Taylor is in her room sleeping. A baby monitor sits on the table between us.
Though I gave her very short notice, Anna had made Thai shrimp, vegetables, and fried rice, and my mouth still tastes of tangy sweet chili spices.
Sam is asleep in her hospital bed in the left corner of the living room, and we are talking like we ate—as quietly as possible in an attempt not to disturb her.
Blood Betrayal (John Jordan Mysteries Book 14) Page 2