That was not what I was expecting.
I thought about it.
He was right. I couldn’t say the work really mattered to me if I wasn’t going to do what it took to be able to keep doing it. Caring about victims, wanting everybody to count, being relentless, it wasn’t enough. I had to be able to keep doing it.
The jazz saxophone stopped momentarily then started again.
“I’m not sure what else I can tell you,” he said. “I’m still trying to figure it out myself.”
It seemed like that was all he had to say, but he didn’t end the conversation or the call, just waited.
He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to hang up, and I wanted to extend the exchange if I could.
“Can I ask you . . . how you deal with the darkness?” I said.
“Probably have to ask someone else about that,” he said.
I appreciated that he didn’t feel the need that most adults did to have an answer for everything, but I wondered if the question bothered him.
Dad had told me he had been a tunnel rat in Vietnam so I knew he knew all about the dark. Of course that didn’t mean he knew what to do about it or what to tell me to do about it.
“It’s a good question. Keep asking it. I think it’s different for everyone. Figuring out what works for you is part of the process. That make sense?”
I nodded before I realized he couldn’t see me doing it.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “It really does.”
“Figure out a way to function,” he said. “Not sure it has to be any harder than that.”
I thought about it for a long moment, during which all he did was wait.
Something Nietzsche said about monsters shimmered at the edges of my memory. What was it? Beware of catching monsters or something similar.
“Wish I could help you more,” he said.
“You’ve helped me far more than you’ll ever know.”
“You need me,” he said, “you call me. And don’t take too much shit from Jack, okay?”
After we hung up, I sat there and thought about all the wisdom that one conversation contained, replaying it over and over in my head.
Before I went to bed, I looked up the Nietzsche quote. Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.
In my dream it became part of my conversation with Harry Bosch––a conversation that took place not over a telephone but over an autopsy table holding the body of Patrick “Pat Man” Rogers, in an old-fashioned operating theater in Atlanta with Wayne Williams watching from the gallery above us.
7
How can I describe what happened next?
Simply this. Something.
Something unexpected. Something inexplicable and ineffable.
Something undeniable.
Someone flipped a switch somewhere inside me. And then what exactly?––light, warmth, insight, enlightenment? Some formerly fallow ground began to burst forth with new life. Seed, water, nourishment, and a small shoot broke the surface of the soil. I woke up. Shaken from my slumber I came to consciousness.
It was not unlike falling in love.
It happened during my senior year of high school, this transformation, this moment of clarity, this line in the sand of my life, which would forever be the demarcation between before and after for me.
One day I was one way. The next another.
One moment I was walking in one direction. The next moment another.
It was extraordinary.
It changed everything.
Merrill’s mom recognized it first.
Our eyes met and she saw and she smiled.
“Well now, look at the new you,” she said.
I had just walked into the tiny kitchen of her small clapboard house where she was hard at work on the best fried chicken, collard greens, and cornbread anyone ever made. Ever.
She immediately stopped cooking, turned off the old gas oven, and took a seat at the narrow, wobbly, Formica top kitchen table.
“Dinner can wait,” she said. “Sit down and tell Mama Monroe all about it.”
Merrill had yet to come in from baseball practice. We were alone in the cramped, creaky house, the best and safest place I had yet found on the planet.
I sat down.
“Not sure I can say,” I said.
“That’s good,” she said. “Real good.”
I must have looked confused.
“Be little that had happened, you could ’splain it, baby.”
I looked at her and smiled.
“That the only bit of Shakespeare Mama knows. ’Course I changed it up a little, but . . . it always stuck with me.”
As usual, she had a dip of Honey Bee Sweet Snuff that poked out the skin beneath her bottom lip a bit and caused her to contort her mouth some as she spoke.
“What did?”
“‘I were but little happy if I could say how much,’” she said.
“So true,” I said. “Were but little changed if I could say how much. That’s exactly it. Exactly right.”
“Paul got knocked on his ass on the road to Damascus,” she said. “Never knew what hit him. Jesus went down in the water one way, came up another. Moses came up on a burnin’ bush that didn’t burn up.”
I nodded. “I read that when they asked Siddhartha what happened to him, he just said he woke up.”
“Who?”
“The Buddha.”
“Mama don’t know nothin’ ’bout no Buddha, baby, but she do know when the Holy Ghost done come on one of her boys.”
I smiled, happy to be one of her boys.
Reaching behind her, she removed her spit cup from the counter beside the stove, spit in it, then placed it on the table in front of her. Inside the faded plastic FSU stadium cup was a couple of folded paper towels to help soak up the powered snuff and spit.
“You been touched by the hand of God,” she said, wiping her mouth. “His shekinah glory is all over you, boy. Shines on your face, through your eyes. You’ll never be the same again.”
I wouldn’t use the language she was, but I knew what she meant––and she was right about the last at least. I would never be the same again.
“I’ve been worried about you,” she said. “Prayin’ for you. Prayin’ Lord Jesus help my JJ find his way.”
“I’ve been in a bad way,” I said.
She nodded. “Obsessin’ over those poor black children,” she said.
I thought about the darkness that entered my head and heart through the Atlanta Child Murders case, how heavy I had been, how angry and frustrated, and how much I had been drinking lately.
“Among other things, yes, ma’am.”
“Frettin’, worryin’, weight of the whole world on your bony little shoulders, boy.”
I nodded.
“Listen to me, son,” she said. “God give you a good mind. You some kinda smart and got such a good heart, but let me tell you somethin’––you think your mind’s your friend but it ain’t. Just remember that. My mind is not my friend. It’s not my boss. It’s not me. It’s a spirited horse needs controllin’. Understand? Don’t let your mind run wild. Don’t let it make you a slave.”
I thought about it.
“What happened to you, happened here,” she said, tapping my chest with the back of her meaty, misshapen brown hand. “Not here,” she added, placing her fingertips on my forehead and giving it a good push. “Don’t forget it. God’s in your guts. In your heart. Not your head.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She didn’t say anything, just waited, spitting into her cup again as she did.
When I didn't say anything either, she said, "Well?"
“I had taken a bottle of vodka to the landing,” I said, “but when I got there, the evening sky was so radiant, so . . . I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Plum-colored background, streaked with brilliant fiery flamingo feathers of pink and orange, all of which was mirrored on the glass-like surface of the water below. And there was a quality to the light, a
feel to the place, a presence, a . . . it was palpable . . . a . . . I don't know . . . like a . . . holy hush I guess. It was so beautiful, so peaceful. Nothing moved. Nothing at all. I poured out the bottle . . . almost like an offering or . . . And then a small wind whirled up, troubling the surface of the waters, causing leaves to dance toward me as it came on shore. As it surrounded me––it wasn’t blowing anywhere else in the entire area but right around me––I . . . I heard a voice, whispering to me from the wind.”
She nodded and smiled as I trailed off, reliving for the moment the magic I had been so moved by.
After a while, I’m not sure how long, she said, “What is it, son?”
“Ma’am?”
“Somethin’ changed. Somethin’s troublin’ you, boy?”
“Everything’s changed,” I said. “I feel this . . . urge to . . . help people . . . to try to share and . . . I can’t be a cop now, can’t just move to Atlanta after high school and work the case like I planned, can’t just . . . But . . . I can’t let my dad down either. He’s invested so much in my becoming a . . . to follow him in . . .”
“Follow your guts, boy,” she said. “Who knows? Ol’ Jack Jordan may surprise you . . . or . . . you might surprise yourself at what you can do. Don’t limit God. Don’t think you got to be a this or that, fit here not there, all or nothin’. You just trust and obey. Trust and obey. God will make a way.”
8
“Jack tells me you think the task force got it wrong,” Frank said.
Frank Morgan, a middle-aged, gray-haired, Georgia Bureau of Investigations agent and Dad’s friend on the Atlanta Missing and Murdered Children task force, had come to Mexico Beach for vacation and we had driven down to see him.
He was a tall, trim man with wire-framed glasses that darkened in the sun, a good, straight-talking, straight-edged guy, rigid, humorless, nerdish.
It was in the late spring of ’86 just a month or so before I would graduate from high school, and though I had had a spiritual awakening of sorts and found a modicum of equilibrium, I had not been able to completely let go of my obsessive connection to the case.
“I never said y’all got it wrong,” I said.
“You think Williams is innocent?”
I shrugged.
“You’re not one of those who says there’s no such thing as black serial killers, are you?”
“No. I’m not. I know there are, know there have been far more than what most people realize.”
“But you don’t think Williams is one. You think he’s innocent.”
“No. Not necessarily. More not proven.”
“Well, that’d be on the prosecution not the task force, but it was proven to the satisfaction of the jury who heard the entire case made and the defense against it.”
He was defensive but not overly so.
We were on the front porch of his small, old rented cottage across the street from the beach, in early evening.
The sun was on its way to setting. Soon it would slip behind the sea at the vanishing point of the horizon. But for now it hung in the west just above and beyond the Gulf.
Frank was grilling hamburgers, he and Dad drinking beer from the bottle.
Frank’s family, a wife and a preteen boy and girl, were at the water’s edge, collecting sea shells and sticking their toes in the Gulf.
“So what’s your beef with the task force?” Frank asked.
“It didn’t finish its job.”
“Only because the killer’s in prison instead of the ground.”
“Whose killer? The two adults? Cater and Payne? Those are the only ones he’s serving time for.”
“Do you know what would’ve happened if he had been tried for all the murders?” he said.
“He’d’ve walked,” I said. “Because he didn’t commit all the murders, but thanks to how everything was handled there’s doubt to whether he committed any.”
“Oh, trust me. He did. But you’re right. He didn’t do all of them.”
“The list––” I began.
“That damn list,” he said.
“So many different victims––not just young black boys, but girls, adults––different methods of murder.”
He nodded. “You’re right. Don’t blame me for that damn list. I didn’t create it. And I kept saying the list is shit. There were victims that should’ve been on it that weren’t and others that should’ve never been added in the first place.”
“A serial killer has a pattern,” I said. “He commits serial crimes––all part of a series that can be linked together. Serial killers have a signature. What’s the pattern in this case? Which victims are part of the series? What is the killer’s signature?”
“It’s not that simple,” he said. “Just wait ’til you work your first case, let alone a case like this. There are always things that don’t make sense, that you can’t answer, that will drive you crazy if you let them. Always. We’re dealing with deranged human beings.”
He paused and flipped the burgers with the large spatula he was holding.
“That being said,” he continued, “there was a pattern. But instead of me telling you, you tell me. Let’s hear what you think.”
“Okay. The only pattern cases were those of the asphyxiated and dumped young black boys. That’s the series.”
He nodded. “Like the ones the prosecution used in the case––the pattern victims linked to Williams.”
“So why was he tried for killing two adults?”
“Because they could tie him to the bridge.”
“But if he killed Nathaniel Cater and threw his body off the bridge, doesn’t that break the pattern? Wouldn’t that mean Williams wasn’t the killer of the boys?”
“You don’t think killers kill outside of their pattern? Occasionally? Sometimes? Out of necessity if nothing else.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m sure you’re right, but doesn’t it bother you that he was tried for the anomaly and not the pattern?”
“Everything about the whole goddamn thing bothers me,” he said. “Everything.”
“You don’t think it’s possible Williams isn’t the killer?” I asked.
“If he’s not, why’d the killings stop?”
“Did they?” I asked.
“You saying they didn’t?”
“There have been other, similar killings in the area,” I said. “But they could’ve stopped for a different reason.”
“Which would be?”
“The killer moved, was killed, or incarcerated.”
“It’s possible,” he said. “Highly, highly unlikely, but remotely possible.”
“There’s a man in prison right now who was a prime suspect in one of the pattern killings, who eyewitnesses say killed Clifford Jones.”
“You mean Jamie Brooks?”
I nodded. “And he went to prison around the same time most of the murders stopped.”
“Let’s say Jamie Brooks did kill Clifford Jones,” he said. “The witness was discredited, but let’s say he did. He and Calvin Smith. That doesn’t mean Williams didn’t kill the others.”
“No, but the green trilobal fiber that was supposed to tie Williams to the pattern cases was found on Clifford Jones. So if it was Jamie Brooks, suddenly he’s tied to all the pattern cases.”
Frank looked at Dad. “Smart kid,” he said, pointing at me with the spatula. “Gonna make a great cop.”
Dad sighed and shook his head. “He’s decided to go a different direction.”
“What?” Frank asked.
“What a waste, right?” Dad said. “Tell him. Now he wants to be a preacher instead.”
Frank looked at me.
I shook my head.
“Not a preacher, no, but in ministry.”
“Wants to save the world,” Dad said.
“Not the world, no. Not save anybody . . . just . . . I . . . I just want . . . to help people.”
“You’ve got a gift,” Frank said. “And there are worse ways to help peopl
e than being a cop.”
9
I was running out of time.
The fast approach of graduation loomed in the short distance like a flashing warning sign on a dark, rain-slick night, and I still didn’t know what to do––or where or how.
Over the next few weeks I spent a lot of time praying and seeking and trying to figure it out, but up until the day of graduation I still had no idea.
Should I go into law enforcement or ministry?
I just didn’t know. And I knew I needed to. At times I felt more strongly pulled to one than the other, but mostly they pulled at me with equal persistence and pressure.
It was time to do something, but what?
I thought about what Frank Morgan had said, how I could help a lot of people as a cop. All the while Dad kept telling me the same thing, telling me how much good I could do and what a waste it would be for me to do anything else, how not using the gifts God had given me as an investigator would be sinful somehow.
But as it turned out, it was Mama Monroe who had been most prescient on the subject.
“Don’t limit God,” she had said. “Don’t think you got to be this or that, fit here not there, all or nothin’. You just trust and obey. God will make a way.”
And the way came, like so many things back then, through my connection to and obsession with the Atlanta Child Murders.
The morning of my high school graduation, I was rereading the case files I had compiled, trying to look again with fresh eyes and a new perspective to see if a new pattern might emerge, if something might leap off the page that before had remained hidden, camouflaged among all the other words and witness statements, details and descriptions.
And as I did, it was as if, once again, I woke up, woke up this time to a new possibility that wasn’t either or, all or nothing, but a way to begin to integrate the two seeming disparate callings I was sensing in my soul.
What appeared, what pounced off the page and seized me, was the possibility of simultaneously taking steps to be educated and trained in ministry while working on the case that had captured my imagination, altered my path, haunted my childhood, changed my life.
It happened as I reread and reconsidered the information I had on Curtis Walker.
True Crime Fiction Page 5