True Crime Fiction

by Michael Lister

  “Okay.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  I had read his arrest report and inmate file. He had been convicted of aggravated assault, rape, and attempted murder of a young woman about Randa’s age from the Springfield area in Panama City. As I read the report, I wondered how many other victims there had been, how many where murder wasn’t just attempted, and if Randa had been one of them.

  “We’re reopening the case,” I say.

  “We?” he asks, his eyebrows shooting up, his deep blue eyes finding mine for the first time.

  “Gulf County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “You their chaplain too?”

  “Investigator.”

  “Investigator? What? You a law dog and a convict chaplain?”

  I nod.

  “Well, damn. I mean . . . damn. That’s . . . downright . . . unprecedented.”

  “It just may be, but I doubt it. So . . . you left your business card on Randa Raffield’s car. Why?”

  “Wasn’t done asking my questions,” he says. “But we can seesaw back and forth if you want. I owned my own tow truck. Well, the . . . ah . . . hook-nosed crooks at the bank owned it, but I . . . that’s what I did at the . . . I had my own wrecker service. Needed business. Never been shiftless or lazy or corrupt. Never lived off the government.”

  “Until now,” I say.

  His eyes widen and a creepy smile spreads across his face. “This sure as shit ain’t by choice. Anyway, I seen a car broke down on the side of the road and, as was my custom when it looked like the kind of car I towed, I stopped to see if I could be of assistance.”

  “The kind of car you towed?”

  “Not too fancy, foreign, or uppity,” he says. “None of that rigged or pimped-out shit.”

  Translation—no Jewish or African American–owned vehicles.

  “Where were you headed? Where were you coming from?”

  “Had just left Highland View where I lived at the time with my old lady and was headed to Millville for a meeting.”

  “What kind of meeting?”

  “Kind true patriots attend. I was concerned with making America great way back then. I stopped. No one was around. I beeped my horn. Waited a few minutes. No one came out of the woods. Left my card on the car and left.”

  “You were driving your tow truck to your meeting?”

  “Was the only vehicle I had.”

  “And you never saw anyone—the entire time you were there?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Which was how long?” I ask.

  “Couple of minutes, max.”

  If he’s telling the truth, it means Randa disappeared in even less than seven minutes. Less than five depending on how much time elapsed between him leaving and the deputy arriving. Of course, he could be lying. Or Roger Lamott could. Or they both could.

  “Now I got a question for you,” he says.

  “Okay.”

  “How can you claim to be a man of God and let all those false religions defile the chapel the way you do?”

  “I don’t claim to be anything. And if you think your religion is the only true and right one, the only one worthy to use the chapel provided by the state of Florida for all those incarcerated here, then it’s your religion you need to look at, not others.”

  He nods and looks as if I’ve just confirmed something for him.

  “A change is comin’,” he says. “It’s already begun. Just you wait. You and all the other false prophets like you and all the mongrels will be cast out of the White House and God’s house. You’ll see.”

  “Did you kill Randa Raffield?” I ask. “Was she not pure enough for you? Did you rape her before or after you killed her?”

  He shakes his head, nonplused. “Never raised my hand to any bitch. Never dicked one wasn’t gaggin’ for it neither.”

  “Your jacket says otherwise.”

  I study him but he gives nothing away.

  “Think we’re done here,” he says, “but answer me one more question first. If I did it—and you ain’t the first to say I did—why would I leave my business card on her car?”

  “Before we started talking I would’ve said it was because you were smart enough to throw suspicion off yourself—to be able to say what you just did—but after hearing you speak I can clearly see that’s not the case.”

  112

  Zaire Bell, a forty-something African-American beauty with caramel-colored skin, sparkling, wickedly intelligent black eyes, large, luscious brown lips, and a wavy afro extending six inches from her head, is a new doctor at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Port St. Joe and Merrill Monroe’s new girlfriend.

  Zaire, who goes mostly by Za, and Merrill and Anna and I are shooting darts at Tukedawayz Tavern, still full from the Tiki Grill food next door.

  It’s couple versus couple in an epic game of Cricket.

  Merrill is drinking Bud Light from a bottle, the two women have wine, and I have Diet Coke over ice.

  Eva Cassidy’s haunting acoustic cover of “Ain’t No Sunshine” is on the jukebox. Anna had played it for me when she and Za had fed a couple of paychecks into the machine when we first arrived.

  It’s a weeknight and the place is empty except for an older man nursing a Natty at the opposite end of the bar. He’s a friend of the bartender, who is engaged in conversation with him, so it’s like we have the place to ourselves.

  We’re here on a weeknight because of the alignment of Za’s night off and our babysitter’s availability—and because we get the place mostly to ourselves.

  “I ran into Reggie at the IGA,” Anna says. “She told me about your conversation.”

  Za stops shooting and turns around toward us. “Reggie, the sheriff?” she says. “I like her.”

  “She’s John’s boss,” Anna says.

  “I thought you worked at the prison,” Za says to me.

  “I do.”

  “But he’s also an investigator with the sheriff’s department,” Anna says.

  “Damn.”

  “Not doing a particularly great job at either of them right now,” I say. “Will probably have to give up one before long.”

  “But which one?” Merrill says.

  “Reggie was saying how tough it is to be a woman in that position,” Anna says.

  “Tell her try bein’ a doctor—and a woman of color,” Za says.

  “She was saying how refreshing it was to have her lead investigator treat her with respect and dignity and without sexism or condescension.”

  Za nods and turns back and shoots her last dart.

  Anna looks at me. “She said you gave me part of the credit for it.”

  I nod.

  “Merrill’s mom too,” she says, looking from me to Merrill.

  Merrill smiles—something he’s doing far more of these days, something that coincided with the introduction of Zaire into his life.

  Instead of gathering her darts and pressing the button for the next player, Za turns and says, “That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.”

  “The way into Mama Monroe’s heart?” I say.

  “No. How are you all the way you are? Serious question. I’ve never seen a place with such racism, sexism, and bigotry. And then there’s you all.”

  “That’s ’cause this your first visit to the Deep South,” Merrill says.

  “I’m from Miami,” she says. “Harder to get more south than that.”

  “Deep South,” Merrill says. “Confederate-forget-like-Hell-South’s-gonna-rise-again Deep South. Not South Beach.”

  “Question stands. How can y’all be the way you are?”

  “I owe it to Anna and Merrill,” I say.

  “I owe it to John,” Anna says.

  “Me too,” Merrill says.

  “Y’all are being flippant about something I’m really tryin’ to understand.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Me too,” Anna says.

  “I ain’t,” Merrill says, and takes a long pull on
his bottle of Bud.

  “You deserve a real answer,” I say. “And I think Merrill should be the one to give it to you. But before he does, I should say that there’s bigotry everywhere. I doubt there’s more here than anywhere else. And like everywhere else there are some truly great people here. Probably more than most places.”

  “All true,” Anna says. “And I agree. Merrill should have to answer. He’s your date, after all.”

  Za looks at Merrill.

  He sets his bottle on the small, round, high table and clears his throat.

  “I’ll do that thing you really like tonight if you give me a serious answer,” she says to him.

  “Forget the question,” I say. “Let’s talk about that.”

  “Yeah,” Anna says, “what thing does he really like?”

  “The question is,” Merrill begins, serious now, “how does one grow up in a culture without adopting the biases, suppositions, conventions, assumptions, and general bigotry of that culture? And, of course, there’s not just one answer. In my case, I’m part of the minority, so that gives me a certain sensitivity to the plight of the marginalized.”

  “And yet many minorities have bigoted attitudes toward other minority or marginalized groups,” I say. “And I’d say you were born with the sensitivity.”

  He nods. “Some of us are more aware than others. See things. Read things. And you meet certain likeminded others who help. My relationship with John did that. In fact, as John was just saying, even as a member of the marginalized minority, I lacked compassion for another marginalized minority, namely the gays, and John helped me with that.”

  “Having a gay friend will do that,” Anna says.

  I smile.

  “But it’s so true,” Za says. “I’m continually amazed at how many people who are the victims of bigotry are bigots to other groups themselves.”

  “Humans are tribal,” Anna says. “Even those—sometimes especially those whose tribe has been shunned, abused, unfairly targeted.”

  “So true,” Za says. “How about you?”

  “I’m a woman,” Anna says. “I’ve got a gay brother. John has been a big influence. I don’t know . . .”

  Za nods. “I can see why Merrill and Anna are the way they are. I mean, not all the reasons, but hints at some of the reasons, but you—” she says, looking at me “—how did you—”

  “I’ll take that one too,” Merrill says, “but if I do, I better get that thing I like at least two times.”

  Za smiles.

  “John is an enigma. A lot of the things you’re asking about are just innate, just part of his moral DNA. And because of those he gravitated toward teachers who taught a message of equality and compassion, the common-cup and open-table fellowship where everyone is welcomed. Teachers like Jesus and the Buddha, Rumi and MLK.”

  “Merrill could’ve been a professor if he wanted to,” Anna says.

  “Got one more thing to say,” he says, “and then I’d really like to be done with this topic for tonight.”

  Za nods.

  “Imagine having a heightened sensitivity to others, particularly the marginalized and the outcasts, the modern equivalent of lepers. If you have that kind of compassion and desire for justice for them, especially in a rural area where you won’t encounter many others like yourself, don’t you think that would make you feel like an outsider yourself? Don’t you think someone like that wouldn’t feel like they fit in here or much of anywhere—and wouldn’t that add to and intensify the identification with and the compassion for those marginalized others?”

  Anna takes my hand.

  We are all quiet a moment, Za seeming to consider what Merrill has said.

  “Now, shoot your damn darts so we can go back to your place and make good on your promise.”

  “Fuck darts,” she says. “I’ve never been so turned on in my entire life. Let’s go home now, you thug poet professor, you.”

  “Bye,” Merrill says to us, a big smile spreading across his face.

  As we embrace and they prepare to leave, Za says, “You all are very lucky to have each other.”

  “Yes, we are,” I say.

  They’ve only taken a few steps when Zaire turns back and says, “You all aren’t leaving too?”

  “Not quite yet,” I say.

  “We have to see a man about a horse,” Anna says. “Well, a car.”

  When they are gone, Anna calls the bartender down to this end of the bar and distracts her while I move in to talk to Ty—just like we planned.

  Ty McCann was the first deputy to arrive at the scene of Randa’s abandoned car.

  I ask him about it.

  “It’s so easy to look back on something in hindsight and criticize it,” he says.

  I nod.

  His old face is pocked and pitted, and as he’s aged, his nose and ears have grown, giving an exaggerated look to his face and its features.

  “All these damn armchair detectives and their goddamn theories. Some of ’em suspect me. Actually accuse me of taking her and killing her.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, say I got there before the tow-truck guy who left his card. Claim I had already taken her.”

  I shake my head.

  “It’s not an easy job, but . . . I was good at it, gave it my best every night. Did I make mistakes? Of course. But not many. And no big ones. No moral or ethical ones. And to be the subject of baseless theory bullshit . . . I was just a few days from retirement when all this happened. It’s the last thing I ever worked. How I went out.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, well . . .”

  “Would you mind taking me through that night?”

  He takes another sip of his beer. “Nah, I don’t mind.”

  The jukebox is still moving through the music Anna and Zaire selected earlier—REM’s “Losing My Religion” is on now—and at the other end of the bar, Anna is listening to the bartender intently.

  “I was at the sheriff’s station when the call came in. From the time the call came to the time I pulled up in front of her car was less than seven minutes. No one was there. Not in the car. Not outside the car. Not on the street. Not in the woods right around the area. I looked everywhere.”

  I nod.

  He’s looking off into the distance now and I can tell he’s back at the scene from that night.

  “What about Windmark?” I ask. “Did you check in there?”

  He shakes his head. “It was a little ways down 98 and all dark back in there. Wasn’t much there at the time and . . . but I should have. I searched all around it, but . . . in hindsight should have gone all through it. That’s on me. Just didn’t know what I was dealing with.”

  The bartender grabs her cigarettes and lighter and heads out the back door. Anna joins us.

  I introduce them and he continues.

  “There was really no sign of an accident, not that I could see at first. Car looked fine. No signs of foul play. Just looked like a parked car. When something first happens, you can’t tell what it’ll become. Just no way to predict what it’ll turn into.” Anna nods and gives him an understanding look. “At the time I figured the driver had been drinking and didn’t want to get a DUI. Figured she was hiding in the woods. Drunk drivers do that a lot. Leave their car. Come back to it later.”

  “That does happen a lot,” I say.

  “How was I supposed to know this was gonna turn into some big missing persons case that goes on forever? Don’t know what I would’ve done different if I had known. I treated it like what it looked like. I treated it like what it would’ve been ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Anyway . . .”

  “Did you see or hear anything, reach any conclusions—then or later—that are not in your report?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s all in there. ’Cause there wasn’t much to it. The scene I mean. And I’m not gonna offer any more stupid useless fuckin’ theories, but I’ll tell you this—everybody says she was abducted, right? That some killer ca
me along and took her. But if that’s the case, why was her car locked?”

  “You’re sure her car was locked?” I ask.

  “Positive. That’s why I thought she was just hiding somewhere.”

  113

  “I’m so happy for Merrill,” Anna says. “I really like Zaire.”

  “You’re okay with him not ending up with Zadie Smith?”

  She laughs. “I had forgotten that. Yeah, Zadie would’ve been nice, but Zaire is great.”

  We are driving home from Tucks in her Mustang beneath a huge harvest moon. I’m driving and she’s leaning on the center console toward me. Her breath smells of fruit. It’s the aroma it gets when she drinks wine, the aroma I associate with amorousness and affection.

  “I really enjoyed helping you tonight,” she says. “Reminded me of the old days.”

  “It did,” I say, nodding. “I’ve missed that. Didn’t even realize how much.”

  “Maybe I could help you some more with this one,” she says.

  “Sure. I would love that.”

  “I love our lives—our life, guess it’s one shared life now—and I’m so grateful for the time I get with Taylor, but . . . I’m gettin’ a little . . . restless . . . and it’d help to have something to do other than diapers and dishes.”

  “It would help me,” I say.

  “I started listening to the podcast already,” she says. “It’s sort of addicting. Anyway, I think I’m caught up to where you are. I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to turn it on now.”

  I smile and turn on the podcast.

  “So,” Merrick is saying, “the initial investigation was fraught with . . . well . . . fuckups. The first deputy on the scene . . . didn’t do much.”

  “We should say his name is Ty McCann,” Daniel says. “He thought someone had just left their car on the side of the road. Either that it was broken down or the driver was drunk and left the scene to avoid getting a DUI.”

  “These were reasonable assumptions,” Merrick says.

  “Yeah, it’s easy to look back now and point out all he did wrong, but . . .”

  “I want to address something right here before we go on,” Merrick says. “There are theories floating out there that say Deputy McCann took Randa, but there’s not a single piece of evidence that suggests anything like that. And this is the point I want to make—a theory with not a single shred of evidence, with nothing behind it to even suggest it could at least be a possibility, is useless, juvenile, and silly.”