“Of course you are,” she says. “It’s obvious. It was a stupid question. Can I . . . ask you a question that’s . . . not so stupid?”
“What’s that?”
“Is she the reason we didn’t work? Were you in love with her the whole time you were with me?”
Johanna looks up from the picture she is coloring. She can hear that something has changed in her mother’s voice. “What do you mean, Mommy?”
“Nothing, baby. Mommy’s just being silly. You know how we get silly sometimes? That’s all I’m doing. What a pretty picture. I really like that. Finish it up before our food gets here, okay?”
Johanna looks at me with her huge brown eyes and I smile and nod and try to reassure her everything is okay.
“Sorry,” Susan says. “I’m feeling a little manic and my words are just . . . blah! . . . pouring out of me. Probably because you picked a restaurant so close to that damn hotel over there.”
I follow her gaze out the window, across the street, and up the way to the hotel where we met when we were trying to reconcile, the one where we couldn’t wait to get in the room and made love in the parking lot.
“Sorry,” I say. “Didn’t realize it was visible from here.”
“Wouldn’t be if it weren’t at the top of that damn hill like some sort of . . . I have to see it every time I go home to see my folks. Anyway . . . it’s not your . . . I’m the one who said let’s meet in Phenix City. It’s all good. Oh, thank Goddess. Here’s our food. Let’s eat.”
As we eat, the atmosphere around us improves, and Johanna, who can feel it, is palpably relieved.
“Your little sister sure misses you,” I say to Johanna. “Can’t wait to see her big sissy JoJo. You’re her favorite person on the planet. She wants to be just like you.”
“I do too,” Susan says.
“What are you doin’ this weekend, Mommy?” Johanna asks.
“Not sure, sweetie. I have some work, but . . .”
“You work too much, Mommy.”
“Think so? Well, maybe I’ll take it off . . . though . . . if Mommy works this weekend . . . I’ll have more time to spend with you next week. Would you like that? Tell you what . . . you just have a good time with your dad and little sister . . . Mommy will have a good weekend and have extra time to spend with you next week.”
“Okay Mommy. Love you.”
“I love you, sweet pea.”
On the drive home, as Johanna is talking and telling me about her week, as we sing to her favorite songs, play games, make up stories, I think about Angel Diaz’s parents and how, in many ways, having a child missing has to be worse than having one dead.
At some point Angel was five like my Johanna. She sang and played games and talked incessantly about everything that came into her little head. I can’t even imagine losing Johanna and I won’t. Won’t let myself take even one step down that dark path. I can’t. But what I can do is find Angel Diaz. Find her, find out what happened to her, and find out who’s responsible. Not that any of that will make anything better. Certainly hasn’t for Randa Raffield’s parents so far. Didn’t bring back Janet Leigh Lester—or Martin Fisher or Lamarcus Williams or Hahn Ling or Jordan Moore or Molly Thomas or little Nicole Caldwell. But I could no more not attempt to do it than I could halt the relentless march of time.
It doesn’t take long for Johanna to fall asleep. When she does, I call Susan.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Will be. I’m just . . . feeling a bit . . . I don’t know . . . lost.”
“Sorry,” I say. “Wish there was something I could do.”
“Yeah, me too, but . . . we both know there’s not. Listen, you don’t have to drive Johanna back on Sunday. I’ve decided to go spend the weekend in Panama City Beach, so I’ll come through and get her on my way home Sunday afternoon. I wasn’t planning on it—didn’t even pack any clothes, but I’ll just buy a few things once I get there.”
“I hope you have a relaxing, restful, and fun time over there,” I say. “Since no one else knows what you’re doing, would you mind texting me when you get in safe?”
“Thanks, John. I didn’t want to have to tell my folks or anyone, so I appreciate it. And I’m sure it’ll be like all my other weekends, but hey, I’ll be alone in some place different, some place pretty. Who knows, maybe the love of my life is some widower snowbird and I’ll meet him at some sad early-bird buffet. We’ll have a meet-cute where we both reach for the last crab leg and look into each other’s lonely eyes and . . . bam! Lightning bolts.”
I laugh. “That’s really funny. I hope it happens, but you should write it either way. Turn it into a sweet, funny romance novel.”
“If I do anything with it, it’ll be a screenplay. Nobody reads anymore.”
“Take care of yourself,” I say. “And get out and enjoy yourself. Don’t just go to the buffet. Ride out to Seaside. Go to a play or concert. Wait, I think the songwriters festival is this weekend. You’d love it.”
For just a moment I think about trying to introduce her to Jerry Raffield, but quickly realize it’s not a good idea and not my place to do even if it were.
It’s just . . . I can’t stop caring about her, wanting her to be fulfilled, wanting her to have with someone what I have with Anna.
It’s Anna’s voice I hear next. You can’t save the world, John. People have to find their own way in their own time—and some just don’t want to, don’t want to do what it takes and you can’t do it for them.
“I just might do that,” she says. “I’d much rather have a meet-cute with a young, hot musician than a wrinkled old snowbird.”
“Be careful. Enjoy yourself. Call if you need anything.”
“Kiss our angel for me. I’ll call her tomorrow.”
The next part of the drive home is uneventful. I talk to Anna and let her know I’ll get back some three hours before we thought I would and spend the rest of the time thinking about Justice’s testimony and how it contradicts what Qwon and the others have said.
And then the call comes.
It’s Rachel Peterson, the first female Inspector General of the Florida Department of Corrections.
She and I had worked a few cases together when I was at Potter Correctional, but nothing since I had transferred to Gulf.
She’s tough, strong, smart, and young for her position.
With no greeting or preamble she says, “What we hoped wouldn’t happen is happening.”
“What’s that?”
“Chris has decided not to take the plea deal and testify against Randy Wayne and the others, and is instead gonna roll the dice on a jury trial of his own.”
Chris Taunton, Anna’s ex-husband, had confessed to several serious crimes and agreed to a plea deal for testifying against his conspirators. Rachel and I had worked on the case together—the strongest part of which was the confession I had gotten out of Chris—and had hoped he would stick with the plea deal so my involvement in his case would never be an issue his defense attorney could exploit.
“Can’t say I’m surprised, but damn it, man.”
“Means he has a good defense attorney who thinks he can have everything the guy who’s now with his ex-wife uncovered thrown out,” she says, “which is everything. All the evidence we collected at the duplex was after the confession you got out of him. Means there is no case. He’s gonna walk.”
I know she’s right. I know how it looks. The worst defense attorney in the world could make the case that I set up Anna’s ex-husband to get rid of him. That’s not what happened. Chris tried to have us killed. We survived and figured out he was behind it, and in a moment when he was feeling particularly vulnerable I had convinced him to confess and take the deal. And it was after and because of that confession that the evidence against him was collected. Anna and I did nothing wrong. Chris committed murder and attempted murder. But a court case isn’t about what happened. It’s about what can be proved, what attorneys can get a jury to believe. And all of that means
Chris will walk.
“Anyway,” Rachel says, “wanted you to hear it from me and to let you know that the state’s attorney not only blames you but plans to use you as the scapegoat.”
“I really appreciate you letting me know,” I say.
“I’ll go on record, tell anyone who’ll listen that everything you did was righteous and that anyone who says otherwise is either guilty or avoiding political fallout, but . . . can’t imagine anybody’s gonna listen to me.”
“Thank you.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Been a long day and . . . I’m not gonna lie . . . this is some of the worst news I’ve received in a while—”
“Sorry.”
“But mostly I hate it for Anna and Taylor.”
“Let me know anything I can do,” she says.
We end the call as I’m coming into town.
Anna has Johanna’s bed ready and I transfer her without waking her up, and then with both girls in bed, Anna and I sit on the back patio together.
It’s a dark night. No stars are visible and only the hint of a thumbnail of moon behind a bank of clouds.
Julia is peaceful, the lights of the houses and grocery store across the way reflecting on her surface looking like a coastal town seen from offshore.
We tell each other about our days.
She goes first. Besides caring for Taylor and finishing some legal work she had, she was able to delve deeper into the Angel Diaz case. “I don’t want to,” she says, “but I think he did it.”
I nod. “He may have. Just want to be sure.”
“I’ll keep digging. How was Susan?”
I tell her.
“Did she let you know she arrived safely?” she asks.
I nod. “Just a few minutes ago.”
“I feel so bad for her,” she says.
“Me too.”
“But maybe this’ll be what finally motives her to make the changes she needs to in order to have the life she wants.”
“Hope so.”
We are quiet a moment.
“I have some bad news,” I say.
“Thanks for not leading with it. This has been nice.”
“We’re together,” I say. “That’s always nice. And compared to that, nothing else ultimately matters. We can deal with anything that comes along.”
“Never doubted that,” she says. “What is it?”
I tell her what Rachel Peterson told me about Chris.
“Fuck,” she says. “Fuck.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry for you and Taylor the most. Can’t believe that asshole state’s attorney is going to blame you. And I can’t believe our little girl is going to have to grow up with a sorry piece of dad like that in her life.”
“We’ll do all we can to limit his influence and involvement. Given all he’s done do you think we can get a judge to prevent him from being in her life at all?”
“Probably not, but I’m certainly gonna try. The nice thing about the court system is nothing happens fast. It’s not like he’ll be out tomorrow. We’ve got a little time to work on it. And who knows, maybe we can talk the state’s attorney into proceeding with the case by telling him he can always blame you if he loses.”
“That would be great,” I say. “We just might be able to. I know Rachel would get onboard for that. We need to talk to TPD and FDLE and everyone else involved. Maybe we can create enough pressure that he has to do it.”
Soon we are so tired and talked out we just sit there in the cool, peaceful darkness, but eventually we get up and head to bed, and the long, long day ends in the best way possible—in each other’s arms with our girls not far from us sleeping safely beneath the same roof.
166
“Happens more than you think,” the judge says.
He’s talking about murder cases and even convictions without a body.
He and Anna and I are sitting on a wooden bench at Lake Alice Park watching Taylor and Johanna play on the monstrous jungle gym in the huge sandbox.
It’s Saturday morning, mid-February, just a couple of months before we’ll be back up here at the park with the rest of our town for the Tupelo Festival.
Harlan Gibbons is a soft-spoken elderly man with wispy gray hair and ice blue eyes. Everyone in the area calls him Judge or the judge and has for as long as I can remember. Before he retired he was the longest sitting judge in Gulf County history.
“Not so often as to be common,” he says, “but . . .”
When he agreed to meet with me and answer questions about murder cases without a body, I suggested the park, which is walking distance from both our homes, so the girls could play and we could enjoy the beautiful day.
It’s cool but not cold. Lake Alice, the sister lake to Julia—the one just across the way that we live on—is calm, only the occasional breeze or passing ducks rippling her smooth surface. The day is bright and clear, the morning sun looms large in the sky above us and dapples the ground around us with the shadowed shapes of oak limbs.
“Lots of people still believe you can’t have a crime without a body,” the judge says. “Think corpus delicti literally means the body of the crime, but it actually refers to the body of evidence, the entirety of a case indicating a crime was committed.”
Sitting beside me, Anna, who has studied and loves the law and is herself a lawyer, listens to the judge and watches our daughters, but I can tell she’s still upset by the news about Chris from last night and is still ever so slightly distracted by it.
“Seems like I recall there have been over three hundred cases with convictions without a body in our country alone,” he says. “Been many more than that tried. That’s just the ones with a conviction. Weren’t all murder. Many are manslaughter or wrongful death. But that’s not an insignificant number.”
“No, it’s not,” Anna says. “Think I read that there have been about four hundred and seventy such trials.”
“They have a surprisingly high conviction rate,” the judge says. “Probably because prosecutors only take the best cases to trial. They figure, I’ve got no body, I better have everything else. Part of the reason it’s more and more common is because more and more murders are attempting to destroy their victim’s bodies, and on the other side, more and more advances in scientific techniques and sophisticated forensic procedures. Criminals, at least the non-stupid ones, are getting more and more creative. Remote, secret, deep burials, using acid or fire to obliterate the remains. Guy in Florida used alligators. Brothers in Michigan used pigs. And don’t forget about the infamous wood chipper used by the man in Connecticut. Then of course there’s cannibalism.”
“I’ve only come across one case where someone was convicted of murder without a body, and the person later showed up alive,” Anna says.
The judge nods. “Far as I know that’s all there’s been so. Charlie Somethinganother, wasn’t it?”
“Charles Hudspeth,” she says. “In 1886 he was convicted and even executed for killing his lover’s husband. The husband was later discovered to be alive—living in another state.”
“My question for your young legal mind is,” the judge says to Anna, “is one innocent defendant convicted and executed worth two-hundred and ninety-nine guilty ones getting what they deserve, or is it worth two-hundred and ninety-nine murderers getting away with it to save one innocent man?”
“Truth is if any of them kill again, then it’s not just one innocent being executed, is it?”
“True.”
“But . . .” she says, “our system is set up on the principle that it’s far better for the guilty to go free and the innocent to be convicted, and I agree with that. Even . . . when it’s my ex-husband.”
I take her hand and we sit in silence for a moment.
The girls are crawling through the plastic tunnel of the jungle gym, giggling and squealing occasionally with the purity of their pleasure, Johanna being very patient and careful with her little sister.
“I remember your case,” the judge says, referring to the trial of Acqwon Lewis for the murder of Angel Diaz.
I have to limit the number of people who know I’m looking into the case, but have no doubt at all that I’m safe in trusting the discretion of this wise, honorable old man.
“Followed it at the time,” he says, “even talked to Judge Carr about it while it was going on. He’s a friend of mine. We often ask each other’s advice—or did. I thought it was a thin case at the time. Still do. Can’t have charges that serious, a case that important determined by one witness. Especially a witness like him.”
“What do you mean—like him?” I ask.
“Juvenile delinquent on his way to becoming a career criminal. Shifting story. So many theatrics in his statements and testimony. I would’ve needed more.”
“The fact that the cellphone tower pings corroborated his story and that he knew where the victim’s car was wasn’t more enough?” Anna asks.
He shakes his head. “Not for me. Was for Judge Carr. But . . . wouldn’t have been for me. I just didn’t trust him. Not with so much on the line. Carr kept pointing out the cellphone evidence and the fact that he led the investigators to the car, but I don’t think even that was enough for him, ’cause he kept sayin’ over and over, but Harlan he confessed.”
“Who confessed?” I ask.
“Lewis,” he says. “The defendant. Acqwon. That’s what tipped it over for Judge Carr. It got thrown out. Was deemed inadmissible, but Judge Carr knew about it and listened to the recording. Without it I think he would have dismissed the case.”
167
“You confessed?” I say.
“Sir?”
It’s Saturday afternoon. I’m back in Confinement, squatting in the hallway in front of Qwon’s cell, talking to him through the open food tray slot in the door.
True Crime Fiction Page 67