True Crime Fiction

by Michael Lister

  There were no signs of forced entry and only six people were known to be in the house at the time—nine-year-old Mariah Evers, Mariah’s dad, the Atlanta rapper Trace “Evidence” Evers, his girlfriend, Ashley Howard, Ashley’s ten-year-old son, Brett, their nanny, Nadine Wade, and Trace’s best friend, manager, and Mariah’s godfather, Irvin Hunter.

  While this unsettling and disturbing deed was taking place, being discovered, and being investigated, I was away for my wedding, as happy as I’ve ever been.

  And I wasn’t the only member of the Gulf County Sheriff’s Department away at the time.

  Sheriff Reggie Summers was out on medical leave.

  From the initial 911 call, our depleted department mishandled the critical early hours of what would become one of the most shocking and perplexing cases in our county’s history.

  Every step and misstep was seen and shared, seen and shared, by the world’s interconnected web of audio, video, and pictures, as the media, both reputable and not, descended onto our unprepared and ill-equipped little area like a swarm of black flies, exploiting both Trace’s newfound fame and the shock and sensationalism of the murder for something as hollow and transitory as ratings.

  Trace wasn’t yet a household name like certain rappers who had been gunned down or featured in films or married musical royalty, but he had a couple of solid hits and had appeared on the first season of Donald Glover’s popular and critically-acclaimed FX TV series Atlanta in a not insignificant four-episode arc that had elevated the once-regional rapper into a promising and possibly bankable entertainer.

  In what seemed like hours, local, regional, national, and even a few international news outlets were reporting, often inaccurately, about the most bizarre and salacious elements of the surreal and unsettling case as clips of Trace’s concerts, TV appearances, and a music video featuring Mariah ran in loops beneath them.

  Mariah had been featured in his latest music video for a song he had written for her—and the footage from the shoot turned out to be the final ever filmed of the nine-year-old who was murdered in a locked house in a gated community while on vacation with her family in Florida.

  The talented and happy Mariah Elizabeth Evers, who seemed to have her entire life ahead of her, wouldn’t even get to see her tenth birthday.

  For these and other reasons, including some remarkable similarities, the murder of Mariah Evers became almost immediately and indelibly linked to the disquieting death of another young girl whose disturbing and haunting unsolved case had earlier this year reached the heartbreaking milestone of its twentieth anniversary.

  206

  I find Reggie alone on this dark, rainy night in her living room, recuperating on the couch. And I’m grateful I didn’t have to see her mom when I arrived.

  Since moving back to Wewa with her son, Rain, Reggie has lived with her mom in a mobile home on the Apalachicola River—a mobile home modified because of where it sits so the entire back wall of the living room is nothing but windows that look out onto the wide river.

  I know I will eventually encounter Sylvia Summers, but I am not looking forward to what I know will be an awkward and intense interaction.

  “I can’t believe this happened when we were both out,” she says.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better before this happened,” she says. “I’m actually meant to be returning to work in another day or two.”

  Reggie and I were both shot during the same river swamp shootout a while back, but she was shot far more and far worse than I was and then had to deal with a wicked infection as the result of her wounds.

  She adds, “That means we get to clean up this mess together.”

  “Look forward to it,” I say. “What do you want me to do between now and when you return?”

  “I want you to go home and get a good night’s sleep. Then in the morning I want you to review the entire case, everything that has been done so far, all the evidence, look at it with a fresh set of eyes.”

  “Arnie won’t like that.”

  Arnie Ward is the investigator who caught the case.

  “I don’t care what Arnie Ward likes,” she says. “No way I’m not gonna have my best investigator working a case like this. Besides . . . he shouldn’t have bungled the case.”

  Arnie was called in by the on-call deputy who was first dispatched to the scene. And though he immediately phoned Reggie and began to get her input on what to do and how to proceed, he made a few costly investigative mistakes during the first crucial moments.

  “Would we say bungled?” I ask.

  “Don’t know about we, but I might,” she says. “What were you thinking?”

  “Mismanaged maybe?”

  “Don’t know yet, do we? We’ll have to see what we see, but from where I’m laying, I think mismanaged might be just a bit too generous.”

  I shrug and glance down the dark hallway leading to the bedrooms at the other end of the trailer.

  “She’s asleep,” Reggie says.

  “Who?”

  “Mom.”

  I nod.

  “You dreading seeing her?” she asks. “Regretting your decision?”

  Though the answer to both questions is yes, I shake my head. “Just too tired for it tonight.”

  She nods her understanding. “She won’t get up.”

  I had recently agreed to keep a secret for Reggie and her mom that now I wasn’t sure I could.

  “We haven’t really talked about it,” she says, “about your decision and —”

  “We will,” I say. “Just not tonight.”

  Through Reggie’s back windows lightning flashes, illuminating the rain falling on the river, and the river in the rain, backlit by the lightning, appearing even more mysterious than it normally does at night.

  “Still can’t believe what was done to that beautiful little girl,” I say, shaking my head, continuing to look out into the rainy night.

  “It’s the most disturbing and shocking murder I’ve ever been this close to, and I don’t want you to think I’m losing sight of that—I mean by talking about the case itself. I don’t want you to think that that’s all I’m thinking about.”

  “I don’t. Never would. Know you too well.”

  “Thing is,” she says, “it’s because of what happened to her and my desire to get the sick fuck who did it that I’m so bothered by how badly the case has been handled.”

  “I know.”

  “My biggest concern is that it has been fucked up beyond repair. I’m wondering if we’ll be able to salvage the case and get a conviction at this point. The thought of the guy getting away with it because of what we did or did not do is just too . . .”

  “We’ll get it sorted out. Won’t stop until we do.”

  “I’m not just talking about figuring out with a reasonable certainty who did this to her, I mean being able to make a case and punish the prick.”

  “I know. We’ll get there.”

  Neither of us says anything and the rain on the roof seems to grow louder.

  “How are Daniel and Sam?” she asks.

  “Going home to find out now. Merrill and Za stayed with them while we were away. I dropped Anna off at my Dad’s place in Pottersville to get the kids and her car and came straight here.”

  “Oh shit. Forgot to ask. How was your wedding? Sorry I wasn’t able to be there.”

  “It was . . . everything we wanted it to be. It was . . . It’s hard to imagine it being any better.”

  “I knew it would be. Just like the marriage. I’m so happy for you, John.”

  “Thank you. When are you going to make an honest man out of Merrick? Where is he, by the way?”

  “Where do you think? Workin’ on a podcast about Mariah. Pretty sure he wants Daniel to help with it soon as he’s able. They’ll be part of the media feeding frenzy we’re having to deal with on this one. Means I’ll be sleeping with the enemy.”

  I smile.

  Before Daniel Davis went m
issing, he and Merrick, Reggie’s significant other, hosted a true crime podcast together called In Search of. They were working on In Search of Randa Raffield when Daniel vanished. During Daniel’s absence, Merrick has continued the podcast, which has grown even more popular—though some of the podcast’s most vicious trolls have accused Daniel’s disappearance of being something the two men staged as a ratings stunt.

  “You think he will be?” she asks.

  “The enemy or sleeping with you?”

  “Meant Daniel. Think he’ll be up for that kind of thing again?”

  “I’m about to go find out.”

  207

  As I had hoped, I get home in time to help Anna put the girls to bed—something we linger in doing because we’ve missed them so much during our short time away.

  In an ironic role reversal, it is us trying to get them to stay up a little longer and them wanting to be left alone to drift off into peaceful sleep.

  When we finally relent and retreat to our own bedroom, we ignore the bags waiting to be unpacked and collapse into our bed.

  “You know the only thing better than being away on honeymoon with you?” I say.

  “What’s that?”

  “Being in our home with our girls with you.”

  She smiles. “I’m so happy to be home.”

  We had spent the past few nights on some pretty plush hotel beds, but none could compare to our bed in our room in our home.

  I slide over toward her and we meet in the middle of our firm kingsize. She lays her head on my chest as I put my arm around her, caressing every part of her I can reach.

  Outside the rain tings on the metal of the window unit and thumps the soggy soil of our backyard. Inside, we both nearly simultaneously release a contended sigh.

  “Did you talk to Sam or Daniel?” I ask.

  Sam Michaels, an FDLE agent I had worked with and Daniel’s wife, had been staying with us while he was away. She had suffered a gunshot wound to the head on a case we had worked together, and though her prognosis had not been good, she’s surprising everyone but those of us who know her best with her miraculous recovery.

  Since Daniel’s return, and because of his own need for healing and care, they have both been staying with us, though they are scheduled to move out this week.

  “He was doing PT with Sam when I got home,” Anna says. “I just waved and said hey but didn’t really get to talk to them.”

  “What’d Dad have to say?” I ask. “Everything go well with them?”

  Dad and his new wife Verna had kept Johanna and Taylor for us while we were away. Having surprised us with the announcement that they had eloped shortly before our wedding, they have been married only marginally longer than we have.

  “Everything went extremely well. Normal stuff. Taylor ran a little bit of a fever—probably getting another tooth—and Johanna has a bit of a cough. But the far more interesting thing is where I found them.”

  “Oh yeah?” I ask. “Where’s that?”

  “Well it wasn’t at their house.”

  “Really?”

  “They were here. Jack and Verna came here to help Daniel with Sam.”

  “What happened to Merrill and Za?”

  “That’s the even more interesting part,” she says.

  “We inspired them to run off and get married?” I ask.

  “Negatory. How’d your talk with Reggie go?”

  “Fine. She’s better. Just worried about how the case has been handled and if we can salvage it.”

  “That poor, poor child,” she says. “There’s some unimaginable evil in this world, but there’s nothing more evil than . . .”

  I nod and pull her even closer to me, feeling certain that she’s doing what I’m doing—thinking about our own girls being brought up in such a world.

  “Who does Arnie think did it?” she says.

  “The dad. Trace.”

  “That’s what I figured,” she says. “This should be interesting for you.”

  “Whatta you mean?”

  “That’s where Merrill went,” she says. “Trace’s defense team hired him to investigate and provide protection.”

  After leaving corrections and doing some community organizing work and mentoring, Merrill had started his own security and investigations agency, and though he had provided security for a few celebrities on Panama City Beach and Black’s Island before, this would be by far his most high profile case to date.

  “Really?” I say. “Trace already has an entire defense team? And Merrill is on it?”

  “You and Merrill ever been on the opposite sides of an investigation before?”

  208

  I find Daniel at the kitchen table.

  He’s eating a bowl of cereal.

  Sam is asleep in her hospital bed in the corner of the living room. Anna is asleep in our bed. The girls are asleep in their room. We alone are awake.

  The house is quiet and dim, the only illumination coming from the small light above the kitchen sink.

  I sit down across from Daniel and glance over his shoulder through the picture window to the wet front yard beyond.

  “Want some?” he asks, nodding toward the open box of cereal in front of him.

  His voice is soft, night-quiet.

  I shake my head. “Thanks. I’m sure there’s some real food around here somewhere if you’d rather have—”

  “This is fine,” he says. “Just wanted a little something before bed.”

  Bed for Daniel these days is our living room couch, which he has pulled next to Sam’s hospital bed.

  “How’re you feeling?” I ask, my voice low and a little dry.

  Anna and I had dozed off and I’m still a little groggy.

  He shrugs. “Not sure. Still sort of out of it.”

  He slides the cereal box over so it’s no longer directly between us.

  “Kinda numb,” he adds. “It’s still like I’m like way down inside my body, looking up, looking out from a distance. Disconnected. Kinda cut off.”

  I nod.

  Since returning to us, Daniel has been quiet, withdrawn, disoriented, lost.

  “Please don’t feel in a rush to leave,” I say. “Y’all are more than welcome here for as long as you need to be. Make sure you’re ready before you—”

  “Look at your living room,” he says. “It’s a disaster.”

  I turn and follow his gaze, looking over my shoulder at the rectangular room that resembles an open bay sick ward more than a residential living room.

  “Looks fine to me,” I say, turning back to toward him. “We love having y’all here and want y’all fully recovered before you . . .”

  “Thanks, John,” he says. “I can’t tell you how . . . I’ll never be able to thank you and Anna enough for all y’all’ve done for us.”

  “Just don’t rush.”

  “I really don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he says. “Why do I still feel so . . . off? Why can’t I remember more of what happened?”

  Since being back, Daniel has had very little memory of his time away, recalling only vague images and impressions.

  I’m sure drugs were used on him, but none were found in his system when he was tested while in the hospital for dehydration and observation when he first returned.

  “Anything else come to you while we were gone?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Few things, but . . . I can’t know if they’re memories or dreams or . . . hallucinations. Like the others . . . they’re unlike any memories I’ve ever had before.”

  I wait.

  Though there is still milk and cereal in it, he slides the bowl and carton of milk to the side next to the cereal box.

  “This time . . . I didn’t just remember Randa being there. There was a man too. But . . . I don’t know. I think I’m . . . I think it was a hallucination—then or now or both. He doesn’t seem real.”

  If Randa had help it would explain how she had been able to do all she has—including taking and controlling
Daniel.

  “Did he seem threatening? Dangerous?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Do you have a sense of his relationship with Randa?”

  He shakes his head again. “He’s all distorted in my foggy, addled images of him. They both are. It’s like one of those old B films, the low budget black and white pictures that had the scenes that depicted a guy on a bad drug trip—everything doubled and floating, voice distorted, images demented. It’s like that. Feels like it can’t be real.”

  I nod.

  It has stopped raining now, but raindrops continue to fall from the trees, catching the light of streetlamps and glistening as they do.

  “Tell you what is real,” he says.

  “What’s that?”

  “The guilt I feel,” he says, glancing over at Sam.

  A gust of wind ripples through the huge oak limbs and the shaking leaves release a torrent of rainfall beneath the branches.

  “Why guilt, do you think?” I ask.

  Given the manner in which Daniel disappeared, we had wondered if he had perhaps gone willingly. Had he found himself attracted to Randa and wanting to escape a life of caring for his invalid wife for what seemed at the time the rest of their lives?

  He shrugs and frowns and looks down as his eyes begin to glisten. “Not sure exactly. Just . . . leaving Sam when she’s . . . or was the way she was.”

  “Did you leave her?” I ask.

  It’s the most pointed question I had asked him since his return.

  He looks up at me, his eyes narrowing into a question.

  “Of course I—what do you mean?”

  “Did you leave her or were you taken?”

  “You askin’ if I went willingly?” he says.

  “Did you?”

  “You know I didn’t know it was Randa at the time,” he says.

  I nod.

  “We connected, really hit it off. I was lonely and she was so . . . smart and energetic and so . . . alive. And my wife was . . . mostly dead.”

  I nod again. “I know.”

  “I was attracted to her, pulled to her in a way I hadn’t been to anyone other than Sam,” he says.