Does rap music promote violence? Did your music and lifestyle lead to your daughter’s death?
After an awkward greeting from a shaky elderly minister who has some connection to the family through Trace’s grandmother I believe, and the reading of the obituary, two large women in dresses several sizes too small sing a soulful, a cappella version of Amazing Grace.
At the conclusion of the song, a large screen descends from the ceiling at the center of the platform and a professionally produced montage video that includes both pictures and home movie footage is projected onto the screen from a projector mounted on the ceiling.
It’s difficult to watch, impossible not to. And the disconnect between watching this energetic, enthusiastic little full-of-life performer and knowing her lifeless body is inside the too-small coffin below it causes an existential dissonance like few I’ve ever experienced.
On the other side of Frank, the stoic Baxley family shed silent tears, their devastation no less real for the quiet nature of their dignified mourning. And seeing the kind of people they are and how they carry and conduct themselves convince me all the more that Trace hasn’t been truthful with us.
Others throughout the congregation cry loudly, sobbing and saying Je-sus often.
The eulogy is far better than I expected it to be, and includes the reading of letters from Mariah’s classmates who genuinely seem to adore her. The speaker, Mariah’s school teacher, Miss Amy, captures the kind, funny, precocious child, who we learn was an accomplished prankster and a bit of a tomboy, better than anyone else could.
When Trace, Ashley, and Brett rise, each with a single white rose in their hand, and walk toward the small coffin, I get my first real look at them since the service began. Ashley is hidden beneath an enormous black hat and veil, Brett, who doesn’t look like himself without a handheld video game device in his hand, is holding his mother’s hand and appearing disaffected, but Trace, whose knees buckle as he places the rose on the coffin, is clearly visible, the dark shades he wears unable to hide the obvious pain and genuine anguish etched on the brittle, too-tight skin of his face.
As he falls, he grabs Mariah’s tiny coffin for support.
I can’t imagine the stand the coffin is on is strong or stable enough to support him, but it does, and Trace remains upright.
Though slow to respond, Ashley eventually reaches over and offers support.
When they arrive back at their seats on the front row, Brett still has his rose. Ashley leans down, whispers something to him, and he takes a few steps forward and tosses the rose at the coffin.
The rose hits the side of the small coffin and bounces off, landing on the floor, as Brett returns to his seat.
In a sudden burst of anger, Trace steps over, grabs Brett by the arm, and snatches him up off the pew and drags him over to the rose. Shoving him down toward the rose without letting go of his grip on his arm, he yells Pick it up, then, after Brett has the rose in his hand, drags him to the coffin and waits while he carefully places it on top with the two others.
When Trace releases Brett, he runs over to his mother, who wraps him up in her arms and comforts him.
Trace returns to his spot on the pew and for the rest of day he and Ashley don’t touch or speak.
242
Merrill reacts first.
Frank and I shortly after him.
Then the other bodyguard Trace employs.
We have just reached the parking lot out in front of the funeral home, witnessed Mariah’s coffin being loaded by the pallbearers into the glass horse-drawn carriage that will transport her to the nearby cemetery.
As soon as the door of the carriage is closed, the reporters begin to yell their questions.
How was the service? Trace? Trace? What do you have to say to those who say you should be in jail instead of out here at your victim’s funeral? Where will Mariah be buried? Will she be laid to rest beside her mother? Trace? Did you kill her mother too?
Everyone is rushing to their vehicles to avoid the assault of the reporters and their cameras that make what are normal reactions to the vile questions they’re asking look irreverent or suspicious or worse.
Thankfully most everyone is in or near, and therefore shielded by, their vehicle when it happens.
I’m scanning the area as Deidra is helping her parents look for their car when it happens.
I see Merrill reach for his gun and move toward the street.
I follow his gaze as I reach beneath my suit coat and withdraw my weapon and begin to yell for everyone to get down and take cover.
Frank does the same.
A big black SUV with illegally dark tinted windows cruises by out on the small side street that fronts the funeral home, its back passenger side window rolling down, the barrel of a rifle being brought up and out.
I shove Deidra and her parents and few others around me down and continue to yell.
Screaming.
Running.
Falling.
Ducking.
Jumping in vehicles. Ducking behind them.
The moment the first round is fired, Merrill fires back.
Panic.
Pandemonium.
The pool of reporters is caught in the crossfire. Some turn their attention and cameras toward the SUV. Others drop to the ground. Still others knock over tripods and lights and mic stands in attempt to get to the nearest place of cover.
Merrill is running toward the SUV, firing as it does.
The shooter in the SUV fires the rifle a few times, picking and choosing his targets carefully. Most of his rounds go into the limo Trace and his family hide behind.
Several of Merrill’s rounds hit the SUV.
As the back window of the vehicle rises, the SUV speeds away.
All of us strain to see the plate as it does, but there isn’t one.
Less than a minute after it all began, it’s over.
We walk around surveying the damage as the reporters begin broadcasting live.
Deidra’s dad has a gunshot wound to his left hand and Trace has fragments of asphalt and shards of glass from rounds ricocheting around him in his face.
All other wounds appear superficial and self-inflicted.
243
“See?” Deidra says. “You thought I was being paranoid.”
I shake my head. “No. I didn’t.”
She and her mother are standing at the back of an ambulance where EMTs are working on her father’s injury.
“I told you he’d try something, didn’t I?”
“He got hit too,” I say, turning toward another ambulance across the way where EMTs are picking glass and bits of rock out of Trace’s face.
“Which was either an accident or a brilliant cover,” she says.
Against the advice of the EMTs, both Pick and Trace are refusing to go to the hospital, opting instead for some minor triage so they can attend the graveside.
Pick had said, “It’s just a scratch. I’m fine. Lot of blood, but it’s just the tip of my little finger.”
When Deidra had turned to her mom and said, “Tell him he has to go to the hospital,” Rhonda had shaken her head.
“I can’t get him to do anything, you know that,” Rhonda said. “Besides, I understand what he’s saying. We haven’t seen our granddaughter since she was a baby and we’re going to miss part of her funeral . . . I don’t think so.”
Trace had said, “Nigga with a gun not gonna run me off from laying my little girl to rest. Promise you that. They gonna have to kill me to keep me from burying my baby.”
While they’re getting treated, Merrill, Frank, and I step away from everyone to talk.
“Nice work out there,” Frank says to Merrill.
“You too.”
“We were just following your lead.”
I nod.
“Just hope I didn’t just help save the life of a child killer.”
“There were a lot of lives at stake,” I say. “Not just his.”
De
kalb Sheriff’s department is looking for the vehicle,” Frank says. “Sure it’s stolen and will be empty by the time they find it, but . . . could lead us to the shooter.”
“Not your typical drive-by, was it?” Merrill says. “Shooter fired very few rounds and at specific places.”
I nod.
“Usually see an automatic or semi-auto and the shooter sprays the crowd,” Frank says.
“More a hit than a drive-by,” I say. “Or supposed to look like it anyway. Not sure exactly what that was.”
“I’m gonna find out,” Frank says. “Got some friends at the bureau . . . call in some favors.”
“Need to look at Rondarious Swaggart,” I say. “Rapper that goes by the name Little Swag. He’s made threats against Trace. I’ve tried to see him since I’ve been in town, but haven’t been able to.”
“Leave it with me,” Frank says. “I’ll track down Little Swag.”
“Think we have to look at him for Mariah’s murder too,” I say.
“Consider it done.”
Frank and I walk back toward Pick’s ambulance as Merrill makes his way over to Trace’s.
“Help me out,” Pick says to me and Frank. “I want to be on my feet before he is.”
We do.
“Kill my daughter and granddaughter and try to kill me at her funeral,” he says, looking over in Trace’s direction. “Well, I don’t kill so easy.”
“Dad,” Deidra says, her voice scolding though she is smiling.
“He’s right,” Rhonda says. “He took our daughter and our granddaughter from us. We’re burying her today, but Mariah’s been dead to us since he killed Myra. That . . . animal saw to that. We missed her entire life and then he’s gonna try to shoot us when we dare to come to her funeral. Screw that. Screw him.”
Deidra suppresses a smile at her mom’s use of screw.
“Don’t laugh at me, Deidra,” she says. “Do I have to use stronger language for you not to laugh at me?”
“I wasn’t laughing at you, Mom. Hearing you talk like that made me happy. That’s all. I say screw him too.”
244
I wake up the next morning next to Anna.
I drove all night to be able to. And to say it was worth it would be the understatement of the century.
The moment my eyes blink open, she slides closer, cuddling with me.
“Morning,” I whisper.
“Morning. I’ve been wanting to touch you so badly it’s been driving me crazy, but I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Don’t ever not wake me,” I say.
I turn to look at the girls.
They’re not in their beds in here like they were when I slipped in here this morning.
“Where are—”
“Your dad and Verna took them to the park.”
“What time is it?”
“Nine.”
“Nine?”
I reach over and lift my phone from the nightstand. I have several texts and missed calls—three from Reggie.
“You got in so late I wanted to let you sleep,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say, returning the phone to the nightstand.
“And with the girls away I thought we might take advantage of some uninterrupted alone time.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I say. “Why I didn’t call Reggie back.”
“I wanted to give everyone a chance to share what they’ve got and go over the evidence that’s coming in,” Reggie says.
It’s early afternoon. Arnie, Keisha, Jessica, and I are in Reggie’s office.
“Oh, and to welcome Sleeping Beauty back from Atlanta,” she adds, smiling at me. “He’s the reason we postponed the meeting from this morning.”
“Glad to have you back in one piece,” Arnie says. “We heard about the drive-by.”
“Heard, hell,” Keisha says. “Watched that shit on YouTube.”
“You, Merrill, and that GBI agent prevented a massacre,” Arnie adds. “Good work.”
I’m not sure we did, but I thank him.
“I’m’a need you to introduce me to that Merrill man,” Keisha says.
We all laugh.
“Any updates on that so far?” Reggie says.
I shake my head. “GBI and Dekalb County Sheriff are looking into it, but nothing so far.”
“Shame the shooter didn’t at least clip a few of those reporters,” Keisha says.
“From what they’re reporting,” Arnie says, “they know a lot more about our case than we do.”
“Shit they’re sayin’ is vile,” Keisha says. “All of ’em too. It’s like there’s only one kind of journalism anymore—tabloid.”
“Can’t let verifiable truth get in the way of entertainment,” I say.
“They’re makin’ it near ’bout impossible for us to make a case,” Keisha says. “And forget finding a jury who hasn’t been tainted.”
“Well, we’re gonna build a case and we’re going to take the killer to trial,” Reggie says, “so let’s get to it. Who wants to start?”
“I will,” Jessica says.
“Okay.”
“Only prints in the safe room are Roger Garrett’s and Justin Harris’s,” she says. “And there’s no other physical evidence in it—no blood or . . . nothing to indicate the killer was in there before or after Mariah’s murder.”
“Everywhere we turn, every new piece of evidence we find or don’t find,” Keisha says, “makes it look like the killer was someone staying in the house that night.”
Reggie nods. “I agree.”
“I think I may have something,” Arnie says, “and if I’m right about it, it could be evidence of an intruder or not—could go either way.”
“What’s that?” Reggie asks.
“Remember the little metal pieces found on the floor in Mariah’s bedroom?”
“Yeah,” Reggie says.
“They’re still at the lab,” Jessica says.
“Here’s a picture of them,” he says, and passes around an evidence photo of the small flat piece of metal with the small cylindrical piece beside it.
“Now look at this,” he says, and passes another photo showing two similar pieces.
“They’re the same, right?”
Reggie Nods.
Jessica says, “Look the same to me.”
“That flat piece is a blast door,” Arnie says. “The little round thing is part of a probe. They’re from a taser.”
“Great work, Arnie,” I say. “Really nice. That’s exactly what it is.”
“Nice job, partner,” Keisha says.
“Yes,” Reggie says. “Very nice. So . . . hopefully we’ll get prints or DNA or something from it, but . . . in the meantime the use of a taser argues for an intruder, right?”
“You’d think anyone in the house—except maybe Irvin and Brett could just tell Mariah what to do and she’d do it,” Keisha says. “Trace, Ashley, and Nadine—I mean, she’d do what they told her to, wouldn’t she?”
“That’s what I was thinkin’,” Arnie says.
“So maybe there was an intruder,” Reggie says. “But with no break-in . . .”
“We’re back to someone with a key or someone hiding in the house after the party,” Keisha says.
“John?” Reggie says. “What’s that look? What’re you thinking?”
“Two things,” I say. “That it doesn’t necessarily point to an intruder or Brett or Irvin—though it might. It could just be part of the killer’s sick fantasy or some form of punishment, a desire to control or inflict pain prior to death.”
“True,” Keisha says, “so it could be Trace playing some sick sexual game or Ashley being punitive in some sick way.”
“But,” I say, “and this is by far the more important point. There’s absolutely no evidence in Mariah’s autopsy that a taser was used on her.”
245
“Saw you on YouTube,” Randa Raffield says.
I’m driving home for the day, bone-weary and mentally exhauste
d, the slash pines lining the rural highway seen through my raindrop-dotted windshield all running together.
It has been a while since she’s called—so long, in fact, that when I saw the call was from an unknown number I didn’t even consider it might be her. Of course that could have something to do with the weariness as well.
“You did just fine,” she adds, “but Merrill was particularly impressive.”
“Yes he was.”
“Makes you wonder why he didn’t do a better job of protecting Daniel, doesn't it? Was he just having an off night or am I just that good?”
“He’d welcome a rematch anytime,” I say.
“Speaking of Daniel . . . How’s our boy doing? He missing mama yet? Give him my love, would you?”
I don’t respond.
The drizzling rain intensifies a bit and I turn my wipers up a notch.
“Well anyway,” she says, “I was just calling to ask for your autograph now that you’re all internet famous and shit. And to make sure we’re square.”
“Square?”
“Since I returned ol’ Dan. Wanted to make sure you were keeping your end of the bargain and not still looking for me.”
“We’re nothing like square,” I say. “And we’ve never had a bargain, but you don’t even keep the ones you make without my agreement. But I’ll be honest with you . . . I’m not actively looking for you right now.”
“Got your hands full, do you?”
“Little bit, yeah.”
“Well, it’s for the best,” she says. “There’s no extradition here. It’s why I’m here. And I’d hate to see you throw a lot of effort after futility.”
“That’s sweet of you, thanks.”
“I like you, John,” she says. “Always have. That’s why I want you to leave me alone. Don’t want to have to tussle with you or wind up hurting someone you love. And let’s face it, you love a lot of people. You’re obviously not Buddhist, are you? By my calculations you’ve got more than your share of woes.”
I smile, appreciating her allusion to statement attributed to the Buddha that He who loves 50 people has 50 woes. He who loves no one has no woes.
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