INNOCENT BLOOD: a John Jordan Mystery Book 7 (John Jordan Mysteries)

by Michael Lister

  “Mule headed more like it,” Melvin, a large black man, said.

  “We surely are that,” Ida agreed.

  The gathering of the faithful took place in the back corner of the Safe Haven daycare center and included Ida, Melvin, a tall, thin woman named Rose Lee, a squat, muscular, fireplug of a man named Preston Mailer, and to my delight and surprise Jordan Moore.

  Mailer was a retired cop. He along with everyone but me and Jordan were black.

  “Wanna welcome our new member,” Ida said. “This is John Jordan. He’s new to Atlanta but has been followin’ the case a long time. He’ll be a real asset to the group.”

  “Thank you for havin’ me,” I said. “I’ve been interested and invested in this case since childhood and I look forward to being involved in the work y’all are doin’.”

  “By way of introducin’ John to our group and for us to hear from him, I thought we’d do one of our round robin brainstorm sessions tonight,” Ida said.

  Everybody indicated their assent.

  “We learn by sharin’, by aksin’ questions––of each other and ourselves. Nobody got to agree with anybody on anything. Only rule is be courteous.”

  “That means you, Preston,” Rose Lee said.

  “Never been anything but,” he said.

  “Anything but a butt,” she said.

  It was said in good humor and everyone laughed.

  “We’re a diverse group, John,” Ida said. “Some believe Wayne Williams was set up, that he’s completely innocent.”

  Preston raised his hand.

  “Some think he’s guilty of all twenty-nine on the list plus some.”

  Rose Lee raised her hand and smiled.

  “Others, like myself and Jordan, think it possible Wayne Williams did some of ’em but just as possible he didn’t. We just ain’t convinced either way. What we think more likely is if he did ’em, he didn’t do ’em all.”

  I nodded.

  “Why don’t we start with what John thinks,” Jordan said.

  “Good idea,” Ida said. “John?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve studied and studied the case against Wayne Williams––and I’ve had access to a lot of task force documents and information the general public hasn’t––but I just––”

  “How?” Preston Mailer asked.

  “Let the young man talk, Preston,” Ida said.

  “How what?” I asked.

  “How’d you get task force documents and information?”

  Preston Mailer was a large, fleshy, light-skinned black man with thinning and receding gray hair on top of his huge head. His thick, swollen-looking skin was the color of river clay, a hint of red hue in it, his face dotted with dark freckles and moles the size and shape of the small black specks deposited in the filter of a faucet connected to an old copper pipe.

  “My dad’s in law enforcement,” I said. “We had a friend on the task force.”

  “Who?”

  I shook my head. “Won’t tell you that.”

  He huffed, frowning and shaking his enormous head.

  “So you’ve had access to this information the general public doesn’t have . . .” Jordan said.

  “And I still don’t know. I go back and forth. Sometimes I think in spite of the weak case against Williams, he really is the killer––the main serial killer who killed with a certain pattern. Other times I think he’s innocent not only of what he was charged with but the other murders as well. The fibers are compelling . . . but there are some problems with them.”

  “Such as?” Preston said.

  “Trace evidence––hair and fibers and other substances exchanged during contact––should work both ways. Hair from Williams’s dog and fibers from his carpet shouldn’t just be found on the victims, but some of their hair and fibers should’ve been found on him––or in his home or car.”

  Everyone nodded, including Preston.

  “There are other problems too,” I said. “The fibers they found on some of the victims and tied to Williams aren’t as rare as the prosecution claimed. And in at least one case, the prosecution matched fibers found on one of the victims to a car the Williams didn’t own at the time.”

  I had everyone’s attention, but most enjoyed Jordan’s.

  “What about there not being such a thing as a black serial killer?” Preston said.

  “That’s been the conventional wisdom,” I said, “but it’s just not true. There have been others before Williams and the more data the FBI gets, the more they see it’s far more common than anyone knew.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Serial killers are white males, eighteen to thirty-five.”

  “Most are,” I said. “But not all.”

  “What else?” Jordan said. “Keep on.”

  Was she reconsidering going out with me? She was certainly responding to me in a way she hadn’t before.

  “You started by saying the fiber evidence is compelling,” Rose Lee said.

  “It is,” I said. “The sheer volume of it is staggering. And that it can link Williams’s environment to so many of the victims.”

  “His environment,” Ida said. “Exactly. Did anyone ever look at his dad? Could Homer Williams have committed the crimes?”

  “Or Faye?” Jordan said.

  “Good questions,” I said. “I don’t know the answers.”

  “But what else makes you suspect Wayne Williams?” Rose Lee asked.

  “There’re a lot of things. I don’t put a ton of stock in them, but I don’t totally discount the eyewitnesses who testified they saw Williams with some of the victims. The way in which he lies and exaggerates. His behavior in general, but after he began being followed by the police in particular––calling a press conference and the things he said, leading police to the houses of people connected to the case, failing lie detector tests, his interest in law enforcement.”

  “Which you and I share with him,” Preston said.

  I nodded. “But we were never busted for impersonating an officer.”

  “He was?” Jordan asked.

  “He was. He also showed up at one of the crime scenes offering to take pictures for the cops.”

  “Really?” Preston said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “His outbursts on the witness stand,” I continued. “The way he changed so drastically. But more than anything else except the hairs and fibers is the entire bridge incident. During the weeks of river and bridge stakeouts, Williams was the only one to ever be stopped. What was he doing there? Why did he turn around and cross over the bridge again? He lied about what he had done earlier in the evening. It was three o’clock in the morning and the reason he gave for being there was bullshit. He said he had an audition the next morning with Cheryl Johnson and he had driven around trying to verify where she lived and when he couldn’t, he went in search of a pay phone. No one, not the police, not the FBI, not the press, not the defense team has ever been able to find this Cheryl Johnson. This was the biggest, highest profile case since . . . maybe ever. You don’t think if she existed she would’ve come forward by now?”

  Everyone seemed to be pondering what I was saying––even Preston.

  “Then there’s the report that a small piece of rope and a change of clothes were found in his station wagon the night he was pulled over on the bridge,” I continued. “There were also drops of blood found in the station wagon that were the same type as at least two of the victims. Witnesses say he and his dad were seen burning clothes and papers and other things that could be considered evidence in their backyard once he became a person of interest in the case. And I know a lot of people don’t, but I put a lot of stock in the profile––and the fact that the two FBI profilers who worked the case, Roy Hazelwood and John Douglas, believe Williams to be guilty. All that said, I still can’t be certain––which probably has more to do with the way the evidence was handled than questions about the evidence itself.”

  As was often the case, when I finished
going through the case against Williams, I was convinced he was responsible for of the killings. Unanswered questions would eventually cause doubt to creep back in, and I would never be convinced he killed everyone on the list, but in that moment I believed him to be the serial killer responsible for the serial killings within the greater list of victims.

  “What about the killings that’ve happened since Wayne was arrested?” Preston said. “How can you explain those?”

  “Same way you explain the ones that weren’t part of the pattern while Wayne was out,” I said. “Someone else is doing them. Probably several someone elses. To me, the serial killer––whether it’s Williams or someone else––killed serially, as part of a distinct pattern in a particular way. I’d say the young black males who were asphyxiated were part of that pattern. The others, and there were and still are many, were done by others for other reasons. That means the famous list is wrong. That means that you have to exclude females and adults and the young males who were stabbed or shot. And what you have following Williams’s arrest are mostly stabbings and shootings.”

  “You may be right,” Preston said. “But if you are that means the two victims Wayne was actually convicted of killing shouldn’t’ve even been on the list to begin with.”

  I nodded.

  “And that my brother should’ve been,” Jordan said.

  “Your brother?” I asked in surprise.

  “LaMarcus,” she said.

  “My boy,” Ida said. “She’s his sister. Me and her daddy married when the kids were still little.”

  I nodded.

  “So why ain’t he?” Ida asked. “Why ain’t my son on the list?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but it’s the first thing I intend to find out.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Wow,” Jordan said. “You really breathed new life back into our little group.”

  We were walking down the breezeway after having locked up, the others milling around the parking lot, making sure not to leave her alone with the new member obsessed with murder.

  “They’re lingering,” I said, nodding toward them.

  “They’re protective,” she said.

  “I get it,” I said. “What they’ve been through, what they’ve seen. I’m glad they are.”

  “They’re sweet,” she said. “They’ve been with me through a lot over the years.”

  “I had no idea LaMarcus was your brother,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No way you could’ve known.”

  The diamond in her wedding set glinted in the light of one of the overhead Fluorescent bulbs.

  “I also didn’t know you were married when I asked you out,” I said. “Sorry. You weren’t wearing your ring and . . .”

  “Please don’t apologize,” she said. “It was the kindest, most flattering thing to happen to me in a long time. I take them off at work. They snag on everything.”

  “The truth is I saw the tan line and asked anyway. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s just an excuse,” she said.

  “Huh? What is?”

  “Work.”

  “I’m––”

  “I don’t just take my rings off because they snag,” she said. “I . . . I’m . . . It’s not your fault. I’m sure you were just pickin’ up on . . . my . . . I’ve said too much already. You’re too easy to talk to.”

  “Please,” I said.

  “I’m in a situation I’ve needed to be out of for a very long time,” she said. “I just haven’t been able to find a way out and . . .”

  “And?”

  “And I’m sure you were pickin’ up on my attraction too. I’ve never . . . I can’t remember it . . . it’s never been quite so immediate or . . .”

  “Come on, slowpokes,” Preston called. “I’m ready to go home.”

  “Can I give you a ride?” I asked.

  “NO,” she exclaimed. “Sorry, but . . . that would be the worst thing. Thank you, but . . . I can’t. And I really shouldn’t talk to you again. I’m sorry. I wish things were different.”

  Before I could say anything else, we reached the others.

  “Good meeting everyone,” Ida said. “See you next week.”

  “So glad you joined us, John,” Rose Lee said.

  A black Trans Am screeched off the street and into the driveway, racing up to where we stood.

  “Oh my God,” Jordan said, moving away from me and over by Ida.

  “It’s okay, Jordan,” Ida said. “You’re okay, baby.”

  “He’s supposed to be at work.”

  “Larry Moore,” Rose Lee whispered to me, “Jordan’s husband.”

  A smallish but muscular man in very short exercise shorts and a tank top tucked into them jumped out of the car.

  His hair was feathered and blown back and he wore a large, flat gold chain around his neck, the bottom of which disappeared into his thick chest hair.

  “What the hell, Jordan?” he said. “Why aren’t you at home?”

  “Our meeting ran a little long,” Ida said. “I was just about to take her.”

  “Get in the car, Jordan,” he said. “Now.”

  She actually shook.

  “I . . . I thought . . . you were at work,” she said. “I . . . wouldn’t’ve stayed for the meeting. I didn’t know.”

  “My wife out to all hours of the night,” he said. “What the hell? Get in the car.”

  He stopped when he saw me.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  Ida started to answer, but I stepped forward. “John Jordan,” I said.

  “You bowing up at me, bitch?” he said.

  I didn’t respond, just stood there.

  “Jordan, get in the fuckin’ car now. And wipe your feet.”

  She moved toward the car. Hesitantly. Slowly. Self-consciously.

  “Come home with me, baby,” Ida said.

  “Stay out of it, Ida,” he said. “She’s coming home with her husband––where she should’ve been hours ago.”

  “She better be at work on time in the morning,” Ida said. “And there better not be a mark on her.”

  Jordan carefully eased into the car, looking like a frightened child.

  “Come on, Mom, you know I wouldn’t do that,” he said to Ida. “I never leave marks.”

  He then jumped into his car and sped away.

  “Lord Jesus, the things that poor child done been through,” Ida said.

  We were walking back toward the building so she could use the phone.

  “I know the scriptures say God won’t put more on a body than they can bear,” she said, “but I don’t see how she’s still gettin’ up of a mornin’.”

  Everyone else in group had gone––including Preston. I guess he concluded I didn’t have the same intentions toward Ida as I did Jordan.

  “Can’t help but think it’s my fault,” she said. “I’m the only mama she ever had, the only family for more’n six years now.”

  “She’s lucky to have you.”

  “Done somethin’ wrong, her with a man like that,” she said.

  Inside, she walked directly to the phone and punched in a number from memory.

  “Sorry to bother you so late, Sergeant,” she said.

  She paused and listened.

  “He just picked her up here at the daycare, yellin’ and cussin’ and showboatin’ in his little vroom vroom car.”

  She paused again.

  “Okay. Thank you. Don’t know what I’d do if he hurt her again. Okay then. Goodnight.”

  She hung up and we locked up again.

  “Okay,” she said, “let’s try to go get some sleep. I got to be back here in just a few short hours.”

  “So Jordan’s okay?”

  “That was Larry’s brother, Vince. Said he’d take care of it. I’ve had to call him before. He’s always handled it.”

  “You called him sergeant.”

  “He’s not just Larry’s brother, he’s his commanding offic
er.”

  “He’s in the military?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Larry’s a cop.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I was unable to sleep that night.

  All I could think about was Jordan Moore.

  I saw her when I closed my eyes. I saw her when I opened them.

  Was she okay? How could she be with such a shallow bully loser? Why did he have to be a cop? Why did she have to be so beautiful, so vulnerable, be in such an unbelievably bad situation?

  Where was she right now? Locked in the bathroom, Larry beating down the door? Lying uneasily in the bed beside him? Unconscious? Drugged? In the hospital? Dead?

  I had no way of contacting her. Didn’t know her phone number, address, anything. Nothing I could really do even if I did.

  I felt powerless and pathetic, a kid come to the city to uncover a killer and I couldn’t even help a helpless woman in danger.

  I was so damn helpless myself.

  I laid down and tried to sleep but it was futile.

  The phone rang a few minutes later.

  I answered it in the dark, grabbing the receiver so hurriedly I dropped it, hoping it was Jordan, knowing it couldn’t be.

  “John?”

  It was Anna.

  “Hey.”

  “Did I wake you? I figured you’d be up.”

  “I am. I was. You didn’t wake me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Why?”

  “You sound . . . I don’t know. Is something wrong?”

  “I’m okay. How are you? How is Chris?”

  “I looked for you after graduation, but . . . I can’t believe you moved to Atlanta before I could say goodbye. You Jordans don’t mess around gettin’ out of town, do you?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Speaking of,” she said, “you heard anything from Nancy?”

  “Not a word.”

  “She probably doesn’t know how to contact you.”