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

by Michael Lister

  “You got anybody in mind?” Frank asked me. “For the doer. The rapist.”

  I nodded. “Pelton. Storr. Carlton. Ralph Alderman.”

  “Alderman?” Bobby said.

  I told them about Carlton’s reaction to Ralph.

  “Could mean nothin’,” Battle said.

  “But it could mean somethin’,” Frank said. “It really could.”

  “Yeah, and it could be nothin’.”

  “Why did Ralph leave the force?” I asked.

  “GBI did the investigation,” Battle said. “Ask him.”

  I looked at Frank.

  “I’ll find out,” he said.

  “And while he’s doin’ that, I’ll try to make the world a safer place for people like you and a fellow cop’s wife by cleaning the streets of Pelton and Storr. And while we do that, how about you don’t do anything? Nothin’ else to get somebody killed or fuck up my case. Okay? Except . . . get a pager so I can keep tabs on you. I’m serious. Get one today.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” the small woman yelled.

  She was standing at the fence in front of Safe Haven, having just screeched up in her car and stormed up to the chain-link barrier, and was yelling over it at Jordan.

  Jordan and I were sitting on the center bench on the breezeway. Besides Ralph we were the only two outside. It would be another twenty minutes or so until the kids crashed the playground.

  “Oh no,” Jordan said.

  “Who is it?”

  “Carlton’s mom,” she said. “Vanessa.”

  So short she could barely see over the fence, the tiny woman had straight black hair and a darkish complexion that made her look part Native-American.

  “How could you . . .” Vanessa was saying.

  Ralph was moving in her direction but from inside the fence.

  “You stay the hell away from me you evil son of a––”

  “Vanessa,” Jordan said as we reached her. “What’s going on? What is it? Why’re you doing this?”

  “How could you, Jordan?” she said.

  “How could I what?”

  “You’re supposed to protect children, especially the ones like Carlton.”

  “Ma’am, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” Ralph was saying.

  His shaky voice betrayed his nervousness, and though it was a cool morning, his shirt was now soaked through with sweat.

  “Get this fat piece of shit away from me right now,” Vanessa said, “or I swear to God I’ll have this place shut down by nightfall.”

  “Give us a minute, Ralph,” Jordan said.

  “But––”

  “Now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, backing away. “I’ll be right over here if you––”

  “Ralph,” she said, “stop talking and go. Now.”

  He did, backing away awkwardly over to his sentry post position near the main gate.

  “I can’t believe you let that fat creepy bastard around my son.”

  “I didn’t. I mean . . . not on purpose. And all he did was see him for a second from about twenty-five feet away.”

  “Well that was enough to upset him as bad as I’ve ever seen him . . . except when . . . your . . . brother died.”

  “My brother didn’t just die. He was the victim of a violent murder.”

  “And you’ve got the man who most likely did it working for you, supposedly protecting other children. You bring him around my son. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  The conversation wasn’t pleasant, but the day was. Cool, crisp air, no humidity, orange and brown burnished leaves emblazoned on the trees, and the overall good feeling of fall.

  “Why is Carlton so afraid of Ralph?” I asked.

  “Fat bastard terrorized the hell out of them when they were little.”

  I couldn’t imagine Carlton ever being little, which was somewhat odd to think because his mom was an extremely petite woman, smaller even than Jordan.

  “How?”

  “In a thousand different ways. He bullied the bejesus out of them. Made them do things. He’s creepy as hell. Never have been able to get the full story out of Carlton, but it was bad.”

  “I had no idea,” Jordan said.

  “Are you serious? How could you not know something like that? How could you have him working here? What the hell kind of haven you running here? Sure as shit ain’t safe.”

  “Did you bully my brother?” Jordan asked Ralph.

  The moment Vanessa had turned to leave, we had walked directly over to where he stood.

  “What? No. Is that what that crazy bitch said?”

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “Watch it with that, Ralph,” Jordan said.

  “Sorry, but . . . it’s insane.”

  “It’s not insane,” I said. “You’re a bully.”

  “I’m not. I’ve never . . . All I did was teach them some discipline. That’s it. Neither of them had a dad around. I was the only man in their lives, the only adult to take an interest in them, in how they turned out, in what kind of men they would become.”

  “You never touched them?” I said.

  “What? No. Oh God, no. See? I told you. If she said that then she’s insane. I swear to God. I never. That’s so sick. I would never. Not ever. Not anybody.”

  He was in full panic mode––red faced, raised, tight, shrill voice, wide, wild eyes.

  “Did you kill LaMarcus?” Jordan asked.

  “Jordan,” he said, his wounded voice as saddened as shocked. “Of course not. How could you even ask. I never laid a finger on him. Never. I didn’t bully him or hurt him or Carlton in any way. Not ever. I swear to God. Strap me up to a polygraph right now. I’m tellin’ the truth. I swear it.”

  Ida sat quietly thinking for a long moment, chewing her lip as she did, her brow furrowed, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

  Jordan had just finished telling her what Vanessa had accused Ralph of and Ralph’s response.

  Kids and staff out on the playground under the watchful gaze of Ralph Alderman, the three of us were alone inside the large, empty main room of the daycare center.

  The room smelled of sleep and sweat, of glue and paint, of cleaning chemicals and air freshener, every surface moist and sticky.

  “Whatta you think I should do, John?” she asked. “Let him go right now? Give him a chance to respond? Try to line up a polygraph?”

  I shrugged.

  Before I could answer, she added, “I’d find it very hard to fire a man over an accusation. I mean, that’s all we have, right? He’s never given me one minute of trouble. He’s overzealous sometimes, but that’s it.”

  “It’d be nice to be able to have him here so we could watch him,” I said. “Dig a little deeper into his life while keeping an eye on him, but . . . the stakes are just too high.”

  “You think it’s possible he killed my boy?”

  I nodded. “It’s possible he had something to do with what happened to LaMarcus––even if someone else was involved too.”

  “Someone else?”

  “We think it’s at least possible that two people were involved.”

  “Well find out fast,” she said. “’Cause I can’t fire a good employee and family friend because of an accusation.”

  “I will,” I said, thinking that if I didn’t and something happened to one of the kids in their care . . .

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “You okay?” Frank Morgan asked.

  I was walking to my car when he pulled into the Safe Haven parking lot and rolled down his passenger side window.

  I shrugged.

  “Get in,” he said.

  I did.

  “When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”

  “Not sure. Last night I guess. But I’m okay.”

  “Let’s grab a burger. We’ll just run through a drive-thru. Eat in the car. I’ll bring you right back here in a few minutes.”

  “I’m not hungry,
” I said. “But you eat. I’ll go along for the ride.”

  “How much money you got?” he asked.

  “On me? None. But . . .”

  “But,” he said, “somewhere else you have plenty?”

  “Well, not plenty, but . . .”

  “Any?”

  I nodded.

  “How much? And don’t lie to me.”

  “Gas money for the rest of the week.”

  “That much, huh? So you can get where you need to go––including work and working this case and Grady to help someone else, but you can’t eat if you do.”

  “I can eat. I’m eating.”

  “Here’s what’s gonna happen,” he said. “I’m gonna buy you one of these awful Cindy’s burgers up here and you’re gonna eat it just like it’s decent. Then I’m gonna give you this crisp fifty dollar bill in my wallet and you’re gonna eat the rest of this week––every day, hell, twice a day––and the only thing you’re going to say is what you like on your burger. Understand?”

  I had to swallow hard against the lump in my throat and blink back the tears stinging my eyes.

  The relief I felt was indescribable.

  “Thank you, Frank.”

  “Thank you Frank is not a condiment. Tell me what you want on your knockoff burger.”

  “It means more than you’ll ever know.”

  “It’s just food. It’s not love.”

  “The hell it’s not,” I said. “The hell it’s not.”

  He pulled up and we ordered. While we waited, advancing around the building one car length at a time every few minutes, he handed me the fifty out of his wallet and said, “So now that your money troubles are temporarily over, tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “This case. When I’m not making rookie mistakes, I’m not gettin’ anywhere. I suck at this. And that’s not just a shame because this is what I want to do with my life, but because somebody really needs to find out who killed LaMarcus and do something about it.”

  He nodded. We finally got our food and we pulled back out onto the road.

  “Thing is,” I said, “I have too many not too few suspects. I can’t exclude anyone.”

  “Often the case,” he said. “Tell you what . . . between bites of that burger, why don’t you walk me through it.”

  I did.

  “I can see it being one perp or two,” I said. “I can see it being the biological father or Pelton or Storr or Alderman or Carlton or some combination of them––one to do the killing, another the rape, but . . . I can’t exclude any of them. Hell, I can’t even completely rule out Wayne Williams. It’s driving me crazy.”

  He nodded, his expression telling me he knew exactly what I meant.

  “It’s that way far more often than you’d think,” he said. “Sometimes there’s several people who could’ve done it and you can’t pinpoint which one. Others you know exactly who did it and just can’t prove it. And far too often you can never be certain about exactly what happened or who did what. Think about Wayne Williams. I’m pretty sure he’s the Atlanta Child Murderer, but I’m not certain. You’ve looked at most of the evidence and you’re not certain one way or the other. It’s the job. Can you reconcile ambiguity? Can you live with not knowing? Move on.”

  “I don’t know that I can.”

  “You can live with far more than you think you can,” he said. “You’ll learn that soon enough.”

  It was maybe the first time he’d treated me like anything other than a peer. I didn’t like it. He was probably right. I was pretty sure he was. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  We ate in silence a few moments as he drove back down Flat Shoals toward Safe Haven.

  “You know,” he said, “it’s at least possible that the doer is someone else entirely.”

  “Why I’m not gonna stop looking,” I said.

  “Never doubted that,” he said. “Not for a minute.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “I would’ve committed suicide if it weren’t for this group,” a nervous, emaciated, sunbaked young woman said. “I’m not just being melodramatic. I mean it. If I didn’t have you guys . . . if I didn’t have this work to do . . .”

  “It works if you work it,” an older man with a wet, gurgley smoker’s voice said. “You did the work. We just supported you.”

  I had come with Jordan and Ida to the support group for grieving parents held in a meeting room of the K Center at Chapel Hill.

  It was facilitated by George Clarke, a tall, thin, soft-spoken African-American pastor in a navy-blue suit and burgundy clerical collar.

  “Grief is a natural response to loss,” Pastor George had said. “It’s the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief will be. And there’s no loss like the loss of a child. No pain like it. Nothin’ compares. There’s nothin’ more personal or individual than the process of grieving. There’s no one single way to do it. There are no steps. No rules. No particular timeframe. But there are common stages and ways of coping and dealing and healing that work far better than others. And most important . . . is having a support system. That’s why we’re here.”

  After those introductory remarks and a reminder of the group’s ground rules, each member took a turn sharing.

  “You get to a point where loss and pain and grief are all you know,” Jordan said.

  It was Jordan’s turn.

  She looked at me. “Someone decent and good and kind comes along, something good happens in your life, and you don’t even know how to process it, but you realize if you don’t, if you don’t recognize the good when it comes along, if you don’t receive it, then you’ve lost, trauma and tragedy have won, have gotten the last word. You realize that you might as well have died when your child did, because what you’re doing is not living, is not life.”

  Several people nodded, but a few others, others probably more recently entering the grief process, still raw, weren’t as sure.

  “We don’t want to live,” she said. “We feel not just sad, not just broken from the unimaginable loss, unthinkable undoing of our very existences, we feel guilty. Guilty for being here, for being alive, guilt that is compounded and multiplied by anything with even the possibility of leading to something like joy or pleasure or even the slight lightening of the load of pain we bear.”

  Jordan was in her element here. She knew loss. She knew pain. She knew grief. And she spoke more eloquently about it, and with more wisdom and profundity, than in any other situation I had seen her in or on any other topic I had witnessed her address.

  Next up was a youngish, buttoned-up black man with glasses and an honest to God pocket protector. “I was reading Crime and Punishment this week and came across this–– ‘The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God.’ When I first read it I really liked it. Even highlighted it and wrote it down. But the more I read it, the more I just wasn’t sure. I mean . . . is it true? Doesn’t really seem true except maybe for some of the time.”

  “God is close to a broken heart,” an elderly black lady said, “an ever present help in our time of need.”

  “Those are just platitudes,” the professorial-looking man said. “Just ’cause someone said it doesn’t make it true.”

  “It’s in the Bible,” she said. “That’s what makes it true.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s true,” a middle-aged white man said. “Pain. Pain is truth. It’s so true sometimes there seems like there’s nothin’ else. I just . . . I’m not sure I can keep going like this, feeling like this. I’m not sure I even want to.”

  “I didn’t just lose a child,” Ida said when it was her turn. “I lost a grandchild too. My son was the victim of violence and I still don’t know who did it. There’s no . . . Talk about pain. Talk about darkness and a demon that won’t leave you alone. Then to see your grandchild suffer for all of her short life and then die . . . It’s too much. I
t doesn’t ever go away. Not ever. But it does become just barely bearable. Just barely. It does. Trust me. Hang on. Don’t give up.”

  “Why?” the middle-aged white man asked. “So I can get to barely bearable? That’s what I have to look forward to? That’s not enough.”

  Sitting among the ruins, listening to the raw bone pain pour out, feeling the overwhelming oppression of loss and grief, despair and hopelessness, I realized just how little loss I had undergone, just how pain free my relatively easy existence had been thus far, and on top of every other difficult emotion I was experiencing, I also felt guilt.

  “I don’t see how y’all do it,” I said to Ida and Jordan after the group had concluded, its members dispersed back to the despair that was the norm of their lives.

  We were walking down the long, light blue-carpeted hallway of the K Center toward the door.

  “To live with the . . . with what you do . . . then to . . . take in all the pain and grief of the group. It just seems . . . too much.”

  “Sometimes it is,” Ida said.

  “It really does help to share it,” Jordan said. “To feel heard and understood, to get to give that back to others in a similar situation.”

  I wondered which I could do to help more people––ministry or investigation. How could I combine my interests, talents, and opportunities to make some small difference in the time and place and circumstance I was born into.

  “Thank you again for all you’re doin’ for us,” Ida said. “You can’t know what it means, how it helps, but . . .”

  I waited, unable to imagine what was coming next.

  “We lived this way a long time. We gonna get by. Don’t you be puttin’ too much undo pressure on yourself.”

  I must have inadvertently expressed I wasn’t following.

  “We don’t have any expectations,” Jordan said. “We’ve resigned ourselves to not knowing what happened to LaMarcus and why.”

  “Well, I haven’t,” I said. “I can’t. I won’t.”

  “‘For now we see through a glass, darkly,’” Ida said, quoting Saint Paul, “‘but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ Sometimes we just don’t get to know.”