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

by Michael Lister

  Concentrate. Focus.

  I looked over Ralph’s file first. Frank was right. There just wasn’t much there.

  Then I turned my attention to sleeping little angels.

  The first few were ruled accidental overdose, which was what they appeared to be. Noctec prescribed for children with insomnia. Parents who would have to live with the fact that they had unwittingly killed their own child. In a couple of the cases, a parent had administered the drug not realizing the other parent already had. In a couple of others it was simply a case of too large a dosage. None of these involved abduction or rape. Nothing even suspicious.

  Of the rest, all but two had an obvious suspect––whether convicted or even arrested or not.

  That left two cases where, like LaMarcus’s, there was no clear motive or suspect, where the why and the who remained unknown.

  Putting aside all other files but Ralph’s and these two child murder cases, I dug in, examining every detail, going back and forth between them, comparing, contrasting, questioning, challenging.

  Both cases involved little black boys near LaMarcus’s age when he was murdered. Both were good kids from good homes. Both were killed at home, their bodies found on or near their property.

  And then I saw it.

  The first boy had spent the afternoon at South Dekalb mall with his friends on the day he died. He and his friends had even had a run-in with a mall security guard, Ralph Alderman, who had given a statement to the police. The officer who took the statement was Larry Moore.

  The second boy who, was killed about a year later, attended Safe Haven Daycare and Aftercare Academy. He had been particularly close to the school’s resource officer, a Ralph Alderman, who had stated during his interview what a fine young man the boy had been, what a tragedy this was, and how very much he’d be missed, especially by Alderman himself.

  I rushed upstairs to call Jordan.

  Pam’s office was empty so I helped myself to her phone.

  “What is it? Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Do you remember a kid who came through there named Atwood Jones?”

  “Mom and I spoke at his funeral. We’ve done more of that over the years than I care to remember, but his was more difficult than most. Wasn’t sick. Didn’t have an accident. It was so sudden. Shocking. I don’t think they ever even figured out what he died of.”

  “They did,” I said. “Same as LaMarcus.”

  “What? Really? Oh my God. Are you sure?”

  “How close were he and Ralph?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Very. Oh, God, John. No. Please no.”

  “Is he there now?”

  “He is.”

  “Okay. Just act normal. Everything’s going to be okay. Keep an eye on him but be careful not to let him know you know anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  I hung up, then lifted the receiver again and punched in Bobby Battle’s number.

  “I’s just about to call you,” he said. “Guess whose tickets got punched in an early mornin’ shootout?”

  “Ray and Vince?”

  “Give that man a prize.”

  “What do I win if I guess who shot ’em?” I said.

  “Wait just a minute now.”

  “It was Larry Moore, wasn’t it?” I said. “You told him they had threatened his wife. You knew he would kill them.”

  “I never told him shit,” he said. “Haven’t spoken to the crazy bastard in a while––and then only in passing. I know maybe your head’s a little messed up and you’re under a lot of stress, but that’s a very serious allegation you’re makin’. And there’s no truth in it. I swear. So do me a favor and just say thank you for callin’ you with the good news.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  We were quiet a beat while I wondered if I really believed him.

  “Can you come to the college?” I said. “I’ve got some evidence you need to see.”

  “Sure, John,” he said. “It’s not like I’m doin’ anything else.”

  “It’s important.”

  “Lucky for you I was about to go to lunch,” he said. “I’ll stop by on my way.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I mean it.”

  “Hell,” he said, “I thought you meant it before.”

  When I got off the phone, Pam Palmer appeared in the doorway.

  “Randy, Mr. Aycock, and I need to talk to you for a minute,” she said.

  “Can it wait? I’m in the middle of something really important.”

  “We’ll try to make it as brief as possible.”

  We walked over to Pete Aycock’s office and she closed the door behind us.

  Pete Aycock, a trim, suave, self-possessed middle-aged man, was the president of the school. He was a calm, plainspoken pragmatist, who often took time to talk with students, illustrating his many points with homespun stories and movie metaphors. Recently, he had used the hit movie Top Gun to point out to me the importance of being under authority and having a wingman.

  “This is difficult,” Randy said. “You’re a great student and such a wonderful addition to our school and church. You’re doing a good job with the facilities, and the ministry work you’re doing in your covenant community is exemplary.”

  What the hell is so bad it requires that kind of buildup in front of the president of the college?

  “You really are such an asset,” Pam said. “Such an example of the kind of students we want EPI to attract.”

  “But?” I said. “What is it?”

  “One of your fellow students said you’ve had a married woman in your dorm room at night.”

  “Oh.”

  “I really hope it’s not true,” Randy said. “Female guests are only allowed in the living room and never past midnight. But we would hope as a student at EPI and a minister in our church, you wouldn’t have a married woman anywhere in the apartment.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  We were all silent a beat. Pete Aycock, who always wore a silk tie, pressed white shirt, and a conservative suit that looked tailored for him, recrossed his legs, swept away a piece of lint from his lapel with the backs of his fingers, straightened his tie, and cleared his throat.

  “Is it true?” he asked.

  “Is what true?”

  “Are you sleeping with a married woman?” Pam said. “Having an affair? Bringing her into your room?”

  “No. No. And yes. I’m not sleeping with or having an affair with anyone. But yes, a soon-to-be-divorced, technically still-married woman has been in my room. Never alone. Always with a neighbor kid, who’s almost always there. Has anyone complained about him?”

  Pam shook her head.

  I nodded.

  “Listen, John,” Pete said, “just be smart. Okay? Being guileless is good, but you need to be wise too. What was it Jesus said? Be as innocent as a dove but as shrewd as a snake.”

  “It’s best if all guests keep their visits confined to the living room,” Randy said. “That’s all we’re saying. That’s all. Follow the dorm rules. Avoid even the appearance of . . . impropriety.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  When Battle arrived, I took him down to the classroom where I had the files spread out on the table.

  “The fuck you doin’ with these?” he said.

  “Your job.”

  “I didn’t come here to be insulted,” he said, turning to leave. “I was doin’ you a fuckin’ favor.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m . . . I just feel . . . I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said it.”

  He turned back around. “You got five minutes.”

  It took less than four to lay out for him what I had.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said. “You fuckin’ son of a bitch. That fits. That’s . . . that really could be it.”

  It felt good to hear him say it.

  “So, Alderman kills LaMarcus,” he said. “We don’t know if
that’s the first or if he had done it before, and since then . . . he’s killed––but wouldn’t there be more? Why only two?”

  “Only two we found so far. I bet there are others.”

  “But LaMarcus’s body was moved and raped. None of these others are.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” I said. “Everything that’s different from these other cases was done post-mortem. So either he didn’t have opportunity with these once they were dead . . . or . . . LaMarcus was killed during the Atlanta Child Murders case period. So the killer tried to make it look like LaMarcus was part of that––after he was dead. Tied the rope around his neck, roughed up the body, tried to make it look like something it wasn’t. Even the rape occurred after death. But what if it was staged too. What if he just put a condom on an object and inserted it to make it look like rape.”

  He was nodding. “Makes a certain sense.”

  “So we go talk to him?”

  “What? No. We’ve got to build a case. I’ve got to talk to my captain. We’ve got to gather what we can find. See if there are other victims that we might be able to link to him. See if we can get enough for a judge to grant us a warrant. And after all that’s done, see if the DA thinks we have enough for an arrest.

  “Talkin’ to him is the last thing we need to do right now––and the we I’m talkin’ about is the Decatur Police Department. I appreciate what you’ve done. This is great shit. Really great. And it may even be the thing that breaks the case and leads to an arrest, but this is where things get very tricky. We have to follow proper procedure and protocol or the case can get tossed on a stupid technicality. This is very important. Don’t fuck up a case you may very well have solved by doing anything stupid. Stay away from Alderman. Stay away from Safe Haven. Stop detecting. Understand?”

  I nodded.

  “I mean it.”

  “I know.”

  “Let me hear you say you will.”

  “I will.”

  “Good work, John. I mean it. Very good work.”

  I stood there thinking for a long while after he had gone.

  I knew what he had said was true, knew it was how it had to be. What I didn’t know was if I could be okay with it.

  Could I sit back and do nothing? Be satisfied with the contribution I had made, occupy my mind with something else, go back to reinvestigating the Atlanta Child Murders? Or would it be so frustrating that I’d exist in a dark, angry place, thinking and drinking too much, experiencing peace and joy too little.

  I’d have to figure it out, figure out what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be and become. Should I drop out of Bible college and study criminology, become a cop like Battle and Frank and my dad? Should I keep studying ministry and try to figure out a means and a milieu to bring these two disparate callings together? But what could that be?

  Even if I became a cop, I’d reach a point in every case where I had to turn it over to others. The most I could hope for would be to take an investigation as far as it could go, make an arrest, look a killer in the eye, stand there and be a witness for his victim, then hand it over to others, others who make deals and plea bargains and lose cases on technicalities. Could I do that? Would that be any better than this? It would, because I could at least see a case through to its conclusion.

  The classroom door jerked open and Bobby Battle walked back in.

  “Guess we’re not going to have to wait after all,” he said. “There’s a kid missin’ from Safe Haven. Come on.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  “Lord help me Jesus, it’s happenin’ again,” Ida said.

  She was panicking. She wasn’t the only one.

  We were standing on the walkway close to the entrance.

  “I’ve got the school on lockdown,” Ralph was saying to Bobby Battle. “Every child but the missing boy is inside the building and accounted for.”

  He was sweating profusely, wiping his brow often with his fat fingers, slinging the salty liquid off his hand onto the sidewalk.

  “Here’s a picture of him,” Jordan said.

  She passed out xeroxed copies of a young black boy who could be LaMarcus’s brother.

  “How long’s he been missin’?” Battle asked.

  Ida opened her mouth but nothing came out.

  “We’re not sure exactly,” Jordan said. “But we can narrow it down some. The kids eat in the same place, at the same table with the same group every day, every time they eat. It’s one of the ways we take count, keep tabs. We know Brandon was here at ten-fifteen for snack time. We know he was here at eleven when we did our last count before the lunch break. When we sat down at twelve-fifteen for lunch he was gone. We just don’t know how long after eleven he was here.”

  “Okay,” Battle said. “That helps. And the kid’s name is Brandon?”

  “Brandon Wright.”

  “And you’ve searched all the normal places?” he said. “All through the building, every room, every nook and cranny, every hiding spot on the playground and property?”

  Ralph was nodding vigorously before Battle finished. “Everywhere. We wouldn’t’ve called you if we hadn’t. The boy is not on the premises.”

  “Who’s been here?” Battle said.

  Ralph handed him a sheet of paper. “I log everybody––parent, teacher, student, visitor––in and out on my log.”

  I glanced at it over his shoulder. There were only four names.

  “This is everybody?”

  He nodded.

  “Who are they?”

  “These two are parents. One dropped off her child late. The other picked his up for a dentist appointment. The other one was a delivery––food and kitchen supplies–– and this last one was looking the place over, trying to decide whether or not to send his kid here.”

  “His?”

  “Recently divorced single dad.”

  “What’d he drive? Got a phone number, description, anything?”

  Ralph’s eyes grew wide as he shook his head.

  “Did he sign his kid up?” Battle asked Ida. “Leave any info?”

  She shook her head.

  “What about the food delivery person?” he asked. “Y’all know him?”

  “Her, and yes. She’s been doing it for several years now.”

  Two Dekalb County patrol cars pulled into the driveway.

  “I don’t want any panicking. Everybody calm down. I want you to make sure the kids are okay, that they have no idea what is goin’ on. Can you do that, while also asking if anybody knows where Brandon is or saw him leaving?”

  Both Ida and Jordan nodded.

  “Okay. Go do that. And do another search for him inside. We’re gonna start looking around out here.”

  “Come on, Mom,” Jordan said, and led her back to her home become daycare where this had happened before.

  “I wanna head up the search,” Ralph said. “I know this area better than anyone. And the kid. And this happened on my watch.”

  “You can help,” Battle said. “Stick with me and John. But I also need you comin’ up with a description and vehicle for the man who stopped by to check out the school.”

  The four cops from the two patrol cars joined us, and Battle explained the situation and divvied up the search assignments. “Let’s find him,” he said. “Alive.”

  As the officers headed in various directions, I said, “I want to start with LaMarcus’s hideout. If he’s not there, then the drainage culvert.”

  “Was thinkin’ the same thing,” Battle said.

  “Oh my God,” Ralph said. “Do y’all think . . . Please God no, not again.”

  Battle and I rushed to the backyard, Ralph following behind as best he could.

  When we reached the spot where we had been reenacting LaMarcus’s abduction just a few months before, we slowed just enough to keep from falling as we pressed in through the bushes and stepped inside the child’s hideout become crime scene.

  There was nothing there. No child. No body. No evidence. No sign a
nyone had been here since we were last.

  Relief washed over me but only momentarily.

  I took off for the drainage ditch and the culvert where LaMarcus had been laid out, Battle beside me, Ralph falling farther and farther behind.

  Rushing through the small wooded boundary at the back of the property, we jumped the fence and came out into Flat Shoals Estates.

  Not waiting for Ralph, not sure if he could make it over the fence, we ran down the sidewalk, through the cul-de-sac, and into the woods beyond, no sign of Ralph as we did.

  We stumbled down the slope, around the drainage area, over to the culvert, and looked inside.

  It was empty.

  Thank you. Thank you for that, I prayed as relief washed over me again.

  “That’s good,” Battle said. “But what’s it mean? Where can he be?”

  We turned and walked back up the incline, through the woods, out the cul-de-sac, and up the sidewalk toward Safe Haven. There was still no sign of Ralph.

  Chapter Forty-four

  When we were in the backyard again, we walked over to the window and motioned for Jordan.

  “Any sign of him?” Battle asked.

  “No. We’ve searched the entire building again.”

  “How’s everyone holding up?”

  “The kids are fine. So are the other workers. Mom and I not so much. I can’t believe this is happening to us again.”

  I reached up and took her hand, rubbing her fingers around her brace.

  She looked down and tried to smile but when she did tears started coming.

  “Do you mind callin’ the two parents who picked up their kids?” I said. “Just feel them out. See if they know anything. See if maybe Brandon hitched a ride somehow.”

  She nodded.

  “Where’s Ralph?” Battle said.

  “Haven’t seen him lately. He's acting so . . . flakey today. I mean more so than usual. Do you think . . . He . . . He may be at his house. He was back and forth for some reason earlier.”

  “Shit,” Battle said. “Come on.”

  I squeezed her fingers. “Hang in there,” I said. “I love you.” And then followed after him.