John Jordan05 - Blood Sacrifice

by Michael Lister

  About ten feet down the tunnel, I found Kathryn cuffed to one of the pipes, her head hanging down, duct tape around her mouth. I couldn’t tell if she was conscious or not, but she didn’t lift her head as I ran toward her.

  “Kathryn. Can you hear me?”

  She looked up, seeming to wonder if I were real or imaginary.

  “We’ve got to get out of here now. The mill’s about to explode.”

  I yanked on the cuffs and examined the pipe. They weren’t coming off.

  “Kathryn,” I said, my voice loud, “listen to me. I’ve got to shoot the cuffs to try to get you free. It’s going to be loud. Hold your head down and don’t move your hands.”

  I pulled my gun out, put the barrel next to one of the lengths in the cuffs, ducked my head behind my other arm, and fired.

  The sound was even more deafening than I had thought it would be, and my ears rang as I checked the chain.

  Nothing. The round had made no impact on the chain.

  Wishing I had something more powerful than my .38, I pulled out the gun I had taken from Steve’s officer. Thinking it was a .9mm, I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a .45.

  “I’m going to try it again,” I said. “Be very still and keep your head down.”

  Before I fired the first round from the .45, the first explosion sounded. It shook the ground and sounded like a jet breaking the sound barrier.

  Realizing time was out, I jacked a round into the chamber and fired the .45 at the handcuff chain several times without pausing. The sound was even louder than the .38, but nothing compared to the explosion.

  The shots lit up the tunnel, filled it with the acrid smell of burned gun powder, rained down spent casings, still burning hot, and broke the chain.

  As Kathryn’s hands fell to her sides, I removed the tape from her mouth, dropped the gun, snatched her up, and began to make my way out of the tunnel as best I could, hearing other explosions around us as I did.

  When we surfaced, we stepped into a thick cloud of smoke, ash, dust, and debris that reminded me of footage I had seen from the streets of New York when the Twin Towers had come tumbling down. Unable to see, I lifted Kathryn across my shoulder and ran in what I thought was the direction I had come in. As the mind-rattling, ear-deafening explosions continued, I realized they were coming from up front. They must have started there and were headed toward the back where we were.

  I knew we didn’t have long.

  We were close to the largest building in the plant and once it started exploding, we’d be dead.

  Coughing and stumbling, head and heart aching, I ran as quickly as I could, nearly falling several times, but somehow able to stay on my feet.

  When I reached the fence, I laid Kathryn on the ground, crawled through, then pulled her out.

  Even when we were on the other side, I realized we were still too close to the largest building, and there was no time to get away from it. This was it—unless…

  Hoisting Kathryn up again, I ran toward the retaining wall. When I reached it, without stopping, I tossed Kathryn into the bay and dove in after her.

  In the water, Kathryn conscious now, we waited for the final series of explosions, but they never came.

  Eventually, I heard Steve yelling my name, and I told him where we were.

  When he looked over the wall and saw Kathryn, the relief on his face was indescribable.

  “If I’d known y’all were just back here swimming, I wouldn’t have interrupted the hard work of the demolition crew.”

  “Thank you,” Steve said.

  We were standing several feet away from the ambulance Kathryn was being treated in. A blanket was draped over my wet clothes, but did very little in the way of warmth, and I shivered in the cold breeze blowing in off the bay.

  “If you hadn’t found her,” he added, letting it hang there between us.

  It was obvious how much he cared for her—far more than I realized.

  “Why’d he do it—or try to do it? We are thinking Reid was behind this, right?”

  I nodded. “He has the two guys from the cabin do it, then takes them out. That’s our best working theory right now.”

  “But why?”

  “That’s what we have to find out. Did she see something? Does she know something? She poses a threat to him or more likely the Gulf Coast Company in some way. Now that we know that, we can figure out what it is.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Later that afternoon, following a few hours’ sleep and a shower, I drove into Bridgeport to the courthouse. I felt groggy and disconnected, out of it, my mind a beat behind, my body a step slow. My head hurt, my ears were ringing, and I couldn’t hear very well.

  Kathryn was asleep in Sister Abigail’s room, too frightened to be alone, too weary to do anything but sleep. Her homecoming had been difficult for me to watch. Father Thomas and Sister Abigail actually broke down. Still in shock, she didn’t seem to know how to take it. Even allowing for her condition, things were different between us. There was a distance, a polite coolness that let me know she blamed me for what had happened and could never fully forgive me for leaving her.

  Steve had questioned her, but it was obvious she didn’t know why they had tried to kill her. He was now busy with the fish camp crime scene, though it wasn’t in his jurisdiction, and the fallout from stopping the demolition. Reid was in custody waiting to be interviewed, which Steve had invited me to be in on. I was headed to the courthouse to gather more information in preparation for what was likely to be more interrogation than interview.

  I found the same large African-American woman working alone in the clerk’s office, an open bag of Double Stuf Oreos and a pint of milk on her desk.

  “Where’s everybody today?” I asked.

  Her mouth was full of Oreos and she had to finish chewing before she could respond.

  She said something, but I couldn’t make it out. I explained about my hearing and asked her to repeat it.

  “Lunch,” she said. “I cover the office while they go eat.”

  She stood, reached down, grabbed the pint of milk, took a long pull on it, replaced it, wiped her mouth with her hand, and walked over to the counter.

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” she said, smacking as she used her tongue and lips to get cookie off her teeth. “I get to go early, which is good, ‘cause I don’t do good when I get hungry. My sugar gets messed up and I get bitchy. One time I passed out.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I tried to look interested in her story and concerned for her health at the same time, all the while nodding vigorously.

  “What can I help you with today?” she asked.

  “I wondered if you’d let me take a look at the deed for St. Ann’s land?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  That was easier than I thought.

  “It’s all a matter of public record,” she said.

  “How do I find it?”

  “I’ll help you,” she said. “I know right where it is. Lots of people looking at it lately.”

  “Really?” I asked, my eyebrows shooting up. “Like who?”

  She started walking toward the vault and I followed her.

  “Gulf Coast Company people mostly. You know… lawyers and developers. Chief of police came in and looked at it, and a few folks I didn’t recognize.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Over the last few months,” she said.

  “No. When did Steve Taylor come in?”

  She shrugged. “It’s been a while.”

  When she got to the entrance of the vault, she stopped. “Go on in,” she said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I stepped around her and walked inside. She went back to her desk, shoved two cookies in her mouth and palmed a couple more, then joined me.

  Inside the vault, she withdrew a large book—awkwardly because of the cookies in her hand—laid it on a table, and opened it to a marked page. “This is the
log book,” she said, swallowing the remainder of Oreos in her mouth. “It’s where we log in the information from the deed—date, time, who recorded it.”

  She ran her finger down the first column until she found what she was looking for.

  “How many deeds related to this property you wanna see?” she asked.

  “How many are there?”

  She said something, but I couldn’t hear it, and I had to ask her to repeat it.

  “Three most recently,” she said.

  “Three?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “all recorded on the same day.”

  Every time she talked louder, she spoke more slowly and condescendingly, as if my impairment were mental not physical.

  “I’d like to see all three if I can.”

  “Piece a cake, baby,” she said, popping the other two cookies into her mouth, then talking around them before chewing. “They all in the same spot. Two of them’s recorded within minutes of each other.”

  “Really? That’s unusual, isn’t it?” I asked.

  I waited as she chewed up and swallowed the two cookies.

  “Not necessarily. We’ll know in a minute.”

  While she pulled the deeds, I wondered how there could be three deeds registered in one day within a few minutes of each other. The abbey’s land meant millions to whoever owned it and billions to the Gulf Coast Company, and I found it difficult to believe it wasn’t somehow connected to all that was going on.

  A moment later, she returned carrying several legal-size papers stapled together in three packets.

  “Everything looks in order,” she said. “I don’t understand why she did what she did, but there’s nothing illegal or inaccurate about the recordings.”

  She handed me the packet on top.

  “This one’s the oldest,” she said. “It’s from when Floyd Taylor bought it the first time.”

  Beneath “Articles of Agreement” centered at the top and written in Old English, the normal legalese included dates, descriptions, signatures, seals, and witnesses. At various places on the document, small white stickers with typing on them revealed the fees, date and time it was recorded, and by whom.

  As I scanned the deed, I noticed her periodically looking longingly at her desk. I wasn’t a mind reader, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t that she was anxious to get back to work.

  “So Floyd and not the paper company owned this?” I asked.

  Her face contorted and she shrugged. “Way back then there wasn’t really any difference. Sometime Mr. Floyd would put it in his name and sometime in the paper company’s, but it was all the same in those days.”

  “What are these numbers?” I asked, pointing to one of the stickers.

  “This the certificate number. This the book and page number of the log I showed you.”

  “And there’s nothing odd about his deed?”

  She shook her head. “Only thing it shows is what a good businessman Mr. Floyd was. This land’s already worth a hundred times what he paid for it and soon it’ll be a thousand.”

  “If they get the road through.”

  She cut her eyes at me and shook her head. “Oh, they’ll get the road through. Monster this size can eat a lot of people and it just be an appetizer.”

  I wondered if all her metaphors involved food, concluded it was a safe bet they did, and, when she snuck another peek at her desk, I figured that subconsciously the devourer who had inspired her use of figurative language was most likely the Cookie Monster.

  “Here’s the next one,” she said as she handed it to me. “This the one where Mr. Floyd deeded his land to this woman, ah, Grace Taylor.”

  “Who is she?”

  She shrugged. “A relative, I guess. Don’t really know.”

  “Do you know if he had any children?”

  “No idea, but I can tell you who can tell you.”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Jane Willow White,” she said. “She was Mr. Floyd’s secretary when she was young.”

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “Back of the courthouse most any time,” she said. “She works in the driver’s license office, but most any time you look for her, you can find her out back taking a smoking break.”

  I glanced over the next deed. It looked much like the first one, only with different names, numbers, dates, fees, and witnesses. When I saw the two witnesses, I blinked and looked at it again to make sure I had seen what I thought I had. Looking again confirmed it. Father Thomas and Sister Abigail had been the witnesses when Floyd Taylor deeded what was now the abbey property to Grace Taylor.

  Handing me the last one, she said, “Now, this is where it gets a little unusual—though it ain’t illegal or nothin’. This is a quit claim deed and it’s registered just a matter of minutes after the other one.”

  I looked at it, comparing it with the previous one. Much was the same, including the two witnesses.

  “So just a few minutes after getting the land from Floyd, Grace just gives it to St. Ann’s Abbey?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Why would she do that?” I asked.

  “You’d have to ask her.”

  “Why wouldn’t he just deed it directly to the abbey?”

  She shrugged, her enormous lips turning up. “I got no idea.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said.

  “No, it don’t.”

  “Have you ever seen this done before?”

  “No, not like this,” she said.

  “And you can’t think of any reason to do it this way instead of giving it directly to—” An idea stopped me in mid-sentence.

  “What is it?”

  “Can I borrow your phone book?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Who you callin’?”

  “John David Dean,” I said.

  “No need to look him up,” she said. “He’s in the speed dial.”

  We walked back into the outer office and within a minute she had him on the line. The moment she handed me the receiver, she was back in the cookies, trying unsuccessfully not to rattle the bag too loudly.

  Without preamble I said, “What happens to the land if the abbey closes?”

  “What?” he said. “Who is this?”

  “John Jordan. It’s very important. You set it up, you have to know. If St. Ann’s closes, what happens to the land?”

  He hesitated. “Didn’t we already discuss this? Well, they told me to cooperate with you, and it’s not a big secret anyway. It’d go to the paper company. It’s in the articles of incorporation. They told me that’s what they wanted it to say.”

  “Who did?”

  “Father Thomas and Sister Abigail.”

  “Listen,” I said, “this makes a world of difference. Does it specify the paper company or does it say previous owner?”

  “Previous owner,” he said, “but it’s the same thing.”

  “Actually, it’s not,” I said, and hung up.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Miss Jane Willow White was right where I was told she’d be.

  She was an older woman with the look of a lifelong smoker, her skin wrinkled and leathery, her voice gurgley and hoarse as if filed with an Emory board and filled with phlegm. She had short, white back-combed hair that didn’t budge—even in the strong breeze.

  She sat on a wooden picnic table next to an ashtray, sucking on a cigarette as if it were the world’s only source of true happiness. The ashtray next to her was full of rainwater, gum wrappers, and cigarette butts.

  “Jane White?” I asked.

  “Who are you?” she said, her manner and voice gruff and challenging.

  I told her who I was, what I wanted, and about my hearing.

  “Cheap bastard,” she said.

  “You don’t even know me,” I said, smiling.

  Without smiling back she said, “Floyd.”

  The back of the courthouse and the front of the sheriff’s station were less than twenty feet apart, their walls forming a w
ind tunnel. We would have had to raise our voices over the sound of the wind regardless, but with the ringing in my ears, she had to practically yell.

  “Really?”

  “I worked for him for nearly twenty years… and you know what he left me? Shit. Nada. Zip. Zilch. A big fat nothing. I gotta spend my golden years working for the damn DMV. He could’ve given me a million and not missed it, but what’s he do? Leaves it all to the paper company—as if they need it.”

  “Not that you’re bitter,” I said.

  Not only was the wind around us cold, but it blew Jane White’s cigarette smoke into my face, and I wasn’t sure which was stinging my eyes more.

  “So whatta you wanna know about the son of a bitch?”

  “Did he have many women?”

  “What’s many? He had a few. None for very long. He always managed to maneuver away from them before they sunk their claws in too deep.”

  “Have any children with any of them?”

  She smiled for the first time. “How’d you know?”

  I didn’t think she was really asking, so I didn’t answer.

  “He did have a kid. A girl. Not that he was a father to her or anything. He was just the donor. If you know what I mean?”

  “I do,” I said.

  Finishing her cigarette, she flicked it toward but not into the ashtray, pulled another from her pack, tossed it in her mouth with the acumen of a veteran, dug in her Polyester pantsuit and came out with a lighter, cupped her hands, and lit it.

  I asked, “Did he have any kind of relationship with her at all?”

  “None I know of––and I’d know. I arranged everything for him—including most of his women.”

  “What ever happened to her?”

  She shrugged. “Haven’t the foggiest. She was put up for adoption. Floyd probably paid the mother off to do it. There’s probably some Little Miss Heiress running around somewhere without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of and she’s worth millions. Well, she would’ve been.”

  “He didn’t leave her anything in his will?”

  “Same as me. Not a nickel. No one. Not either of his sisters or their kids. Just that blasted paper company.”