Blood Ties (John Jordan Mysteries Book 16)

by Michael Lister

  “And after that?”

  “We sort of split up the adults and the kids a little later that night.”

  “There were only a few kids,” Hunter says. “No more than, what, five? And two of ’em were yours.”

  “Where’d they go?” I ask. “What’d they do?”

  “Nanny took them upstairs to play,” Trace says. “We stayed down—mostly out on the deck by the pool, but some people were inside, others on the beach.”

  “Truth is,” Hunter adds, “people were all over the place, but she wasn’t killed that night.”

  “And Nadine was watching the kids,” Trace says. “The whole time.”

  I nod.

  “I’ve made you a list of who was at the party that we know about,” Trace says.

  Hunter stands, crosses the porch, and hands me a sheet of paper with fifty or so names on it, then returns to his seat.

  I glance at the list. Beside each name is an address or at least the name of a city and a word of identification—such as media or friend or publicist or rapper or actor or family.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Trace says. “I’m not trying to cast suspicion on anyone. But I want you looking at everyone. I know you’re looking at me, at us, and I want you to. I just don’t want you to focus on us so much that you don’t find the real killer. I’m cooperating in every way I know how so you can clear us and move on to find the killer. So let me know what I can do—what we can do. We’ll take a polygraph or whatever. Just tell me.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “That will be very helpful for the investigation.”

  FDLE has a tech who administers polygraphs, but I’m far more inclined to use CVSA or computer voice stress analyzer on them—and we have an investigator in-house certified to run it.

  “Medical examiner finally released her to us,” Trace says. “We’re taking her back to Atlanta tomorrow for her . . . funeral. God, man, I can’t . . . We’ll come back when you need us to, but anything we can do today.”

  He keeps speaking for everyone who was in the house that night, but I wonder if he really can.

  “Where is Ashley?” I ask.

  “Her mother’s place,” he says. “Brett’s there too. We all were for a while, but . . . I couldn’t take it anymore. She’s got a small place and her son still lives there with his kid and . . .”

  “Why didn’t Ashley come here with you?”

  “She’s going to tonight, I think. Didn’t want to hurt her mom’s feelings by all leaving at once or something. I’m not sure.”

  “Where is Nadine?”

  “She went back to Atlanta yesterday,” he says. “Start getting things ready for our return and the . . . funeral and stuff.”

  “We asked y’all to stay here so we could—”

  “She’d already been interviewed,” he says. “We’re all leaving tomorrow. She’ll come back anytime you need her to. She’s the nanny.”

  “We wanted to talk to everyone again before y’all left,” I say, “including her.”

  “I can get her back by tonight,” he says. “I’ll fly her down, but I’m tellin’ you no one staying with us had anything to do with . . . what happened to Mariah.”

  “Know how you asked me not to focus on y’all so much that I didn’t look at anyone else?” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “You need to do the opposite. Don’t be so certain it was an intruder that you’re completely closed to it being someone staying in the house that night. There are no signs of forced entry and when a child is killed the chance of it being a family member or someone close to the family are extremely high.”

  “Fair point,” he says. “But . . . there’s no way anyone of us did that to Mariah. No way.”

  “And if we find out it was one of them?”

  “I’ll hack them into tiny pieces with the dullest knife I can find and burn the bits to ash myself. Don’t care which one of ’em it is.”

  21

  “It wasn’t any of us,” Hunter says. “No doubt in my mind. So there won’t be any need for hacking anybody. None of us could do what was done to little Mariah. You know that, man. Come on.”

  “Did either of you hear anything that night?” I ask.

  “Wish to God I had,” Trace says. “Give anything to have heard something. But I was wiped. Stayed up all night the night before, then spent all day with the family and fireworks. Turned in early and when I did, people were still shootin’ off fireworks down on the beach, but soon as my head hit the pillow, I never heard another sound.”

  I look over at Hunter.

  He shakes his head. “Nothin’ out of the ordinary.”

  “Either of you hear the elevator come up late in the night?” I ask.

  Hunter nods. “But that’s not out of the ordinary.”

  “Who would be on it that late?” Trace asks. “None of us really used it. The kids played in it a little when we first got there, but after that . . .”

  Hunter shrugs. “Don’t know. I just think I remember hearing it while I was sending the last of my emails before lights out.”

  Trace looks at me. “Did the killer use the elevator? That why you’re askin’?”

  “Just askin’,” I say. “Have no reason to think so.”

  I glance back at Merrill. He’s yet to utter a single sound.

  He gives me the slightest of nods.

  “How about Mariah’s mother?” I ask. “Never hear anything about her. Do you have sole custody?”

  Hunter shakes his head and lets out an expression of disgust. “Mayra,” he says.

  “She died when Mariah was very small,” Trace says. “OD’d. Her family blamed me, accused me of killing her, said if I didn’t actually murder her, which they think I did, that at a minimum I got her hooked on the shit in the first place. Her parents, Pick and Rhonda Baxley and her sister, Deidre, fought me for custody. I’ve had nothing to do with them since.”

  “They who you need to look at,” Irvin says, his voice rising.

  Trace shakes his head. “They could no more hurt Mariah than I could. They’re broken—all of them. Older than their years. Losing a daughter—” He stops suddenly and tears fill his eyes again. “Sure that’s the way I’ll be soon. Oh, God. I just can’t . . . believe she’s . . . They wouldn’t harm her. They’re decent people—all three of them. They could’ve tried to take her or harm her when I was in prison if they were going to, but they didn’t. Now, I’m sure you’ll talk to them. Just remember they blame me for their daughter’s death. No telling what all they’ll tell you about me. Just remember it’s their grief talkin’. I was young and stupid and selfish when I was with their daughter and I made a lot of mistakes, but I didn’t kill her. Just like I didn’t kill their granddaughter.”

  “Know who you really need to be lookin’ at,” Hunter says.

  “Who?” I say.

  He looks at Trace. “Who has the biggest beef with you on the planet?”

  Trace shakes his head. “He wouldn’t do something like this, not to Mariah, just to get at me.”

  “Who?” I say.

  “Little Swag,” Hunter says. “Biggest beef in rap right now. He’s threatened to do something like this and more.”

  “In his songs,” Trace says. “It’s not an actual threat.”

  “The hell it’s not,” Hunter says. “Fucker ain’t like you. He’s crazy. He’s street hard and crack crazy. Means what he says in his songs and you know it. And he’s killed before.”

  I look at Trace.

  “I’m not sayin’ you shouldn’t look at him. I want you lookin’ at everybody. I just . . . It’s hard to imagine anyone doing this, so . . . I can’t picture him or anyone else doing what was done to my baby.”

  “Give me a little backstory,” I say.

  “He’s another Atlanta rapper. We used to collaborate,” Trace says. “He was part of our posse. When things took off for me, he wanted to take the ride with me. I tried to give him a few things here and there, but he thought they w
ere beneath him. He wanted to be on my new record. Wanted me on his. Wanted me to get him a spot on a TV show I was on.”

  “His punk ass took it public,” Hunter says. “Spittin’ all kind of dark, twisted rhymes about my boy here. And he never been anything but good to him. Made all kinds of threats. Tried to take him out a couple of months ago.”

  I look back at Trace.

  “Drive-by at a club in Buckhead,” he says. “We were standing out front, but so were a lot of other people. Don’t know it was for us. And . . .”

  “And what?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. Seemed like the guy wasn’t really trying to hit anybody. Could’ve easily taken us out. Nobody got hit. Sort of shot up over the top of us.”

  “You think it was him?”

  “If it was, it sort of proves my point about him really not wanting to hurt anyone,” he says. “I just don’t think he would.”

  Hunter shakes his head and lets out a harsh laugh. “And you never been wrong about something like that before?”

  Trace nods slowly. “Fair point there. Not saying I’m always the best judge of character. Keep you around, don’t I?”

  “I’m bein’ serious,” Hunter says. “Tryin’ to protect you and find out who did what was done . . .”

  “You’re right. Like I said, look into him. I’m all for it. Just hate to see another brother get accused of something he’s innocent of.”

  “John won’t do that,” Merrill says.

  They are his first and last words of the entire conversation.

  “I’m assuming Little Swag isn’t the name his mama gave him,” I say. “What’s his legal handle?”

  “Rondarius,” Trace says. “Rondarius Swaggart.”

  22

  Filicide is the act of killing one’s own child.

  And though it shouldn’t be a thing we need a name for, it’s far more common than we’d like to think.

  In the U.S. alone each year, between 450 and 500 children are intentionally murdered by a parent. Of those, over seventy percent are kids six years old and under. In well over half of all cases, the father is the killer.

  Though he seems to be cooperating, and said all the right things, I leave Trace Evers’ rented home on the river wondering if he’s one of those fathers.

  And as I drive toward the home Ashley Howard grew up in, I wonder if Trace didn’t do it, if she did.

  Somewhere in America a mother murders her child every three days.

  Though not Mariah’s mother or even stepmother, Ashley certainly seems to be filling that role.

  I don’t know a lot about Ashley Howard yet, but what I know, I find interesting and instructive.

  She grew up poor in Wewa.

  Her parents, who were both alcoholics, bought a lakeside lodge with cabins for rent and a boat launch called Dead Lakes Roadside Inn and through mismanagement and neglect let the property go to wreck and ruin, and the business died a slow, ugly death.

  Growing up, Ashley, as if familiar with the AA slogan Fake it ’til you make it, always acted like the rich, popular girl she wanted to be.

  And she was pretty and poised enough to get away with it.

  She shoplifted the clothes and shoes and jewelry she couldn’t afford and became an adroit social climber.

  At twenty-seven she still has what I’ve heard described as a bikini body—nice, natural curves, tone, tight, and muscular, with only the slightest hint of a mom tummy, something I think makes her more not less attractive.

  It’s July and it’s hot, but she’s not dressed like it. Unlike in nearly every other picture I’ve seen her in, she’s wearing long pants and long sleeves—old blue jeans and a Wewa Gators sweatshirt.

  In addition to showing off her body, Ashley normally wears clothes cut to show off the various ink she has on that body.

  Everything else is the same—the perfect blond hair, the carefully applied makeup, the exquisite jewelry—which makes the clothes standout all the more.

  We’re sitting on the back porch of one of the dilapidated old cabins with a truly magnificent view of the Dead Lakes.

  It’s not raining yet, but dark thunderheads can be seen in the distance.

  “I’m still in shock,” she says. “You know what I mean? Not as in surprised or like shocked that it happened, but like in shock because it did happen.”

  “You’re not surprised that it happened?” I ask.

  “Not particularly, no,” she says. “I told Trace putting her in that video and have her come up on stage all the time and posting so many pictures with her was a bad idea. It’s like an invitation to deranged and damaged people. You can’t advertise something and think people won’t want it.”

  A slight breeze ripples the surface of the water and sways the Spanish moss in the cypress trees.

  “Even if some sick kiddie diddler hadn’t come for her,” she says, “it was just bad for a child that small to get that kind of attention and . . . all. But he was always trying to make up for her mama dying and him being sent away.”

  I nod.

  Before us the flooded cypress trees of the Dead Lakes stand jagged and craggy, their bases hidden beneath the tannic waters.

  “It’s funny, he’s got this tough guy image, but he’s not very street smart at all. Not at all. I’m more . . . than he is. If it were up to me I wouldn’t be talkin’ to you right now, but he’s convinced if we cooperate you’ll clear us and get on with finding out who really did it. He’s too trusting. He wouldn’t even have a lawyer if it wasn’t for me.”

  “So why are you talkin’ to me?” I ask.

  “’Cause Trace wants me to,” she says. “I have nothin’ to hide, but I know enough to know that doesn’t mean shit if y’all decide we did it and decide to build a case against us.”

  “I’m truly trying to find out what happened,” I say, “to gather information and follow the facts of the case no matter where they lead. This isn’t about clearing or closing a case for me. Never is. If you don’t want to talk to me, you don’t have to, but if you’re willing . . . tell me about the night of the Fourth.”

  She does, and it’s almost identical to what Trace and Irvin Hunter said.

  “You didn’t get up during the night?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “Didn’t hear anything?”

  “Didn’t wake up until Nadine banged on our door with Mariah’s note saying she had run away.”

  “How about the elevator?” I ask. “Did you hear it that night?”

  “Just told you I didn’t even stir.”

  “Tell me about Mariah,” I say.

  I’m interested in her feelings about and relationship with Mariah.

  I have the Cinderella effect in mind—the evolutionary psychology theory for why there is a higher rate of mistreatment and abuse by stepparents than biological ones.

  Interestingly, though mistreatment and abuse by stepparents seems to be higher, murder by them is much, much lower. Only ten percent of the children killed by parents in the US each year are killed by stepparents.

  And yet two lines from Mariah’s runaway note keep echoing through my mind. Ashley and Brett or to mean to me. I love them but cannot take it.

  “She was a good girl—especially given everything she had been through,” she says. “Lost her mom forever. Lost her dad for a few years. Don’t get me wrong, she had issues, but . . . given her . . . situation.”

  “What kinds of issues?” I ask.

  “The usual kid stuff—attitude, stubbornness, lying, disobedience, that sort of thing. And she was spoiled. Trace always felt so much guilt about . . . well, everything, that he spoiled the shit out of that child. It’s a miracle she wasn’t worse than what she was. To her credit, she didn’t take advantage of it too much. That says a lot for a child that young. ’Course she got nearly all of her daddy’s attention and everything she wanted, so . . .”

  She sounds jealous, and I wonder if it’s a factor in what happened.

 
“Did she have a phone?” I ask. “We didn’t find one among her things.”

  She shakes her head. “Only two things he didn’t let her get . . . a phone and her ears pierced. She wanted both bad, but he told her she had to wait and he stuck with it. Don’t know why exactly. But he did. His way of keeping control or tellin’ himself he was you know like parenting. Bet he regrets it now. And the thing is . . . he let her have an iPod. She couldn’t make calls, but hell, who calls anymore? She could text anybody with an iPhone. And actually, Brett said she had an app that let her text anybody period.”

  I didn’t remember seeing an iPod on the evidence inventory, but I need to double check. Reading her texts could be extremely helpful or a complete waste of time—either way we’d need to do it if we can locate her device.

  “What was your relationship with her like? I ask.

  “Trace and I decided a long time ago that I would parent my kid and he’d parent his,” she says. “We aren’t married or anything yet, so it’s not like we’re their stepparents or anything yet, so . . . it just worked better. We’re different and we’re different with our kids.”

  “So y’all weren’t close?”

  She shrugs. “We were close enough. She was closer to Nadine. She was the closest thing to a mother the poor child ever had. Don’t get me wrong, we got along fine. I just didn’t try to pretend to be her mother.”

  “Who handled the discipline?”

  “What discipline?” she says. “There was none. Trace didn’t do it and certainly wouldn’t let anyone else do it. Not even Nadine—though I think she and the little princess had an understanding.”

  I nod.

  She looks at me, her eyes locking onto mine. “I know what her little runaway note said, but . . . I wasn’t mean to her. Neither was Brett. I was great to her. Treated her better than her own mother ever did, and besides the normal sibling scuffles . . . she and Brett got along just fine.”

  “And she got no discipline?” I ask.

  “But there again . . .” she says. “It shows what a good kid she was that with very little discipline and having her daddy wrapped around her little finger that she was as good as she was.”