Blood of the Lamb jj-1

by Michael Lister

  Her stress-creased face radiated a calm glow, and the corners of her mouth were turned up in a small pleasant smile. She looked peaceful. She looked only vaguely familiar. Perhaps I had been wrong about Sister Bertha. Perhaps I had been guilty of judging her for judging me. She must have been doing some good-she must have wanted the same thing I did.

  My head fell into my hands and I began to pray… for Mom, and for her son, who needed forgiveness once again. After a while, I sensed she was looking at me, and I looked up to see the wide-eyed, adoring face of a mother-one I didn’t recognize as my own-gazing at me lovingly. I looked away for a moment. I was used to the glazed, out-of-focus gaze, the bobbing-head, confused leer, but not the compassion only a mother was capable of.

  When I looked back, she asked, “Were you praying for me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “And for me.”

  “For you?” she asked. “Why?”

  “Because I’m quick to judge and slow to learn.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said, and I got the impression she thought I was talking about her. “Why didn’t you pray out loud?”

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” I said. “But I probably will before I go, if you will allow me to.”

  “Allow you to?” she said, shaking her head. “Allow you to? I’m your mother, John. Don’t be so bashful. You don’t have to ask me if you can pray for me. You act as if I’m a stranger.”

  I could tell by the quick flash of pain in her eyes that she had read my thoughts. “In a lot of ways we are strangers, Mom, and you know it. We really don’t know the people we’ve become.”

  “Well, you’ve become a man of God,” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t,” she said and reached for my head. “I mean it. You’ve got to get more bold about your faith, that’s all… like Bertha. I want you to lay your hands on me and cast out this foul demon of sickness.”

  “Mom,” I said slowly, my mouth suddenly dry, my tongue thick. “I don’t think it is a demon.”

  “You don’t?” she asked, her face narrowing into a concerned question. “Not the attack of the enemy?”

  I shook my head.

  Her face clouded over, but I could tell she was still focusing, contemplating.

  “It’s like sobriety,” I said. “We’re all responsible for our own. No one else can be. Or my divorce. Do you know how much I would like to say that Susan had a demon.” I laughed. “Or how I would like to blame her or someone or something else. No. I’ve got to take responsibility for me, for my part, for my actions.”

  She began to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Are you trying to hurt me?” she asked in a soft, wounded voice. “To pay me back?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I need you to go right now,” she said. Her voice was firm, but not mean.

  “Can I pray for you?”

  She shook her head.

  I nodded, and slowly walked out of the room. I was three steps down the hall when I realized what I needed to do. But it was ten steps before I was able to do it. I stopped, turned, and went back to her bedroom.

  “Would you like for me to call Sister Bertha for you, Mom?”

  CHAPTER 33

  “Bobby Earl’s in serious financial trouble,” Dad said. “At least he was until Nicole was killed.”

  I had stopped by Dad’s on my way home from work, and as usual, found him in the corral behind his house feeding his cows. In addition to being a sheriff, Dad had, as of late, become a cowboy, transforming his five-acre lot into a small farm and having more fun than he had had in years.

  “He had a life insurance policy of a million dollars on her,” he added.

  I shook my head, anger spiking anew inside me.

  “So far there doesn’t seem to be any mob connection, but he’s got money problems of the magnitude that make a person impetuous.”

  “His TV show doesn’t bring in-”

  “That’s just it,” he said, “it brings in shiploads. So it’s going somewhere. Either it’s being grossly mismanaged or he’s got an addiction or he is laundering it for the mob.”

  Where’s all the money going? I wondered.

  “And get this,” he said. “He’s hired a high-powered attorney to file a wrongful death suit against the State of Florida for a few more million.”

  I shook my head in disbelief as I thought about it.

  We were quiet a moment, then he started shaking his head. “Religion,” he said. “War. Hate. Judgmentalism. Money. Power. Pride. Theft.”

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  “How can you be associated with them?” he asked.

  “Who?” I asked. “The Caldwells?”

  I knew I was about as far from the Caldwells as a person of faith could be, but it bothered me it wasn’t obvious to him. I had broken away from my family years ago. Our relationship now was that of adults, not parents and child. We had little in common, and though I loved them, we weren’t close, yet I still cared what they thought about me-especially Dad-and I didn’t like it. It made me feel immature and insecure.

  “All the crazy fanatics and fleecers.”

  “I don’t see myself as associated with them in any way,” I said. “I feel about organized religion the way you do. I find it tragically ironic that they do what they do in the name of Jesus, the poor peasant who refused power at every turn.”

  “Hell, they hide behind him,” he said.

  “I just wonder what exactly they have to hide,” I said, attempting to change the subject. “We need to interview them.”

  “That’ll take an act of God,” he said.

  “Well, don’t count that out,” I said.

  He ambled over to where I was leaning on the metal corral panel and draped his arms over the top so that we were nearly a mirror image of each other.

  “You get anywhere with FDLE on the Dexter Freeman case?” I asked.

  He looked at me incredulously. “You just called me about it this afternoon,” he said. “I haven’t even called them yet. What’s the rush?”

  I shrugged. “His family needs him. Prison’s a dangerous place. He’s innocent.”

  “We’ll get it taken care of,” he said. “It’ll just take a while. I’m sheriff, not king.”

  “I wasn’t aware there was a difference,” I said.

  He smiled. “There’s not in Potter County,” he said. “But that’s as far as my reign extends.”

  We fell silent and his smile faded.

  “You think they brought that little girl all the way down here and into that institution just to kill her?” he asked.

  “God, I hope not,” I said and prayed. “But,” I added, “can you think of a better place to do it?”

  “I’m havin’ a hard time thinkin’ about it at all,” he said, looking down at his feet. He was kicking at the dirt with the point of his boot, then covering over the divot with the heel of the other one.

  On the other side of the small corral, three cows ate grain out of a trough that hung from one of the panels, two of them with calves sucking milk from them as they did. One of the calves seemed to be getting more than her fill, but the other continually nuzzled the sack with his nose attempting to get the milk to let down.

  “Probably going to have to bottle feed him,” Dad said when he looked over at where I had been staring in wonder. “Her milk’s not flowing right.”

  A small breeze blew over us, carrying with it the fresh scents of livestock, the sweet smell of hay, and the dusty smell of grain. The stillness and peace of the moment was interrupted as three violent sneezes erupted from me in quick succession.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Bless you,” Dad said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “We haven’t gotten any results back on the condoms yet,” he said, “but the pathologist said that the one found in the visitor’s restroom was definitely covered in feces like we thought. The fluid on the
two found in the kitchen was saliva. So I guess we’re talkin’ oral, anal, or something else altogether-like muling, but we don’t know who-or why there’re two with saliva, and DNA’s gonna take a while.”

  “One of the inmates says DeAndré Stone was there that night,” I said, “but so far no one else has corroborated it.”

  “You believe him?”

  “I’m inclined to,” I said.

  “Well now, that changes things, doesn’t it?”

  “Have you seen the crime scene photos?” I asked.

  He nodded slowly and looked down.

  “I was only in there a few minutes, but I thought I saw something,” I said.

  He wiped at his eyes, then looked up at me and said, “What’s that?”

  “Staging,” I said.

  “The body or crime scene?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I noticed her skirt and top had been pulled up and her panties down,” I said, “but if she wasn’t sexually assaulted, then it was staging-made to look like a sex crime when it wasn’t.”

  “As I recall,” he said, “staging is most often done by people who’re close to the victim. They do it to throw us off.”

  “Like the ransom note in the JonBenet Ramsey case,” I said. “And the photos show that her skirt and shirt were up and her panties had been pulled down?”

  He nodded very slowly and deliberately.

  “So if she wasn’t sexually assaulted, which we don’t really know,” I said, “then it probably was staging.”

  “It’d have to be,” he said.

  Beyond the corral, a handful of cows grazed the short green grass. Bunched together, they lazily moved through the field, bending down, pulling the grass with upward and sideward jerks of their heads, raising to chew, then back down again.

  After a few moments of silence, he said, “You’re wasting your talents as a chaplain. How’d you know about staging?”

  “Worked with a profiler from the FBI on the Stone Cold Killer case when I was in Atlanta,” I said.

  I worked for the Stone Mountain Police Department while in college during the late eighties and early nineties, part of which coincided with the reign of a serial killer who became known as the Stone Cold Killer because of his murder weapon-Stone Mountain itself.

  “And on Martin Fisher’s,” I added. “He taught me a lot. Since then, I’ve read his books and others.”

  He nodded.

  “But,” I added, “if I weren’t a chaplain, I wouldn’t be working this case.”

  He shrugged. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “We’ve got to find out for sure if she was assaulted.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The thing is even with her panties down and shirt up, she was facing down, which meant her most private parts were covered up.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, his face expressing his confusion.

  “That’s just what someone close to her would do,” I said. “Stage it to look like a sexual murder, but then preserve her dignity as much as they possibly could.”

  “What the hell is the motive?” he asked. “Is there one, I wonder?”

  The smell of the livestock was pungent, and I realized I was breathing through my mouth.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But the means is probably a clue. She was beaten and strangled to death.”

  We were both silent for a moment, and I shook my head as I thought about what I had said. “Unless…”

  “Unless what?” he asked.

  “Unless it was a sex crime,” I said. “Then the anger wouldn’t’ve been personal. Nicole would’ve merely been an object for it.”

  He stopped kicking the dirt and looked up at me, our eyes locking for the first time. “When I think of what the sick bastard did to her, I want to kill him, John.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “the thought’s occurred to me, too.”

  Just then, his cell phone rang and he answered it.

  While he talked, I walked a few feet away to think about what we knew-or believed-and what it meant.

  “You said not to count out an act of God,” Dad said when he got off the phone.

  “Come again,” I said.

  “You get to talk to Bobby Earl Caldwell tonight,” he said. “How?”

  He smiled and shook his head to himself again. “On national television.”

  CHAPTER 34

  I picked up Susan at the newly remodeled Driftwood Motel, which had been forced into renovation because of hurricane damage. From Mexico Beach, we drove east along the coast on Highway 98 through Port St. Joe and into Apalachicola, where we ate at Caroline’s.

  On the drive down, we had mostly made small talk about the events in our lives since we had last seen each other, and our conversation had all the charm of a first date without the mystery and possibility. But as we neared Apalachicola, we both seemed to relax, the iceberg on the armrest between us beginning to thaw, and as we really began to talk, the stranger beside me only occasionally sounded like the person I used to know.

  “Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “You?”

  “I’m a married woman,” she said as if she were appalled.

  For a while, we sat speechless and I considered the beautiful woman across from me as if for the first time. She no longer seemed awkward or uncomfortable with herself, and she obviously had overcome her dislike of silence.

  “Well, aren’t we a faithful pair?” she asked with a smile.

  “That or pathetic,” I said.

  Caroline’s faced the marina, her windows overlooking the choppy waters of the boat-filled bay. The full moon bathed everything in a romantic glow, casting long shadows that seemed alive, its pale particles of light gently slow-dancing on the small waves of the water.

  Earlier in the day, a harvest had been gathered from this place where all life began, that included fresh amberjack, which we ordered grilled with baked potatoes and the sweetest iced tea around.

  After we had ordered, she said, “Dad told me about the case you worked together last summer. He was very impressed with you.”

  “Yeah,” I said sarcastically. “He’s been a fan since way back.”

  Only two other tables were occupied in the small restaurant. At one, an elderly couple sat in silence waiting for their food. They seemed perfectly content not to speak to one another, as if through their long life together they had said all there was to say. In stark contrast, a young couple sitting across from them attempted to talk with each other in between feeding their baby and entertaining their little girl.

  “No, really,” Susan said. “He would never say anything to you, but-”

  “He tried to have me fired,” I said. “And tried me for rape in the media.”

  She shrugged. “So he has a funny way of showing it,” she said. “When it was all over, he said he respected you as an investigator.”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s just as a human being that I disappoint him.”

  She laughed. “Actually, it’s only as the man who broke his little girl’s heart.”

  “I guess I did, didn’t I?” I said. “You were so angry… I thought I repulsed you more than hurt you.”

  The elderly couple’s food arrived, and as their disfigured hands met in the middle of the table when they bowed their white heads in prayer, I wondered if I would ever find someone to grow old with, and if there was any possibility it could be Susan.

  From deep within, a voice whispered that it could never be anyone but Anna, and that it could never be Anna.

  “Are you ready for this?” she asked, taking a deep breath and sighing. “The anger was designed to hide my true emotions, my love and hurt. It’s taken nine months of therapy and support groups to be able to say that.”

  I smiled.

  “And it wasn’t your addiction, but your recovery,” she said. “I could handle an alcoholic. I was comfortable around one of those, but the person you became… well, frankly, he scared the hell out of me.”

  I nodded, encour
aging her to continue.

  The laughter of the little girl drew my attention away, and Susan and I both turned to see the toddler hurling French fries at her dad, who ate them with monster sound effects that brought a smile to my face.

  Nicole Caldwell’s face flashed in my mind like heat lightning over the Gulf on a hot and sleepless night.

  “Good dad,” I said.

  She nodded. “Anyway, you were so different,” she said. “So… you didn’t need me anymore.… So when you were accused of having an affair, I knew it had to be true because you didn’t want me anymore.”

  “But,” I said, and she held her hand up.

  “That’s how I felt,” she said. “I realize now that it wasn’t that you didn’t want me. It was that you didn’t need me, but I had always seen them as the same thing.”

  My mouth must have been hanging open, because she said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “You’re so different,” I said.

  “Now you know how I felt,” she said. “It was freaky. I was living with a stranger. Plus you had the whole new God-thing going on, too, and that was extra-freaky. You became like this saint. The last thing I wanted around was a saint.”

  “It’s the last thing I am,” I said.

  Our food came, and as we ate the fresh grilled fish in the glow of the full moon, I found myself being pulled to the enigmatic woman sitting across from me. The combination of her familiarity and mystery was even more hypnotic than the moonlight shimmering atop the gentle ripples of the bay.

  But my feelings were out of sync with my thoughts, as if a war were waging between my head and my heart. I felt physical, sexual attraction to someone I wasn’t sure I could ever like as a person again. She seemed so different, but anyone could for an evening.

  After dinner, we continued east along the coast into Tallahassee.

  “Sorry this has to be part of our evening together,” I said. “I just found out late this afternoon.”

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “It’ll be fun. I still can’t believe you’re going to be on Larry King.”