Power in the Blood jj-2

by Michael Lister

  “Is this the girl you were dickin’?” my charming brother asked when I walked up to where he, Dad, and two other officers stood. Jake and the two officers laughed. I was amazed we were from the same family. I suspected we were not. There had to have been some sort of terrible mix-up at the hospital. Jake felt the same way.

  “Does it look like suicide?” I asked Dad, ignoring Jake completely.

  “Yes, Son, it does. There are no signs that she tried to brake or that another vehicle was involved.”

  “You were such a bad lay that she offed herself,” Jake said to even more laughter than the first time. He now had them primed. “She left a note addressed to ‘Dear Pencil Dick.’ We saved it for you.”

  More laughter.

  “Is it okay to walk down there?” I asked Dad.

  “Sure, Son. Go ahead,” Dad said in a voice that told me he was sorry for what Jake was doing, but that he wasn’t able to stop him.

  As I walked away, I heard Jake say something about having sex with a raccoon. There was more laughter, but this time it was forced, like men wanting something to be funnier than it was. As I walked down to the river’s edge, I felt awkward and self-conscious.

  I knelt down on one knee by the river and quietly began to cry. I was crying for Molly, a good woman who had loved her husband. I was crying for Anthony, who went to prison on a marijuana possession and came out a crack addict prostitute in a body bag. I also cried for me. I was a total stranger in a place I once called home. I had never fit in like Jake-my neck had never been that red-but now I was totally alienated.

  The isolation was painful.

  When I finished crying, I got up and walked over to where the car now sat on dry land. Molly’s wet auburn hair was matted, and it hung forward with the rest of her slumping body that only the seat belt held vertical. The officers and ME had opened her door maybe ten minutes ago. Water was still draining onto the ground. The hair covered her face, and for that I was glad.

  There was a strong odor coming from the car, but it wasn’t Molly, not yet anyway. It was the mix of the river water, including the things that are in it, and the interior of the car. I smelled fish and mildew.

  I walked around to the back of the car and studied the bumper. It was bent slightly, but there was no way to know when it had happened. There were a few dents and some white paint from another vehicle on the back right quarter panel. The paint could have been on the car for six months or six hours; there was absolutely no way to know. But I knew. This was the work of Matt Skipper. Molly had lost the love of her life. Having nothing else to lose, with the exception of her own life, she was very dangerous to Skipper. He no longer had power over her, because he no longer had total power over her husband.

  I walked back up the hill, picturing in my mind how the deed was done. This time I didn’t stop where the officers stood, but continued to where I thought Skipper would have tried to stop. I found tire marks on the road, not acceleration marks, but the skid marks of Molly’s car as she tried to stop. I pictured Skipper hitting her one last time knocking her unconscious, sending her car down the hill and into the river. A second tire track was visible on the edge of the road in the dirt.

  The tire track could just be seen beneath the highway patrol car that was parked on top of it, whose front tires had already ridden over it. It came as no surprise to me that the highway patrolman was one of Skipper’s biggest hunting buddies. I didn’t see any point in mentioning what I had discovered …

  Or in any longer seeking justice in the manner I had been.

  Chapter 43

  The Quarters, the name given to the black section of town by a certain segment of the white population, was roughly two hundred acres on the south side of Pottersville, only part of which was inside the city limits. A single row of small, red-brick duplexes provided by the government for low-income housing was the only part of black Pottersville actually located within Pottersville.

  The low-income housing, known as the black projects, was a mirror image of the government housing on the east side of town, known as the white projects. The only difference in the two projects was color. Thus, it was more of a negative than a mirror-the negative of a hateful and ugly picture of humanity.

  I drove past the row of identical duplexes and found myself again surprised by how widely the yards varied. In front of most of the dwellings, the yards were barren, a mixture of dirt, weeds, and trash. Others, however, had neatly trimmed lawns and a shrub or two. Most of the houses did not have vehicles in front of them. Of those that did, many were tireless heaps up on blocks and covered with plastic tarps. Two of the units had late-model Cadillacs that gleamed even under the late evening sun.

  Beyond the projects were the houses and trailers of African Americans who could afford to own their own homes. These dwellings were as eclectic as any in the world. White prosperity and poverty in the rural South were separated from each other-relegated to certain well-defined clumps and clusters. However, black prosperity was scattered like leaven within the lump of black poverty. To my left stood a nice brick home with a paved driveway, two-car garage with the door closed, and a large yard in which a flashy bass boat sat on its trailer. To my right an old, faded single-wide trailer with its insulation hanging loosely underneath sat unevenly on cinder blocks with at least six dogs lying on the bare dirt yard scratching and licking themselves.

  On the corner, a small fire burned surrounded by three men and a woman-all holding tall beer cans in their hands. Across the road and down two yards, at least twenty children were playing various games under the watchful eye of an elderly, gray-haired lady rocking on the front porch. Occasionally, she leaned forward and spat her snuff-filled spittle onto the front yard.

  A little farther down, I passed a small travel trailer that served as home for three adults and four children-a digital direct TV satellite dish mounted to its upper right-hand side. Next to it a twenty-three hundred square-foot home stood as it had for the nearly twenty years it had been occupied with no brick or wood on its exterior-only faded gray sheets of once-silver Thermo-Ply. The modest, freshly painted clapboard house with the manicured yard next to it was Uncle Tyrone’s.

  When I arrived at Uncle Tyrone’s house, his numerous children sitting on his front porch told me that Merrill and Tyrone were already at his shop. Uncle Tyrone owned a shoe shop just over the tracks in Pottersville. This meant that although he lived on the wrong side of the tracks, Tyrone owned his own business on the right side of the tracks. His was one of only four black-owned businesses in Pottersville and the only one that was located in the white part of Pottersville.

  He wasn’t very far across the tracks, but it was far enough to suit him and close enough to the tracks to suit the white establishment. I had heard some of that white establishment refer to him as a “white negra.” No one had ever said anything like that to me, because they knew what I was-what I had been labeled since the eighth grade when I had fallen in love with Merrill’s little sister, Kyria-a nigger lover.

  “Cousin John,” Tyrone said as I walked in, giving me his usual greeting, “how are you?”

  “I’m okay, Uncle Tyrone. How are you?”

  “I’m hangin’ tough, but you, you don’t look okay. You tryin’ to become black the hard way,” he said, laughing. Merrill and I laughed, too. “You ought to just have the opposite of that treatment Michael Jackson’s having. Be a lot less painful.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thank you. You sure know a lot about Michael Jackson to be an old man.”

  “I watch a lot of BET. And, what they forget to tell me I read in Jet.” We all laughed some more. “So, let me see your tape, son.” I reached into my pocket to retrieve the tape. “Is it standard eight millimeter or high eight?”

  “Standard,” I said as I handed him the tape.

  “Ah, yeah, I can handle this. Right back here,” he said as he began to walk through the faded curtain behind his counter.

  In the back of Tyrone’
s store was an office roughly the size of my trailer. It was filled with shelves, which were filled with shoe boxes. On a table that stood against the right wall, there were all sorts of electronic equipment-VCRs, TVs, and stereo components. The eight-millimeter VCR sat on top of a small, square monitor in the center of the table.

  “You the only white man who come in here,” he said, smiling broadly. “Any other one see all this stuff think I stole it for sure.” We all laughed, though it was more true than funny.

  He popped the tape in.

  “I have no idea what’s on the tape. Would you mind if Merrill and I previewed it alone?”

  “You scared if I see some white man screwing a black man, I might go off. Well, I wouldn’t. I see that all the time,” he said as he began to walk back toward the front of the store. “Just push play when you’re ready,” he said.

  I did.

  The first scene to fill the screen was of a floor whose carpet looked familiar to me. It was the chapel at PCI. There was very little light, making the picture on the screen grainy-like a special effect for a rock video. When the camera tilted up and panned left, it showed Molly Thomas walking hesitantly into the dark chapel. She was shivering.

  Within seconds, Anthony had pounced on her like a leopard and begun to rape her. She didn’t scream very loudly, but you could tell that she was in pain. In between the screams, she tried to reason with Anthony. They both seemed unaware of the camera’s presence in the sanctuary. One time Anthony looked straight at it without looking into it. His eyes were wild, darting back and forth, as glazed over as a frozen pond and just as cold. In a few moments, before climax, Skipper came in and broke up the little party.

  The small video did two things. It showed that I was not involved and that Skipper was. However, Skipper was only shown as breaking up the violation and not as instigating it.

  Within another minute, the chapel was empty, and the camera stopped recording. The monitor went blue. I stopped the tape. The whole incident lasted less than five minutes.

  “Looks like you’ve just been cleared,” Merrill said.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Ain’t no maybe about it. You be just like Rodney King. Got the shit on tape.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said. “Things didn’t turn out too well for Brother Rodney.”

  “Now you know how we feel. Guilty until proven guilty.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s your next move?”

  “I think I’ll show this tape to the superintendent and the inspector.”

  “Not the others?” he asked.

  “They don’t prove Skipper did anything. And the fact that I have them makes it look like maybe I did it,” I said. “What do you think?”

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Not much in this world’s for sure.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  Chapter 44

  The Department of Corrections of the state of Florida incarcerated just under 65,000 inmates at a yearly cost of roughly 1.5 billion dollars. The number of people required to operate this department was 23,732. I was now one of those people again.

  It was an overcast Tuesday morning, and I was sitting at my desk, again active as the chaplain of Potter Correctional Institution. I had been reinstated thanks to the videotape of the chapel incident, or I should say a VHS copy of that video that Uncle Tyrone had dubbed for me in about ten minutes. Being at work again was not only a result of the tape, but also of a feisty, blond FDLE investigator named Rachel Mills, whom I showed the tape to first and who was by my side as I showed it to Daniels and Stone.

  It was nice to be back at work. It was even nicer to see Daniels so disappointed at my return.

  As I had expected, Stone and Daniels, and even Rachel Mills, were not willing to say that Skipper did anything but break up an illegal activity. The superintendent did, however, demand a full investigation, especially since, as they said, Molly Thomas had committed suicide. They even allowed Skipper to assist in the investigation since he had been acquitted by the grand jury. The man had nine lives.

  A few members of the staff seemed genuinely glad to see me back, but most, like most of the inmates, were tentative and seemed reserved around me. Mr. Smith was excited. Well, as excited as he ever gets. He said he knew I was innocent and was hoping Skipper wouldn’t kill me. I had hoped that myself, still did in fact. What I didn’t say, because I was trying not to think about it, was that someone had already killed me.

  I called Laura to tell her the good news. She was, at the same time, happy for me and scared, too. She asked if I had changed my mind about finishing the investigation. I realized that I had started investigating again without consciously deciding to do so. I determined that I had decided to do it for Molly. She deserved better than what she got. I intended on finding out who took her life from her-not that I could get it back and not that I could take theirs, but just because I needed to know, and so did the authorities. No doubt the killer would face a higher court and give an account to the Most High Judge one day, but I wasn’t willing to wait that long. I guess I’ve not perfected my passivity yet, nor my patience. Nobody’s perfect.

  After talking with Laura and coming to the realization that I was indeed still trying to figure out whodunit, I was more determined than ever to find out what happened that Monday night, just two weeks ago, in the infirmary. Two weeks ago, there were four people alive who weren’t alive now, and I wanted to know why. I think better around smart people, so I decided to go think with Anna in her office. When I opened my door, Officer Charles Hardy was standing there.

  “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to see you, sir,” he said. “Several people told me you wanted to talk to me about the morning Johnson was killed, but I’ve been out of town. I’m in the reserves, and they sent us to help with some hurricane damage in Charleston.”

  Charles Hardy was an excellent correctional officer. Like most of his fellow officers, he was a good, decent man doing a difficult job. His crisp uniform and patent-leather shoes betrayed his military training, so did his comfort with authority. He accepted the authority of those above him with honor, and even more noble was the fact that he never abused his authority over the inmates.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I appreciate you stopping by. I realize this is not your shift, and you don’t have to talk with me. I’m looking into this very unofficially.”

  “I understand, sir,” he said. “I’ll answer any question you ask.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But please call me John. I was just about to walk down to classification. If you’re headed that way we could talk while we walk.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “That would be fine.”

  We walked down Main Street Institution, alone because it was still early and the inmates had not been released from the dorms yet. The cloud-covered compound was even more depressing than usual, and the humidity came at you like the small side spray from a slight breeze blowing through the stream of a water hose.

  “In the early morning hours of Tuesday, two weeks ago from today, two inmates started fighting, according to Nurse Strickland,” I said. “She said that you were not at your desk and that she and Captain Skipper broke them up.”

  He nodded.

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  “I’m surprised they didn’t tell you,” he said. “When Captain Skipper came into the infirmary, he sent me to confinement to pick up an incident report. When I got back, he was gone. Nurse Strickland told me that Captain Skipper had left word for me to take Jacobson to confinement. So I turned right around and went back to confinement, this time with Jacobson in tow.”

  “So you took Jacobson to confinement per Nurse Strickland’s message that Captain Skipper said to do so, but you never heard it from the captain.”

  “Right,” he said. “The strange thing was she made me fill out the DR. Said Captain said for me to do it. I didn’t want to, b
ut I did it. I know how to follow an order. Later, when everything went down in the sally port, I was glad that I was not in the infirmary just before it happened.”

  “What time did you get back to the infirmary that morning?” I asked.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “I was in confinement until a few minutes before seven. When I walked back up to medical, Officer Straub was about to go in to begin his shift. I gave him a report of the night’s events. He went in. I walked up front.”

  “Who else was in the medical building that night?” I asked.

  “Nurse Anderson, and the orderly, Jones … and another inmate was there for a while.” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes to concentrate on recalling the nearly forgotten name. “Thomas. Anthony Thomas was there for a while, and that’s it.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate your help and the way in which you do your job.”

  “You’re welcome, sir,” he said. “And thank you, sir.”

  I felt as though I should salute. I did, however, suppress the urge.

  When I entered Anna’s office, I told her about all the things that were twirling around in the whirlpool, or perhaps cesspool, of my head-all the things related to the case. I didn’t mention that I was dying.

  “Even before you realized that Skipper didn’t have the opportunity to commit the murders, you thought he was innocent,” she said. “Why?”

  “I never said he was innocent, just that he didn’t commit those particular murders. The reason had to do with motive. I couldn’t see how killing Johnson or Maddox could have benefited Skipper in any way. Maddox was his best customer, and Johnson was his best product. He was making his own kind of killing on the little arrangement, so there was no reason for him to do any killing. He would have been putting an end to a serious paycheck, so why do it?”

  “Maybe they were going to tell.”