“Do you remember any of Cedric’s friends?” I asked.
I had stopped by Lonnie’s to rent a movie on my way home. I was looking in Drama when it occurred to me to ask him.
He shrugged. “Not sure I knew any even back then. Why?”
“Recognize any of these names? Jamal Jackson, Quentin Washington, Jaquez Anderson, Duke Ellis, or Vaughn Smith.”
I didn’t have the file with me, but I had studied it in the truck stop parking lot and knew the names by heart.
He thought about it.
All five boys were between the ages of ten and fourteen when they vanished during the height of the Atlanta Child Murders. None of them were ever seen again—dead or alive. All of them had lived with a single mom with suspect parenting skills.
“A few sound sort of familiar, but . . .”
I nodded and kept looking.
In the mood for something light and romantic, I was already carrying the boxes for Sixteen Candles and The Man from Snowy River around with me.
“Were they Cedric’s friends?” Lonnie said. “Could they know something to help us find him? Can I talk to them? I’ll close the shop and we can go right now.”
“Just looking for connections between them and Cedric.”
“Why’s that?”
“They disappeared during the same time period and in the same manner he did.”
“Oh. Any of them ever found?”
I frowned and shook my head.
“Found any connections between them?”
“Just started looking,” I said. “Just got their names and the police reports.”
“How can I help?”
Settling on the two selections I had already made, I made my way up toward the counter where Lonnie stood.
“I’ll let you know,” I said.
“I’ll do anything,” he said. “I’d give anything to get him back. I just can’t fathom what happened to him. And the thought of Wayne Williams or someone like him gettin’ hold of that sweet boy . . . Makes me want to drink like nothin’ else ever has.”
“What can you tell me about Cedric’s dad?”
“Cedric Sr. ain’t a bad guy. Immature. Self-centered. Didn’t know nothin’ about being a daddy—never had one his self.”
“Could he have taken Cedric?”
He shook his head. “Wouldn’t want him. Wouldn’t know what to do with him. And . . . He’s the first place I looked back then. He was shocked Cedric was gone. I believed him when he said he didn’t have him or have any idea where he was, but I still watched him for a week or so just to make sure. Followed him everywhere he went for a while. Broke into his house and looked around when he was at work. Found nothin’. He didn’t take him, doesn’t have him. I wish he did.”
I nodded.
“You or the group want to talk to him anyway, I can set it up or even go with you if you like.”
“Thanks.”
“I appreciate what y’all are doing. Cops don’t care. Nobody else is looking. I’ll do anything I can to help. Just let me know what that is.”
I sat my two selections on the counter, and he went about finding them.
“This a little light for you, ain’t it?” he said.
“Need a little light in my life,” I said.
“Come to another meeting with me.”
“I will. I promise. It helped.”
He handed me my two movies without writing them down or having me sign anything. “On the house,” he said. “Enjoy.”
“Thank you, Lonnie. I appreciate that.”
“Just find my boy,” he said, and it occurred to me that he was the closest thing to a father Cedric ever had, and Cedric was the closest thing to a son he ever had.
Chapter Twenty
I stopped in Scarlett’s to talk to Susan.
It was the first time I had ever entered the establishment with no intention of drinking.
I sat at a table in the far corner and waited.
“What can I get you?” Susan said.
“Just a little conversation.”
“No, seriously. Margaret said I had to serve you.”
“Just came in to talk to you,” I said.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
She sat down across from me, placing her tray on the table next to the unlit candle between us.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Whatta you mean?”
“Why aren’t you drinking?”
“I’m not not drinking,” I said. “I’m just not drinking right now. I’m working on something.”
“Cedric?”
I nodded.
It was late afternoon and Scarlett’s was mostly empty. Two middle-aged men at opposite ends of the bar were staring into their drinks. Margaret, seated on a stool behind the bar, was having a moment with a drink of her own.
“That makes two of you,” she said. “Cedric’s death made you and Lonnie stop drinking.”
My abstinence was temporary and it was because of the case, but I didn’t mention it.
“Why do you say death instead of disappearance?” I asked.
She shrugged. “No reason. Nothing sinister. Just a feeling. I mean, I’m not a psychic like your girlfriend, but I get feelings too.”
“How about facts?” I asked. “Got any of those or just feelings?”
“Whatta you mean?”
“You kept him. See anything? Hear anything? Anything that might help us find him?”
“Yeah, and I’ve been sitting on it all this time just waiting for someone to ask me in just the right way.”
“Nothing that seemed fine at the time but later made you rethink it?”
“Nothing. He seemed like a good, happy kid. I didn’t keep him all that much. His mom was a drunk. I don’t know how bad she was to him. Think she was mostly just not there—even when she was. His uncle made sure he was taken care of. He’s the one who paid me, not the mom. He’s the one who made sure Cedric ate and got to school. But lots of people looked out for him.”
“Like Annie Mae Dozier?”
“Her especially, but there were others.”
We were quiet a moment, and I looked back over at the three lost souls at the bar.
“Do I look that sad when I’m drinking?” I asked.
“When you’re drinking. When you’re not.”
I shook my head and forced a smile.
“What about friends his age?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“Cedric,” I said. “What about friends?”
“He didn’t have a lot. Played with a few kids from the apartment complex but just because they were there. Not like his mom was going to take him anywhere—no school activities, no birthday parties, nothing like that.”
“Recognize any of these names?” I said. “Jamal Jackson, Quentin Washington, Jaquez Anderson, Duke Ellis, or Vaughn Smith.”
“Jamal lived in the building. They played together some. Why?”
“What happened to Jamal?” I asked.
She shrugged. “He and his mom moved. Have no idea after that. Why?”
“Did you have a boyfriend during that time?”
“What does that have to do with—”
“Did you?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Where were you the night Cedric disappeared?”
“You suspect me?” she asked, her voice equal parts anger and pain.
“No,” I said, and it was only partially untrue.
“Then why ask?”
“Were you with Ronald Nolan?”
“The pizza guy?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“He said he was with a woman out back that night. Said she wasn’t single, so . . .”
“You thought of me ’cause I’m such a whore?”
“No. It’s a compliment. You’re the prettiest, most desirable young woman I could come up with.”
“Oh,” she said, seeming placated for the moment. “It wasn’t me,” she said.
“It was an innocent question,” I said. “Nothing behind it.”
“Oh shit,” she said, her eyes widening as if something had just occurred to her.
“What is it?”
“What if it wasn’t a young woman but an older one?”
“Which?”
“The Mitchell of the Margaret and Mitchell partnership. I always suspected Laney of stepping out on Aunt Margaret. She had been with men before. Was mostly with men until she and Aunt Margaret got together. Always thought she was more bi than . . . bet she and ol’ pizza boy were scratching itches they both had.”
“It would explain why he couldn’t reveal who it was,” I said. “Why he still can’t.”
She nodded.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Anytime.”
“How did Laney die?” I asked. “I’ve never heard anyone say.”
“That’s ’cause we’re forbidden from discussing it.”
“By whom?”
“Whom do you think?” she said with a wry smile and a glance over at Margaret.
I waited.
She didn’t add anything else.
“You gonna tell me?”
“Tragic accident,” she said. “A very—”
“What’s with all the whispering, you two?” Margaret said from behind the bar.
Susan popped up, grabbed her tray, and got back to work.
“I wasn’t sayin’ stop,” Margaret said. “I just want in on it.”
Chapter Twenty-one
On my way home, I stopped in Peachtree Pizza to pick up the pie I had ordered from Scarlett’s fifteen minutes before.
It was ready and waiting—just like Rand Nola’s smile.
When the customer before me left and we were alone, I said, “Got a name for you.”
“Like my native name or something?” he said with an even bigger smile.
“Laney Mitchell.”
His smile faded, then vanished the way Cedric and the other boys had.
“That’s why you couldn’t say then or now,” I said.
He nodded. “How’d you . . .”
“With a little help from Susan.”
“She knows?”
“She suspected.”
“She’s not going to say anything to Margaret, is she? It’d just upset her for no good reason.”
“She’s not. No one is.”
“Laney loved Margaret. I mean big time. They were like the perfect couple. Lane just missed dick sometimes. That’s all it was. Just sex.”
Nothing is ever just sex, but I knew what he meant.
“So why did y’all stop when Cedric ran by?”
“We didn’t. She did. Frustrated the hell out of me, man. She was good. I mean real good.”
He looked away and was lost in reverie for a moment.
I waited for him to experience the sweetness of his memory.
“So why did she stop?” I said.
“She ran after him. Could tell he was upset. Knew something was wrong. She was such a decent person. Just took off after him. Left me there with my dick hanging out.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothin’. Just took off.”
“No,” I said. “Later. Did she find him?”
“We never spoke again. I was still pouting when she died.”
“How’d she die?”
“Dude, it was like so fuckin’ sad. She was such a Good Samaritan. On her way home one night—from the bar I think—she stopped to help someone who was broken down. She was helpin’ push the car the rest of the way onto the shoulder or something. Got hit by another car passing by. Hit-and-run, but they weren’t sure if the driver even knew he had hit her. It was dark and raining. Who knows? Just heartbreakin’ man. You know?”
I shook my head and thought about the obvious question.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Do you think it had anything to do with what happened to Cedric?”
“I never have thought about it,” he said.
Maybe not such an obvious question after all.
“He’s running—maybe for his life. She chases him. He disappears. She’s killed soon thereafter.”
“Fuck,” he said.
“Exactly.”
I had two walls now—one centered on the task force’s list, Wayne Williams, and the original case, the other on Cedric and the boys who had vanished under similar circumstances. Jamal Jackson, Quentin Washington, Jaquez Anderson, Duke Ellis, and Vaughn Smith.
To this second wall I was now adding the suspicious death of Laney Mitchell. I had shared with Frank Morgan what I had discovered about Laney’s actions the night of Cedric’s disappearance and asked him to take a closer look at the hit-and-run report from the night she was killed.
I didn’t yet know if they were one case or two, but separating out Cedric and the other still-missing victims meant I could focus on them while still searching for patterns and connections with the others.
I had made a commitment to rework the Wayne Williams case and I intended to keep it. I would continue to go back and forth between the two until I found a link between them.
So, as I ate the sausage and bacon pizza and drank Dr. Pepper, I looked for patterns and connections.
Which was what I was doing when I heard the knock at my door.
Chapter Twenty-two
I started not to answer it since nearly no one knew I lived here and Rick my roommate was at work, but before I was fully conscious of what I was doing, I was opening the front door.
When I saw who it was, I was glad I did.
There in light blue jeans and a purple Prince T-shirt was Summer Grantham with a bright, sweet smile on her face. Her blond hair was down and splayed out beautifully on her purple shoulders. A single, slender braid hung on the left side near her face.
Tonight her Keds were the same purple as her tee.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“Hope you don’t mind. I went to Scarlett’s hoping to accidentally on purpose run into you, but you weren’t there.”
“I wasn’t?”
“You were here instead. So I came here.”
“I’m glad you did. Come in.”
When she stepped inside, we hugged, and when we released one another, and for the rest of the night, her perfume clung to my clothes.
“Sorry to intrude. What am I interrupting?”
“Come and see,” I said, leading her back to my room. “Excuse the place. Maid’s day off.”
When she walked into my room, she looked around and said, “When’re you gonna unpack?”
“I have.”
“Oh. You spartan by choice or necessity?”
“Uh huh,” I said.
She smiled.
When her eyes came to rest on the Wayne Williams wall, she grew silent, stepped over to it, and studied it for a long while.
I waited, watching her, trying to read her reactions, attempting to see the information as if for the first time.
“No wonder you’re here instead of the bar,” she said, then after a pause, adding as if an afterthought, “No wonder you leave here for the bar.”
When she turned toward me, she touched me very tenderly on the side of my face. Our eyes locked for a moment, something kind and caring passing between us.
Then the other wall caught her eye.
“Cedric?” she asked, stepping over to it.
I nodded and turned to follow her over to it.
“So much pain in this room,” she said, reaching down and taking my hand.
We gazed at the wall for a while, our fingers laced, our breathing the only sound.
“So there are six similar cases including Cedric?” she said. “Six missing boys who never came home?”
“Do you sense anything?” I asked.
She nodded, but didn’t say anything, just continued studying the scant infor
mation.
After a while, she stepped even closer and touched the wall, placed her hand on each report, every piece of paper and picture, gently caressing each one.
“They’re the same in some ways, but not in others. They’re more dissimilar than similar, but they are connected. But not in the way we think, not the most obvious ways.”
I thought about it, deciding I didn’t yet know enough about the cases for anything she was saying to resonate or be refuted.
She turned back to me again.
“I want to help you,” she said.
“You have,” I said. “You are.”
“I want to help heal you.”
“Okay.”
“You’re so closed, so guarded, but you haven’t always been.”
I nodded.
She kissed me.
I kissed her back.
The kiss became passionate and we stuck with it.
“I’d like to make love to you,” she said, “to love and heal you with every part of me. Would you like to make love?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“I’m old enough to be your mother. Are you sure you’d like to? I’m not . . . You don’t feel pressured, do you?”
“You’re not. I want to.”
“Have you had sex before? You’re not a virgin, are you?”
She was so direct, so grown-up about all this that I felt completely comfortable.
“I have,” I said. “Not a lot. Not enough. But I have.”
Between the kissing and the frank talk about sex, I was completely aroused and ready to go.
“Take off your clothes and lie back on the bed,” she said.
I did.
As I did I felt a pang of guilt and pictured Jordan watching me, but did my best to let it go.
She unhurriedly undressed.
Her body was both softer and paler than I had imagined, but beautiful and unexpectedly erotic.
My bed consisted of a box spring and a mattress, no frame, no headboard, nothing else. As usual, it was unmade.
Kneeling on the floor, she leaned up on my legs, and took me in her mouth.
Her hand and mouth moved in concert to create one of the best sensations I had experienced in my eighteen years on earth, and I felt as though something not just sexual but spiritual was taking place.
It wasn’t long before I was having to resist climaxing, and she must have been able to tell, because she stopped what she was doing and began kissing my body, working her way up to my mouth.
BLOOD CRIES: a John Jordan Mystery (Book 10) (John Jordan Mysteries) Page 8