I feel bad for Dad, and wanted to stay to talk to him, but he insisted that he needed to be alone and wanted to sleep. I reluctantly acquiesced but told him I’d check on him a little later and that Anna and I would bring him some supper.
I drive down Caverns Road to Citizens Lodge Park and sit in a gazebo by a lake and spread the pictures out before me.
The disparate images range from poorly lit and poorly shot and poorly developed pictures from the night of the party, to the artistic photography of Janet Lester.
The snapshots from the party are dim and blurry, but show much of what the witnesses have described. Kids in late-seventies attire hanging out, drinking, dancing, makin’ out, mackin’ and mean muggin’ for the camera.
Janet is not in a single picture from inside the farmhouse, though Ben is in several—as are Kathy and Charles Fountain and Valarie Weston and Gary Blaylock.
There are no shots of Sabrina Henry, which I find strange.
The only image that appears to have Janet in it makes her look like an apparition accidentally imprisoned on film as the photographer attempted to capture something else.
Turning toward her car, seen in profile, a twirl of light. Cream crinkled-texture blouse, lace yoke. Camel, tan, and rust floral-print skirt, deep flounce at the bottom.
Eerie. Ethereal. Evanescent.
The picture was taken from inside the farmhouse, a glare from the glass window creating a frame in the foreground and adding an odd light to the entire image.
Behind the swirl of floral print and light, her red Mercury Monarch appears possessed like a chariot from hell.
Later, Anna picks me up and we head to Tallahassee to see Sam Michaels.
We are in her Mustang GT on I-10, taking the same route as Bundy had the night of Janet’s death, only in reverse. She is driving while I look at Kathy’s photographs and murder book.
Anna has spent the day caring for her mother, helping around her house, and is as happy as I am to be able to get away together for the evening.
It is doing little things like this together, these seemingly inconsequential, average, mundane activities, that makes life so much sweeter, richer, and fuller. Just being together, being partners in all things.
Ordinary life in the company of an extraordinary woman is anything but.
“How’s your mom?” I ask. “How are things up their way?”
“She’s okay. Not as incapacitated as we were led to believe. I really think it just came down to Dad wasn’t babying her quite the way she wanted and she was disappointed about missing our vacation and wanted to see us. But she’s doing well enough I had no problem leaving Taylor with them tonight. How’s your dad?” she asks. “The case.”
I tell her.
“So is that it?” she asks. “Y’all stopping the investigation? The fact that you’re looking at those pictures and the murder book suggests otherwise.”
I smile. “I’m not stopping. I don’t think he really is either. I bet by morning he’ll be back on the scent and we’ll pick up right where we left off.”
She shakes her head and frowns. “It’s gotta be so hard for him. To see just how wounded all these people are and to feel responsible in some way.”
“Yeah.”
“And I hate to think of him alone in that hotel room. You told him we’d love to have him at the ’rents place in Dothan?”
I nod. “He really wants to be alone, but I’ll keep tryin’.”
She glances at the photographs in my lap.
“Anything helpful?” she asks.
“Maybe. It’s definitely good to have a context and some visuals. Certainly feel like I know and understand Janet even more. She had an amazing eye—particularly for portraits.”
“Any evidence she was at the party?” she says.
“Yeah. Look at this.”
I hand her the picture. She holds it up above the steering wheel and glances back and forth between it and the road.
“Wow. Haunting.”
“When I called Kathy to talk to her about it she said it had always spooked her, said maybe Janet wasn’t at the party that night after all, only her ghost after she was killed.”
“It is uncanny,” she says, handing the picture back to me without taking her eyes off the road. “Especially given what happened to her that night.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Sam Michaels and Daniel Davis live in an old two-story wooden home on a small hill in a heavily wooded lot in Tallahassee.
Daniel was once a religion professor and ritualistic crimes consultant. Sam was a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Now Daniel is a full-time caregiver; Sam, the one he’s giving care to.
Sam, who I had worked with on a serial case back in the spring, suffered a brain injury as the result of being shot at point-blank range. For a while, her doctors believed she wouldn’t wake up from the coma she was in, but not only did she do that, she’s undergoing mental and physical rehabilitation and making progress—none of which came as any surprise to anyone who knows Sam.
The high-ceilinged, hardwood-floored living room of their home has been converted into a recovery room. Couch and coffee table removed, a hospital bed has been placed in front of the empty charred fireplace. Beside it, a single chair for Daniel is the only other piece of furniture in the room.
The hardwood floors creek as Daniel leads us into the room, and Sam opens her eyes, turns her head slightly, and looks up at us.
“She’s having a good day,” Daniel says.
Sam’s eyes widen and flicker with recognition as a smile plays on her lips.
“Hey, partner,” I say. “How’s it going?”
“You look so good,” Anna says.
Sam smiles wider and nods her head ever so slightly.
Every time we see her she’s getting better and doing more.
“You’re doing so well,” I say. “You’ll be trackin’ down bad guys again in no time at all.”
She tries to nod again.
“I heard the FDLE case clearance rate has plummeted since you’ve been sidelined,” Anna says. “They need you back as soon as possible.”
Daniel, who is out of Sam’s sightline, has tears in his eyes, and I can’t tell if they’re tears of sadness or happiness, but can’t imagine they’re not both.
He looks pale and exhausted, the ends of him frayed like an old rug.
“So here’s what we’re gonna do,” Anna says. “I’m gonna sit down here beside Sam for some girl talk. Daniel, you’re going to give John a list of everything you need. I mean everything—from toilet paper to tea bags—and while John is shopping and picking up a delicious dinner from Ted’s for us, you’re going upstairs and taking a nap.”
And that’s exactly what we do—except while I am out, in between picking up household items for Daniel and Sam and grabbing dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill, I drive around the area where Ted Bundy lived and took lives while he was here—including Chez Pierre, Chi Omega, and where his rooming house, The Oak, had once been.
Jack Jordan reenters his hotel room after going out for some food and a walk. Though he had rested and napped earlier when John had dropped him off, he’s still drained and depressed. Maybe even more so now.
The room is dark and cool. The drapes are drawn and the only light is a narrow strip coming from the slightly ajar bathroom door.
Kicking off his boots, tossing his hat on the chair in the corner, and emptying his pockets on the bedside table, he collapses on top of the covers with all his clothes still on.
The room smells the way most hotels do—of commercial cleaners and air fresheners, of emptiness and stillness and staleness, of a running window unit, and of previous guests, some of whom had broken both federal and state laws and had smoked in here. And not just cigarettes.
Given his fatigue and depression, given the multilayered smells in the room, given his advanced years and compromised health, it’s little wonder he neither sensed nor smelled that there
was somebody already present when he had entered the room.
He wants to sleep, to succumb to the safety of unconscious oblivion, but all he can think about is Verna and Ken and Kathy and Ben and how damn depressing their lives are, about Janet and how her death and disappearance go unavenged all these years later.
Guilt. Failure. Regret. Pain.
He feels his own pain, of course, but it’s their pain that he finds overwhelming.
Did Bundy really do it? How can he prove it if he did? Where is her body? How can he find it now?
The pasture and pond where her car had been found and the woods surrounding them had been thoroughly searched back then, but the only thing they discovered was the bag with the kill kit.
Where could she be?
If he took her with him, her remains could be scattered over several counties west of here or—that’s it. Wow. Why hasn’t he thought of that before? That’s got to be it. That’s where she is.
On his way from Tallahassee to Pensacola, Bundy had gotten the stolen VW he was in stuck in a restricted area of Eglin Air Force Base—and had only gotten it out with the help of a service station attendant. It has always been believed that Bundy was there hiding out, but what if he was there to bury Janet’s body? He often took his victims to secluded places in the woods to do all kinds of disturbing things to them—including necrophilia. What if that’s what he was there for? What if wasn’t hiding out, but defiling and discarding Janet’s body? That’s it—or could be. Certainly makes more sense than any other theory he’s ever come up with. They already know that Bundy used the area to throw away several personal items and the VW’s passenger seat. What if he threw out the seat and other things because they had Janet’s blood on them?
Jack has a jolt of energy and excitement he hasn’t had in a very long time.
He starts to sit up to call John, but just as he’s about to someone is there on top of him, pinning him down, pressing a gun into his forehead.
Where is my gun?
If have to ask that question it’s time to hang it up.
I came in. Dropped everything on the bedside table. Is that where it is?
He can’t remember placing the gun on the table.
I am in bad shape.
The truth is he’s old and sick and retired, but even before that, he hadn’t had to pull his gun many times over his decades in law enforcement. Still, he always knew where it was.
The guy on top of him now is in all black—including gloves and a ski mask.
“Listen up and you won’t get hurt,” he says.
Jack makes a small nodding gesture.
“Good people in this town. Don’t need you digging up bad memories for them. Understand?”
The man’s voice comes out in a low, harsh, growling whisper. Utterly unrecognizable. “Let sleepin’ dogs lie. Leave the ghosts alone. No good’ll come from stirring all this horrible shit back up.”
Jack still doesn’t respond.
“Nod if you understand me.”
Jack doesn’t nod.
“Something you need to know. I won’t let you keep bothering people I care about. I’ll take you off the board first. I will. What’s another? You act like you’re already knockin’ on death’s door. Keep doin’ what you’re doin’ and I’ll open her up for you.”
The man climbs off Jack to stand beside the bed.
As he does, Jack reaches for his gun on the nightstand—only to find it’s not there.
“Way ahead of you, old man,” he says. “It’s my gun now.”
He presses the barrel of the gun back into his forehead.
“I can see you learn as slow as you move,” he says. “Should shoot right here and now. But I’m gonna give you one more chance. But that’s it. One more. Stop what you’re doin’ and go home or . . . there won’t be any other warnings, no other chances. This is it. Do what I tell you or you won’t even know there’ll be a next visit. You’ll just be breathing, and then you won’t.”
Chapter Thirty-four
“Are you really okay?” Anna asks Dad.
“I’m fine. Only thing he hurt was my pride.”
We are in Dad’s room, having gotten a call from him about what happened on our drive back from Tallahassee.
He is sitting up, leaning back against the headboard. I am standing at the end of the bed. Anna is sitting on the edge of the bed between us.
“No idea who it was?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Of the people we’ve talked to,” I say, “who’d be the closest in size, shape, weight?”
He shrugs. “Really have no idea.”
I nod. “I called Merrill and Jake on the way here,” I say.
“Why?”
“For a little backup. Reinforcements.”
“Jake?”
“When Merrill said he just couldn’t get away from what he was working on.”
“Oh.”
“But he didn’t answer.”
“Don’t need backup,” he says.
“I’m assuming we’re stickin’ with it,” I say.
“I won’t be scared off anything,” he says, and I knew he meant it, but it sounded a little like hollow bravado.
“I meant because of what you were saying when I dropped you off this afternoon.”
“Oh. Yeah, well . . . Sorry about that. I was already over that when the little punk jumped on top of me, but I was twice as over it by the time he left. I was already back working on the case. I’d had this idea about where Bundy may have hidden Janet’s body when the little cat burglar–looking bastard came in and ripped it all to shreds.”
“Why ripped it to shreds?” Anna says.
“Because,” I say, “if Bundy did it why would someone—anyone—come in here and threaten Dad off the case.”
“Exactly,” he says.
“Unless,” I say, “the guy has something else to hide—something we might uncover if we keep picking at this particular scab. What was your thought about Bundy?”
“Remember he got his VW stuck in Eglin? What if he was there to bury Janet’s body? They found some of his stuff and the passenger seat of the car. What if her body was somewhere else around there and that’s why it’s never been found?”
I nod. “That’s good. Very good. Need to get them to check it out.”
“The old brain still fires up and runs occasionally,” he says.
“For tonight, you can come back to Anna’s parents’ place with us and—”
He shakes his head. “I don’t need babysitting. Don’t need Merrill or Jake to come here. Don’t need to go there with y’all.”
“It’s not babysitting,” I say. “It’s—”
“I’ll tell you what it is,” he says. “It’s nonnegotiable. I won’t be scared away and I won’t be babysat. Only thing I need is the loan of a gun. Bastard took mine.”
“But—”
“That’s the end of it,” he says. “I’m done talking about it. Besides, he threatened me. Said if I didn’t do what he told me he’d be back. I want to be where he can find me when he comes back. And I intend to get some information out of him.”
“Then John will stay with you,” Anna says. “And that’s nonnegotiable.”
He shrugs and considers it. “We could sleep in shifts.”
I nod, then look at Anna. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Thank you.”
“Y’all are also going to call Glenn Barnes and let him know what’s going on,” she says. “Get him to have his department keep an eye out for y’all too.”
“What if it was him?” Dad says. “Or he’s behind it?”
“Do you think it was him?” I ask. “He’s a big guy. Was—”
“Nah, wasn’t that big, but he could be behind it. Ben. Brad. Clyde. Gary. One of the other girls like Sabrina or Kathy. Anybody could be behind it.”
“Including Janet,” Anna says. “What if she faked her death and is scared you’re going to find ou
t? She could’ve sent someone to threaten you.”
Dad frowns and shakes his head. “ME said there was too much blood in her car for her to have survived.”
“Unless it wasn’t her blood,” Anna says. “Could’ve been someone else’s. Maybe that’s why she had him threaten you off. She killed someone else and doesn’t want it discovered.”
“Who?” Dad says. “There were no other missing persons around that time. And the blood in the car was her rare type.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t from around here. Or maybe there wasn’t a victim at all. Maybe she robbed a blood bank or saved her own blood over a long period of time. Maybe her stepdad was molesting her and she wanted out and so she—”
“There’s just no evidence of any of that,” Dad says. “I looked into all that. It’s possible. Most things are—at least in theory until we find her remains or other evidence. But you’re right, we certainly need to keep it in mind as a possibility like all the others until we can narrow things down even more.”
“And if she didn’t fake her own death to get away from her stepdad, maybe it was her stepdad who killed her,” she says. “Maybe he’s the one who came over here and threatened you—or sent someone to do it.”
“We’ll be sure to ask him when we talk to him tomorrow,” Dad says.
Chapter Thirty-five
“I owe you both an apology,” Verna says. “I acted badly and I’m very sorry. I don’t handle things as well as I once did. Still a little fragile. I hope you can forgive me. It just took me by surprise. All this time . . . I thought Ted Bundy killed my baby . . . and if he didn’t . . . well . . . anyway. I hope it goes without saying that I appreciate what you’re doing and want to help in any way I can. If Bundy didn’t take Janet from us, then I want to know who did, and if he did, then I want to know where she is and to have the opportunity to bring her home and bury her in a sacred place.”
“We understand,” Dad says.
“Absolutely,” I say.
We are in her house once again—at her invitation—after having spent the morning working with Glenn Barnes and Reggie Summers and a few other law enforcement individuals and agencies to coordinate with Eglin Air Force Base for a search of Janet’s remains in the area where Bundy was known to be.
BLOOD WORK: a John Jordan Mystery (John Jordan Mysteries Book 12) Page 12