JJ08 - Blood Money (20 page)

“You
can.”

“I feel like such a failure as a mom. Everyone else has always thought that. This is the first time
I
have.”

“
Why do you?”

“I
don’t
know.
I guess . . . even if he
was
murdered . . . he
wouldn’t
have
been in prison if it
weren’t
for . .
.”

“Addiction,”
I said. “My mother
is
an addict—or
was,
but
she’s
not responsible for my addiction.”

“Yours?”
I nodded.

“But
you’re—”

“In recovery . . .
It’s
far less of an issue in my life
now,
but I’ll always be an addict—and
that’s
not my
mom’s
or anyone
else’s
fault.”

“Thanks. Thank you. Could you . .
.”
she began, then trailed off.
“You
think you could . . .
Would
you mind helping me with
Danny’s
memorial service?”

“Of course.
I’d
be honored.”

“You’re
kind of all I’ve got right
now.”

“E
verybody’s a
whore,”
Carla
Jean
said. “I’m just honest about it.
Don’t
get me wrong, I
ain’t
no street
walker.
Not some Meth Head
Mandy,
do anything for a fix. Just keepin’ it real by
sayin’
I get paid for services rendered like any other
job.”

We
were at a mostly empty no-name bar just outside the city limits.

It was late.

I was at the end of the
bar,
a
Dr.
Pepper with grenadine in front of me. Carla Jean, who was the weeknight bartender, was behind the
bar,
leaning in toward me as we talked, her braless breasts pressing against the countertop.

People referred to Carla
Jean
Columbus as the
town’s
most brazen whore, but I found her unapologetic truthfulness refreshing. I just wondered if her brazenness was born of self-acceptance and peace or defensiveness and self-delusion.

“Everything comes down to
money,”
she said. “Everything.
It’s
how the
world
works.
What are we willing to do for
money.
Well
guess what. I’m willing to fuck for
money.
I like to fuck. I’m gettin’ paid to do something I like. And I
don’t
do it if I
don’t
want
to.
I
don’t
do anything I
don’t
want
to.”

“You
say who and you say when . . . and you say
who,”
I said in my best Julia Roberts.

She looked confused. “Huh?”

“Line from
Pretty
Woman
.”

“
Oh.”

At the opposite end of the
bar,
a distance that seemed
worlds
away,
an extremely wrinkled old lady with a faded pink
golfer’s
hat on and a middle-aged man in a blue mechanic uniform sat next to each other drinking alone.

“What can you tell me about that night at the farmhouse?”

She
couldn’t
tell me much. It was the same as all the rest. Men taking turns with
her,
mostly good guys, an occasional asshole, easiest money
she’d
made in months.

“Did you know the blonde girl?”

“The one that got killed?
No.
Least I
don’t
think
so.

Who was she?”

“That’s
what I’m tryin’ to find
out,”
I said. “That and what happened to
her.”

“I
didn’t
even see
her,”
she said.
“Didn’t
know she was there
’til
y’all showed up
askin’
questions about
her.”

“I thought you let her
in.”

“Let her in what?
It’s
not my
club.”

“The farmhouse. I was told you let her in the back
door.”

“Well
I
don’t
know who told you that but I
didn’t
let anybody in. And I
didn’t
see no blonde girl.”

“
You
didn’t
let her inside?
You
sure?”

“Positive.
I
didn’t
let anyone in at any time the whole time we were
there.”

I thought about what it meant that Carla
Jean
hadn’t
let the victim inside and how it impacted the inquiry.

“So you
have
no idea who she was or why she
was
there?” I asked.

“My guess . . . she was
crashin’,”
she said. “Bet
you
anything. Tryin’
to make a buck, tryin’ to take money out of my pocket. She heard about the party and figured she could sneak in on our action. That or someone brought
her.

Decided
he’d
pimp her out to those horny old
bastards.”

Maybe someone really did bring her to embarrass or even blackmail one or more of the men running for office. Maybe Dad
wasn’t
paranoid, just political.

“Still
can’t
believe she was killed,” she said. “I mean, fuck. Am I in danger?”

I
fell asleep beside Anna later that night thinking about the blonde––wondering who she
was,
why she was there, why she was killed, why her body was staged next to the prison fence, and why her body
would
then be stolen on its
way
to the morgue.

If she never entered the farmhouse what did that change? The suspects? Those with means and opportunity?

I
woke
up a little while later, mind
racing.

Placing my hand on
Anna’s
bare thigh, I laid there in the dark, listening to her breathing, observing the thoughts ricocheting around inside me.

Two
murders.

One premeditated. The other impromptu. Is that right?

Two
murderers.

One patient. The other impulsive.

One plots and
plans,
watches and
waits.
The other snaps,
acts,
reacts, lashes out, explodes.

Is one killer mature and the other juvenile? Or does it
have
more to do with the means, motive, and opportunity than the makeup of the man?

Any of this true? Does it fit the facts, the actions of the killers, the circumstances of the cases? If
so,
what does it say about them?

Who are these figures I
can’t
quite make out?

What did they unwittingly reveal about themselves? What signature did they leave? What clues?

What do they want? Why did they do it? Greed?

Lust? Envy? Psychopathology?
Fear
of being found out?
For
what?

Will either of them do it again?
What’s
the key to catching them?

What do their victims reveal about them? I know so little about the ones and next to nothing about the
other.

Need more
info.

Do you? What if you
don’t?
What if you already know everything you need to?

Do I?

I
awoke
the next morning with no insights or
answers.

Over breakfast Anna said, “Stealing the body hides her identity and effectively makes it impossible to catch the
killer.”

I nodded. “I
don’t
disagree, but why not just do that from the beginning?
Take
the body and hide it or dispose of it right after you commit the murder––like many murderers do? Why take the time to load it
up,
take it to the prison, lean it against the fence, risk being seen or caught, just to steal it a few hours later?”

“S
omebody killing Suicide Kings or just trying to off Phillips?” Merrill asked.

“Not sure. Danny
was
in
Lance’s
bunk,”
I said. “So . .
.”

“
Why?”

“Liked the mattress
better.
It’s
thicker or something.

Felt
safer in the top
bunk.”
Merrill shook his head.

It was the next morning.
We
were standing near the internal gate. Inmates were going to and from breakfast at the
chow
hall. Most of them were quiet in the coolness of the early morning, moving sleepily through a routine as rote as dressing, but some were already mouthy—miserable and anxious to spread it around.

“Some these bitches wake up lookin’ for a fight,”

Merrill said.

“Not something they can sleep
off,”
I said.

We
were quiet a moment, continuing to watch the long lines of wasting potential. Whatever their lives had been before, whatever they
would
be again, at the moment, they were on pause, prison a parenthetical in their existence like a drunk’s weekend blackout—except when they
woke
up from this
they’d
remember every brutal detail.

“You
get the Confinement log from the night of the attempt on Lance?” I asked.

He tossed
two
sheets of paper toward me and they drifted down into my hand. The top one was a copy of all staff members and officers who visited Confinement that night.

I pulled a pen out of my coat pocket and circled the names of those
who’d
also made an appearance in A-dorm the night
Jacobs
was killed.

“Usual suspects?” he said.

“Those in Confinement when the attempt was made on Lance and in A-dorm when Danny was killed are
Jamie
Lee, Bailey Baldwin,
Dr.
Juan Alvarez, Donnie
Foster,
Mark Lawson, and . .
.”

“And?”

“
Hahn
Ling.”

He smiled.
“You
know how to pick ’em.”

“Pick ’em?
We
had a few dates—and
that’s
been a while. And only because the one I really picked
wasn’t
available yet.”

“Is
now,
ain’t
she?” I smiled.

“How’s
it going with you
two?”

“Before we got together I had an unrealistic expectation of what it
would
be like, a
fantasy,
a dream of perfection.”

He nodded.

“It’s
a billion times better than that,” I added.

He smiled. “Happy for you. Y’all both deserve
it.”

“Thanks.”

“What about inmates who were at both?” I looked at the second sheet.

When my eyes grew wide, he said, “What?”

“Danny was in Confinement the night the attempt was made on
Lance.”

“Doing what?”

“Passing out food
trays,”
I said.

“No
way
he got in his cell, but . . . be a hell of a coincidence if it just a coincidence.”

I nodded without looking up from the
logs.
“Brent Allen was also
there,”
I said. “Motherfucker
can’t
kill his own rat
ass,
but he can kill his friends?”

The captain on duty standing near the food service building called one of the inmates out of the
chow
line and began to yell at him about needing to
shave.
The inmate claimed to
have
a shaving
pass,
but
couldn’t
produce it. The captain sent him back to the
dorm
without any breakfast.

“Allen
was actually in Confinement,” I said. “Got out the next
day.”

“The plot
thickens.”

“It gets even
thicker.
He was in the cell next to
Lance.”

“And
he
didn’t
mention it to you?”

I shook my head. “Lot of that going
on.”

He smiled. “’Course, bein’ in the next confinement cell like being in the next state. Not like he could do
anything.”

“Not without
help.”

“You
think maybe the cell defective?”

“
Worth
checking
out,”
I said.
“Thanks.”

Lance Phillips
waved
at us as he passed
by
in the line of inmates heading for the
chow
hall. I
waved
back. Merrill did not.

Merrill cleared his throat as a slight flicker appeared in his eyes, and I slid the copies of the logs into the pocket of my coat. When I turned around, I saw Mark Lawson approaching
us.

“Chaplain,” he said as he walked
up.
“Lot of people
’round
here say what a good man you are, but I keep on hearing
you’re
asking questions about
my
investigation.

I
don’t
wanna get off on the wrong foot, but seems like
that’s what’s
happenin’.”