COLD BLOOD (a John Jordan Mystery Book 13) Read online

  Cold Blood

  a John Jordan Mystery Book 13

  Michael Lister

  Pulpwood Press

  Contents

  That Night

  From In Search of Randa Raffield

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Also by Michael Lister

  Copyright © 2017 by Michael Lister

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Written by Michael Lister.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  Books by Michael Lister

  Sign up for Michael’s newsletter by clicking here or go to

  www.MichaelLister.com and receive a free book.

  (John Jordan Novels)

  Power in the Blood

  Blood of the Lamb

  Flesh and Blood

  (Special Introduction by Margaret Coel)

  The Body and the Blood

  Blood Sacrifice

  Rivers to Blood

  Innocent Blood

  (Special Introduction by Michael Connelly)

  Blood Money

  Blood Moon

  Blood Cries

  Blood Oath

  Blood Work

  Cold Blood

  (Jimmy “Soldier” Riley Novels)

  The Big Goodbye

  The Big Beyond

  The Big Hello

  The Big Bout

  The Big Blast

  In a Spider’s Web (short story)

  The Big Book of Noir

  (Merrick McKnight / Reggie Summers Novels)

  Thunder Beach

  A Certain Retribution

  (Remington James Novels)

  Double Exposure

  (includes intro by Michael Connelly)

  Separation Anxiety

  (Sam Michaels / Daniel Davis Novels)

  Burnt Offerings

  Separation Anxiety

  (Love Stories)

  Carrie’s Gift

  (Short Story Collections)

  North Florida Noir

  Florida Heat Wave

  Delta Blues

  Another Quiet Night in Desparation

  (The Meaning Series)

  Meaning Every Moment

  The Meaning of Life in Movies

  Sign up for Michael’s newsletter by clicking here or go to

  www.MichaelLister.com and receive a free book.

  That Night

  It had rained earlier in the evening and the damp pavement shimmers in the headlights.

  Raindrops fall intermittently from the pines lining the road, thudding wetly on the moist earth below.

  The quiet night is cloud-shrouded, the desolate coastal highway dark, and the foggy air thick with moisture as particles of water dance in the cylindrical shafts of light.

  She is driving far faster than she should.

  She wonders why. Why is she being so careless, so reckless? Does her life really matter so little to her? Is this a death wish or something else? An attempt at numbing the numbness? A test of the invincibility she feels?

  Something in the road.

  Brake. Turn. Avoid.

  A gray fox darts out of the sand pine scrub and onto the highway, its long tail trailing behind it.

  The speeding car swerves to miss it—and does, but hits a patch of standing water and begins to hydroplane.

  Spinning. Sliding. Skidding.

  The car slams into a guardrail then careens off it back onto the road, spins again, then comes to rest facing the opposite direction on the other side of the road.

  Moments pass.

  Then minutes.

  She climbs out of the car, not particularly shaken, stands and surveys the damage.

  Steam rises from the hot hood of the car. Wipers rub across the mostly dry windshield.

  Then from out of the dark, diffused by the fog, approaching headlights appear in the distance, glowing eerily in the mist.

  From In Search of Randa Raffield

  On Thursday, January 20, 2005, the day of George W. Bush’s second inauguration, twenty-one-year-old Randa Raffield crashed her car on a secluded stretch of Highway 98 near the Gulf of Mexico, not far from Port St. Joe.

  Randa was a student-athlete at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, a champion swimmer. She was five feet seven inches tall with dark auburn-tinted hair, pale white skin, and large green eyes.

  Nineteen days before, at a little after midnight on New Year’s Eve, Randa’s boyfriend, Josh Douglas, proposed to her at the Pensacola Pelican Drop, the New Year’s Eve event in downtown Pensacola. She said yes. The proposal was captured by both local TV news stations and attendees with their cellphones, and has now been shared millions of times online.

  The location of the wreck was hundreds of miles from where she was supposed to be.

  She was on the phone with her mom at the time.

  Moments after the accident, Roger Lamott, a truck driver hauling fuel, came upon the scene. Randa refused his help, asked him not to call the police, and said she preferred to wait alone for the towing service she had already called.

  After pulling away, Lamott called the police anyway.

  It was later discovered that Randa hadn’t called the police or a towing service and her car was drivable.

  Both her mom and Roger Lamott gave statements indicating Randa wasn’t injured or particularly upset by the incident.

  Seven minutes later when the first Gulf County Sheriff’s Deputy arrived, Randa was gone, vanished without a trace.

  She was never seen again.

  1

  “I know you’ve worked a lot of baffling cases,” Merrick says, “but I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Merrick McKnight and I are sitting on the deck at the Dockside Café on the marina in Port St. Joe on a warm September day, waiting for our lunch to arrive. The marina is just across the way from where St. Joe Paper Company’s old paper mill used to stand, but all that remains of it now is the lasting environmental damage it did.

  We’re here to talk about the possibility of me helping with his investigation into the Randa R
affield case.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  “What’s that phrase . . . It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

  “Russia,” I say.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s what Churchill said about Russia.”

  “Well, he could’ve been talking about this case. It’s the same thing. Every time I think I have a handle on it, I learn something else or learn that the thing I thought I had learned a while back was wrong. It keeps changing, keeps turning and twisting. It’s all blind alleyways and dead-end streets.”

  I nod. Nearly every case feels like that at some point or another. But from the little I know about the disappearance of Randa Raffield, it might be even more like that than others.

  “And this whole thing’s exploding,” he says. “Gotten way out of control.”

  “The investigation? Your podcast? What?”

  He nods. “Both. Everything. It’s all blown up in ways we never could’ve imagined . . . and we really need your help.”

  Some six months ago, he and Daniel Davis began a true crime podcast to investigate the disappearance of Randa Raffield.

  Merrick is a reporter and the partner of Reggie Summers, the sheriff of Gulf County and my boss. Daniel is a retired religion professor and the husband of Sam Michaels, an FDLE agent I worked a case with back in the spring. Though I know their partners far better, I like and respect both men—and think they’re particularly good at podcasting.

  “When we started we had no idea what it would become,” he says. “What it would stir up, or how many crazies it’d cause to crawl out of their holes.”

  “Reggie mentioned how well the show’s doing,” I say.

  Though true crime has long been a popular genre for books and documentaries, its popularity has exploded in the age of new media. Beginning with Sarah Koenig’s podcast Serial and continuing with Netflix’s Making a Murderer, HBO’s documentary miniseries The Jinx, and Sundance’s series The Staircase, true crime content is experiencing a renaissance and gaining a following unlike anything since In Cold Blood, Helter Skelter, and The Thin Blue Line.

  A young woman with skin tanned bronze in short shorts and a pink Dockside T-shirt delivers our grouper baskets and we begin to eat.

  The day is bright and clear, the bay behind the marina peaceful and picturesque, and the bay breeze the gulls and swallow-tailed kites glide on and that blows through the open restaurant has just a hint of fall in it.

  Tim Munn, the manager, stops by the table to check on us and to give us samples of a special gumbo he’s been working on with the kitchen.

  Merrick samples the gumbo before I do and gushes over it to such a degree that I give him mine.

  As Tim moves on to hand out samples to other customers, a massive yacht slowly eases into the marina.

  “What do you attribute the show’s popularity to?” I ask. “Both with the general public and to deranged internet trolls.”

  “I think we do a decent job with our production, but it’s the case itself that compels people. The mystery is so . . . maddening. There are so many clues, so many possibilities, and the window of opportunity for something to happen to her was so small. Less than seven minutes for her to vanish off the face of the earth—and stay that way for nearly twelve years now. Plus she was so pretty and popular and . . . It’s easy to get obsessed with it. Daniel and I have gone to some pretty dark places, jumped down more than a few rabbit holes. But we’re not just popular. We’re controversial too. We’ve made mistakes.”

  “Mistakes are part of investigating,” I say. “Sometimes the biggest part.”

  “It’s given me a greater appreciation for what you and Reggie do. Especially you. She says you’re the best investigator she’s ever worked with.”

  It’s nice of her to say, nice of him to share, but Reggie has worked with very few investigators over the course of her short career in law enforcement.

  “Does she know you’re talkin’ to me about this?” I ask.

  He nods. “When I told her I’d be asking for your help with it, she said she knew you’d talk to her about it no matter what you decided.”

  I nod. “I will. It’ll be her call, but if we get involved it’ll be officially. It’s an unsolved case in our jurisdiction.”

  “You couldn’t just help me and Daniel a little?” he says. “Unofficially.”

  I shake my head. “Not as long as I’m working for the sheriff’s department.”

  “We’re really close. I think. I’ve thought that before, but . . . we’ve uncovered so much information. I know the answer is in there. We just need help putting the pieces together the right way.”

  I nod and look out over the bay again to see a gull gliding just above the surface of the water.

  “I thought my career was over,” Merrick says. “As a reporter. As an investigative journalist. This podcast has given me a second chance . . . and it’s been even better for Daniel. I think it’s kept him from going crazy during all this with Sam. He can do it all from home while he takes care of her—but it gives him something to do, keeps his mind occupied. But this isn’t about us. It’s about Randa. Finding out what the hell happened to her. That’s why I’m asking for your help. Our podcast is a success and I’ve got interest in my book.”

  “I didn’t know you were working on a book.”

  “That’s how it all started. My point is we’ll be fine. If it gets solved, we’ll finish the book and start a new season of the podcast investigating another unsolved case. If it doesn’t, we’ll keep working on this one. We’ll be fine either way. My main motive here is to get justice for Randa.”

  “I don’t doubt that, but just to show good faith, what are some of your non-main-motives?”

  He smiles. “Well, let’s see. We need help. A fresh set of eyes on this thing. We’ve hit a wall. Not sure how much further we can take it without . . . And like I said . . . it’s blowing up. We’re gettin’ a lot of attention. Not all of it good. We got crazies and scaries crawling out of the computer. We’re losing control of it.”

  “It?”

  “The . . . case, I guess. The investigation. But mostly the discussion about it. The circus surrounding it. And . . . if I’m being completely transparent . . . we now have some competition. Our biggest critic has started his own podcast about the case and says he’s working on a book too.”

  I nod. “Thank you for being so honest.”

  “I meant what I said. I just want it solved. Truth is, all I want is for you to look into it. If you do, you won’t be able to help yourself. It’s too mysterious, too maddening. You’ll investigate it. And if you do, we’ll solve it. I know it.”

  2

  When I leave Dockside, I head west on Highway 98 toward the spot where Randa’s car was found, listening to Merrick and Daniel’s podcast as I do.

  “Welcome to another edition of In Search of Randa Raffield,” Merrick says. “I’m your host, Merrick McKnight, and I’m joined as always by Daniel Davis. Hey Daniel. You ready for another exciting episode today?”

  “I am.”

  I cross over the small bridge between the sites where the paper mill and chemical plant used to be and then over the much larger George G. Tapper Bridge above the Gulf County Canal that connects the Intracoastal Waterway with St. Joseph Bay, the bay extending out to the left beneath me, the sun refracting off the surface of the water causing me to squint. Coming down off the bridge into Highland View, I put on my shades.

  “Well, let’s get right to it,” Merrick says.

  He is the more natural podcaster of the two—more relaxed and comfortable, his voice deeper and richer—but I know from listening to a few of the other shows that Daniel contributes a lot, and the two men work well together.

  “Today we’re going to focus on the location where Randa went missing,” Merrick says. “But before we do that, let’s do a quick review for everyone—especially first-time listeners.”

  “Sure,” Daniel says. “On Thursday,
January 20, 2005, Randa Raffield, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of West Florida, crashed her car on a secluded stretch of Highway 98, between Mexico Beach and Port St. Joe, Florida.”

  I am driving along that very spot right now, coming up on the Dixie Belle Motel on my left and, farther down, Barefoot Cottages on my right, and it’s a bit disconcerting to be hearing them talk about it as I do.

  The Dixie Belle Motel is a 1950s-style roadside motor lodge. Barefoot Cottages is a gated community of coastal cottages—residents and rentals. Both of these developments, combined with Windmark Beach beyond, starkly contrast the rundown, empty, and abandoned buildings lining the highway just a short way back in Highland View. It’s at intersections like these that impoverished Old Florida fishing villages clash with the New Florida exclusive developments and pristine master-planned communities that are the vacation destinations and second homes for the wealthy of Atlanta and Birmingham.

  “She was supposed to be at an Iraq war protest in Atlanta that coincided with the second George W. Bush inauguration,” Daniel continues, “so the place where she wrecked was over three-hundred miles from where she was supposed to be. All her friends and family had no idea she wasn’t in Atlanta—even her mom who she was on the phone with at the time of the accident—”

  Merrick breaks in. “And we should say that all her friends and family and even her boyfriend claim they thought she was in Atlanta, based on the statements they’ve made, but we haven’t interviewed all of them yet. We hope to. We’re trying to.”

  “Right,” Daniel says. “We’re reporting what’s out there—in statements and news stories and interviews—then asking our own questions and doing our own investigation. Right now we’re just recapping. So she wrecks her car near the new-at-the-time Windmark Beach subdivision. From all accounts she is okay, not injured or even really upset. Not long after the accident—how long we can’t be completely sure about—a truck driver pulls up, rolls down his window, and asks if she’s okay. She is out of the car, standing near it.”