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  “Was he raped?” I asked.

  Douglas looked at Frank. Frank nodded.

  “There was trauma consistent with aggressive, violent penetration,” Douglas said to me, “but the evidence indicates the assailant wore a condom. There were traces of latex and liquid lubricant but no seminal fluid was recovered in, on, or around the body. And . . . based on the fact that the skin was abraded but not bruised––there was no bruising––what was done . . . to the victim . . . occurred after death.”

  “A school project?” I asked.

  Frank and I were standing outside GBI headquarters near his car, a boxy blue sedan that screamed cop––particularly when he was in it.

  He smiled. “You’re young and unofficial. And you look even younger than you are. He probably thought it was a junior high school project.”

  “So what’d you think about what he said?” I asked.

  “Interesting. What you said about the killer intending to use the drug to incapacitate him for transport makes sense. Especially snatching him from his backyard.”

  “You’ll check to see if any of the victims on the list––or off of it––were given chloral hydrate?”

  He nodded.

  “Were any of them raped after they were killed?”

  He shook his head. “No. But I’ll double check––especially those not on the list. You think it’s still possible Wayne Williams killed LaMarcus?”

  I shrugged. “If there’s evidence of chloral hydrate being used or post-mortem rape among other victims, we’ll have to consider the possibility that the Atlanta Child Murderer killed LaMarcus––whether it’s Williams or someone else.”

  24

  This your first home-cooked meal since you been in Atlanta?” Ida asked.

  “Why?” I said. “Am I eating it like it is?”

  She and Jordan laughed.

  The three of us were around the dinner table at Ida’s. Before us, country-fried steak in white pepper gravy, mashed potatoes, turnip greens, and cornbread.

  I was extremely hungry. It was extremely good. Evidently, I was eating energetically.

  “Sorry, but it’s so good my manners just flew right out the door.”

  “I like to see a hungry man eat,” Ida said.

  “And you haven’t lost your manners,” Jordan said. “You’re just . . . sort of attacking the food.”

  “To answer your question, the Paulks have fed me several times.”

  Jordan’s eyebrows arched above wide, questioning eyes and a cute, twisted mouth. “Oh have they? Any Paulk in particular?”

  Ignoring her, I said to Ida, “Clariece is a very good cook too.”

  “Don’t see how she do all she do,” Ida said.

  “Me either.”

  “Who?” Jordan said.

  “Girl, what you goin’ on about?” Ida asked.

  Jordan smiled and winked at me.

  I smiled back and mouthed, It was just one casual date.

  Ida’s small home was simple and unassuming, clean and uncluttered, warm and welcoming. Its walls and surfaces were filled with photographs of LaMarcus and what were obviously gifts from the children she had cared for over the years––Precious Moments porcelain figurines and other child-centered mementos. Joining them were LaMarcus’s framed school certificates, field day ribbons, report cards, and art projects. Mixed in among them were pictures of Jordan, including a heartbreaking mother and child portrait of her holding the tiny Savannah Grace in her own small hands, but none of Larry––not even in those from her wedding day.

  Underneath it all, there was an essential sadness, not unlike the one beneath everything else the two women were. It was as if both family and home were host to a foreign entity so deeply embedded it was now part of the structural DNA.

  “You should’ve brought Martin,” Jordan said. “Mom, John has the most adorable neighbor. He’s––how old is he?”

  “Twelve.”

  “He’s twelve and they play basketball together and John feeds him and he just adores John.”

  “I’d say he not the only one,” Ida said.

  “Tell Mom what he said.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  “It’s the sweetest thing ever.”

  “You’re embarrassin’ him, child.”

  Jordan seemed more relaxed, less nervous, more happy, less hopeless than I had seen her before. Though in general she seemed to be improving in nearly every way over the past several weeks.

  Larry was at work. He knew Jordan was having dinner with her mom. As far as I knew, he didn’t know I was joining them.

  Looking away from them a moment, I glanced around the room again, this time spotting something in the far corner I hadn’t noticed before. Partially wrapped Christmas presents. I knew instantly they were what these two ladies were working on when LaMarcus went missing. A Star Wars lunchbox and Star Trek Communicators were visible, which meant beneath the bows and wrapping paper the other packages must have held a Guess Who game, a GI Joe, a Rubik’s Cube, a train set, and records. Some of the very gifts I was given when I was his age.

  “Some of the guys in the dorm are very religious in an old-school way,” Jordan said. “And they were talkin’ to Martin––that’s his name, Martin Fisher––about Jesus, tellin’ him about how much good Jesus did, how he fed the hungry and helped people and taught love. And they asked him if he knew Jesus and he said yes––John. Isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard?”

  Ida reached over and patted my hand.

  “He’s so small, and kind of frail and vulnerable,” Jordan was saying. “Reminds me of LaMarcus in so many ways.”

  Ida nodded but seemed unable to speak, her eyes misting, her lips twitching. Eventually, she said, “I’m glad he’s got you, John. I’d love for you to bring him to dinner sometime.”

  No one said anything else for a few moments and we each found our way back to our food, eating for a while in silence.

  I thought about what an odd pairing Ida and Jordan were. They were so different––from their appearance to life experience––but what they shared, loss and need and tragedy, bound them in ways that were far more profound than their deepest differences.

  “Making any headway on what happened to my LaMarcus?” Ida asked at last.

  I nodded. “Some. Yes, ma’am.”

  “He’s got some questions I couldn’t answer,” Jordan said.

  “If now’s not a good time . . .” I began.

  “Now is fine,” Ida said. “There is no good time.”

  I nodded, but still didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Can we start with LaMarcus’s dad?” I said eventually.

  “Anthony is an immature, self-centered drug addict,” she said. “He’s no killer. And he wouldn’t kill his own son. No way. I couldn’t believe that in a million years.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But addicts don’t think straight. And their minds are often altered. And they do more damage by accident than most people do on purpose.”

  “We both know a thing or two about that,” Jordan said.

  Ida nodded. “We do. And you might be right. But . . . I just . . . can’t believe he could kill his own . . . son . . . no matter what kind of state he was in.”

  The quality of her voice was changing. A tightness and slight tremor at its edges let me know she found the discussion upsetting.

  “How often did he come around?” I asked.

  “Not a lot. It’d sort of go in cycles. He’d come by a few times kind of close to each other, then we wouldn’t see him for months.”

  “How comfortable was LaMarcus with him?”

  “Okay . . . not super.”

  “Would LaMarcus have gone with him?”

  “Depends when and where, but he wouldn’t go far.”

  He didn’t go far, I thought.

  “Did he ever take him anywhere––with or without your permission?”

  “A few times. When I was sure he was clean and sober
. He took him to the mall. Playground. Ball game.”

  Her hands were beginning to shake a bit and the look of distress on her face was incrementally intensifying but I pressed forward.

  “Ever take him or try to take him without your permission or pre-approval?”

  She nodded. “One time. Said I was ruining his son, making him soft and girly. Said it took a man to raise a man and he was gonna take him and raise him up right.”

  I nodded and thought about it.

  “You ready for some dessert?” Jordan asked. “We have bread pudding and ice cream.”

  “It sounds great but I’m so full, I––”

  “You can take some home with you,” Ida said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re not leaving now, are you?” Jordan said.

  I shook my head. “I’ve got a few more questions,” I said. “About Carlton Fields and the little hideout LaMarcus had.”

  “Can we . . . Would you mind if we wait on them?” Ida said. “I’m not sure I can handle any more at the moment. Talkin’ about Anthony’s stirred up some stuff, and I can only talk or think about what happened to LaMarcus a little at a time.”

  “Grief’s a strange thing,” Jordan said. “Sneaks up on you. You’re fine one moment and not the next. You can handle things that should make you fall apart, and be reduced to a puddle by the smallest, seemingly most insignificant things.”

  I nodded.

  Ida had gone to bed. Jordan and I were standing next to each other at the sink, washing and drying the dishes, our bodies touching at the side, our hands grazing as we passed plates and pots and glasses.

  “She’s so strong,” Jordan said. “Can handle anything and then . . . she reaches her limit and has to shut down for a while.”

  “Is it the same for you?” I asked.

  She hesitated, starting to say something, stopping, sighing, starting again. “Honestly, I stay more shutdown most of the time. I’ve had to. Or thought I did. To survive . . . to keep . . . functioning . . . on some level.”

  I reached down, plunging into the soapy dishwater, and took her tiny hand in mine and just held it.

  And held it.

  We stayed that way for a while, neither of us doing anything else but breathing.

  “We’re so damaged,” she said. “I’m so damaged.”

  I didn’t say anything. Just listened. Just held her hand.

  That’s it, I thought. That’s what I’m called to do––help people damaged by violent crime, salve the suffering of the living while searching for some kind of justice for the dead. As both a minister and an investigator I’d be in a unique position to do both.

  “But . . .” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Since you’ve come around . . .”

  She left if out there a long moment. I waited.

  “I’ve been less shutdown . . . and . . . sometimes . . . like now . . . I’m not shutdown at all.”

  That night I dreamt of Jordan.

  Jordan standing in the backyard, a dark, depraved figure tearing out of the woods, racing toward her, snatching her, dragging her back by her sun-streaked hair into the thicket, me stuck in the house, unable to save her.

  Little LaMarcus playing in the backyard, unaware of the simian creature careening toward him. Jordan dashing toward him, reaching, grasping, just missing.

  Jordan holding a swaddled Savannah, kissing her cheek, smelling her skin, singing her the sweetest song I’d ever heard. Wayne Williams slithering up behind her, snatching Savannah from her, darting away. Jordan pleading with me to do something. Me unable to do anything.

  In a car. Jordan in the passenger seat beside me. Savannah in a carseat in the back between LaMarcus on one side and Martin Fisher on the other. Family trip. Happiness. Jordan’s bare feet on the dashboard, sun-kissed toes. Larry plowing out of a side road in a pickup, T-boning the car, sending it spinning down a deep ravine. Falling. Screaming. Crashing. Dismemberment. Death. Despair.

  25

  Dis some kinda school project?” Anthony Williams asked.

  I nodded and smiled and made a mental note to try to age myself some. “How’d you know?”

  “Why else a white boy be aksin’?”

  It had taken several days, but I had finally tracked down LaMarcus’s dad at a huge apartment complex off Memorial Drive where he was doing day labor for a turnkey company.

  He was a narrow-framed, emaciated man with very dark skin, a permanently and deeply furrowed forehead, and a wide, flat nose, below which was a black-beginning-to-gray mustache in need of trimming.

  Every cell of his moist skin shined with a greasy sheen.

  The apartment he was working on was hot and had the lingering stench of rotting potatoes and urine, but it was no match for the odor emanating from Anthony Williams himself.

  He was patching a much marred and pockmarked sheetrock wall, the sweat pouring from him stinking of cheap booze, junk food, cigarettes, and drugs cut with something truly rancid.

  The toxic body odor wafting off him stung my eyes and made me breathe very shallowly, but when he lifted his arm to reach the spots above his head it was unbearable.

  “You know you’s the first person to ever talk to me about what happened to my boy.”

  I shook my head.

  “Po-lice aksed questions, but nobody else ever even mentioned it.”

  I wondered if anyone in his life even knew he had a son.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

  “Whatcha needs to know?”

  Since he thought he was helping me with a school report I had to choose my first question carefully.

  “Do you think Wayne Williams was responsible for what happened to your son?”

  He shook his head. “That pudgy nigger ain’t killed nobody. My kid or anybody else. He’s framed. Ain’t no killa of any kind. They just needed a fall guy.”

  “They?”

  “Cops, mayor, business owners. White people what run this town. Didn’t care if the real killer keep killin’ little black boys. Long as they got everybody thinkin’ it over.”

  “Do you have any idea who killed LaMarcus?”

  “Oh, it was the same killer killed those other youngins. Just wasn’t Wayne Williams.”

  “Any idea who it was?”

  “Don’t think we’ll ever know. Powers that be don’t want us to.”

  “When was the last time you saw LaMarcus before he died?”

  “It had been a while. Crazy ex old lady never let me see him much.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “She crazy. I mean really bat shit bonkers, man. But mostly ’cause I broke her heart.

  She’s gettin’ back at me through the kid. Keepin’ him from me. Hell, punished the kid more’n me. But . . . women . . . you know?”

  I nodded as if I knew.

  He shook his head. “The way she treated that boy . . . like . . . he made of china or somethin’. Never let him do anythin' never let him have no fun. Made him weak and frail and . . . and then she go and marry a white man and try to make him white. No offense. Nothin’ wrong with bein’ white if you white but . . . notice she ain’t tried to turn that white girl black.”

  “Did you try to stop her?” I asked. “Try to take him? Make a man out of him?”

  He nodded. “Take a man to raise a man, I always say. Yeah. You get it. Yeah, I tried. Talked to him. Tried to get him to see, but he . . . she had . . . I tried to just, you know, take him with me without her knowin’, but he was too far gone. Bitch had already ruined him.”

  “How’d you do it?” I asked. “With her watchin’ him all the time the way she did, with her always smothering him . . . It’d be impossible.”

  “Wait ’til you’re older, ’til you have kids. Nothin’ you won’t do for ’em, man. Nothin’.”

  “But how?” I said. “I don’t see how it could be done.”

  “That’s ’cause you not streetwise, young brother,” he said.

 
“I guess so,” I said. “It’s just . . . I talked to her and I see what you’re sayin’ about how she is and the way she was over him . . . I’ve seen her old house, her yard . . . I just don’t think it could be done. I can see why you didn’t do it.”

  “You gots no imagination,” he said. “There’s nothin’ to it. See the boy playin’ in the back. Knock on the front door then run around to the back.”

  “But what if the girl goes to the door and his mama stays and keeps watchin’ or his mama goes and the girl keeps watchin’?”

  He shrugged.

  “Duck under the windows where they can’t see you,” he said. “Call the boy over to you.”

  I nodded. “You’re right,” I said. “Wow. Ingenious.”

  He smiled.

  “But what if she’s got him so brainwashed he won’t go?” I said. “What then? How could you save him from her like only a father can if he won’t go?”

  “You do anything to save your son,” he said. “Give him somethin’ if you have to.”

  “Like what?” I asked. “Something like chloral hydrate?”

  “What?”

  “Cough syrup.”

  He nodded and shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. Anything like that.”

  “Anything for your son,” I said.

  “Anything,” he said, nodding even more defiantly. “Anything at all.”

  26

  I spent nearly all my free time over the next several days searching for a couple of subcontractors. When I wasn’t in class or working or studying or visiting or spending time with Martin, I was looking for Raymond Pelton and Vincent Storr.

  I had very little time, no resources, and really didn’t know what I was doing. And it showed. For all my efforts, such as they were, I had exactly nothing.

  I had nothing and I didn’t know what else to do. Except ask for help.

  I called Bobby Battle at home.

  It was late to be calling, nearly ten, but I wasn’t sure when I’d have another chance and the truth was I didn’t want to wait.

  “Hello?”

  A female voice that didn’t sound sleepy or irritated.

  “May I speak with Bobby, please?”