Blood and Sand Page 15

  Before Roderick can respond, Derinda, who is behind the deputy with a few other people, sees how upset Keith and Christopher are.

  “WHAT IS IT?” she yells. “WHAT’S WRONG?”

  “It’s her, Mama,” Keith says. “It’s our little Magdalene.”

  “What?” she says. “What do you mean? It’s her what?”

  Derinda rushes past the deputy over to Keith, who is nearest the hallway.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  But before he can respond, she turns and looks through the open door into the room where we’re all looking and begins to scream. If possible her cries seem even more inconsolable than Keith’s and Christopher’s, and I wonder if it’s because she’s grieving for both her child and her grandchild.

  “Help them into the front room,” Roderick says to the deputy, “and stay with them. No one else comes in here. Tell everyone to keep looking for Taylor. Everybody keep doing what they’re doing. I’m calling FDLE and the medical examiner’s office. Bring them right back to us when they get here.”

  35

  “Have you ever seen anything like this?” Roderick is asking. “I’m not just talking about the way the body is displayed like this with all the candles and everything. I mean finding her dead back in her bed nearly a year after she was taken.”

  I shake my head.

  We’re next to the bed, looking down at Magdalene’s little body.

  The medical examiner and FDLE are on the way.

  We have already taken pictures and video of every inch of the room and the body and have just finished extinguishing the candles.

  Magdalene looks as if she hasn’t aged a day, as if we’ve come in here on December 23 of last year and found her like this. Not only this, but there are no signs of violence, no obvious cause of death. It’s as if she’s merely sleeping peacefully in her own bed.

  It’s obvious her body has been recently bathed and her hair washed, and the gown she has on is spotless, pristine.

  “But . . .” Roderick is saying, “for her to look like this—like she did when she was abducted—she’d have to have been killed back then, ten months ago. How is that possible? How can she look so . . . She looks like she just died. Of course, maybe she did. But if she did, how did she not age in the past year?”

  “I’m sure the autopsy will tell us,” I say. “But either way I’m pretty sure it needs to be performed as quickly as possible.”

  “Medical examiner should be here in a few.”

  “Good.”

  “But why?” he asks.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say she was killed shortly after the time she was taken.”

  Even as I say it I try not to think about whether Taylor has already suffered the same fate.

  My first priority is finding Taylor, but with so many people out looking for her and the roadblocks in place, I’ve made the calculation that the best way to do that is to keep investigating Magdalene’s disappearance and death. It could be the total wrong choice. I have no way of knowing. I’m trying to block everything out and just concentrate on the crime scene before me, but I’m finding it extremely difficult.

  “The most likely reason is that she’s been frozen since then,” I continue. “I’ve read about cases and seen crime scene and autopsy photographs where the victim had been frozen. That would explain why she appears not to have aged. I could be wrong about any of this. It has been a while since I’ve read about it. But if that’s what has happened, her body will thaw from the outside in, so there might still be frozen areas and ice crystals inside. Since cells are mostly water, when they freeze ice crystals are formed and fracture the cells in a recognizable pattern. Depending on how long her body has been thawing . . . how much of the tissue is still intact and not decayed, the ME should be able to tell if her body has been frozen. And hopefully be able to determine cause of death, but the longer it takes to perform the autopsy the less likely any of that becomes. Especially toxicology.”

  He nods and lets out a little whistle. “Wow. If you’re right . . . then she’s been kept in a freezer somewhere for nearly a year.”

  I nod.

  “So we need to look at freezers,” he says. “Who has a freezer big enough to hold a body and not be seen for almost a year?”

  I frown and my eyes sting. “Small body,” I say. “It wouldn’t require a very big freezer, but restaurants have large walk-in freezers that a body could easily be hidden in.”

  “The Samuelsons?” he asks.

  “I’m not saying it’s them. I’m just trying to answer your question. A lot of these places around here are rentals. Nobody thinks twice about a lock on a cabinet or a closet or a freezer.”

  “That’s true. But no matter where the body was stored . . . why take the risk of . . . putting her back in her bed? And why now?”

  “The answers to those two questions could very well be the keys to close the case,” I say.

  “Any ideas?”

  I shake my head. “Not really. But you’re right about it being an enormous risk. Must be a good reason.”

  “Wouldn’t be a risk if she was—if her body was already in the house,” he says. “Did it strike you as suspicious that they led us right to her? Christopher can’t help us look anymore . . . so he supposedly sits in the parlor. But that means he was the only one not being watched at the time. He could’ve come back here and lit the candles during that time. Why did they wait to bring us back here until last thing? Why didn’t they tell either one of us about all the rooms having access to the secret passageway? Think about it . . . he sat down on the side of the table where he was looking in the right direction to see her room. We’re in here less than five minutes and he’s yelling he sees light and movement in the room.”

  I nod. “I agree. It’s all suspicious. No one else could have taken her out of her room originally or put her back into her room tonight more easily than the two of them. And you’re right about the other things being suspicious. The only thing I’d say is that I don’t think the candles were lit during the time Christopher wasn’t with us. Doesn’t mean he or they didn’t light them, but they had been burning a while. Most of the candles were burned about halfway down, and I’d say they could have been lit before and just relit recently, but the heat that came out of the room makes me think they were lit a lot longer this time.”

  He purses his lips and thinks about it. “You’re probably right. But like you say, that doesn’t mean they didn’t do it earlier.”

  Day 191

  Day 191

  I’ve never had a hard time sleeping. But since Magdalene was taken I can’t sleep, and if I do it’s only for moments at a time and I wake up panicked from nightmares. Keith has always had a hard time sleeping and Magdalene struggled some too, but I never have until now. I can’t imagine I’ll ever sleep well again. Keith keeps trying to get me to take something but I don’t know. I’ve seen some of the things he’s done in his sleep while on the medication and it scares me. I don’t wanna be that out of control, but I’ve got to get some sleep or I’m going to shoot myself in the head.

  36

  While the medical examiner—who came herself and didn’t just send the investigator on call—examines the body and Roderick calls his sheriff to let him know what’s going on, I choose a picture of Taylor and write the details for the Amber Alert, and then search the rest of the residence.

  Wishing Anna was here to help me, I wonder how her search is going and begin missing her terribly—missing far more the person she had been up until a few weeks ago than anything else.

  There aren’t many rooms—a small den, Magdalene’s bathroom, an office/workout room, a laundry room, and Keith and Christopher’s master suite.

  Everything everywhere is neat and tidy, clean, immaculate.

  Many of the furnishings appear to be authentic antiques, but I wouldn’t know if they weren’t—unless it was painfully obvious.

  There is no sign of Taylor—or that she was here at any point
tonight—and I don’t find any additional hidden rooms or secret passageways.

  But I do find a few things I have questions about—and a couple of them are both suspicious and alarming.

  In the laundry room, which is on the west side of the house, I find a Frigidaire 8.7-cubic-foot manual-defrost chest freezer, which itself is suspicious given the circumstances of Magdalene’s reappearance, but the fact that it is empty, its removable basket missing, and it has recently been cleaned with bleach, is unnerving.

  I make a note to get FDLE to process it.

  Curious, if not suspicious, is the fact that there are both cat and dog bowls, a couple of kennels, and even a PetSafe wall-entry pet door of about 12 by 18 inches, and yet I have seen no evidence of or heard anyone mention pets of any kind while we’ve been here this week.

  But by far the most red-flag-raising item I encounter is the sheer number of sleep aid medications. There are no less than four over-the-counter sleep aids—two for adults, two for children and sensitive adults—between Keith and Christopher’s bathroom and Magdalene’s. It’s excessive by any standard, but given that mixed in with it are bottles of Benadryl, melatonin, and prescription sleeping pills, it is staggering.

  After making notes about and taking pictures of these items of interest, I walk back toward Magdalene’s bedroom.

  Her body has been removed and is on its way to the morgue. Roderick and the ME are standing outside Magdalene’s door talking.

  “John Jordan, this is Dr. Jennifer Gottschall.”

  She’s a tall, thin woman in her late forties with black hair and blue eyes.

  “I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter,” she says.

  “Thank you.”

  “Rod told me what you said about the body having been frozen,” she says. “I think you’re right. I’m actually going to perform the autopsy tonight—as soon as I get back. We’re going to rush everything—all the labs and toxicology—and see if what we find can help you find your daughter.”

  “Thank you very much,” I say. “I sure appreciate that.”

  Roderick’s radio sounds and the deputy on the front door tells them there are people here to see me.

  He looks at me.

  I shrug.

  “We’re on our way,” he says into the radio, then to Dr. Gottschall, “We’ll walk you out.”

  A few minutes later, I step through the front door to see Merrill, Dad, Jake, Verna, and Reggie, and tears sting my eyes.

  After quick hugs, Merrill says, “We’re here to help. Tell us what we can do.”

  “Roderick Brandt, this is my dad Jack Jordan and his wife Verna, my brother Jake, my best friend Merrill Monroe, and the sheriff of Gulf County, Reggie Summers. They’ve got a lot of experience and training.”

  “Nice to meet y’all,” Roderick says. “And we appreciate your willingness to help. We can use it.”

  He begins to assign them various tasks and searching details but before he finishes, his radio sounds again.

  It’s one of the deputies searching the woods behind the house with Anna.

  At first we can’t understand what he’s saying.

  “Repeat that please,” Roderick says.

  “It’s Mrs. Jordan. She collapsed and is unconscious.”

  Day 205

  Day 205

  Is it possible that we poisoned our own daughter? Did I give her any sleeping medication that night? I honestly can’t remember. Maybe I did and maybe I forgot and then maybe Keith did and maybe we killed a little girl without even realizing it.

  37

  By the time we get to the backyard, the two deputies are emerging from the woods carrying Anna.

  I rush over to her.

  She’s breathing fine, but is not conscious.

  “ETA on the ambulance is six minutes,” Roderick says.

  “What do you want us to do with her?” the younger deputy asks.

  “We can’t take her inside,” Roderick says. “It’s a crime scene and it’s swarming with FDLE techs.”

  I pull off my shirt and lay it on the ground.

  “Just lay her here for a moment,” I say.

  They start to ease her down, but Merrill has them wait while he takes his shirt off and lays it down too. A few others around us follow suit—including Clarence Samuelson, Rake Sabin, and Scott Haskew.

  With the makeshift shirt pallet in place, the two deputies lay Anna down.

  Kneeling beside her, I touch her face and say her name.

  “We were just walking along searching one minute and she was on the ground the next,” the older deputy says. “Seems fine otherwise—like maybe she just fainted or something. I’m sure she’s exhausted and overwrought.”

  “She’s probably dehydrated too,” Rake says.

  “Anna,” I say again, louder this time, and shake her a little. “Anna, can you hear me?”

  She stirs a little, mumbling something and attempting to open her eyes.

  “Anna?”

  She tries to open her eyes a few times, but it takes several tries for her to keep them open.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “What is . . . John? What’s . . . What are you doing?”

  “How do you feel?” I ask.

  “What happened?”

  “You passed out,” I say. “You were in the woods.”

  “Oh, no,” she says. “Taylor. Someone has Taylor. We’ve got to find her.”

  She tries to get up. She doesn’t get very far.

  “We will,” I say. “But right now we’ve got to get you to the hospital.”

  “No,” she says. “No way I’m leaving. I’ve got to find my baby and get her back.”

  “A lot of people are looking,” I say. “We’re gonna find her. They’ll keep looking while we get you checked out.”

  “I’m not going to the goddamn hospital,” she says. “Not while my little Taylor is out there somewhere with God knows what happening to her. Absolutely no way.”

  Rake brings a bottle of water for her and hands it to me.

  “Drink some of this,” I say.

  I cup my hand behind her head and tilt it up slightly with one hand while holding the open bottle to her lips with the other.

  She drinks a few sips and tries to get up again, but again is unable.

  “You’ve got to let them check you out,” I say.

  She tries to get up again. It goes about as well as the other times.

  “Let them see what’s wrong with you and you’ll be back out here in no time, okay?”

  “I’m not stayin’,” she says. “No matter what they say.”

  “You don’t have to,” I say. “Let’s just get you checked out and then we’ll be right back out here. Okay?”

  “I won’t stay no matter what they say,” she repeats. “And I won’t go unless you stay here and keep working on finding her. That’s the only way I’ll go.”

  “I want to be with you,” I say.

  “What matters more to me?” she says. “Having you with me or knowing you’re out here trying to find Taylor?”

  “You can’t go alone,” I say.

  “We need everyone out here looking for—”

  “I’ll go with you,” Verna says, stepping over to where Anna can see her. “I’ll go. I’ll take good care of her and y’all can keep looking for Taylor.”

  Anna nods.

  “Quit wasting time with me,” Anna says to me. “Go find Taylor.”

  I notice that she hasn’t once referred to Taylor as our little girl, only as hers—as her little Taylor—or simply as Taylor.

  “Go,” she says. “Now. Go find her.”

  I lean down and kiss Anna and tell her I love her.

  She doesn’t respond—to the kiss or the words.

  “Merrill and I will carry you to the ambulance,” I say, “then we’ll get back to work on finding Taylor.”

  “Merrill’s here?” she says. “Merrill. Find my baby for me, Merrill. I know you can.”

  “We
will,” he says. “You just relax and work on gettin’ better. We’ll find her.”

  Day 210

  Day 210

  Where is my baby girl right now? What is she doing? Is she okay? Is someone caring for her, doting on her? Is someone using and abusing her? Is her cold body decaying in the cold ground somewhere?

  I miss you so much I can’t breathe.

  Please come home to us. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.

  38

  While Verna accompanies Anna to the hospital and Roderick gives everyone their assignments, I step inside to speak with Keith and Christopher.

  They are in the parlor with Derinda, who is comforting them.

  Keith is half propped on the left arm of the couch, one foot on the floor. Christopher is sitting on that end, next to and below Keith. Derinda is next to Christopher.

  They are sniffling as tears trickle down their cheeks, and not only are they sitting as closely as they can to each other but they are continually touching and patting each other in comfort and consolation.

  I’m surprised the FDLE crime scene unit has allowed them to remain in the house, but they have—with the understanding that they will confine themselves to the parlor and dining room.

  “I guess some part of me was holding out hope that she could still be alive and we’d get her back somehow,” Christopher says. “It’s so much more real now—in a way it never was before. And for your little Taylor to be taken too. It’s . . . just . . . too, too . . .”

  “I just wanted to say again how sorry I am that this has happened,” Keith says. “For it to happen once in our home is . . . But twice . . . I just feel so bad.”

  Derinda says, “It just doesn’t seem real. I just can’t . . . It’s like my mind can’t accept that . . . ”

  “And to find Magdalene . . .” Christopher says. “Our sweet little Magdalene . . . dead . . . and displayed like that. Who would . . .”