Blood Ties (John Jordan Mysteries Book 16) Read online

  Immediately I began to try and work out how much vodka I had hidden in the house.

  I would read the case files and work my way toward oblivion.

  A makeshift office in an alcove of the second bedroom created by placing bookshelves across the opening served as my small study and library, and tonight, investigative war room.

  Case notes, photographs, and newspaper clippings spread out across my folding table desk, vodka in a coffee cup, orange juice in a glass for cover, and radio playing softly in the background—at the moment Whitney Houston’s Where Do Broken Hearts Go.

  The case file didn’t yet contain any information on Kathy Dady, the fourth young woman to go missing, only Cheryl Carver, Paula Nichols, and Shelly Hepola.

  The pictures I had of the three women showed just how alike they were. All tall, lean, athletic, attractive without being classically pretty. They wore little to no makeup and had a certain purity and plainness about them.

  “You have a type, don’t you?” I said aloud to the still faceless madman. “Why? Where does it come from? Do they all look like the same woman? Are you really doing this to her? Over and over again? Do you see her instead of them?”

  As Whitney gave way to Richard Marx’s Hold On to the Nights, the cold October wind found its way through the varnished boards of the old farm house, and I slid my chair a little closer to the space heater on the floor.

  Wondering where the women were crossing paths with their abductor, I checked to see if they were all from the same area or had the same profession or frequented the same places.

  Cheryl was a student in Decatur. Paula was a secretary in Marietta. Shelly worked retail in Duluth. They didn’t go to the same gym or church or clubs. They didn’t attend the same high school or college.

  From what was in the file there was no obvious crossing, no intersection where the women would have encountered each other or the inexplicable madness that snatched them from their lives.

  Two of the three women were single, and seemed not to have a lot of friends. They appeared to be introverts leading quiet lives.

  Shelly had a boyfriend and he would have to be looked at closer, but if this was what it appeared to be, it was more likely a stranger than an acquaintance of any of the women. Of course, likely is not definitely.

  When I became aware of the radio again, Phil Collins was singing Groovy Kind Of Love.

  As I sipped my way toward stupor I wondered where the women were. Were we dealing with a collector or a killer? Either way, where were they?

  Did he have a hidden dumping ground or a basement filled with cells or cages?

  I still couldn’t see his face, but if I knew which one he had, knew exactly what he was doing with his victims—rape? torture? murder?—I’d have a better sense of him. At least that was what I told myself.

  The next morning I woke to the sound of a loud alarm blasting George Harrison’s I Got My Mind Set on You.

  Which wasn’t a bad song to wake up to.

  I was still sitting in the chair from the night before, my head lying on my arms on the folding table that served as my desk.

  Susan, who had already left for her other job, had brought the alarm clock in and placed it on the tabletop beside my head, which meant she had to unplug it, move it, plug it back in, then reset both the time and the alarm—all early this morning while trying to get ready and leave for work on time.

  As I sat up, I felt not only like I had had too much to drink the night before but that I had slept sitting up in an old desk chair, my head on my folded arms on a table. I was stiff and sore, my head ached, my arms asleep.

  But George’s catchy, repetitive, remake compelled me to get up and get going.

  Glancing around my small office space, I saw that Susan had straightened up some, returning the papers and photos to the case file, removing the cups and mostly empty vodka bottle, and picking up the various articles of clothing and shoes I had left on the floor.

  Next to the case file were my textbooks and notebooks for class and a note that said she had made my lunch and left it in the fridge.

  She was always doing things like this—things that provoked in me both guilt and gratitude.

  I was flooded with shame and, not for the first time, wished I could skip ahead to be an older, wiser, better version of myself. I wanted to do better, to be better, and I knew I could, but I wasn’t yet and it frustrated and embarrassed me.

  Reaching over and tapping the Snooze button on the clock and silencing the song that would echo in my head all day, I pushed myself up and stumbled out of my office and into my day.

  After driving over and running at Panola Mountain State Park, I found myself as I had far too often lately, at Jordan Moore’s grave in Fairview Memorial Gardens, which happened to be less than a mile from my house.

  The early morning sun had yet to burn the dew off the ground and the sweat on my body was quickly turning cold.

  “I know I’ve got to stop coming,” I said. “And I will. I know I will. I just don’t know when yet.”

  As I looked at her headstone while I talked to her, I realized what an odd thing it was to do. Perhaps something of her body still remained beneath the earth, but the headstone had nothing to do with her or her life. And I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d be better off going to some place we actually spent time together.

  “Damn you for what you did,” I said. “Damn me for still being hung up on you.”

  Miss Ida, Jordan’s stepmom, stepped out from behind the stone statue of Saint Mark and said, “Goddamn the whole mess. Every last bit of it.”

  Ida Williams, a largish black woman perpetually in a traditional African print dashiki and head wrap, had a son who was murdered during the Atlanta Child Murders, and I had investigated it when I had first arrived in Atlanta back in ’86. I had actually solved the case and figured out exactly what happened to little LaMarcus, but at a price I was still paying.

  “Didn’t realize you still came here,” she said.

  I nodded. “Just live up the road.”

  “Is she why?”

  “Huh?” I asked, not following.

  “Did you move out here to be close to her grave?”

  I opened my mouth quickly, but nothing came out. I was unable to respond because I couldn’t admit the truth and I couldn’t lie to her.

  “It ain’t my business,” she said. “I just care about you, boy.”

  “I’m not doing too good right now,” I said. “But . . . I’m doing the best I can.”

  She nodded. “Same here,” she said and paused a moment before adding, “All we can do.”

  “I . . . feel . . . so weak . . . so . . . I’m pathetic.”

  “You’re neither of those,” she said. “You’re just hurting, son. Grieving. Give it some time.”

  “It’s been some time already.”

  “Then give it some more. What else you gonna do? What the hell else any of us gonna do?”

  Also by Michael Lister

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  (includes intro by Michael Connelly)

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  (Love Stories)

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  (The Meaning Series)

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