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

  “Okay.”

  “Or hitched a ride with someone. Either way, she could have run away.”

  “So number one is she could have left on her own,” Merrick says.

  “Yes. Number two is she could have been taken. Someone came along and took her, forcibly, against her will. She didn’t want to go, but . . . she was forced to.”

  “Okay, so are you saying those are the two main categories of what could have happened?”

  “Actually, I think there are four—again, in the broadest sense. Homicide, suicide, accident, or she went into hiding,” Daniel says. “We’ve seen things in her background, in the days and months leading up to her disappearance, that seem to point to the possibility of each one of those—and we’ll get into her background later, in a future episode. But for now let’s just say that all four are possibilities and I wanted to start as broad as we can and then narrow down from there.”

  “While we’re staying broad,” Merrick says, “take us through each of the four possibilities.”

  “Let’s start with homicide,” Daniel says. “Randa was murdered by someone—someone with her, someone following her, or someone who happened along.”

  “And we should say that we don’t know if anyone was with her or following her or if anyone other than the two men we’ve already mentioned happened along—but there’s evidence to suggest each one of these possibilities should at least be considered.”

  “Right.”

  Of course there’s evidence to support all the theories. There always is. The problem with evidence is usually not how much or how little, but how it’s interpreted. Evidence can be made to say nearly anything—unless it’s allowed to speak for itself.

  As I drive down Overstreet listening, my mind is on fire with the mystery of Randa Raffield. I want to hear more evidence, want to go over all the evidence, want to explore all the possibilities.

  “We’ll get into the odds of a murderer happening along within that narrow window of time,” Daniel is saying.

  “Seven minutes,” Merrick says. “Or less. Could a killer have come along within those seven minutes and killed Randa?”

  “And if he did, where is the body? Where is the evidence of a violent crime?”

  “If she was murdered, it’s far more likely that it was by someone with her or following her than someone who happened upon her, but we have to consider all three.”

  “And when we say following her,” Daniel adds, “it doesn’t have to be someone who followed her all the way from her dorm or from Pensacola. He could have seen her at one of her stops and started following her then.”

  “We know she stopped for gas and liquor not too far from where she wrecked and disappeared.”

  “Yes,” Daniel says, “we have receipts and eyewitness statements and it’s rumored the police have surveillance video footage, though we’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “Again,” Merrick says, “we’ll get into all of this later, but . . . maybe Randa wrecked because someone saw her at the gas station or liquor store and did something to her car and followed her, waiting for her to break down or wreck, and then attacked her.”

  “Okay,” Merrick says, “that’s homicide. How about suicide?”

  “Let’s say that was her plan all along,” Daniel says. “She’s hundreds of miles from where she’s supposed to be because she was planning to do herself harm. And when she wrecked, she abandoned her car for some reason but didn’t abandon her plan to kill herself.”

  “She could have walked through the woods and the Windmark Beach subdivision and into the bay and drowned herself. She could have walked into the woods on the other side and into Panther Swamp and slit her wrists or . . . harmed herself in some other way.”

  “But in either case,” Daniel says, “we’d expect to find a body—in the bay or in the swamp—and no remains have ever been found.”

  “There was a massive search for Randa right when this happened,” Merrick says, “and some of her friends and family are still searching, still showing up every so often to walk through the woods or boat across the bay to look for her.”

  “And nothing was ever found, has ever been found, in all that time.”

  “Were there things in Randa’s background that would indicate she was suicidal?” Merrick asks.

  “Possibly,” Daniel says. “And we’ll get into them later. Nothing overt or obvious, but maybe some things that hint at it.”

  “Okay. That’s homicide and suicide. How about accident?”

  “Same as some of the scenarios we’ve already mentioned,” Daniel says, “but instead of someone intentionally killing her or her killing herself, it happens accidentally. Let’s say the reason she left her car was that she was drinking and didn’t want to get a DUI. People who are drinking and get into an accident often do this. They get away from the vehicle so when the cops come they’re not there and can’t get charged with a DUI. Later, they can come pick up the car at the impound lot and pay the fines or whatever and say that the car was stolen. Something like that. So say she left the car. And started walking. And steps out in front of a vehicle and is hit. She’d still be killed but by accident, but the driver doesn’t want to deal with all that goes along with it, with even an accident, so buries her body. Or she walks into the woods and gets bitten by a cottonmouth moccasin. Or she decides to sober up by swimming in the bay and drowns.”

  “But in those last scenarios where is the body?” Merrick says.

  “Exactly. Maybe just not found yet, but . . .”

  “And that is possible. It’s a huge, huge swamp. No way every inch of it has been searched—and even if it has, the body could have been missed and now the remains are such that they’d be even harder to find.”

  “Way harder. Not to mention animals could have scattered her remains.”

  “Exactly,” Merrick says, “so we can’t rule out any of those possibilities yet.”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Okay, but let’s say it wasn’t murder or suicide or accident. What else could it have been?”

  “Maybe she staged the whole thing and ran away. She could’ve had someone following her and they left together or she hitches a ride and never looks back. She could have taken a boat to Cuba or continued around the Gulf States and down into Mexico.”

  “It would explain why there’s no body,” Merrick says. “But again, we have to ask . . . were there things in Randa’s background that would suggest she might do something like this, that she would even be capable? What do you think, Daniel?”

  “Based on what we’ve seen, I’d say that every scenario we’ve discussed is at least a possibility, which is what makes this case so . . . interesting, compelling, maddening—take your pick.”

  “All of the above,” Merrick says. “So, that’s gonna do it for today. But keep tuning in because we’re just getting started and we haven’t even begun to delve deep into this riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

  “In future episodes of In Search of Randa Raffield,” Daniel says, “we’ll let you know all about her car—what was in it, what had been done to it, what happened to it, and where it is now. We’ll examine Randa’s background and any signs and clues that can shed light on what might have really happened to her. We’ll interview people connected to the case—family, friends, cops, suspects.”

  “And,” Merrick adds, “we’ll take a closer look at her boyfriend and the rumor that she may have been stepping out on him even though they got engaged as the ball was dropping on New Year’s Eve.”

  As the outro music begins to fade in, Daniel says, “All that and much more, coming up on In Search of Randa Raffield.”

  5

  Nearing Gulf Correctional Institution where I am a senior chaplain, I pull onto the shoulder of the empty rural road, put my car in Park, pop my trunk, place my weapon inside, and change into my clerical collar.

  Firearms aren’t permitted on state prison property. Other law enforcement officials ar
riving at the institution are required to check their weapons at the control room. Because I’m both employed here as a chaplain and at the Gulf County Sheriff’s Department as an investigator, I obtained special permission from the warden and the secretary of the department of corrections to store my sheriff department–issued .40 caliber Glock and the small frame 9 mm I wear in an ankle holster in my trunk while on duty here.

  Transition complete, I get back into my car and drive into the prison’s employee parking lot.

  I am in the odd and unique position, for me, of having two full-time jobs, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up.

  Over the course of my life, I’ve been officially a cop and unofficially a minister or officially a minister and unofficially an investigator, but now, for the first time, I am officially both. Though it seems to mostly be working, I constantly feel the tension between the two, the push and pull of each, and the squeeze of personal life and family time on both.

  I find performing both jobs fulfilling, each rewarding in a way the other is not, each providing me with opportunities I feel called to, and doing both gives Anna the opportunity to stay home with Taylor—and Johanna when we have her—but I can’t see being able to continue both for much longer.

  I’ve talked to Anna about it—not only because of the toll it’s exacting on me, but because I’m not sure I’m giving either job what it requires and deserves.

  I enter the institution to the friendly greeting of “Chaplain” from my coworkers and the inmates in our care and custody, and think what a stark contrast from how I’m most often treated as a cop.

  Of course, not every inmate is always happy to see me. I can’t imagine the one I’m headed to see right now will show me anything but contempt and animosity.

  I find Don Wynn behind the food services building, smoking the cheap, acrid tobacco sold in the canteen.

  He’s tall and thin with pale pasty skin and hair so closely cropped it’s barely there.

  Unlike many of the other neo-Nazis housed at GCI, the neck of Wynn’s white skin holds no swastikas, eagles, lighting bolts, or Hitler heads, and there are no black or green teardrops at the corners of his bright blue eyes. He’s too subtle for that, but he’s one of the most committed, most true-believing, most vile racists and fascists on the compound.

  He’s alone among the empty cardboard boxes, food crates, trashcan casters, brooms, and mops, and nods at me when I walk up. “Chaplain.”

  I nod to him.

  “What brings you back behind the slop shed?” he says.

  “Looking for you.”

  “Found me.”

  His tone is light and insincere, indifferent, dismissive, and he doesn’t really look at me so much as in my direction.

  “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  He becomes wary. “About?”

  “The Randa Raffield case.”

  He nods and seems to think about it, scratching the stubble on his chin with a too-long thumbnail.

  “Tell you what . . .” he says. “I’ll answer your questions if you answer a few of mine.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  I had read his arrest report and inmate file. He had been convicted of aggravated assault, rape, and attempted murder of a young woman about Randa’s age from the Springfield area in Panama City. As I read the report, I wondered how many other victims there had been, how many where murder wasn’t just attempted, and if Randa had been one of them.

  “We’re reopening the case,” I say.

  “We?” he asks, his eyebrows shooting up, his deep blue eyes finding mine for the first time.

  “Gulf County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “You their chaplain too?”

  “Investigator.”

  “Investigator? What? You a law dog and a convict chaplain?”

  I nod.

  “Well, damn. I mean . . . damn. That’s . . . downright . . . unprecedented.”

  “It just may be, but I doubt it. So . . . you left your business card on Randa Raffield’s car. Why?”

  “Wasn’t done asking my questions,” he says. “But we can seesaw back and forth if you want. I owned my own tow truck. Well, the . . . ah . . . hook-nosed crooks at the bank owned it, but I . . . that’s what I did at the . . . I had my own wrecker service. Needed business. Never been shiftless or lazy or corrupt. Never lived off the government.”

  “Until now,” I say.

  His eyes widen and a creepy smile spreads across his face. “This sure as shit ain’t by choice. Anyway, I seen a car broke down on the side of the road and, as was my custom when it looked like the kind of car I towed, I stopped to see if I could be of assistance.”

  “The kind of car you towed?”

  “Not too fancy, foreign, or uppity,” he says. “None of that rigged or pimped-out shit.”

  Translation—no Jewish or African American–owned vehicles.

  “Where were you headed? Where were you coming from?”

  “Had just left Highland View where I lived at the time with my old lady and was headed to Millville for a meeting.”

  “What kind of meeting?”

  “Kind true patriots attend. I was concerned with making America great way back then. I stopped. No one was around. I beeped my horn. Waited a few minutes. No one came out of the woods. Left my card on the car and left.”

  “You were driving your tow truck to your meeting?”

  “Was the only vehicle I had.”

  “And you never saw anyone—the entire time you were there?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Which was how long?” I ask.

  “Couple of minutes, max.”

  If he’s telling the truth, it means Randa disappeared in even less than seven minutes. Less than five depending on how much time elapsed between him leaving and the deputy arriving. Of course, he could be lying. Or Roger Lamott could. Or they both could.

  “Now I got a question for you,” he says.

  “Okay.”

  “How can you claim to be a man of God and let all those false religions defile the chapel the way you do?”

  “I don’t claim to be anything. And if you think your religion is the only true and right one, the only one worthy to use the chapel provided by the state of Florida for all those incarcerated here, then it’s your religion you need to look at, not others.”

  He nods and looks as if I’ve just confirmed something for him.

  “A change is comin’,” he says. “It’s already begun. Just you wait. You and all the other false prophets like you and all the mongrels will be cast out of the White House and God’s house. You’ll see.”

  “Did you kill Randa Raffield?” I ask. “Was she not pure enough for you? Did you rape her before or after you killed her?”

  He shakes his head, nonplused. “Never raised my hand to any bitch. Never dicked one wasn’t gaggin’ for it neither.”

  “Your jacket says otherwise.”

  I study him but he gives nothing away.

  “Think we’re done here,” he says, “but answer me one more question first. If I did it—and you ain’t the first to say I did—why would I leave my business card on her car?”

  “Before we started talking I would’ve said it was because you were smart enough to throw suspicion off yourself—to be able to say what you just did—but after hearing you speak I can clearly see that’s not the case.”

  6

  Zaire Bell, a forty-something African-American beauty with caramel-colored skin, sparkling, wickedly intelligent black eyes, large, luscious brown lips, and a wavy afro extending six inches from her head, is a new doctor at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Port St. Joe and Merrill Monroe’s new girlfriend.

  Zaire, who goes mostly by Za, and Merrill and Anna and I are shooting darts at Tukedawayz Tavern, still full from the Tiki Grill food next door.

  It’s couple versus couple in an epic game of Cricket.

  Merrill is drinking Bud Ligh
t from a bottle, the two women have wine, and I have Diet Coke over ice.

  Eva Cassidy’s haunting acoustic cover of “Ain’t No Sunshine” is on the jukebox. Anna had played it for me when she and Za had fed a couple of paychecks into the machine when we first arrived.

  It’s a weeknight and the place is empty except for an older man nursing a Natty at the opposite end of the bar. He’s a friend of the bartender, who is engaged in conversation with him, so it’s like we have the place to ourselves.

  We’re here on a weeknight because of the alignment of Za’s night off and our babysitter’s availability—and because we get the place mostly to ourselves.

  “I ran into Reggie at the IGA,” Anna says. “She told me about your conversation.”

  Za stops shooting and turns around toward us. “Reggie, the sheriff?” she says. “I like her.”

  “She’s John’s boss,” Anna says.

  “I thought you worked at the prison,” Za says to me.

  “I do.”

  “But he’s also an investigator with the sheriff’s department,” Anna says.

  “Damn.”

  “Not doing a particularly great job at either of them right now,” I say. “Will probably have to give up one before long.”

  “But which one?” Merrill says.

  “Reggie was saying how tough it is to be a woman in that position,” Anna says.

  “Tell her try bein’ a doctor—and a woman of color,” Za says.

  “She was saying how refreshing it was to have her lead investigator treat her with respect and dignity and without sexism or condescension.”

  Za nods and turns back and shoots her last dart.

  Anna looks at me. “She said you gave me part of the credit for it.”

  I nod.

  “Merrill’s mom too,” she says, looking from me to Merrill.

  Merrill smiles—something he’s doing far more of these days, something that coincided with the introduction of Zaire into his life.

  Instead of gathering her darts and pressing the button for the next player, Za turns and says, “That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.”