Serendipity (Southern Comfort) (28 page)

But the rest of his team couldn’t quite forgive Jordan for having the temerity to express those doubts in the first place.  

Prepared to take whatever licks the master was doling out for the day, Jordan reluctantly answered the call.

“Good morning, Joel.”

“Not from where I’m sitting.  I need you down at the jail, ASAP. We’re about to have a media circus on our hands, and it looks like it’s your turn to play ringmaster.  I don’t know how that damn viper Ashby sniffed it out already, but she’s broadcasting live.” 

“With all due respect, sir, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Cripes, turn on the news.  Elijah Fuller’s dead, Jordan. He hanged himself in his cell.”   

AS Jordan approached the door to the Chatham County jail, the media descended like locusts.

He knew a few reporters on a personal level, and tried not to think of the entire profession as a plague, but when they were coming at him with cameras and microphones he couldn’t help but feel like Moses facing the Red Sea.

“Mr. Wellington!  Is it true that Elijah Fuller hanged himself with his own pants?”

“Sources from inside the jail indicate that he left a suicide note.  Can you tell us what it said?”

“Does the DA’s office consider this an admission of guilt?  Will the investigation into the murders of the three women be closed?”

“No comment,” Jordan said as he muscled through the buzzing swarm.

An aggressively perky blonde pushed in front of the others and shoved a microphone in Jordan’s face.  “Lauren Ashby, WSAV.  My sources indicate that there has been some dissension over your ability to obtain a conviction against Elijah Fuller.  Do you feel that his alleged suicide this morning has saved you from facing an acquittal at trial?”

That one stopped Jordan in his tracks.  “As I believe we are still operating under a system that deems a person innocent until proven guilty, I can only be sorry that Mr. Fuller has been denied his day in court.”

“Is it true that due to your recent medical problems, District Attorney Feinstein was considering replacing you as lead prosecutor?  That the head trauma you suffered impaired your ability to handle a case of this magnitude?”

So now he was not only incompetent, but brain damaged?

Jordan smelled a rat.  But until he had a chance to sniff it out, the smart thing was to keep his mouth shut.  “There will be a press conference forthcoming shortly,” he told the bottle-blonde insect, and then the gathering at large.  “You’ll have an opportunity to ask your questions then.  Until that time neither the members of the police department nor anyone from the district attorney’s office will be able to offer further comment.”

Steaming, Jordan turned his back on the reporters, and welcomed the blast of air conditioning that greeted him inside the jail. He produced ID, made the expected small talk, and stalked toward the cell where Elijah Fuller had been held without bond.

And stepped into controlled chaos.  The assistant coroner conferred with an investigator from the medical examiner’s office, crime scene analysts dusted and plucked and sealed evidence up in bags, the flash of a camera bounced off the concrete walls and stung the eyes.  Fuller’s public defender poked a finger toward Joel Feinstein’s chest. Detectives Simpson and Dawson questioned a guard, because any suicide – but particularly this one – would be treated as an open investigation until fact substantiated theory. 

And in the center of it all, the small, crumpled body of Elijah Franklin Fuller.  Naked, because as the reporter outside had suggested, he’d apparently fashioned a rope out of his own pants.  Jordan saw remnants of the fabric looped through an air vent, the rest still knotted beneath Fuller’s swollen and purple face.

Scrawled on the wall, in what appeared to be blood, were the simple words
:
forgive me.

“Jordan.” Six feet of strain in a pinstriped suit, Joel Feinstein called out when he noticed Jordan’s appearance.  And using it as an excuse to evade the other attorney’s poking finger, strode over with a gathering frown. “It’s about time you got here.  We’ve got a hell of a mess.”

“I apologize for my tardiness.  I had to stop home, get some appropriate clothes.  How did this happen, Joel?”

“The kid made a noose out of his pants.”

“Yeah,” he said drolly. “I got that.  I’m talking about the fact that he was supposed to be supervised.  A walk-by every fifteen minutes to prevent just this sort of thing.  His attorney warned us Fuller was struggling with depression.”

“And as I just reminded his defense counsel, there will be an investigation.  Just like the investigation to make certain Mr. Fuller didn’t have any help getting that noose around his neck.  Given his notoriety, the situation, you can be sure the police will cross their Ts and dot every I.”

Jordan glanced down the hall, caught Simpson’s eyes on him. “If they’d dotted every I to begin with, the man likely wouldn’t be dead.”

Feinstein’s frown darkened.  “That may be true, but that kind of comment is best kept to yourself.  At least there’s no family on record, waiting to sue for negligence.”

Somehow, that made it more depressing.

Jordan looked at the bloody message on the wall. Fuller had begged forgiveness.  For taking his own life?  For stalking Sonya Kuosman?  For killing three women in cold blood?

It could mean any damn thing. 

But Jordan just couldn’t reconcile the pathetic figure on the floor with what he’d learned about the killer.

“He wouldn’t have expressed remorse,” Jordan said quietly. 

“What?”

Jordan glanced back at his boss. “From what Agent Copeland described in his profile, the man who killed those three women is a sociopath.  He’s incapable of feeling guilt over their deaths.  To his mind, they deserved what they got, at best. And at worst, he didn’t even see them as people.  More a means to his own end.  I can’t imagine,” he nodded to the wall “that this would be in keeping with his behavior.”

“Jordan.”  And the tone was ice.  “Exactly whose side are you on?”

“I like to think I’m on the side of justice.  Barring that, at least truth.  I know you were disappointed with me at last week’s meeting, but I can’t quite be sorry for it just now.  If we’d gone to trial the evidence, such as it is, would have had a chance to speak for itself.  And Fuller would have had a chance to defend himself against it.  Now,” he looked back at the figure on the floor.  “Nobody gets the chance to talk.  Those three dead women, least of all.”

“You don’t believe Fuller killed them.”

“I had doubts.  You know I had doubts.  And after this?” Jordan shook his head.  “I can’t say that I do.  But I get the feeling that opinion will be even more unpopular now than it was at last week’s meeting.  After all, this wraps things up. A little messily, but certainly more easily than a trial.  Serial killer dead by own hand.  Savannah streets safe once again.  Makes a nice headline, doesn’t it?”

“Jordan –”

He waved his hand in the air.  “I know what you’re going to say, so just spare us both the lecture.  I know better than to air my misgivings to anyone outside this team.  Unlike some people.”  He narrowed his gaze at Simpson.  “But sir.”  And he turned
a
cool
gaze
on his boss.  “I’m not going to stand in front of a camera and lie to the people of this city, politics be damned.  Fuller might be dead, but we didn’t prove him guilty of a crime.  There was sufficient evidence to indict him, that’s fact.  And I’ll happily lay out the facts as we have them.  But beyond that, I’m not going to just brush this thing under the rug.  Because if I am right, and Fuller wasn’t our man, and another woman dies? I don’t want her blood on my hands.”

THE bar was old, another of those Savannah institutions.  Handmade brick, pressed tin,
the
wooden floors scarred and stained. Chairs and stools
were
worn smooth from generations of asses.  Whiskey spiced the air, and the sound of rough laughter salted it.  Music pumped in a happy beat that simmered under them both. 

Jordan noted the photographs lined like dutiful soldiers along the walls.

Samuel Bryson, R.E. Read, the first Savannah police officers to be killed in the line of duty.  A timeline of police vehicles, from horse and buggy, to motorcycles, to the ubiquitous black and white.  The Original Nine, the first courageous black men to overstep racial boundaries and take up the Chatham County badge.

It was a cop hangout. 

Many a glass had been raised in triumph, in anger.  To honor a fallen comrade, toast a fellow’s retirement.  To mourn the losses, celebrate the victories, and ease the stress of the day-to-day.  Jordan respected the institution, and more, much more, the men and women who found their way through the doors.  He’d joined them himself on several memorable occasions.

But this time, this time he was here with blood in his eye.

Jeff Simpson had taken a swipe at him one time too many.

“Hey Jordan,” one of the female officers he knew called out to him from her stool at the bar.  “Looking good on TV this afternoon.”

“I don’t know.” The bartender, a portly ex-cop named Big Jim shook his head as he filled a pilsner.  “That thing they say about the camera’s true.  Those pants made you look fat.”

“Maybe you could spare me the name of your dietician.”

“That’s easy.  Mick Donalds.”

As laughter rolled over the music, the crowd, Jordan scanned the back of the room.

“Can I get you something, Counselor?”

He spotted Simpson in a booth, laughing with a detective from Special Victims and a blond man Jordan didn’t recognize.  And felt everything inside him tighten.  “Ah, not tonight, Jim.”  He was feeling volatile enough without adding an accelerant. 

“Somebody’s in for it,” he heard Jim murmur when Jordan began to push his way through the crowd.

Yes, Jordan thought, and felt the simmering frustration of the day click to boil beneath his skin.  Somebody is.  But he tried to remember to keep it cool, keep it civil, as he made his way to Simpson’s table.

The laughter that bounced around the booth like a silver pinball died as Jordan stepped up.

“Miller.”  Jordan greeted the man from SVU and nodded to the blond, who looked barely old enough for his beer.  “Sorry to interrupt.” Social niceties aside, he shifted his gaze toward Simpson.  “Detective.  I’d like a word with you.” 

The surprised annoyance that had flashed over the other man’s face slid into an amused mask.  “Imagine that,” he said to the table at large.  “A lawyer who claims he can get a point across in just one word.  I thought y’all needed a press conference for that.  But come to think of it, you didn’t say much more than no comment this afternoon.  I guess
the fact that
the sick fuck that murdered Sonya Kuosman and two other women hanged himself in his cell was too complicated for you to get out.”

So Simpson didn’t want to play nice.  That was fine, more than fine with Jordan. “Unlike you, I prefer to have my facts straight before I start flapping my mouth to the press.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking –”

Jordan slapped his hands on the table. “Yes you do.”  Leaned in.  “I’m talking about the fact that you tried to discredit me by leaking rumors about my health.  And Lauren Ashby, Simpson?  Makes you wonder which one of us is brain damaged.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who started spouting all kinds of behavioral voodoo after getting clobbered on the head.  Hell, Fuller asked for forgiveness, the sonofabitch, before stringing himself up.  What more do you want?”

“Um, gentleman…” Detective Miller began when several heads turned their way, the tables near them falling silent.  “I don’t think this is the place –”

“Oh, but Jeff has made it the place, haven’t you, Detective?  Just like you made the jail the place this morning by tipping off the press before I got there.”  Jordan angled his head. “Why the smear campaign, I wonder? Why make that preemptive strike?”

“I told you, I don’t know –”

“If you’re going to stab someone in the back, Simpson, at least have the balls to admit it was your hand on the knife.  I think you’re afraid.  You read that profile.  And you realized, when you saw Fuller’s message, that it was one more piece that didn’t fit.  You knew I’d see it, too.  And because you were afraid to lose face in front of your colleagues, maybe even in front of the city, you tried an end run around me.  Discredit me, so that if I happened to point out that we have more questions than solid evidence, it would come off as… what?  Post-traumatic stress? The incompetent ramblings of a damaged brain?  It was a concussion, Detective.  And while I may have suffered double vision for a couple days, I still recognize an asshole when I see one.”

“Uncle Jeff,” the blond kid said nervously as Simpson pushed to his feet, and Miller jumped up to get between Jordan and the other detective. 

“You’re going to want to take it down, both of you.”

“It’s okay.”  Jordan was already stepping back.  And met the fury on Simpson’s face with equanimity.  “I’ve said everything I needed to say.”            

JORDAN lobbed the tennis ball as hard as he could and watched it soar toward the velvet black.  Stars, like glitter spilled from a jar, winked against the night sky.  The ball seemed to hang among them before arcing down toward a racing Finn.