The Body and the Blood (16 page)

Chapter Thirty-one

Later that afternoon, Susan called from her car to tell me she was on her way to Tallahassee and wanted me to meet her there that evening to have dinner with her parents. I asked her if we were doing this because our last meal together had been so much fun.

She also said she had another surprise for me.

Dinner with her psychopathic parents
and
another surprise. My karmic condition was far worse than I realized.

Though dreading the evening and the potential drama it held, I looked forward to the drive over. I had been wanting some uninterrupted time to think about and process the case in light of the new information we had, and this provided the perfect opportunity.

I took Highway 71 to Blountstown, turned onto 20 to Bristol, then cut over on 212 through Greensboro to I-10, all the while letting thoughts of the case flow through my mind.

How had Menge’s body gotten from the floor to the bed? Who had moved it? It seemed a loving act—the careful placement and the partial covering with the blanket. Were the victim and the killer close? Had they been intimate? That would put Sobel in the lead—unless Menge and Potter really had something going on too.

Where was Sobel? How had he gotten out? Who had the juice to make that happen? I let that thought linger a moment, exploring it further.

Was it just a coincidence that Menge was killed the only night Paula came to visit him? Did she have something to do with it? She was certainly benefiting the most—financially anyway. There were other benefits and motives, as well, though. Did she kill Sobel after the memorial service? It was possible.

How had the killer gotten in the cell, killed him, drained the blood, moved the body onto the bed, covered it, and gotten out of the cell without being seen? Was Milton White’s theory right or did the killer have an accomplice?

Where was Merrill? I was beginning to get worried. I needed to be going to Pine County instead of Leon.

Thinking of where I was headed made me think of Susan. I loved her and felt genuine hope for us. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we could have a good marriage—a good family for our baby. Remembering that she was pregnant gave me that drowning sensation again, and I felt trapped, but it quickly passed, and was replaced by excitement. I wanted to be a dad. I was ready for that.

The case was moving so fast, information flying at us so rapidly, though how much of it was true was difficult to know, and there were so many suspects, so many leads, I couldn’t keep up. Did Menge really have enough on Martinez to be a credible threat? Had Martinez killed him because of it?

And what about the shank and the blood-covered CO uniform? Had an officer or staff member committed the crime with a shank to make it look like an inmate or had an inmate gotten hold of a CO shirt somehow to make it look like an officer?

Why hadn’t DeLisa Lopez signed out? What was she really doing down there? What was she hiding? Why was she lying?

Where was the video with the tune up on it? Did it really exist? If it did exist, I had to find it. I had an idea where it might be, but couldn’t look for it on my way to Tallahassee. I needed more time. I needed for things to slow down just a little so I could catch up.

It felt good to think about everything, but by the time I reached the Tallahassee-Thomasville exit, I continued to have far more questions than answers. Still, it helped to just ponder some of the questions, and I could feel some subconscious stirrings, so maybe it wouldn’t be long before something would bob to the surface as an insight of some sort.

When I arrived at Tom and Sarah Daniels’s house, I found the front door ajar.

I was early, and I knew Tom was still at the prison. Alarmed, I rushed in and found Sarah waving a small handgun at a young Hispanic guy in a dark brown uniform.

Though she had the obvious advantage, she was hysterical, her voice frenzied, her movements frantic, and I thought she was actually going to shoot him.

“John,” she yelled when she saw me. “Oh, thank God. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“He tried to rape me.”

I walked past the thin guy with straight shiny black hair and over to her. “You’re all right now. You’re safe. Let me have the gun.”

She handed me the gun, and I turned toward him. He looked as surprised to see me as I was him.

“You’re a priest?” he asked.

“You’re with UPS?”

“Yeah. Are you her priest? Can you settle her down? She’s really crazy.”

“I’ll kill you, you bastard,” Sarah yelled.

Before this moment, I had never heard her raise her voice or use profanity. Not once in the nearly ten years I had known her. She had always been a meek, quiet little enabler for a husband who abused alcohol but had never abused her—at least not physically.

I stared at her in shock.

Like her daughter, Sarah Daniels had brown hair and eyes. However, unlike Susan, she was petite, a full six inches shorter. Her hair was cut much shorter than Susan’s, streaked with gray, and it had a brittle texture I had never noticed before.

“Well, I will,” she said defiantly. “The sick fucker tried to rape me.”

“I just tried to deliver a package. That’s all. I never tried to rape nobody. She pulled the gun on me before I had a chance to even give her the package, let alone try to rape her.” “Where’s the package, then, huh?” she screamed, her eyes narrowing as her face contorted into a mask of rage. “Where is it?”

“Right there,” he said, nodding toward a small cardboard box near the front door. “It’s right there where I dropped it when you pointed the gun at me.”

He backed over to the door, carefully picked up the package, and brought it to me.

As I watched the scared young delivery man retrieve the package, I noticed how messy Sarah’s house was. In stark contrast to its previous immaculate state, it looked as if a different family had taken up residence.

The package was addressed to Sarah Daniels, and all the information was correct. The return address was an Internet bookstore.

“Did you order a book off the Internet?” I asked.

Sarah was pacing behind me. She stopped abruptly when she heard my question.

“
Yeah
?”

“May I open it?”

She nodded.

I carefully opened the package while keeping the gun on the fearful delivery man, which wasn’t easy. Inside I found two books:
Worse than Murder: Women’s Stories of Rape
and
Advanced Self-Defense Techniques for Women
.

“A package. I deliver them. I work the same route every day. If I tried to rape women, I’d get caught. Call my supervisor. She’ll tell you. No complaints. No problems. I’m a good worker. I go to school at night at FSU. I make good grades. I’m no criminal. Certainly no rapist.”

I nodded.

Tom Daniels ran through the front door. “Everything all right?”

“Oh, Tom,” Sarah said, and rushed into his embrace.

“What is it?”

I told him.

He shook his head slowly as he continued to hug his wife. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be all right. I’m here. I’ve got you now.”

In his arms, head buried in his chest, she began to sob.

“I’m sorry,” Daniels said to the delivery man. “Try to understand. She’s been through a lot. You can go now. I’m very sorry. Please don’t mention this to anyone. And not just for her sake. Just a hint of this kind of accusation could ruin your life.”

“Yes, sir. I won’t. I understand.” He bowed slightly and backed out of the house, not even stopping to pick up his cap.

In about half an hour, Sarah was back to someone I recognized, and, while she cooked and we waited for Susan to arrive, Tom and I sat on the back patio watching the cool evening breeze blow the leaves off water oak and magnolia trees onto the brittle yellow grass.

The one thing that had not changed about Sarah was her desire to serve. Unable to be still, she had always cooked or cleaned or waited on Tom and Susan. And though she didn’t seem to be cleaning very much these days, she was still in perpetual motion. She had never been able to relax, never had any down time or fun. She just worked until she dropped in the bed beside Tom late at night and quickly fell asleep.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” I said.

“No better, no worse.”

“You’ve got to get her some help.”

He shook his head. “She won’t go.”

“Don’t give her a choice.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he said, and for a moment I saw a flash of the old Tom Daniels, the one I recognized the way I did the woman in the kitchen.

I didn’t say anything.

I thought about how Daniels used to be—quiet, sullen, continually seething. He rarely came out of ‘his’ room, a spare bedroom with a desk, couch, TV, and hidden bottles of vodka. He spent more time passed out than anything else. When he was out of his room, around family or friends, he was the center and life of the gathering—gregarious, witty, charming, manic. I had always suspected him of being bipolar, his alcohol abuse an attempt at self-medicating.

“Sorry,” he said, but it sounded more obligatory than sincere. “She won’t leave the house. I was shocked when she wanted to go to Susan’s last weekend. That’s why I was willing to barge in on you guys.”

“She’s got to get some help.”

“I just can’t get her to, and right now I feel like
forcing
her would be the wrong thing to do.”

I frowned and shrugged. He had a point. “Mind if I try?”

He shook his head. “Probably help you better understand what I’m dealing with.”

I walked into the kitchen and attempted to engage Sarah. After a while of gently trying to broach the subject, I decided that the density of her denial called for a far more direct approach, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get through to her. She was fine. Everything was fine. How was I? She was so happy to see Susan and me together again. Happy, happy, happy. Fine, fine, fine. We were just having ourselves a little utopia here in Daniels Land, and weren’t we so blessed, wasn’t God so good to us?

As I walked back to the patio, I realized Daniels had been right. I now had a far better understanding of what he was dealing with—and why Susan was acting the way she was.

“You’re right,” I said.

He shrugged. “It’s no consolation.”

“How are
you
handling it?” I asked.

He shrugged and gave a small laugh that lacked warmth or humor. “I had channeled all my anger into prosecuting Juan Martinez. When Menge was killed and my case went away . . .”

“How sure are you Martinez did it?”

“Killed Menge?”

“Raped Sarah,” I said, the words straining to squeeze out of my constricted throat.

The old anger flashed in his weary eyes. He took a moment to gather himself, then said, “Certain.”

I nodded.

“Once she washed away all the evidence I knew it was up to me to make the case,” he said. “No one else would even try.”

As I sat there in silence, looking at the pain and anger on my father in-law’s face, the occasional sounds of Sarah’s food preparations coming from the kitchen, I realized again how much this unimaginable event had become a part of their family’s history, identity.

“She picked him out of a photo array I created from inmate head shots, was aware of an identifying mark on his body. That was enough for me. I can’t get him for what he did to her anymore, but taking him down for killing Menge would be the next best thing.”

“And if it wasn’t him?”

“I’ll get him on something else. It’s my mission in life now. Create a safer world for women like Sarah and for your wife. I hate to even think of him out there in the same world with them. And I know you feel the same way, but it’s different for a dad—you wait. You’ll see. Nothing in this world matters as much as family, as your children. Nothing.”

I thought again about Susan’s pregnancy—this time with excitement. I couldn’t wait to have a child of my own. While I was thinking about the mother of my children, she slipped in and stood near the door, listening to what her dad was saying.

“Trust me . . . wait ‘til you hear your little girl say ‘I love you, Daddy.’”

“I love you, Daddy,” Susan said, then crossed the room, plopped down on his lap, and hugged him.

In mock strain, his voice barely above a whisper, he said, “She’s not so little anymore.”

“I am to my husband,” she said, jumping out of his lap and onto mine.

In the same voice Tom had used, I said, “I . . . can’t . . . feel . . . my . . . legs.”

“So, besides failing to be funny,” she asked, “how are my two guys?”

We took turns telling her.

“I’m so glad to see you two together like this. Makes my world complete again.”

“Well, grandkids would make mine,” Daniels said. “How long you two gonna make me wait?”

“Let’s talk about it over dinner,” she said. “It’s ready. Come on. It’ll do Mom good.”

She was right. Telling Sarah Daniels she was soon going to be a grandmother did her a world of good.

It was temporary, of course, but it was something, and for the moment it was enough.

When the meal was complete, Susan pulled a business card out of her purse, jotted an address on the back of it and told me to meet her there in half an hour.

“Why don’t we just go together?”

“It’s a surprise,” she said. “And I know how much you like those.”

Chapter Thirty-two

The capitol of Florida is one of the most beautiful towns in the south. I say
town
, because that’s what it is. It’s a college town that happens also to house the state capitol. The colleges, FSU, FAMU, TCC, infuse the town with youth and energy—hopeful, idealistic students who have their whole lives in front of them. But it also has a quiet, settled, feeling. It has history—it’s one of the few capitols in the south that wasn’t destroyed during the Civil War. Things that look old in Tallahassee are. And its developers were smart enough to leave as much of nature undisturbed as possible. Massive oak, pine, and magnolia trees line its red clay hills and form canopies above its gently sloping roads.

As I drove through the streets of Tallahassee, brown and rust-colored leaves drifting down on my truck from the canopies above, I realized again how much I loved this town, and I wondered if I’d be back this weekend to use the tickets I had worked so hard to get for the FSU game.

I drove up Apalachee Parkway, turned right at the capitol, and drove down Monroe Street toward Lake Ella Park. At the park, I took a left onto Eighth Avenue, crossed through two intersections, and parked in front of a modest Victorian country cottage that bore the address Susan had written on her business card.

Burning candles glowing brightly in the darkness, their flames flickering in the cool October breeze, lined both sides of the small cement walkway leading to the front door. I followed them.

When I neared the door, which was partially opened, I could hear sultry jazz playing softly inside. I climbed the red brick lined steps and crossed the threshold to find my Georgia peach waiting for me. In the soft glow of candlelight, the outline of her body cast a subtle silhouette on the hardwood floor.

She wore a peach-colored stretch satin chemise with gold embroidered lace trim, her breasts pressing against the silky cups, pulling the two thin straps taut over her delicate shoulders. She was leaning against the arm of a white sofa, the only piece of furniture in the room, her long elegant legs curving down to arched feet in beige high heel mules.

She motioned me over to her, and I went.

“God, you look so good in a collar,” she said.

“I was thinking I was overdressed.”

Without changing her position, she pulled me to her. I dropped to my knees between her long legs and began kissing her toes, working my way up from there.

When I reached her stomach I lingered. Inside, the life that had resulted from our love was forming, growing, becoming, and would soon come forth and we would be a family. As taut as her abdomen was, the skin covering it would soon be stretched, then eventually loose and stretchy, and I couldn’t wait.

Next I put my lips around one of her nipples the way our child would, and realized that soon the full round shape it took during arousal would be its normal state.

As beautiful and arousing as she was, I worshiped her body as much for the life it was producing as anything else, and somehow being intimate with the body that was giving life to my child made me feel even closer to her.

“Now I know where the term making love comes from,” I whispered in her ear.

“You’re okay with me being pregnant?”

“I’m excited. I was just caught off-guard. I’m so thrilled. I love you so much.”

“John?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s make love—the world could use more of it.”

An hour later, we lay entwined in each other, our sweaty bodies sticking to the hardwood floor that was beginning to turn cold beneath us. Actually, it had been cold the entire time, but we were only now noticing.

“This is my present to you,” she said.

“The gift that keeps on giving—and the one I enjoy receiving over and over again.”

“Well, of course
that
,” she said. “I’m yours, body and soul. I love you. But I was talking about the house. I rented it for us today—with an option to buy it if we want to. I’m opening a new office here in Tallahassee. Isn’t this perfect for us? An intersection where both of our worlds could meet.”

I looked around at the small house which could only be described as a fixer-upper, a smile spreading across my face. It wasn’t just that it was right for us, it was that I realized the sacrifice she was making.

“It’s perfect.”

“We’ll be close to my parents.”

“We’ve got to do something for your mom.”

“I know,” she said. “But Dad’s doing well, isn’t he? He’s an amazing man. Always has been, but since what happened to Mom, he’s been extraordinary. We can help them. I know this place’ll take a lot of fixing up, but so did we and we’re doing
that
.”

“I realize the sacrifice you’re making,” I began, but she covered my mouth with hers.

“We’re family. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing.”

Later that night I had a dream so vivid, seemingly so real, that it was more like a portent, as if a vision of a future moment I would someday experience with the most profound sense of déjà vu.

* * * * *

The last of the setting sun streaks the blue horizon with neon pink and splatters the emerald green waters of the Gulf with giant orange splotches like scoops of sherbet in an Art Deco bowl.

A fitting finale for a perfect Florida day.

My son, who looks to be around four, though it’s hard to tell since in dreams we all seem ageless—runs up from the water’s edge, his face red with sun and heat, his hands sticky with wet sand, and asks me to join him for one last swim.

He looks up at me with his mother’s brown eyes, open and honest as possible, and smiles his sweetest smile as he begins to beg.

“Please, Daddy,” he says. “Please.”

“We need to go,” I say. “It’ll be dark soon. And I’m supposed to take your mom out on a date tonight.”

“Please, Daddy,” he repeats as if I have not spoken, and now he takes the edge of my swimming trunks in his tiny, sandy hand and tugs.

I look down at him, moved by his openness, purity, and beauty.

He knows he’s got me then.

“Yes,” he says, releasing my shorts to clench his fist and pull it toward him in a gesture of victory. Then he begins to jump up and down.

I drop the keys and the towels and the bottles of sun screen wrapped in them, kick off my flip flops, and pause just a moment to take it all in—him, the sand, the sea, the sun.

“I love you, Dad,” he says with the ease and unashamed openness only a safe and secure child can.

“I love you,”

I take his hand in mine, and we walk down to the end of his world as the sun sets and the breeze cools off the day. And we walk right into the ocean from which we came. A wave knocks us down and we stay that way, allowing the foamy water to wash over us.

He shrieks his joy and excitement, sounding like the gulls in the air and on the shore. He plays with intensity and abandon, and for a moment I want to be a child again, but only for a moment, for more than anything in this world, I want to be his dad.

We forget about the world around us, and we lose track of time, and the thick, salty waters of the Gulf roll in on us and then back out to sea.