Ball” a pitch-perfect match for my melancholic mood.
The leather seats seemed to mold to me, holding me in the cockpit-like interior of the iconic car. It’d been a while since I’d driven a powerful automobile, and I’d forgotten just how much fun it could be—especially when equipped with a stick.
The night was dark, only a shadowed rim of moon in a black, starless sky. A low-lying fog hovered just above the highway, the headlights of the GT piercing it, the beams followed hard by the racing pony behind them.
My mind roamed freely.
Anna, love, happiness, the attempt on Lance Phillips, the deaths of Danny Jacobs and the girl at Potter Farm, the cold-case cards, Susan, Chris, Matson, the body propped on the prison fence, Atlanta, always Atlanta, Mom contemplating taking her own life––all shuffling around randomly, then, suddenly, raining down on the green-top table like a deck that got away from the dealer.
I had lost many battles to the noonday demon of depression, but never the war. Never, not even at my lowest, wanted to kill myself. It hadn’t ever even really crossed my mind, at least not in any kind of serious way.
Eventually I reached highway 98 and turned east, heading down the coast.
For a while I tried to figure out the significance of the cards left by the killer, but eventually gave it up and let my mind wander again.
Arbitrary bits bouncing around my brain.
Atlanta. Wayne Williams. LaMarcus. Martin. Jordan.
Stone Mountain. The Stone Cold Killer.
PCI. Molly. Nicole. Tom Daniels. Laura Mathers.
Justin Menge.
From a now obscure religion class––Confucius teaches there are three ways to learn wisdom: observation, which is noblest; imitation, which is easiest; and experience, which is bitterest.
Paul Tillich’s God above God, what I would call God beyond God. The remembered pleasure of first reading Hemingway and Shakespeare and Graham Greene.
When lights from the city could only be seen in my rearview, I turned off the music and rolled down the windows to listen to the music of the night.
The wind whipped in and out and around the car.
Gulf to my right, slash pine forest to my left, empty road ahead. Waves rolling in and out. Rubber tires on damp asphalt.
Alone.
I found it interesting that at every empty convenience store I passed, the solitary clerks were outside—standing or sitting, smoking or not—all staring off into the distance of the lonely night. Was that which drove them out of the overly lit stores into the dark nights the same thing driving me down the fog-covered highway?
When I reached Port St. Joe, I rode by Cheryl Jacobs’s house on Monument Avenue. Not sure why exactly. Was this where I was unconsciously headed all along?
Her house was a small, square red brick box of a dwelling on a large grass lot absent any landscaping.
To my surprise, no cars filled her driveway or lined her front yard, and through the huge bay window front, I could see she was alone, pacing around, a glass of wine in her hand.
I parked next to the curb in front of her house, pulled out my phone, and tapped in her number.
“It’s John Jordan. Are you okay?”
“ No.”
“You really shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“ How’d you know I’m — Where are you?”
“Out front.”
“What’re you doin’ here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Come in.”
Chapter Twenty-two
T he little light above her front door came on.
I got out of the car and walked up to find her standing in the now open doorway. She was younger than I expected, and pretty, but she looked as if she had packed a lot of living in her short life.
Merrill always said, it’s not the age, but the mileage.
As was usually the case, he was right.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said.
“Me either. I was out driving. Wound up here. When I saw you were alone, I called.”
“I’m glad you did. Come in.”
I followed her into the small, simply decorated house. It was quiet—too quiet, and perfectly
The leather seats seemed to mold to me, holding me in the cockpit-like interior of the iconic car. It’d been a while since I’d driven a powerful automobile, and I’d forgotten just how much fun it could be—especially when equipped with a stick.
The night was dark, only a shadowed rim of moon in a black, starless sky. A low-lying fog hovered just above the highway, the headlights of the GT piercing it, the beams followed hard by the racing pony behind them.
My mind roamed freely.
Anna, love, happiness, the attempt on Lance Phillips, the deaths of Danny Jacobs and the girl at Potter Farm, the cold-case cards, Susan, Chris, Matson, the body propped on the prison fence, Atlanta, always Atlanta, Mom contemplating taking her own life––all shuffling around randomly, then, suddenly, raining down on the green-top table like a deck that got away from the dealer.
I had lost many battles to the noonday demon of depression, but never the war. Never, not even at my lowest, wanted to kill myself. It hadn’t ever even really crossed my mind, at least not in any kind of serious way.
Eventually I reached highway 98 and turned east, heading down the coast.
For a while I tried to figure out the significance of the cards left by the killer, but eventually gave it up and let my mind wander again.
Arbitrary bits bouncing around my brain.
Atlanta. Wayne Williams. LaMarcus. Martin. Jordan.
Stone Mountain. The Stone Cold Killer.
PCI. Molly. Nicole. Tom Daniels. Laura Mathers.
Justin Menge.
From a now obscure religion class––Confucius teaches there are three ways to learn wisdom: observation, which is noblest; imitation, which is easiest; and experience, which is bitterest.
Paul Tillich’s God above God, what I would call God beyond God. The remembered pleasure of first reading Hemingway and Shakespeare and Graham Greene.
When lights from the city could only be seen in my rearview, I turned off the music and rolled down the windows to listen to the music of the night.
The wind whipped in and out and around the car.
Gulf to my right, slash pine forest to my left, empty road ahead. Waves rolling in and out. Rubber tires on damp asphalt.
Alone.
I found it interesting that at every empty convenience store I passed, the solitary clerks were outside—standing or sitting, smoking or not—all staring off into the distance of the lonely night. Was that which drove them out of the overly lit stores into the dark nights the same thing driving me down the fog-covered highway?
When I reached Port St. Joe, I rode by Cheryl Jacobs’s house on Monument Avenue. Not sure why exactly. Was this where I was unconsciously headed all along?
Her house was a small, square red brick box of a dwelling on a large grass lot absent any landscaping.
To my surprise, no cars filled her driveway or lined her front yard, and through the huge bay window front, I could see she was alone, pacing around, a glass of wine in her hand.
I parked next to the curb in front of her house, pulled out my phone, and tapped in her number.
“It’s John Jordan. Are you okay?”
“ No.”
“You really shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“ How’d you know I’m — Where are you?”
“Out front.”
“What’re you doin’ here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Come in.”
Chapter Twenty-two
T he little light above her front door came on.
I got out of the car and walked up to find her standing in the now open doorway. She was younger than I expected, and pretty, but she looked as if she had packed a lot of living in her short life.
Merrill always said, it’s not the age, but the mileage.
As was usually the case, he was right.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said.
“Me either. I was out driving. Wound up here. When I saw you were alone, I called.”
“I’m glad you did. Come in.”
I followed her into the small, simply decorated house. It was quiet—too quiet, and perfectly
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