Black and full of faith, Mimi Todd’s great-grandchildren Dione and Amanda dance gracefully beside the Mt. Zion Church pulpit to religious hymns playing over well-worn speakers. Smooth movements proclaim God’s majestic spirit as the young people wave skyward and say goodbye.

Dressed in matching red robes adorned with two wide white stripes that shape a cross, the nimble siblings from the Abundant Praise Dance Ministry set the mood for Mimi’s homegoing service celebrating death as a time to rejoice in her return to her heavenly home.

A white coffin with golden handles holds the body of the 90-year-old family matriarch. Bouquets of pure white and deep crimson flowers glow in soft light. A photograph displayed on a big screen behind the dancing brother and sister brings out her gray-haired dignity. Her striking color portrait framed and placed on an easel beside the casket crowns this powerful farewell.

Another great-grandchild, Vincent, sits in the front row on a folding chair. Wearing his United States Marine Corps uniform, he lifts a white-gloved hand, wipes his eye and prepares to rise, stand before the congregation and read Psalm 23, reassuring the flock that they will fear no evil as they walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

According to Mimi Lee (Bates) Todd’s obituary, she “went from suffering to glory on Monday, November 1, 2021.”

Suffer she did.

When Mimi and I sat together in her home almost 30 years ago, I felt her deep sense of loss. I asked about her daughter, Juanita, who died September 28, 1972, in a knife attack that slashed 22 wounds in her body.

More than 50 years later Juanita Todd’s murder remains unsolved.

Mimi Todd sighed the day we talked about her daughter.

“She was an average girl,” she said. “She would give you the shirt off her back, to use a phrase. She was just that friendly with the people she met. She wasn’t an honor student in school, but she made passing grades. She didn’t graduate from GAR (high school) but she did graduate. She got her GED and got involved in secretarial work. And that’s what she was doing, working at Bell Telephone.”

Apologizing for “butterflies in my stomach,” Mimi admitted she felt nervous.

In the weeks before we spoke police had reactivated the investigation 22 years after Mimi Todd’s daughter died. Detectives say they never “reopen” a murder probe because an unsolved murder case never closes. Work always continues, police say.

Until it doesn’t.

In 1972 Wilkes-Barre police said they were working on the case “around the clock.”

Then the clock stopped for more than two decades.

In 1994 Mimi seemed anxious about renewed interest in her daughter’s murder. An unconscionably long time had passed since anybody, let alone anybody with a badge, asked questions about Juanita.  

Taking a slow, deep breath, Mimi Todd said, “She was born December 16, 1949. Wilkes-Barre’s not her home. She was just shy of her 12th birthday when we moved here from Tallahassee, Florida. My husband was looking for work. It wasn’t that pleasant when we first came because he couldn’t find any, but finally he found work in the (coal) mine and he worked there at Glen Alden until it shut down. She was 11 years old when we came here. I didn’t know 11 years later that I would have to bury her.”   

On September 28, 1972, according to Wilkes-Barre police, after receiving an anonymous telephone tip from a man, police found Juanita’s body on the floor of her second-floor Academy Street apartment. Somebody had wiped her home clean of fingerprints, police said.

When police reactivated their investigation in 1994 Mimi Todd again had some reason, if only a little, to hope for justice. Two detectives planned to travel to California to interview Douglas “Bay” DeGraffenreid, the man investigators publicly called their only suspect. DeGraffenreid fled Wilkes-Barre the night before a scheduled lie detector test. He remains incarcerated, growing old in a state prison where he serves a life sentence for a Los Angeles murder.

Claiming he thought so highly of Juanita and her family that he made a point of riding in the hearse with Juanita’s body at her funeral, DeGraffenreid denied killing his friend. He said he believed another man who knew Juanita Todd set him up.

At the crime scene police found 18-month-old Odetta and five-month-old Tamu, fed, changed and resting near their mother’s nude, bloody remains. Mimi Todd and her husband, Junius, raised the girls who called Juanita’s parents “Mom” and “Daddy.”

“Juanita wasn’t as talkative as Odetta and not quite as shy as Tamu,” Mimi said. “She was in between. She was just an average teenager. Back in the ’60s there wasn’t all that much to go to anyway. Maybe to the movie. She went to church, Sunday school and a picnic occasionally.”

Mimi Todd seemed weary that day we spoke, drained mostly by the exhausting pressure of knowing few people truly cared about finding her daughter’s killer. But she never gave up. Her abiding Christian faith held strong, driving her to a devoted lifelong membership in Mt. Zion Baptist Church where she served on the missionary board and did volunteer tutoring.

“She was a friendly girl,” Mimi Todd said of her daughter in a voice soft with a haunting trace of the old South. “Maybe too friendly.”

Until she died Mimi Todd led a full and humble life among family and friends. She sang with Sr. Belle Williams Choir, loved playing the lottery, reading dream books and watching “Wheel of Fortune” and old westerns like “Wagon Train” and “Gunsmoke.” As a respected churchwoman in Black Wilkes-Barre she witnessed change, some good, but not enough awakening for white people wielding systemic power to pay attention.

Proud Black Baptist Protestants from the segregated Jim Crow South, the Todd family had moved to Wilkes-Barre for a better life. Instead of their finding joy in Wilkes-Barre, born-and-raised rulers in this white ethnic Catholic kingdom judged them unworthy. The powerbrokers and the powerless alike looked down on Black people like the Todd family. In the end, all Mimi Todd wanted was for people to listen, really listen, and take seriously her daughter’s death that still impacts overwhelmingly white Wilkes-Barre despite class or creed.

Young descendants of the Todd family have not forgotten nor forsaken the lessons their elders taught them. Standing courageously beside his mother, Odetta, Lance Todd, another great-grandson, addressed the faithful at Mimi Todd’s homegoing.

“She moved from Florida to Pennsylvania, in 1957 to be exact,” he said. “At this time in Pennsylvania it was pretty much illegal to be Black. I hate to say it like that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. So pretty much it was illegal to be Black. It was rough, rough – obviously before there was any kind of civil rights or civil legislation.”

Fixating on the continuing lack of justice, Lance also spoke of his grandmother, Juanita Todd.

“She was murdered here in Luzerne County,” he said.

In this hard town unfairness and discrimination remains a glaring unhealed wound.

Thirty years after the last time police and prosecutors lost their way in this case, law enforcement officials have more than enough reason to resume their investigation into Juanita Todd’s murder with the increased benefit of modern forensic technology.

During Mimi Todd’s life she never saw a verdict in the violent crime that stole dear daughter Juanita. It’s not too late to liberate the entire community from that burden.

We must wave goodbye to injustice in both Mimi’s and Juanita’s names with the same devotion that the two dancers expressed at Mimi’s service when they raised outstretched arms to the heavens and saw hope for a new and brighter day. We must fight discrimination with the same steely commitment shown by that young Black Marine who stood tall in church to profess his belief in the holy promise that “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

We must refuse to punish the young by making them feel it is still illegal to be Black. We must right wrongs of our past with passion, even love.

Truth lies in that pursuit – a truth that sets us free.

Blood.

Fibers.

Hair.

A knife.

A blood-spattered coin.

Suspects.

Evidence means everything in a homicide investigation.

Police and prosecutors need physical evidence, circumstantial evidence, new and old evidence – all the evidence they can gather to solve a murder case.

Evidence shapes the soul of hope for justice in the more than 50 years since the Wilkes-Barre murder of Juanita Todd, a 22-year-old Black woman and mother police found nude and stabbed 22 times in her second-floor Academy Street apartment.

Do Wilkes-Barre police still have the evidence they collected from the September 28, 1972 murder?

Seasoned prosecutors with whom I recently spoke give police the benefit of the doubt and presume all evidence gathered at the scene still exists. After we spoke about the case I asked these veteran prosecutors if they thought investigators should take a fresh look at the Juanita Todd murder.

“There is no reason not to,” said one successful former prosecutor whose opinion I respect.

That’s why police and prosecutors should restart the investigation even without new evidence. Enough old evidence might exist to test with new technology that will lead to an arrest and conviction in the death of Juanita Todd.

I’ve met a lot of lawyers during the decades I investigated and wrote about crime. I’ve observed some of the best criminal attorneys in the country at work on some of the biggest criminal trials in the country.

In 1990 I testified at a Wilkes-Barre murder trial under cross-examination by a defense attorney who once represented Mafia boss Fat Tony Salerno. In 1994 I traveled to Los Angeles and wrote about the first week of the OJ Simson trial. In 2005 I sat in a courtroom with the late music legend Michael Jackson every day of his four-month-long child molestation trial. In 2017 I spoke for months about a Scranton political corruption case with one of the former federal prosecutors who convicted infamous Boston killer and gangster Whitey Bulger.

I’m interested in what knowledgeable prosecutors and defense attorneys think about crime, especially homicides. I’m particularly interested in what some of these hardened lawyers think about the death of Juanita Todd and the resumption of the investigation into her murder.

The lawyers with whom I’ve recently spoken said they cannot think of a good reason why police and prosecutors should not revisit the Juanita Todd case. Budgets, time constraints, staffing concerns, egos, politics and departmental rivalries can be prioritized as a committed search for truth continues.

Forensic technology, particularly DNA testing, advanced significantly between 1972 and 1994 when a team of Luzerne County police and prosecutors last reviewed the evidence in Juanita Todd’s death. In the past 30 years improvements in DNA technology and other forensic science have advanced even more.

If significant physical evidence does still exist, law enforcement officials should submit that evidence to modern scientific laboratories that specialize in high-tech testing. Other evidence police should review includes potential witnesses whom they may or may not have interviewed previously.

One crucial witness is Douglas “Bay” DeGraffenreid whom Wilkes-Barre police in 1972 at the time called their only suspect during the original investigation. DeGraffenreid is serving a life sentence for an unrelated California murder and last spoke with Wilkes-Barre police in 1994 when two city detectives traveled to California to interview him in a state prison.

DeGraffenreid fled Wilkes-Barre in 1972, the night before a scheduled lie detector test he reluctantly agreed to take. He later said he worried police might arrest him because police found his wallet at the crime scene. He said he left his wallet in the glove compartment of the car of another man he believes tried to set him up.

DeGraffenreid has consistently denied killing his one-time friend Juanita Todd.

He is crucial to the case, not because new evidence links him to the crime, but because he now might cooperate with detectives and share information he had not previously shared with police.

One veteran prosecutor with whom I recently spoke said the idea of interviewing DeGraffenreid a second time is not unreasonable. What DeGraffenreid might offer police easily justifies the cost of sending two detectives to California, the seasoned prosecutor said. Another veteran prosecutor said despite DeGraffenreid’s questionable credibility as a convicted killer, new information he might provide linked with old yet newly tested forensic evidence could lead to additional clues that could solve the case.

Assuming Wilkes-Barre police took blood samples, were all the samples tested? Do untested blood samples exist? If so, can experts test them with new technology? The doctor who performed Juanita Todd’s autopsy wrote in his report that he found fibers beneath two of Juanita Todd’s fingernails – one on each hand –that he turned over to police. If those fibers still exist, they also can be tested with new and improved technology even if police tested them more than 50 years ago.

Forensic experts can also test the bloodstained sheet somebody tied around Juanita Todd’s neck. Experts can test the pubic hair Juanita Todd’s daughter, Odetta, said police once told her and her family investigators found at the crime scene. Odetta Todd said the police told her the pubic hair did not belong to her mother. Experts can test the knife police reported they found “protruding” from the right side of Juanita Todd’s “abdomen.”

Somebody once told me about a blood-spattered coin one Wilkes-Barre police officer said he turned in to supervisors after finding it in the apartment of a potential witness in the case. Does such a coin exist? Did such a coin ever exist? Don’t ask me why police visited this apartment and an officer took a blood-spattered coin he said he found.

If this is true, a report should be filed somewhere. Numerous other reports should be filed as well – reports containing crucial details about the California prison interview with DeGraffenreid and interviews with other witnesses and potential suspects – if, in fact, such interviews occurred.

The late city detective Tom Bird who responded to the crime scene told me in 1993 he believed somebody fed Juanita Todd’s babies that terrible September night in Wilkes-Barre. Somebody might have even changed their diapers.

“It was real hot,” said Bird. “And the fan was one of those big floor model jobs. The 18-month-old (Odetta) was sitting right by it.”

Odetta’s five-month-old sister Tamu lay safe in a nearby crib.

“There was no safety guard on the front of the fan,” Bird said. “It would have sliced the little girl’s hand off if she had reached for it.”

 “Somebody was in that apartment and fed those kids,” he said “Between the time of Juanita’s killing and us finding her, somebody fed them. There was even an open loaf of bread on the kitchen counter. I reached inside the wrapper and felt it. It was still soft, fresh.” 

Despite police officially naming DeGraffenreid as their only suspect, police privately said more than one murder suspect existed. Were other people in Juanita Todd’s apartment when she died?

Police need to find out.

Blood.

Fibers.

Hair.

A knife.

A blood-spattered coin.

Suspects.

The evidence should be available to a mostly new generation of diligent investigators who take seriously the painful mystery that shrouds the shameful death of Juanita Todd.

As any good detective or prosecutor knows, evidence means everything in a murder case.

Cops called her “colored.”

Two white male Wilkes-Barre police officers described Black homicide victim Juanita Todd as “colored” in the box reserved for “race” in their September 28, 1972 “initial crime report.”

This pejorative helps us understand why police failed to work as hard to find who killed the 22-year-old single mother of two as they might have worked had she been the daughter of a white cop or the mother of white children. Defending the use of the derisive term as commonplace in a different time only excuses official cruelty that hurt and belittled Black people, denying and depriving them of equal access to justice and protection under the law.

In the eyes of countless white people in an overwhelmingly white town, Juanita Todd was not one of us. At least Deputy Coroner Walter W. Lisman had the decency to describe Juanita Todd’s nude body as “black” in his September 28, 1972 report.

The police officers also wrote in their report, “Two colored female children, approx (sic) ages 1 and 2 were in the room with the victim.”

More than 50 years later those Black children have families of their own. Odetta Todd and her sister Tamu still seek answers about their mother’s death as they continue their fight for fairness.

In February 1994 Juanita’s mother, Mimi, told Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reporter Mitch Morrison she “doubts whether the police ever launched a serious investigation.”

“Black on Black (crime) was never a big issue,” she told Morrison.

Mimi Todd believed white cops neglected Black victims – even murder victims like her daughter whom the autopsy report calls a “Negro.”

To deny racism exists in Juanita Todd’s case is to deny common sense.

Mercy matters.

But in one grim case when Wilkes-Barre police did express interest in “Black on Black” crime, racial discrimination still ruled. Years before police reopened the Juanita Todd investigation, I wrote numerous columns about the 1986 murder of Hugh “Mac” McGhee, a 96-year-old Black man robbed, tortured, strangled with a belt and possibly raped in his small Wilkes-Barre home.

City police arrested three Black men for killing McGhee. Police only arrested a fourth suspect, a local white woman whose father worked with state police as a civilian employee, after I reported her alleged role in the crime and wrote columns in which the key witness in the case implicated her in the homicide.

Trent Ward, one of the accused Black men, told me from jail he was in another state at the time of the murder. After I reported his story, police and prosecutors finally pursued his claim that he could not have participated in the crime. Prosecutors dropped charges against Ward and he walked free.

Wilkes-Barre police had charged an innocent Black man with murder.

Sometime later I asked a well known detective who investigated McGhee’s murder – the same detective who as captain of detectives would head up the reopened 1994 Juanita Todd investigation – why he hadn’t previously checked out Ward’s alibi that was not difficult to confirm.

“We needed another N…..,” he said, using America’s most powerful racial slur.

Although I considered that detective a friend at the time, we were very different people. His comment bothered me for years. It still does. Why didn’t I write a column about his white-hot racism? Why didn’t I alert people in my community to the untold damage a racist white cop in our midst could do?

For better or worse, journalists protect our sources. Off the record is off the record.

Because that same former criminal investigator died in 2020 at age 70, I can now lay bare his story to show how bigotry systematically played a crucial role in Luzerne County criminal justice.

In 1993, after a chance meeting with Juanita Todd’s brother in a Wilkes-Barre bar and seeing her memorial photograph in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader where I worked, I started writing about the case. Because of my news columns, Luzerne County District Attorney Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. assembled a task force of several city and county detectives to reopen the 22-year-old case. Olszewski appointed the well known Wilkes-Barre chief of detectives to head up the team.

In 1994 I located suspect Douglas DeGraffenreid in a California prison. The detective captain and another city detective traveled to California to interview him. Not long after the prison interview, the lead detective convinced colleagues to abandon the case because DeGraffenreid refused to confess to the murder.

Good cops still cared.

Bad cops never did.

Police had stopped looking for DeGraffenreid about two decades earlier when he left the state less than two months after Juanita Todd’s murder. City detectives had already interviewed him and, based on their suspicion that he knew more than he was saying, asked if he would submit to a lie detector test. He reluctantly agreed to take the test. Then he fled.

Officials later issued a warrant for his arrest but for another crime. DeGraffenreid was wanted for an aggravated assault and battery against a friend of Juanita’s, a man who accused DeGraffenreid of attacking him several weeks after her murder during an argument in The Soul Bar on Hazle Street. 

DeGraffenreid left town, however, and missed his assault hearing scheduled before Magistrate Michael Collins. Luzerne County Judge Richard Bigelow issued a second warrant for DeGraffenreid after he absconded, charging him with violating the year probation he was serving for burglaries.

Claiming they lost track of their prime murder suspect, Wilkes-Barre police quit looking for DeGraffenreid. But police did know his whereabouts. Shortly after DeGraffenreid left town, a newspaper article in The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reported the suspect contacted Wilkes-Barre police to turn himself in.

Police dispatcher Henry Wichowski reported receiving a call from DeGraffenreid who informed the officer he was calling from Los Angeles, California.  DeGraffenreid admitted beating up a Wilkes-Barre man before he took off, according to the newspaper article. DeGraffenreid said he was tired of being pursued and wanted to give himself up. He told the officer if the police wanted him they should contact the Sheriff’s Department of Los Angeles County.

Nobody bothered to call.

DeGraffenreid remains incarcerated in a substance abuse unit of a California state prison serving a life sentence on an unrelated Los Angeles homicide he committed after moving to California. He has been as consistent in his denial of guilt in the Juanita Todd case as the Wilkes-Barre detective captain had been in his pattern of dishonesty.

After the detective captain retired from the Wilkes-Barre Police Department in 1995 he went to work as Luzerne County’s public safety municipal coordinator.

In 1999 then Mayor Tom McGroarty criticized retired Wilkes-Barre officers for padding their overtime as members of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s drug task force. Police made few arrests, critics charged. The extra money increased the detective captain’s city police pension as well as that of his partner, the same detective who accompanied him to California and spoke with DeGraffenreid. The suspect says the detective captain never saw or spoke to him during that visit.

In 2003 Luzerne County commissioners appointed the former detective captain to the board of the county housing authority that oversees public housing for low-income residents, many of whom are Black.

In 2007 the former Wilkes-Barre detective captain was among a group of county employees who attended a gang conference in California. The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reported, “Some had questioned the conference, which cost the county about $10,000, because it had not been approved in advance.”

In 2008, the year after I returned to Northeastern Pennsylvania after living in California for five years, I heard talk of the former captain’s latest political scheming. In addition to serving on the housing authority, a position to which he brought no related qualifications, he also worked investigating backgrounds of FBI special agent applicants.

I checked his county expense reports, saw discrepancies and called him to say we needed to talk. We met alone in a conference room at the radio station where I then worked. He wanted to talk off the record. No, I said, this time everything is on the record. When I pressed for answers about his expenses he reminded me of the Juanita Todd case as if he had done me a personal favor.

“I went to California to interview DeGraffenreid,” he said.

“You were supposed to go to California to interview DeGraffenreid,” I said.

Accusing me of harassing him, he threatened to take legal action. He stormed out. We never spoke again.

In 2009 this former Wilkes-Barre captain of detectives pleaded guilty to a federal felony in connection to his housing authority work and cooperated with federal prosecutors, providing information against three other public servants who pleaded guilty to federal public corruption charges.

His lawyer told the judge his client should be spared prison because of his distinguished service as a police officer. His lawyer said the detective was devastated he let down the public, his family and himself, and that his otherwise outstanding reputation was now tarnished, the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reported.

“If we don’t take that (violation of the public trust) seriously it’s silent anarchy,” the judge said before sentencing him to serve two months in prison. “It’s troubling to me that you were a police officer and stooped to this kind of behavior.”

This “distinguished” former police officer was the same man who arrested and charged an innocent Black man with murder – the same man who used his power to control and close the Juanita Todd case by unduly influencing city, county, state and federal law enforcement officers with whom I socialized and regarded as sources.

We drank together. We shot guns on a police combat range together. The detective and I helped convict a white Wilkes-Barre dentist who killed his wife and tried to cover up his crime. When my father, a legendary former Pennsylvania State Police detective, suffered a stroke and he and my mother moved back to Scranton from the Harrisburg area, the detective drove him there as I followed with my mother in my dad’s car.

Yet, despite the good this bad detective did, he disrespected Black people so much he and other white law enforcement officials dismissed Juanita Todd as just another “colored” woman they considered undeserving of a complete and honest investigation into her merciless death.

Biased and reckless from the start, the context of how police handled this case only added to the eventual failure of the investigation. Did police actually test blood, fibers and other physical evidence they found at the crime scene?

Police wrote in their initial report that “A knife was protruding from her right side (abdomen)”. Do Wilkes-Barre police still possess that murder weapon?

Do police have the “small strands of fiber-like material” the autopsy report says the doctor removed from beneath her fingernails and turned over to city police? Do police still have the blood-stained sheet somebody tied around Juanita Todd’s neck? Does DNA exist that can be tested with new and improved technology?

What still exists are suspects.

And not just Douglas DeGraffenreid.

Do police and prosecutors know the person many people believe killed Juanita Todd is alive and well and living in Wilkes-Barre? That alleged perpetrator’s name today is the same as yesterday.

Black Wilkes-Barre has not forgotten.

More than fifty years later truthful answers to these questions remain long overdue.

Each cut, 22 stab wounds, rips Juanita Todd’s flesh, drawing blood for each of the 22 years she has lived.

The blade tears open her face, her neck, her breasts.

An electric fan whirs in the small stifling apartment as Juanita’s babies – Odetta, 18 months, and Tamu, five months – lay unharmed near their mother’s body. Somebody knots and tightens a bedsheet around Juanita’s neck. Somebody might even feed the toddlers and change a diaper.

It is September 28, 1972, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Almost 51 years later police no longer look for this proud Black woman’s killer or killers.

Cops didn’t look too hard back then, either.

About 30 years ago I wrote a series of newspaper columns that prompted then Luzerne County District Attorney Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. to reopen the police investigation. That was 22 years after Juanita Todd died – one year for each year of her young life.

Twenty-two knife wounds.

Twenty-two years of age when she died.

Fate sometimes conjures unlucky numbers.

Olszewski told Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reporter Mitch Morrison in February1994 the case’s “reactivation was prompted” after he read my columns about the murder.  

“Before that I never even heard of it. I was in seventh or eighth grade when it happened,” said Olszewski, who went on to become a Luzerne County judge and now practices law in Northeastern Pennsylvania as a smart veteran prosecutor and defense attorney.

WNEP-TV this week aired “The Unsolved,” a two-part investigation into the Juanita Todd murder. The report omitted too much crucial information. More facts need to be reported. More must be said.

That’s why I’m re-examining the case. Each Sunday of my new series I’ll post a column on my website and on Facebook. On Monday I’ll read the Sunday column in a video posted on Facebook. We’ll revisit the past, chronicle the present and hopefully create a more just future in Northeastern Pennsylvania, a historically corrupt and racist region.

We owe Odetta and Tamu, their families and our community more than we have given.  There is no such thing as a cold case. All unsolved murders seethe with loss. All unresolved homicides boil over with pain. Unanswered questions burn hot with heartache.

WNEP renewed some interest in the case but not enough. My search will thoroughly reevaluate facts known and facts not yet publicly disclosed – facts I didn’t know then which I just learned in the few days since the television report.

I welcome local media outlets and other journalists at platforms such as NBC’s Dateline, 20/20, BBC True Crime, BlackPressUSA, podcasts such as Black Girl Gone and documentary film makers such as Robert May to join me in the ongoing search for truth about Juanita Todd, a strong Black woman mainstream society has mostly forgotten.

I called Odetta the day after WNEP-TV broadcast part one of the story.

“I didn’t expect to be talking with you this afternoon,” I said when Odetta answered.

“I didn’t expect to be talking with you, either,” Odetta said.

We last spoke briefly about four years ago when we ran into each other in a Wilkes-Barre area supermarket. That day young family members stood nearby, polite and quiet. Since then her son graduated from a state university with a degree in criminal justice. I smiled, left with my groceries and went on with my life.

Odetta went on with hers.

Our life experiences remain vastly different for many reasons. A white middle-class male can’t see the world through the eyes of a Black woman who says she remembers her family being called “colored” and “Negro” in a city that still calls Black people worse. I can’t feel what Odetta feels. But I can use my privilege and experience to help her try to set straight a crooked record of inequality and injustice. I can do that and I will.

Race matters in this story.

Gender matters in this story.

Class matters in this story.

We all matter in this story.

“My mom was tortured and tormented to death,” Odetta said when we spoke Thursday on the phone.

While we talked Odetta helped me remember. At almost 72 my memory isn’t as sharp as hers. I stopped writing about too many homicides in which I once specialized and put aside the terrible details of cases in which I once played a part. I told Odetta I don’t regret much about my turbulent decades as a local newspaper columnist. But I’m sorry I failed her family.

I once sat talking quietly with Juanita’s late mother and father in their small house, people of sound faith who raised Odetta and Tamu the best they could. I assured them I would do everything I could to help find their daughter’s killer or killers and push police and prosecutors to make an arrest. I hope they believed me despite their having every reason to distrust police, the press and white people.

But I didn’t do enough. I tried my best. I found the man police called their “one main suspect” whom they lost for decades until I located him in a few days in a state prison serving a life sentence for a California murder. I pushed. But, no, I didn’t do enough.

My biggest mistake was trusting the lead detective in the case whom I believed wanted truth as much as I did, a “friend” who later served time in federal prison after pleading guilty to political corruption and years later died in disgrace.

As renewed interest in the case grew, the detective and his partner flew to California to interview their “one main suspect,” a friend of Juanita Todd’s, who denied he killed her. When the detective returned, he told me he spoke to the man in prison. Evidence was weak and prevented police from making an arrest, the detective said.

I believed him.

The detective went to California all right, but his “one main suspect” says the detective never interviewed him. The detective’s partner, another hardcore white cop not known for his investigative skills, visited the prison, talked briefly to the suspect and reported back that the inmate had nothing to say.

The lead detective put on an empathetic face when he told me the case was over.

Officially it was.

I wrote a newspaper column commending the detective and his partner for trying. Odetta told me this week she got mad at me when she read that column in which I praised the lead detective for being one of the best cops in the city’s history. Did that detective, my “friend,” manipulate me into thinking the main sole suspect was the only suspect?

If so, why?

Because other murder suspects in the case still exist, Odetta said.

Police always knew that, she said.

Nobody told me.

The one main suspect remains in prison in California. He still denies the killing. Thirty years ago he refused to confess even after the detective offered to work to relocate the man to a Pennsylvania prison if he pleaded guilty to killing Juanita Todd so he could serve his sentence closer to his family.

That inmate and I need to talk.

When I ended my search for truth so long ago I let down Juanita Todd’s family.

That’s why I must return to the story and look deeper into who killed an unassuming Black woman and mother who died a savage death in a tough tribal town of about 43,000 people where I lived and worked for 17 years, an overwhelming white ethnic place I once called in a column “pound for pound the most racist city in America.”

Back then I wrote a lot about race. 

Not much there has changed.

Police and prosecutors must again reopen the case. The search for truth still matters for judges, prosecutors, cops, journalists and good citizens everywhere.

Truth secures us.

Deceit tears us apart.

The system in which most people still place faith stole justice from Juanita Todd’s family, friends and community in a bold abuse of public service and accountability. Powerful people, white people, controlled and dominated the Juanita Todd case in an unconscionable abuse of power. If any of us ever hopes to progress as a civilized society we must together face the aftermath of their betrayal.

I want to help change this unjust world.

So must you.

The troubling case of Juanita Todd is complex, uncertain and still constantly changing. But, like it or not, hope for our future remains a stark and unsettling matter of black and white.

Better than a wind-up alarm clock, the gulls squawking encouragement outside Sam Bennett’s open bedroom window woke him with the sacred call of the wild. Announcing the dawn of a unique evolutionary day, the birds soared, gliding above his balcony and building at the Paradise Apartments, swooping excitedly as if they knew today would mark unimaginable metamorphosis for a new age.

Sam Bennett rolled slowly to his knees from a worn mattress on the floor. Planting one foot after the other on the hard wood he rose slowly, wriggling his fingers, rotating his neck and starting to gently flap his arms until he found a lazy rhythm. Then Sam stood still.

No more practice.

No more thought.

No more hesitation.

Time to fly.

Sam hadn’t slept all night, lying awake feeling his heart pound in his throat and the muscles twitch in his arms. Jitters didn’t throw him. Just butterflies, he thought, the word for a bundle of nerves named after delicate creatures that flew with ease, lifting and riding natural air currents without a conscious thought. If Sam’s instincts proved correct, within the hour he would take wing and fly alongside the monarchs and the gulls, showing the world he, too, could fly. To put himself in the right frame of mind Sam mixed a glass of orange Tang breakfast drink powder with tap water like the astronauts drank when Sam first dreamed as a kid of taking off.

Yes, the time had come.

Within minutes Sam Bennett stood at the edge of the Paradise Apartments’ roof overlooking the pier and several grouper fishing boats docked in the harbor two stories below. Shirtless Sam Bennett calmly swayed, balancing on bare flat feet with black hair sprouting from the tops of his toes. He wore a pair of 40-year-old cutoff blue jeans with white bleach stains burned into the thighs. To reduce aerodynamic drag, he had cut his unruly hair the night before using a cereal bowl he placed on his head that resulted in his looking like Moe in the 1962 movie The Three Stooges in Orbit, one of Sam’s all-time favorites. Breathing slowly, deeply and ready for takeoff, Mother Nature’s newest sky pilot grinned and prepared to kiss the peachy salmon sky.

RayRay saw him first. Kim spotted him next. Randall and Durkin came jogging up from their morning run on the beach and stood silently by the swimming pool, not knowing what to do or say. Ruby turned from where she had been doing warrior pose yoga on the dock and looked up. Time seemed to stop. Everybody knew what was about to happen.

Nobody wanted to interrupt Sam’s reverie or scare him, although everybody knew by now Sam Bennett didn’t scare easily. The freedom promise he made to himself mattered more than the heavy odds of dying. Nobody would ever say Sam killed himself. Trying to fly after training, practicing and believing he would fly for his entire adult life did not define suicide – madness maybe but not suicide. Anyone who had a heart loved Sam Bennett, rooting him on even though they all knew he might perish.

Like Sam often said, “You don’t know unless you try.”

Bending at the knees, Sam began to flap his arms up and down and up and down leaning forward, leaning back and leaning forward once again. Margot circled high above his head, landing on one of the dock railings. Flapping spotless gray and white wings up and down and up and down she did her best to offer moral support and encouragement to her dear human friend.

Now she waited.

Dillon circled, too, landing beside his gull friend and literally waited with baited breath since he had earlier gorged himself on a breakfast of shrimp, crabs and clams folded into a corn tortilla dripping with chipotle sauce he dug out of a hotel Dumpster.

You could almost feel time go by.

And on this magnificent Clearwater Beach morning off the edge Sam Bennett went. Gravity took over as soon as he left the roof with his chin raised and his arms spread as wide as any screaming eagle’s wings. Sunlight glistened from his watery eyes, probably reflected from the chlorine-filled swimming pool as he started to plummet faster and faster.

Kim gasped and turned away.

Randall and Durkin screamed at the same time.

“Sam!”

RayRay took off rushing closer to the drop zone with the power of a blitzing Buffalo Bills linebacker to be the first one to try and revive his longtime pal when he smashed into the concrete. Ruby stared as Sam dropped into what could be his final descent.

Then up he went.

Sam’s sudden ascent comprised a split-second change of direction in Sam’s downward trajectory – upward movement that seemed impossible except during a tornado or hurricane. But the wind today blew haltingly as Sam rose. How could he ascend? Flapping with what seemed like stronger strokes and increased acceleration, Sam climbed about an inch higher from where he had started. Gliding now, Sam Bennett banked to the right, sailing forward before descending another inch, now nosediving toward the ground.

This is it, Ruby thought.

Sam’s cooked, RayRay thought.

“Oh, shit,” Dillon said.

Then up again he went, banking this time to the left before turning to the right, accelerating and advancing in a straight line. Five momentous seconds of what any credible witness would swear looked like flight passed before Sam went down, down, down.

From the beginning almost everybody had stood frozen except Rocco and Ricco, the muscle-headed professional wrestler duo who had been practicing summersaults, flips and leaps near the pool. They heard the commotion and raced to the scene as soon as they spotted Sam on the roof. But first they grabbed the extra-large air bag they were using for their stunt practice and dragged the safety cushion into place on the ground beneath the roof from which Sam had taken off and where he would crash.

Bullseye!

Not splat!

Bullseye!

Sam Bennett’s body slammed into the thick soft mat. The bag sucked him into warm comfort as the buffer embraced his girth. Climbing into the center of the bag, Rocco and Ricco quickly lifted Sam to safety. Critics might refer Sam to a rubber room when, in fact, our hero found refuge in an inflatable womb. As you might expect, no critics spoke up that day.

Raising Sam onto their shoulders the two strapping wrestlers cheered. Marching Sam around the swimming pool like the winning football coach at the Outback Bowl, they knew an accomplishment when they saw one – once enjoying their own moment of glory when Rocco bit legendary grappler Hulk Hogan on the ankle, making him cry in the ring, while Ricco bit the Hulkster on the shoulder like a hungry sewer rat after jumping on his back and refusing to let go.

Like everybody else on the scene, the “Terrible Twins Tag Team from Hell” believed Sam Bennett had flown through the air with the greatest of ease. If only for five seconds, in their minds’ eyes he flew. Everybody who witnessed the event would eventually agree over many drinks that Sam Bennett flew. Nobody called the newspapers or the television stations. Nobody shot video or posted on social media.

They knew.

They just knew.

 “Did you see me?” Sam asked Ruby.

“We saw you, Sam,” Ruby said. “We all saw you.”

“Who wants to buy me a martini?” he asked.

                                                                  The End

When two dolphins surfaced and smiled at Ruby Arenas she laughed so hard she got a mouthful of salt water. A normal morning swim in the Gulf of Mexico turned even more joyous than usual as Ruby took long strokes, cutting through blue-white waves, propelling herself through warm water that refreshed her more than she could remember.  

Unbeknownst to her, though, the heart of her physical and mental discipline lay just below the water’s surface – in her face and close enough to taste. Training to fight felt wrong. Ruby loved peace, worked for peace, expected peace. But nowadays evil too often arose unexpectedly, baring sharpened teeth and jaws to hunt, kill and destroy. As good as Ruby felt, she knew her imminent duel to the death with demon Becky would soon begin.

Becky exuded evil. Bleeding psychic carnage into Kim Phillips’ mind, she poisoned everyone and everything she touched. As Ruby glided through the water’s warm embrace she wondered if she possessed the courage to successfully confront such hatred and bitter malice. Evil defines inhumanity. Becky oozed raw evil.

Becky had infested Kim’s spirit many years before, overtaking her mind, inhabiting her awareness as the worst of several split personalities. Born as protector, conjured as savior to help Kim cope and survive trauma, instead of protection Becky supplied retribution, turning kindly Kim into killer Kim, a vindictive beast instead of the beautiful person Ruby knew Kim to be.

As soon as the dolphins fled Ruby sensed trouble. Beware when dolphins stop smiling, she thought. Now she saw the thick gray-white fin moving her way. Protruding a foot from the water, the fin cut a swath through strong current as easily as a sharp blade moving through key lime pie. Turning her head to exert a stronger stroke, Ruby felt darkness overtake light as Santa Muerte’s face replaced the fiery oval of the sun.

“This is your final test,” the Mexican death saint told her goddaughter. “Your performance today determines whether you live to take my place.”

Breaking the surface with the power of a natural submarine, a 17-foot great white shark arose showing bloodstained teeth. A murderous mask mirroring Becky’s face replaced the shark’s face. Ruby almost stopped swimming. How do you fight a great white shark and a demon at the same time? A great white shark instilled with a savage split personality, a monstrous great white on the prowl, is bad enough. But a multiple personality great white sends sadistic shivers up the back of the devil himself.

Diving, Ruby surprised the shark by swimming beneath its belly. Coming up on the other side, the shark momentarily lost track of Ruby’s whereabouts. Rolling left the great mammal lowered its massive body enough for Ruby to grab its fin, pull herself up like a bucking bronco rider and hang on for dear life.

Becky’s voice cackled through the air bubbles.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Becky said.

This can’t possibly be real, Ruby thought, trying to convince herself the Becky-faced fiend had materialized as a horrible figment of her imagination, a hallucination brought on by intense water temperature, hyperventilation due to irregular breathing in rough water, a panic attack. Maybe Santa Muerte’s powerful mental presence that seemingly appeared on the wrong side of goodness for the first time in Ruby’s life would finally claim her. Maybe Ruby would fail the test.

Ruby focused on her breath and tried to stay calm.

“I am the light,” she told herself. “I am powerful. I am Santa Muerte only if I prevail.”

Now the gigantic frenzied fish dove deeper, twisting and turning as if she knew she had a rider on her back, an unwelcome visitor who appeared like an itch you just couldn’t reach to scratch. Curling, spinning, opening and closing her jaws, the shark did her best to shake Ruby who tightly clutched the fin with both hands. Again changing direction, the shark rose with great speed, allowing Ruby to catch her breath before the great white dove again, scattering schools of small fish that swam for cover.

“Ride ’em cowboy,” Ruby heard Becky yell.

Up and down and up and down they went in a seemingly endless nautical roller coaster ride. Ruby worried she couldn’t hang on much longer until she realized she wouldn’t have to.  Coming fast from the western horizon, a very gargantuan danger approached. In the distance Ruby saw the water spout – not the tornado type but the spout of water that erupts from a killer whale’s blowhole. Fast closing the distance, the great white shark’s only predator sped to the rescue.

“Thank you, Orca,” Ruby said.

Becky screamed, “Thar she blows!”

Ruby let go of the fin, swimming as fast as she could to escape the impending war between the titans. This massive marine mammal, a blood relative cousin to the two dolphins Ruby had earlier befriended, kept coming with all the power of a runaway train. Emerging and swimming excitedly in circles around Ruby, the two dolphins who had gone for help came through in a potentially deadly pinch.

The dolphins smiled.

One of them winked.

The great white couldn’t get away.

Ruby scanned the sky for Santa Muerte, but the bony lady had disappeared Craving peace even in what looked like a soon-to-come battle to the death, Ruby used the increasing power she felt to command a bloodless resolution to this unnatural natural dilemma. As the next Santa Muerte she expected nonviolence even from predators.

Ruby focused and transmitted to the beasts the vital life energy the Japanese call ki, the Chinese call chi and Indian mystics call prana. Ruby called the force her spirit.

Instead of slamming into the great white, the whale abruptly slowed, pulling alongside the smaller creature like an ocean cruise ship docking in a tropical paradise. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Not every killer whale must kill. Not every great white meat eater must either. Wild animals can make peace. The shark backed off, gliding safely to serenity, taking Becky with her.

Blasting one final gushing geyser, the Orca turned back to the vast seascape, joining her cousins for a final family dip in their earthly pool before parting. Ruby swore her sister dolphins blew her a kiss.

Treading water, trying to catch her breath and understand the magnitude of what just happened, Ruby allowed the current to carry her to shore where Kim stood holding out a beach towel decorated with images of surfing seagulls wearing Hawaiian shirts and baggie board shorts.

“It’s cool this morning,” Kim said. “I thought you might need this.”

“Did you see what happened out there?” Ruby asked, quickly noticing how Kim’s skin glistened through a sparkling aura that encircled her whole body, a blue hued resilience that Ruby felt fill her own body.

“It was like watching a horror movie with a happy ending,” Kim said. “I feel heavy mental chains breaking free from my brain. I feel like I ascended into the cosmos of no beginning and no end. My new psychiatrist, Dr. Carney, has been working with me. She gave me a new prescription and suggested I come to the beach, sit in the sand and meditate. So I did. For the first time in my life I followed the doctor’s orders.”

“Good for you,” said Ruby.

“RayRay hooked me up with her,” Kim said. “He’s the best big brother I could have.”

“Big brother?”

“It’s a long story,” Kim said.

“Don’t I know it,” Ruby said.

Kim’s facial expression showed a beatitude Ruby had never before witnessed.

“I thought I saw a whale hugging a great white shark out there,” Kim said. “I must have been daydreaming happy thoughts.”

“You deserve some happy thoughts,” Ruby said. ”We all do.”

Within swirling white clouds in a broad blue sky, Santa Muerte’s image now appeared brighter than usual, wearing a garland of fresh red roses around her neck and a rainbow-colored hood over her skull.

Santa Muerte winked.

Stinking of his favorite Jade East cologne, Florida Gov. Ronnie DeShifty screamed into the cell phone he held with one hand while combing his thick black hair with the other. DeShifty loved the spit-shined impression of himself he saw in the mirror. Dull, dapper, demented and short, even while preparing for a make-it-or-break-it public policy argument, he always got conservatively groomed. An American flag decorated with dollar signs replacing stars adorned the red, white and blue silk necktie he chose to wear at home that morning.

This confrontation was personal.

“I’m gonna be the next president of these United States!” the governor said with a bravado normally expressed by boot camp drill instructors. “On day one at the White House we invade Mexico.”

On the other end of a bad connection Meester Beeg sat parboiling in a hot tub at his Shangri-Lago resort master bedroom, struggling to keep from dropping the phone, holding on with short, stubby fingers lathered with greasy double cheeseburger drippings. Cradling the gold-plated device in the thick crease of his soft shoulder and flabby neck, he gnawed around the edges of the bun looking for the last hunk of juicy meat in the gross sandwich he gripped with both hands.

“No, you soft spoiled grapefruit, you, I’m gonna be president,” he roared. “I’m gonna personally invade Mexico.”

“Your alien wife is a floozy communist,” the governor said. “With all her plastic parts she looks like Mrs. Potatoboob.”

Meester Beeg retaliated.

“Your wife is a bargain basement concubine and nude fake news centerfold,” said the former president.

“You dye your pubic hair orange,” the governor said.

“You’re a closet Mickey Mouse,” said the former commander-in-chief.

DeShifty sputtered.

“Listen to Mr. Trans Man – a neutered transactional free market fraud.”

“Yeah, well you’re a one-man drag show.”

“You are.”

“No, you are.”

The telephone call went on like this for 20 minutes. Two exasperated FBI agents monitoring the conversation, Michele Delany and Donnie Driscoll, hung up before the presidential debate ended. Both federal law enforcement officers continued to use plastic forks to dig into cartons of cold Chinese food.

“Do you believe these clowns?” Driscoll said, adjusting his black watch cap and scratching an unruly red beard.

“Have you seen the pee pee tapes yet?” asked Delany, slurping beef lo mein noodles and splashing sodium free soy sauce down the front of her body armor.

“No,” Driscoll said, “but I hear the tapes are hotter than this extra spicy moo goo gai pan. Does Meester Beeg really dance the watusi in an edible red licorice thong to that James Brown song ‘Sex Machine?’”

Delany wrinkled her nose like somebody put real poo in her pu pu plater.

“As a grand finale the Russian hookers eat the thong,” she said.

“Like a Black Sea shark frenzy,” Driscoll said.

“I’ll make you a copy,” Delany said. “I’m showing the tapes at my bachelorette party Saturday night and giving a thumb drive copy to each of my bridesmaids.”

“Where’d you get the tapes, anyway?” Driscoll asked.

Delany gloated.

“RayRay Gigliardi is an old guy who owns a bar in Clearwater Beach where I drink when I’m up there,” she said. “He plays drums in the house rock band, slams shot glasses into a corner net with a hockey stick and drinks cocktails with his pet parrot.”

“Sounds nuts,” Driscoll said.

“RayRay said he found a plastic bag washed up on the sand marked TOP SECRET,” Delany said. “Wild man but good citizen that he is, RayRay knew right away he had to turn his discovery in to the government. He said he never opened the bag he just called me.”

A flickering light about as big as a Bic lighter flame went off in Driscoll’s head.

“Will your bridesmaids keep the tapes secret?”

“They won’t have to,” Delany said. “I already sold them to HBO.”

“Pardon the pun, but that exposure will ruin him,” Driscoll said. “Nobody will ever take him seriously again.”

Reaching for a fortune cookie, Driscoll chuckled when he read the fortune out loud.

 “Confucius say man who keep feet on ground have trouble putting on his trousers.”

Delany laughed so hard she spit a mouthful of miso soup across the surveillance van.

“What does that even mean?” she snickered.

Driscoll waved a leftover egg roll in Delany’s face.

“It means Meester Beeg should keep his presidential pee pee in his pants before somebody chops it off.”

Stepping from behind heavy auditorium curtains on the high school stage, Randall Lark moved from the shadows as alert as the special operations soldier he once was. Nobody saw his raw nerves, felt his mounting anxiety or heard his heart pounding in his chest.

On the other side of the stage Marty Durkin stepped at the same time from behind crimson curtains. He, too, strode with heightened awareness across chipped varnished floorboards where bored teachers usually produced teenage talent shows or anti-drug assemblies.

One Black, one white, the men met in the middle beneath a blue spotlight. Staring into each other’s eyes for an uncomfortable 30 seconds, they turned to face the audience packed with a fairly even balance of Black, white, Asian, Latino and mixed race students.

Durkin spoke first.

“When I worked as a police officer in New Jersey I shot and killed an unarmed 15-year-old Black child,” he said.

Now Randall spoke.

“That dead child was my baby brother, Tyrone,” he said.

“I’m a white man,” Durkin said.

“I’m a Black man,” Randall said.

“We’re friends,” they said together.

Again the men stared at each other. At first the students sat in silence. Rustling movement and nervous laughter created an audible buzz that grew and swept the hall like an angry swarm of hornets.

“Black lives matter,” shouted a white girl in the front row.

Cheers erupted mostly among the Black students.

Jumping from a front row seat the white male student council president shouted, “Back the blue.”

More cheers flared mostly from white boys. Randall waited for silence while almost everyone quieted down. Five or six Black girls suddenly stood, lifted their arms into the air and began to chant.

“Hands up! Don’t shoot! Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

Again Randall and Durkin waited for quiet.

Each tense second ticked in Randall’s head, pumping adrenaline-fueled apprehension into his brain, provoking mini-flashbacks of terrified villagers in Afghanistan standing panic-stricken in bloodstained snow with their hands in the air.

When the girls went silent Randall pointed at Durkin and spoke.

“I forgive him,” he said.

Durkin looked like he might faint. The room exploded in a mixed cacophony of 12-letter profanity, other insults and some weak applause. Teachers looked at each other worried that a riot might break out. Marty Durkin gathered all the courage he could and prepared to atone.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a steady voice. “I am so very sorry I shot and killed Tyrone Lark.”

A few tears greeted his remorse.

Randall stepped to the lip of the stage.

“Now what?” he asked. “Where do we go from here?”

For whatever the reason, luck included, most of the students seemed intrigued, drawn by the surprising and stark revelations between two adult men born into an American Way that nurtures, supports and furthers racism. Randall saw the opening and took it. He told the students about his war in Afghanistan and at home. He talked about hating Durkin, admitting he thought about killing him the same way he once killed Taliban fighters and others in Kandahar province – pulling the trigger without any tugs of conscience.

When he finished speaking, Durkin stepped forward. But as he started telling the student body how he dreamed of becoming a police officer from the time he was a child, again damning curses erupted. Enraged, a Black senior boy with a full Afro and yardstick wide shoulders rushed the stage. A white football coach bodily stopped his charge. A full water bottle bounced off the podium and rolled across the stage.  

“Lock him up,” screamed a Black girl with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Lock him up.”

Worried they were losing control, Randall sounded desperate.

“If I can forgive him so can you,” he said.

At the back of the room the principal stood wondering what he was thinking when he agreed to the assembly after talking to the two men who just walked into his office off the street offering to share their stories as a hopefully valuable lesson for the future. No way was he climbing the stairs and calling for order, the principal thought. No way.

With both hands at his side, Randall stood his ground. Durkin trembled. A 17-year-old undocumented Mexican boy and honor student raised his hand. When Randall pointed at him he looked directly at the tall Black combat veteran.

“Why didn’t you shoot him?” the boy asked.

“I was tired of killing,” Randall said. “I was tired of hating.”

Durkin’s eyes welled up.

So did Randall’s.

More questions followed. Tension slowly lifted. The scene got better instead of worse. After an hour the men stopped sweating, thanked the students for listening and left without attending the coffee and cake reception scheduled for the faculty lounge.

Outside Durkin leaned hard against the black 1965 Mustang fastback he bought when he was still a cop and drove straight through all the way to Florida.

“You want to do that again?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Randall said. “But first I need to catch my breath.”

Durkin reached out and the men shook hands.

“I can dig that,” Durkin said.

Randall Lark rolled his eyes.

“Whose idea was this anyway?” he asked.

“Ruby’s, if I remember correctly,” Durkin said.

“If I didn’t know better I’d swear she put a spell on us to get us to do what we just did,” Randall said.

“Ruby is something else, all right,” Durkin said.

“And then some,” said Randall.

Out of nowhere a gust of wind caught the American flag flying from the flag pole in the parking lot, popping the red, white and blue fabric so loudly the noise sounded like a gunshot. Both men flinched and looked up. Neither spoke as they stood beneath a faded Old Glory feeling sweat again begin to build in the hot and humid Florida afternoon, yet feeling good that they tried and would keep on trying to keep the peace.

Heed my words.

Santa Muerte does not repeat herself.

I’m talking to you.

Pay attention.

My hood is fashioned from human flesh. My eyes bleed from red stones set deep in hollow sockets of white bone that gleam pure as lost souls wandering a blistering Mexican desert. The handle of the scythe I carry is long enough to slay you wherever you try to hide. The globe I carry is your tomb. My skeletal fingers hold the fate of the world.

You cannot run from me, your worst nightmare that feeds on your brain cells. You are helpless before me, your personal Mexican death saint. No one stops my almighty power. Light your white candles. Light your black candles. Flame ignites my dominance. C’mon, baby, light my fire.

No matter how smart you think you are, your small minds have no idea how skillful I have become over centuries of death humanity brought on through greed, jealousy, hatred and ego. Those of you who respect my energy are wise. You desire safety, health, money, success.

Sí, muy bien.

You deserve love, good luck, well-being. You also crave justice and seek revenge. I’m listening, so talk to me. Peace and healing remain my preference, but I empathize with your need to get even. I embrace your suffering, your sickness, even your Covid virus.

This bony lady hears you.

Holy death will help you in your journey. But first you must ask for my guidance. I invite you to petition my assistance. Please. Because I decide who breathes, who lives. I decide who gasps for breath and who dies. Are you worthy of my touch? Only I decide. In exchange for my protection I expect devotion. Betray me and whither like bad grapes on the vine, shrinking, shriveling, dropping to mix with ancient soil and the sweet mysteries of existence.

I dare you to laugh at me. Break your promise and your children and grandchildren will one day twist in pain as I inflict torture and claim their lives. Their spirits already belong to me. Do you want them servile and naked, groveling in the foul underworld where my spells turn them into serpents that crawl fetid floors of feces and flame. Go ahead. Break your promise.

Santa Muerte always gets her way. Santa Muerte always gets her wish. Santa Muerte always wins.

Mother Death eventually claims all her children and takes them home.

Today I must offer an American sacrifice to teach humans a lesson and show my first cousin Mother Nature that humans deserve to continue evolving despite doing your worst to kill the planet. You pollute the environment and endanger majestic animals and other species. You poison the land, water, air and all the bountiful life that makes Earth the magnificent miracle she is.

Florida is special to Mother Nature and to me. We dig Clearwater Beach. If we were human we’d drink at RayRay’s Elbow Room.

So today I must decide whom to save, whom to condemn, whom to spare, whom to immolate. Today I choose the one to sacrifice, the one whose time has come. Whom shall I select?

Randall Lark wants to understand the dark puzzle of his existence, to make amends yet still get even.

Marty Durkin is a damaged man who retains only a thread of his pathetic composure.

RayRay is a good guardian of the light, a soldier fighting for fairness. He comprehends cold vengeance and adapts to the emptiness of the void.

Kim Phillips exhibits tenderness, has a big heart but is too easily led.

Ruby Arenas is my mirror image when I was a similar young seeker, a great feminist spirit upon whom so much depends.

Sam Bennett is my favorite.

But Becky presents my main concern. Her madness destroyed twin Irish demons and can kill the others. Becky drills their minds, blurring reality that washes the beach like a monster tidal wave turning homicidal. Becky is the obvious choice to die so we can make life easier for everybody.

But Randall and Marty might also welcome the quiet comfort of forever sleep.

RayRay will stoically accept whatever comes.

Poor Kim wouldn’t know what hit her if I put her out of her misery.

I laugh to envision Sam just raising his arms and flying away.

Or shall I make the ultimate offering of my dear goddaughter Ruby?  

Maybe even that savage parrot Dillon.

Whom shall I cast into the abyss, the chosen one to join me in the boneyard? What magic colors will guide their fate?

Look into my eyes, my children, while I select a sacrifice.

You Randall Lark radiate shades of deep forest green that shine like blazing emerald gemstones. Green is the color of justice, ethics and law. Guilty about killing civilians as an American soldier in Afghanistan, you pine for the loss of a child you named Boss, a boy you loved, a baby really, the enemy Taliban killed to punish you. You must restore your balance.

Marty Durkin? Blue for you. Young Tyrone Lark lives with you forever. You shot and killed him as a fearful white cop firing in the line of duty. Now he lives in your conscience. You see his face every time you face his brother. You need to gain new energy to continue to live and breathe freely.

RayRay Gigliardi, I see your bright white light shrouding the sacred purification of your spirit, healing amid chaos and confusion as you try to hide all emotion. I am pleased you completed your Russian project, by the way. I know you succeeded because I talked with the gators in the swamp.

Aztec gods who own underworld gold mines have asked me to ask you Kim Phillips to help them recover the precious metal wealthy mine owners stole. The gods sense pure gold love beating in your heart. The gods respect your 24-karat pulse.

Only purple suits you, my dear Ruby Arenas, goddess of witchcraft, as you continue to assist in casting my most powerful spells. You will succeed me as Santa Muerte. Purple becomes you. You become purple. Purple power to the people! You, Ruby Arenas, gatekeeper of the celestial realm, are destined to rule my kingdom.

And, you, Dillon, I have not forgotten you who embodies the red hot chili pepper aspect of Santa Muerte. You carry yourself with an almost human dignity unless you’re drunk. You, Dillon, fancy yourself as a superhero. We shall see. Avian flu is epidemic, you know.

Black for the old man sounds good, don’t you think, old man? You, Sam Bennett, insult yourself with this sad slur on natural aging. You yearn for flight and practice for the day when you will soar. But you now occasionally doubt yourself. You wonder if you are too old to fly. I sense gloom in your spirit, self-doubt I refuse to accept. Maybe you should just disappear. Or reject all fear of failing. I have faith, old man. You might one day soon surprise us all.

Becky, Becky, Becky.

Your insanity represents color and shade run amok. You are blessed but must be controlled. Your mad spirit threatens to forever fill creation with chaos in the vast beyond that has no beginning or end. Your insanity imperils time and space. Your lunacy sometimes scares even me.

Very well, I have said too much already.

The time has come for me to name my gift to our natural world.

One of you must die.

Who among you will perish?

With the hard knocks power of a knuckle sandwich delivered by a silverback lowlands gorilla, the rap on the door startled the Russian assassin, distracting him from the steely focus required to kill his targets.

Dropping his sniper rifle to the floor Igor rushed to the door. Expecting to see backup Russian hitman and comrade Lev whom Igor ordered to stay in the getaway car, Igor stiffened when he flung open the door. RayRay stood chewing gum like a stone-faced undertaker on the scene to pick up a body.

“You boys are late for our meeting,” RayRay said.

“How you know where to find us?”

“A little birdie told me,” RayRay said, catching a glimpse of Dillon sitting on the outside windowsill looking drunk and smug as the cat that ate the canary.

Frustrated, Igor asked if RayRay had the real estate contracts ready to sign.

“Change of plans,” RayRay said. “You and your partner meet me at the Spyglass Apartments in 15 minutes. I decided to turn over everything cheap to your new boss in Miami.”

Igor smirked, not knowing RayRay was carrying out his own contract – a double assassination pact he made with himself meant to settle a very personal score. Anybody who even thought about hurting his sister Kim died.

“When I heard you two professional killers threatened to whack that wonderful, I mean whacky, woman real estate agent you scared me half to death,” RayRay said. “Just you two guys threatened to murder her, right?”

“Just us,” said Igor. “We one deadly two-man show.”

“Double trouble,” RayRay said.

Igor showed gold front teeth – one emblazoned with a tiny red beryl gem in the shape of a five-pointed star.

“Old billionaire boss Borys is dead as smoked mackerel,” he said. “New boss of Russian Mafia is Meester Beeg. You promise to keep secret, though, because Meester Beeg is running for American president.”

“I promise,” RayRay said.

Now RayRay threw Igor a curve.

“I have a surprise for you boys,” he said. “A copy of the pee pee tape. The world will go wild.”

Hearing the words “pee pee tape” launched Igor into a jubilant Cossack dance, bending at the knees and kicking out his legs. Most Russians had heard about the notorious presidential pee pee tape showing an excited Meester Beeg showering in a Moscow prostitutes’ pee pee production, but few had ever seen the actual hinky kinky prostitutes participating in the perverted pee pee presentation. Leaking the pee pee tape would be BEEG! A leaked pee pee tape would help Igor and Lev take over their hometown mob.

RayRay had Igor by the red beets.

“When we show pee pee tape on Russian TV Meester Beeg will lose all power,” Igor said. “Lev and me become new Meester Beegs in Russian Mafia. Spend weekends soaking naked in mineral springs with Meesus Beeg and her hot friend Jenna.”

“You win,” RayRay said. “I’m afraid of the Russian Mafia. You big bad hitmen hold all the cards.”

“Glad you see writing on Kremlin wall, American dog,” Igor said.

“See you at the Spyglass in 15 minutes,” RayRay said.

Down on the beach where an excited crowd milled in the aftermath of the rescue spectacle, Ruby Arenas deftly maneuvered her way through a throng of people to reach Kim and Sam.

“That was a trip,” Sam told a local newspaper reporter.

Kim Phillips rubbed her eyes, tying to clear the high-flying fog of fear and madness from her head.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You’re OK,” Ruby said taking her hands.

“To hear you tell it, wench,” said Kim’s dangerous split personality. “I mean witch.”

“You and I need to talk,” said Ruby.

Becky sneered.

“Like a date? You asking me out on a date?”

“Tonight,” said Ruby. “At your place at the Paradise.”

“See you at eight,” Becky said. “Don’t be late.”

Randall Lark and Marty Durkin jogged up at the same time.

“That was close,” Randall said to Ruby.

“Too close,” Durkin said.

Ruby and Kim seemed deep in their quiet interaction so the men let them continue to talk.

“Where you been, by the way?” Durkin asked Randall.

“Packing,” Randall said. “I’m splitting.”

“Me, too.”

“Where you going?” Randall asked.

“Home. You?”

“Back to Africa,” Randall said.

Durkin looked at him like he was kidding.

“You realize how ridiculous that sounds?”

“As ridiculous as you going home,” Randall said. “Except for white supremacists everybody from Stone Harbor, New Jersey, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hates you.”

Both men stared hard at each other.

“Maybe we should both give Florida one last chance,” Durkin said.

“For old time’s sake?” Randall said.

“You want to team up?” Durkin asked.

“As what, Ebony and Ivory?” Randall asked.

“I hate Michael Jackson,” Durkin said.

“Same goes for Sir Paul,” said Randall.

“I’ll you know as soon as I figure out what we can do together,” Durkin said.

“You mean like work together?” Randall asked.

“With all we have in common we ought to be able to figure something out,” Durkin said.

“Real funny, Batman,” Randall said.

High in the sky Margot flew in circles, rising and falling on silky wind currents that lifted and dropped her among spongy bulbous clouds. Dillon flew by her side although she ignored the unkempt parrot. Beer on his beak turned her off. If he ever expected her to one day coast with him he’d have to straighten up and fly right.

Out of nowhere Sam Bennett started singing an old Frank Sinatra song.

“Fly me to the moon,” he crooned off-key. “Let me play among the stars.”

Not far from the beach RayRay mopped up pools of blood in Apt. 6 at the old Spyglass. Those three hungry Glades gators had made short work of the two Russians, leaving only a few body parts and meaty chunks for the pythons to swallow.

When the beasts had finished their meals, RayRay coaxed the Florida creatures into the back of a U-Haul truck and paid Rocco and Ricco to drive the creatures to the Everglades and release them. Their stomachs full, the reptiles slept the whole way home. Except for a booming burp here and there that echoed off both sides of the truck, they didn’t make a sound.

City officials would likely claim the Spyglass property for unpaid taxes. Nobody had cared for years about how dilapidated the complex had become. They would eventually demolish the structure.

After Sam Bennett moved out he had easily settled into comfy creature habits at RayRay’s Paradise. Everyone there clicked more and more each day, harmonizing with the vibes of their new apartments the way a jigsaw puzzle piece fit into the big picture. Over time, Ruby, Randall, Durkin, Kim, Rocco, Ricco, even Dillon and, of course, RayRay would all protect each other.

Only Becky posed a danger to everybody’s sanity.

Peace of mind at the Paradise seemed close at hand.