Michael Lister - Power in the Blood

As I paced through the tight quarters that I called home, I occasionally bumped into the thin walls or the cheap furniture.

As I walked and thought and bumped my way along, I wondered how Molly’s death figured into all of this. Skipper most likely killed her in order to keep her quiet. She was the only one who could link him to all of the crimes he was involved in, and she had nothing to lose by telling all. Nothing to lose, that was, except her life. I should’ve thought about that. I felt responsible for her death. Had I not been on such a pity-party binge, I probably would’ve thought of it. I was to blame. Just then it came to me. The thought at the edge of my consciousness slowly drifted in. I saw the stack of videotapes. Images of Maddox, Johnson, and Thomas flickered on the screen of my mind. What was it? What had I missed when I previewed the tapes?

I walked over and pulled the tapes out of the linen closet. I placed them on the floor in front of the TV stand and pulled a chair, my only chair, over in front of the TV. I turned on the TV and VCR and popped the first tape in. As it began to play, the images that had been floating around in my head the last few days came back to life, accompanied by the tape’s dull moans of both pleasure and pain.

I tried to watch other parts of the frame this time, forcing myself to look away from that which most drew attention to itself in each frame. Nothing. I did this with all the tapes and still nothing.

I sat there staring at the TV screen, now playing the late news. The anchorperson was saying that Molly’s car accident was believed to be suicide. She went on to say how distraught she had been over the death of her husband, an inmate in the local state prison.

I wasn’t really listening to her, though. I was still trying to think of what I had missed. I was sure it was on one of the tapes. What had it been? And, then it hit me like a tire iron across the face. I jumped up and ran toward my bedroom, bumping into the walls of the narrow hallway as I went. I retrieved the other tape-the eight-millimeter one-from the drawer in my bedside table and ran back into the living room, where the light was better.

While pastoring in Atlanta, I had helped our church begin a television ministry. We had a very small budget to begin with so, we used high eight tapes and equipment and did most of the work ourselves. I learned a lot about video production during that time. One of the things I learned was that it is best to fast forward a new tape all the way to the end and then rewind it to the beginning before you begin to record with it. This caused all of the loose magnetic particles on the tape to drop off so there would be fewer fade-outs during recording and playback. Most amateurs, however, did not practice this technique.

Therefore, you could tell how much tape they had used in recording because once the tape had been rewound, the part that had been used was not level with the part that hadn’t been used on the spool. This was because the tape that had been used was looser and uneven, whereas the tape that was unused was still wound tight and smooth.

As I looked at the eight-millimeter tape from Maddox’s collection, I could tell that an amateur had done the recording. Over half of the tape was loose and uneven, while the other half was smooth and tight. This meant that only half of the tape had been used before it was rewound. This also meant that an hour of footage was on the tape because it was a two-hour tape. However, we had only viewed a few minutes of it. There was more footage on the tape. I called Merrill, and in twenty minutes he was at my trailer with Uncle Tyrone’s eight-millimeter VCR.

“This better be good, man. I’s already asleep. I pulled a double today,” Merrill said as he entered the front door carrying the VCR.

“No promises, but a lot of potential. A lot of potential.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“I think there’s footage on this tape we didn’t see.”

“What? You called me over here for this. It could be Russ Maddox’s family reunion or something.”

“No, it’s not Maddox’s tape. He doesn’t have an eight-millimeter machine or camera.”

“So whose is it?” he asked.

“I think it’s Skipper’s. He would be able to shoot footage in the prison, and most people wouldn’t.”

“Well, let’s see, Sherlock,” he said and plopped down on the couch, the couch squeaking in protest as he did.

I put the tape in and pushed the fast forward button. After passing through the chapel scene at rapid speed, the screen turned to white noise and then to blue. I continued to fast forward it. In about three minutes, an image appeared on the screen again. It showed the infirmary at night. The camera was actually positioned in the hallway outside the infirmary and shooting through the glass windows. Inside the infirmary, Johnson and Thomas were the only patients. They were both on the far wall, and there were three beds in between them. The screen turned to snow again and then to blue, but before I could hit the fast forward button, an image flickered back on again.

It was a close-up of Johnson and Thomas having violent sex together on one of the beds in between them. They looked like animals, gnawing and pawing at each other. I saw no evidence of love or affection; they were both fully intoxicated. In about another minute, Strickland entered the room and caught them. She walked right up to where they were before they knew she was there. No sound could be heard from inside the infirmary, but there was a lot of sign language to hear. She addressed all her rage at Anthony. She obviously cared for him, but she looked as disgusted as anyone I had ever seen. She looked sick from her disgust and rage.

At first, Tony bowed his head and looked like a wounded little boy, but as she continued to blast him, something began to change. He glanced over at Johnson for his response to the whole scene, and that set him off. He punched Strickland hard in the stomach. She bent over and stepped back. Within seconds, Johnson was behind her forcing her down on the bed.

Like animals, they hit her some more, never on the face though. Experienced batterers. They ripped her clothes off and began to beat her and rape her. It seemed surreal to watch all of this violence and brutality in silence, and though there was no sound at all, the expressions on the faces of the men said it all. They smiled and laughed wickedly. They had become sadistic. I thought of Skipper-they had a good teacher. Within ten minutes, both Thomas and Johnson had raped, beaten, and sodomized Strickland.

First, Molly Thomas and then Sandra Strickland-Skipper was making his own little rape tape. I could tell that the second rape had actually occurred before the first one-Jacobson wasn’t in the infirmary like on the night of the murder, and Sandra Strickland wore the old gray nurse’s uniform that had since been abandoned by the department for something a little brighter. Why was it second on the tape? Skipper must have recorded a lot of footage during the first rape that he deemed unworthy, so he erased it and taped over it.

As I continued to watch something caught my eye-two things actually.

“Did you see that?” I asked Merrill.

“Yeah, they beat the hell outa that white woman,” he said. “They both beat and raped her, but she killed the black one first.”

“No, not that. Look,” I said as I rewound the tape. I played it back. At some point near the end, a door opened into the hallway where the camera was positioned. “Did you see it?”

“What are you talking about?” he said.

“Watch,” I said. I rewound the tape and played the same footage again. This time when the door opened and the light poured into the hallway, I pushed the still button. There he was. When the light came into the dark hallway, it made the glass the camera was shooting through reflect images like a mirror. It showed who the cameraman was. It was Matthew Skipper.