Nestled on Florida’s forgotten coast between Panama City and Tallahassee, PCI is quickly becoming the largest prison in the state. It’s already nearly double the size of Pottersville, and rumors persist that eventually death row will be housed here.
“He hasn’t just changed,” she said. “I’d’ve expected that. I mean he’s completely different. I wouldn’t’ve recognized him if we’d met on the street.”
“How was he different? Physically? Did he talk differently? Was it his countenance? Was he harder?”
“I can’t explain it, but I’m worried. Will you check on him?”
Her questions came across as demands, and I sensed that her aloofness emanated from a sense of superiority more than insecurity. As sensual as she seemed, I suspected her sexuality was more about power than pleasure, that it, like everything she possessed, was always in the service of something else—something she probably wasn’t even ware of. Of course, I had known her all of ten minutes, and I had been wrong about women a time or two before.
“Sure,” I said.
“Just see if you notice anything strange about him.”
As the day grew dimmer, the light coming through the tinted glass of the control room seemed to intensify, and I could see the sergeant and the officer scurrying around to clear count.
“Four years is a lot of time,” I said.
“I know, but I also know my brother. He’s very different—and, in addition to everything else, very scared.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Any idea why?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. We ran out of time. Right now I just want you to check on him.”
“Okay,” I said, “but maybe he was just nervous about seeing you.”
“But you’ll check on him? You don’t think I’m crazy?”
“Of course not.”
I had received an anonymous note earlier in the day claiming that a murder would take place during the Catholic Mass in the PM unit later that night. It was why I was reentering the institution after having already put in a full day, and why I didn’t think she was crazy.
We were silent for an awkward moment, neither of us knowing what else to say.
Finally, we said goodbye and she began to walk away, but after just a few steps I called after her.
“Four years is a long time,” I said again. “Why so long?”
“I just couldn’t see him the way things were.”
“What changed?”
She gave me a tentative tight-lipped smile. “I found out he was innocent.”
2
The death of the day was now complete, and as I made my solitary walk down the empty upper compound, the chapel, chow hall, and infirmary on either side of me were merely massive black shapes in the darkness. The cold wind whistling around the vacant buildings stung my eyes, and I shivered—though not from the wind alone—as if there were small slivers of ice embedded in my spine.
Count had yet to clear, which meant the whereabouts of all the inmates was uncertain. It also meant an unseen predator, shank in hand, could be stalking me right now, waiting for the right moment to leap from the darkness and pounce on me, his unsuspecting prey.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . .
There was no moon, just a smattering of faint stars distorted by the clouds that shrouded them—small shards of illumination like light refracted off broken glass set against the slate night sky.
Fifty yards ahead a single flood lamp made a small pool of light in the sally port between the center gates that separated the upper and lower compounds, and I followed it like a guiding star. It was getting colder, and my earlier warm feelings about fall now seemed a season away.
Was Justin Menge innocent? Or was that just a sister’s wishful thinking? The latter was far more likely, but something inside me wanted it to be the former.
Beyond the center gate, through the slight fog that had set in, the street lamps scattered throughout the lower compound looked to be a distant port town seen from the dark waters offshore.
I thought again about the ways in which I was changing, the extent to which the two sides of my convictions and calling—compassion and justice—were so often in conflict, out of balance. This happened most often when I was involved in a homicide investigation—I had yet to recover from a recent one involving a little girl named Nicole Caldwell—but it was always a struggle.
The effort it took for me to put one foot in front of the other reminded me of just how tired I was. Then I realized, I’m not just tired. I’m weary—in every sense of the word—which is a dangerous state to be in, especially in a place like this. It made me far more vulnerable, susceptible—not just to the environment, but to my own weaknesses and failures of faith.
Unbidden and unwelcome, thoughts of Paula Menge’s sexual potential invaded my mind—she was as elegant and enigmatic as any feline I had ever encountered. I tried to banish them, though not right away, and not very hard.
People who don’t really know me are often surprised that a man of the cloth is as preoccupied with sex as I am. I tell them I’m a man first, I’m not a Puritan, and sexuality is a big part of spirituality.
But I couldn’t entertain thoughts like those for long—not even out of mostly innocent, never-to-be-acted-on curiosity. I was a married man—sort of. My ex-wife had failed to file our divorce papers and after a year apart we were attempting reconciliation. It was going well. We were different people and it just might work this time. I was committed, trying to be as faithful in my heart as I was with my body, but interactions with women like Paula Menge certainly didn’t do much to help the cause.
“Where the hell are you?”
The voice jolted me from my thoughts.
I looked up. In the small circle of light in between the center gates, I could make out the thick-bodied figure of Tom Daniels.
Tom Daniels was the Inspector General of the Florida Department of Corrections, and I was almost as surprised to see him at our institution as I was to see him sober. Like me, he was a recovering alcoholic, but his recovery was still so recent that I hadn’t gotten used to it yet.
“What?”
In his late-fifties, Daniels was an inch or so taller than my six feet, which meant I always had to look up to meet his eyes. His brown hair had the slightest of waves in it—perhaps it was more wiry than wavy—and formed a widow’s peak at the top of his forehead. Though he was in remarkable shape for a man his age, he had gotten much thicker over the last few years. But he carried it well, and there was nothing about him that seemed soft.
“You havin’ deep spiritual thoughts?” he asked.
“Depends how you define them. Some would say they were just the opposite.”
“About my daughter?”
“But only in the most respectful ways.”
In addition to being the IG, Tom Daniels was also my ex-father-in-law—or at least he would have been had Susan filed the papers.
“Things’re goin’ good between you two?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Think you’ll be movin’ back to Atlanta or can you talk her into movin’ down here?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “We really haven’t talked about it.”
Actually, we had, but I didn’t want to get into it with him.
“Well, try to get her down here,” he said. “I miss her like hell.”
I didn’t say anything. Even though he and I had attended a few meetings together and were becoming friends for the first time in our lives, I still felt awkward and guarded around him. I was used to mean, antagonistic drunk Tom Daniels, and finding friendly, sober Tom Daniels much more difficult to take. Not that he had been a mean drunk. He could be quite charming. His animosity seemed to have been reserved especially for me. With Sarah and Susan—his wife and daughter—the effect of his addiction hadn’t been abuse, but neglect. This meant that I was trying to have a lasting relationship with a woman who grew up with an emotionally unav
ailable father—one she seemed to completely adore and subconsciously hate.
“What’re you doin’ here so late?” he asked.
“I’ve got to check on a service and a possible murder in PM,” I said. “What’re you doing here at all?”
He was assigned to Central Office in Tallahassee and only traveled to institutions for very specific purposes, often involving homicide.
He held up his battered brown leather satchel and nodded toward it. “Takin’ depositions. Conducting interviews. I was headed out, but I left one of my notebooks in the PM unit. I’ll walk down with you.”
As we were buzzed through the center gate, we ducked our heads down and turned into the wind again.
“Looks like I’m gonna put Juan Martinez away for good this time,” he said.
While attending outside court, and in the custody of the Leon County’s Sheriff’s Department, Juan Martinez escaped from the Leon County jail. Six hours later, he had been picked up at the bus station downtown. Officially, it was assumed that he had spent those six hours trying to put together some money and arrange transportation, but what he had actually done changed the Daniels family forever.
Breaking into Tom Daniels’s home while he was at work and repeatedly raping his wife, violating her in ways hard to imagine one human doing to another, Juan Martinez had made Tom Daniels sober, a better husband, and given him a new mission in life. Since then he had spent the vast majority of his time searching for a way to lock up Martinez for the rest of his natural life. But it wasn’t easy.
The problem had been a lack of evidence. Not only had Martinez worn a condom during the assault, but Sarah had immediately taken a shower and waited two days to tell anyone.
With no witness, no evidence, and no motivation to pursue a case of such enormous liability, the Leon County Sheriff’s Department quickly concluded that Martinez had been with his family the entire time doing all he could to get as far away from Florida as soon as possible. This finding suited Tom Daniels just fine. Not only did it keep Sarah’s humiliating ordeal out of the papers, but it gave him the opportunity to get Martinez himself.
All this had happened before Susan and I began our reconciliation. A lot of time had passed, but the wounds had yet to heal, and occasionally, Sarah showed just how traumatized she still was. Of course, the whole family was. Susan, who had always had a strained relationship with Sarah, tended to avoid the subject, and Tom, guilt-ridden and driven, was probably giving Martinez more attention than his wife.
“You’ve got to feel good about the way you’ve done it.” Had Daniels not been sober, I doubt very much Martinez would still be alive, but the peace-seeking man beside me seemed to be searching for justice, not retribution.
He nodded. “Feels good. Beating him to death with my bare hands would feel better, but . . .”
I knew how he felt. “I questioned whether you should be involved in the case at all. Glad I was wrong.”
We were now in the housing area of the compound, enormous dormitories surrounding us on both sides. The dorms formed a horseshoe with sidewalks, pavilions, two small canteens, and barber shops in the center.
I looked over at Daniels as we walked against the wind. His head was down and I couldn’t see his face, but even the way he walked was different. He was actually leaning into the wind, his steps intentional, his gait certain.
As far as anyone knew, Martinez hadn’t intentionally chosen the IG’s wife—he and Daniels hadn’t had any dealings prior to the assault—his just happened to be the house he broke into, his the wife he found at home.
“How’s Sarah?” I asked.
Pain filled his eyes as he glanced at me before quickly looking away. “Not good . . . but I think this’ll help.”
The past three months were the longest I had seen him sober. Sure, he had been without booze for a few days at a time before, trading his alcohol addiction for the adrenaline addiction of working a homicide investigation or some other all-consuming activity he could do compulsively, but this was different.
“What’ve you got on him?” I asked.
“A witness,” he said.
“Who?”
“Justin Menge,” he said.
I felt a jolt and my pulse picked up. “Justin Menge?”
“He’s the real deal. Hell, I think he may even be an innocent man.”
“His sister just told me the same thing.”
He looked over at me with raised eyebrows. “Either way, he’s one hell of a good witness and he’s more than happy to help me put Martinez away.”
“His sister said her visit with him really shook her up.”
“Visit?” he asked in surprise. “When?”
“Just a few minutes ago.”
“I mean when was the visit.”
“See previous answer,” I said.
“Couldn’t’ve been. I just talked to him down in PM.”
“I think she was just coming from having seen him.”
“Must’ve been a short vis—wait,” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “What the hell’m I thinkin’? It wasn’t Menge, but his boyfriend, Sobel, I just saw. I’m constantly gettin’ them confused. Sorry.”
“Paula said Justin was acting very strange.”
“Probably just nervous about testifying. Martinez has punks everywhere.”
“Said he didn’t even seem like the same person.”
“He’s not.”
“Isn’t Martinez in the PM unit, too?”
He nodded.
“No wonder he’s scared.”
“Only way Menge could get so much on him, but I’ve got to get him out of there now that he’s agreed to testify.”
“Does Martinez know?” I asked.
“Menge still breathing?”
G-Dorm was a massive two-story concrete structure that resembled a giant cement septic tank with windows. Unlike the other open bay dorms, G-Dorm was divided into quads, each with twenty-eight cells. It was designed for the inmates who presented a management problem for the institution.
Protective management was for inmates who, because of size, crime, previous job, poor adjustment, gang affiliation, or gambling debts on the compound, were not safe in open population. They were the most difficult inmates in the institution. Many of them were pedophiles and rapists who were subject to brutality from the other inmates. Others were ex-law enforcement officers who feared retaliation for other reasons. Locking them inside their own quad saved them from having to interact with the rest of the population—and often saved their lives.
“Which service is it?”
“What?”
“Which service are you having to check on down here?” Daniels asked as we reached G-Dorm.
“Catholic. Look at this.”
We stopped in front of the dorm and I handed him a flyer that had been distributed in the PM unit. He handed me his satchel and I held it while he held the flyer up toward the small light, his hands steady. As he read the flyer, he shook his head. His dark brown eyes were the clearest I’d ever seen them and his red face was the result of the cold wind, not alcohol.
Centered at the top of the page in bold were the words: THE BODY AND THE BLOOD. Beneath it, in slightly smaller letters it read: A Celebration of Murder. In the middle of the page were the words: Come Eat the Body and Drink the Blood. From Death comes Life. And then below that it listed the time and the place of the PM Catholic Mass.
“The fuck?” Daniels said as he read. “You gonna get rid of this guy?”
“The priest? He’s just trying to get their attention. In fact, if this was all there was to it, I would’ve just called him, but look at this.”
I handed him another piece of paper from my coat pocket. It was a flyer similar to the first. At the top it, too, read: THE BODY AND THE BLOOD. Beneath it, in smaller letters like the other flyer it read: A Murder will take place. In the middle of the page it read: Slice the Flesh and Shed the Blood, and then listed the same date and time as the first one.
&n
bsp; “You did say murder, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Earlier, you said you were coming to PM to check on a service and a possible murder,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“I thought I just misunderstood you.”
“It may be nothing, but . . . .”
“Did you notify security about this?” he asked, his tone suddenly harsh and accusatory.
“I took it to the institutional inspector when I received it.”
“And?”
“Said it was probably a prank—nobody advertises murder.”
“The hell they don’t. Come on.”
He opened the heavy metal door and rushed into G-Dorm.
I followed.
3
The front of G-dorm had three doors. The center one led to a holding room with another locked door and then to the elevated, glassed-in officer’s station high in the center of the building. From it, officers could see each quad and control the locks of every door in the dorm. The other two doors led into the hallways on each side that ran between the officer’s station and the two quads on that side.
Entering the hallway on the left side of the building, we ran back to the second quad and went through a second solid metal door that lead to the PM unit.
A little alarm began to sound inside of me. “Why aren’t either of these locked?”
Daniels shrugged. “Sure as hell should be.”
The quads of G-dorm were roughly a hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, and held twenty-eight 6 x 9 foot cinder block cells. Unlike most county jails, the fronts of state correctional institution cells were not made of bars, but solid metal doors, each equipped with a locked metal food tray slot and a long narrow strip of steel-reinforced glass. The cells ran along the two longest walls—each side with seven at floor level and seven above, accessed by a set of gray metal stairs leading up to a metal grate catwalk. There were no cells along the short walls on either end.
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