“Would you like to call the hospital? I can get him on the line in here and you can talk to him in private.”
“My mom still there?”
“I would think.”
“Sure, let’s do it.”
His blank stare moved about my office as I punched in the number to the hospital. Nothing seemed to interest him. Not the plants, not the beautiful day beyond the window, not the colorful religious iconography. Nothing.
“Mom,” he said into the phone when I handed it to him. “How are you? Yeah. Yeah. I’m good. No, really. I am. Mom, I’m not going to . . . I’m not even sad. I promise.
I’ve got more reasons to live now than ever before.” He paused a moment.
“I really don’t want to. He’s not asleep or in a coma or something?”
He rolled his eyes while he listened.
“I wouldn’t know what to say. No. Okay. I will. But listen, I need you to send me some money. My account’s about empty. You know I need my canteen. It’s all I’ve got. It’s the only way I can survive in here. Understand? There’ll be plenty now. Don’t hold back.”
He waited, making an unpleasant expression as he did.
Rarely did I grant an inmate a crisis phone call that he didn’t ask his distraught family to send money. No matter how severe the crisis, how difficult the circumstance, far too often it seemed their primary purpose for calling.
It seemed Brent, like many of the men in here, was detached and dissociated from any emotional connections in his life.
“Grandpa . . . How are you?”
His voice was soft and filled with a concern his facial expressions and body language didn’t confirm.
“Ah, you’ll be fine,” he said. “You’ll see. You’re a tough old bastard. You’ll show them. Well . . . okay, then. Take care. Huh? Oh . . . yeah, me too.”
He waited for another moment.
“Okay, Mom. Okay. Don’t forget to send me some. Do it tonight. What? No. I need it now. Okay. Don’t forget. You too. Bye.”
35
After Brent left, I walked to the kitchen in the back of the chapel for a cup of coffee. As I was about to walk back to my office, I heard what sounded like muffled screams coming from the inmate bathroom.
I dropped my cup on the counter and ran out of the kitchen, across the hallway, and into the bathroom.
Inside, I found Lance Phillips hanging from a thin rope that was tied to the top of the frame of the metal stall. His hands were bound at the wrists and he was struggling against the noose to no avail.
As I rushed over to help him, I detected movement to my right, and turned just in time to see a huge inmate wearing a white hood made from a pillowcase with eyeholes in it coming at me with a brass candle holder from the altar in the chapel.
He swung it down on me, but I ducked under it, threw my arms up and blocked it somehow.
The pain in my right arm hurt all the way down to the bone.
Lance shrieked and I turned toward him. He was losing consciousness. When I moved toward him, the big guy dropped the candle holder and dashed out of the restroom.
I ran over and grabbed Lance’s legs and lifted him up. I held him that way for a minute as he gasped and coughed, trying to breathe.
I looked up at him. “You okay?” He nodded.
I lifted him a little higher and he raised his arms and worked the noose from around his neck. I then eased him to the cold tile floor, amazed again at how easy it was to lift him. He looked anorexic, and he was lighter than he looked.
“If you’re okay I wanna try to catch him before he leaves the chapel.”
“Go ahead. I’m good.”
I dashed out the door, back through the fellowship hall, and into the chapel. Lance was right behind me, and when I stopped abruptly he slammed into me.
We had run right into a small group of inmates, all of whom were wearing the pillowcase hoods to cover their faces.
They quickly surrounded us, putting us in the center of the circle they formed. They were all breathing heavily, their labored breaths coming fast and smelling bad.
“Chaplain, walk away now and you live.”
They were all holding various weapons in their hands, from blunt objects found in the chapel to compound shivs and shanks.
I said, “I’ll make you all the same offer.”
They laughed at that . . .Until they saw Mr. Smith leading Merrill into the chapel.
Their laughter didn’t fade, but stopped suddenly, as if it had been turned off.
They froze as he walked over toward us.
“It’s just attempted assault,” one of them said, easing his shank toward the floor. “That’s nothing. We cool.”
Just before his shank touched the floor, he flicked his wrist, the shank straightening, and he lunged at me. Coming in low, he was falling forward more than rushing.
I brought my knee up and it connected, bone to cartilage, blood bursting from his broken nose. His neck snapped back and he fell to the floor, the shank falling quietly on the carpet as he did.
The others began to slowly place their weapons on the floor.
“We cool,” another one said.
“We’ve heard that before,” Merrill said. “Get your asses on the ground.”
In another moment, all four inmates were on the ground.
“Those men were contract killers,” I said. “It wasn’t personal. They were doing it for someone else.”
“That’s what I figured,” Lance said.
He shook his head slowly, tears welling up in his clear blue eyes.
We were in the infirmary where Dr. Alvarez had just finished examining him. He was reclined on the bed closest to the door, and I was standing next to him. We were the only two people in the infirmary.
“They have a king of hearts with them?” he asked. “They had already put it in your pocket.”
He nodded.
We were quiet a moment. “Will they talk?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Don’t think so. The charges are nothing compared to what they already have. If they’re being paid as well as they say . . . they’ve got no reason to tell us anything.”
“I get out soon. Got a great girlfriend. Big plans. I’m not safe. Could you have me transferred?”
I shook my head. “Don’t have the authority. I can talk to Classification about it.”
The tile floor beneath my feet gleamed with a shine to rival any hospital in the state, the result of excessive mopping, stripping, and waxing by inmate orderlies with not enough to do. The windows were as clear and as spotless as if they had not been there at all, but beyond them, the double chain-link fence and razor wire reminded us that no matter how clean it was, this was still a prison infirmary.
He nodded. “I’d appreciate it.”
Through the square glass panes of the interior wall, I could see Dr. Alvarez walking down the hallway toward the medical conference room. He was walking slowly and seemed to be trying to overhear what we were saying.
“Guy gives me the creeps,” Lance said. “If people knew the stuff he does down here. We’re like his own little private collection of guinea pigs.”
“He have a connection to the Suicide Kings?” He shrugged. “We’ve all spent time down here.” Jamie Lee emerged from the back of the hallway, returning from a cigarette break. She smiled and waved as she walked by the open door, the smell of smoke and perfume swirling around her.
“What about Dr. Baldwin?”
“We’ve all been in her suicide prevention support group. We’ve all seen her individually. And we’ve all been in her hypnotherapy groups too.”
“Tell me about the hypnotherapy.”
“What’s there to tell?” he said, rubbing the bandage on his neck absently. “She thinks it’s the key to unlocking repressed traumas. She does a lot of regression therapy. You know, taking you back to certain critical events of childhood. She’s good. She gets a lot of practice around here.”
In front of me, the ro
ws of toilets, sinks, and showers were dark and empty like the SOS cells across the way, but the officers’ station behind us was lit and occupied by an officer, who with the push of one button could hear everything we were saying.
“Why all the interest in hypnotherapy, Chaplain?” Baldwin asked.
I turned to see her standing in the doorway. “Find it fascinating.”
“I believe in it,” she said. “I really do, but never as a shortcut. I never use it when more traditional forms of treatment’ll work just as well. Even if they take much longer. I care enough about my patients to invest the time. Right Lance?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Absolutely.”
“Can it be used to influence a patient to do something against his will?” I asked.
She was shaking her head before I finished.
“There’s certainly some controversy and disagreement about that. But I for one firmly believe that even the strongest suggestion won’t be taken if it’s against the person’s will.”
“Haven’t people in regression therapy falsely accused a parent or guardian of molesting them when they were children because a therapist planted the thought in their minds?”
“I am, of course, aware of such claims, but I haven’t seen anything that’s convinced me of it. I rather believe that the patients just backed down because of the social stigma and family pressure.”
“But victims are in a very vulnerable and highly suggestible state when they’re under hypnosis, right?”
“Patients,” she said. “Sorry?”
“You said victims. You meant patients. It’s true, the inducted person is much more suggestible, but not to do things against his will.”
“What if it’s something that they don’t have a strong will about either way,” I said. “Is it possible to—”
“I don’t believe so, but come by some time and I’ll see what I can get you to do, okay?”
36
Rollins and Allen were in the chapel just before the latest attack on Lance,” I said.
Merrill nodded.
“What if they’re working together?” Anna asked. I nodded. “Don’t seem like the type that would, which might make it genius.”
We were sitting in a booth in the back at Rudy’s like we had so many times before, but this time Anna and I were together, had arrived together, would leave together, would go home together, would wake up together.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Ad infinitum.
“You ever talk to Donnie?” Merrill asked. “Foster?” I shook my head.
“His name keep coming up.”
“It does. I should have by now. I’ve tried a few times, but I’ve missed him. Just been following where the case leads, but, you’re right, I need to—”
“I’s just asking. Wasn’t saying you should.”
“His name keeps coming up ’cause he’s a criminal,” Anna said. “Also why he’s avoiding you. If he’s not involved in this, he’s dirty on something.”
She was right. He was one of the ones who shouldn’t be allowed to go home at night.
Carla walked up with our food.
“Warden and inspector were in here talking about the case earlier,” she said. “I eavesdropped on them.
Overheard a lot.”
“You did?”
“I’m so freakin’ Veronica Mars.”
“Yes you are,” I said.
“Who?” Merrill asked. She told him.
He shrugged indifferently.
Carla sat down beside him after placing our food on the table. All three of us were having a full breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, grits, and pecan waffles. Anna was also having buttered biscuits and gravy, because the baby liked them.
“Love eatin’ breakfast at night,” Merrill said. “Me too,” Anna said.
“Me three,” I said.
Carla looked at me. “You like everything better at night.”
I smiled. “Want some?”
A look of horror appeared on her face. “You kidding? I don’t eat the shit they serve here.”
A trucker in Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, and a flannel shirt sat at the far end of the counter, finishing up an omelet and his fourth cup of coffee. Draped over the bar chair beside him was a two-tone brown down vest.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” she added. “I just eat, breathe, and sleep it every night. After a while you get sick of anything.”
“Why I didn’t become a gynecologist,” Merrill said. “Sheeit, wife meet you at the door naked when come home from a long day at the office and you say, ‘If I see one more . . .’”
We all laughed.
“So, what’d you accidentally overhear?” I asked. She turned in the seat so she was facing me. “Lawson believes it was a suicide. He’s working real hard to convince Matson.”
We ate while she talked. Carla made the best breakfast in Florida. Maybe in the South. Maybe in the world. When she finished talking, I had to wait a moment to respond because of all the good food in my mouth.
“Warden’s not convinced?” I asked.
She shrugged and scrunched her face together to think about it. “I don’t think so, but it’s hard to tell much of anything with him.”
Merrill smiled.
A bell dinged and Carla stood, bounced back behind the counter, and returned a moment later with a saucer piled high with toast, the butter dripping down the side of the stack.
Merrill and I looked at Anna. “The baby likes bread,” she said.
“Did he mention the attempt on Phillips?” I asked. She nodded.
“And their connection?”
“The card? Said some inmate was trying to fuck with his head.”
“He say where they got the rope?” Merrill said. She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“You did great. You heard a lot.”
“I tried. Kept bringing stuff to their table. They thought I was the best waitress ever.”
I looked at Merrill. “And I already found out about the rope. It was traced to two pieces missing from the maintenance department. Inmate probably snuck it in and sold it to them.”
The trucker finished his coffee, wiped his mouth with a wadded up napkin, stood, put on his vest, zipped it up though it was a warm night, and walked out of the restaurant, waving to Carla as he did.
The four of us were now alone in the diner.
We were quiet a few minutes finishing our food.
With strips of toast, Merrill wiped up the remaining grits and egg yolks and ate them. Just as we were finishing, Carla served us fresh, hot coffee and we drank it black, and it was good.
After a while, Carla said, “Could someone be trying to kill Phillips for a reason other than money?”
I nodded. “Could be anything.”
“Yeah,” Merrill said. “Reasons to kill a fool numerous as fools theyselves.”
“And that,” Anna added, smiling her radiant smile, “is the voice of experience.”
37
That night Anna and I attended a political debate at the Pottersville Community Center.
Because of what happened at Potter Farm and the rumors about what happened, the place was packed with townspeople and reporters and news organizations.
Each candidate gave brief statements before the debate began.
Hugh Glenn worked what had happened at Potter Farm into his and questioned how something like that could happen right under the current sheriff ’s nose.
Dad’s was brief and included assurances that he would be making an arrest in that case soon.
Ralph Long rambled on mostly about nothin’, but in every single word he uttered he was begging to be liked, his neediness and desire to please so palpable it caused an uneasiness and awkwardness to permeate the room.
After bragging about his wisdom, integrity, and impartiality, Judge Richard Cox shared his certainty that the incident at Potter Farm was meant to bring embarrassment and shame to the Republican Party of Potter County in general and him in particul
ar and was perpetrated by radical homosexuals as part of the gay agenda.
I looked across the room at Richie, who was sitting next to his sister, Diane. He shook his head and rolled his eyes, while next to him Diane’s face flushed crimson.
Don Stockton was smug and cocky and the only candidate certain of his reelection.
“I’m not an educated man,” Stockton said, “so I’ll have to defer to the good judge’s opinion on such matters, but in my experience, nine times out of ten the motive for everything comes down to money. It’s what makes the world go round. It’s what everybody wants and nobody has enough of. So whether it’s a gay agenda or a straight agenda . . . it’s gonna include a green agenda. Promise you that.”
After the formal debate had concluded and the moderator opened it up to questions from the audience, every single question but one was about what had happened at Potter Farm and the body of the blonde victim murdered there.
The one question not related to Potter Farm was still directed at Dad.
It was asked by Chris Taunton, Anna’s soon-to-be, but not soon enough, ex.
“Sheriff, is it true that your son, a supposed minister of the Gospel, is shackin’ with another man’s pregnant wife?” he said. “And if so, how do you expect voters to reelect a man who would raise such an immoral sack of shit hypocrite?”
I took Anna’s hand, as the majority of those in attendance turned to glance at us.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Why? You didn’t do anything.”
“I married the motherfucker.”
“We all do foolish things in our youth,” I said. “What I did was far worse.”
“What’s that?”
“Left here without you.”
“That’s true,” she said. “This is all your fault.”
At the conclusion of the event, my instinct was to duck out the nearest door, but Anna convinced me to stay and face our accusers with our scarlet As displayed proudly.
When we finally reached the friendly face of Richie Cox, I breathed a little easier.
“Dir,” he said to his sister, “you remember my friend the supposed minister of the Gospel shackin’ with another man’s pregnant wife immoral sack of shit hypocrite, don’t you?”
Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon Page 35