Redemption Road

by John Hart

  “You realize I’m a police officer.”

  Thick hands went up one leg, then the other.

  “Procedure,” Preston said. “No exceptions.”

  Elizabeth endured it: the feel of hands through fabric, the smell of latex and coffee and hair gel. When it was done, she followed Preston up a flight of stairs, then down a hallway to the east corner of the building. He walked with his shoulders down, and the round head tipped forward. His shoes made rubbery noises on the floor. “You can wait here.” He indicated a small room with a sofa and chair. Beyond the room was a secretary of some sort, and beyond her a set of double doors.

  “Does the warden know I’m here?” Elizabeth asked.

  “The warden knows everything that happens in this prison.”

  The officer left, and Elizabeth sat. The warden didn’t keep her long. “Detective Black.” He swept past the secretary, a dark-haired man pushing sixty. Elizabeth’s first thought was Charming. The second was Too charming. He took her hand with both of his, smiled with teeth too white to be anything but bleached. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. Detective Beckett has spoken of you for so long and with such passion, I feel as if I’ve known you a lifetime.”

  Elizabeth retrieved her hand, wondering at the line between charming and slick. “How do you know Beckett?”

  “Corrections and law enforcement are not so dissimilar.”

  “That’s not really an answer.”

  “Of course, it’s not. I apologize.” He blinded her again. “Charlie and I met once at a recidivism seminar in Raleigh. We were friends for a time—professional men with similar jobs—then life, as it so often does, took us in different directions, he more deeply into his career and I more deeply into mine. Still, I know a few in law enforcement, your Captain Dyer, for instance.”

  “You know Francis?”

  “Captain Dyer, a few others. A handful of people in your department have maintained an interest in Adrian Wall.”

  “That doesn’t seem entirely appropriate.”

  “Morbid curiosity, Detective. Hardly a crime.”

  He gestured to the office beyond the double doors and did not wait for a response. Inside, they sat, he behind the desk, Elizabeth in front of it. The room was institutional, and trying to hide the fact: warm art and soft light, heavy rugs under custom furniture. “So,” he said, “Adrian Wall.”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand you knew him before.”

  “Before prison,” she said.

  “Have you known many on the other side? By that, of course, I mean men who’ve served lengthy sentences. Not misdemeanor recidivists, but hardened felons. Men like Adrian Wall.”

  “I’m not sure what Beckett told you—”

  “I ask because this is the great difference in our chosen professions. You see the actions that lead men to places like this. The things they do, the people they hurt. We see the change that prison inflicts: hard men made crueler, soft ones unmade entirely. Loved ones rarely get the same person back when the sentence is done.”

  “Adrian is not a loved one.”

  “Detective Beckett led me to believe you have certain feelings—”

  “Look, this is simple. Charlie asked me to come, so I’m here. I assume there’s a purpose.”

  “Very well.” A drawer opened, and a file came out. The warden placed it on the desk; spread his tapered fingers. “Much of this is confidential, which means I will deny ever showing it to you.”

  “Beckett’s seen it?”

  “He has.”

  “And Dyer?”

  “Your captain as well.”

  Elizabeth frowned because it still felt unseemly: the easy smile and the office that tried to be what it was not, the heavy file that should not be so well thumbed. Of course people would have kept track. How could she have presumed otherwise? The deeper question was why she had not done the same.

  “Pedophiles and police.” The warden opened the file. “Convicts hate both with an equal passion.” He handed over a sheaf of photographs. There were thirty maybe; all of them full color. “Take your time.”

  If Elizabeth thought she was ready, she wasn’t.

  “The miracle,” the warden said, “is that he survived at all.”

  Taken in the prison hospital, the photographs were a testament to both the fragility and resilience of the human body. Elizabeth saw knife wounds, ripped skin, eyes swollen bloody.

  “In the first three years, Mr. Wall endured seven hospitalizations. Four stabbings, some pretty horrific beatings. That one”—the warden waved a finger when she stopped on a photograph—“your Mr. Wall went headfirst down thirty concrete stairs.”

  The skin was peeled off one side of Adrian’s face, his head shaved where staples held his scalp together. Six fingers were clearly broken, as was an arm, a leg. The sight made Elizabeth nauseous. “When you say he went headfirst down the stairs, you mean he was thrown.”

  “A witness in prison…” The warden turned his palms up. “Few men have the courage to talk.”

  “Adrian was a cop.”

  “Yet a prisoner like everyone else, and not immune to the perils of institutional life.”

  She tossed the photos on the desk, watched them slide, one across the other. “He could have been killed.”

  “Could have been, but was not. These men, however, were.” A stack of files hit the desk. “Three different inmates. Three different incidents. All were suspected in one or more of the attacks on your friend. All died quietly and unseen, killed by a single stab wound, perfectly placed.” The warden touched the soft place at the back of his neck.

  “How does one die, unseen, in prison?”

  “Even in a place like this, there are dark corners.”

  “Are you suggesting that Adrian killed these men?”

  “Each death followed an attack on your friend. Two months later. Four months.”

  “Hardly proof.”

  “And yet, it speaks to a certain patience.”

  Elizabeth studied the warden’s face. He had a reputation for being smart and effective. Beyond that, she knew nothing about him. As large as the prison stood in the life of the county, the warden kept to himself. He was rarely seen at restaurants or other gatherings. The prison was his life, and while she respected the professionalism, something about the man made her uncomfortable. The false smile? Something in his eyes? Maybe it was the way he spoke of dark corners.

  “Why did Beckett want me to come here? It can’t be for this.”

  “Only in part.” The warden used a remote control to turn on a wall-mounted television. The scene that flickered and firmed was of Adrian in a padded cell. He was pacing, muttering. The angle was down, as if the camera was mounted high in the corner. “Suicide watch. One of many.”

  Elizabeth walked to the set for a better look. Adrian’s cheeks were sunken. Stubble covered his chin. He was agitated, one hand flicking out, then the other. It looked as if he was arguing. “Who’s he talking to?”

  “God.” The warden joined her and shrugged. “The devil. Who can say? His condition worsened after the first year in isolation. He was often as you see him here.”

  “You took him out of the general population?”

  “Some months after the final assault.” The warden froze the image, looked vaguely apologetic. “It was time. Beyond time, perhaps.”

  Elizabeth considered Adrian’s image on the screen. His face was tilted toward the camera, the eyes wide and fixed, the centers pixelated black. He looked angular, unbalanced. “Why is he out?”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “He was released on early parole. That could not have happened without your approval. You say he killed three people. If that’s true, why did you let him out?”

  “There is no proof he was involved.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “It’s not a matter of proof, though, is it? Parole is about good behavior. A subjective standard.”

  “Perhaps I am more sympathetic th
an you imagine.”

  “Sympathetic?” Elizabeth could hide neither the doubt nor the dislike.

  The warden smiled thinly and selected a photograph from the desk. It showed Adrian’s face: the ripped skin and staples, the stitches in his lips. “You have your own problems, do you not? Perhaps, that’s why Detective Beckett suggested you come, to better understand the proper use of your time.” He handed her the photograph, and she studied it, unflinching. “Prison is a horrible place, Detective. You would do well to avoid it.”

  * * *

  When Officer Preston took the woman away, the warden moved to the window and waited for her to appear outside. After four minutes she did, stopping once to peer up at his window. She was pretty in the morning light, not that he cared. When she was in her car, he called Beckett. “Your lady friend is a liar.” The car pulled away as the warden watched. “I studied her face when she looked at the photographs. She has feelings for Adrian Wall, perhaps very strong ones.”

  “Did you convince her to stay away?”

  “Keeping Adrian Wall alone and isolated is in both our interests.”

  “I don’t know anything about your interests,” Beckett said. “You wanted to talk to her. I made that happen.”

  “And the rest of it?”

  “I’ll do what I said.”

  “He really is broken, our Mr. Wall.” The warden touched the television, the pixelated eyes. “Either that or he’s the hardest man I’ve ever seen. After thirteen years I’m still unsure.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “I should explain myself, why? Because we were friends, once? Because I am so generous with my time?”

  The warden stopped talking, and Beckett said nothing.

  They weren’t friends at all.

  They weren’t even close.

  * * *

  If Elizabeth was looking for further insight into Adrian, she didn’t find it in the first moments of court. He entered in full restraints, the nineteenth inmate in a row of twenty. He kept his eyes down, so she saw the top of his head, the line of his nose. Elizabeth watched him shuffle to his place on the long bench and tried to reconcile the man she saw with the video from the warden’s office. As disturbing as he’d appeared, he looked ten times better, now—not filled out but heavier, troubled but not insane. She willed him to look her way, and when the brown eyes came up, she felt the same shock of communication. She sensed so many things about him, not just willfulness and fear but a profound aloneness. All that flashed in an instant, then the din of court intervened, and his head dipped again as if weighted by all the stares heaped upon it. Cops. Reporters. Other defendants. They all got it. Everybody knew. Crowded as the room was—and it was packed—nothing brought the thunder like Adrian Wall.

  “Holy shit. Look at this place.” Beckett slid in beside her, craning his neck at the double row of cameras and reporters. “I can’t believe the judge allowed this kind of circus. There’s what’s-her-face. Channel Three. Shit, she’s looking at you.”

  Elizabeth glanced that way, face expressionless. The reporter was pretty and blond in bright nails and a tight red sweater. She made a call-me gesture and frowned when Elizabeth ignored it.

  “Did you see the warden?” Beckett asked.

  “You know what? Outside.” Elizabeth pushed against his shoulder and followed him off the bench. Eyes tracked them, but she didn’t care what Dyer or Randolph or any of the other cops thought. “You know, your buddy the warden is a real asshole.”

  They rounded into the hall, a sea of people milling around them, parting at the sight of Beckett’s badge. Elizabeth crowded him into a corner beside a trash can and a tattooed kid sleeping on a bench.

  “He’s not exactly my buddy,” Beckett said.

  “Then, what?”

  “He helped me once when I was in a bad place. That’s all. I thought he could help you, too.”

  “Why was he at Nathan’s?”

  “I don’t know. He just showed up.”

  “What were you arguing about?”

  “The fact I didn’t want him on my fucking crime scene. What’s going on here, Liz? You have no reason to be angry with me.”

  He was right, and she knew it. Moving to a narrow window, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her chest. Outside, the day was too perfect for what was coming. “He showed me the tape.”

  “And the people Adrian killed?”

  “The people he might have killed.”

  “You don’t think he’s capable?”

  Elizabeth stared through the glass. Adrian had been gentler than most, but like all good cops he had steel in his spine and an unflinching will. Could suffering such as his twist those things into something deformed and violent? Of course it could. But, had it? “People are rushing to judgment, Charlie. I feel it.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Come on. When was the last time you saw so many cops at first appearance? I counted twenty-three, including the captain. What is it normally? Six or seven? Look at that.” She gestured at the crowd gathered at the courtroom door. It was twice as large as one might normally see: spectators and press, the angry, the curious.

  “People are scared,” Beckett said. “Another woman. The same church.”

  “This is a witch hunt.”

  “Liz, wait.”

  But she didn’t. She pushed through the crowd and found another seat in the area reserved for cops. People were still staring, but she didn’t care. Could Charlie be right? What was the path when your heart said one thing, and facts hinted at another? Adrian was tried in a courtroom very much like this, convicted by a jury of his peers. But they didn’t know everything, did they? There was a reason his DNA was under the dead woman’s nails.

  Reasons and secrets, infidelity and death.

  Adrian said no one knew he was sleeping with the victim, but was it really such a blur? What about Gideon’s father? If Adrian was sleeping with his wife, Robert Strange may have known. Sex. Betrayal. Wives had been murdered for less. If he framed her lover for the murder, it would be a neat little package: cheating wife dead, boyfriend locked away. But Robert Strange had an alibi. Beckett himself had verified it.

  What about Adrian’s wife?

  That was an interesting question. Did Catherine Wall know her husband was cheating? She was pregnant, possibly jealous. She wasn’t investigated because no one other than Adrian and his attorney knew about the affair.

  What if that was not entirely true?

  Against his own attorney’s advice, Adrian had refused to take the stand. Had he done so, he could have explained all the things that led to his conviction. He said he kept quiet because he didn’t wish to hurt his wife, and because no one would believe him, anyway. What if it was more than that? What if he didn’t want to implicate her? Take the stand against her?

  Did Adrian go to prison to protect his wife?

  If Catherine Wall knew of the affair, she had motive to kill Julia Strange. Did she have an alibi? Most likely, no one would ever know. The woman was gone, the case closed. So Elizabeth considered the crime itself. Manual strangulation took some strength. So did lifting bodies, posing them on altars. Could a woman do it?

  Maybe.

  If she was strong enough. Angry enough.

  Maybe she had help.

  Elizabeth watched Adrian, but he did not look up again. So, she scrubbed at her face and settled into the drudgery of court as first appearances took over. Prisoners met the judge, had their charges read, waited for lawyers to be appointed. She’d seen it a hundred times on a hundred different days. The first ripple came long before Adrian was even called. It started in front of the bar, and Elizabeth saw it like a breeze over grass. Heads came together; people muttered. She didn’t understand until the prosecutor leaned into his assistant and whispered, “What the hell is Crybaby Jones doing here?”

  Elizabeth followed the stares and saw Faircloth Jones at a side door beyond the bar. He was frail but elegant, dressed in the same kind of
bow tie and seersucker suit he’d worn for most of his fifty years in practice. He stood above a dark-wood cane and held perfectly still until even the judge turned his way. After that, the old lawyer had the stage, crossing the room as if he owned it, nodding at older lawyers, who grinned or nodded back or brooded over old cases and long-wounded pride. The younger lawyers nudged each other and leaned close, each one asking more or less the same question: Is that really Crybaby Jones? Elizabeth understood that, too. Faircloth Jones was the finest lawyer to come through the county; yet, he’d not been seen outside his own house in close to ten years. Even the judge accepted the impact of the old lawyer’s presence, leaning back in his chair and saying, “Okay. May as well deal with this, now. Mr. Jones.” He projected his voice at the row of seated lawyers. “Very nice to see you again.”

  Faircloth stopped beside the first bench and seemed to bow without doing so. “The pleasure is entirely mine, Your Honor.”

  “I’d rather not assume, but may I ask…?”

  “Adrian Wall, Your Honor. Yes. I’d like to be noted as counsel of record.”

  The DA rose, large and unhappy. “Your Honor, Attorney Jones hasn’t been seen in court for over ten years. I don’t even know if his license is current.”

  “Let’s ask him, then. Mr. Jones?”

  “My license is quite current, Your Honor.”

  “There you are, Mr. DA. Quite current.” The judge glanced at the rowed prisoners, lifted a finger, and said, “Bailiff.”

  Two bailiffs culled Adrian from the prisoner’s bench. He kept his head up this time and nodded at the old lawyer. Faircloth touched him once on the shoulder, then said, “I’d like to have these cuffs removed, if I may.”

  The judge motioned again, and the DA could not hide his frustration. “Your Honor!”

  The judge held up a hand and leaned forward. “It’s my understanding that the defendant is not before this court on a violent offense.”

  “Second-degree trespass, Your Honor.”