by R M Wild
Instantly, the comments piled up below the video.
This dude’s the burning monk!
Hi-ho Saigon!
Total witch powers!
Look at that Cossack Dance!
Burn her at the steakhouse! Medium rare!
I’ve seen that big dude before. I think he pulled me over once!
In the comment stream, someone posted another link. This was total doomscrolling. I winced and clicked. It led to another video, this one of an earlier visitation with Phyllis Martin.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I whispered.
I killed the screen and called Matt Mettle.
He answered, breathless. “Yeah, what is it, Casket?”
“We’ve got a big problem. The security footage from this afternoon is already on Facebook. Somebody leaked it. There’s more footage too, even one of the other times I went to see Phyllis.”
He was quiet for an entire minute.
“You there?”
“Yes. How is that possible?”
“I have no idea, but the comments are talking about both of us now. Someone already said he recognized you. It’s only a matter of time before your name is associated with this thing, all over the Internet.”
Mettle said nothing. Then he yelped and I heard running water.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m here. Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
“Are you listening to me? You can get fired for this, Matt. The state won’t tolerate this kind of bad publicity. Trust me. This video will follow you around for the rest of your career—if you even have a career after this.”
On his end, the water kept running.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes, ouch! I’m here,” Mettle said. He grunted as if trying to endure some kind of pain and breathed through his teeth. “I’m thinking.”
“I thought I heard wood burning.”
“Very funny.”
“What do we do?”
“I’m coming over,” he said. “We need to go see the warden.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. We need to find out who’s leaking these tapes.”
About half an hour later, Mettle’s cruiser crunched into my driveway. Night had fallen and the sky was moonless, the cruiser a dark shape against the spindly trees. The light was on inside the car and Mettle was fiddling with something in the glove compartment.
I grabbed a sweater off the banister and went outside and climbed into the passenger seat. Mettle was wearing a leather jacket, but one of his sleeves was rolled up and there was a large piece of gauze taped to his forearm. At the edges of the gauze, the skin was bright red.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“I spilled your tea,” he said. He turned off the light and handed me a tall carton. “Your favorite. Rooibos. It might be a long night.”
“Thank you,” I said and sank into the seat. “You know where the warden lives?”
Mettle took a sip from what looked like a milkshake lumpy with protein powder and then he twisted in his seat and reversed from the driveway. “The warden’s a public official. His address is public information.”
“I really hope this gets us somewhere or we’re totally anathema.”
He pulled onto the road. “What does that mean?”
“It basically means we’re screwed.”
Mettle flipped a switch below the dashboard, stepped on the gas, and passed a slow-moving delivery truck. Our flashing lights painted the truck red and blue.
“What’s with you and big words, Casket?”
“The size of the word has nothing to do with it.”
“I’m being serious right now. If you think we’re screwed, why didn’t you just say we’re screwed? Not that anatha-thingie. Nobody can understand you when you talk like that.”
“Because I didn’t mean screwed. I meant anathema. And just because you don’t understand me, doesn’t mean that other people can’t.”
“Don’t dance around what you mean. That’s all I’m saying. Don’t dance around.”
“I’m not dancing around anything, twinkle toes. I said it basically means we’re screwed, which it does, but it also means we’re cursed, that we’ve become abhorrent. It’s a double meaning. Both of our reputations are on the line here.”
“I get it. Like double, double, foil and bubble.”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“When you go around using big words all the time, folks start to think that you think that you’re better than they are. It’s no wonder they’re afraid of you, Casket. They don’t understand half the things you say.”
“Or, perhaps, we shouldn’t be afraid to learn from people who know what they’re talking about,” I said, growing hot in the ears. Indeed, I could never understand why folks wanted to vote for leaders who were just like them. The last thing I wanted was a leader who was just like me. Likewise, I never wanted a teacher whom I could relate to. I wanted my teachers and my leaders to be experts, way more knowledgeable than I was. But apparently, I was in the minority.
Mettle tapped all his fingers on the steering wheel at once. “So you basically think you’re smarter than me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I never said that. Don’t put your personal hang-ups on me.”
“Well, maybe I’ve got a little something up my sleeve too, little miss smarty-skirt.”
“Like what? That bandage?”
We pulled onto the highway, the night black and empty ahead of our high beams. Mettle kept the light bar on, no siren, and the red and blue lights turned the cornstalks into a rave party in the neighboring field.
“The prison is conducting an internal investigation, right?”
“The warden hinted at that, yes.”
“So that means that because the second video has leaked, the prison has got a serious PR problem, just like we do. They can’t have all their inmates going up in smoke. It makes the state look bad, especially with so much competition from private prisons.”
“Private prisons?”
Mettle glanced over at me. “I thought you knew everything.”
“The last time I checked, the inner workings of the prison industrial complex wasn’t a topic on my American Literature syllabus.”
“Close to ten percent of the entire prison population is in private prisons. They’re publicly traded companies that take taxpayer money, but the state prisons have to cut costs to stay competitive. It’s a mess. Why do you think we have to write so many tickets?”
My eyes widened. “I thought that was an urban legend.”
Mettle twisted around as if to check his backseat to make sure no one was hiding there and secretly recording our conversation. “Nope. Quotas are very real. Unspoken, of course. We have a twenty-to-one ratio. The state expects twenty tickets and one arrest each month. I could save all the babies in the world, but what the bureaucrats really care about are all those tickets.”
“I hope you’re joking.”
“Sadly, I’m not. Now keep in mind, I’m only telling you this because I ain’t a cop right now. So don’t go blabbing this to the newspaper or nothing or my job is as good as gone.”
“You’re telling me the prisons have a vested interest in arresting people and locking them up? The more people they incarcerate, the more money they make?”
“Bingo.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad. The whole point is, knowing how this swamp works might give us a little bit of leverage here. The warden can’t have these bureaucrats sending all our prisoners to the big Walmart prison down the road or he’ll be out of a job.”
I smiled. “So if the warden is worried about a PR problem, he might be willing to help us find out who is leaking the footage.”
“Exactly.”
I turned away so Mettle couldn’t see how impressed I was. I had to admit, it was a pretty sophisticated line of reasoning. Maybe there was more to Mettle
than meets the eye.
He turned on the interior dome light so he could see my reflection in the window.
“I knew it!” he said. “You’re grinning right now. Earring hole to earring hole. Admit it, you’re amazed by my superior intellect. How’s that for going all chess-movey on you?”
And just like that, my lady-boner was gone. I pointed ahead. “Uhh, Matt, the road.”
He turned back to the highway. We had veered into the opposing lane.
“Right,” he said and yanked us back on track.
When we arrived somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the clock in the dashboard read 7:30. We pulled off the road, passed a white fence and a white mailbox, and drove up to an iron gate between two white-brick fence posts.
Mettle leaned out his window and pressed the button on the intercom. “This is Trooper Matt Mettle. I’m here to see Warden Mayweather. He invited me.”
A moment later, the intercom buzzed and the gate creaked open. We drove down a long, snaking driveway, all paved, where at the end, set back from the road about three hundred feet, a colossal white-brick house with stately columns sat against the hillside like a pale king on his throne.
The driveway turned into a roundabout in front of the portico where a giant outdoor chandelier on a ten-foot chain hung from the ceiling and twisted gently in the breeze.
Mettle whistled. “Somebody listened to his guidance counselor.”
“Maybe I need to get myself a government job,” I said.
“I hear it takes an act of Congress to fire you so they promote incompetence.”
“I’m not surprised.”
We parked and went up to the front door. Mettle eschewed the doorbell and knocked with his bare fist. Overhead, that giant chandelier twisted one way, then twisted the other, the chain creaking. I stepped a yard to the side so I wasn’t directly under it.
A woman opened the door. She was thin, mid-sixties, and wearing a large white bathrobe.
“I’m here to see the warden,” Mettle said.
Behind her, Mayweather descended a giant marble staircase. He too, was dressed in a robe, his black. He looked downright puritanical.
“Good evening, Trooper. Awfully late for a visit.”
“You said I could contact you at any time.”
“I didn’t mean in person.”
“It’s a sensitive matter,” Mettle said.
“Yes, of course,” Mayweather said, his eyes sliding over to me. “How can I help you?”
“I thought we might talk for a few minutes.”
“I see you brought the firebrand.”
I gave him a fake smile. “The name is Rosie.”
“Can we talk or what?”
“Yes, come in,” Mayweather said.
We followed the warden into the kitchen, a large open room with giant marble counters. The space was dimly lit, two pendant lights hanging over the sink. The woman, presumably his wife, was already in there, her back turned to us as she washed the dishes.
Mayweather motioned toward the large wooden chairs at the large wooden table. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything? Juice? Diet soda?”
“I’ll have a holy water,” I said.
Mettle shot me a look. “She’s joking.”
Mayweather gave a smile. “Yes, of course.”
“If I drink any more, I might have to use your golden toilets,” I said.
Mettle forced a smile. “Again, a joke. She’s trying out new material.”
“You’re a comedian?” the warden asked.
“Comedienne,” I corrected.
“What did I say?”
“Never mind.”
“Do you have any kids or is this colossal palace just for the two of you?”
“Rosie, stop it,” Mettle said out the side of his mouth.
“What? He was rude to me at the prison. I’m returning the favor.”
Mettle pulled out a chair and put a hand on my shoulder to make me sit. “Have a seat, will you?”
Across from us, the sound of the faucet against the stainless steel sink resonated like a hose in a tiny bucket as Mayweather’s wife scrubbed a glass pan.
“So what is this visit all about?” Mayweather asked.
“The video of today’s incident is all over Facebook,” Mettle said.
Mayweather lowered his head and I could see the reflection of the table in his bald dome. “And?”
“One of your staff members must have leaked it. This gives you a publicity problem.”
Mayweather raised his head to look at us. “I am already aware of the issue, Trooper. Thank you for your concern.”
“Do you know who’s leaking it?”
“If we knew, he wouldn’t be leaking it,” Mayweather said.
“So you know it’s a he?” I said.
“Eighty-five percent of our corrections officers are male,” Mayweather said.
“So it’s a corrections officer? Not a secretary or something?”
“I’m assuming, yes,” Mayweather said. “Why does this leak concern you?”
“We’re on that video, sir. Our reputations are on the line,” Mettle said. He glanced at me in the reflection on the table. “And we have reason to believe that the leaker may have a connection with Rosie’s missing sister.”
“Why would you think that?”
“How many times has security footage been leaked before?”
“Never,” Mayweather said.
“Exactly. Yet footage of every single one of Rosie’s visits has now been posted online. It’s a smear campaign.”
“Why would someone want to smear her?”
“To run her out of business.”
“And why would they want that?”
“She owns a historic property in Dark Haven. There’s a private entity trying to get his hands on all the historic properties.”
“For what purpose?”
“We don’t know yet,” I said.
“That sounds like an awful elaborate scheme,” Mayweather said.
“Not if you can kill two birds with one flame,” I said.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that whoever is behind this whole mess wanted Phyllis Martin and Dimitri Roganoff dead because of what they knew,” Mettle said. “The footage is just the icing on the cake.”
Mayweather folded his hands. “You are on suspension, correct Trooper?”
“Yes, sir. We discussed this earlier.”
“If you are on suspension, then what do you get out of this?”
Mettle glanced at me. “I’m working pro boner.”
“Pro bono,” I corrected.
Mayweather folded his hands. “Look, I appreciate your driving all the way up here to try to make me feel incompetent, but I can assure you, we are looking into the situation. We take this matter very seriously.”
“You can’t afford to lose any prisoners,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re in competition with—”
Mettle made a slicing motion across his throat to cut me off. I looked at him, about to protest. The whole graft thing had been our angle.
“You’ve got a very nice house here,” Mettle said. “Very stately.”
The woman at the sink turned around. Her face was red, maybe from the steam, but maybe from something else. Mettle glanced at her and then glanced at me and we shared a look of understanding. I opened my mouth to speak, but Mettle put up a hand for me to hold my tongue.
“Thank you,” Mayweather said. “We like the house very much.”
Mettle looked at me, gave me a wink, and then went for it: “With all that footage making the rounds, I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time before the FBI wants to get involved. I have a friend who works for the fibbies. He is very thorough. VERY thorough. Once a week, he bleaches his underwear.”
Mayweather set his mouth straight, a firm line from crease to crease. He narrowed his eyes and his bushy eyebrows met in the middle.
“Exactly wha
t are you insinuating, Trooper?”
Mettle leaned toward me and whispered, “What does that mean?”
“It means what are you hinting at?” I whispered back.
“Right,” Mettle said. He turned back to Mayweather. “Based on the size of this house, I’m guessing you’re not going to want anyone digging around your giant backyard. There are lots of places to bury things, if you catch my drift.”
Mayweather’s dome turned red. “I’m sorry, but I do not.”
Mettle stood to go. “All I’m saying is, this is a very impressive house. That’s all I’m saying. I think both you and I would like to get to the bottom of this case as fast as possible. Right, Mrs. Mayweather?”
The woman at the sink turned back to the dishes and scrubbed them even harder.
Mayweather smiled, unfolded his hands, and placed them both on his thighs, his spine as ramrod straight as ever. “I think we share a common goal, Trooper, yes I do.”
24
Back at the inn, I pulled the chain on a small lamp on the mantel. Mettle sank into the couch and twisted and kicked his feet up onto the arm as if he owned the place.
Full of nervous energy, I took the opportunity to grab a straw broom from the closet and sweep up some of the dust that had settled since I last got a chance to clean. No matter how hard I dusted, there was always a fine coating on everything, as if the ceiling were shedding.
“Take a load off,” Mettle said. “Relax for once.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have the luxury of a steady paycheck. Unlike you. If I don’t hustle, I don’t eat. There’s no such thing as downtime. When you work for yourself, every waking minute needs to be spent trying to make money.”
“But there are no customers.”
“It doesn’t matter. Appearances are everything.”
“I agree,” he said, picking a chunk of powdered protein out of his teeth. “Don’t be caught waving that broom around.”
I waved it right in his face.
Mettle slapped the dusty fibers away. “Let’s look at the facts,” he said and raised a hand to count on his fingers. “One, you have red hair.”
“So what? There’s probably Scottish blood in my family.”
“Yes, but red-haired people are evil. That’s a proven fact.”