The Last Innocent Hour

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  o0o

  That night Jane dreamed of Belle. She was running toward Jane through a field of waist-high grass, holding something in her hand. At first, Jane just stood and watched her. She couldn't decide whether to wait for Belle or turn and run herself. The air was bright blue, the grass golden, sun-kissed, but something dangerous waited in it. Then all at once Jane herself was the little girl, crying, “MamaMamaMama,” over and over, and then the girl in the field wasn't Jane, but Jane’s mother.

  It was her panic that woke her in a fevered rush. She fumbled for the bedside lamp, breath like a rasp in her chest. She heard the sound of rain and looked around at the shadowy, storm-washed walls of the room. “Mama?” she whispered, and something was there in her mind. A flicker of recognition creased her brain and falling back onto her pillow, she strained to pluck the fragment from the river of her anxiety. But it was futile. Whatever had seemed familiar was gone. She had to stop this, she told herself, walk away ... quit trying.

  Rolling onto her stomach, Jane stared at the empty bed next to hers where Belle had slept, and she felt an ache in her heart as if it had been cleaved in two. Did walking away mean she had to leave Belle behind? Why did the idea of that hurt so badly? Who were they to each other? What had happened to them?

  Until yesterday, with Sharon’s blessing, Jane had taken the bus almost daily to the foster home where Belle now lived. But each time the encounter had grown more traumatic. Belle became hysterical when Jane tried to hug her, doubling up her small fists and pounding Jane in the face and shoulders until Jane was forced to let go and back away. It had come to the place where the only way Belle would stay in the same room with Jane was if someone held her there, and she cried the entire time. The Pearsons, Belle's foster parents, were worried, rightfully, about long-term psychological damage.

  Freida Pearson had suggested yesterday that maybe Jane shouldn’t come back for awhile. “I know it’s hard for you, but after you go, it’s hours before Belle settles down, and then you come back, and we start the cycle all over again. She has terrible nightmares, too--still.”

  “Yes,” Jane said. “You've told me.” They were standing outside on Freida’s small porch even though it was misting heavily. Jane had the sense that if she tried to go into the house, Frieda would bar the door. She reached out of the too-long sleeve of the raincoat Glenda had loaned her and wiped the damp from her face.

  “It might be different,” Freida said, “if you could prove you were her mother.” She paused a moment, and her glance considered Jane. “Perhaps I shouldn't say this. It's probably not my place, but I wonder if the reason Belle seems to be afraid of you is because you--you've--well--”

  “Hurt her? You think I've hurt her, and that's why she's afraid of me?” Jane was almost shouting; she couldn’t help it. The idea terrified her. It's what Belle's doctor had inferred, wasn’t it? Suppose it was true? The thought drummed through her mind, but instinct said, no. “No,” she said emphatically to Freida Pearson, and then she put her palm to her mouth to stop the sound of despair that threatened to explode like a stone from her throat.

  Freida took no notice. “You should know that Mr. Pearson and I are determined to adopt Belle,” she said. “We've hired a lawyer, and we're starting the process. Unless you can prove you have some legal right, we intend to raise her as our own. And even if you do prove you're related, we'll still fight you.”

  Jane stared; she had no breath for speech.

  Freida looked off into the middle distance. “I’m sorry to say this, but we--Mr. Pearson and I--we think you abused Belle. There’s simply no other reason for her to be so afraid of you. It’s not personal,” she added.”

  Jane had left the Pearson’s yesterday without speaking a word in her defense. How could she argue? Without memory? Without proof? She still wasn’t sure how she’d arrived back at the shelter. She’d been soaked through, her shoes ruined.

  Outside now, thunder rolled. A flash of lightning brightened the bedroom. Jane curled on her side and drifted back into an uneasy sleep, taking the steady pattering sound of the rain with her. The sky was lighter but still stormy when the dream began again, and at the end of it, she rose and felt as if she were screaming: “Mama! Oh, my God, Mama!” But when she asked later, no one could claim they had heard her.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  There was a Lincoln County squad car parked at the north end of the parking lot when Jason pulled in to the truck stop café to meet with Lance, and he thought he should have known Devers was no smarter than the rest of the dumbasses who wore a badge.

  “At least you didn’t wear your damn uniform,” he said sliding into the booth across from Lance.

  “Huh?” The deputy’s face was a blank.

  “Your county cruiser’s sitting out there like a fucking advertisement. Did you call Jimmy Lee, too, and tell him we were meeting?”

  “Hell, no!” Lance looked affronted. “What do you think I am? Stupid?”

  Jason shook his head. They ordered coffee.

  Lance said, “You believe that storm last night? I thought it was gonna take my house down.”

  Jason leaned back as the waitress set down his mug. “I got construction crews working in mud up to their ass,” he said, nodding his thanks at the girl. “We're already behind schedule.”

  Lance tore the tops from two packets of sugar, dumped them into his cup and stirred. “I went down to the lake the other day and seen where they're putting the roads in. That place where the interstate's all tore up, that's where y'all are building the big office complex, right?”

  “Twenty-five floors. Won't be ready for occupancy until spring, but it's pretty much leased out already.” Jason leaned back, stretching his legs. He liked talking about the project. He liked thinking about it. When the work consumed him, everything else was driven into the far black corners of his mind. Even the buzz in his ears faded. He could forget for a while about the hot loose ends, the live wires.

  “I heard the Japs made you CEO of their outfit.”

  Jason said that was right and drank his coffee.

  “Saw you drive up. That a new Mercedes?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Nuthin’, just I can’t imagine what a car like that costs new.”

  More than you’ll earn in your shitty little life. “A bundle,” Jason said aloud.

  “I figured.” Lance fiddled with the empty sugar packets. “So, I also heard you was movin’ outta Miz Far--I mean, Miz Tinker’s house, too, into one of them fancy mansions you’re building out there.”

  “Work's already started on my place.”

  “Well, seems to me here lately you hit yourself a gusher what with gettin’ a new house, that new Mercedes.” Lance hazarded a glance at Jason.

  “Can we get down to business? I’ve got stuff to do.”

  “Sure. I checked on the problem up at Walker before I drove down here this mornin'. He was moved from Diagnostic a while back, been workin’ in the laundry, minds his own business. Don't say much to anyone.”

  “So, Cunningham's a model prisoner.”

  “Kind of good-time he's racking up, could see him outta there in six months.”

  “That can’t happen.” Jason bent his weight on his elbows. “Sonofabitch gets out, my life won't be worth shit.”

  “Yeah.” Lance picked up his mug, drained the contents. It made a smart crack when he set it back on the table. “So, you want to fix a price?”

  Jason pulled his head into his shoulders as if they would keep the sound of his voice from straying off to the sides. “I need some information first. Like how would it get done. And when. And who’s going to do it?”

  “Well, like I told you, I got a guard at the unit owes me a favor.” Lance fished a toothpick out of his pocket, stuck it in the corner of his mouth. His smile was one-sided, his glance smug. All the talk about Jason’s “gusher” sat in that glance.

  Jason smiled, too. The buzz foamed in his ears.

  “I talked to him
this morning. He wasn’t too keen on the idea at first, but then after we talked a while more, I was able to make him see it different. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, so give me specifics. Is he the doer?”

  “Nah. He'll get somebody. Maybe a soldier outta one of them Mexican gangs or somethin’. Depends who he knows, who he's got stroke with.”

  “I want it done as quick and clean as possible.”

  “Sure. No muss, no fuss. They'll likely use a shiv, or maybe they'll toss a bomb in his cell.” The deputy laughed outright at Jason's look of disbelief. “I ain't lyin'. One of them spics did exactly that, last month.” He sobered. “Won’t be cheap.”

  “So what are we talking?”

  Lance closed his eyes and heaved a sigh through pursed lips as if he were calculating the price and really hated that it would have to be so high. “Five grand,” he said at last. “That's for my guy. And I'll want five, too, for setting it up.” He thrust out his jaw, shooting Jason a hard look.

  What a laugh. Oooh, I’m so scared. It was all Jason could do to keep himself from saying it, in a high voice, like a girl. Like a squirrel. Deputy Lance Devers was a girley squirrel. Jason settled himself. “Come by the house later this afternoon, and I’ll have it for you. When will you know something?”

  The deputy shrugged. “Now he’s at Walker, it should be simple enough. I'd say you can probably hunt Cunningham's name on the obit page within a coupl’a weeks tops. That quick enough?”

  Jason said it was and stood up. “What's your contact's name? Is he from around here?”

  Lance rapped the table with his knuckles. “Lives right here in Conroe. Name's Brashear. Lou Don Brashear.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Daddy?”

  Charlie sat up in his cell, looking around wildly. He said her name without sound: Chrissy? Stinkerbelle?

  Her giggle ruffled the air. “Don't call me Stinkerbelle, Daddy.”

  He shot up, bent to look underneath the metal shelf that held the thin mattress. She was here. She must be here.

  “Chrissy?” Some part of him knew she couldn’t be, that it was the tag-end of a dream leading him on, but he was a more than willing participant; he wanted to believe she was real, his own wriggly, three-year-old girl he could get his arms around. He remembered her sweet scent; he could feel the warm weight of her against his chest when he carried her sleeping to her bed. A sound burst into his throat, something awful, terrified, and he bit down against it, dropped himself onto the cot, dropped his head into his hands. Where was she? Where was Beth? Did she hate him so much that she'd let him go to prison without a word?

  He almost wanted to believe in her hate. Because the other alternative, that she hadn’t come forward because Tinker had done something to her and to Chrissy, took him into a place so hot and airless, he couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t see or feel anything except the rough hide of his rage. The fucking helplessness. The idea that they were in some kind of hurt from Tinker, and that Tinker knew and Charlie didn’t. . . .

  He laid back, threw his elbow over his eyes. He had nothing, his memories, a cold sense of dread, this useless despair. He had always heard that anyone could be a killer, given the right set of circumstances, the right trigger. He’d never thought much about it; but now it was all he thought about. There was no doubt in his mind what he’d do if he ever saw Tinker again, no end to the ways he had imagined that bastard could die.

  o0o

  Charlie got off the prison bus that had brought him from Diagnostic, tipped back his head and gazed into the sky at the arc of blue light, letting it print on his eyes, and then the guard prodded him through the door of the Walker unit, and it swung shut. He shuffle-marched with the rest of the new inmates down concrete corridor, a blind sheep, breathing in air that was thick with the smell of lard, an underscore of something that might have been tomato and the usual pasta that had been cooked to glue. Chow in here wouldn’t be any different than at Diagnostic. Not that Charlie cared. His appetite was mere habit.

  “Hey, Cunningham.”

  He turned at the sound of his name. One of the gray shirts, a beefy-faced guy, detached himself from the welcoming committee. He was big and crudely made. Bluto of the Popeye cartoons in a uniform.

  “I been waitin' for you, boy.” The uniform grabbed Charlie's elbow. “I got your paperwork took care of. You’re coming with me.”

  “Hey, Brashear,” another guard called after them. “Where you goin’?”

  “I know this guy; I’m giving him my personal attention.” Brashear didn’t look back. He looked at Charlie. “You probably don't know it, but we got friends in common.” he said.

  And he was jovial, just brimming over with bonhomie. Fine hairs of warning rose on the flesh above Charlie's shirt collar. “What friends?”

  Brashear paused, giving Charlie a once-over. “You sure don't look like no big-time killer though, the way Lance said you was.”

  “Lance?” Charlie thought he knew the name but couldn't place it.

  The CO didn’t bother explaining. He prodded Charlie through a door that moved electronically, revealing another corridor. Wider than the one they'd left, it was lined with cells on one side.

  “We got five tanks here,” Brashear said. “You been assigned to B tank. Breakfast call’s at four-fifteen.” He elbowed Charlie. “You like to get up early, killer? 'Course, why am I asking'? This ain't no hotel. Don't matter what you like.”

  He went on, giving Charlie the drill, but Charlie couldn’t focus. His awareness was of the cells they passed and the men housed in them, the way they watched him through the barred windows, some in a brooding silence, but others shouted at him, sick shit about what they’d like to do to him. His gut churned. He felt hot; he felt like he might puke.

  They'd warned him before his transfer that if he thought the time served in Diagnostic had been hard, it would get harder at Walker. He was fresh meat, a new boot. They’d said rule number one was never let them see you scared. But fear was all there was; it had weight and a body and a smell like sweat and piss mixed with anguish and despair. It was so strong, Charlie could taste it. He wondered how he would breathe in here. Or eat. Or use the can. His steps lagged.

  Brashear prodded him with two stubby fingers. “C'mon, boy, hold your head up. Let 'em get a good look. Some of 'em ain't never seen nuthin' so pretty as you.”

  Charlie’s cell was the last one on the row. Brashear shoved him inside and once the door slid shut behind him, the CO undid his cuffs. Charlie rubbed his wrists.

  “If I was you, I wouldn't bother unpacking my bag,” the CO said. “Killer,” he added, and then he walked away, laughing.

  There was something in the sound of Brashear’s talk and his laugh, some extra message wired into the usual attitude. Charlie looked after him, working it over in his mind. What was the trap? The joke? He turned to view his new home and saw nothing remotely funny. A toilet-sink combination bolted to the wall in the back left corner, a desk and stool unit bolted into the right corner. Next to it were two narrow bunks, one mounted over the other, each one covered with a thin mattress.

  A big man sat on the lower bunk staring at Charlie. He held his hands in thick-knuckled fists on his wide knees, and his faded pale blue eyes were fastened to Charlie's face. A shock of white hair fell over his brow. He might have been twenty-five or fifty. Charlie couldn't tell his age. His glance slid past him and when it returned, the man's hand shot out and Charlie flinched. The big guy didn’t seem to notice. He said, “Howdy, my name's Dixie. I guess we're gonna be cellies, huh?”

  Charlie waited. Was it a trick? An act? Or was the guy really as simple-headed as he sounded? He took a chance sticking out his hand only to lose it in Dixie's huge grasp. And when the big man grinned, it was so huge and happy and incongruous in this dark place, in this eye of hell, that Charlie laughed and was startled at himself. He’d forgotten how good it felt. His grip tightened on Dixie's hand. He took an involuntary step toward him.
/>
  “Hey dude, check it out. Ain't that jus' fuckin’ sweet?”

  Charlie jerked his hand from Dixie’s, stepping back, glance veering toward the voice.

  There was a reply, mocking, unintelligible, but plainly an insult.

  Dixie said, “Don't pay them two no attention. That's Hector Chapa and Paco Sanchez. They're Mexican Mafia.” Dixie made a gun with his hand and pointed it at his head. “Muy loco. ‘Course, most ever'body in here's muy loco.” Dixie looked into the corridor, adding, “That's Mexican talk for crazy, in case you didn't know.”

  Charlie looked at the Hispanic men who approached. The shorter, more powerfully built of the two, the one called Paco, slowly raised his left hand and making a circle with his fingers, he stabbed the center of it with the middle finger of his right hand. “This the business Brashear was talking about?” Paco was looking at Charlie but asking Hector Chapa.

  Chapa nodded. He had a narrow head and a face with small sharp features as if in the making of him there hadn't been enough skin to be generous. His almost lidless eyes swung up at the outer corners above a pointed nose and thin lips. His cheeks were pocked with a remembrance of acne.

  Paco came up to the cell and grasped the bars. “What you looking at, huh, gringo? You got a pro'lem? You wanna piece a me, queer?” He laughed. “You ain't shit.”

  Hector jerked Paco's arm. “Back off,” he ordered. “This ain't the time.”

  “But I hate the fucking gringos, always hurting their women.” Paco raised his fists and slammed them against his thighs; it was the spoiled gesture of a fat over-grown kid, the neighborhood bully. Charlie had known guys like him. He’d grown up with them.

  “You outta learn to keep your mouth shut, Paco.” Hector pulled his buddy away from the cell and pushed him along the corridor.

  Charlie looked after them picking through his mind for the meaning. Something was in the air. Something to do with him, but what? Why had Paco referred to him as Brashear's business? Why had Brashear said don't unpack your bag? Didn’t give Charlie the warm fuzzies, that was for sure.