Past Prologue: Where are our Children (A Serial Novel) Episode 4 of 9

by Gary Sapp

tell her that you did to him to deserve to be burned alive?

  Chris

  He had received two phone calls not one minute apart just prior to knocking on Angel’s motel room door.

  The first came from his ex-wife Denise. He said into his phone’s speaker that he understood her need to see him but that would be impossible today. He knocked on Angel’s door between bouts of conversation with his ex-wife. Angel unbolted the lock after his third knock and looked as if he’d awaken her from a nap. She had fallen asleep fully dressed in a white blouse and black jeans. She invited him into her room, the hotel rooms just outside of Hancock State Prison in Sparta, Georgia. After he hung up with Denise Angel cocked a brow and asked if he planned to respond more favorably to her request when they drove back to Atlanta tomorrow morning.

  He probably surprised her a little by saying that he she sounded so desperate that he’d given her directions down here the last time he talked to her. Denise telling him that she’d get a friend to drive her down if she came at all; Angel had filled her mouth with mints before admitting Christopher to mask the smell of liquor. It wasn’t working. She was out of sight of Agent Sheridan at the moment and she must have felt the need to take advantage of that fact while she still could.

  In speaking of Sheridan…he had been Chris’ second call. He wanted to remind both of them that they needed to track their steps from this point out. Public sentiment was lodging against the bureau, especially from People of Color. Any misstep and this country risked looking at a full scale racial episode of the likes that it had never seen before.

  Angel said after he had hung up with his boss: “Well, you shouldn’t be surprised, Christopher. Your boss is a bureaucrat. He is a bureaucrat with a nice ass, but one nonetheless.” She said. “How we go about solving these disappearances is as important as bringing the children home safely.” And he felt another question rising from her out of the room’s silence. “But there was more to your conversation than just that wasn’t it?”

  Chris shifted his weight. “Some of Sheridan’s superiors want you off the case, Angel.” He said. “He’s going to bat for you and so is the deputy director. They’ve been impressed with your showings especially at those makeshift crime scenes we discovered back home.”

  “You know me, Christopher,” Angel raised her legs and put them on the wall. “I live to impress.”

  “This is serious, Doc.”

  She sat up abruptly. “I know that it is, Christopher.” She glanced at the clock sitting on her nightstand. “We can talk on the way. We need to get going.”

  Once they were signed in and admitted to Hancock Prison, a correction’s officer who was a dark cloud on a sun shiny day waved them into the social contact area. This wing had ten cafeteria tables lined up in relative close quarters in the room. It reminded him of his grade school days long ago…even before Keaton had taken him and changed his life forever.

  Chris counted at least a dozen armed officers ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. A Black officer, whose eyes watered as if he needed to carry a tissue box everywhere he went, mentioned to Chris that they’d added extra security measures after what happened over at Calhoun State Prison last month. He also told Chris that the chief hesitated to hand him a clearance after he learned that he and Xavier were siblings. It had finally took a stern phone call from Sheridan warning that any interruption of a federal investigation could result in an review of this facility from state auditors whose phone number Sheridan had on speed dial.

  Muhammad Clark was brought out in wrist and ankle irons a short time later; Chris heard Angel mumble something along the lines of bureau membership having its privileges.

  Muhammad Clark:

  He was a fair skinned Black man with a fat head, big eyes and a bushel of uncombed gray hair on his head that was going white. He had dozens upon dozens of moles on his face, two dozen rotten teeth in his mouth and one whitish goatee wrapped around his lips.

  “Special Agent Christopher Prince…Dr. Angel Hicks-Dupree, now what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this time?” He took a long time to sit down in his irons. “Or should I guess? Well, I’ll save you both a little time and tell you that I am clueless to the present or future plans of Pandora or their pet Louis Keaton.”

  Angel cocked a brow. “And I’m sure that you will continue to deny ever being in collaboration with either one of those parties of course.”

  Clark poked his lips out from his goatee and shook his fat head, both in an exaggerated manner. “Look, pretty lady, when a man lives long enough to be as old as I am, you learn that consistency of your tongue is sometimes all you have left.”

  Chris planted his elbows…his flag on the cafeteria table. He was up against a strong wind with so many tempests working against him. “Let’s get something straight here from the start, Mr. Clark…we haven’t traveled this far to play fucking games with you.”

  Angel said, “We are interested in any insights you are willing to offer us about Keaton’s mindset or his whereabouts.”

  Clark swallowed half a bottle of the bottled water that had been provided for him and wiped what had spilled with his long blue sleeves. “I’ve been thinking about just that sort of thing since these fine folks told me you two were coming.” He said. “I also thought about what I could gain by aiding you in your precious investigation.”

  Chris stood up. “Let’s go, Doctor. We’re finished here.”

  As he spun to go Angel clasped on to his wrist…and stroked it with part affection, part urgency. When he began to descend back into his seat Angel said to Clark: “We’re not in the position to guarantee you anything, Mr. Clark.” She said.

  “What do either of you chipmunks have the power to request on my behalf in return for my help?”

  Angel looked at Chris for guidance. “I’m sure we could find something…right, Christopher?”

  Chris didn’t look at his friend. He said to Clark: “What could we possibly offer you, Clark?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Your family stopped calling you on any regular basis ten years ago. You can’t go out into the yard, especially now, without fear of being attacked by other members of the prison population. Men can tolerate being locked up with other murderers, drug dealers and thieves, but nobody wants to pal around with a child molester.”

  Angel hesitated, but eventually nodded at Chris reasoning. “Agent Prince is right, Muhammad.” She said. “Your isolation is the only thing that has kept you alive in here this long.”

  Muhammad Clark leaned over the cafeteria table far enough to draw one of the guards attention. “And you would love to see that happen wouldn’t you, Agent Prince.” Clark wisely sat back and relaxed as much as his restraints would allow him. “I’ve bet you’ve had wet dreams of waking up one sun shiny morning, picking up the Constitution or the Times and reading the headline in big bold print saying that I’d been butchered in here.”

  “Yea,” Chris surprised himself by saying. “I sure as hell would. You and every other man like you in this country.”

  Angel soothed his wrist again. Such a proclamation from someone who valued life as much as Christopher Prince sounded alien, even coming from his own mouth.

  “That would be…” Angel searched the ceiling for the word she was looking for. “That would be unfortunate, Muhammad, especially considering your innocence.”

  “What?” Chris and Clark asked at the same time.

  Angel repeated herself since they hadn’t heard her clearly the first time around. “Muhammad, you have always declared and maintained your innocence for most of the murders that you were convicted of.”

  “She’s good,” Clark pointed a crooked finger in Angel’s general direction. “You boys at the bureau should consider employing her services full time.”

  Angel said: “Shut up, Muhammad.” She gave Chris a quick glance as if she were asking for his approval to press forward with whatever she was doing. He had no idea. “I’ve always theorized that you were responsible for a hand
ful of murders but no more than that. Yet, your profile, your patterns of behavior weren’t consistent enough to have been responsible for the dozens of other abductions and killings that you were indicted for.”

  Clark showed the first signs of discomfort with the conversation. He folded his arms and exhaled out of this nose. “And yet, I was convicted for all of those kidnappings they charged me with anyway.”

  “Is this supposed to make a hell of a lot of difference to the families of those young men you raped and killed?” Chris asked.

  Clark replied by pointing his thumb at his own chest. “It makes a difference to me.”

  Chris and Muhammad Clark engaged in an intense stare down that was finally broken when both men heard Angel sifting through a handful of photos she’d sat on the cafeteria table.

  “Do you recognize either of these locations?” She asked. “And don’t blurt out an answer, Muhammad. Think about it a second.”

  Clark took the doctor’s advice. He actually studied the photos for a number of minutes, his bushy gray brows curled in concentration while he searched his memory for answers. “No,” He finally said. “After I killed the boys I’m responsible for I did what the papers said that I did. I tossed their remains in the Chattahoochee River where I thought they would go undiscovered. I didn’t leave anything behind on land. And I can’t recall being at either