MICHAEL LISTER'S FIRST THREE SERIES NOVELS: POWER IN THE BLOOD, THE BIG GOODBYE, THUNDER BEACH

by Michael Lister

  “What?” I asked, shrugging as if unaware I had done anything.

  “Don’t give me compliments or understanding. I can’t afford to be distracted.”

  “Whatever you say, but a little understanding never hurt anyone.”

  “Thanks,” she said and then put her pen down and stared at me.

  “What is it?” I asked, resisting the urge to wipe my face.

  “I’m just so proud of you. . . . Serving her the way you do agrees with you.” As long as I had known Anna, she had only referred to God in the feminine form. “You’re really doing what you were created to do now.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said emphatically. “You are a much-needed breath of fresh air around this place. And, I suspect, everywhere you go. You know,” she said in a playful manner with a smile on her soft face, “if I weren’t married . . .”

  “If you weren’t married . . .” I said and let it hang there like a dream.

  “Are you dating yet? Found anyone special in Potter County?” she asked.

  “Yes, to the second question, but she’s married. As to the dating, I’m not quite ready yet, but almost.”

  “Don’t rush it. That’s the worst thing you could do. Take care of you for now, and worry about a her later.”

  “I don’t feel like I’ve rushed it. If anything, I’ve been dragging my heels.”

  “No, I guess you haven’t. Still, you can never be too careful these days. Especially considering what you’ve been through. Probably best to let me pick someone out for you.”

  “Could you please? If she won your approval, she would most certainly have mine.”

  “Well, I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  How could such an extraordinary woman work in a prison in a one-horse county? Living in Pottersville, for Anna, had to do with a promise she made to her grandmother just before she died. Working in prison is the result of a promise she made to herself when her younger sister was murdered. Besides, it was temporary. She was in the final stages of finishing her law degree from Florida State University. I had every suspicion that she was going to be the toughest prosecutor that our state would ever see. She was as strong and as tough as she was beautiful. And, though she acted like she needed her husband or me in her life, the truth was she did that for our benefit. I was grateful nonetheless.

  “Listen, I’ve got this little problem I need some help with,” I said.

  “Name it,” she said, sounding excited at the prospect of helping me.

  “Mr. Stone has asked me to look into what happened yesterday. Unofficially, of course.”

  Before I had finished my sentence, she was shaking her head rapidly. “No, I won’t help you. You are already doing what you were meant to do. You are called to be a minister, not Father Brown, Bishop Blackie, or Brother Cadfael,” she said, using my favorite fictional ecclesiastical sleuths against me.

  “But . . .”

  “But, nothing,” she snapped. Her eyes had narrowed and seemed to glow. “Surely you haven’t forgotten what Atlanta was like. Is your sobriety—your serenity—not worth whatever it takes?”

  “It is, but I think I’m ready. Besides, this is nothing. Just a simple inquiry, that’s all.” I said it with so much conviction I almost convinced myself.

  “I will not help you with something that will really wind up hurting you.”

  “I was told not to tell anyone about this. I decided that I had to tell the two people here that I would trust with my own life.”

  “Well, if Merrill is the man I think he is, he won’t help you either.”

  “What do you suggest I do?” I asked.

  “You’re going to tell Stone you can’t do it,” she said without hesitation.

  “I can’t do that.”

  She was telling me that not only could I do it, but that I must do it, or she would, … when there was a knock at her door. It was Tom Daniels.

  “Yes,” she said as he stuck his head in the door.

  “Hello. My name is Inspector Daniels.”

  “Really? Your mother named you Inspector? How awful,” she said as she sat up in her chair. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. This was going to be good.

  “No ma’am. My first name is Tom. I am the chief inspector of DOC. I can’t believe you haven’t heard of me.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of you,” she said and winked at me. “I’ve heard all about you. What can I do for you?”

  Daniels jerked his head toward me like someone suddenly getting a whiff of a foul odor. “It’s a private matter. Can I talk to you alone?”

  “No, I’m afraid you can’t. You see, the chaplain and I are having an affair, and since he’s my secret lover, I keep no secrets from him. So, he stays.”

  My mouth dropped open—for two reasons really. First, I couldn’t believe that she would say that we were having an affair, just in case he might possibly think she was serious. Secondly, and more importantly, I knew that as the chief inspector he could give her a world of trouble if he wanted to. She was more than just a little confident. And that was more than just a little appealing.

  “Whatever,” he said as he came in and took the seat beside me, careful not to look at me. “I’m looking into the death of inmate Ike Johnson. Is he yours?”

  “Is he my what?”

  “Is he your . . . Are you his classification officer?” he said, obviously frustrated and slightly tongue-tied. Anna’s beauty, along with her confident manner and sharp tongue, was too much for any man and most women.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Can you tell me about him?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said as if she were going to cooperate, which I knew she was not. “His name is Ike Johnson.”

  “And?” he asked.

  “And, what else would you like to know?”

  “I would like to know whatever in the hell there is to know about the bastard so I can find out why he was trying to escape.”

  “I honestly couldn’t tell you. I know of no reason why he would attempt to leave our happy little home here. Perhaps you should ask his pimp.”

  “His pimp. Who is that, the chaplain?”

  “I will speak with you no further if you say another disrespectful thing about the state’s finest chaplain.”

  “Okay. Damn it, lady, all I need is a little information. Who is his pimp?”

  “What you need are some manners. His pimp is an inmate named Jacobson.”

  “What’s Jacobson like?”

  “An inmate pimp. He pretends to be crazy, but he’s not,” she said, and then she was silent as she thought about it for a minute. “I say he’s not crazy, but what I mean is that he’s not crazy the way he pretends to be. He pretends to be loony. What he is, is psychotic. He’s dangerous. There are many people who have not lived to regret the fact that they allowed his crazy pretense to make them forget how really dangerous he is.”

  “So, I should talk to him?”

  “I think so, but then I’m not the chief inspector of Florida state prisons.”

  “Did Johnson have any family on the outside?”

  “Grandmother who raised him and an aunt that I know of.”

  “No girlfriend?”

  “He didn’t like girls, never has.”

  “Faggot on the outside too?”

  “If you are asking, in your own redneck way, if I am aware of a lover he would have tried to escape for, I am not. He did have four visits from a Don Hall when he first got here, but that’s been over a year ago.”

  “Is there anything else you can think of I should know?”

  “Yes, there is. Something very important.”

  “Well, spit it out.”

  “My brother, whom I love with all my heart, is gay, and I am offended by your assertion that he or any other gay man should be used for firewood.”

  “Firewood? What the hell are you talking about now?”

  She looked at me.

  “The term faggot,” I said, “ca
me from a period in time when homosexual men were burned at the stake. It means kindling.”

  He stood without comment, withdrew a card from his pocket, and placed it on the desk in front of Anna. “This is an official investigation of a death within this prison. A death in which you are at least partly to blame. When you get tired of your little grab-ass games and want to help me figure out what the hell is going on here, call me. If you continue to refuse to cooperate or try to play more games, I will become a very big pain in your ass.”

  “You’ve already done that. Maybe you could set some new goals for yourself.”

  He slammed the door, and I felt a wide grin slowly spread across the width of my face.

  “Tell me I was correct in assuming that was your ex-father-inlaw,” she said.

  “None other,” I said, unable to keep from grinning.

  “What an ass,” she said in disgust.

  “He didn’t exactly get to see your best side either,” I said.

  “I thought my ass was my best side,” she said with a smile.

  “Not exactly what I meant.”

  “I guess not, but he’s not going to see my best side. He’s not going to come within a mile of it. You two are working on the same case?”

  “Actually, we are working together on it.”

  “You don’t seem too together.”

  “We are as together as we are going to get.”

  “Now,” she said with a warm smile, “how can I help you solve this case?”

  “What?” I asked. “What happened to it being bad for me?”

  “Well, this time you’ll have me to help you, and I’m going to help you solve this thing before that obnoxious bastard does. So, how can I help?”

  “Tell me all you can about Johnson,” I said.

  She did.

  “Do you know for a fact that Jacobson was Johnson’s pimp?”

  “As much as you can know such things for facts. They were both assigned to me.”

  “What was his job assignment?”

  “Outside grounds,” she said, seeming not to catch how odd that was.

  Inmates who worked outside of the institution did so because they were deemed to be a low escape risk. It had to do with their custody, their release date, and past history (had they ever tried to escape before?). It was a gamble, and it was the responsibility of their classification officer.

  “Outside the gate?” I asked. “Are you sure? That can’t be right.”

  “What do you mean?” she said. She must have been really distracted.

  “I find it interesting that he works outside the gate and he tries to escape in the trash truck on his day off.”

  The greatest risk and highest percentage of escapes occurred with those who were working outside the gate. Breaking out of the institution was difficult, but once you were outside, well, you had a chance.

  “Nobody ever said they were smart,” she said. “But I see what you mean.”

  “What else can you tell me about him?”

  “As you can imagine, he spent a lot of time in confinement for physical contact with other inmates and drug use.”

  “By physical contact, you mean sexual contact, right?”

  “It sure wasn’t fighting. Did you see how small he was?”

  “No. I don’t recall ever having seen him. Probably didn’t spend a lot of time in the chapel.” But I had seen him—his eyes, his lifeless black eyes.

  “Well, he was in the beginning stages of AIDS.”

  Oh, my God, I thought. I was covered in his blood. Think. Do I have any sores, open cuts, wounds. Think. Focus. Father, please protect me. Don’t let me have AIDS. Let me live to serve you longer and to find love again.

  “Do you think that’s related to his apparent escape attempt?” I said finally, realizing that Anna was staring at me.

  “Yes, possibly. I don’t know,” she said. She must have noticed my sudden agitation. “You came in contact with his blood, didn’t you?

  The chances that you could have it are so small you shouldn’t even

  worry about it. Okay?”

  “Okay. I’m not really worried,” I lied.

  “Good. You shouldn’t be. Now, why did you say apparent escape attempt?”

  “It seems to me that had he really wanted to escape, he could have from his job much more easily than the way he chose. Besides, he sat there in that bag and heard what the officer was doing to all the other bags. He had to know what was coming.”

  “You’re thinking suicide?”

  “I’m at least considering the possibility—all the possibilities. But suicide is one of the least likely. There are much better ways to commit suicide.”

  “What are the other possibilities?” she asked, her voice rising in excitement.

  “About a thousand others, but the one I’m thinking about seriously is murder.”

  “Murder? That’s ridiculous,” she said.

  “Maybe so, but I feel that I must consider it, until I know otherwise.”

  “Sure, that’s good investigating procedure. Keep an open mind . . . but—”

  “It’s good theology too,” I interrupted.

  “Yes, I guess it is. But you have a reason for seriously considering it. What is it?”

  “Let’s just say that everybody at this institution knows how that garbage is checked, and it would be a great way to hide a murder or have one committed.”

  “Interesting. I never thought of it that way before. So, you think somebody killed him and then put him in the garbage bag so that he’d be dumped somewhere or get stabbed and it would look like he was killed trying to escape.”

  “I just think that if it were an escape attempt, he would have lost his nerve there at the end.”

  “Maybe. Maybe the officer had been paid to miss that bag.”

  “Maybe. But if he were, that meant he knew the inmate was in there, which meant he knew he was killing him. Which means that he deserves an Oscar for his performance.”

  “He was shaken?” she asked.

  “He was shaken and stirred,” I said.

  “Sounds like you’ve given this some thought.”

  “A little,” I said, and then we fell into silence. It was a comfortable silence. After a couple of minutes, I said, “What can you tell me about Jacobson?”

  “I was wondering when you would get to that,” she said with a smile that said she knew something that I didn’t. I saw that smile a lot.

  “I can tell you that not only was he Johnson’s pimp, but he was also in the infirmary with Johnson on Monday night.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. And, they had a fight. Tuesday morning Jacobson was taken to confinement and locked up, and Johnson . . . Well, you know what happened to him.”

  “What time was he placed in the box?”

  “Log indicates that it was around six thirty in the morning. Of course, those logs are never exact.”

  “No, but it’s probably close to the actual time, which means he could have killed him and bagged him before he was taken away,” I said.

  “Maybe, I don’t know. Seems to me that whoever did the deed would have to actually put the bag on the truck or run the risk of whoever did load the bag discovering what was inside it,” she said.

  “Very good point,” I said. “There’s something else too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It may not mean anything, but then again, who knows? He was locked up before the shift change. And yet, it was close to the time of the shift change. Too close.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, genuinely interested.

  To have a woman like Anna Rodden genuinely interested in anything you say is more than most men dream of.

  “I mean, from what I’ve seen, if something occurs that close to the shift change, the officers leaving save it for the officers just coming in.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “God, you’re good. Do you really think you can handle it better than the Stone Mountai
n thing?”

  “Time will tell, but I think so. I think that I’m a different person. Besides, I have you and Merrill.”

  “If you need someone to talk to, you know where to find me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet.”

  “Oh, yes, you have. You’ve listened, you’ve given me some much-needed female attention and perspective, and, most of all, you’ve made my day by telling off Tom Daniels.”

  “You know I love you. Always have. We share something very special. And, you don’t have AIDS.”

  “I know. I love you too. And thanks again. You were amazing.”

  “Was there ever any doubt I would be?” she said with a small chuckle, pretending to be kidding, which she was not.

  Chapter 5

  Potter Correctional Institution was its own little world—a society of captives with their own social order, classes, economy, and laws. In this world, I was a stranger. PCI was my job; it was their home. I spent eight hours a day there; they spent twenty-four. I needed a guide. There were less than three inmates out of fifteen hundred that I felt might actually help me. My first choice was the inmate assigned to the chapel to assist me, Mr. Smith. I was told during orientation not to call any inmate mister or sir, but I made an exception for Mr. Smith.

  Mr. Smith was old, exactly how old I wasn’t sure—I don’t think he was either. His back was slightly bent, causing him to bow forward a little as he walked. Being a black man in America had bent, but not broken this man. As he walked, with his head down, a small bald spot could be seen right at the very crown of his head. He was raised in the old Southern school of repression, in an era when a black man was to be seen and not heard—seen working, that is. We had developed a good relationship since I had been at PCI. After returning from Anna’s office, I decided to ask him to explain a few things to me about life on the inside. When I returned to my office, however, there were several inmates waiting to see me.

  On an average day, I have contact with over a hundred inmates, twenty of whom usually came to my office with their problems. Issues ranging from family crises to conflicts with one of the other inmates or officers filled the majority of my counseling sessions. Many inmates came to me with things I could do nothing about, especially if they related to security or housing issues; however, since I am one of only a few that will even take the time to listen to them, they come.