“I’m trying so hard,” he said. “And it’s not like I wasn’t before I ever came here, but now I’m really bustin’ my behind to…”
“To what? Earn God’s love?”
“And they’re still playing the same tired old games,” he said, gesturing toward the other inmates. “And…”
“And,” I said. “God loves them just as much as he does you.”
When we reached the gate, we stopped. I turned back and looked at the activities on the rec yard once more before we continued walking through the first gate and waited for the second one to buzz open.
“I’m going to be honest with you, Chaplain,” he said. “I understand what you’re saying… and you’ve made some convincing arguments. But I’m not there yet.”
“Me either,” I said. “Me either.”
We passed through the second gate and onto the compound framed by the enormous dorms on all sides.
“It’s hard to believe,” I said, looking at him intently, “that God loves Nicole and her killer equally.” He stopped walking abruptly, rage flaring in his eyes. “You don’t think so?” I asked. “I think there’s a special place in hell for him,” he said. “That may be,” I said. “But if he or she chooses that, it doesn’t change God’s love or the fact that it will break God’s heart any less than it’d break your heart if one of your children rejected you and did something so self-destructive.”
“He should be tortured and killed as painfully and slowly as possible.”
“Who?”
“Her killer,” he said.
“Who do you think it is?” I asked.
He shrugged, then shook his head. “If I knew,” he said. “I’d…”
As we talked, a steady stream of inmates passed by on their way to or from the rec yard. I thought about how few came to the chapel by comparison, and wondered if I was doing any good here at all.
“You were out in the hallway that night for a while, weren’t you? Did you see anything?”
“I just went to the bathroom,” he said. “I rushed in and out because I didn’t want to miss any more of the message than I had to.”
“When was this?”
“Near the end,” he said.
“Someone said they thought maybe you and Bunny Caldwell had something going on.”
Unable to respond, he stood there slack-jawed, stunned into wide-eyed speechlessness.
“What?” he finally said. “No. No way. I would never. I’m married.”
I could tell he was lying, but when it came to sex I expected most people to, so I filed it away as a fact that might become important when joined with other the facts I had yet to gather.
“Did you see anyone else out there?” I asked. “In the hallway or the bathroom?”
He looked up and closed his eyes as if trying to remember. “Register,” he said.
“Paul?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “And Porter.”
“Cedric?”
“Yeah.”
“Had you ever seen the Caldwells before?” I asked. “I’ve heard they’ve been here for the last couple of years.”
“I haven’t been in long,” he said, then hesitated before adding, “Sounds like you’re trying to find the killer.”
I nodded.
“Why bother if God loves him as much as Nicole?”
“First of all, love doesn’t make allowance for lawlessness, doesn’t negate the need for justice—in fact, it demands it,” I said. “And…”
“And what?” he asked.
“And,” I said, “I didn’t say I loved him as much as Nicole—or as much as God loves either of them.”
That evening I drove down to Mexico Beach for an AA meeting. As the small county road rose slightly to come to an abrupt stop at what seemed to be the end of the world, my breath caught at the beauty, and I felt, as I always did, that this ending was also the beginning, and I had come home somehow.
Beyond the unpolished sunstone-colored sand of the pristine beaches, the Gulf rolled away toward the northwest coast of Cuba, its calm waters the color of uncut Columbian emerald. The setting sun was low in the sky, hanging just above the horizon, and cast a coral-colored shaft of light across the Gulf, as if illuminating a path to another dimension.
I had driven down here to ensure my meeting would be truly anonymous, but already feeling the Gulf’s effect on me knew I had been drawn here in ways I could never fully understand.
Pausing at the stop sign as long as I could, I breathed deeply, gazed carefully, felt fully, and once again let the mending begin.
CHAPTER 22
The moment I walked through the chapel doors the next morning, Mr. Smith, my elderly inmate orderly, motioned me past the inmates waiting to see me and down the back hallway to the kitchen.
Mr. Smith was not only the oldest clerk I had, but was the one who had been with me the longest, and the only one I trusted. Unlike most of the inmates in the institution, Mr. Smith was quiet and respectful, his thoughts and actions deliberate, and I wasn’t sure if it was his personality or a product of his age. Probably the latter—and the fact that he had been incarcerated for so long.
When we were in the kitchen and the door was closed behind us, he slid the large gray garbage can out from the wall.
The chapel kitchen was small and plain, functional, but not much else. The pine cabinets had been built by inmates and were thin and uneven, their earth-tone counter tops peeling up on the ends.
“I’s goin’ through the trash, you know, for security purposes— ”
I knew he didn’t have to go through the garbage, but that he took pride in the chapel and the work he did in it, and that he was constantly looking out for me.
“—and I come across these,” he said.
He lifted the clear plastic bag from the can and emptied its contents onto the floor. Withdrawing from his back pocket two of the plastic gloves we kept around for food preparation, he handed me one, and we each slipped a hand in one and knelt down to examine the trash.
“They wrapped ’em in paper towels and shoved ’em down in the middle,” he continued, “but they didn’t fool nobody.”
Beneath his closely cropped gray hair, Mr. Smith’s skin seemed dry and paper-thin like parchment, his half-closed eyes wise but weary, as if the one was the price for the other.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said, “but they didn’t fool you.”
I watched his long bony black fingers beneath the clear plastic glove sifting through the trash, raking it aside until he found what he was looking for.
“When I saw ’em,” he said, “I left ’em where they was ’til you seen ’em.”
“See what?” I asked.
“There,” he said.
Spreading apart the rough brown paper towel, he revealed the two used condoms it was meant to conceal. As he held the paper towel up in the palm of his gloved hand, the condoms unfurled like worms, their elongated forms revealing the moist residue still on them.
“You have a lot better idea of what’s on the compound than me,” I said. “How available are condoms?”
“They’s a lotsa sex, but no condoms,” he said. “I been down a long time and these the first I seen.” A small, self-amused smile danced across his lips and he added, “No one ’round here practice safe sex.”
I nodded.
“I’ve heard a few hardcore punks talk ’bout a officer usin’ a condom before, but they bring one in, use it, and take it out—or flush it.”
“These the only ones?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Seein’ these got me lookin’ closer ever’where, and I found one other in the visitor bathroom.”
The visitor’s bathroom was in the same small side hallway, just closer to the main hallway door. Unlike the inmate bathroom, which couldn’t lock, the visitor’s bathroom stayed locked and was only used by staff or visitors during a special program.
Turning around slowly, he opened the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink
and pulled out a smaller clear plastic bag.
“This was in the little trash can inside the visitor’s bathroom at the bottom of a bunch of tissues, paper towels, and a tampon.”
“A tampon?” I asked.
“Uh huh.”
Unlike the other two condoms, this one was wrapped in toilet tissue instead of a paper towel.
“It’s different from the others,” he said.
And he was right. Whereas the others were amazingly clean, blood and fecal matter, judging by the smell of it, streaked this one.
“That shit’s rank,” he said, jerking his head back when he had fully unwrapped the tissue. “Sorry,” he added, and I knew he was apologizing for his language, “but…” He shook his head, wrinkling up his face, beginning to breathe through his mouth.
I reexamined all the condoms, studying them in relationship to each other, trying to account for their differences.
“Why they so different?” he asked. “These used in a woman and this one in a man?”
Vaginal versus anal use would certainly explain the differences, though the one seemingly used for anal intercourse in the visitor’s bathroom wouldn’t necessarily have had to have been used by two men.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “We can’t really know until a lab processes them.”
Just then the door behind us swung open quickly, and Abdul Muhummin said, “What the hell’re y’all doin’?”
I turned to see him straining to see what we were looking at.
“Go back in the library,” I said. “I’ll be in there in a minute.”
“You need any help?” he asked, still not looking at me, but trying to see what was behind me. “No,” I said. “Go back in there now, and keep everybody else away from here until I get there.”
“What did you find—a clue or somethin’?”
“Muhummin, if you don’t go now I’m gonna have you locked up for disobeying a verbal order.”
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” he said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “Just relax.”
When he was gone, I turned back to Mr. Smith and asked, “When was the last time the trash was picked up?”
“Not since we was cleanin’ for the program,” he said. “After what happened, we wasn’t able to get in here and clean.”
My anger at Pete’s ineptness and Patterson’s obstruction flared as I thought about them not including the two bathrooms back here as part of the crime scene.
“So you’re saying all of this is from the night of Nicole’s murder?” I asked.
He frowned, the wrinkles snaking across his face like rivers deepening, and he suddenly looked even older. “I’m sayin’ that the only night they could be from.”
“If the killer wore a condom to rape that little girl before he killed her,” Dad said, “how’d it get in the trash in the back of the chapel?”
Though I genuinely believed in the afterlife, and believed Nicole to be in a safe, loving environment now, far from the carnal concerns we were left to deal with, I still shuddered inside when I considered what her last moments in this life had been like.
I shrugged. “The two things may not be related,” I said. “Especially since there are three. He could’ve worn it or carried it into the back in order to dispose of it away from the crime scene. But Pete says the prelim’s inconclusive about whether or not she was sexually assaulted.”
“But if she was—” he began.
“I think if she were raped or sodomized there wouldn’t be any doubt,” I said, cringing to have to think, let alone say, such things.
Dad and I were standing on an old twin-trail logging road beneath rows of slash pines not far from the institution. Pete had agreed to let Dad’s department coordinate with the lab to have the evidence processed, and Dad had driven out to collect the evidence. Not wanting to be seen making the exchange, we had opted to meet on the small trail used in years past to harvest the trees growing here previously.
“If not the little girl,” he said, “what about the woman? The mother?”
“Could be,” I said. “There’s talk about her having a thing for black men and she obviously has a history with inmates, but…”
“But what?”
“They were found in the visitor’s bathroom and if someone saw her leave my office, they’re not saying,” I said.
Squinting as he gazed into the distance, I could tell that what he was straining to see was behind, not before, his eyes.
As usual, being caught in the mire of human depravity that accompanies a murder investigation made me feel tainted, my soul soiled, and I longed to be, if not innocent, for surely I would never be that again, at least cleansed.
“What if she weren’t meeting an inmate, but an officer?” he said. “Of course Coel would say she never left the office if he was the one she left it for.”
The interest on his face and light in his eyes made Dad look younger, and seeing him so fully engaged made me glad we had involved him.
“That’s a good point,” I said. “Have you ever considered a career in law-enforcement?”
He smiled. “Sometimes I think I should,” he said. “Most of the time I feel like a damn politician.”
The rows of trees all around us were tall and fat, ready to be harvested again, which probably explained why the logging road was so overgrown. It had been many years since it was last used.
“You thinking these two were used for vaginal intercourse and this one for anal?” he asked, nodding toward the two bags of condoms I had just given him.
“Maybe,” I said. “But as far as we know, there were only two females in the chapel that night and they were inside a locked office.”
“Inmates?” he asked.
“Possibly,” I said, “but a visitor or a staff member had to bring them in.”
“What about Bobby Earl?” he asked. “Could he have slipped in the back and had sex with one of the inmates while he was supposed to be in your office?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think there was enough time,” I said, “but I guess it’s possible.”
We both grew quiet a moment.
The midmorning sun was bright and hot, and the tall slash pines offered little shade, and as we both began to sweat, I noticed that we did so in the same places—our hairlines and the bridges of our noses.
“Of course, the condom used for anal intercourse wasn’t necessarily used to have sex with a man,” I said, and felt awkward talking about such things with my dad.
His eyebrows shot up. “The woman?”
“The presence of a tampon might suggest that Bunny or whoever the hypothetical woman was, was on her period and she and her partner opted for anal intercourse instead.”
“That makes sense,” he said, a hint of excitement in his voice. “That might just be it.”
“It’s just one of many possibilities,” I said. “I’m hoping the lab can tell us which one it really was.”
“Doesn’t look like there’s much of anything in these two,” he said. “Looks like more residue’s on the outside than the inside. Maybe our guy can’t close the deal.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” I said, “but if that’s the case, why two?”
“Maybe he wore three—left the outer two and took the one with the evidence,” he said. “Bobby Earl’s smart enough to do that. We’ve just got to find out if he, Bunny, or Nicole left your office or if anyone got in.”
“There’s only one person who can tell us for sure,” I said, beginning to ease back toward my truck.
“Where’re you goin’?”
“To ask him.”
CHAPTER 23
The chow hall of Potter Correctional Institution was a cross between a cafeteria and an enlisted men’s mess hall, combining the very worst elements of both. Inmates were lined up against the wall and spilling out the back door where they entered to be served. At the opposite side, inmates poured out of the exit door after dumping the remainder of their food in a tra
sh can and dropping off their trays.
In between the line of inmates entering and the line of inmates exiting, the tables were filled with inmates eating. Each stainless steel table was bolted to the floor and had four stools attached to it so that neither table nor chairs could be snatched up and used as weapons.
A few of the inmates scattered throughout the crowd had their heads down, elbows working, shoveling in their food. However, most of them ate lazily in between conversation, bursts of laughter, and making deals under the table. Prison economy is one of beg, bully, and barter, and every inmate at PCI was well versed in the art of the deal.
Near the entrance, leaning against the back wall, Roger Coel stood stiffly, keeping an eye on the inmates as they ate.
“Did you know Stone’s blaming me for what happened?” he asked without preamble.
I shook my head.
“He’s written a report that recommends my immediate dismissal,” he said. “I’m under investigation. My attorney says if they put this on me, I could face criminal and civil charges in outside court.”
Roger Coel had been a soldier before becoming a correctional officer and it still showed in his erect posture, his precision, rigidity, and affinity for uniformity.
“Tell me again exactly what happened that night,” I said.
He sighed heavily and shook his head.
From the corner of my eye, I saw an inmate sneak in on the other side of the line and take a place close to the front. I wondered if I should say something to Coel, who seemed to be concentrating on me.
“Excuse me a second,” he said, and strode over to the line.
“Gibbs, I told you if I caught you skipping in line again I’d write you up,” he said. “Come on.”
“But Officer Coel, I—” Suddenly, the inmate saw something in Coel’s face that said resistance was futile. He followed Coel, slinging his arms and shaking his head in silent protest. Coel led him over to the corner of the chow hall and stood him in it as if he were the class clown.
Blood of the Lamb (a John Jordan Mystery) Page 11