Reckoning and Ruin

by Tina Whittle

  “Besides,” I continued, “we’re both on edge. Some time apart might be a good thing.”

  He made a noncommittal noise.

  “You know I’m right.” I kept my voice nonchalant. “Hey, what did Gabriella want?”

  “Gabriella?”

  “She was in the parking lot when I left.”

  “She was? Why?”

  I took advantage of the phone connection to concoct a bit of subterfuge. “She wanted to check on you. Didn’t she go up?”

  “No.”

  I listened for any deception in that simple response. I heard nothing but puzzlement in his voice, however. And as much as I wanted to quiz him further, spill my guts about my encounter with his angry ex, I decided that particular conversation would keep, along with the rest of the things I wasn’t saying. He was calm again, collected. I needed him to stay that way until I could get back to town.

  He exhaled softly. “Call me tomorrow night?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you. And be careful. Please.”

  My heart warmed. “I will. You be careful too.”

  “I will. And Tai?”

  “Yes?”

  “That indiscretion on my desk? It wasn’t insignificant. Not at all.”

  I flushed at the memory. He’d stretched way out of his comfort zone that night, and he’d done it because I needed him, which was the part that had been out of my comfort zone.

  “It wasn’t insignificant for me either,” I said.

  We exchanged good nights, and I felt better as I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. One part of me was satisfied. But another part kept whispering in my ear. Forty-five minutes it took him to call me back.

  Forty-five freaking minutes.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rico didn’t even say good morning. He opened the door, saw me standing there with a dozen Krispy Kremes and two coffees, then turned his back and shuffled toward the kitchen table. I kicked the door closed behind me.

  “What? Not even a thank you?”

  He flopped himself down at the table, his ebony eyes bleary and bloodshot. “For what? Robbing me of an hour of sleep? You coulda called instead of just showing up.”

  “You didn’t text me back last night.”

  “I was at a poetry slam. Didn’t get in until four.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” I sat opposite him and shoved a coffee his way. “Don’t you have to be at work in a little while though? I mean, it’s not like you were going to sleep all day.”

  He grumbled something and stuck his nose in the coffee. His voice was thick with sleep, rough like steel wool, and his skin was lighter than I remembered, more au lait than café. We’d been best friends since middle school, bonding on the margins, and then he’d fled Savannah as soon as he graduated. And while my moving to Atlanta had put us closer in distance, we seemed to have gotten further apart in other ways.

  “So you got my text?” I said.

  He nodded, pulled his bathrobe tighter around his beefy frame. “Still not sure what you’re wanting to know.”

  “Tell me about the poem.”

  Rico picked up a doughnut and took a bite. “Your stalker knows the classics. That’s Robert Browning, from ‘My Last Duchess.’”

  “I got that much from Wikipedia. What does it mean?”

  “It’s a confessional monologue from a killer. A murder poem.”

  I pushed down that sinking feeling. “Oh crap.”

  “You got that right. The line you quoted refers to the victim, who was free with her looks, who liked things somebody thought she shouldn’t like. Cherries, donkeys, flowers. That’s what got her killed.”

  “But what’s that got to do with Hope?”

  “Knowing Hope? That woman wants to have something in each hand and something else in pocket, you know what I’m saying? And there are people who don’t take kindly to that.”

  “Enough to kill?”

  “People die for less every day.”

  I snagged a doughnut too, still warm, the glaze still oozy. “You know what I think? I think Hope’s got herself a helper. And I bet it’s that person in the photo with her.”

  “Shouldn’t you be more worried about the person who took the picture? You know, the stalker?”

  “I prefer to think of them as a confidential informant.”

  Rico scoffed. “Yeah? What are they trying to inform you of?”

  “That’s what I plan to figure out. And I’m starting in Savannah.”

  The sunlight filtered weak but warm through the drawn blinds, and I heard gentle snoring in the bedroom. A new boyfriend? One night stand? I suddenly realized how very little I knew about Rico’s current life. But I was OTP—Outside The Perimeter—and city folk like Rico did not venture into the hinterlands beyond I-285.

  He reached for another doughnut. “Savannah, huh? Figured you’d had enough of that town.”

  “Believe me, I thought so too.”

  I filled him in on the situation. Outside the window, the Old Fourth Ward was cranking into gear. Vibrant, cultured, Atlanta’s crazy quilt of history and renaissance. No wonder he stayed out all hours with his poet friends, his hip hop friends, his cool friends. But Monday morning came for everyone, including spoken word poets with nine-to-five IT jobs.

  I toyed with my coffee cup. “I’ve decided to go right to the source first.”

  “Which is?”

  “Jasper himself.”

  Rico almost dropped his doughnut. “The hell you say?”

  “He’s got something to do with John’s disappearance, I know he does, and the only way I can figure out how is if I see him face to face. He can’t wiggle out of my questions or hide behind his spanking new lawyer then.”

  “You know you’re not supposed to be talking with him. If the prosecutor finds out—”

  “She won’t. She’s got no reason to be checking the visitation list.”

  “If she gets word you’re in town, damn straight she’ll check it. Assuming they don’t already have you on some ‘do not get within ten feet of Jasper Boone’ list down at the lock-up.”

  “I’ll deal with that when I get down there.”

  Rico shook his head. He reminded me of a shaggy bear dragged out of his cave. “Why you gotta do this alone?”

  “You know Trey. He can’t go off-grid to save his life.”

  Rico arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Pffft. You don’t know what he can do until you give him a chance.”

  “I know what he’s done every single time before, and past behavior is, as Trey himself says, a reliable predictive indicator. Plus he’s acting like a cop again, like an entire police unit rolled into one control freak human being.”

  Rico made a noise.

  I put down my coffee. “What did you say?”

  “I said, the man may have his issues, but when it comes to control freaking, he ain’t got nothing on you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking ’bout you. You claim to be all flexible and roll-with-it, but that’s bullshit. You’re about as flexible as a tire iron. You gotta have things your way, and you push until that happens.”

  “It’s called being assertive.”

  “It’s called being a pain in the ass.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  He held up both hands. “Don’t kill the messenger, baby girl. And I’ll tell you something else. Y’all are arguing, true enough. And Trey may say this is because you’re about to do something dumb ass—which you might be—and you may say this is because he’s acting like an uptight prick—which he might be—but there’s something else going on. There always is with you two.”

  The alarm clock in the bedroom went off, beeping frantically. I heard a muffled groan, a hand slapping it quiet. Rico looked in that direction,
looked back at me. Kept his mouth shut. I refused to ask. If he didn’t want to share, I wasn’t going to pry it out of him.

  “I gotta get a shower,” he said. “And you need to get done down there and get back up here so we can sit down and talk. You hear me? I miss you, even if you are a pain in the ass.”

  “Yeah. I know.” I popped him on the shoulder. “Stay where I can reach you until I get back, okay? I have a feeling this isn’t the last I’ve heard from my poetry-spouting confidential informant.”

  Rico’s eyes were solemn. “You are probably right. Which should be bothering you a whole helluva lot more than it is.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  On the outside, the Chatham County Detention Center reminded me of a dictator’s headquarters on some small Caribbean island—sand-beige buildings crowned with looping coils of razor wire, minimal windows, and official men milling about in earth-toned uniforms. On the inside, it was bright and sunny, almost cheerful, the concrete block walls and metal folding chairs notwithstanding. My mood, however, was anything but.

  I held my paperwork in hand. “What do you mean I can’t see him?”

  The female guard kept her face impassive. “The inmate in question is unavailable today.”

  “But he’s in Section A, High Risk Seg, and today is visitation for that unit. I looked it up on the website.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But the inmate in question was moved to Medical this morning.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  The guard shook her head. “I’m not at liberty to discuss that. Come back tomorrow.”

  “He’ll be out then?”

  “I don’t know. But tomorrow is visiting day for Medical.”

  “But what if he’s back in the regular unit then?”

  She gave me the slow patient blink. “Then you’ll have to wait until Thursday.”

  “But I’m here from out of town.”

  “Then you’ll get extra time to visit him, forty-five minutes. On Thursday.”

  I started to argue, then gave up. I recognized a wall of bureaucratic regulation when I saw one. I clutched my single piece of paper, the fill-in-the-blank half-sheet required for an appointment. Name, inmate, relation to inmate. I’d put my real name, Teresa Ann, just in case Rico was right and Tai Randolph was listed on some “no way no how” list.

  “Is there no other way?” I said.

  The guard shook her head and returned to her computer screen. “Sorry.”

  I gave up and headed back to the parking lot. I knew I couldn’t kick up a fuss. I did not want Madame Olethea Jones of the Chatham County Prosecutor’s Office putting me on her radar, especially if Jasper was off limits until Thursday. She’d be hard to evade for three more days, but if that was what I had to do…

  I fished my car keys from my pocket, the only thing besides my license I’d been allowed to bring in, and followed the signs back to visitor’s parking. I’d managed to grab a spot in the shade of a frothy white oleander, which had rained blossoms on my windshield in my absence. I started to brush them away when I heard someone clear his throat.

  The voice was polite. “Be careful, ma’am, those are poisonous.”

  I turned. A man stood near my trunk, his navy medical scrubs crisp, his dark hair military short. He had an earbud in one ear and an MP3 player blaring tinny death metal at a hearing-shattering level. I noticed a prison ID clipped to his collar, but I couldn’t see his name. I angled my shoulders, moved onto the balls of my feet. I was getting as paranoid as Trey. But then, I was in a mostly deserted parking lot twenty feet from the largest collection of criminals in Chatham County.

  “I know all about oleander,” I said. “Southern ladies with a disagreeable person to get rid of have made good use of it through the years.”

  “Is that why you’re here? You got somebody to poison?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He held up both hands, palms forward, and smiled. “Kidding. My sense of humor has gone super morbid since I started working here.”

  He had a broad face that was an inch short of handsome and tanned skin that disguised a complexion roughened by acne scars. And he was friendly. Way too friendly.

  “Can I help you?” I said.

  He held the ID card in my direction. “My name’s Shane. Shane Cook. I was on my way in, and I couldn’t help overhearing you ask for Jasper.”

  “Are you a guard?”

  “No, I’m a physical therapist. I’m here a couple days a week.”

  “Jasper one of your patients?”

  “Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe we’re not even talking about the same Jasper. But if we are, he’ll be available tomorrow. He’s going to be in Medical the rest of the week, at a minimum.” He twisted his mouth into a rueful smile. “Of course I’m not supposed to be talking to you. They made that clear at orientation.”

  “That’s okay. I’m not supposed to be talking to you either.”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Then why are you?”

  “Because I came here for information, and since I can’t talk to Jasper, I guess you’ll have to do.”

  “What kind of information?”

  I rummaged in my bag until I found the picture of John and me. I showed it to Shane. “Have you seen this man coming to visit Jasper in the past week or so?”

  He examined the photo, then handed it back. “No.”

  “What about this woman?” I showed him the photo of Hope. “She was an inmate herself until last week.”

  “Haven’t seen her either, not as a patient or inmate. But then, I stay in the medical unit.” He looked left and right, and the smile wavered the tiniest bit. “Look, I gotta ask. What’s a woman like you doing wasting her time with a low class loser like…well, anybody in there?”

  So that was what we had here, a clumsy attempt at a pick-up. A year out of the game, and I’d forgotten how things worked.

  “The loser in question is suing me for three million dollars.” I smiled evenly. “That’s why I’m here.”

  Shane blinked at me. “You’re his cousin Tai.”

  That caught me off guard. “Jasper told you about me?”

  “You’re not the only one who’s been visiting. His lawyer comes too. They talk. I overhear sometimes. What I’m saying is…uh oh. Act like I’m giving you directions.”

  He pointed toward the road back to the parkway, still smiling. A pair of sheriff’s deputies walked past us, headed for one of the patrol cars. They paid us little attention as they pulled out of the lot and drove off the complex.

  Shane’s smile vanished. “Jasper Boone was sent to High-Risk Seg because he provoked a fight with one of the resident skinheads. He puts on a good show, especially for the doctors, but I know his type. Sooner kill you as spit on you.”

  A bus pulled up and delivered a family of three, the woman herding a toddler while trying to unfold an umbrella stroller. The air was thick with diesel fumes and the rising heat. Shane stepped closer, and every instinct I had went singing into overdrive. I didn’t back away, but I clutched my keys tighter.

  He dropped his voice. “So when the lawyers ask me about his wrist and ankle and knee, and if the damages done warrant a multi-million-dollar settlement, I plan to give them my expert medical opinion. Because that’s what they’ll need. They can look at charts and X-rays, listen to Jasper himself go on and on. But in the end, it’s me that will have to make sense of it. And Jasper knows it.”

  I examined his features. Open, friendly, salt of the earth. Except something glittered in the eyes.

  “Has he tried to bribe you?” I said.

  “Not yet. But he will. My time in the Sandbox gave me a real clear sense of good and evil. So you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll tell them everything they need to know about him.” He smiled with charming candor. “If you get my drift.”

  I tried
to keep my expression blank. Was he offering to slant his testimony? And if so, in return for what? If he was telling the truth about testifying in Jasper’s civil suit, that same wholesome corn-fed expression could sway a judge or jury any way he wanted the verdict to go. And he knew it.

  “The Sandbox. That’s Iraq, right?”

  “LSA Anaconda outside of Balad, also known as Mortar-itaville. 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. The Wardogs.” He grinned and pulled up his shirtsleeve, revealing a tattoo of a slavering black hound. “Lost my leftie in a mortar attack on a convoy back in oh-nine.”

  “You lost your what?”

  “My left foot, right below the ankle. Sheared that sucker right off. So when the days get rough here, I remind myself, sure as hell beats the Box.” He gave me a patronizing look. “Look, you seem real nice, so I’m gonna give you some words of wisdom. I’d be careful about talking to Jasper Boone if I were you. The man has friends and enemies in there and out here, and some of them might find you real interesting. And that isn’t something you want. Take my advice—stay away.”

  He smiled again, put in his other earbud, and disappeared into the employee parking area. His left foot moved as naturally as his right, not a hint in his gait of the injury he’d described. I waited until he disappeared into the employee parking area, then brushed the last of the oleander blossoms off my windshield.

  I hadn’t managed to see Jasper. But Shane the physical therapist was an interesting consolation prize. Yes, he was.

  Chapter Twenty

  I shielded my eyes from the Savannah sun, high now in the powdery blue sky. Despite the downtown crush, I lucked into a parking space on Bay and fed enough quarters into the meter to give me two hours. I took the old stone steps down, steep and narrow and treacherous, then hooked a left into the limestone alley running behind the buildings. A quick turn down another narrow dark passageway, and I stepped onto the cobblestones of River Street, the crazy quilt of shops to my left and right, the rolling Savannah River in front.