East of the Sun

by Trey R. Barker

  Big Carol sat behind her counter, her eyes wide, her hands shaking as she tried to type something into the computer. Jace heard her breath hitch as she stopped typing, and saw her put her head down in her hands.

  “Carol?”

  “Did you see that?” the nurse whispered to Jace, staring toward the exam room. “He was holding a compress against his cheek.”

  Jace frowned. She’d been paying attention to the radio and the angry walk; she hadn’t seen the compress. Or the blood.

  I missed it. Something that important and I missed it.

  “Uh . . . Doctor?” Big Carol’s voice was barely controlled. “Anything I can help with?”

  The doctor said nothing and continued banging around. To Jace, it sounded like tools on the counter. Scissors or the like.

  “My God.” Carol was ashen. She glared at Jace but spoke softly. “You know it was that asshole.”

  “What?”

  “Hair all swept back like a mafia ass. Been here a few times. Part of the tours but comes with the doctor, too, sometimes. Showed me a badge once. A Mexican cop or something maybe?”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jorge something. He and the doctor constantly talk about how many inmates there are and how many come to medical. They talk about ’scripts a lot, too. Like do we need anything else, more of this or that drug. I thought he was a drug rep first couple of times I saw him, but—” She laughed a nervous laugh. “He never gave me any crap. I mean like free pens or notepads or nail clippers or all that bullshit the drug reps always shove off on clients.”

  “He’s a police officer, you think?” Hadn’t Kleopping said something about a Mexican officer being involved in the tours?

  “I think so, but a shitty one. Shouts at Cruz. Gives me the stink eye. They talk about drugs a lot.” She sighed. “God, I hate this job. Used to love it. But now—” She looked at Jace, something like hopelessness in her eyes. “My husband has a bad back. I need the benefits or I’d be gone in a flash.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Me either because he don’t talk like any cop I know. I heard him once threaten to beat up the doctor unless he cleaned up some mess. I almost punched him. I keep a clean pod, don’t need some damn Mexican national telling me it’s dirty.” She pointed to the exam room. “Now he’s beat to pieces so you tell me, Dick Tracy.”

  “How do you know Dr. Cruz got beat up?”

  “Worked emergency rooms and jails for thirty years. I know what a beating looks like.”

  “How long has Jorge been coming around?”

  Carol shrugged. “Two months? Three? I don’t know.”

  “Damn it.” Cruz’s voice exploded from the exam room.

  “Doctor, I’m right here if you need anything.”

  From the exam room, he said, “I think I can suture a simple wound.”

  “A suture?” Alarm spread on Carol’s face. “What happened?”

  He stormed out of the exam room, his face mostly cleaned. “I had a little car accident, okay? Nothing to worry about. Zach PD got it all taken care of, put a little bow on it for me.” He grabbed the radio and realized, for the first time, that Jace was in the pod.

  “You. You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Huh?”

  “You called my business. Like half hour ago? Didn’t have balls enough to leave a message but your cell number was big and brassy right on the screen. Why the fuck did you call me? And what the fuck are you doing here? You have no business in here unless you are the assigned guard.” His head snapped back and forth. “Where is the assigned guard? Not that you people can guard anything . . . two murders and no one’s done a damned thing about it. We’re about as safe here as in a firefight in Iraq. Well done, Deputy Salome.”

  Up close, she saw the damage clearly. Cruz had some stitches on his right cheek, but also a black eye, and traces of blood up near his hairline. The finger of his left hand, twisted in an accident when he was young, seemed straighter than the last time she saw him, perhaps broken.

  He stepped up to her, not quite giving her a chest bump. “Not two deaths with you, though, right?”

  Jace backed up a step, stunned. He followed her.

  “Every time you turn around someone dies, right? Inmate . . . officer . . . your grandpa . . . hell, your grandma probably not too far from it, either, with you around.”

  “What?” She backed up again, trying to put space between them. He mirrored her steps. “Why would you say that?”

  He crowded her until she was against the wall. “You think I’m an idiot? You think I don’t hear what’s going on? I hear everything, Deputy. I know what you’re saying about me. I’m not selling drugs to the inmates. I’m not an addict. Bobby didn’t kill Wrubel for revenge. Bobby killed Wrubel because Bobby was a cheap thug. Too stupid to stay outta jail. Who knows why he killed the man.”

  His voice was like razors in her ears. It ground her down and made her physically smaller. She tried to turn her head away, but he moved with her, making sure she saw him unless she closed her eyes.

  I will not.

  Swallowing her fear, deep in her belly now rather than at the back of her throat, she faced him fully. “And then killed himself?”

  Cruz glared at her, uncertainty in his brown eyes for just a moment before they masked over and became absolutely certain. “Sure, he did. Filled with remorse. Like all rednecks. Do the deed but can’t stand that they did it. If you’re going to do it, man up about it.” He grinned, his mouth curled at either end until he looked like one of those Greek tragedy/comedy masks the anonymous computer hacking group wore to hide their real faces.

  And what are you hiding, Doctor? Why the personality shifts and one word to one person and a different word to a different person? What’s behind your Greek mask?

  “How do you get into the courthouse?” Jace asked suddenly.

  For a long moment, he said nothing. His grin was more sneer, more anger and calculation than pleasance. “Like all the other county employees, I go through the employee entrance.”

  “Yes. Yes, you do. Day after day, always in the courthouse for one thing or another, aren’t you? Probably working on those contracts that you told me are so utterly worthless. Hard to make money, right? Do it because you love medicine? Because you want to heal people?”

  Cruz backed up a half step.

  “And what about at night, Doctor? Been there lately at night?”

  He sensed it, she knew; sensed the unknown, maybe ground that had suddenly become dangerous beneath his feet. He kept his face neutral, his eyes on her but with the hard edge. “I can count the number of times I’ve been there at night on one finger, Deputy.”

  “Really.”

  “During a tour nearly two months ago. For that excursion, I used my access code. You know what an access code is, do you not, Deputy? I’m sure you don’t have one.”

  “I do know what they are. Long time ago, at my apartment, the manager had gates with access codes. I gave mine to friends so I wouldn’t have to go all the way downstairs and let them in.”

  He sneered. “An idiot and lazy. My code is my own. No one has it, no one uses it. I change it frequently.”

  “Well, good. There was a break-in at one of the offices. County clerk, I think.” The lie rolled easily off her lips, surprising her. She both hated, and was glad, that it could. She’d known it wasn’t Cruz who’d used his access code, but she wanted to see what he’d say. Now he was denying having been there in the first place.

  “Well done, Deputy. You found a possible suspect and questioned him. I trust he passed your . . . interrogation?”

  She smiled slowly. “Oh, he didn’t need to pass; we know it wasn’t him. Just like we know it wasn’t his access code used to get in. You sure no one has your code?”

  His eyes startled but he quickly regained himself. “It must have been hacked. Given the physical security around here, I can’t imagine the cyber security is any better.”

  �
��Or maybe you gave it to a friend.”

  He worked his lips as though he were working up a mouthful of spit. “A lie. Doctors used to be trusted. Doctors used to be part of the staff. I guess we’re in different times, aren’t we, Deputy?”

  “Different from what?”

  He raised his right hand and pointed a finger at her. His ring sat there like a fat drop of gold, squeezed carefully onto his finger. A ruby stared out at her, with a T and an S imprinted in gold on it. “When I started in medicine twenty years ago no one questioned doctors. We were—and still are—lifesavers.”

  His eyes caught hers and he jammed the ring up in her face. “Yeah? You looking at my ring? Medical school, Deputy, a step or three above correctional school. You and your fucking neck tattoo, looking at me like I’m some kind of leper.” His hands flew out wide, taking in the entire jail. “I’m no leper. I save convicts, Deputy. I am not a baby-rapist or a burglar or a two-bit junkie or a crack ho with no teeth selling her snatch for a hit. I am better than all these people . . . all these convicts. I am better than you.” His finger came back right into her face. “Why that tattoo, Deputy? Get your heart broken once? Grow up, bitch; life is heartbreak and fire-walking every damned day.”

  He grabbed the radio off the counter and demanded to be let out. Two pops later, he was moving rapidly down the hall, away from medical. Without a word, Carol, still pale and shaking, went to the exam room to clean up.

  “Control from 479. Medical inner.”

  The door popped immediately.

  Before she left at the end of her shift, Jace got a call. Big Carol, barely able to hold back her tears, hesitated. “He wasn’t a doctor twenty years ago. Nine . . . maybe ten. Graduated from a university in Mexico.”

  “Why did he say twenty years?”

  “I don’t know, but he says it all the time.”

  “Padding his resumé, I guess. How do you know otherwise?”

  “This is going to sound stupid, but he doesn’t have any old stories. I’ve been a nurse thirty years and all his first patient stories are recent medicines or procedures. Plus? He and that guy talked about it. In Dr. Cruz’s office once. I heard them. They were talking about outstanding school loans and I don’t know what all.”

  All doctors had school loans, it should be no different for a man who went to school in another country. Maybe the guy was a relative, someone with whom Cruz was comfortable talking about personal issues. But if that were the case, why the repeated tours? Family member once, sure, to see where their loved one worked. But two or three or more times?

  “What guy,” though Jace was sure she knew.

  “Jorge.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Before noon, New Year’s Eve, Jace stared at the wall of flyers.

  They stared, too, silent but somehow still howling in their paper-language.

  Why had she put them up? Why had she given cops like Von Holton power over her? Why hadn’t she let their hatred bounce off her like bullets off Wonder Woman’s bracelets?

  Because things got to her, got under her skin, got deep in her brain. Like Mama’s main song, given Jace over so many sleepless nights when she was a young girl. “Embraceable You.” It wasn’t a brilliant song, nor was Mama a particularly good singer. There were other songs, spanning the world of jazz, Jace liked better. There were other singers, both professional and amateur, who Jace thought had better control or deeper creativity or a wider knowledge of the music. But that song, sung in Mama’s warbly alto, had gotten to Jace and burrowed into her head and heart and memory and that’s what things did to her—good things and bad things.

  So she kept the flyers. She brooded over them, got angry and melancholy over them.

  She had come home after her shift, her head full and confused, and had gone straight to bed. She’d called and left a message for Major Jakob, intending to tell the woman about Dr. Cruz’s injuries and what Jace believed was going on.

  She’d then had two cups of tea and had fallen asleep on the couch. When she awoke, four hours later, Jakob had returned her call but Jace didn’t call her back. Because what did she know? Nothing. She had beliefs and theories, but knew nothing.

  Now she stood, naked, in the second bedroom and let the flyers needle her like a bad recording filled with static.

  Her phone rang. The screen said Zachary City. She answered it.

  “Salome? Captain Novotny over at Zach PD. Listen, we’ve been talking to Ty Campbell, your truck driver from the cemetery? Lemme ask you: Do you know Dr. Ernesto Cruz? I think he’s the jail doc.”

  The flyers stared at her, as though just as intent on Captain Novotny. They swelled closer to her, waiting for an answer. “Yeah, he is. I know him. Why?”

  “Well, turns out Mr. Campbell is his second cousin. Or third cousin. Hell, I can’t remember. Got himself a bit of a habit, too. Busted a few times for possession. He’s a pill popper but his arrests have been minor. He’s related by marriage through Campbell’s mother’s brother’s father’s third yellow Lab dog or some crap; I can’t remember. It was pretty thin, but they are related. He lives out . . . hang on.” Jace heard papers shuffling. “Second cousin and he live out on 3200 a few miles north of Zach City. Actually in Martin County. Owns a hog farm. Cruz has been out there for injuries a few times. Hog farming is tough, I guess.”

  . . . it was pig blood.

  Breath hot and scared, Jace said, “Did Dr. Cruz have an accident in the last couple of days? You guys take a report on that?”

  “Hang on; lemme check.”

  This time, Jace heard him punching keys into a computer. Less than a minute later he was back. “If he did, he didn’t report it.” The captain chuckled. “You’d think a guy works for the poh-leece would report an accident. Maybe it wasn’t too bad.”

  “Bad enough to require stitches.”

  “He went to the hospital?”

  “No, did it himself. At the jail.”

  The captain whistled. “Not sure I could sew myself up. Well, we don’t have anything on file. Maybe it was you guys.”

  It wasn’t, but Jace agreed it could have been.

  “Well, have fun tonight. New Year’s Eve . . . lotta drunks.”

  “Nothing I like booking better than drunks.”

  The man laughed and hung up.

  Jace glanced at her watch. It was just about noon. She dressed quickly and in a few minutes was headed to the Zachary County jail. On the way, she called Rory.

  “I was sleeping, worm; why you calling me?”

  Jace filled her in about Dr. Cruz sewing his sutures himself. She told Rory about Carol’s belief that the doctor was beaten, by a man named Jorge who sometimes visited. She also told her friend that Carol believed Dr. Cruz’s medical degree was not twenty years old, but closer to ten.

  “Eh . . . everybody lies about their history. Building himself up. No big deal.”

  “It is if he’s lying to administrators to get contracts. Wouldn’t that be some sort of malfeasance or false pretenses or something?”

  Rory laughed. “Probably. You wanna go be an investigator for the Texas medical board? What do you think he had to do with all this?”

  “I don’t know. So remember the cemetery guy? Ty Campbell? Guess who he is.”

  Rory whistled when Jace explained it. “That’s the shit right there. Jakob said it was pig blood in Bobby’s cell.”

  “Campbell likes to get a taste, too. No clue what his drug of choice is. Can you get some of the pharma from your truck arrest? Get it analyzed or whatever?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Maybe it’s less than full strength. I don’t know; might mean something.”

  “Damn, sister. When you jump into something, you really go balls out.”

  “Jail balls. The ones you keep talking about.”

  “I’d say so.”

  “So I’m not the worm anymore?”

  Rory laughed. “Always be the worm to me. I can hear traffic. Where you going?”

&n
bsp; “To talk to a man about guns.”

  “Huh?”

  “Later, sister.”

  Ten minutes later, she had signed in with Kemp and was walking into the yard. She tried to look calm but her insides were on fire and she was pretty sure she was going to throw up. One of the second-shift jailers asked if she needed any help. She’d said no, thanked him, made sure her badge was prominently displayed on her belt, and had the control room pop the door into the recreation yard.

  It was about fifty degrees but the air was bathed in sunshine and felt warm on her face. As did the scores of eyes watching her. Most of B Pod was getting yard time right now, about a hundred inmates. Some played basketball, some stood and talked, some worked the weights in the far corner.

  She headed for them.

  When she was about fifty feet from the weight area, those inmates stopped lifting and stared at her. Their eyes were all hard as steel, as wary as wolves circling what could be predator or prey. Jace swallowed and felt her feet slow down. She willed herself on.

  She put a mask on her face, as hard and unyielding as the inmates around her. Confident and sure of herself, unconcerned about a handful of men. A mask, but she was buoyed by it, strengthened. She could pretend to be a woman who was sure of herself, who held a deep belief in herself and what she could do.

  How many of us, she wondered, are scared behind our masks right now? Like Cruz was last night? Probably everyone in the yard right now; each wearing a mask that made them smarter than they were, tougher than they were.

  The inmate she wanted was lying on the bench, two huge steel plates on either end of the weight bar above his head.

  “Tate.” She nodded specifically at him and ignored the other inmates.

  “Deputy . . . ? Uh . . . ?” He snapped his fingers, trying to remember her name.

  “Salome,” she said.

  “Who gives a shit?”

  “Looks like the guns are getting bigger.”

  “BB guns, an idiot cop told me once.”

  Jace nodded. She’d assumed he’d hammer her for that mistake. “Got a question.”