Vicious Circle

by C. J. Box

  “Rhonda likes to do that,” Dooley said with a tired sigh.

  Joe grunted.

  “That was nothing,” Dooley continued in the same tone. “For a while we couldn’t figure out why the commissary was selling out of lollipops all of a sudden. We couldn’t keep them in stock. Then one of the inmates fessed up to say that some of the lovers who were assigned to different cells had invented a game: one of them would take the lollipop and put it up in her . . . you know . . . and pass it along to her girlfriend to taste. Then the girlfriend would do the same and pass it back. Pretty sick, you know? Suffice it to say you can’t buy lollipops in the commissary anymore.”

  “Gotcha,” Joe said. He was glad Marybeth hadn’t heard that.

  —

  HE FELT THE VIBRATION of an incoming text message as they passed from the West Wing through the Central Wing. Joe noticed the curious stares and knowing nods from COs, and at least twice heard the words “Brenda Cates” whispered behind the cell doors. It was Inmate-Dot-Com in action—the word of his pending interview spreading throughout the prison faster than he could walk to get there.

  Two COs manned the steel-barred entrance door to the East Wing, and one of them triggered a switch to open it. Joe followed Dooley through and heard the heavy door hum and lock behind him.

  The East Wing was smaller than the others, just a short hallway with closed doors on both sides of the walls. Single photos were on the right side of each doorframe.

  Dooley stopped at an unmarked door and rapped on it with his knuckles. While he did, Joe glanced at his phone. The message was from Marybeth and the subject line read: Tongue-control.

  The unmarked door opened just wide enough for a bespectacled hipster in civilian clothes to look out. He had a three-day growth of beard and his unkempt appearance said “IT guy.”

  “Come in,” he said to Joe.

  “And with that, I exit the stage,” Dooley said.

  Joe thanked his escort and stepped inside the room. It was dimly lit. A bank of video and audio equipment was stacked on a counter that was fixed to the wall. Warden Gray sat at another counter in a folding chair with a pair of earphones wrapped around her neck. The monitor in front of her showed the view from the inside top corner of an empty room painted white. Inside the white room was a stainless-steel desk with a microphone stand mounted to it and three spare metal chairs.

  “They’re bringing her in,” Gray said.

  “Does she know why?” Joe asked.

  “No.”

  “So she doesn’t know I’m here?”

  “No.”

  The hipster tech made a few clicks on a keyboard to activate the microphone inside the room and to begin the recording.

  “Ready,” he said.

  While they waited, Joe pulled out his phone and opened the message. There was a link to a scholarly treatise on the tongue-controlled wheelchair written by an engineer at Georgia Tech. Marybeth had typed, Check out the illustration!!!!

  Photos and graphics loaded slowly as he read the text, and then he saw what Marybeth had found.

  “We’ve got her,” he said.

  Martha Gray looked up and Joe handed her his phone. As she scrolled down through the article, she gasped, then said, “Well, damn it. I can’t believe we missed that. I’m going to have someone’s ass for this.”

  “Who would have thought?” Joe said, taking the phone back.

  “Damn it,” Gray repeated emphatically.

  There was a metallic click through a speaker from inside the interview room. Joe looked up to see Brenda Cates whir inside and stop just short of the desk. A CO followed, frustrated that she’d suddenly powered her chair out of his hands.

  Brenda was a large woman. Her gray hair had turned snow white, but her look was familiar: tight curls and metal-framed cat’s-eye glasses. She wore a thin high-tech headset with a suspended transceiver poised near the outside of her mouth to track the movement of her tongue to send commands to the chair.

  Joe noted that her arms and legs—which had always been thick but toned from hard physical labor around her compound—now sagged like tubes of heavy goo. Her hands lay lifeless on her lap, and her fingers were slightly curved and looked like talons.

  She tilted her chin up and stared straight at the camera. Joe felt a tremor inside him as if she were looking through the lens and video cable into his eyes.

  “Why am I here?” she asked.

  The CO who had ushered her in backed out of the door and closed it. Now she was alone.

  Joe said to Gray, “I’m going to say some things to her I’m not proud of, but you’ll need to trust me.”

  “Don’t cross the line,” Gray said. They both knew that it was legal to mislead a suspect during an interview as long as it was designed to elicit information that could be legitimately used at trial. The trick was to not threaten the subject and to not be too egregious with the line of questioning.

  He placed his cell phone, keys, pocketknife, and change on the console counter and patted himself down to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything that could be used as a weapon. The only thing he kept was his notebook, which he’d need.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  —

  JOE PAUSED OUTSIDE the door to the interview room to collect himself. The CO who’d brought Brenda into the room from her cell across the hall said, “Good luck.”

  “Thank you, I’ll need it,” he replied. Then he pushed the door open quickly and strode inside.

  At the sound, Brenda instantly backed up her chair a few feet and whipped it around to face him, since she couldn’t turn her head to see.

  “Hello, Brenda,” he said.

  Her eyes flashed behind her glasses and her breath began to puff out of her nose in a staccato. For a second, Joe was afraid she might hyperventilate and have a seizure.

  Once, Brenda’s reaction to him might have included turning away, kicking at the dirt, fidgeting, or crossing her arms over her breasts in defiance. It was as if all of her being and emotion had been forced from her body into her neck and face and she was barely able to control either.

  He walked around her to the other side of the desk, and she rotated slowly, almost unconsciously, to track him.

  He said, “Boy, that’s quite a chair you’ve got there.”

  Joe sat on one of the chairs and slid his notebook out of his breast pocket. “I bet you’re surprised to see me,” he said. “You probably figured I wouldn’t be around by now, huh?”

  “I’m not talking to you,” she said as she turned her chair slightly and looked at the corner behind Joe instead of at him. Then she said to the camera, “Get me out of here now.”

  “Sorry, but you don’t have that choice,” he said. “You’re compelled to participate in an investigation. Either that, or Warden Gray has to impose punishment on you. For example, she could put you right back in that sip-and-puff chair you didn’t like. Or maybe put you in one of those old-fashioned ones that needs to be pushed around by a CO.”

  “I paid for this myself,” she said defensively. He knew he’d hit a nerve. He noted the faint Ozarks accent in her cadence.

  “We’ll talk about where you got your money in a minute,” he said. “Let’s start with something else. I’m guessing you haven’t talked to Dallas since the charges were dropped against him. It’s just been a couple of days, but a lot has happened since then that you might not be aware of.”

  She clamped her thin lips together and glared at the corner. But he knew she was curious about what he had to say.

  “Cora Lee went off the rails,” Joe said. “She tried to chop a hole in the door of a house where my family was staying. Got caught, though, and now she’s in custody and singing like a bird. Didn’t you think that she’d get right back on the pipe as soon as she got some money in her hands? She might have promised you she’d ke
ep clean, but meth addicts are meth addicts and they’ll say just about anything. Even to the mother-in-law who’s sending her money and pulling her strings.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Brenda said. “You’re a liar and a murderer.”

  “I’m neither,” Joe said. Even though her allegations weren’t true, it still stung to hear them.

  “You shot Bull point-blank and you were there when Eldon broke his neck falling in that hole. You had something to do with Timber’s death, because he never would have jumped off no balcony on his own. He was scared of heights. Then you crippled Dallas by running him over. Don’t say otherwise, because I was there.”

  Joe let it go. There was enough truth in what she said that it was pointless to argue.

  “Why don’t you turn around and look at me?” he asked softly.

  “I never want to see your face again except on your obituary in the Saddlestring Roundup,” she spat.

  Joe glanced up at the closed-circuit camera and shrugged.

  Then: “Brenda, I’m here for one thing and one thing only. I want this to end. It’s in your power to make that choice and end it right here and now. It’s time to call off the dogs. That way no one has to get hurt—especially my family. You’ve got to know by now that when it comes to protecting my family, I’ll do anything it takes. Anything, Brenda. That’s why I’m here.

  “I know you’ve always had a special place in your heart for your last remaining son. Dallas was always your favorite, and not just because he was a rodeo champion. He deserves better than this. You’re the only one who can cut him loose and let him go free. But he won’t do it unless you give him permission.”

  Joe let that sit.

  After nearly a full minute, Brenda said, “Go to hell. I’ve got ghosts to answer to.”

  “I’d say the only thing you answer to is your evil instincts,” Joe said. “I know you’re from Jasper County, Missouri, and there’s nothing down there they love more than a good family feud. I know you had a really tough life before you met Eldon. You have a well-deserved chip on your shoulder. But I’m asking you to let it go. You can change, Brenda.”

  “And you can go straight to hell, Joe Pickett,” she whispered. “I’m thinking Eldon, Bull, and Timber will be waiting for you there.”

  Joe again glanced up at the camera as if to say, I tried.

  “You remember my friend Nate?” he asked. “The one you tried to ambush? The guy you nearly killed? Well, at this minute he’s watching Dallas and those two thugs of his you’re paying off. They don’t know he’s there. All it will take is a call from me and . . . things might just get Western. If they do, you’ll be completely alone in the world. Is that what you want?”

  She didn’t reply or look over, but Joe could see he had her full attention.

  He said, “Do you understand how many innocent people have been hurt or killed since you set your revenge in motion?”

  She didn’t flinch.

  “You orchestrated it all from in here, but I’m not sure you know how it all played out,” he said. “People who had absolutely nothing to do with me got caught up once you started plotting and throwing money around. A college student named Joy Bannon—you might know her family—got hacked up by Cora Lee just because your daughter-in-law was too strung out to tell the difference between Joy and April.

  “Dave Farkus got gunned down because Dallas and his thugs thought he might have heard something. Same with a bartender named Wanda Stacy. They hung her and threw her off a mountain so she wouldn’t testify in court. All of them were innocent, Brenda. You’re all self-righteous about getting even with me, but you’ve got innocent blood all over your hands.”

  “Bullshit,” she said. “It’s not my fault. I can’t control everything that happens.”

  “Of course you’d say that.” He thought, She’s engaged. Whether she knows it or not, she’s admitting her role.

  “I talked to your insurance guy in Winchester,” Joe said. “He told me about the life insurance policy you took out on poor old Eldon all those years ago. Did Eldon ever know about that?”

  “He didn’t need to know,” she said. “I could see what kind of man he was despite everything I tried to do for him. I earned that money fair and square for sticking with that man all those years. I could see he’d never change and that he’d end up dead before his time.”

  “And you cashed in on it,” Joe said. “Seven and a half million dollars. You were just looking ahead, right?”

  “I knew I’d need it,” she said with a sniff. “I had a family to take care of. I didn’t know at the time you’d kill most of them.”

  He ignored that shot.

  “You knew Ashlyn Raymer would make payments to whomever you designated as long as she got a commission on every check, right?”

  Brenda narrowed her eyes. “That woman promised to keep her mouth shut. I shoulda known a banker would turn out to be crooked. That’s why I never trusted them.”

  “Right,” Joe said. He opened his notebook and pretended to read through the pages. “How did you find out about Deputy Spivak? When did you know he’d help you out to botch the case against Dallas if you could finance his daughter going to that gymnastics school?”

  She shook her head and said, “Dumb luck.”

  “What’s that mean?” Joe asked.

  “Your Deputy Spivak wasn’t exactly true to his wife,” Brenda said. “He had a fling with a little slut when he went to the Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas for some kind of training. He told her all about his wife who wouldn’t sleep with him and his daughter who had a special gift. He told her he’d do anything to advance his daughter’s sports career.”

  Joe wasn’t sure where this was going, but he didn’t stop it.

  “The slut was a meth head like Cora Lee. She got caught with too much of it on her and was sent here for a while, and she shared a cell with my useless daughter-in-law. She told Cora Lee all about your deputy, so we were able to reach out to him. He likes money. It ain’t all about his daughter.”

  “Why go after Dave Farkus?” Joe asked.

  “I had nothing to do with that,” she said.

  “Why go after Wanda Stacy?”

  She shook her head as if she’d never heard of her until a few moments before. Joe was surprised that he believed her. But he was convinced he’d drawn out enough from her to bolster his case.

  “This ends now, Brenda,” he said. “It’s over and we can all walk away. Even Dallas.”

  For the first time, she rotated her chair a half turn so she could meet his eyes. She said, “Not until every member of your family is gone—like mine are gone. I know Dallas. He’ll defend my honor and the honor of our family name to his last dying breath.”

  Joe stood and shook his head from side to side. He said, “Not if he isn’t around anymore. Like I said earlier, you’re the only one who can stop this.”

  Brenda’s eyes hardened, a small smile carved into her face. “I’m not getting out. I’m going to die in here either way. Dallas knows how to make sure my last days are happy ones.”

  “You never quit, do you?” he said with a sigh.

  “Never have. Never will.”

  He snapped his notebook closed and slid it into his pocket and started for the door to get the CO.

  He heard the electric motor in the chair rev to a high whine and he barely got turned around in time before she slammed it into him. The steel footrests banged hard into his shins, and pain shot up his spine.

  Joe reached out for the wall to steady himself as Brenda reversed the chair a few feet, set her mouth, bent her head forward as if the crown of it were a battering ram as well, and made the chair shoot forward. It was remarkably fast. He managed to make another half turn before it slammed into his left knee and knocked him off his feet. Before he could grab her, she reversed the chair out of his reach.<
br />
  Orange bangles floated across his eyes. He found himself on his hands and knees. When he looked over, the footrests were positioned at head height.

  She prepared for another run. He knew if the footrest hit him square in the temple or smashed the bridge of his nose up into his brain, he’d be done for.

  Joe grunted and threw himself at her chair before she could build up a head of speed. The footrests raked his shoulder, but he reached below them and grasped the front of each. He scrambled to his feet and lifted the front end of the chair off the floor so the chair tipped back. Her head flopped to the side and her eyes flashed white as he continued to lift. The back wheels of the chair spun and smoked and scored the tile on the floor. The forward momentum of her wheels helped him lift the front of the chair.

  He flipped her over backward and she spilled out of the chair onto her side and lay still. The wheels of the chair were still under her power, though, and they continued to whine as if the chair were trying to escape on its own.

  As the CO burst through the door, Joe leaped on the chair and used his weight to hold it in place. He thumbed open the latch of the plastic console on the right armrest.

  An iPhone 6 was nestled inside the console and he unplugged the eight-pin cable from the bottom of it and lifted it out. The motor of the chair went still and the wheels slowly stopped turning.

  On the floor, Brenda craned her neck to see what he’d done. When he showed her the phone, she said, “Put that back!”

  “Nope,” he said. It hurt to stand up straight, but he did it anyway. He turned toward the camera in the room and displayed the phone to it.

  Marybeth had been the key. Her quick research had shown that, rather than building a dedicated microcomputer to power the tongue-controlled chair, the engineers at Georgia Tech had programmed an application for a smartphone that would serve the same purpose. When the new high-tech chair had arrived at the Wyoming Women’s Center, no one, including Warden Gray, had thought to research the technology of how the chair operated.