The evening passed pleasantly, with the kind of conversation you enjoy at the time but can’t recall later. The wine was good, the food even better, and I didn’t get a drop of either on my chic clothes. I wore my usual road uniform of a men’s button-down shirt (white) and jeans, but I had put on sandals and pulled my hair back with a scarf to signal my brain that it was off the clock. I guess it didn’t get the message.
We made it to coffee before I reverted to shop talk. I’d reviewed the police reports while waiting for Richard, and now I took the opportunity to ask him about some of the players.
“You know,” he said, “Rudy Nagroski, the lead detective, is retired, but he’s still around. I’m surprised he’s not here at Rosalia’s tonight. He’s a pretty good guy, as cops go. He was a transplant from up north, so he wasn’t brought up with the local politics, and he didn’t take every crime in his jurisdiction as a personal affront. How long are you sticking around?”
“At least tomorrow, probably through Saturday.”
“I’m busy tomorrow, but I’d be happy to go see Rudy with you on Saturday. If I wouldn’t be stepping on your toes.”
“Not at all. Local or not, he might be more relaxed talking to somebody he knows. But are you sure you want to? It’s your day off. Your wife might actually want to see you sometime.”
Richard laughed. “Angela’s used to me working on Saturdays. I’m sure she has her own plans. She’s learned to be very independent, if that doesn’t sound too chauvinistic.”
“How chauvinistic is too chauvinistic?” He looked momentarily stricken so I added, “Just kidding—I know what you mean. The marriages where two people become one unit scare me. Although I have to admit, if my husband were out at all hours with adoring young seconds I may get the teensiest bit jealous.”
“Angela used to in the beginning, but it’s become sort of a running joke with us, which young thing I’m having an affair with now. My wife knows I’ve always been faithful.”
I avoided Richard’s eyes. For the first time all night I felt uncomfortable, but I wasn’t sure why, whether it was because of his thoughts or my own. We left a few minutes later, and I wondered if the timing was a coincidence.
The party was still going at the Good Times, but a few people left as we did, heading home so they could start all over again tomorrow. Just as we would. Tired and slightly wine-sluggish, the thought made it hard for me to move from the car when we arrived 15 minutes later. The motel I was staying in was an older one, with no interior access. My first floor room opened directly onto the parking lot, and when Richard dropped me off at the motel he insisted on walking me to my door. The lock was a tricky one, the kind that requires you to pull the door toward you and give an appropriate grunt before it opens. A truck’s headlights blinded me as it pulled in the parking lot, and I nearly dropped my keys. Great, was there anything else I could do to add verisimilitude to my impersonation of a drunk person? For some reason it bothered me that Richard might think two glasses of wine with dinner would knock me on my ass.
I finally managed, with the proper profane incantations, to coax my door open. The table lamp was on, as I’d left it, and everything was as it should be. Pulling the door back toward me as I removed the key, my body turned slowly to face Richard. I opened my eyes wide, straining to make out his face as it drifted toward my own in the dark.
His lips hovered near my own—I knew they must—so lusciously close that his head blocked the little bit of light in the parking lot. His features began to take shape, but his expression was still indecipherable. I held my breath until my lungs burned and tiny open circles appeared in my vision. Finally, I feel his breath expelled from his nostrils, a quick sigh, as he tilted his head to kiss my cheek. His warm lips lingered for the space of several heartbeats, but the way my heart was racing, that wouldn’t have been long. He rocked back on his heels and said a soft good night. I responded in kind, and hoped the darkness hid the flush that spread from my cheeks to the base of my neck.
My mind was racing in time with heart, blood, and other organs, and yet a tiny piece of it remained aloof, unaffected, as always. I visualize that fold in my gray matter as a tiny old schoolmarm type, perched on a rocking chair in the back of my skull, muttering an occasional “hmm” and taking notes of things to share with the rest of the class when the time is right. Mrs. Bibbystock, I call her, when I’m feeling whimsical. It was Mrs. Bibbystock who noticed the blinding truck leave the parking lot right after Richard.
Neither of us noticed the note that had been slipped under my door, pushed out of the way with the door’s opening arc, nor did I notice it the next morning.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The kinds of places I stay when I’m working don’t have much to offer in the way of luxury, but they do have the panacea of hot water. The next morning, I showered until the steam billowed from the bathroom when I opened the door. Then I wiped the mirror with a hand towel, reveling in the streaks.
Once I’d dressed (light blue shirt with khakis this time—it was too hot for jeans) I walked next door to Denny’s, my notes tucked under my arm. I had some OJ and an English muffin while I tried to gather my thoughts. This is also typical road routine, which explains the jelly smears on many of my note pads.
Noel had talked about her old babysitter and neighbor, Miss Johnson, but she hadn’t even known her first name. Last night before turning in, I’d channeled my insomnia and unruly thoughts of married men into completing my initial review of the trial attorney file. I’d jotted down everything I could find on Miss Johnson and was hoping the police reports had given enough identifying information to track her down. Or rather, for me to have Mike at the PD’s office track her down. He struck me as the efficient type, so I should have just enough time to get an address on her before heading out to Ida’s place in Lazarus in the evening.
My first stop of the morning was Latham C.I. to check on Isaac’s medical records. I got nothing there but dirty looks. Well, almost nothing. The records administrator was a stern woman in a plain navy ankle-length dress and cardigan. From her demeanor, I suspected she valued economy in thought as highly as economy in dress. She remained standing behind her desk, but I pretended not to get the hint. I sank down in a metal folding chair as if it were plushly upholstered and began removing items from my bag, including a notebook and pen.
“You won’t need that,” she told me.
I ignored her words and waited expectantly like an eager pupil. She pushed on.
“Isaac Thomas was processed and spent exactly one day here at Latham Correctional Institute. He was returned the same day he arrived, and he was not treated or tested, nor did he in any way receive attention from our staff. If he had, we would have a record of it. Further, regardless of what you may have been told by ill-informed individuals at other institutions, any records that come in with an inmate leave with him, and Mr. Thomas would have been no exception. At Latham, we keep records of those actions actually initiated at our institution, but if we maintained full medical records on everyone who passes through here we’d have no room for the inmates. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
I didn’t have a chance to speak, even if I could have thought of something to say. She left her office before I’d even gathered my belongings. Honesty compels me to admit that when I have all my paraphernalia (official-looking bag, pads, pens) I’m often the last person to leave a room. It started as a natural behavior, taking time to put everything in its place, but then I began cultivating it. I’ve heard and seen a lot of things I otherwise wouldn’t have without my apparently abstracted tardiness. This was to be no exception.
As I closed the flap on my bag, I noticed an inmate in blues loitering in the hallway by the door. He was a youngish black man—that is, about my age. Still young by outside standards, but old enough in the prison population to start knowing better, start settling down and maybe even start feeling old. I remembered nodding to him when I walked in. He’d been mopping the hall, and it looked like
he was still cleaning the same spot.
“That Miss Hinckley knows everything there is to know about records,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s what she told me. In fact, I think those may have been her exact words.”
He smiled and leaned on his mop. “’Course, that don’t mean she knows everything there is to know about prisons.”
“No, I wouldn’t think she would.”
I noticed he also pulled a big garbage bin behind him, so I picked up Miss Hinckley’s wastepaper basket and took it to him. He dumped the basket, giving an extra shake for those particularly sticky documents.
“You don’t work for the state, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Didn’t think so, and I can usually tell.” He walked slowly into the office to return the empty basket. “Sometimes we get some mighty healthy-looking people in here. Seems to me like not everybody that comes here on a medical is really here because they’re sick.”
He replaced the can and stood in the doorway. I finally picked up my bag and moved to join him.
“What else would bring someone to this fine institution?”
He looked slowly up and down the hallway before speaking. “Personally, I don’t know. But I hear things. Like maybe if somebody wants to have a private chat with you, the kind you don’t want nobody to know about, they suddenly decide you don’t look so well and get you a medical transfer. Just long enough to talk to you. Then you have a miracle recovery and get sent back home. You follow me?”
Fortunately I did, because I figured that was all he was saying. “Yeah. Thanks, man.”
He nodded and loaded up his cleaning supplies. “It ain’t gospel, but that’s what I hear.”
He moved down the hall away from me, then turned with a grin and did a half-skip backwards. He cupped a hand around each ear, both of which stood out straight without any help.
“And like the ladies always say, I got me some damn fine ears.”
His words occupied my thoughts as I drove to WFC. Without an autopsy, there was no way of knowing if Isaac’s organs were eaten up by cancer or some other terminal illness. Of course, even with an autopsy the M.E. may not notice ill health in a suicide, much less the suicide of an inmate. But if Isaac hadn’t been sick at all… Nothing in Isaac’s visitation records indicated a visit from a cop, but that didn’t mean anything. Someone could have looked the other way on the sign-in, or the medical transfer could have been their first meeting. But why? After 20 years of incarceration, what information could Isaac possibly have that was important enough to justify the charade?
The most obvious answer was information about another inmate, something he’d overheard or something someone had confessed to him. It was obvious, but it didn’t feel right. First of all, common sense says snitching is more common in jail than in a prison. Elaborate systems develop in some jails, pipelines of information to satisfy the law enforcement wish list, with that information occasionally coming directly from the officers. Inmates find out who’s ripe for snitching, what needs to be said, and jump on board for reduced sentences. It’s pretty simple, and everybody knows about it. Everybody, that is, except the jurors who convict people based on snitch testimony.
It gets more complicated in prison. The guys there have already been convicted and sentenced, so no one in a position of power cares about their cases anymore. Plus chances are good that you’re looking at multiple jurisdictions with the snitcher, the snitchee, and the place they’re incarcerated. Like I said, complicated. I suspected that in prison, you’d have to hold some pretty compelling information to get noticed and make it worth the effort of following up.
Aside from the practical considerations, Isaac just didn’t strike me as the snitching type. He hadn’t made a statement of any kind in his own case. Richard told me he’d refused to either confirm or deny his guilt, to the court or to his own attorneys, even when it could have helped him get a more lenient sentence. Often when a defendant pleads guilty as part of a plea agreement, he’s required to make a statement to the court, setting out the circumstances of his case and his part in the crime. Isaac had avoided that by pleading nolo contendere (no contest) to the charges against him, not admitting responsibility but agreeing to not contest the charges.
The State had been unable to produce any jailhouse snitches against Isaac, or at least none worth using. Isaac apparently was not a chatty guy, so it seemed unlikely that he’d encourage others to unburden themselves to him. And he had no known history of snitching over decades of incarceration. It didn’t make sense. In order to get my head around it, I needed to have a better understanding of what kind of inmate, and what kind of person, Isaac had been.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tanya was unavailable when I got to WFC. I had a funny feeling that from now on, no matter when I dropped by or why, Tanya would always be unavailable. Ms. Ricker, the woman standing in for her, was older than Tanya, probably in her late 40s, and not nearly as pleasant. I had a sneaking suspicion she was related to the records woman at Latham.
“I’m familiar with your requests,” she said. The way she said it, you’d think I’d asked her to hitch up and be my lead dog for a little dogsled race in Alaska. Nude. “We’ve given you all of Mr. Thomas’s records.”
“Yes, ma’am. You’ve all been very helpful, and I do appreciate it, but I’m sure there are additional records. I still haven’t seen any medical records for—“
“Ms. Brennan, I assure you, we have given you all of Mr. Thomas’s records. I can’t tell you where your hypothetical records might be, should they exist, but they are not here. Now, I have other obligations.”
Although she looked ready to spit on me, or more likely run me down on her way out the door, I managed to maintain my own pleasant façade. When I told her that Tanya had promised me access to the guards who’d interacted most with Isaac, I could swear I heard Ms. Ricker’s teeth grinding. So maybe I was stretching the truth a little, but I’m sure Tanya would have done if I’d thought to ask. The woman pretended to consider my request.
“I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible. Now if you’ll excuse me—“
“I’ll only take a few moments of their time. I’m just trying to find something—anything—to tell his daughter. She was the victim of such tragedy. Can you imagine? For her father to kill her mother, and then take his own life… anything that could give her insight into his last days may help her find some peace.”
Perhaps I was laying it on a bit thick, but there were other administrators milling about. Ricker would look like some kind of bitch if she challenged me now.
“I understand, but it’s just not possible. We’re short-handed, and they’re about to do a count.”
I’ve never been to Los Angeles, but I’ve often thought of counts as the prison equivalent of the infamous L.A. traffic. Inmates in prisons are individually counted at regular intervals, and during those counts you cannot have an inmate visit. In addition, if you’ve passed through at least some portion of prison security, you’re often trapped at that location until the count is finished. However long that is. I generally figure on half an hour, more or less. That’s not so bad. It’s like rush hour in its predictability. You can plan around a scheduled count.
However, there are random counts as well. Perhaps they’re not truly random, but they seem so if you don’t know the reason for them, and as an outsider you rarely do. Weather is sometimes a culprit. I’ve learned not to schedule visits before 10 a.m. at certain times of year because of the fog. Even in good weather, the count can be “off,” and they have to start over. I once waited two hours for a scheduled visit when a count turned into a recount for a reason that was never divulged. It reminds me of rubber-necking slowdowns, where you get past the snail’s pace traffic only to find that either there was never an accident or anything else to gawk at, or it’s now long gone but people are still looking, just in case.
I wasn’t about to be thwarted by a count. “I’ll wait,” I to
ld her.
She looked at her watch. “Officers start breaking for lunch in half an hour. You’re welcome to wait in the cafeteria and question them there.”
She left before I could thank her. Good. My smile was wearing thin around the edges.
The cafeteria had long tables with bench seats rather than individual tables, perhaps to avoid the feeling of high school cliqueishness that seems as inherent to large eating spaces as bad food and plastic trays. I got a soda from a machine in the corner and settled down to wait. There was no guarantee employees would eat here instead of going out for lunch, so I was hoping Ricker hadn’t lied about the officers being short-handed. If they were short, they’d be less likely to have the time or freedom to leave the facility to eat.
I saw the occasional inmates in blues and a group of geeky, stocky men in short sleeve dress shirts and ties that must be contractors from outside, but the brown-uniformed corrections officers didn’t begin trickling in until about noon. The first few I approached either hadn’t worked there long enough or didn’t work in the right areas of the prison to have had contact with Isaac. Then a sandy-haired young man I recognized sat down at the end of a row.
“It’s Charley, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” When he blushed at the attention, I decided I could forgive him for calling me ma’am.
“We haven’t met, but I saw you at the Handi-Way around the corner a few days ago, talking to Annie.”
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