Carved in Blood (Evan Lane Mystery Book 1)

by E. R. FALLON

  “Don’t know him,” Mack said. “You might want to leave the solving up to the detectives in your city, no?”

  “They don’t know Alice Lane like I do. They don’t know how to get through to her.”

  “You always could reach her when she wouldn’t let anyone else in, true. Seems kind of wrong to do this to her, to lie to your own mother, no matter what she did all those years ago.”

  “You never judged her, not even when she confessed.”

  “She has an illness, she can’t help what she does.”

  “Is she on medication in prison?”

  Mack shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. Probably. Last I heard, she drifts in and out from being housed in the maximum security ward to being in the section of the prison for the criminally insane.”

  The food had ceased tasting good and so I stopped eating. I opened and drank another beer, which was warm by now. Mack rose to get some more cans from the fridge, placing a cold one in my hand.

  “Here, this’ll taste better,” he said. He took the other beer from the table, drained the remainder into the sink, and set the empty can on the kitchen counter.

  I popped open the new can and swallowed back some of the bitter, chilled beer. “Thanks.”

  He nodded. “Are you finished?” Mack looked from his fully cleaned plate to mine.

  My eating the rest didn’t seem likely. “Yes. I’m not very hungry tonight, but it was great, truly.”

  He gave me a short nod, and I wasn’t sure whether he thought I disliked the taste of what he’d cooked. I began to rise to help him with the dishes but he stopped me. “It’s okay, I’ll take care of it.”

  Mack cleared the table and dusted off the top with his hand, depositing the crumbs in the trash receptacle. He scraped my uneaten food into the same receptacle, and put the dishes in the sink.

  When he returned to the table, he brought with him another beer for himself. I waited to hear what he had to say before I pushed him again for his support. We drank our beers in silence for a while.

  “Here’s what I think,” he finally said. “I think pretending to be someone else when you see your mother wouldn’t be a good idea. I think you should return to Seven Sisters and work this thing out with the police there. I can call them and speak on your behalf, if you’d like. I don’t think you, someone not in law enforcement, should be investigating something this big yourself. It could be very dangerous, and something could happen to you. I couldn’t live with myself if I gave you permission to do that.”

  “I need to see her, and I need to protect my identity and stay anonymous. Freedom is a prison town. You know how most of the guards the prison employs live in the town, and that there’d be nasty gossip. Regardless of what you say, I still plan to try to visit her, and as a member of the press. In fact, that’s what I’ve been telling anyone in town that’s asked why I’m here. I can’t go to the police back in my city. My fear is that they’ll think I had something to do with the crimes if I don’t find out the truth and explain it to them. People can be very—they can misjudge me, and they often do, and not only because I’m Alice Lane’s kid but also because of my lifestyle. You’re the only one who can help me.”

  “Christ, when you put it like that, do I even have a choice?” Mack put his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. “You know what you’re asking me to do, don’t you? You want me to be part of your lie, and if I help you, then I’m an accomplice.” He spoke through his fingers and sounded bleary.

  “If you want to put it that way, then, yes, I am asking you to be my accomplice of sorts, but for the greater good, to get this person off the streets. The boys being killed are street kids mostly, hustling for drug money, and it’s not like there’s a lot of people out there crusading for justice for them.”

  “I hear you.” He lifted his fingers off his face and stared directly at me. “When you put it like that, how can I say no? Us against the world, right?” He’d used that expression with me in the past and it’d always made me smile, but not on that day. Then I waited for him to say but and explain why he’d have to decline. “I’ll have to think about it,” he said.

  “You’ll consider it?” Hope lightened my mood.

  Mack shrugged. “We’ll see. You’re staying at the lodge? Give me your number there and I’ll call you to let you know.”

  “You can call my mobile,” I said, reluctant to have calls made to my room at the lodge from someone known to the locals as a detective. I had to maintain my story as a travel writer, covering the town for an article.

  “I’ll call either way—yes or no,” he said.

  “Suspenseful,” I joked, and he chuckled.

  I considered hugging Mack before we left but we shook hands at his door instead.

  Chapter 11

  Very early in the morning, I awoke in my much larger bed at the lodge to the sound of my mobile ringing. Sammie wouldn’t have contacted me at that hour unless it was an emergency. I wouldn’t have stood for it if those reporters had bothered her. By then, they would have been curious about why I hadn’t made an appearance outside our apartment building. I sat up under the covers and didn’t see any sunlight coming through the gaps in the window curtains. I flicked on the bedside lamp to get my bearings in the darkness.

  From the area code, the number on my lighted screen belonged to someone right there in Freedom Village. I slowly picked up, and sure enough, heard Mack’s voice. He’d said he’d ring either way. I clutched the phone between my fingers.

  “Sorry it’s so early. I’ve been up all night, thinking,” he said, before I could say hello. The silence dragged on.

  “Thanks for calling. I don’t mind the hour,” I finally said. “Have you made a decision? Whatever it is, I won’t hold anything against you.”

  “That’s good to hear. I’ll do it, by the way, I’ll arrange for you to visit Alice.”

  I breathed out and smiled to myself. “Thanks, Mack. I owe you for this.”

  “You do,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll ring you again later this morning with more concrete details.”

  “You can’t tell them I’m Alice’s child—”

  “Your identity will be kept safe,” he assured me. “I’m going to make a call to a fellow I know who works at the prison, a high-up guy, and tell him a journalist happens to be in town and would like permission to speak with prisoner Lane. What do you think? I must emphasize to you how much I dislike doing this, but that I’m doing it for you.”

  My stomach rumbled. Remembering the meat I’d consumed last night without a pause made me feel nauseous. I threw the covers back and rose from the bed, shirtless and in my underwear. “Mack? Hang on a second.”

  I gripped the phone to my chest and ran barefoot across the soft carpet into the bathroom. I dropped the phone to the floor tiles and didn’t have time to lift up the toilet seat. I got on my knees on the cold, hard floor and threw up into the bowl.

  Mack’s voice said, “Evan? Evan? Are you there?” from the phone on the floor.

  I glanced at the yellow bile floating in the toilet water and reached to flush. The ringtone for a text from Sammie came through. It still seemed early to hear from her. I reached for a towel, wiped my mouth, and then groped for the phone at my feet. I croaked out some words to Mack, “Yeah, I’m here. It sounds good—what you said—it sounds fine. Thank you.”

  I put the phone on the medicine cabinet shelf to run the tap water and rinse off my face. I dried my skin and picked up the phone to read Sammie’s text. I checked the time too. It was already six in the morning, later than my body felt it was.

  She’d sent a photo of her looking as though she awoke recently, leaning against the headboard on our bed back home while holding Paige in her arms. From the angle it was clear she had snapped the picture herself, with her and Paige looking up at the lens. She sometimes would take Paige running in the morning—it wasn’t my thing but I respected Sammie’s need for fitness—but with the possibility of the media lurking in the shad
ows of our apartment complex, I couldn’t imagine that happening. I wondered if she would be going to work. While Sammie could have taken some time off, she would have had to return at some point, and that point would have been soon. I started writing a reply.

  “Hello? What’s going on there with you? Should I be worried? What’s all that racket? Should I ring the front desk at the lodge and ask them to come check on you?” I’d forgot Mack was still on the line.

  I put the phone on the speaker setting so I could talk to him and type simultaneously. “No, I’m . . . Everything is all right. I had to use the bathroom.” I refrained from disclosing my illness to him. Knowing Mack, he’d fret and insist on seeing me himself to evaluate my condition. He wouldn’t take my word if I told him not to worry.

  “Oh,” he said in an awkward manner and cleared his throat. “In that case, I’ll let you go, to finish whatever you’re doing in the bathroom, that is,” he said, equally as awkward. “You can expect a call from me later. It could take a few days for me to get clearance for you. What do you want your last name to be? I assume you don’t want me to give them Lane as your surname.”

  “Samuels,” I said, without thinking. I’d already started that lie so why not continue it?

  “That was fast,” Mack said, like he was on to me. “Okay. Talk soon.”

  I skipped the lodge’s light breakfast that morning, walked to the diner, and ordered a cup of coffee, no cream or sugar, to go.

  *

  Detective Mack rang again, later in the morning, when I’d returned to the lodge, and surprised me with the news that he’d obtained permission for me to visit Alice Lane, prisoner 899, my mother, that same afternoon. He hadn’t given me much time to prepare but I knew that would be the one chance I had to step inside the prison and face her.

  I dressed in a suit jacket, which was wrinkled from my having left it inside my suitcase. I wore the jacket without a necktie. I put on jeans but I donned my best dress shoes for the visit, trying to look the part of the hip urban journalist. That morning at the drugstore near the lodge I’d bought an inexpensive pair of reading glasses that looked like the prescription kind, and now I put them on. I put the notebook and pen—which I figured would be easier to get past the guards than an electronic device—that I’d picked up at the store too, into a work satchel to make my occupation seem likely. I smoothed back my short hair in the hotel room mirror and felt I looked the part decently enough.

  I wondered, should I have bought a gift to bring to her, something she could enjoy in her cell, such as a book? But journalists didn’t bring gifts to strangers they sought to interview for a story. And I’d assumed the guards would have confiscated one anyway. That was another thing I hadn’t pinned down: Once at the prison, would I play along with the travel writer story I’d created, as though Alice and the town were a tourist attraction, or would I say I was conducting research for a story on the murders in Seven Sisters, murders that were similar to Alice’s?

  Mack had arranged everything for me so that my check-in process at the prison would go as smoothly as possible. I’d never visited my mother in her prison—I didn’t desire to associate those kinds of memories with her—but I’d researched photos of the prison online, and I’d studied and memorized the car route by heart over the years in case someday I decided I wanted to make the drive from Seven Sisters to see her.

  Using the GPS app on my phone, I substituted Freedom Village for Seven Sisters as my starting destination, and the miles to reach my destination shrunk greatly. Freedom was a prison town, meaning a large number of the population worked at the nearby prison, the ominous, gray cluster of structures I’d seen beyond the vineyards.

  I hadn’t divulged to Sammie what my whereabouts would be on that day. My withholding a secret from her would have troubled her if she’d caught on—and she would have, because she always, inevitably, discovered my little secrets.

  I loved Sammie but this had to be a secret for now. I turned on the radio, and classic rock came on, a big, loud sound, to drown out how much hiding something from Sammie bothered me.

  I pulled my car alongside a guard in the booth at the entrance to the women’s prison, rolled down my window and gave her my name. I wondered which ward my mother was being housed in right then. Mack had mentioned she’d been transferred in and out of the psych ward.

  The guard at the booth, an older woman with short hair, wore a beige uniform and greeted me with a subtle nod. Her eyebrows were so pale I could hardly see them on her very white face.

  “How can I help you today, sir?” she asked.

  I lowered the radio volume and I repeated my name. “I’m Evan Samuels. I’m here to interview a prisoner. I’m a journalist. I believe a detective in town set everything in place for my visit?”

  I sat up in my seat and could see her staring at a clipboard on her desk in the booth. “Samuels, right? I’m sorry but your name’s not on here.” She stared at me from her booth as if she was waiting for an explanation.

  “That can’t be right.” I smiled. “A detective named Mack Boyle arranged for me to come here.”

  The guard looked at me and didn’t smile.

  I shut off the music. My shirt stuck to my back and I gripped my damp palms against the steering wheel to gain my composure. Had Mack somehow made a mistake and put me down as Evan Lane?

  If so, there would be plenty of questions from the prison’s employees once I got inside, assuming I got past the guard at the front booth. Surely they’d want to know if I was related to her, the lovely butcher, and then they’d go and tell their spouses, children, parents, and friends. And before long, the entire village would know about my presence among them. Children would stop me in the street and want to take a photo with me. But they wouldn’t know I’d once been called Evelyn, at least not yet.

  The Lane surname was notorious in Freedom, and although they were very strong people, I didn’t know how my mother’s family had managed to stay in the town and cope with all the attention they must have received. I couldn’t ask them. I didn’t want to see them, and I assumed they felt the same way. Alice’s father was a respected surgeon in the area and her brother had followed in his footsteps. I hardly knew them anymore but they had been a resilient group and were probably faring well.

  “There’s been a mistake. I confirmed with the detective,” I stated firmly to the guard. “Like I said, he arranged for me to see this prisoner. It’s very important I see her. I’m a writer and I need to speak with her.”

  “Please hold on a moment.” The woman spoke into the two-way radio protruding from her shirt pocket. I heard her say something like, “Samuels. He’s on the list?”

  I took in the outside of the facility while I waited for the guard to sort out the issue. I found the Freedom Women’s Correctional Facility entrance sign that blended into the overgrowth of lush decorative hedgerows ironic. Freedom in a prison.

  The guard picked up a clipboard from the narrow desk area inside the booth and held it out to me. “It seems there’s been a smidgen of a mishap,” she said, and I held my breath. “I’ve confirmed you are on the visitors list for today. I’m sorry about the whole thing.” She finally smiled.

  “No worries.” I breathed more comfortably.

  “Please put your name here, sir.” She pushed the clipboard at me.

  I saw she’d already written my license plate number on the piece of paper attached to the board and I scribbled the name Evan Samuels below it. The guard pulled the clipboard back into the booth. Only I seemed to notice my lie.

  “You’ll see a sign for the visitors’ parking lot—Lot B—when you drive through.” She stuck her arm out of the booth and gestured to the expanse of asphalt at the nose of my car. “A nametag will be waiting for you when you check in at the visitors’ reception area. You’ll need to put this in your car so you don’t get towed.”

  She handed me a tag with the word Visitor and a number stamped on it to hang on my rearview mirror. I must have looked co
ncerned because she added, “It’s a safety precaution, sir.” I didn’t get the sense that she wanted to comfort me, but rather that she sought to have me on my way so she could attend to the person in the car that had pulled up behind me at some point.

  I nodded at her and hung the tag on my mirror like she’d instructed. She raised up the wood bar painted white that had blocked me from driving straight into the parking lot. Crackling sounded from her walkie-talkie and she spoke into the device and waved me on through. I didn’t move the car forward for a few moments, waiting until the very last second to face what I’d started. When I did move my vehicle, it thumped and lurched over a speed bump, rolling into the prison lot.

  I parked in Lot B, a simple task since mine was one of the two cars in the section. I turned off the engine. As far as having no identification that named me as Evan Samuels, I’d hoped that having a referral from a respected and well-liked local detective would do. I assumed they’d search me inside so I left my phone and identification in the car. I made certain that the tag hanging from the rearview mirror faced the right way, then got out with the satchel and locked the car.

  The sunny afternoon darkened, and it seemed inevitable that rain would be waiting for me on my way out of the prison in an hour or so. An hour seemed like a short time to obtain what I needed but I didn’t know if I could lie to my mother for longer than that. She, the greatest deceiver of all, had always been terrific at calling out liars.

  It was a shame that I hadn’t brought the umbrella Sammie left in the car trunk for us to use when the weather required it. I felt terrible about keeping my visit to Alice a secret from Sammie and not including her in the loop like I’d promised, but when she’d confronted me as I packed for my trip she hadn’t asked whether I would visit my mother, and I felt I could get away with not telling her something she hadn’t sought to know in the first place. But I really felt awful keeping even that from her.

  The entrance marked Visitors lay outside of the sky-high barbed wire fencing that made up the main part of the prison. Crows cawed high up in the sky and their ruckus startled me. I shouldered my bag and slowly headed for the entrance. Before walking into the building, I removed my notepad and pen from my satchel, to better appear the part of the eager young journalist there to interview the prison’s most notorious inmate.