by E. R. FALLON
She really said that? I don’t like her tone. I hope you told her to go to hell.
Not quite. Then I wrote, Mack won’t let anything happen while I’m here, to appease her.
I’d still like to slap the smile off that little witch’s face. Paige wouldn’t let that woman pet her when we came in, did you know that? Our Paige must’ve known the woman was an asshole.
I feared somewhat that Sammie would run downstairs and confront Tawny. Relax, Sammie.
I can’t. What if she Googles you and that Crime Man thing comes up? Think she’ll tell them your whereabouts?
They would have been interested to hear that Evan Lane was back in his hometown. And if Em, who I’d considered a friend, had sold me out, who knew what Tawny might do?
Then, Josh texted to see how I was and I responded to him. His note put a smile on my face.
It appeared Em had taken my hint because she’d stopped reaching out to me. Josh sent another text to say she’d written to him to apologize to me through him.
I replied to Sammie and dodged her concern.
Text me if you need me. I’ll write too. Love you.
I tossed my phone to the passenger seat and drove out of the parking lot. Leaving Sammie and Paige behind in the room had me feeling guilty and I fretted on the drive over to the penitentiary.
Chapter 13
A different guard managed the entrance booth but I went through the same routine to enter the prison grounds. Karl and Eddie awaited me when I stepped through the visitors’ check-in area and we chatted as they administered the protocol of yesterday. I wore my nametag.
Karl greeted me with, “How are you? Wearing contacts today, sir?” He smiled.
“Yes, right. Better for my looks, you know.” I chuckled. I’d forgotten to don the eyeglasses. “I’m well, thanks for asking. How are you guys doing?” I didn’t actually care to know. I had plenty of other things on my mind, but being polite to them wouldn’t hurt, although I disliked Eddie.
They remembered me from yesterday and didn’t ask to see identification. I was lucky the prison was small enough to let a thing like that slide, and, who knew, maybe Mack had put Eddie in his place. I liked to believe he had.
“We’re good, thanks,” Karl said.
“You’re back already?” Eddie said to me. “Thought you would’ve had enough of the crazy bitch.” He didn’t give any indication he was suspicious of me from yesterday. He did seem to take genuine pleasure in the fact that his tasteless remarks irked me. I ignored him and he pressed on. “I always wondered if she ate the dicks of the guys she killed.” He guffawed and waited for Karl and me to join in.
Karl didn’t laugh, but if he didn’t intend to correct his colleague, then I would. “No one knows if she truly ate her victims,” I said, using my clout as a ‘journalist’ to amend Eddie’s assumption.
“For real?” Eddie’s mouth hung open and made him look like more of an imbecile than, in all fairness, he probably was.
“Yes. Her cannibalism was only speculation by the press because a few parts of the victims were never found.”
That piqued Karl’s interest. “So what do you think she did with them, did with the parts?” he asked me.
“No one knows. They were never found,” I said.
“See?” Eddie said. “She ate them.”
“Or she collected them, stored them somewhere that the police didn’t know about.”
“How come you know so much about this?” Eddie smirked.
I didn’t plan to answer. “Regardless, I don’t find your brand of humor entertaining.” I stared at Eddie directly.
He frowned. “Oh, well, excuse me,” he muttered.
I ignored him and interacted with Karl. “May I go through now?”
Karl nodded and escorted me down the halls. The keys on his belt jangled as we strode. “I’m sorry about my partner,” he said.
His apology surprised me. “That’s all right, it isn’t your fault.” I smiled at him to convey we were on good terms.
He stopped walking and I ceased in my tracks just ahead of him. “You’re not really a journalist are you?” he asked and gave me an uncertain smile.
“How come you would think that?”
“I don’t follow those kinds of things. It’s my wife, she writes for the newspaper in town. I told her about you and she got curious, said she searched for Evan Samuels online and couldn’t find you. She said if you’re a writer, you would’ve been all over the internet. A detective arranged for you to come so it’s none of my business, but should you be here?”
I weighed my answers. I could tell him I used a pen name, I could stop the fabrications right then, or I could strike a balance between the two. “I hope this will be my last visit to your facility,” I said, aware I wasn’t admitting fault. And if it wasn’t my final visit, why should I have expected him, someone who didn’t owe me anything, to cover for me? Nonetheless, I had.
He stared at me for quite a while, as though to determine what should be his appropriate response, and then he nodded and resumed walking. I trotted after him, the sounds of our footsteps beating on the tiles the only noise in the corridor until a pack of similarly uniformed male and female guards led a young woman prisoner, shackled at the wrists and ankles, past us. The girl was so startlingly beautiful that she looked like she belonged at a cocktail party in a cosmopolitan city instead of being lugged around a small-town penitentiary.
“Where’s she going?” I asked Karl. “I’m assuming you don’t bring prisoners through the visitors’ entrance.”
“I’m afraid I can’t disclose that, sir.” His jaw hardened and it erased any trace of approachability from a few moments ago.
“What’s she in for?” I attempted a smile to win him over. “I promise not to tell anybody.” Why did I expected him to disobey procedure by answering my questions when, less than a minute ago, I’d ignored his enquiry?
Karl stayed quiet and didn’t look at me. He followed the system from the other day of unlocking doors and leading me through into different corridors.
It occurred to me that I didn’t know anything about him except that he worked at the prison and, as far as I could tell from the exchange at the front desk, appeared ethically superior to his counterpart. His wife worked for the local paper but I didn’t recognize him from my youth so I reasoned it’d be harmless to ask, “Are you from around here?”
I’d caught him by surprise by asking him something personal, and he paused for a moment.
“No, but my wife is,” he said. “That’s how come we settled here. I was in the service with her brother, that’s how we met.”
I figured it would be safer not to ask for his wife’s name so that if it turned out I knew her I wouldn’t risk a spark of recognition appearing across my face. “Navy.” I jabbed my thumb at my chest.
Karl seemed surprised. “Is that so?” His face brightened and his tone warmed. “I’m Army myself.”
“That’s too bad,” I joked, and he chuckled. “Have you always been a prison guard? Did you begin here straight after the Army?”
Asking about his occupation could have been risky considering I hadn’t denied his accusation about my being an imposter journalist, and might have prompted him to pursue the matter further, but my interest got the best of me.
The color rose in Karl’s face and he shook his head. “I wanted to be a cop after I left the service but I didn’t pass the test. This was second best.”
I admired him for disclosing a fault not many people would have. Speaking with him mildly appeased my trepidation and my misgivings about my pending visit with Alice. “Do you like working here?” I asked. We had something in common after all: our jobs consisted of managing, hands-on, some of society’s less than desirable aspects.
“The pay’s pretty good,” he said.
I took the answer to mean Karl didn’t enjoy his employment. I could relate to him a little since it wasn’t too long ago that I’d gone to work each day looki
ng forward to what awaited me. Albeit the grisliness of it all, I believed I made a difference in the lives of people affected by tragedies, thus making a small amends in honor of my mother’s victims. Now, I dreaded returning home and facing my old life. Making a connection with a man who’d held my murdering mother prisoner helped to humanize him, and her.
“What more can you ask for?” I said light-heartedly to Karl, as he led me inside the visiting area.
*
“What did you do when you left me yesterday?” Alice asked.
Karl had exited the private room and Alice and I were alone except for the surveillance camera in a corner of the ceiling, which was something I hadn’t noticed the other day. She wore the same red jumpsuit, and her hair looked greasier than it had the day before, as though she hadn’t washed it that morning.
“Tell me already, don’t keep me waiting. I can’t live life myself in here so I have to live through anyone who’ll talk to me. Today, you have the honor,” she said. Her pale lips—in my childhood she’d always used a bright lipstick—curled up into a grin.
“I had something to eat and then I went back to my hotel,” I said honestly, sitting in a different chair than yesterday. It felt odd holding back personal details of my existence, such as Sammie, to my own mother.
“You didn’t stay for long yesterday. And, with all that time on your hands, that’s all you did?”
“Excuse me but what are you getting at? Yesterday, you wanted me to leave and so I did.”
“I believe you promised me something.” Alice raised her eyebrows. It appeared like she was cuing me to recall what I’d said without giving me a verbal hint.
“Yes, I’m making progress on that.”
“You’d better be.” She grinned. “Now, please elaborate a bit. I don’t like all this secrecy.”
I couldn’t see whether she crossed her legs behind the glass window, as that part of her was blocked by a table, which came out of the panel itself, and which she leaned on, but I imagined she had. I knew her well.
“I reached out to contacts who can help locate your daughter,” I said. “It won’t be easy,” I added for effect. “But I think I just might be able to find her.”
“That’s all you have for me?”
“So far, yes. You only gave me your request yesterday. I haven’t had much time.”
“Her name’s Evelyn, don’t forget that. Last I heard, she had the same last name.”
“Right, I remember.” Alice gave me a long glance in silence and I considered she might question me. I didn’t give her the opportunity to do so and said, “And you promised you’d help me in exchange.”
“Do you really believe this is a fair exchange? I’ve already given you more than you’ve given me.”
I didn’t believe she had but I insisted, “What you’re asking for is more complicated. You probably already have the answers I seek. I have to find the answers you want.”
I moved my bag from my lap to the floor. I’d become indolent about keeping my cover and hadn’t removed the notepad and pen from my bag. Thinking about it at the time, I reasoned I should have recorded our conversations. Then again, some people objected to being taped by a journalist. My mother would have been the type to nitpick over such a matter.
“Maybe I don’t have more to say than the little I gave you yesterday.” Alice looked toward the speaker she’d used the other day to escape me.
“Please, don’t end this,” I said, and reached out, as if I could stop her.
“You seem very eager.”
“I’ve traveled far,” I answered calmly.
Alice showed me her hands were in her lap. “I won’t leave at this moment. I’ll leave when I feel like it, and now is not the time.”
I thanked her. At times, it wasn’t difficult to see why the press had labeled her manipulative. What they hadn’t realized, however, and what I’d grown up with, was that my mother’s attitude was part of her frosty disposition. In itself that didn’t make her a cold-hearted murderer, although for some it had been enough to deem her so.
“Are you sorry for what you did?” I asked.
“Don’t you mean, am I sorry I confessed?” She smiled.
“Are you sorry for killing those young men?” I persisted.
“I’m sorry I hurt my daughter.”
I found her answer to be both heartless and comforting.
“Aren’t you going to take out your notebook?” she asked.
Her flirtatious tone gave me pause, and I sought to put an end to that notion of hers before the circumstances became twisted. “I’m surprised you noticed yesterday,” I said in an oh-so-serious voice.
Alice touched the glass. “Why don’t you move your chair closer so I can see you better? I can hardly see your eye color from this distance. I want to see if you have nice eyes.” She winked at me and chuckled at what must have been my red face.
Without rising, I picked up my bag from the floor and walked my chair toward the glass, close enough that I could have pressed my hand to its surface.
“That’s much better,” Alice smiled. “Did Mack find a way to get you in here again today?”
“He helped, yes.”
“I bet I’ve been looking forward to news about my daughter more than you’ve been looking forward to coming here, am I right?”
I took my bag from my lap and set it on the floor by my feet. “That’s not true. I’ve been looking forward to our visit. We have a lot to discuss,” I said, determined not to let her ruffle me.
“Don’t you mean, I have a lot to tell you? You don’t seem to have much to tell me yourself, except that you’re working on finding my Evelyn’s whereabouts.”
“I thought we’d agreed—see, what you’re asking me for is more difficult. It will take time. The difference between our respective promises is that you might have the answers I’m seeking. I have to find the answers for you.”
Alice used her hand to wave away my defense. She stared at me and lowered her voice. “I hope you keep your promise, Mr. Samuels.”
“I will.”
“I hope so. Evan. Evelyn. It’s kind of funny, isn’t it, that your names are similar?”
I couldn’t tell what she was getting at, or if she was implying something, if anything. “Not really. Both are common names.”
“I guess,” Alice said. She sat up in her chair to stare at something behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder and saw that she was looking at the clock on the wall. “They’re serving lunch soon.”
Figuring a little friendly small talk couldn’t hurt, I asked, “Do you know what you’ll be eating?”
Alice grimaced. “There’s a set schedule. Hamburgers today.”
I lurched at the reference to meat. Had she considered the victims she allegedly devoured food, fuel, or was it that the only way she could entirely consume them was by eating them? “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Ha. You try eating the same thing every goddamn week and then you can tell me how you feel.” She released a throaty laugh and watched me from the other side of the glass, like she sought to have me join in on the joke.
I managed to chuckle a little. “Do you ever get to sit with your friends in the cafeteria?” I asked. The glimpses she gave me into her life comforted me in a small way.
“My friends? Cafeteria? You make it sound like I’m in high school. I mostly eat in my cell. I think they’re afraid one or two of the other gals will try to stab me because some of the other women don’t like what I’m in here for. Can you imagine after all these years no one’s tried?” She seemed to find it humorous that the prison would be concerned about her safety. “My only friend is a gal whose wife-beating husband deserved what he got.” Alice gave me a wry grin.
My heart beat faster. “Do you fear for your life in here?” I thought of the crude joke that guard, Eddie, had made yesterday when I arrived.
She shrugged. “They only let me out of my cage—it doesn’t look like a cage. There’s no bars
. It’s a metal door with a narrow opening at the top for shoving my food tray and my mail through, which I know they read—for an hour a day. That’s a lot of time I can spend thinking about and fearing for my life, but that doesn’t present many opportunities for someone to hurt me.”
“The staff, do they treat you well?”
“What do you care?”
I held up my hands in a defensive gesture. “I’m trying to picture your life.”
“For the article you’re writing?”
“Of course.”
“I’m flattered. And most of them, the guards, are all right,” she said. “You’re not wearing your eyeglasses.”
“I have contact lenses in today.”
“Or perhaps you don’t have poor eyesight.”
After all those years of isolation from one another, the part of my relationship with my mother where she could read me clearly—like she did then—hadn’t changed.
“I wore them as part of a disguise, is that what you’re hinting at?” My voice lifted a notch, and I didn’t bother to downplay my nerves.
“No, not at all,” she said coolly. “Some people wear eyeglasses because they believe it’ll make them look more intelligent. You’re a journalist and you might want to distinguish yourself and that’s why you wore them.”
“And do I look smarter with them than without them?”
“With them,” she said, and I laughed with her. “That’s quite a noble gesture on your part, to be a stranger and share a laugh with a convicted murderer,” she said.
“If only you knew the truth,” I murmured.
She placed her hand over her ear. “Come again? I couldn’t hear you through the speaker.”
“It’s not important.”
“I don’t like missing out on anything so please tell me what you said.”
“I said I don’t care who I’m laughing with. If I find it funny, I’ll laugh.”
“That isn’t what you said. When you spoke what you really said, you didn’t use as many words as you did right now.”
Clever, as always, I’d thought. Alice succeeded in manipulating others, whether she wanted them to tell her the truth, reveal a secret to her, or sway someone to decide a matter in her favor, and it was a trait that a serial killer would have greatly benefited from.