There was a TV in the day room, but it was angled so that I couldn’t see it. After a few minutes, the young Hispanic sat down and picked up the remote to choose a program to watch. I looked at my bunk and saw fresh sheets and blankets, but no pillow. The mattress was a thin pad, blue vinyl over about two inches of foam rubber. I made it up, folding one end under to make a sort of pillow.
There were a couple of books on the table, which was welded to the wall, and I picked one up and began to read. It was an adventure story, set in old Scotland, about a highwayman who robbed the nobles that passed through the region. I deliberately paced myself, reading one word at a time in an effort to make the story last. It wasn’t hard, and by the time I finished the first book there was someone different coming out into the day room.
Being in the SHU was intended to be a punishment for an infraction of the jailhouse rules. I understood that, and could even see why I was there, based on the video that appeared to show me as the only one holding the shank. Within a couple of hours, I came to the conclusion that the greatest part of the punishment was the boredom. You’re trapped inside an eight-by-ten-foot cubicle, with essentially nothing to do. I had read both of the books, so I lay down on the bunk and tried to go to sleep.
Luckily, I seemed to be able to go to sleep almost at will. It had been late enough when I got there that the lights were already dimmed for the night, so I awoke when the brighter lights came on the next morning. I felt rested, surprisingly, and got up to look through the window on my door as the food card came around.
We were fed in our cells, rather than in the day room. I didn’t mind, since I didn’t know any of the people around me. Breakfast was a bowl of cereal and a banana, with orange juice and coffee. I took it to the table and sat down to eat, which occupied all of about ten minutes. When the car came around again, I passed my tray back to the slot.
When the food cart had left our little cell block, a voice suddenly came from a small speaker beside the door. “Jones, you’re up for rec time. You want to get a shower today?”
The only shower in the cell block was out in the day room, so I answered, “Yes, please.” A jailer stepped into the cell block a moment later and left a towel and bottle of liquid soap that doubled as shampoo on a table. As soon as he stepped out again, my door buzzed and popped open.
I went out into the day room, and suddenly I was being called by guys in other cells. I looked up and saw some of the men from my original fight standing at their windows, looking out at me. I decided to ignore them all, so I picked up the towel and soap and went to the shower.
Showers in the jail are hot, and sometimes—like this one—seriously bordering on too hot. You push a button, and the water comes out in a high-pressure spray that starts off cold, but gets hotter in a hurry. I managed to get good and wet before the temperature got too high, lathered myself up all over and scrubbed for a couple of minutes, then pushed the button again. The water was very hot, and it was all I could do to stay in it long enough to get all the soap rinsed off at me. As soon as I knew I had accomplished that purpose, I came out of the shower stall like a rocket.
I used the towel and dried myself off, then got back into my jumpsuit. I probably hadn’t taken ten whole minutes for the shower, so I knew I still had the rest of my hour to go. There was a large shelf full of books in the day room, and I grabbed about a dozen of them and carried them up to my cell, taking the two I had read back down and putting them back on the shelf, before sitting down to watch some television.
I looked through a few channels and found a program about the Civil War. It looked interesting, so I left it on until my time ran out. The voice of the jailer came over the speaker in the ceiling, telling me my time was up, so I got up and went back to my cell. I pulled the door shut behind me, and heard it buzz and click as it was secured.
I read one of the books, slowing myself even more so that I managed to make it last until lunchtime. It was a very thick book, an old science fiction story about a man who lived for more than two thousand years. Some of the concepts in it struck me as very interesting, especially when he got into time travel. Of course, that led to some rather strange adventures, and almost to his demise.
Lunch came, a cheeseburger with some things that were probably supposed to be French fries, but looked and tasted more like fried toothpicks. I managed to choke it all down, saving my Kool-Aid until I had eaten everything, so I could wash the taste out of my mouth.
Another large book, this one about government corruption, occupied me until dinner. When that was over, I read a Western, then decided to turn in early. Like the night before, I lay down and was asleep in no time.
That was my life in the SHU: waking up in the morning to breakfast, getting a shower and some TV time, and spending the rest of the day in my cell, reading. Luckily, the bookshelf held a couple of hundred books, and by slowing my reading I was able to get by on only four or five a day. Each morning, I replaced the ones I had read the day before on the shelf, and grabbed a few new ones.
That continued for four days, and that’s when things started to get really interesting.
Chapter 21
Unless he’s very, very new to law enforcement, every cop has run into a situation where he has to decide whether or not to bend the rules, or even break the law in order to accomplish his duty. I’m not even going to pretend that I’ve never made a choice like that. There have been times when doing the right thing meant not necessarily doing things by the book. I’m not going to go into detail, of course, but there have been a couple of times when a judicious review of my after-action reports might have uncovered something I would prefer to keep hidden.
The cop who comes up against an abusive husband who has been threatening to kill his wife and kids, for instance, if he truly believes the man capable of murder, might decide to take the shot even after the guy has put down his weapon. The woman and children are now safe, and the cop will probably sleep easy, despite the fact that the law would have seen his actions as deliberate murder. The fact that a weapon was present will bear out his claim that the homicide was justified.
There are, however, many cops who abuse their authority, and this is not in any way the same thing. In my years with the Bureau, I have run across several situations of that nature, and there is little in this life that disgusts me more than a crooked or abusive cop.
From everything I was hearing, Deputy Kyle Johnson had been both. Starting with the bartender, I had been told by a number of local citizens that Johnson not only had a tendency to be violent, but that he was known for planting evidence or falsifying reports in order to justify an arrest of someone with whom he had a personal issue.
In addition, I was hearing similar things about Sheriff Branson, himself. A cook at the diner where I had breakfast some mornings told me how her son, who was actively involved in a youth-run abstinence organization, who had never been in trouble in his life and who had maintained a 5.0 grade point average all the way to the middle of his senior year, was pulled over by Branson one night over a burned-out taillight, and subsequently arrested for possession of enough methamphetamine to qualify him as a major drug dealer. Branson had threatened the boy with a lengthy prison sentence, and bullied him and his family into accepting a plea bargain that would only result in a two-year term.
Ironically, no one ever saw this huge pile of meth. From what the boy’s mother’s lawyer could determine, it had allegedly been destroyed shortly after his arrest. That was completely abnormal, since evidence should have been secured in order to be used in a prosecution. Had they known that this evidence had been destroyed, the boy could have walked away a free young man.
I heard of other such cases, involving either Johnson or Branson, where evidence seemed to have disappeared just after being discovered. As a result, I decided to expand my investigation to include these two officers.
My first step was to interview staff of the Sheriff’s office, taking each person into a closed, soundproof int
erview room individually. I began with the day shift dispatcher, Cynthia Parks. Cynthia was married, not quite thirty years old, and had three children. She was a somewhat attractive lady, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was small, about five feet tall and weighing less than a hundred pounds.
“Mrs. Parks,” I began, “I’m hearing allegations around the area that Deputy Johnson had a tendency to abuse his authority. Can you tell me anything about that?”
The woman looked nervous, sitting across the table from me and twisting a handkerchief between her fingers. “I don’t know,” she said. “Kyle always seemed—I don’t know, he was just Kyle.”
I nodded. “Mrs. Parks, please understand that I’m not trying to besmirch his name. Deputy Johnson is no longer with us, and I’m not out to tarnish his memory in any way. However, it is my duty to get to the bottom of what happened to him, and that means I have to examine all sides of the equation. We’re doing all we can to investigate the man accused of his murder, but there are facts coming to light that tend to indicate he may not be guilty. I need to know if there is any possibility that Deputy Johnson contributed to a situation that resulted in his death. Now, if he was as abusive and out of control as I’m hearing, it’s quite possible that he found himself in a situation where someone may have believed he was acting in self-defense. I’m trying to talk to everyone who knew him, to find out if the things I’m hearing are true. I can assure you, no one will ever know what you tell me in this room. It will stay between you and me.”
Mrs. Parks continued twisting the hanky, and I noted that her eyes were bouncing back and forth between her hands and my face. This was an indicator that she wanted to say something, but was afraid to do so.
“Mrs. Parks, I promise you that anything you say will be held in the strictest confidence. I’m building background material, not looking for testimony.”
She licked her lips, then smiled nervously. “I won’t have to testify to anything in court?”
I smiled back. “Not unless it’s an absolute last resort, that I can promise you. If it’s absolutely necessary for us to put you on the stand, I can guarantee you will be protected from any repercussions.” I watched her lick her lips a couple times more, then added, “That would include any immunity, if necessary.”
Her expression did not change, and I knew I was onto something. She hesitated another moment, still licking her lips, then looked up into my eyes. She held my gaze for a second, then looked off to the side.
“Sometimes—sometimes Kyle would ask me to do some favors for him,” she said haltingly. “Like, there were a couple times when he asked me to back up the recorder, so it would take out something that came through the radio.”
I nodded. “Something that might have been incriminating for him?” I asked.
“Well, yeah—yeah, maybe,” she said. “Like, a couple times he wanted me to erase a part where he told me where he was at, because something went bad. He didn’t want anyone to know he was there.”
“When you say, ‘something went bad,’ what do you mean?”
She sat there without saying anything for a long moment, and then tears began to fall. “I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “There were—there were a couple times when he had to use his weapon, but he didn’t want anyone to know. He said he was working undercover, and needed to keep it quiet that he was involved. I mean, I wondered if there was something fishy about it, but…”
“But what, Mrs. Parks?”
“I—I’d heard about him asking favors like that, sometimes, when I first started working here a couple years ago. The reason I got this job is because the last woman who had it—she got arrested for dealing drugs.” She licked her lips again. “Some of the other dispatchers, they told me she got arrested right after she told Kyle she wouldn’t erase the tape for him. I knew her for years, and I was just shocked, I couldn’t believe she’d ever be involved in drugs. I mean, she ran the children’s choir at our church. I just couldn’t believe she would really do that, but when she got arrested, and I needed a job, I applied for it and got hired.”
“Are you saying you were too afraid to refuse?” I asked.
She nodded, the tears still flowing. “Yes, Sir,” she said. “You can’t work here without hearing about the things you don’t dare refuse.”
I folded my hands in front of me on the table, trying to look sympathetic. “You’re saying there were other things you couldn’t refuse to do?”
That’s when she really started to cry, and the hackles on the back of my neck stood up.
“Mrs. Parks, you can tell me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She wept for the better part of a minute, shaking her head the entire time. Finally, she caught her breath. “I can’t,” she said. “I just can’t. If I tell you, my husband will find out, and I can’t let that happen.”
I kept my face impassive, though I felt the rage building up inside me. “Mrs. Parks, have you been sexually abused while working here?”
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t tell you,” she said, sobbing through it all. “They stick together, they cover each other, and they warned us if it ever comes out, we’ll be the ones who go to jail.” She threw a hand into the air, as if throwing something away. “My husband, Ralph, he’d never believe me, and that would be worse even than getting arrested over drugs or something. He’d take my kids, I’d never see them again.”
I reached across the table and grasped her hand. “All right, all right, I won’t say a word. If we ever do have to ask you to testify, this won’t come up, I swear. But I need to know, I need to know about this. Please, just tell me what happened.”
She leaned forward and put her forehead in her hands, and continued to weep for another minute. Finally, she sniffed hard a few times, and looked up at me. “Sometimes, I get called in to cover for somebody on night shift. When that happens, there’s nobody here in dispatch but me, and—and Kyle came in a few times, and he—at first, he just flirted with me, and I just laughed it off, but then one night he started touching me. He started rubbing my shoulders, and—I asked him to stop, I told him my husband wouldn’t like it, but he just laughed. He said what Ralph didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and then—then he pushed his hand down into the neck of my shirt, and started—started…” She trailed off. “I yanked his hand out, and jumped up, and told him if he didn’t stop I’d tell the sheriff, but he just laughed again. That’s when he told me that I could tell the sheriff if I wanted to, he didn’t care. He said if I did, that I’d be investigated, and they’d find out that I was selling dope. I told him he was crazy, I don’t sell drugs, I’ve never even used any drugs, but then he mentioned Julie, the lady before me. She didn’t use drugs either, he said, but she was still sitting in prison.” She wiped her eyes with the hanky. “I said something else about telling the sheriff, and he took out his cell phone and dialed the sheriff’s number, then handed it to me. He told me to go ahead, he’d wait, and then he’d make sure I went to the worst prison he could find for me. I was crying, and I begged him not to do this, but he just—he just reached out and grabbed me, and started unbuttoning my shirt.” She was sobbing again by this point. “And I just—I just let him do what he wanted to do. That night, that’s as far as it went. But, the next time…” Her sobs became uncontrollable, and she no longer could go on.
I sat there and just stared at her. There were so many emotions going through my mind. So much anger, so much rage. But, there was also my job. I needed to keep asking questions, even though everything in me wanted to simply hold this poor woman in my arms. Tell her that nothing bad would ever happen again, and then go and get justice for her. But, this wasn’t the wild west. I couldn’t simply go up to someone and shoot them in the head. I needed proof. I needed testimony. Motive. Times. Dates. I needed to do this right.
“Mrs. Parks,” I continued, in a voice as gentle as I could muster, “a minute ago you said, ‘they cover each other.’ Are there other deputies involved in this? Were you
abused by others, as well?”
She stared at the table for a moment, and then nodded. “But I won’t tell you who,” she said. “Kyle’s gone, he can’t hurt me anymore, but the others are still here. If I tell you, and they ever find out, my life is over.”
I shook my head. “Okay, okay, I understand.” I knew not to push that any further. “What about the other women that work here? Does it happen to them, too?”
She hesitated. “Some of them,” she whispered softly. “One of the secretaries, I know, and a couple of the girls who work in the jail. But they won’t talk, either. We all know better.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Tell me one other thing,” I said. “Is Sheriff Branson involved?”
She looked up at me suddenly. “I can’t say anymore,” she said. “Please, can I be finished now?”
“I’m not going to ask you to testify against any of them, I promise you that. All I want you to do is answer yes or no, just nod or shake your head. Is Sheriff Branson involved in the sexual abuse here?”
This was important. I wouldn’t force this poor woman to suffer through the witness stand, or through a horrible, dragged-out trial. But, if she could answer this one question for me, perhaps, just perhaps, I could get her, and her co-workers, justice.
She sat there with tears still streaming down her face for a moment, then whispered, “I’m not really sure about that. He’s never done anything to me, but I’m not sure about any of the others. But I can tell you this. If he ever finds out I told you about Kyle, he might not be satisfied just to have me arrested over some bogus drug charge. People who get on his bad side, sometimes they just disappear.”
I gave her a few moments to clean herself up a bit, then let her leave the room. My next interview was with the office secretary, Janice Borden.
Janice was single, in her mid-20s, and quite pretty, though in a different way from Cynthia. Janice had long black hair and brown eyes, and looked like she should have been a runway model, tall and willowy.
Thriller: I Am Sal - A Mystifying Crime Thriller (Thriller, Crime Thriller, Murder Mystery Book 1) Page 13