Donnell Ann Bell

by Donnell Ann Bell

  Simon had an intelligent face and a grip that inspired Joe to believe if anyone could help him, this man could. “I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice.”

  “Not a problem. Why don’t we sit down?” Simon looped his trench coat on a tree rack beside the Colorado State flag and dropped into a chair behind his desk.

  Joe took the proffered seat.

  “Frankly, your phone call intrigued me. Information about a former convict. Is this pertaining to a case you’re working on?”

  Here came a sticking point. If the information Joe sought wasn’t relevant to an active case, the prison head was under no obligation to talk to him.

  “It’s a closed case, generating new interest,” Joe said, hedging. “It’s not pertaining to a male convict, Warden. It concerns a female inmate. How long were you warden at the women’s correctional facility?”

  “Seven years. But before that time, I worked as a corrections officer for nearly twenty-four.”

  Excellent. Chances were Simon had known both Melanie Daniels and her prison guard lover. “I’m hoping you can shed some light on a few things.”

  The warden leaned forward. Linking his hands together, he rested his forearms on his desk. “I’ll provide whatever information I can. I’m bound by confidentiality, you understand. What’s the convict’s name?”

  “Melanie Daniels.”

  Simon didn’t even blink, but the color leached from his face. Joe was an expert in reading people under interrogation. And although Simon didn’t flinch or change facial expressions, Joe suspected the man’s heart rate and blood pressure had just elevated.

  “She was a prisoner in the women’s facility fifteen years ago, Warden.”

  “I know who Melanie Daniels is, Lieutenant.” Simon rose from his chair. “This meeting is over.”

  Maintaining a calm he didn’t feel, Joe remained in his seat. This certainly wasn’t the reaction he’d expected from a colleague. “Mind if I ask why?”

  “Confidentiality issues. I made myself clear.”

  “I merely gave you her name. I never asked a question.”

  Simon glared at him. “Melanie Daniels was incarcerated in the Colorado Women’s Correctional Facility for a period of nine months. She was an exemplary prisoner who served an abbreviated sentence and then was released. I’ll see you out.”

  Joe tamped down his frustration. He’d come for answers, but this wasn’t his turf. If the warden wanted him gone, he didn’t exactly have choices. Preparing to abide by the man’s request, Joe took one final gamble. “Her married name is Norris now. She recently lost her husband.”

  Simon took his hand from the knob. He turned, pinning Joe with a look that made it clear his allegiance ran elsewhere. “What’s this about, Lieutenant? Is Mrs. Norris all right?”

  “She’s fine, Warden. I have a personal stake in coming here. I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to me.”

  Some of the color returned to Simon’s face. “Give me a second.” Opening the door, he said to his secretary, “Elizabeth, no phone calls. No interruptions from anyone.”

  “Yes, Warden Rivers.”

  He shut the door, slowly returning to the executive chair.

  On the credenza behind him sat family pictures. The walls held diplomas, awards, and a picture of the man with the governor.

  Simon took so long to speak, Joe resisted checking his watch.

  “When you say personal,” the warden finally asked, “what do you mean?”

  “I was her arresting officer.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “She moved in next door.”

  The warden squeezed his eyes shut. “Well, I’ll be damned.” Two seconds later, though, his expression hardened. “But the fact that you made an arrest doesn’t entitle you―”

  “Do you have children, Warden?”

  “Three grown boys. What has that got to do with anything?”

  “Mrs. Norris has a son the same age as mine.” Joe held out his hands. “They’re spending every waking hour together. I realize I’ve exceeded my authority. But if it was your son, and a woman with a questionable past had the power to influence him, what would you do?”

  Simon stood and strode to the window. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he jingled the coins within and stared out into the prison yard. “I wouldn’t be too happy.”

  “I’m not here to hurt her, Warden. I give you my word.”

  For a time Simon faced the window. At last he pivoted, the struggle at violating not only Melanie’s confidence, but her civil rights, deepening the lines in his face. “What I told you before was true. Melanie was exemplary. I was a lieutenant when she was processed, although I never interacted with her. It was common knowledge, however, that we had a youngster on our hands, and she was having a rough go of it.”

  Surprised at how much he didn’t want to know this part, Joe leaned forward. Ignoring what he knew of Melanie Norris now, he focused on what she had been. “How rough?”

  “Young, pretty girl, new to the system. You know the drill. Some women behind bars are predators, vicious. Oftentimes more so than men.”

  Joe set his jaw. Years of law enforcement played through his mind as he considered what Melanie might’ve gone through behind these walls. No doubt about it, at times the job sucked.

  “Naturally she got into scrapes at first,” the warden said. “Ended up in the infirmary once with eyes swollen shut and a broken rib. Turned out, though, that Melanie was tough. She also had something most inmates don’t. Brains. She formed an alliance with one of the leaders on the block, taught her to read, helped her earn her G.E.D. That smart move put Melanie under the woman’s protection.”

  Joe discovered he’d been holding his breath. As the air left his lungs, he gained a greater respect for the term sigh of relief.

  “From that point she kept mostly to herself, spending much of her time in the prison’s greenhouse. From there, you know the rest. Her first hearing came around and she was paroled.”

  “Why do you suppose she stayed in Cañon City?” Joe asked.

  “The way I heard it, she had nowhere else to go.”

  “Family?”

  “Mother’s dead. Hasn’t spoken to her father in years.”

  Joe filed her family history away for later. Odd, the warden hadn’t mentioned a pregnancy. “How’d she make ends meet after her release?”

  “She went to work as a nanny.”

  “A nanny,” Joe repeated.

  “For one of the correction officers. A man by the name of Carl Norris.”

  “Her dead husband?”

  “One and the same.”

  Simon moved away from the window and returned to his chair.

  Joe shook his head. “Warden, I don’t know how to say this tactfully, so I won’t even try. A report I read from her parole officer claims she had an affair with a corrections officer during her sentence and became pregnant.”

  The warden studied Joe, the accusation heavy between them. “I remember the parole officer. A weasel of a man who tried to force parolees into having sex with him. He later lost his job and was sued after harassing dozens of women.

  “Naturally, the rumors flew like buckshot when Carl hired her, even kept him from being promoted. It’s human nature to think the worst.”

  “Did Carl work on Melanie’s block?”

  “No. But they knew each other. Did they have an affair? I never believed it.”

  “She is a beautiful woman,” Joe pointed out. “Like the parole officer, it wouldn’t be the first time a man used his position―”

  “Not Carl,” Simon replied heatedly. “Carl Norris was one of my best friends. He was a man of principle. I assure you he wasn’t soft on the convicts who needed to be here. Nor was he cavalier about his
marriage. As the saying goes, ‘desperate times called for desperate measures.’ Melanie didn’t belong in prison. We recognized that soon after she got here. She was a kid. Misguided, but she was a kid.

  “Then as fate would have it,” the warden went on, “days before her parole, Carl’s wife died in a collision on 115.”

  God, no, Joe thought.

  “When others wouldn’t even think of it, Carl gave Mel a chance. It wasn’t like he had a helluva lot of choice, he had a six-week-old baby boy to consider.”

  Several moments lapsed before the statement sunk in. When it did, Joe felt like he’d been sucker-punched. Melanie hadn’t been pregnant. Perhaps she’d rejected the parole officer’s advances, and taking his revenge, he altered his report. “Luke. She’s not his biological mother.”

  Warden Rivers speared Joe with a look that said he’d made the connection. It also hinted at how deep Simon’s feelings ran. “And now you know. Melanie Norris lived in this town for quite a few years. People liked her, respected her. She’s not the big bad wolf, Lieutenant. What’s more, she may not have given birth to Luke, but I’ve never heard it said by anyone that she’s not that boy’s mother in every other way.”

  Chapter Seven

  With exactly seven minutes to get to practice, Luke leaned his crutches against an adjacent locker, then balancing on one foot, twirled his locker combination and yanked on the flimsy metal door. He lifted his hoodie off the loop, grabbed his English lit and crammed his Geometry text back inside. Technically, he could slack off because he was injured, but he wasn’t about to be late. Luke might not be on the court today, but he planned to own it in the near future.

  Through the double door windows at the end of the hallway, he saw it had started to snow and he groaned. Maneuvering on crutches had turned out to be a royal pain. That and English lit class. Holy snap, Mrs. Carson had it out for him. The woman had to be some kind of evil teacher spy. How else could she know when Luke was caught up in his other courses? And why had she made it her goal in life to load him up with even more? Add basketball to his schedule and he could forget about free time.

  And adults thought they had it rough.

  Something tickled the back of his neck and he swatted at it. When it happened again, he knew it wasn’t something, but somebody. Expecting one of his teammates, Luke pivoted to tackle the freak, and whoa! He caught his breath.

  The body behind Luke wasn’t a freak. She was a girl―a very cute girl.

  She wore a heavy coat, but there was no missing the curves in her legs. Luke swallowed hard. Nice long legs.

  “Nice to meet you, Luke Norris,” she said, eyeing his crutches and tossing her straight blond hair over her shoulder. “I’m Jen. I’ve seen you practicing. Just wanted to stop by and tell you it sucks about your ankle.”

  Luke managed to say thanks without his voice cracking.

  “Mind if I ask you a question?”

  Too tongue-tied to answer, he simply stared at her and nodded.

  Her brows drew together and her mouth twisted into a frown. “Did you get held back? I mean, you’re kind of big for a sophomore.”

  Nice of her to stop by and call me a loser. Luke slammed his locker and reached for his sticks. “No, I’m just... Look, I gotta get to practice.”

  “I know. I’m on the cheerleading squad, and we’re practicing in the auxiliary gym.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry if I embarrassed you. But by the way you play, my friends and I thought you were older.”

  Luke didn’t need a mirror to know that his face had turned beet red, one of the side effects of being so pale. Way to stress to impress, when his complexion gave him away faster than a road flare.

  “So,” she said, “want to walk over to the gym with me?”

  She wanted to walk with him? Luke wanted to say, who wouldn’t? But it was as if when he’d slammed his locker, he’d forgotten his tongue inside. When he didn’t answer, it was Jen’s turn to turn red. She stepped back. “Oh, I get it. You’re going out with someone.”

  Luke all but choked. Going out with someone? “No! I mean, I’m not. I mean, sure, I’ll walk with you.”

  “Sweet,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  Luke slid his arms through the straps of his backpack, then with Jen walking beside him, he hobbled ahead of her to get the door. Now might be a great time to show her he could complete a sentence. “So, uh, is this your first year cheerleading?”

  As they stepped outside, fresh, powdery snow stuck to everything, including her pretty face. Sheesh, stop gawking, Norris.

  Wiping snowflakes away, Jen laughed and smiled back at him. “No, I’ve been at it for a while. This is my senior year.”

  Mel swung her Corolla into a parking space, switched off the radio and took her anger out on the unseen broadcaster. The wisecracking jerk had been right about one thing. The blizzard meteorologists had predicted would miss El Paso County had settled in like an uninvited guest with no plans to leave. As temperatures dropped and the streets turned to ice, Mel endured a storm of her own. She entered the lobby of the Police Operations Center, brushed off her coat, stomped her feet and shoved the wet hair out of her eyes.

  With cars drifting into snow banks, she had no business being anywhere but at home. Unfortunately, Lt. Crandall had made her his business, and like the frost adhering to the windows, fury gripped her soul.

  Simon had told Joe everything. For long moments afterward, Mel had held her breath and felt the blood rushing through her ears as the warden related his morning discussion with her next door nemesis.

  “Under the circumstances, I thought he should know,” Simon had said after apologizing profusely at what Mel perceived as a gross betrayal. “He appears to be a decent guy, Melanie, and having a cop for a neighbor might be just what you need.”

  Lt. Crandall was the last thing she needed and she intended to tell him so. Too angry to be nervous, she’d barged into the operations center without thinking things through. Yet, as armed men and women wearing badges sauntered past, she felt her fifteen-year-old humiliation to the core.

  “Ma’am, have you been helped?”

  She pivoted to find a uniformed officer whose badge read, C. Sandoval, addressing her.

  A youthful face belied his age, but the gray at his temples and the three stripes on his sleeve promised he wasn’t a rookie.

  “I’m here to see Lt. Crandall.” As she spoke, the words came out a dry, strangled rasp. Mel cleared her throat.

  The man who’d intruded on her deepest, darkest secrets chose that moment to appear. Mel drew her hands into fists inside her coat pockets. Looking every inch the professional and in charge, he wore a long-sleeved white cotton shirt and tailored black pants. And as gold reflected off the badge on his belt, she wasn’t sure what was more intimidating, the breadth of his shoulders or the gun tucked in his holster.

  Concern etched his features as he strode toward her. “The city’s on accident alert, Mrs. Norris. What are you doing here?”

  What am I doing here? Mel wanted to scream, “You idiot,” but the insult lodged in her throat. The man had breached his authority, invaded her privacy. How dare he act as if he didn’t know why she was here, or worse, that she was wrong to confront him?

  He nodded to the sergeant who with one glance made a silent exit.

  “You heard from Warden Rivers,” Joe said.

  “Are you surprised? Not only was he my husband’s boss, he’s a close personal friend.”

  Joe shook his head. “I wanted to tell you myself, that’s all. C’mon. Let’s talk.”

  Once again, he was giving her orders. Even so, she could hardly tell him what she thought of him in the lobby. Struggling with how she really wanted to handle the situation, she followed.

  Stonily, Mel waited while he used an access card to open the steel door he’d just c
ome through. She walked beside him, passing cubicles of law enforcement personnel until they came to a small office at the far side of the corridor.

  He stood aside for her to enter, then pointed to a chair. “Would you like to sit down?”

  She glanced toward the window. Outside, the snow continued to fall and she knew a moment’s panic. She had a couple of hours before she had to pick up Luke, but if the coach cancelled practice, what then? “No. What I have to say won’t take long.”

  “Fine. But I’m going to. I’ve had a long day.” He sat in the chair behind his desk.

  Mel met his stare with an equal challenge. “I should say. Looking into my past so thoroughly must take a lot out of a man.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “Furious.”

  “You have every right to be.” His matter-of-fact tone set her teeth on edge, her heart to pounding, enraging her further.

  “I told you my past was none of your business. If I alerted your supervisor―”

  “You’d have my badge.”

  Mel opened her mouth, but words failed her. She hadn’t considered how deeply the ramifications of his conduct ran.

  “My guess is my commander’s in his office. If you like, we can go see him now.”

  “Your career means so little to you?”

  The lieutenant rose from the chair and walked to the door. “On the contrary, my career means everything. My son means more. You wouldn’t answer my questions. I had to know.” He extended his arm. “Shall we?”

  When she made no move to accompany him, he said, “I’m busy, Mrs. Norris. It’s treacherous outside. You should get home. What’s it going to be?”

  Shooting him was out of the question. Suddenly, all she wanted to be was gone. She brushed by him. “Keep your job, you pompous jerk. But I warn you, stay the hell out of my personal business.”

  “And if your boyfriend shows up, should I look the other way?”

  Mel gasped. The cop was beyond cruel. He played on her deepest fear. “In fifteen years you haven’t changed. You’re still one mean son of a bitch.”