Boldt still owed his wife that champagne dinner, but he had not forgotten, despite what she thought. He was in fact saving up to make it dinner in Rome, though that required another few months of happy hour at the Big Joke. Miles was in the terrible twos, and this, Boldt thought, was the only redeeming value of the endless series of trials.
He sneaked out of the courtroom the minute he was handed the note by the guard, and he knew what to expect despite its vagueness. Reporters’ eyes followed him. These days, where Boldt went, the press followed. He was sick and tired of it. He wanted his life back. But they could not follow him down into County Detention where he was headed; the guards stopped them.
He walked and walked, down into the bowels of a system that failed at every turn. This was but one more example. He felt his gun at the first station, and he flinched when the bars shut behind him, because he always flinched when he heard that sound. His shoes squeaked on the clean cement floor, though he avoided the center drain.
The guard was making excuses, but Boldt hardly heard them. He had argued; he had warned. He had heard the words of Dr. Richard Clements as he had seen him off at the airport: “You keep your eye on him. He’s one determined fellow.”
This was no place for Caulfield. He had been inside before, and the five years he had served for a trumped-up drug charge had helped to buy him a life sentence rather than death row. That was when Boldt had pressed for a suicide watch and had lost. The arguments had centered around transporting him back and forth for the trial, overcrowding, and expense.
They stopped in front of the cell. He hoped the guard was finished making excuses, but the man added, “I guess if you’re crazy, you’re just crazy.”
Harry Caulfield had vomited, much as his victims had vomited. He was lying in the bed, his head cocked to one side, eyes shut. Perhaps it had been a peaceful death.
“You suppose he complained about the rats just so we’d put out the poison? I mean what kind of idiot would do such a thing? What the hell are we going to say?”
“That he got what he wanted.” The morning paper open on the floor meant nothing to the guard. But Boldt saw it was open to the business pages. He knew the article: ADLER FOODS FILES CHAPTER ELEVEN. Besieged by lawsuits, Adler had folded his shop, though according to Daphne he vowed to return. Adler was not one to stay down long.
“Crazy bastard,” the guard said.
Boldt turned and headed back for the entrance, passing cell after cell of human beings behind bars. They stood with their hands on the bars, staring out at him, envying his freedom to leave this place.
As he passed the front desk, the guard held out Boldt’s weapon. He stopped, stared at it. The man wiggled it. It grew heavy for him.
Boldt accepted it. Snapped it into the holster.
He flinched as the cell door closed loudly behind him.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-6c9239-5452-7942-a3b1-723b-af4d-68ba39
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 29.11.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.56, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software
Document authors :
Ridley Pearson
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
No Witnesses lbadm-3 Page 42