“I hope she said it in front of him. Me not even divorced yet and pregnant with another
man’s
child.
It’d
give
him conniptions.”
“Still
wouldn’t
be as bad as if you were a
dude,”
I said, “but
sadly,
no.
She
didn’t
say it in front of
him.”
“How does she know
we’re
beddin’ one another?”
“
Apparently,
everyone
does.”
“What’d
you tell her?”
“That I was the lucky
one.”
“Such a good, sweet man. I’m the luckiest girl in the whole wide
world.”
“Do you know how long I’ve waited to be with you?” I asked.
“I
do.
Same as I’ve waited to be with you.
Forever.”
I touched her cheek.
“Sorry
about this
place,”
I said, looking around at my old trailer.
“Didn’t
realize just how bad it had gotten until you moved
in.”
“There’s
nowhere else on earth
I’d
rather
be.”
“We’ll
find a place soon.”
“No rush.
Really.
I’ve never been happier
anywhere.”
“
We’ll
look some more after
work
tomorrow.”
I
was sleeping very soundly when the call came. And dreaming.
I was dreaming of being trapped in an airplane submerged in the sea. I was trying to make my
way
up to where Anna
was,
but the people between us were panicking and the floating debris was so thick, I
couldn’t
get to
her.
I startled
awake,
my heart pounding, but began to settle down the moment I reached
over
and felt Anna there in the bed beside me, her skin smooth and warm.
“Hello.”
“
Chaplain?”
“
Yeah?”
“It’s
Sergeant Sterzoy from the control room.
Sorry
to
wake
you, sir, but
we’ve
got a . . .
we’ve
got something . . . a situation. I know the warden
wouldn’t
want me to call
you
so please
don’t
let him know I did, but . .
.”
“I
won’t,”
I said. “What is it?”
“A
young
woman,”
he said. “Trying to break in to the prison.
Well,
I mean she
was. She’s
. . .
she’s
dead
now.”
“Trying to break in?” I said. “Is that how she got killed?”
“No,
sir.
We
found her that
way.
She was already dead. And your card was in her
pocket.”
“I’m on my
way.”
A
s I drove to the institution, I thought about who the victim could be and why she
would
be trying to break in to the prison.
I gave a lot of my cards out––especially to the families of inmates.
Was
it one of them trying to get in to see their boyfriend or husband or son? Probably not the last, since Sterzoy called her a
young woman
, but I
couldn’t
rule it out.
My phone rang again as I neared the institution. It was Dad.
“Sorry
to call so late but
we’ve
got a situation at the
prison,”
he said. “Can you meet me out here?”
“I’m pulling up
now.”
I parked in the mostly empty lot in front of the admin building, and when I rounded the corner in front of the main gate and control room, Dad was waiting for me.
“Who called you?” Dad asked.
“As
far as the warden
knows,
you
did,”
I said. He nodded.
I got into his truck and we rode around the perimeter of the prison toward the flashing lights flickering in the darkness in the distance.
The entire prison was surrounded by an asphalt road used by a roving perimeter patrol.
We
were driving on it down the east side of the institution.
When we reached the scene, Dad pulled up at an angle and shined his lights on the area, adding them to the
deputy’s
car and prison patrol vehicle already doing the same.
Though the light was uneven and dim and the
deputy’s
flashers hindered instead of helped
visibility,
they provided enough illumination to show a white
woman
in her midtwenties standing stiffly in front of the fence, her body leaning forward at an odd angle, only her face actually touching the chain link.
I could see well enough to identify the victim and determine she had been placed here after she died.
“Chaplain, Sheriff,” Officer Barber said by
way
of greeting.
He was a young CO with
puffy,
acne-scarred cheeks and a brown buzz cut. His brown uniform hung loosely on his narrow frame.
The night was cooler than before, a brisk breeze biting at our faces and waving ever so slightly the chain link and razor wire.
“Any
idea who she is or how she got here?” Dad
asked.
“No
sir.
I was makin’ my rounds and there she
was.
I had passed by no more than twenty minutes before and she
wasn’t
there. She was just standing there. Leaning
really,
I guess. Not
moving.
I radioed the control room. I
was
surprised her touching the fence
didn’t
alert them already
anyway.”
“And
she was just like this?” Dad said.
“Hasn’t
moved?”
“Hasn’t
moved so much as a millimeter. The only thing I’ve done was feel for a pulse and search her for identification. All she had was the
chaplain’s
card, a couple of condoms, and four hundred-dollar bills in that little purse across her
shoulder.”
The prison was situated on hundreds of acres of clear, open land. It extended behind us for some
two
hundred yards to a pine tree forest, a mile or so beyond which was
Potter
Farm.
The silver sliver of moon was higher
now,
its faint, fog-muted beam still streaking the charcoal
sky.
Dad turned to me.
“You
recognize her?”
I nodded. “She was at
Potter
Farm tonight,” I said. “Down by the lake, waiting for the political part of the party to end and the crowd to scatter. Said she was there for the
after-party.”
Dad shook his head. “God
almighty. That’s
all we
need.”
“I
have
no idea who she
is,”
I said. “I just spoke to her
briefly.
Offered her a ride and gave her my card in case she got into anything out there she needed help with.”
“
It’s
almost as if she was trying to climb in to get to
you,”
Barber said.
Dad looked at the
deputy,
who had yet to say a
word.
“Where’s
Jake?”
“Still at the farm, as far as I
know.”
Dad shook his head.
“Was
playing poker the last time I saw
him,”
the deputy added.
“Them and that goddamn
after-party,”
Dad said. “Gonna cost me the goddamn election. Radio and tell him to keep everybody there and you
go
help him do just that. I’ll be
over
there just as soon as I can.”
The deputy left––and with him part of the illumination and all of the annoying blue strobing.
“I called FDLE as soon as I got
word,”
Dad said.
“Crime scene unit should be here within the
hour.”
I nodded.
“Warden
and inspector are on their
way,”
Barber said.
Dad and I stepped closer to the young woman. She had on the same TV prostitute clothes that I had glimpsed her in earlier in the evening––a shimmering sequined top with spaghetti straps, a bottom of the butt-cheeks bedazzled blue jeans skirt, and candy-apple-red peep-toe
pumps.
Her body was stiff with rigor and showed signs of fixed lividity from where it had lain after she was killed but before she was moved.
Her pose was both creepy and surreal, standing death-still with her head against the fence like a devotee praying at the wailing wall.
Kneeling down on the ground beside her and looking
up,
I could see the
wounds,
the cuts and scrapes and bruises, of her bloodied face. Given those and the general swelling of her misshapen head,
I’d
guess she
was
beaten to death, her unnatural and untimely demise caused by blunt force trauma.
“Somebody beat the living shit out of
her,”
Dad said.
I nodded.
“Why bring her here?” he said. “She
couldn’t’ve
made it on her own, could she?”
I shook my head. “She was moved after she died.”
“Why here?”
“Potter
Farm is right through
there,”
I said, pointing to the woods beyond the field behind
us.
The
warden’s
car screeched to a stop on the road behind
Dad’s
truck, and Bat Matson and the institutional inspector jumped out.
Matson’s
fleshy face was red and even more puffy than usual, his jowls bobbing as he bounced in our direction. Instead of swooping to the side, his thick gray hair stood on end, waving in the wind.
“Just what in the hell is goin’ on here?” he said.
“And
why is the warden the last one to arrive at a crime scene in his prison?”
Barber tried to explain and placate as best he could, but Matson would
have
none of it.
“And
just what the hell is the chaplain doing here?
You’re
not needed. I
have
no idea why
you’re
here, unless
you’re
disobeying a direct order of mine, but you need to
go
home. Be in my office first thing in the morning.”
“Whoa
now,”
Dad said.
“Wait
just a damn minute.
He’s
here as a witness. Not a chaplain. His card was the only thing found on the victim. He spoke to her earlier tonight.”
“But––”
“He’s
here because the chief law enforcement officer of the county asked him to
be.”
“I
don’t
like this, not one
bit,”
Matson said. “I’m in charge of my own damn institution,
by
God.”
“Nobody said you
weren’t,
but this is a murder investigation and I’m in charge of
it.”
“Actually,
Sheriff
, the IG of the Department of Corrections is in charge of all investigations at the institutions.”
“I’ve
worked
with the IG several times
before,”
Dad said, “and
have
no problem when
he’s
the lead investigator when he has jurisdiction, but jurisdiction is established
by
where the crime took place, not where the body is found. She was clearly killed somewhere else and placed here. I
have
jurisdiction and this is
my
investigation. Understand?”
Matson took a moment to settle himself down a bit.
“Very
well then,” he said.
“Okay,
what
have
we got?” Dad told him––with a little help from Barber. The interim institutional inspector, Mark Lawson, a thick, heavily tattooed twenty-six-year-old who was little more than
Matson’s
puppet, never uttered a
word.
“So we
have
no idea who she is or why
she’s
leaning against my fence?”
“Not yet. But
we
will. And soon
too.
As soon as FDLE gets here and we process the scene,
we’re
going to interview the last people to see her
alive.”
“
We
?”
Matson said beneath raised eyebrows and challenging
eyes.
“Yes,”
Dad said. “My department.”
“D
o you
have
any idea why the killer
would
bring her here or pose her body like that?” Dad asked me.
We
were standing back from the scene a bit, just the
two
of
us,
waiting on FDLE to arrive. Matson was down the
way
busy calling the inspector general and the secretary of the department to report what had happened. The institutional inspector was busy
watching.
Mention of the IG inevitably led to thoughts of my
ex-father-in-law,
Tom
Daniels, and his daughter, my ex-wife Susan, and the unfinished business I still had with both of them.
“I honestly
can’t
come up with anything,” I said. “Is it random or does it
carry
some kind of significance for the killer?” he said.
“No
way
to
know,”
I said. “But since
it’s
not apparent to
us,
if it does
have
meaning it must be only to
him.”