“You sure?” I asked. “I can do a lot of shit.”
He smiled and it was nice to see. “I’m sure.”
“You’ll let me know if that changes?”
“I will,” he said. “And John, thanks for asking.”
Chapter Forty-three
A
s soon as Merrill left, Carla came over to the booth and slid in across from me.
“How’s your mom?” she asked.
I told her, aware I was talking to a young girl who had no idea where her mother was. As I did I was reminded again of just how much parents injure their children. Carla was smart, strong, and beautiful, but she was also insecure, fearful of abandonment, and uncomfortable with true intimacy—and probably would be for the rest of her life. There are some truly scary things in the world but nothing can compare to the damage done by parents in the formative years of their children’s lives. This, more than any other factor, was the reason Anna’s pregnancy meant there was no hope of us ever being together. At least not in this life.
“You think she’ll get a transplant in time?”
I shrugged. “It’s not looking good.”
She nodded and frowned, then looked down. When she looked up there were tears in her eyes and she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I knew she was crying about far more than my mom, and I was glad to see her tears. They were rare—and she was someone with more than her fair share of things to cry about.
The lights of the diner were dim—something Rudy had devised to save a little more money, and as usual, it was cold. If Rudy really wanted to save money all he’d have to do was bump up the thermostat, but, in addition to being overweight and always overheated, he was convinced, or wanted to be, that it generated more coffee sales and kept his daughter awake at night.
Carla and I were alone. The jukebox sat silently by. Except for the occasional vehicle passing on the highway outside, it was as if we were the only two people left in the wide world.
Carla lingered, periodically wiping her eyes and sniffling, and I knew she had something she needed to talk about.
I waited.
She would get to it when she was ready. She always did.
Eventually, she said, “Know how we have stories that circulate around here? Sort of like rural legends?”
I nodded.
She turned and looked over her shoulder out into the darkness, and I couldn’t tell if she was scared or expecting someone.
“There’s a new one a lot of the kids are talking about,” she said. “No one has said it happened to them, but so many are talking about it and they all say the same thing.”
“What are they saying?”
“That a guy is abducting people—teenage boys, I think—drugging them or knocking them out and taking them to a … they call it the dungeon. It’s like a torture chamber.”
She shivered and started to cry again and I thought I knew where this was going.
“After a few days, he drops them off in a secluded place, and they do their best to pretend like it never happened.”
I was skeptical. It sounded more like rural legend than anything else, and I couldn’t imagine something like this wouldn’t get out. I would check with Dad to see of any parents had reported their kids missing, only to get them back later.
“Why haven’t the parents or the school reported it?” I asked.
She shrugged. “The guys it’s happened to are pretty much on their own. And he never keeps them for long. They just act like they spent a few nights with a friend.”
Very slowly and gently, I said, “Do you think this happened to Cody?”
I recalled her saying her boyfriend, Cody Gaskin, had disappeared for three days and not been the same since he got back.
She started crying harder and nodded.
“He’s so different, so angry. He won’t talk to me about where he went or what he did. He just says it’s none of my business and if I ask him again he’s going to … do things to me.”
My empathy for Cody and his experience quickly vanished, my compassion turning to anger, and I was filled with the desire to do a few things to him.
She turned and looked outside again. “He’s supposed to be coming over tonight. Will you talk to him?”
I nodded. “No matter how much you love him,” I said, “or what he may have been through, you can’t let him talk to you that way. You can’t be in a relationship with someone who would abuse you in any way—even verbal threats.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m just scared if I break up with him …”
“I understand,” I said. “I’ll encourage him not to do anything stupid.”
She tried to smile, but only partly pulled it off.
“What time is he coming?” I asked.
“He should have already been here,” she said. “He’s probably waiting for you to leave.”
“You want me to park my pimp ride around back?” I asked.
She looked out into the darkness again. “He could be watching us right now,” she said. “Why don’t you drive away—just don’t go far—then come back when he shows up.”
I did.
When I walked back into Rudy’s ten minutes later, Cody rolled his eyes, stood up from the booth he was sitting in with Carla, and said, “I’m outta here.”
“Sit down, Cody,” I said.
He didn’t move.
“Carla, would you mind fixing us some coffee?”
She stood, and eased past Cody as if she expected him to hit her.
I walked over toward him.
“Sit down,” I said, my voice firm but not menacing. Not yet.
Cody Gaskin was high school football quarterback tough. Beneath his red-and-white letterman jacket was the result of many hours spent in the weight room and taking questionable supplements. He had lived an entitled, indulged life and wasn’t used to being told what to do––especially by a trailer trash convict preacher.
If he’d been abducted and held, his absence would have gone unremarked because he was allowed to do whatever he wanted, coming and going as he liked.
If Carla was right about what had happened to him, then for the first time since infancy, Cody had known what it was like to be powerless. I tried to remind myself of what he had possibly been through to balance the anger I felt toward him.
“I just want to talk to you.”
He turned and glared at Carla but she wasn’t looking at him.
“Cody,” I said, “if you want to glare at someone, glare at me.”
I stepped closer, he dropped into the booth, and I slid in across from him.
Carla brought our coffee, careful not to stand too close to Cody as she placed the cups and saucers on the table. This time he didn’t look at her.
“Carla, why don’t you join us?” I said.
Her eyes widened and she hesitated.
“Cody’s not going to do anything to you,” I said. “You don’t have anything to worry about. Right Cody?”
Cody didn’t say anything.
I stood and Carla slid in on my side of the booth. I sat down beside her.
Cody was looking down at the table, his face tight and red, his lips pursed.
“What happened to you, Cody?” I asked.
He didn’t say anything.
“Were you taken? Held for a while? Assaulted?”
He still didn’t say anything but the tremors in his hands and the moistness in his eyes told me what I needed to know.
“I’m sure what happened to you had to be beyond horrible,” I said, “and I’m very sorry. We’re going to catch the guy who did it to you and make sure he doesn’t do anything like that to anyone ever again. But Cody, if you ever threaten Carla again, I’ll put you in the hospital. And things will only escalate from there.”
He didn’t say anything and didn’t look up.
“Carla, do you wish to continue dating Cody?” I asked.
She hesitated a long moment then shook her head. “Not right now,” she said. “Maybe later when … after …”
“Do you understand?” I asked Cody.
After a moment, he nodded his head, but still didn’t look up.
“Okay,” I said, standing, “Carla, why don’t you go get some rest. Cody and I have a few things to discuss.”
She stood and looked down at him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I love you.”
Cody’s family was solidly middle class, which in an economically depressed area like ours, where the highest earners are teachers and correctional officers, made him a “rich” kid. He was also attractive, popular, and the star quarterback. Carla was poor, not involved in any extracurricular activities because she had to work so much, and though not unpopular, she wasn’t a cheerleader, wasn’t allowed completely inside the cool kids clique.
As I sat back down and waited for Carla to make her way into the back, I wondered how much this social and economic dynamic was involved in what Carla was calling love.
“Look at me like a man,” I said.
He looked up, anger burning in his narrowed eyes.
“We’re going to get you some help,” I said. “And we’re going to catch the man who did this to you. But the first step is being honest about what happened. My first priority in this situation is Carla, but you are my second. I won’t judge you. I won’t think any less of you. I’ve spent my life working with people who’ve gone through similar things. What happened to you is not your fault. It’s about evil, about a sick individual who has given himself over to it. None of that has anything to do with you. So, tell me what happened?”
He didn’t say anything.
I sipped some coffee and waited.
I wound up waiting a long time, but eventually something inside him broke loose, and he began to cry. I wasn’t able to make out all of his tearful story, but I got a lot—including the most telling line of all: “The worst thing of all was that he made me do the stuff to myself.”
Chapter Forty-four
“T
hat means the rapist isn’t an inmate, right?” Anna asked.
We were in the Monte Carlo heading toward Panama City Beach to talk to the owner of Air Ads Inc.
It was midday, the sun directly overhead shrouded in rain clouds, thunder rumbling in the distance.
The warden had reluctantly approved my request to use a couple of hours of my comp time—and only because I was visiting my mom, which I would be after going to Air Ads Inc.
Before approving the request, he had given me a lecture about the importance of being at the institution and, as a department head, setting a good example. I agreed with him and reminded him that the reason I had so much comp time was because of how much of my recent life had been spent at the prison, and that I only had one mother so this shouldn’t be an issue in the future. I felt guilty for using Mom as an excuse and not being completely honest, until he told me to make sure that it wasn’t.
“Probably,” I said, “but not positively.”
As usual 23
rd
Street was crowded, the multiple stoplights adding to the congestion of the slow-moving traffic. The parking lots of the ubiquitous chain restaurants were packed, cars of hungry workers circling in search of an empty slot, the precious minutes of their lunch hours ticking away.
“How could it be an inmate?”
“It would be difficult,” I said, “but Cody said the guy only came to the place he holds them periodically. It’s not inconceivable that an inmate assigned to a negligent city worker on an outside work crew could be doing it. Some of them don’t really supervise at all—especially if the inmate’s been working for them a long time. When the inmate is alone, he could use the city truck to snatch the kid and take him to an abandoned building or empty river camp, then come back each day for another session, and eventually let him go. Not the most probable scenario. Just saying it’s not impossible.”
“We’ve certainly had negligent supervisors before,” she said, “but …”
“It’s about as likely as someone committing the murders to make Dad look bad and lose the election,” I said. “It’s possible, but …”
“Does he think that?”
I shrugged. “It’s crossed his mind. We can’t rule either of them out completely but we need to focus on other possibilities. Lisa’s creating a new list of rape suspects from staff, correctional officers, and inmates on an outside work crew.”
“That should narrow it down greatly,” she said.
Classes were back in and the parking lots of Gulf Coast State College’s main campus were full. As we rose atop Hathaway Bridge amid a steady flow of traffic in both directions, I slowed and looked out over the bay. The waters were choppy, a seemingly infinite number of whitecaps bouncing, rocking, jostling. The overcast day drained much of the vivid color from what was normally a picturesque announcement that crossing the bridge from Panama City to Panama City Beach signaled a transition between a small panhandle town and a world famous vacation destination, between the monotony of responsibility and the variety of possibility.
“How’re you feeling?” I asked.
She frowned and shrugged.
“Any morning sickness?”