16
When I got back to the chapel, my phone was ringing. Fumbling with the keys, I rushed in just as it stopped. I sat down at my desk and less than a minute later it started again.
“Chaplain, this is Molly Thomas,” she said in a soft voice.
Molly Thomas was the devoted wife of an inmate here at PCI named Anthony Thomas. She was devoted enough to her husband and their relationship to move up from South Florida when he was transferred here. She rented a small trailer in a trailer park not far from mine and visited her husband six hours every Saturday and six hours every Sunday.
“Hey, Molly. How’s it going?” I asked.
“Not very good right now. I was wondering if I might talk with you?” she asked hesitantly.
“Of course, you know that,” I said.
“Not over the phone.”
“Why don’t you come to the institution this afternoon? We can meet in the administration building.”
The administration and training buildings were the only ones not behind the fence.
“Can we meet somewhere in town?”
“There’s a conference room I use sometimes at the sheriff’s station. We can meet there if you like.”
“I . . . I can’t really meet you there either.”
“How about the Methodist Church on Main Street at one o’clock?”
“That would be great.”
“I’ll see you there.”
After we hung up, Mr. Smith ambled in with some inmate requests and passes for me.
I looked through them. There was nothing urgent.
“Have a seat,” I said. “Mind if I ask you a few more questions?”
“No suh. Don’t mind a’tall.”
“I’m tryin’ to find out who supplies drugs on the compound.”
“Probably the biggest supplier that is a inmate is Jasper Evans.”
“Really?”
“Yes suh.”
“The inmate who directs the choir and never misses chapel is the biggest supplier on the compound?”
He nods. “’Fraid so. He sing like an angel but sling dope like the devil.”
17
When I reached the First United Methodist Church of Pottersville, Molly Thomas was waiting on me.
The red-brick and white-trim church looked as much like an old schoolhouse as anything else.
Molly sat in her car, an older dark brown Ford Taurus, with her window rolled down. Her auburn hair was moist, and sweat trickled down the sides of her cheeks. Her green eyes, aided by colored contact lenses, looked like the Gulf after a summer rain.
Glancing around nervously, she got out of the car.
I got out too, but without the nervous glances. Later, I realized I should have been glancing.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m scared out of my mind. I don’t know what to do. I need your help.”
“We can use the pastor’s office. He’s at lunch right now,” I said, walking toward the office at the rear of the church.
Pastor Clydesdale’s office was way too small for his library, books spilling out of the three large bookshelves, piled on the floor, stacked on his desk and filing cabinet. The floor was covered with a dark green shag carpet from deep in the 1970s. A small window air conditioner, which was not in a window at all but in an oversized hole in the wall, pushed the sweet smell of pipe smoke around the room.
I sat in the pastor’s seat, an old wooden swivel desk chair with casters on its legs.
Molly sat on an old couch that was covered with a thin rust-colored bedspread and sloped down at the rear, making her appear six inches shorter than she really was.
“I’m taking an awful risk in talking to you,” she said. “I think I can trust you, but I’m not sure.”
“If you have any reservations, I would encourage you to speak with someone you know better and can trust more.”
“I don’t know anyone. I am all alone down here. Out of options.”
Her auburn hair and green eyes were striking, though it was obvious neither were completely natural.
“Down here? I thought you were from South Florida.”
“No, I’m from Michigan. We were in Miami about to leave for a two-week cruise when Tony was arrested.”
I nodded. “If you want to talk with me, there are some things you should know first. I will keep confidential anything you say unless to do so would cause harm to you, someone else, or the security of the institution. Also, we are not alone here.”
She startled. Sitting up, looking around.
“No one is listening in on us. We have privacy. Just wanted you to know. It’s for my protection and yours.”
“Who’s here?” she asked, looking around the room.
“The pastor is having his lunch in the other office.”
“Makes me trust you even more. The thing is . . . Tony’s been doing real good. I was worried about him. He’s not like those other men. But he’s doing good. A lot better than I ever would’ve thought.”
“Is that why you stayed around? To look out for him?”
“I thought if I was here, he wouldn’t feel so alone, and that might help him make it.”
“And it has.”
“It has. Or had. But about a month ago, Tony started acting real sure of himself, like he didn’t need me anymore. He said that the most powerful man at the institution was looking out for him and that his last year would be cake. He was so cocky I couldn’t stand it. I hate it when he gets like that.”
“He say who the man was?” I asked.
“No. Never did. But when I’d go to visit on the weekends he’d have all kinds of money to spend at the canteen and he’d give me little presents. A nice watch. Earrings. A bracelet. Also started putting money in my bank account. Large deposits.”
“He say where it came from?” I asked.
“Only thing he ever said was the skipper took care of his mates.”
She sniffled and blinked and began to cry.
I handed her a tissue from the box on the desk.
“Last Saturday when I was visiting he said he had something very special planned for us this week. That he’d call and for me not to be scared. I had no idea what it could be, but I was excited. I got a call from him Tuesday night saying for me to come to the institution. Said he’d worked it out for us to be alone. I was scared. I knew it was against the rules. But I went. When I got there, the officer at the control room said Captain Skipper was expecting me. They didn’t have me sign in or anything. When I got into the sally port, a big man in a white shirt met me and escorted me to the chapel.”
“The chapel?”
“Yeah. No one was there. It was very dark. The officer told me to go into the sanctuary and wait for Tony. When I got in there Tony was waiting for me.”
She began to tremble, her tears coming harder.
“He took me from behind, like he was attacking me. He grabbed me and slung me to the ground. At first I didn’t know who it was, but then he started talking to me. It was . . . He was like an animal. I tried to turn around, but he wouldn’t let me. He had my jeans off before I knew it. Whispering the most . . . explicit things in my ear. Things he’s never said before.”
“Why don’t you pause for a moment,” I said, giving her the box of tissues.
“I . . . have to . . . go on. Or I . . . won’t finish. It’s so . . . He attacked me. There’s no other word for it. He’s my husband and I wanted to . . . I was there because I . . . wanted to be, but . . . not like that. Not . . . It felt like he put his fist . . . his whole fist inside me. He was completely out of control. It wasn’t like my Tony at all. Then, he . . . he . . . sodomized me.”
“I am so sorry,” I said.
“I’m . . . no saint. Tony and I have had sex in every way . . . but . . . He raped me.”
“I’m so, so sorry.”
“He hurt me,” she said. “Not too bad . . . physically, but real bad emotionally. He . . . The worst thing was before he was
even through, the big officer in the white shirt and two others in brown shirts came in and pulled him off of me and cuffed him. I think they had been watching the whole time. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. One of ’em jerked me up, told me to get dressed, and then led me to the gate. I was so upset and disoriented . . . I don’t remember much else . . . except when I reached my trailer and got out, a truck pulled in behind me. It was the big officer in the white shirt. He . . . He was running toward me. I dropped my keys, but thankfully I had left the door unlocked. I ran in and locked the door just before he reached it. He tried it. It was locked. Then it hit me—my keys—they were out there on the ground. I put the dead bolt on and the chain. He came back and unlocked the knob, but couldn’t open the door because of the dead bolt. He started kicking the door. I ran into the kitchen and called 9-1-1. When I got back he was gone. This is the first time I’ve come out of the house since then.”
“You know the name of the big officer in the white shirt?” I asked.
“No. I assumed it was Skipper, but I don’t know. God, he’s a psychopath. You should have heard him laughing at me just before they pulled Tony off me.”
“You ever seen him before?” I asked.
“No, never. I take it that he is either a captain or a lieutenant because of the color of his shirt, but I couldn’t see his collar.”
“What time did all this take place?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
“It’s very important. Was it before or after eleven?”
“Oh, after. It was way after eleven. Why?”
“The shift changes at eleven. So does the shift OIC. While you were at the institution, how many different officers did you see?” I asked.
“One in the control room. Three in the chapel.”
“Wonder how many saw you.”
She shuddered at that.
“You willing to come with me to report this to the warden, the inspector, and the sheriff?”
“What? No. Absolutely not. I’m . . . No. Never.”
“I have to report it.”
“I don’t. I’m not. I’m gonna work on getting Tony transferred and never come back here again.”
“But—”
“Don’t even think about involving me. If anybody from the prison or the cops ask, I’m gonna swear that none of this ever happened.”
“Then why’d you tell me?”
“I want you to check on Tony, take care of him, help him. Protect him from those officers.”
“Be a lot easier to do with your statement.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I . . . just . . . can’t.”
I nodded. “Okay. Want me to get the sheriff to assign someone to watch you while we work on this?”
“You can do that? You’re something else, Chaplain.”
“No. Just related to him.”
18
“What exactly are we doing here?” Anna asked.
We were sitting at the large conference table in the medical break room.
Designed more for meetings than breaks, it was a conference room with a Coke machine. The corridor ending here led past the steel doors of the suicide cells on one side and the glass walls of the infirmary on the other.
I was drinking a can of Florida orange juice, she a Diet Coke.
“We’re taking a break,” I said.
She looked confused.
“We’re state employees. We take lots of them.”
“Oh, we do?”
“Okay, so we never do,” I said, “but today we’re turning over a new leaf.”
I called her just after returning from my meeting with Molly Thomas, and just before calling both Dad about assigning a deputy to watch her and Tom Daniels to fill him in and ask about getting the FDLE crime scene technicians to examine the chapel floor for trace evidence that might verify Molly’s story.
Anna sipped some more of her Diet Coke, then raised the can and said, “To taking more breaks.”
I held my juice up and we clinked cans.
“What we’re really doing here,” I whispered, “is looking for clues.”
Her eyes widened. “Clues? Cool. Am I playing Watson to your Holmes? Actually, I should be Nancy Drew or your Girl Friday.”
She could be my Girl Monday through Sunday. That would be just fine with me.
“I’ve been thinking more about the notes I’ve been receiving. I really think they’re about you.”
“Could be.”
“It’s obvious how much I care about you, and the letters are coming from within the institution. Somebody who has seen us together . . .”
She nodded. “What do you want me to do?”
“Don’t go anywhere alone. Let me or Merrill or someone you trust be with you. Just take extra precautions for the next little while.”
“I can do that.”
“Thanks.”
We drank a little more.
“I need to look in some of the rooms down here, and I need someone to cause a distraction and keep lookout.”
“Why don’t you create a distraction and keep lookout while I look for clues?” “I don’t think the officer in the infirmary would find me as distracting as you.”
She smiled. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
While she plied her charms to distract the infirmary officer, I went to take a look in the caustic storage closets for the cleaning chemicals found on Johnson’s uniform.
Both were locked.
I reached in my back pocket, whipped out my wallet, and withdrew the Visa card. Sliding it down the side of the doorjamb, the door opened easily. Too easily. Someone had done this before—many times.
The first closet had a single metal shelf that looked like it should have been in someone’s garage. It was filled with boxes of garbage bags, paper towels, toilet paper, and rubber gloves. The bottom shelf was filled with white plastic bottles of PRIDE chemicals: wax, stripper, floor cleaner, glass cleaner, and two cans of the spray that killed HIV and hepatitis on contact.
Getting down on my hands and knees, I took a closer look, resisting the urge to touch anything. When I moved to the side of the shelf, I saw it. On the back side there was a bottle of cleaner leaking, the liquid standing around the base of the bottle, the shelf, and the floor.
Walking back up toward the front, I saw Allen Jones, the elderly inmate orderly mopping the floor.
He was so quiet, his moves so understated, I wouldn’t have heard him if he hadn’t been whistling—a soft, airy whistle version of “As Time Goes By.”
When I arrived at the infirmary control room, Anna was still beguiling Ron Straub.
“How’s it going?” I said.
“Fine,” he said, not bothering to mask his irritation at the intrusion.
“Do you have an inmate in the infirmary named Anthony Thomas?”
“Jones,” he yelled to the orderly out in the hallway, “wasn’t Thomas put in Confinement Tuesday morning?”
“Yes, sir,” Jones said.
“He’s in Confinement,” Straub said.
“Thank you. I’ll see him over there.”
When I began to leave, he smiled.
When Anna joined me, he stopped.
“What’d you find?” Anna asked when we were seated in her office again.
“Maybe where the body was stored until the trash was taken out.”
“Where?”
“In one of the caustic storage rooms at the end of the hallway past the infirmary. It’d be the perfect place. That hallway is almost always empty and very few people use that closet.”
“What made you look in there in the first place?”
I told her.
“And asking about Thomas?” she said. “Was that just about what Molly told you or do you think he has something to do with what happened to Johnson?”
“Both,” I said. “Maybe.”
She gave me a big smile.
“What?”
“Some men will brag when given
the opportunity to do so to an attentive female.”
“I’ve heard about that.”
“I gave Ron my full attention and he told some tales—one of them about an inmate having an affair with a nurse.”
“Thomas?” I asked
“Thomas,” she said.
“Did he say which nurse?”
“I don’t think he knows, but I soon will.”
19
I was in my office making notes on the case when Merrill walked in.
“’Sup?” he said when he was seated in front of me.
I shook my head. “You’d have to ask somebody else. You’re looking at the man who knows the least about the way things work around here.”
“It a different world. But you a quick study. You rounded up the usual suspects?”
“Working on it.”
“How many brothers on the list?” he said.
“Besides you? Only have one suspect of African descent.”
“Everybody of African descent. We the first people on Earth.”
“True.”
“Nigga got a name?”
“Name and a number,” I said. “Allen Jones. Works in the infirmary. Has no real motive that I can see, but he gathers and takes out the trash. Also has access to a typewriter. Most inmates don’t. But Nurse Anderson says he didn’t take the trash out on Tuesday. Speaking of . . . what can you tell me about Shutt?”
“Not much,” he said. “He’s pretty new. Seems okay. He a suspect?”
“He picked up the trash, and he’s the one who actually did the deed.”
“Shook him up like hell too, though, didn’t it?”
“Maybe. Certainly seemed to.”
“Who else?”
“Jacobson, of course. Skipper.”
“He probably involved somehow. Bastard bad all the way down to his black heart.”
I told him what Molly Thomas had told me.
Merrill shook his head. “Like I said.”
“Seems we’re surrounded by badness,” I said. “I think Anna might be in danger. I’ve been getting threatening letters and I think they’re about her.”
Six John Jordan Mysteries Page 9
