Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon

by Michael Lister

  “Were there any prints on her stolen stuff?”

  “Three distinct sets including hers, and there were lots in her townhouse, but none of them belonged to Cardigan. And guess how they got onto him in the first place.”

  “How?”

  “Anonymous tip. Somebody drops a dime on him while he’s in school and he’s arrested when he gets home.”

  “If he is innocent, and what’s happening to him now is related to that, why now? Why wait so long to . . . whatever they were trying to do?”

  “No idea,” she said. “But there’s more. You’re gonna love this. Guess who lives in their neighborhood and actually gave a statement to the police during the investigation?”

  “Who?”

  “Your old father-in-law, Tom corruption-is-my-name raising-crazy-daughters-is-my-game Daniels.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Something he said to me recently.”

  “You’ve spoken to him?” she asked, surprised.

  I nodded. “Just a couple of days ago.”

  “In case the kidnappers killed me,” she said. “Trying to repair the damages in case you want to get back with Susan?”

  “I’m not even going to respond to that,” I said.

  “Good.”

  “I am going to think about how Tom Daniels fits into all this, though.”

  “Much better use of that big brain of yours,” she said. “What else?”

  I told her what Rachel Peterson had said.

  “Far more likely to be connected to that,” she said. “Right?”

  “I would think, but . . .”

  “Are the officers involved still working here? Is he in protective custody? Do we need to––”

  “He is,” I said. “Because they are. I had the captain lock him up for tonight. Perkins, Milner, nor Kirkus are working tonight. I should check on Cardigan before we go. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  We reached the chapel and walked inside.

  When we entered my office, we could see that Emmitt had moved some, maybe a few feet, but he was still facedown on the floor.

  “I called for his wife, but she got held up. Should be here soon.”

  We collapsed into the chairs, emotionally exhausted, physical spent.

  “I’m so tired,” I said.

  “Me too.”

  “And I have to babysit Emmitt and I need to check on Cardigan and I know you’re beyond weary and you’re eight months pregnant . . . but I don’t know how much longer I can wait.”

  “I feel the same way,” she said.

  “Part of what makes you perfect.”

  “We’ve never done it in your office. Hell, we’ve never done it at work. And we can’t now because of him.” She nodded toward Emerson.

  “Even with him unconscious, I wouldn’t want him in the room,” I said.

  “So where?”

  “The only obvious place,” I said. “The sanctuary.”

  “Really? You’d be willing to do it in there?”

  “Willing?”

  “I just mean . . . you wouldn’t feel like it was inappropriate or . . . that we were defiling it somehow?”

  “Just the opposite. It will be the most sacred act I ever commit in there.”

  With that, we stood, and I led her into the chapel. Closing the door behind us, it was just the two of us in the darkness.

  Taking her hand, I led her over to the far side as our eyes adjusted.

  On the backside of what was now our sanctuary, I laid her down on the floor between the pews and the windows, beyond which was nothing but blackness—field, fence, and forest, in a pool of blood-red moonlight, and we made love in a way that could only be described as an act of faith.

  37

  Have I ever told you how much I love prison?” Anna said.

  I laughed. “It is sort of our place,” I said.

  “It is, isn’t it? Of course, now every place is our place.”

  “True.”

  We were walking across the front of the chapel toward my office, holding hands, taking our time.

  “I’m not nearly as in a rush to get home now if you want to work on the case some more,” she said.

  “Let’s go home and do that again in our bed.”

  The phone started ringing on my desk.

  Releasing her hand, I removed the keys from my pocket and unlocked and opened the door.

  Instead of following me in, she sat on the end of the front pew closest to my office door.

  “Chaplain Jordan.”

  “What the hell is goin’ on there?” Rachel Peterson said.

  “Whatta you mean?”

  “You tried to help Ronald Cardigan escape?”

  “What?”

  “Is that why you called me about him? I can’t believe I told you all I did. I thought you were––”

  “What’re you talkin’ about?” I asked.

  “You can’t worm your way out of this one,” she said. “Not with so many witnesses. Not with a––”

  The line went dead.

  “Rachel?”

  When I heard the dial tone, I hung up.

  “What is it?” Anna asked from the doorway behind me.

  From the floor in front of my desk, Emmitt moaned something.

  “It’s not good,” I said, and called the control room.

  When Randy Wayne answered I said, “Need an outside line. Calling the IG. It’s an emergency.”

  “Number.”

  “You have it,” I said. “I called her earlier this evening.”

  “That’s right. Let me see . . .”

  “I’ll call you back with info as soon as I finish. Okay?”

  “Nah.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nah. It’s not okay.”

  “What do you––”

  “She knows everything she needs to.”

  “You?” I said. “You’re involved in this?”

  “Why you think I got Pine to lie to get you back in? Why do you think I’m workin’ tonight? You think you fooled anybody dressin’ that convict up in Emmitt Emerson’s clothes?”

  I thought about how disheveled and out of breath he had been when we reentered the institution tonight. Was it because he had just run back from the woods between the prison and Potter Farm?

  “What does she know?” I asked. “What does she think she knows?”

  “That you tried to help an inmate escape tonight. ’Course, by the time she gets here, you’ll be dead so she’ll only have our story. I’ve got to tell you . . . you think you’re so smart, but I’ve got you beat. Not only did you attempt to help an inmate escape, not only were you killed by that same inmate before we killed him, but all this happened while the three suspects in the Dalton case are nowhere near the prison.”

  I didn’t say anything, just thought.

  “I can tell you all this,” he said, “I can tell you anything . . . because you’re locked in my prison and can’t get out. There’s a reason they call this the control room. Guess who has complete control over your ass right now? Guess! It’s smiling, friendly Randy Wayne ‘Have a nice day’ Davis. That’s who. You’re in the empty upper compound of a maximum security prison with no weapons and no way out. Think about it.”

  Now that he had removed his mask, I thought back to all the little toxic leaks I had witnessed him exhibit over the past year, all the ways the man behind the mask had peeked out.

  “None of this is part of the plan, but the plan didn’t go as . . . ah . . . planned. So some improvising is called for. If he doesn’t like it, well . . . he shouldn’t have fucked up his part of the original plan. Am I right? Come on. I’m right, right?”

  What Tom Daniels had said popped into my head. You son of a bitch. You know, don’t you? I knew it. I told them you––

  Was Daniels the he Randy Wayne was referring to? Was he somehow behind all this?

  “’Course if he’s dead he don’t really have a
say anymore, does he? Am I being unreasonable? You can tell me if I am.”

  Was he talking about Karl Jason? Maybe Jason was really behind all this and not just an actor playing a part.

  Anna made a sudden little noise, an intake of breath, a wordless sound that communicated plenty.

  I spun around and looked out my side door into the sanctuary.

  Ronnie Cardigan was behind her, holding a sharp shank to her neck, its tip touching the small scar I had been touching just a little earlier.

  “I’m real sorry, Chaplain. I don’t want this any more than you do, but . . .”

  “Is he there? Man I wish I could see the look on your face,” Randy Wayne said. “Who’s smarter than John Jordan? Who is? Who?”

  I dropped the phone onto the desk and eased out into the sanctuary.

  It was dark, the only light at all coming through the glass panels of the entry doors and the narrow strip from my partially open office door.

  “Ronnie,” I said, my voice soft, calm, but pleading, “just wait. Don’t do anything you can’t undo.”

  “Too late for that.”

  “It’s not. Not yet. Listen to me. Think about what you’re doin’. You’re holding a weapon to the throat of and threatening an innocent pregnant woman. She’s eight months pregnant. Think about what you’re doin’.”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “You do. You absolutely do. Just hear me out. Okay?”

  “Talk fast,” he said.

  “I don’t know what they promised you, but they’ll never let you do this and live. They’re getting you to kill us and then they’ll kill you. Pin everything on you and maybe some on us. We die. They skate.”

  He seemed to think about that.

  “I can help you. We can get out of this. We can work together and bring them down and stay alive in the process.”

  He shook his head. “No way. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. And maybe they’ll kill me even if I do, but . . . no way we walk.”

  “We can.”

  “You don’t even know who it is or how many.”

  “I will if you tell me what you know, if you let me in on what’s goin’ on.”

  “I lied to you about what I did,” he said. “I took an occasional night class, but I wasn’t a full-time student or anything like that. My part-time job was a cover. I . . . I dealt a little. I didn’t steal any of that bitch’s shit, but the product was mine—at least most of it. Guess some was hers. Thing is, keeping so much in my place like that . . . I had a surveillance system. I’m good with shit like that. My uncle has a security business and I worked for him for a while. Whoever killed her had to be on my system. Shit goes down, cops crawling around everywhere, I decide best thing for me to do is walk away. Before I can look at the footage or pull my shit together or get the hell out of Dodge, I’m being arrested. Now, nobody in here knows me, knows my skill set. Hell, when they confiscated all my shit, my surveillance equipment wasn’t part of it. Long gone. Bye bye. So how does anyone in here know I know my way around a system? Tell me that. But when these bastards want help with their surveillance situation, who do they come see? How do they know? Tell me that. Had to be Ashley’s killer. No one else knows. So what’s that mean? He one of them? He another inmate in here trying to cut a deal for himself? What?”

  “You fixed the footage for them,” I said.

  “Best I could, given my time and equipment constraints.”

  “And they tried to kill you tonight,” I said. “Think about it. You did what they asked and they tried to kill you. Whatta you think’s gonna happen if you help them this time?”

  “Same thing.”

  “Let Anna go. Put down the weapon. Help me get us out of this.”

  “I’m gonna let her go,” he said. “But don’t try anything.”

  “I won’t. I promise. Just lower the––”

  The power in the chapel went off.

  Randy Wayne had also killed most of the exterior lights in the upper compound.

  Darkness.

  Now with no light spilling into the sanctuary from my office or the hallway, deep dimness was now blackness, and the only thing even slightly resembling illumination was the red glow coming from the far side windows.

  “They’re coming,” Ronnie said. “We’re all gonna die.”

  “Just let Anna go and let’s talk about it,” I said.

  “I have,” he said.

  “He has,” Anna said.

  We stepped forward, feeling for each other in the darkness.

  When I had her, I guided her behind me and called to Ronnie.

  “Come on,” I said. “We can go out the back. Walk toward the red glow over there.”

  “Way ahead of you,” he said.

  His voice came from over by the back door, near where just a few minutes ago Anna and I had made love.

  I led her toward the same spot, pulling her more quickly than I would’ve liked, but believing Ronnie was right and we didn’t have much time.

  Ronnie jerked on the door.

  “It’s locked,” he said.

  “I know. I’ll unlock it in just a second.”

  As we neared the door, I stopped short and whispered to Anna to stay there.

  “Hand me the shank,” I said to Ronnie when I reached the door.

  “No way. It’s all I got.”

  “Then back up several steps while I unlock the door.”

  He did.

  When I had the door unlocked, he started walking toward me.

  “Let’s talk about what we’re gonna do,” I said. “Make a plan that gives us the best––”

  “Better if we split up,” he said.

  When he reached the door, he paused and said, “Good luck.”

  “You too.”

  “If somethin’ happens to me . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  Anna was behind me now.

  “There’s another camera in my place I guarantee the killer didn’t find. In case you make it and I don’t. I didn’t kill Ashley. Don’t let whoever did get away with it.”

  A noise from the hallway let us know someone was there.

  Ronnie took off.

  “Ready?” I whispered to Anna.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  38

  Beneath the blood moon.

  Running.

  Toward the greenhouse.

  All around us dark, moist grass for what seemed like miles.

  A deep, dense fog had rolled in, shrouding the compound, blocking out the few points of light remaining, making it even more difficult to see.

  Between the chapel and the perimeter fence was nearly two hundred yards. Behind us the chapel and the visiting park, the control room and the perimeter fence, beyond which was Admin, parking lots, training, and the only road leading to and from the institution. Before us, out in the open field, an overgrown greenhouse. A good ways beyond it, Laundry, Medical, Classification, Psychology, and Confinement. Beyond them, the inside fence that separated the upper and lower compounds.

  Anna let go of my hand.

  I stopped and turned.

  “Don’t stop,” she said. “Keep moving. I’m here. I’ll stay with you, but I have to use both hands to hold my stomach.”

  “Sorry. Are you okay?”

  “One thing at a time. Let’s get somewhere safe, then we’ll . . .”

  I started moving again, slower this time.

  “Let’s just get to the greenhouse,” I said. “We’ll regroup. Rest a minute. Make a plan.”

  I was guessing they wanted our deaths to look like the work of inmates. That meant we’d have to be stabbed or beaten to death––both of which meant whoever did it would have to get close to us to do it.

  Even if they could see us on this dark night, they probably wouldn’t fire on us––something that could not only not be blamed on an inmate but would draw attention to what was going on––unless as a final, desperate, last resort.

  I had no way of know
ing how many officers were involved, but my guess was no more than a few. They would need to keep this quiet and take us out as quickly as possible.

  Was Tom Daniels behind this somehow? Was he pulling the levers from an unseen vantage point? If so, being able to take out Anna too, especially with her pregnant, had to be a special kind of sweet, twisted revenge for him. Susan, his daughter and my wife at the time, had had been pregnant when, because of his crimes, she left me and aborted the only part of me, of us, of any evidence there had ever been an us––something they both had taunted me with.

  Slowing.

  Nearing the greenhouse.

  Scanning the area.

  Darkness in darkness, surrounded by darkness.

  I couldn’t make out anything but the red-tinged tin roof, its dew-wet surface adding to the illusion that the rust had taken on an incandescent quality.

  When we reached the backside of the building, I helped Anna down to the ground, then sat beside her, each of us propping our backs against the polyethylene walls.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “I’m so sorry about all this.”

  “I’m fine. Stop worrying about me and let’s figure out how to get out of here.”

  “There’s probably lots of contraband in the greenhouse,” I said, “but it’d take too long to find it. Was anyone in Medical when you were down there?”

  “Entire building was empty. Both sides.”

  The building held Medical on one side and Psychology and Classification on the other.

  “We could call for help if we could get to someone who Randy Wayne would give an outside line to. Even someone with a radio would––”

  “Bill Sayles,” she said, blurting the name of one of her more colorful Classification coworkers.

  “Yeah?”

  “Keeps saying the lunatics are going to take over the asylum eventually, that it’s just a matter of time until we have our own Attica. Either that or some sort of shooting by a crazy officer like at Fort Hood.”