The new deputy superintendent for the facility was a slight man of medium height named Gallagher. DeMarco had hoped to be received by Superintendent Woods himself, as soft jowled and sturdy looking as a bloodhound. Gallagher, on the other hand, reminded DeMarco of a robotic Chihuahua, his every movement small and quick and preceded by at least five motionless seconds while his brain whirred through the binary code. Unfortunately, today was the superintendent’s day off. But DeMarco’s request was little more than a clerical matter and hardly required a blue tick’s temperament. He sat beside a potted ficus and watched Gallagher pull up the information on his computer.
Gallagher said, “Professor Denton has taught a two-week course in writing poetry five times so far. One every June, one every January. Scheduled to teach for us again at the first of the year.”
“How about the class rosters?” DeMarco said.
Gallagher stared at the computer screen, motionless but for two finger taps to scroll down the page. Finally he said, “Carl Inman, no.”
“Never? Not even one of the five times?”
“Correct,” Gallagher said.
DeMarco leaned back in his chair. He leaned away from a ficus leaf that was tickling his ear. “Would you know if Professor Denton had any other association with the inmates? Any opportunity for individual meetings, that kind of thing?”
“It’s unlikely,” Gallagher said. “Two guards are present at every class meeting. Class sizes ranged from…seven to twelve.”
“Are your visitation records computerized?”
“Yes, sir, they are.”
“Could you check to see if Denton signed in to visit Inman at any time?”
“Two years sufficient?”
“That should be fine.”
Again DeMarco waited. He wondered if Gallagher was so stiff and mechanical at home. Wondered if he was married, had children, owned a real live dog and if so what kind.
“Negative,” Gallagher told him.
DeMarco said, “No visits, no class contact. No direct contact as far as you can ascertain.”
“As far as we can ascertain. That’s correct.”
After a few seconds, DeMarco put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. He approached the deputy superintendent’s desk and held out his hand. “Thank you. I appreciate your help.”
Gallagher sat motionless for a few seconds, then stood and thrust out his hand.
DeMarco was surprised by its warmth and the firmness of the grip. He said, “So how do you like the job? You’ve been here what, five months now?”
“Five months shy a week, yes, sir. And the job is fine.”
“Two thousand inmates more or less. That’s a lot of responsibility.”
“It is,” Gallagher said. Then added, as if it were expected of him, “But not an unwelcome one.”
And suddenly DeMarco knew why Gallagher was so stiff. He’s scared, DeMarco thought. Scared to death he’s going to fuck up somehow.
“You and I should probably split a pitcher of beer some time,” DeMarco told him. “What do you think?”
Gallagher blinked. “That would be fine, sir.”
“I’m Ryan, by the way. Save the sirs for the guy who signs your checks.”
“Oh,” Gallagher said. Then, a moment later, “Nelson.”
“Is that what your friends call you?”
Another pause. Then, “J. J.”
“How the hell do you get J. J. out of Nelson Gallagher?”
Gallagher smiled and blushed. “Nelson Jamison Jerome Gallagher. My mother’s brothers.”
“Lucky for you she only had two.”
“Don’t I know it.”
• • •
The pinch in DeMarco’s cerebellum came back around midnight. After talking with the deputy superintendent earlier in the evening, DeMarco had managed to convince himself that the prison poetry classes were a red herring; they had no relevance to anything Inman had done. DeMarco’s remark in Bowen’s office was the only relevance. Carl Inman? Insane. There was no sense trying to apply logic to the workings of an irrational mind. The frustration would only end up driving the logical mind crazy.
Six ounces of room-temperature Tennessee whiskey helped. The mindless drone of the television in a darkened room helped. But not long after DeMarco crawled off to bed, only to lie there staring into the darkness above him, the pinch began again. It felt to DeMarco as if somebody were tugging on a single hair a couple of inches behind the crown of his head, and the hair extended maybe three inches into his brain. He scratched the area, rubbed it with his knuckles, probed it with his fingers. Every ten or fifteen seconds the pinch came again. The longer DeMarco studied it, the more certain he was that the pinch was less physical and more linguistic, that the deep-rooted hair being tugged was his unwillingness to accept his own explanation for Inman’s behavior. DeMarco even questioned his own reluctance to accept that explanation. Do I feel personally insulted because Inman came after me? he wondered. Is that why I can’t accept it? He didn’t regret putting a bullet in Inman at the lake, but he did regret having done so too soon. Why did you come after me? he should have asked. Why did you kill Bonnie?
The darkness offered no answers and no respite. After a while, he went back to the living room and climbed into his recliner. He refilled his glass and turned the television on. On channel 262 he found Touch of Evil, an old black-and-white movie, Charlton Heston as a Mexican, Orson Welles as a crooked cop, Marlene Dietrich as a hooker. He turned the volume low, audible but not understandable, and let the noir wash over him. Just enough noise and light to numb the pinch. Just enough whiskey to finally lull it to sleep.
Sixty-Seven
He awoke to another gray dawn and an infomercial about a penis enhancement pill. Two very busty women in low-cut tops and high-cut hems were praising the product for its effect on their boyfriends’ penises. DeMarco looked at the women until he was sufficiently awake to get depressed again. Then he took his unenhanced penis into the bathroom, where he urinated, stripped, and stood in a steaming shower with his forehead pressed to the tile. He was toweling dry when the telephone rang.
He caught it on the fourth ring, stood naked and dripping on the living room carpet.
“DeMarco,” he said.
“Didn’t catch you on the can, did I?”
He recognized the warm, gravelly voice of Delbert Woods, superintendent of the Albion Correctional Facility. It was a voice that always reminded him of the fifties character actor Broderick Crawford.
“Hate to disappoint you, Del, but no, you didn’t.”
“Just now haulin’ your lazy ass out of bed?”
“A few minutes ago. What’s up?”
“My blood pressure. Numbnuts here tells me you stopped by yesterday for some information.”
“That I did.”
“He didn’t give you what you came for, am I right?”
“He gave me what he had. It just wasn’t what I had hoped for.”
“That’s because he’s a literal-minded half brain. You asked if Inman had taken any poetry classes. So Nelson pulled the poetry class rosters.”
“And?” DeMarco said.
“He should have searched using Inman’s name instead of the type of class. We offer lots of classes here. Most everybody takes one from time to time. We encourage it.”
DeMarco took a long, slow breath. “Quit fucking with me, Del. What did you find?”
“Adult literacy class. January through May of this year.”
“Last spring?”
“Yep.”
“I thought Denton only taught poetry.”
“You got a hard-on for Denton or what?”
“Who taught the fucking class?”
“Conescu. Looks like Roman Polanski with a thyroid problem?”
“You’re shitting me
.”
“I shit you not.”
For a few moments DeMarco was unable to speak. His brain was whirring, spinning like a rock tumbler. But the pinch in his cerebellum was gone.
Woods said, “They have you on leave for a few days?”
“Yeah,” DeMarco said. “SOP.”
“Sure. You doing okay?”
“I’m fine. Even better now.”
“You better be fine. Nobody deserves a bullet more than Inman did.”
“So why’d you let him go?”
“Model prisoner, I had no choice. Parole board says cut ’em loose, I cut ’em loose. But Inman. I always thought of him as a kind of pet shark, you know? Just keeps grinning and showing you his pearly whites. Thing is, you know sooner or later he’s going to bite off your fucking arm.”
“Unfortunately he did a hell of a lot more than that.”
“That’s what I’m saying. About time somebody aerated his chest.”
DeMarco nodded. He considered the goose bumps pimpling his arms, the chill of excitement playing down his spine. “I got to get dressed now,” he said.
“Would it do any good for me to remind you that you’re on temporary suspension?”
“I think it just got canceled.”
“Knowing you, it never went into effect.”
DeMarco made a move to hang up, then he remembered something. “Hey. About J. J.”
“About who?”
“Your deputy. That’s his nickname.”
“Numbnuts? Since when?”
“Since he told me.”
“First I ever heard of it.”
“I think he prefers it to Nelson. And to Numbnuts.”
“Christ, who wouldn’t?”
“Don’t chew him out over this, okay?”
“Why the hell not? It’s not the first mistake he’s made, I can tell you that.”
“He’s scared shitless, that’s why.”
“With good reason.”
“Well, I’m going to take him out some night and get him hammered. See if I can’t shake some of that stiffness out of him. Maybe you should join us.”
“You buying?”
“Listen, your expense account is four times the size of mine.”
“That’s not the only thing that’s four times the size of yours.”
DeMarco laughed. “Hey, I appreciate the phone call. This is good information you gave me. I’ll let you know how it plays out. Say hi to J. J. for me.”
“You kind of like the kid, don’t you? Think he’s pretty cute?”
“You still driving that green Cherokee Laredo? I’ll be sure to tell the boys out on the interstate to keep the radar guns ready.”
“And I’ll tell J. J. how much you miss him. Have a good day, Ry.”
“You too, sport. I’ll call you about that pitcher of beer.”
Sixty-Eight
The first thing DeMarco had to do was to clear the morning’s events with his station commander.
“You are officially on suspension,” Bowen told him. He had not yet removed the plastic lid from the extra large crème brûlée cappuccino DeMarco had purchased for him at the convenience store. Bowen sat at his desk, hands in his lap as he looked up at DeMarco. The sweetness of the drink wafted up through the sipping hole in the lid and was discernible with every breath.
“Don’t even think about denying me this,” DeMarco said.
“I don’t know how to justify it. I’m the one who’s going to have to answer for it.”
“How about if you just tell everybody to kiss your rosy red ass.”
“You have no idea what color my ass is. Don’t pretend you do.”
“I want this, Kyle. I fucking need this.”
Bowen thought about it for thirty seconds. He peeled the lid off the coffee. A thin layer of foam still floated atop the liquid. The rising steam was sweet and heavy. He said, “Your presence is sure to rattle him. There’s some value in that.”
“You better believe there is.”
“Or we could just bring him in for questioning. Let you stand in the corner and watch.”
“You don’t know this guy. He feels safe in his little cubicle. It’s his fucking cave. We need to do it there.”
“I could get my rosy red ass in a sling over this.”
DeMarco smiled. “Trooper Morgan can do it all. I’ll just be a spectator.”
Bowen raised the paper cup to his lips. He allowed the foam to touch the tip of his tongue. The smoky caramel warmth filled his mouth. Then he said, “Yeah. Like that’s really going to happen.”
Sixty-Nine
DeMarco and Trooper Morgan strode softly down the corridor of Campbell Hall. At the appropriate door, DeMarco inserted the floor key he had persuaded the department secretary to lend him, then put his hand to the knob, turned it, swung the door open, and strode inside. Morgan followed but stayed hidden behind the row of filing cabinets.
Conescu jerked his head around. For just an instant, his eyes were bright with anger, his mouth coming open to castigate the interloper. Instead, he went motionless but for a tiny snort of air. “Good morning, Professor,” DeMarco said.
Conescu told him, “I am making revisions to my book,” and swept a hand toward the computer monitor. “I have no time for you.”
DeMarco crossed behind him and stood just off Conescu’s left shoulder, which required that the professor swivel to his left. Now he glared up at DeMarco, but the brightness in his eyes was no longer due to anger.
DeMarco continued to smile. “I take it you found Carl Inman to be an apt student?”
Conescu blinked. “I do not recognize that name. I have no such student.”
“Is that why you withdrew five thousand dollars from your account at Citizens Bank, sir? Five thousand just four days ago, plus another five thousand two weeks ago.”
Now DeMarco could hear the man’s breathing, the shallow, quick breaths, the rapid rise and fall of his chest. “I sent that money to family. My uncle and aunt in Romania.”
“Why didn’t you send them a check? Or make a wire transfer? Instead you withdrew it in cash. Because you gave it to Carl Inman. Most of it was found in his vehicle, still in the dated bank wrappers.”
Conescu stared at DeMarco for another ten seconds. Then he closed his eyes. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell through a dozen short breaths. Eventually his shoulders sagged. He opened his eyes and turned slightly to his right, gazed past DeMarco to the window, and there, fixed his gaze on the four inches of dirty glass visible beneath the faded canvas blind.
“He was not supposed to kill anyone,” Conescu said. “To discredit him only. As he deserved to be discredited.”
“Except that Professor Huston didn’t deserve discrediting, did he? Because he never touched any of the dancers. All he did was talk to them.”
Conescu said nothing.
“How did you find out he was visiting Whispers? Did Inman contact you?”
“I only wanted to be left alone. He would never leave me alone to do my work.”
Because he hated frauds, DeMarco thought. “So you cooked up this plan to have him videotaped at Whispers. You get tenure, promotion, whatever it was you wanted. Except that Professor Huston fooled you, didn’t he? He was a better man than either of you.”
“What that man did… Inman. What he did to that family. I had no part in any of it.”
“How about the money you paid him to take care of me? Did you have any part in that?”
When Conescu failed to respond, DeMarco crossed to the window and raised the blind, filled the room with bright morning light. Conescu blinked and squinted, lowered his gaze to the floor.
“It was only for him to go away,” he said. “He threatened me.”
“You didn’t pay him to get rid of me? Because maybe I ha
d you worried?”
“I did not know the things he would do. He was…not a civilized man.”
“I guess maybe you bit off a little more than you could chew, didn’t you?”
Conescu slowly rotated his chair until he faced the computer screen again. He saved the document he had been working on, then closed it. He then shut down the computer. When the screen was black, he said, “My mother had a saying. If you lie down in shit, don’t complain about the stink.”
“Smart woman,” DeMarco said. Ten seconds later, he cleared his throat, his signal to Trooper Morgan. The trooper came into the room and unsnapped the handcuffs from his belt. To Conescu he said, “You need to stand up now.”
But Conescu did not move. He seemed about to slump forward in his chair. DeMarco put both hands on the back of the chair and slowly rotated it a half turn. Conescu looked up at him. “He did not like you,” Conescu said.
“Are you speaking of Mr. Inman now?”
“He did not like you at all.”
DeMarco gave Morgan a look of astonishment. “Imagine that,” he said. “And me so adorable.”
Seventy
DeMarco did not attend Bonnie’s funeral, which had been organized, he assumed, either by her brother or some of the dancers. But two days later, just after seven in the morning, he stopped by the cemetery. The grave was marked only by a small bronze plaque on a metal stake and a small pile of frost-withered flowers atop the low mound of dirt, yellow and white calla lilies with their fluted petals shriveled and brown, wrinkled like old skin. He didn’t know what he wanted to say to Bonnie, couldn’t think of anything that, uttered aloud on such a gray still morning, would not sound foolish. He stood there for several minutes with his ungloved hands tucked into his armpits, stood there looking out across the leaf-strewn grounds, and thought to himself, So many dead. The air on his freshly shaved cheeks felt sharp against his skin, and the cold made even his good eye tear up. The sky was a muddy watercolor, a child’s smear. A quarter mile away, an eighteen-wheeler Jake-braked as it approached the first traffic light in town, and the sudden roar of released air set DeMarco’s teeth on edge. He waited until the truck had rumbled through town and could no longer be heard. Then he looked at the grave a final time.
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