JJ09 - Blood Moon
Page 11
I grabbed Ronnie’s inmate uniform from the floor and closed the door behind me.
“Change behind my desk again,” I said, placing the pile of clothes in my chair and stepping out of the way. “Quickly as you can.”
Without wasting any time, he hopped up, went around behind my desk, and began to change––seemingly unselfconscious in front of Anna.
“What now?” Anna asked.
I moved over to her and began rubbing her shoulders.
She added, “I got my keys in case you wanted me to look up anything or pull any files.”
“I know you don’t feel like any of that,” I said. “We’ll get Cardigan safely back to his dorm and wait until Emerson’s wife can come get him, then we’ll get you home––into a warm shower and soft bed.”
“I’m good. Really. Happy to help. I have a change of clothes in my desk. I’ll clean up and wash my hair in the sink and I’ll feel good as new.”
“But––”
“I know you want to work it, try to figure out what’s going on. I’ll help you. If I get too tired or to feeling bad, I’ll let you know and we can go home. I promise. I really am fine.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. I want to know too. Too keyed up to sleep.”
“You’re perfect,” I said.
“Perfect for you.”
“Okay,” Ronnie said, placing Emmitt’s clothes and shoes on my desk. “I’m done.”
I picked up Emmitt’s pants and began to go through the pockets.
“You think I took something?” Ronnie asked, his voice equal parts hurt and indignation.
“Not doing my job if I don’t make sure.”
“What the hell is your job, exactly?” he asked.
I opened the wallet. Emmitt’s debit card was missing.
When I looked up Ronnie was holding it out to me. “Had to try. Sorry.”
I continued searching. The toothpick was missing too.
This time when I looked up, he was holding out a five dollar bill.
“Hadn’t gotten to that yet,” I said. “I was at the toothpick.”
“What if that’s the only thing that keeps me alive?”
I held out my hand. “Why not just give me everything? Save some time.”
He handed me the five, the toothpick, a nickel, and a picture of Emmitt’s wife, a pale Pentecostal woman with no makeup, bad skin, and unfortunate features.
“Really?” I said.
“Beggars can’t be choosers. You ever heard that?”
As I was returning the items to Emmitt’s wallet and the wallet to his pants, the phone on my desk rang.
I slid past Ronnie to pick it up.
He walked around and sat in the empty seat across my desk beside Anna.
“Chaplain Jordan.”
“Chaplain, it’s Randy Wayne. I just got a call from B Dorm. Did you call an inmate Cardigan up earlier this evening? They can’t locate him now.”
“I did and he’s still here. We’re wrapping up now if you want to send someone for him.”
“But you left the institution,” he said. “How––”
“He sat in the service while I was away.”
“Oh. Okay. Are you sure everything’s okay? You’re acting odd tonight.”
“Just tired. Thank you. I was just about to walk Ms. Rodden down to her office. You want me to escort Cardigan to the center gate?”
“Thanks. I’ll have someone waiting for him.”
I placed Emmitt’s clothes in the bathroom with him, and Ronnie, Anna, and I were on the move again.
The night we stepped out into was different than the one we had been in earlier.
Darkness covered the face of the moon and shrouded the earth. The eclipse nearly complete, the moon was now beginning to turn red, its circumference rimmed with it, its face blushing crimson.
When we reached Classification, I hugged Anna and kissed her. “Lock yourself in. I’ll call you when I get back to my office. When you finish, call me and I’ll come get you.”
“Love you,” she said.
After she was inside and the door locked behind her, I walked Ronnie the rest of the way.
“I’ll check on you in the morning,” I said. “If you need anything or change your mind about telling me what you know, have your dorm officer get in touch with me.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Thanks for your help tonight,” I said. “I won’t forget it.”
“Just get me out of here and we’ll call it even.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Back in my office, I called Anna at her desk.
“I’m fine. I’m gonna clean up, change, then see what I can find out about Cardigan’s case. I’ll call you when I have something. Let me know what else you need me to do. And go ahead and dress Emerson. I don’t want to be there for that.”
Which was what I was doing when Dad called.
“Merrill filled me in,” he said.
“Thanks for trusting and helping me,” I said.
“Is Anna okay?”
“She is.”
“Told you Chris’s gunshot wound wasn’t self-inflicted,” he said.
“But you suspected me of doing it.”
He laughed. “Can’t get ’em all right.”
We were quiet a moment, Emmitt beginning to moan a little in the background.
“How’d you do it?” he asked.
“What?”
“Get the inmate out. Were you able to get him back in without anyone knowing?”
“Yeah, he’s in. Can I tell you how I got him out a little later? Still trying to wrap things up here.”
“You bet. We’re interviewing Merrill and Chris, but it’s a clean shoot. Self-defense. Glad they were here. Wish it could’ve been me. Soon as I have a positive ID or any info on the shooter, I’ll let you know. Name’s Karl Jason according to his driver’s license. From Tallahassee. We’re searching for the one who ran. Got a few roadblocks set up, but nothing so far.”
When we hung up, I returned to dressing Emmitt, a challenge in the small, narrow restroom.
As I did, I thought more about the kidnappers’ motive and how everything went down. If it really did have something to do with what Cardigan saw or knew about the Reggie Dalton case, then the threat was inside the prison and Ronnie was still in danger.
I stopped dressing Emmitt again, stepped over to my desk, and called the control room.
“What can I do you for, Chaplain?” Randy Wayne asked.
“Can you have the OIC call me?”
“He’s up here now,” he said. “Hold on a minute and I’ll feed the phone through to him.”
“Captain Lloyd.”
“Captain, it’s Chaplain Jordan. I’ve been counseling with an inmate tonight, Ronnie Cardigan from B Dorm, and I’m worried about him. Can you have him watched overnight until I can meet with him again in the morning?”
“We talkin’ SOS cell, PM, or Confinement?”
“He’s not suicidal. I’m just concerned about him. He may be in some danger from somebody in the institution––another inmate or even a staff member. I’m not sure. I just want to make sure he’s protected until I can figure out more.”
“You got it. I’ll call down and have it done now.”
“Thank you.”
“Y’all ’bout to wrap up the services in the chapel?”
“Yes. Just a little longer.”
When we hung up, I called the control room right back. It was busy.
I waited for a few moments, then called again.
“Forget something?” Randy Wayne asked.
“Need an outside line,” I said.
“Number?”
I withdrew Rachel Peterson’s card from my wallet and gave him her cell so he could log it. As soon as I did, I could hear a dial tone. I punched in her number.
“Rachel Peterson.”
“It’s John Jordan. Is an inmate named Ronnie Cardigan one of your witnesses in the Reggie Dalton case?�
��
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“I think he’s in danger. Just wanted to see if you were keeping an eye on him.”
“Oh. Well, he’s not one of mine, so . . .”
“Okay. Thanks. Sorry I disturbed you. ’Night.”
Maybe I was wrong about which case Cardigan had been referring to or maybe he was involved and she wasn’t aware of it. Of course, maybe what was going on had nothing to do with what he thinks he knows. It could have to do with his original case or something else entirely.
I turned and looked at the unconscious, partially dressed Emmitt, who was still slumped on the toilet.
“There’s no way to know without more info,” I said to him. “You know?”
He didn’t respond.
“If you disagree you can tell me,” I said.
The door to the sanctuary opened and inmates began lining up in the hallway outside my office.
I stepped over and closed the restroom door, then went out into the hallway and thanked the volunteer and greeted the inmates, several of whom launched into complaints, requests, and grievances.
Though I thanked the officer, he continued to ignore me.
He ordered the inmates to line up outside the chapel, and I walked the volunteer out into the black, blood-tinged night.
We both stopped and looked up, beholding the brilliant blood moon as if with a catch in our throats.
“Looks like a darker, more glowing version of Mars,” he said.
And it did.
I stood and waited as he made his way to the front gate and the inmates began their much longer journey to the center gate and their housing beyond, all the while staring up at the blood-red orb shimmering in the black night sky.
Chapter Thirty-four
Back inside my office, I finished dressing Emmitt.
He was beginning to move more, which with his babbling made him seem highly, belligerently intoxicated, and though it made dressing far more challenging, I was relieved he was waking up, the drug wearing off.
By the time I had finished dressing him, he was lying facedown on the floor, the lower half of his body in the bathroom, the upper in my office.
Leaving him there, I walked over and sat down behind my desk.
For a moment, I just sat there catching my breath.
In the stillness and silence of the moment, I said a prayerful thank you. I was so relieved Anna was okay, so grateful to have her back.
Snatching up the phone, I dialed her desk.
“Classification, Rodden,” she said.
“How long before that’ll be Jordan?” I asked.
“Too long—even if it was right now,” she said.
“We haven’t really talked about marriage,” I said.
“Seemed premature,” she said. “Me not being unmarried yet and all.”
“True.”
“But I would love to be your wife,” she said. “Love to take your name––something I said I’d never do.”
Hearing her say wife reminded me of her kidnapper calling her my wife.
“I just called to tell you I love you and that I am so, so, so grateful to have you back.”
“You don’t know from gratitude,” she said. “I . . . I really thought . . . Anyway, I’m even more grateful.”
“It’s not a competition,” I said, “but you’re not.”
“Am too.”
“Are not.”
“Am too.”
“Hate to change the subject when the current one is so profound,” I said, “but . . . the kidnapper kept referring to you as my wife. He seemed to know so much about us, but he kept getting that wrong. Any idea why? Did they both do it?”
“The main one, the one who kept calling you, he did. He called me your wife and you my husband. The other guy never said a word to me and barely a word to the caller. The third guy didn’t say anything to anyone.”
“Any ideas why?” I asked. “I mean, he’s only wrong technically, but . . . did he say anything else that was technically wrong? Anything else that might give us some insight into who he was or why he did it?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. I have some ideas. I’m also gathering up some info on Cardigan and the Reggie Dalton case. Let me finish up, then we’ll talk about all of it face to face.”
When we hung up, I picked up the phone again and dialed the control room.
“What can I do you for, Chaplain?” Randy Wayne asked.
“Need an outside line.”
“Number?”
I gave it to him. “Emmitt is feeling bad again. It’s much worse this time. I’m gonna call his wife to come get him. Okay if I get her to pull up close to the control room?”
“No problem.”
“And I may need a hand helping him out.”
“Just let me know. I’ll send someone.”
“Thanks.”
Emmitt’s wife on the way, I began the arduous task of helping him up and out of the institution.
“Can you stand?” I asked.
He mumbled something.
I lifted his arm and pulled. “Come on. Let’s get you up and out of here.”
He made what could be described as an incremental move toward standing, but it didn’t result in much.
Straddling him, I reached around his chest and heaved.
When I pulled him up, he made no effort to help or stand on his own, so I put him back down again.
Though he had a thick, stocky build, he weighed even more than he looked like he would.
I decided to call for help.
Stumbling over to my desk, I sat back down behind it.
“I guess I never realized just how heavy you are,” I said. “Probably because your wife is so large.”
In the tradition of Deep South rural route Pentecostal women, Dorcas Emerson dwarfed her husband and eclipsed the three chubby kids continually orbiting around her.
I called the control room.
“I am going to need help with him this time,” I said.
“Just sit tight, Chaplain,” Randy Wayne said. “I’ll have someone down there directly.”
Merrill’s mom used directly like that, but I hadn’t heard many other people do it.
“Thank you.”
Chapter Thirty-five
“What’re you up to?”
This was the first thing out of Rachel Peterson’s mouth when I answered the phone, and it wasn’t the casual form of the question.
“Why’d you call and ask about my case?” she added.
“I told you.”
“Is my witness in danger?” she asked.
“Is he your witness?”
“Answer me first.”
“I think he could be. Tell me what’s going on. Please.”
“It’s simple. Reggie Dalton was murdered. The officers who did it not only disabled cameras and erased footage, they actually re-created the incident using a different inmate after Dalton was dead.”
“Cardigan?”
“Cardigan. I mean, he hasn’t said so, but . . . I know that’s what happened, and I’m pretty close to being able to prove it. Gotta hella video expert from FDLE workin’ on the footage. It’d really help to have Cardigan’s testimony, but the dumb little bastard still thinks the desperate killers he helped are going to help him.”
“Might not after tonight,” I said.
“Why? What happened tonight?”
“Something spooked him,” I said. “Something said or done has him questioning his options. Be a good time to talk to him.”
“I planned to first thing in the morning anyway. I’m trusting you more than I do most people by telling you all this. Am I wrong to?”
“No.”
“I hope not.”
“Are the officers under investigation on administrative leave or suspended pending the outcome of your investigation?”
“I haven’t had enough on them for anything like that. Still don’t without Cardigan’s testimony.”
“What could I do?” she said. “Until he decides to play ball, I’ve got nothing.”
“I had him placed in protection tonight,” I said.
“Good. That’s good.”
“Not if any of the officers working it are the ones involved.”
I called the control room again.
“Sorry I haven’t gotten anyone down to help you yet, Chaplain. Won’t be much longer now.”
“No problem. I was actually calling with a quick question.”
“Shoot,” he said.
“Are Marty Perkins, Lewis Milner, or Jack Kirkus working tonight and if so, where?”
“Let’s see . . . I’ll have to pull the duty roster to be sure, but . . . I know I saw Jack earlier. ’Course that may have been the day shift. It’s all runnin’ together by now. Let me look it up and call you back.”
It didn’t take him long to call me back.
“None of the officers you called about are on duty,” he said. “Jack worked the day shift. Don’t know when the others work. I can find out. Or I can call them in if it’s an emergency. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Not an emergency. I’ll talk to them the next time they work.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You looking into their case? Helping the new female IG or . . .”
“Thought I might see if I could help, but . . . was just a random thought.”
“They’re good men. If you or your dad can help them, you should.”
“Thanks.”
“Let me know if you need anything else. Oh, and Dorcas Emerson just called. Her car won’t start. She’s waiting for somebody to come jump her off. Can you just stay with him until she gets here? I’ll send someone down to help you with him then. Unless I need to call an ambulance.”
“No, that’s fine. I’ll be here. Thanks.”
When we hung up, I called Anna again.
“I can’t stand being away from you any longer,” I said.
“Feel the same way. I’ll head up there in a minute.”
“I’ll meet you outside,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
“Good, actually. Surprisingly so.”
“See you in a sec,” I said. “Love you.”
When Anna stepped out of the front door of her building, I was waiting there for her, gazing up at the red glowing orb in the night-shrouded sky.