And West Is West

by Ron Childress

  Soon his memory is vindicated. A roadside field cordoned by rings of fencing appears. Inside the innermost fence, which is frothed with barbwire, white-and-gray barracks shimmer in the heat. Daugherty pulls in by the compound’s only decorative flourish—a section of wall outlined in aqua blue that announces DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS.

  WARDEN ELI WAGNER, a man with a prickly military haircut and bearing, is either not happy to see them or wears a naturally pinched expression. Matching the institution he runs, Wagner’s coloration is white and gray—white hair, gray eyes, gray suit—except for his complexion, which is unhealthily tan. Surgical tape hides the end of the warden’s nose—evidence perhaps of freshly removed skin cancer.

  “Agent Daugherty, a call would have saved you a trip,” Wagner tells him with an almost-erased Virginia drawl. “The prisoner is currently in solitary.”

  “Solitary? For what?” Daugherty asks, because clearly national security will trump some local rules violation. Wagner will have to allow a visit.

  The warden, studying the agent, modulates his frown into a mild sneer, as if he has established Daugherty’s place in the pecking order and concluded that it is not as high as Daugherty imagines. They are sitting with Wagner’s immaculate desk between them. The warden unlocks a drawer and removes some sheets of paper that he slides over the polished surface.

  Putting on his glasses, Daugherty silently reads. “Dear Jessica . . .” blah blah blah. And then the letter gets interesting, especially the second page. “To Whom It May Concern. To YOU Who Are Hunting My Daughter . . .”

  “Your bosses never showed you that?” Wagner says, not displeased by Daugherty’s ignorance. “I passed along a copy ten days ago.”

  Now he understands why Washington reactivated the search for Jessica, with Don Aldridge’s threat to widen the al-Yarisi drone scandal.

  “I don’t so much care what that letter means to the outside world,” Warden Wagner tells him. “But Aldridge has violated prison rule number one. You don’t disrespect authority. A prisoner needs to remember who’s on top.”

  “Amen to that,” says Pyle, his first words since they sat down in the warden’s office.

  “That’s right,” Wagner says, nodding at Pyle. “I won’t be returning the man to the general population for a couple more days,” he says to Daugherty, “not till he’s had his full two weeks in isolation. Come back then and I’ll give him to you for an hour.”

  Wagner stands. Annoyingly to Daugherty, because he is not yet done here, Pyle too stands. Then he steps away to peruse a wall littered with the memorabilia career bureaucrats like to display—diplomas, photographs, framed newspaper clippings. Stubbornly Daugherty remains seated.

  The antagonism in the room is palpable, and natural—the standard conflict between national and state bureaucracies. Wagner wants to make sure that Daugherty knows who’s boss here. As this is not a federal prison Daugherty has no authority to order an interview with Aldridge. Daugherty could make a call to Washington, but that would reflect badly on his own competence. Instead he smiles. “I’d hate to waste three days of taxpayer money waiting,” he says to Wagner.

  “That’s why you make a phone call in advance,” Wagner says. “Saves everybody time.”

  “If I could have made the call I would have. My partner and I have been on the chase. First from California to Texas to New Orleans, then back to California and down here to Florida. As the prisoner’s letter shows”—Daugherty is folding up the pages Wagner had given him; he intends to put it in his pocket—“we’re dealing with issues of national security.”

  “Not exactly.” Wagner says. “I spoke to Aldridge’s lawyer and he gave nothing to the press. That letter there is just an inmate rattling his cage. And it’s prison property.” The warden comes around his desk, which makes Daugherty reflexively stand.

  Daugherty gives back the letter. “Let’s go,” he tells Pyle, who is diddling with his government-issue BlackBerry like some bored teenager. Pyle looks up and grins, not at Daugherty but at Wagner.

  “My stepfather was a CO at James River. Lee Benkowsky,” Pyle says, relevant to nothing Daugherty can conceive. Not only that, Pyle is lengthening his vowels slightly in a convincing accent.

  Wagner stops and studies Pyle.

  “Your award,” Pyle explains.

  On the wall by which Pyle has stationed himself Daugherty sees a commendation plaque bold with Wagner’s name.

  “Lee’s your old man?” Wagner says. “So how is he these days?”

  “I’m told cancer took him five years ago,” Pyle says.

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “No one’s loss. He was a drunk SOB.”

  Wagner makes a grunt as if humored. “True enough.”

  “I called him my stepfather, but he never married my mother. We moved back to Richmond after living with him about six months. Six months in hell.” Pyle comes forward and sticks out his hand. “Nice meeting you, Warden.”

  Wagner takes Pyle’s grip but doesn’t reply. He lets a grin lift his mouth.

  Daugherty’s the first to exit Wagner’s inner office to the foyer. There a secretary, a fortyish woman behind a gunmetal desk, is busy typing.

  “Ann,” Wagner says. “Let’s get Donald Aldridge over to the visitation center. Then instruct these gentleman on how to get there.”

  Slack jawed, Daugherty turns. The warden has a hand on Pyle’s shoulder just like he’s the son of an old friend.

  “Right away, Warden,” says Ann.

  “You’ll have privacy in the VC today,” Wagner tells Pyle. “No public hours.” He turns back to Ann as if chasing an afterthought. “Remind me who that woman detective was that called down from New York.”

  Ann takes a second to recall the answer. “Sarah Chen. Manhattan Seventh Precinct.”

  “She might know something the Bureau can use.” The warden aims a squint at Daugherty as if he and Detective Chen are equally annoying types. “This Chen is the one who put Aldridge in solitary. Got him upset over his daughter.”

  “Pardon?” Daugherty says.

  “No, not Jessica Aldridge,” Wagner replies. “Some other daughter in trouble. Her drowning in a bathtub must have set off his paternal instincts. After hearing the news, Aldridge wrote his letter.” Wagner shakes the copy of the damning letter at Daugherty but doesn’t hand it over.

  “NICE WORK,” DAUGHERTY tells Pyle after marching through a maze of windowless corridors toward Aldridge. His partner’s success with the warden irks, but there’s no gain in getting pissy. Besides, now Daugherty’s curious about Pyle’s stepfather. “Fill me in on this Lee Bunkhouse.”

  “Benkowsky,” Pyle corrects. “He was an eyewitness to the prison riot Wagner put down at James River.”

  “Your stepfather worked with Wagner? That’s one damn lucky coincidence.”

  “No, chief. Benkowsky is mentioned in the article hanging next to Wagner’s heroism plaque. I found his obituary online and got all the facts I needed for my stepfather story.”

  “You made that up? Then how do you know this Benkowsky was such a son of a bitch? They don’t put that in obits.”

  “Not many prison guards lean toward sainthood.”

  “And I suppose you also guessed he was an alcoholic?”

  “Benkowsky died of cancer waiting for a liver transplant. I bet on cirrhosis as the cause.”

  Pyle has an answer for everything. “What counts,” Daugherty says, “is that Wagner bought it.”

  Pyle guffaws. “The warden didn’t believe a word I said.”

  Daugherty’s stride slows. He is a literal two steps behind Pyle and a figurative ten. “If Wagner knew you were lying, why didn’t he call you out?” Daugherty asks, not loudly. But Pyle, well ahead now, has already turned a corner.

  Whatever mind game went on between Pyle and Wagner, all Daugherty grasps of it is that he will never play at that level. Pyle’s acuity, once he puts in his field service minimums, will lift him to positions in the Bureau Daughert
y has only fantasized about attaining. Rarely does Daugherty so clearly see his limits—the fact that he is the mark, the straightforward kind of guy who in a poker game will not only lose his shirt but have it dry-cleaned before handing it over. It’s a good thing for his career that most criminals are idiots.

  At a door with a mesh window, Pyle awaits him. “Ready, boss?”

  Daugherty appreciates Pyle’s acknowledgment that his seniority still counts, even if just for meaningless courtesies like waiting. It’s clear, though, that Pyle should be in charge. Because Daugherty’s supposed to be, he puts away his scuffed ego and goes to work.

  “We’ll need the box,” Daugherty says—a suggestion for Pyle to get the polygraph, which Daugherty deliberately left in the car before meeting with Wagner. Best not to let the warden in on his plans.

  Pyle pushes into the visitation room and stops. “That may be a problem,” he says, not unhappily.

  “Hell,” Daugherty replies while examining the room.

  Long and narrow, it contains a row of stalls with bolted stools and glass partitions. This is not going to be a contact visit.

  Going back to Wagner to request an interrogation room is a nonstarter. So Daugherty makes an executive decision. One of the things that had impressed him about Pyle was the man’s military record; he had done interrogations for army intelligence in Afghanistan.

  “You be the lie detector. You ask the questions,” Daugherty says, while telling himself that this is his idea, that he’s not an old man capitulating to the next generation, that he’s not Pyle’s sock puppet.

  THE CONVICT IS a big man with receding hair slicked straight back. His complexion shines and his green jumpsuit radiates sweat halos from the armpits due to his time in solitary. Peering through the security glass, past Pyle and Daugherty, Donald Alan Aldridge seems to be searching for someone else. When he realizes that only the agents are visiting, he bares his teeth. They are remarkably even and white, probably state provided.

  Pyle signals the prisoner to pick up the handset. Fortunately, this is not a public visitation day. Nobody is around to overhear state secrets.

  Aldridge lifts his handset, and his mouth starts moving before it nears his face. The glass muffles his shouts, but Daugherty makes out “feds,” preceded possibly by “goddamn.” After Aldridge gets off this rant he settles onto his stool and talks calmly into the phone. “Sure am glad to see you boys.” Daugherty can hear Aldridge speak because Pyle is holding his handset at an angle. Pyle absorbs the convict’s mood swing in silence.

  Daugherty is beginning to think that Aldridge’s comment has confused his partner, as it has him. Then Pyle responds. “And why would you be glad?” It’s that same nastily sardonic tone Pyle has recently used with a stubborn waitress and a reluctant motel clerk.

  “Simple, ace,” Aldridge says. “You guys being here means you haven’t nailed my little girl. Why else would you visit?”

  “Mr. Aldridge,” Pyle says shaking his head, his tone turned grim, “I wish that were so. We’re here to tell you that your daughter has been in an accident.”

  Aldridge retracts his cock-of-the-walk grin. A twitch settles into one side of his mouth. “You must be talking about my kid in New York. I know about it. She drowned. I know about it.”

  “No,” Pyle says. “I mean your other daughter. Jessica. Jessica’s been severely injured.”

  As this untruth seems of little value other than for sadistic purposes, Daugherty wonders if Pyle’s lying, in general, might simply be sociopathic.

  “Bullcrap,” Aldridge says. “What are you talking about?”

  “She was hitchhiking in Texas. It was the middle of the night. A driver with one headlight sideswiped her. She’s in intensive care,” Pyle says.

  Aldridge doesn’t look convinced. But perhaps to support his crumbling confidence, he leans one of his big shoulders against his stall’s side partition. “So you guys came all the way down here just to tell a convict about his hurt daughter. Ain’t you humanitarian. Like I said, bullcrap.”

  “We think she was on her way here, to visit you. There are a few details we need to clear up. Thought you might help. If you do, maybe we’ll fly you to Dallas for a mercy visit. Does that interest you? By the way, I’m Agent Pyle and this is my boss, Agent Daugherty.” Pyle, seated on a bolted stool, winks at Daugherty with the eye hidden from Aldridge.

  The prisoner scratches his chin stubble. “You’re going to get me out of here for a trip?”

  “Like you mentioned, we’re feds. We can make special arrangements for cooperative witnesses.”

  “Yeah. Witnesses to what?”

  “To what your daughter might have told you. At this point we just want to undo any accidental harm she did to national security. Any information would help.”

  Aldridge’s expression reverts to a sneer. “You expect me to rat on my girl? There’re two words for that.” But with his boldness deflating, Aldridge doesn’t say them. “Anyway, you already have everything she wrote me.”

  “But you have phone privileges. You don’t mean to tell me that in all the time you’ve been inside you’ve never spoken with your daughter?”

  “Spoke to her? Not since she was a kid. She just started writing to me a couple of years ago. I’m lucky to get letters, let alone a call.”

  “Mr. Aldridge. You’ll have to try harder for us.” Pyle’s tone is calm, absent of emotion. Somehow this sounds crueler than if he were shouting. “You have a few more days in solitary. Search your memory. Maybe we’ll try again.”

  “Come on, man, be straight with me. If you really have Jessica in the hospital, why aren’t you asking her your questions?”

  “If she were conscious, we would,” Pyle says crisply and hangs up the handset.

  “Hey!” Aldridge shouts, his voice muffled by the glass barrier. “How bad off is she?”

  Pyle turns away as if ignoring a chained, barking dog.

  “Hey!” Aldridge shouts.

  And now Daugherty, too, is leaving. But he glances back when the pounding starts. Aldridge is beating the glass with his handset.

  “Tell me about Jessica, you lousy fucks!”

  At the obscenity Aldridge’s face plunges forward into the barrier between prison and freedom. For the second or two that Daugherty watches, the prisoner’s eyes display their whites and his lips smear blood against the glass. A guard, Daugherty sees before turning away, is pressing a stun gun into the man’s neck.

  OUTDOORS IN THE prison parking lot, Daugherty is too angry to talk.

  “Well, that went well,” Pyle says without sarcasm.

  “Did it?” Daugherty says, just able to contain his fury. “Aldridge told us nothing and we got him zapped.” Daugherty has said we because he took Pyle off his leash. “You can take to the bank we’ll be called out on this one.”

  “I doubt it. Wagner was looking to punish Aldridge beyond solitary. We did the warden a favor. He won’t complain.”

  “Maybe so, but the prisoner didn’t deserve a stun. You set him off with the lie about Jessica.”

  “It was a good tactic considering he’s just lost his other daughter.”

  “No. It was just sadism.”

  Coming to the red Impala, the agents separate. This time Pyle is not interested in driving and grimly goes straight to the passenger’s side. Daugherty’s downer attitude is getting to him.

  “I appreciate your being old school. But the world has changed.” Pyle is speaking patiently. He might be a caregiver spooning oatmeal into the mouth of an invalid. “These days, boss, you’ve got to push hard or get pushed over.”

  “The voice of experience,” Daugherty says.

  “Just of five years in Talibanistan.”

  “Pissing on the bodies of your enemies?”

  “Screw you, Daugherty.”

  Daugherty gets in the car and it’s a pizza oven. After cranking the engine, he elevates the air conditioner to gale force. But the vents blast humidity for a good minute and he’s
sopping before they clear out.

  Pyle remains standing outside the car—waiting, Daugherty realizes, for its interior to cool. Daugherty is beginning to sense in this minor thing, as in possibly all their interactions, that Pyle is manipulating him. This realization, that he no longer trusts his partner, that he in fact hates Pyle, takes Daugherty like a sucker punch.

  “I guess it’s out of this swamp and back to California,” Pyle says after buckling up beside him.

  Daugherty, behind the wheel, reads Pyle’s comment as a test of suggestibility. Maybe Pyle expects, now that Daugherty’s been cued, that he will chauffeur them to the airport and book them on a return flight home to LA. But this is not how it will go. Daugherty still has authority. “We’re not going home empty handed,” he says.

  “I’ll bet you’re thinking about hooking Aldridge up to your lie detector.”

  In fact, Daugherty is considering this. But he can’t let Pyle know he’s floundering for ideas. “After what just happened I doubt Wagner will grant us another interview. But if he did, I’d use the polygraph on Aldridge. Why not?”

  “Because it would make no difference. Aldridge could turn Boy Scout and not tell us anything we don’t know. Look, chief, I’ve done enough military interrogations to read a man like him. We broke him today. We took all he has.”

  “Fine. Forget the old man.” Daugherty is burning to show that he, too, can think two moves ahead. “We’ll pick up his daughter when she pays him a visit. Did you see how he looked when we walked in? He was expecting to see his daughter, not us. I think she’s planning a visit.”

  Pyle stays quiet while Daugherty backs from the parking space. When Pyle’s sure his partner can manage driving and thinking simultaneously, he points out a flaw in Daugherty’s thinking. “If our person of interest is bright enough to elude you for a year, she’s not likely to visit a prison where she’ll have to show ID.”

  “Why else would she come to Florida if not to see her father?” Daugherty snaps.

  “Maybe she’s coming back because this is where she started out.”