The Poisoned Pen

by E. Joan Sims

  “I know. And stop looking like I stole your kid’s bike.”

  “How did you….?”

  I laughed. “Elementary, my dear! Your first child - and a boy—give me a break! I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t already started on a tree house.”

  “I ordered the plans last week,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Two stories—with a swing and a sliding board.”

  I sat on the edge of my chair and clasped my hands in front of me on his desk. I tried my best to look earnest and entirely without guile.

  “Okay, Bruce, I’m impressed with your ethics, and your fatherly instincts—and I accept the fact that you cannot divulge any privileged information.” I sighed heavily once again. “I’ll just have to find out some other way.”

  I pretended to shrug away my disappointment and go on to another subject. “So maybe you can do something else for me.”

  “Name it, Paisley,” he said, obviously relieved that I had not forced the issue.

  Right on cue, I popped the real question—the one I had in mind in the first place. “Get me inside Teddyville, can you? I want to interview a prisoner.”

  He watched me over tented fingers for a few seconds before he answered.

  “Whatever for?”

  “A book, of course,” I lied. “And Cassie wants to go, too.”

  “You’re crazy,” he sputtered. “Do you know what those men would do if they saw her?” He took off his glasses and rubbed the spot between his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Paisley. Teddyville is a maximum security prison. Those guys are the worst of the worst.”

  “All of them?” I asked, remembering Nell Jane’s father.

  “If they didn’t deserve it when they went in, they did something on the inside to deserve full-fledged membership. I beg you to reconsider going yourself, Paisley, but I absolutely refuse to facilitate your taking Cassie.”

  “Then you tell her. She won’t believe me.”

  I got up from the chair and tried to look glum—tried not to gloat about my victory until I was safely out of his office. For a smart man, I thought, Bruce Hawkins was easy to bamboozle

  The overnight rain had not done much for the streets of Rowan Springs. Leaves and other debris clogged the manhole covers and grates, and many of the roads were full of standing water. The honeycomb of limestone caves that lay beneath the town always filled up quickly with a heavy downpour, and there was nowhere for the gutters to drain.

  I picked my way across Main Street, carefully avoiding the biggest puddles. I had almost made it to the other side when a pickup truck splashed dirty water all over my jeans. I gave the driver a dirty look as he stared at me in his rearview mirror. I started to give him a three-fingered salute, but there was something about the man’s face—something sinister that made me shudder and hurry on into the warmth and comfort of the coffee shop.

  Cassie was busy with a book order so Mindy whipped up my “super espresso latte whachmacallit.” When she was finished, she plopped a cherry on top and handed me a chocolate-coated peppermint candy spoon to stir it with.

  “Special of the day, Miz DeLeon,” she chirped. “Isn’t it just the yummiest?”

  After several weeks of Cassie’s restrictions on my diet, I thought I would be eager to gobble up the mountain of whipped cream and slurp down the chocolate; but instead, I found myself looking in dismay at the fat grams and empty calories. All I really wanted was a nice hot cup of Earl Grey with lemon.

  I smiled weakly back at her and nibbled on the cherry. I didn’t want to hurt the girl’s feelings, and most of all I didn’t want to mention the word “diet.”

  “Sorry, Mindy,” said Cassie as she swooped in and grabbed the coffee. “Mom’s watching her….”

  “Just some hot tea, please,” I interrupted. “If you don’t mind.” And then to change the subject, “Seen any aliens lately, Mindy?”

  “Oh, not you, too, Miz DeLeon,” she cried mournfully. Everybody in town is teasing me about that one. I wish I’d never talked to that old witc…, woman. Everybody’s making fun of her, too. She’s still claiming to see things.”

  The tiny little hairs on my forearms were standing at attention. “What kind of things?”

  “Demons, black-hooded devils, the usual stuff. But nobody takes her seriously any more. The girls at ‘911’ won’t even take her calls.”

  Cassie had swept off the patio and dried the benches earlier. She led me out to my favorite spot under to the Japanese maple and sat down next to me.

  “What were you doing in Bruce’s office, Mom? Wow! Isn’t that niece of Mary’s something? Half the men in town have been in there for one thing or another this week. Poor Bruce should get a revolving door.” She laughed. “Or maybe sell tickets!” She laughed even harder.

  “You still want to know why I was there?” I asked irritably. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. I was hoping she, or Mindy would have seen me go inside. I was counting on it.

  “Yeah, sure,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “But first, I want to tell you I’ve changed my mind about going to jail with you—if you don’t mind, that is.” She grabbed my hand and held it tight. “Of course, I’ll go if you really need me, Mom,” she offered sincerely. “But if you don’t care, I’d just as soon wait outside. Too many bad vibes in there for me. Now, what were you doing at Bruce’s office?”

  “Uh, well…I wanted to congratulate him. The baby and all,” I finished lamely, somewhat miffed that she had stolen my thunder.

  She looked at me speculatively. “When did you find out? Mindy and I just learned it this morning when he came over for a bagel and coffee. He said they hadn’t told anyone yet.”

  I searched my feeble brain and came up with nothing. Finally I turned over my teacup instead of answering.

  “Oh, damn! I am so sorry, Cassie.”

  Mother was still barricaded inside her rooms so I took Aggie out for a short walk and then headed for the library. It had been ages since I spent time with Leonard and the outline for our new book. My agent would be calling sometime soon to inquire about my progress. I had to get to work. I didn’t need any more guilt.

  I turned on the laptop and waited for all the gizmos to warm up while I tried to remember where we had left off—something about the Columbian drug cartel and a venomous snake.

  My mind wandered as I looked out the French doors at the familiar scene. The sun had come out to dry up all the puddles and the backyard had a fresh, scrubbed-clean look. New leaves were sprouting on the climbing rose Mother had asked me to plant next to the carriage house. I reminded myself to spray for aphids sometime this week.

  I was wondering how long it would be before I heard from Bruce about my trip to Teddyville when the phone rang.

  “Paisley,” he said, “is tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock okay for you?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cassie drove around the prison parking lot twice before she decided where the best vantage point was.

  “I can see the front gate better from here,” she announced when she finally picked her spot. “The side lot’s too far away and I wouldn’t be able to see you coming out. This is perfect—and it’s right by the river with nothing to obstruct the view.”

  She pulled into the one vacant space in the narrow parking strip across the street from Teddyville Prison and turned off the engine. The wild waters of the Cumberland River raced by not ten feet from the Watson’s front bumper

  We sat still for a minute and watched, awed by the power of the raging waters.

  “Ugh,” said Cassie with a grimace. “It’s dirty, and there aren’t any boats.”

  She was right. The water was the color of the mud on the banks—the color of the earth over which it flowed. An occasional small sapling bobbed along in the current, but except for that frantic bit of greenery caught in the current there was nothing to see in that half-mile wide avenue of swiftly moving reddish-brown water.

  “Can anybody even drive a boat
in that?”

  “Pilot, Cassie, pilot—or steer. I’m not sure which, myself. Barges, probably—coal barges,” I guessed, wishing I knew more. “But I had no idea the current was so strong!”

  “Ugh,” Cassie repeated with a shudder, “me neither.”

  I got out of Watson, trying not to look at the dark gray towers and barbed wire that stretched over the expanse of a block or more down the riverfront. I bent down to check my lipstick in the side mirror and was surprised to see how pale and anxious I looked. Shaking off the feeling of dread, I tucked in my shirt and brushed off my jacket before I turned back to gaze up at the imposing stone edifice in front of me.

  Rough-hewn stone walls loomed up so high that I got a crick in my neck trying to see the top. Pale greenish lichen coated the stones so that they resembled those of the ancient ruins I had seen in Europe. No wonder, I thought, that they call this “the Castle on the Cumberland.” That’s what it looked like, the castle of an unforgiving and tyrannical king, complete with the towers where he imprisoned his most disloyal subjects.

  Above those towers, the sky was clear and blue—with just the tiniest wisps of white. There were few, if any, birds flying in that azure sky—as if they were too tactful, too diplomatic to flaunt their freedom in front of the men trapped behind those forbidding stone walls.

  “You sure you’re okay?” asked Cassie. “I can change my mind and go in with you if you want.”

  “No,” I assured her hastily. “I’m fine. And I won’t be long. Bruce set everything up with the warden. ‘Inmate #1898A’ will be ready and waiting for me in fifteen minutes. I have just enough time to sign in and get frisked, or whatever they do here.”

  I tried not to look at my daughter. Cassie had an uncanny ability to read my face, and I had always had a hard time hiding my emotions.

  “Scared, Mom?”

  “Of course not! It’s just that I haven’t ever been inside Frankenstein’s castle before.” I laughed and turned to face her for the truth. “Well, yes, maybe a little.” I admitted. “But mostly I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing—screw it all up. I’m really going in kind of blind, you know. We don’t have much to go on. I’ll have to bluff a lot if I want to find out anything that might tell us where Beth is—if he even knows.”

  “You’ll do just fine,” she promised. “You’ve had years of training with Leonard.”

  “You’re right, pumpkin.” I smiled and kissed her on the cheek.

  I turned to wave after I crossed the street and climbed the steps to the front gate, but all I saw was Cassie’s back as she shivered and got back in the car and out of the wind.

  Teddyville Prison ceased to look like a medieval castle as soon as I entered the big front doors. The vestibule and front hall were wide and ugly and painted a depressing institutional green. Long wooden benches lined the plain plaster walls and the floor was a dark gray concrete that had been polished to an onyx shine.

  The heels of my new loafers sounded like castanets as they clicked on the floor in the empty hallway. I walked almost all the way to the end before I saw another living soul.

  “Name, please?” boomed the guard who appeared from nowhere.

  “Wow!” I gasped, “Paisley, Paisley Sterling. Geez, you nearly scared me to death!”

  “Identification?” he repeated without even acknowledging my remarks.

  I fished around in my bag and came up with my driver’s license.

  “Says here you’re Paisley DeLeon. Make up your mind, lady. Which one are you?”

  I tried smiling but my lips refused to cooperate. “Both,” I stammered. “I mean—I’m a writer. I use my maiden name when I have my writing cap on.” I tried to smile again when I realized how juvenile and silly that sounded.

  “Well, take your cap off in here, lady.” He wrote out “DELEON” in big block letters on a pass and shoved it in my hand. “And do what you’re told. If you don’t—you could get somebody killed—probably yourself.”

  He pointed to the window at the end of the corridor. “Go down there and tell the guard who you want to see.”

  “I think my lawyer….,‘ I began foolishly.

  He grabbed my shoulders, turned me around, and gave me a little push in the right direction. “Do as you’re told!”

  I clamped my jaw down so hard my teeth hurt as I fought my rising temper. I wanted to tell him where to get off in the worst way. Only the thought of the explanation I would have to give Cassie made me march, as ordered, down the hall and knock on the window. Still fuming, I probably knocked a little too hard.

  “Hey, hey, hey! Take it easy. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I heard the voice but I had to wait another five minutes before I saw the man. This guard wasn’t a ‘lean, mean, fightin’ machine’ like “Big Bad Dude” down the hall—in fact

  he was short and fat and bald, with a Bugs Bunny overbite and an open Twinkie package shoved in his breast pocket. He wiped pastry cream from his lips with the back of a pudgy hand and waddled over to the desk where he paused deliberately—taking the time to adjust his ample behind comfortably in the chair before he addressed me

  “Now, have we calmed down a bit, sister? Ready to tell us who you want to see without raising a ruckus?”

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Telling him I wasn’t his sister, and that I was calm wouldn’t get me anywhere. I was beginning to get the picture. The way to get what you wanted in prison was to appear humble and cooperative.

  “Yes, sir,” I said with my most winning smile. “And I didn’t mean to raise a ruckus.”

  “You calling me a liar?” he growled.

  I decided not to answer. The anger in my voice might give me away. Instead I shook my head and lowered my eyes.

  “That’s more like it! Now, who you here for? I haven’t seen you before, and we haven’t gotten a new shipment lately. Must be an old-timer.”

  “Number 1898A”, I said as softly as I could. I was afraid to mention my lawyer again, but the guard must have remembered something because he searched through the mess on his desk and came up with the letter Bruce had faxed to the warden.

  “You Paisley DeLeon?”

  “Yes.”

  “My, my, my! ‘Baby’ Jake Bradley has quite a little fan club!” he said with a suggestive leer.

  “Jake?” I was stunned. Surely it was too much of a coincidence to expect that 1898A might be little Nell Jane’s father.

  “Jacob Bradley. Hey! You not trying to pull a fast one, are you? Says in this here letter you want to see him in the family room. How come you don’t know his name? You really family?”

  “Why…why, of course,” I stammered. “It’s just that we always called him Jacob. He’s a distant cousin on my father’s side. I haven’t seen him in years. I promised Aunt Hettie….”

  “Yahta, yahta, yahta,” he interrupted. “Like I give a rat’s ass. Sign here.”

  He shoved a clipboard through the slot in the window but didn’t offer me a pen. I fished around in my bag and found the black Waterman Horatio had given me for my birthday. I signed the form and started to put the pen away.

  “Hey! Better let me keep that,” he said, as he stuck his hand through the window and grabbed it. Could be used as a weapon. Got anything else like this?”

  I shook my head again, too full of anger to speak.

  “Better let me check.” He stuck the Waterman in his pocket next to the Twinkie and reached up through the window for my handbag.

  I hated the fat slob for holding something that belonged to me, something I treasured, even for a moment. The idea of him pawing through my personal effects made me want to throw up.

  “May…may I have a receipt for the pen, please,” I dared, hoping to stall him for a moment while I slipped Cassie’s picture into my pocket. I wasn’t going to give him a chance to drool over my baby.

  His round face grew red with anger but before he could think of an answer someone knocked loudly on the door behind him.

/>   “Coming in, Roy. Check me,” a man called out.

  ‘Roy’ pried himself out of the chair and shuffled over to peer through the peephole. Satisfied, he opened the door and let another guard inside. When he turned around my Waterman had disappeared. It was his word against mine that he ever had it in the first place. I was furious.

  The new guard was dressed smartly in a starched uniform with a knife pleats in the trousers and shiny black shoes. He took his uniform cap off and placed it carefully on one of the other desks.

  “Any problems?” he asked as he gingerly removed the Twinkie from Roy’s pocket and dropped it in the garbage can.

  “Now see here,” Roy whined. “That was my lunch!”

  The other guard ignored his protests and inclined his head towards me. “This lady been taken care of properly? Has she been cleared? Is she clean?”

  Roy absently nodded his head “yes” to all the questions while he stared regretfully at the discarded Twinkie.

  I knew this was the time to get my pen back—and get Roy into a mess of trouble because he had not even begun to search me; but I also knew that this new guard would give me a very thorough going over. I had nothing to hide, but at the same time, I didn’t relish being manhandled. I reluctantly decided to keep my mouth shut.

  The “family room” of Teddyville Prison had all the charm of a Transylvanian dungeon. The color scheme and the concrete floor—minus the polish—were the same as that of the hall. Two of the long wooden benches formed a “conversation area” in one corner and a large wooden table and six chairs occupied another.

  I sat down at one of the uncomfortable straight-backed chairs and tried not to be intimidated by the big mirror on the wall that I suspected was one-way glass. I slipped my handbag behind me in the chair, hoping that no one else would take an interest in it, and tried to relax.

  I didn’t have to wait very long before I heard the metallic clink of handcuffs. I stood up quickly in preparation for my little performance just as Jacob Bradley pushed open the door.

  “Cousin Jacob!” I cried enthusiastically. “You remember me—Cousin Paisley, Paisley Sterling DeLeon.”