Escape Clause

by James O. Born

  He left the building, used to the correctional officers’ feigned indifference as he passed the reception and safety desks. Even Luther Williams, walking in with a younger, very dark man, nodded and smiled to him.

  Tasker made the long walk out to the visitors’ parking lot and backed his Monte Carlo out of its spot and headed into Gladesville, a couple of miles to the south. As if pushed by some unseen force, Tasker found himself turning toward the tiny Gladesville PD.

  All four spots in front of the station entrance were taken, so he decided to use his police privilege and pull around back with the other police cars. He saw an unmarked Crown Vic and thought it might be Rufus Goodwin’s. The back door was up a flight of stairs next to the oversized Dumpster. It obviously hadn’t been emptied in a while.

  As he reached the bottom of the stairs, the rear door opened, and Rufus Goodwin, dressed like a detective in a short-sleeve shirt and a wide, polyester, nasty rust-colored and cream-striped tie, stopped and looked down at him.

  “What’re you doing here?” asked Rufus.

  Tasker hesitated because he wasn’t sure himself. “Anything new on the case?”

  “Not since you asked me yesterday. You need to worry ’bout your business and let me worry ’bout mine.”

  “We’re in the same business.”

  Rufus said, “But not the same company.”

  Tasker took a step up. “Why does it seem like you’re stalling the professor’s murder case?”

  “Why does it seem you ain’t workin’ on your own murder case?”

  Tasker felt his face flush and his heart rate increase. Something wasn’t right with this, and this son of a bitch wasn’t doing his job.

  Tasker said, “I won’t forget about the professor.” He turned without another word and stomped back to his car. As he backed out, he saw Rufus walk back inside the building with his cell phone to his ear and gesturing with his free hand.

  twenty-one

  Renee Chin parked the ratty old taurus in one of four visitors’ spots in front of the entrance to the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office. The operations officer, Tony, was just about the most helpful guy in Palm Beach County law enforcement, followed closely by the rest of the staff at the small building stuck in the parking lot of the ever-growing Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. The little structure looked like a mistake thrown in the middle of the huge parking lot.

  She followed Tony from the administrative office to the detached building where the autopsies were performed and all evidence with human remains was stored. As soon as she walked in the rear building, the chemical salt smell rushed over her. Sometimes it was so strong she could taste it in her mouth.

  Tony saw her reaction. “You get used to it.”

  “That’s the formaldehyde, right?”

  “Yeah. It chemically cooks the tissue and leaves that odor. Won’t hurt you though.”

  Tony said that as they entered the procedure room and a thin man in surgical scrubs added, “Yeah, and that smell turns you into a chick magnet.”

  Renee snickered at that. “Hello, Dr. Freund, how are you?” She glanced around his feet to find his trademark buckets by the procedure table.

  “Could not be doing better, Inspector Chin. It’s been over a month since you came to visit. I spoke to Bill Tasker last week about the other case.”

  She couldn’t hide a smile. “He’s reviewing the Dewalt death.”

  The assistant ME nodded. “He’s a good man. I’ve known him for years.”

  “Yes, he’s impressed me. I mean us. That is, out at Manatee.”

  The ME smiled and moved across the room. “What about this gentleman?” he said, as an attendant wheeled a gurney with the naked body of Vic Vollentius on it.

  “We think it’s an accident. I’m just here per policy.” Renee was affected differently by every autopsy. Sometimes they were fascinating. Sometimes, depending on her mood and what she had eaten, they made her ill. She liked Dr. Freund and he always explained stuff so she wasn’t worried. It was his one quirk that often got to her. She once was nauseous for more than two days just thinking about her visit.

  The assistant medical examiner made notes into a microphone attached to his lapel that fed into a small tape recorder in his pocket. He finished and stepped up to the station, then positioned a bucket on each side of the gurney. He looked at Renee, who knew enough to step well away from the thin, forty-two-year-old doctor.

  “Shall we?” he said, picking up a small metal probe and starting to examine the outside of the body for any obvious wounds.

  The only thing that stuck out was the disfigured skin on his face. Neither the doctor nor Tony even mentioned it. They had seen the preliminary reports and knew what to expect. Renee was always amazed at the incredible professionalism that came out of this office.

  Tony said, “I’ve got my own work. Just hit the intercom if you guys need me.” He made his quick exit before any cutting, like most of the cops who had been through it with Dr. Freund before.

  Dr. Freund said, “Let’s do the cranium first.” He examined the face and then the sides of Vollentius’ head. The rough, splotchy skin still on his face framed exposed bone and muscle in a couple of places. “Looks like all the damage is on the forehead. According to the report, this scalding is from hot water.”

  He studied Vollentius’ bald head carefully, then ran a surgical gloved finger over the one mark on the forehead. He studied the wound, then stepped back from it.

  Renee asked, “Problem, Doc?”

  “Hard to say. That’s a pretty good crack on the head for slipping into a tub of water. Doesn’t it seem a little convenient to you that he’d slip right there and fall into a tub of water?”

  “The way things work around the kitchen, if you weren’t familiar with it, and he wasn’t, anything could happen. That’s why I’m here.”

  Renee nodded as she watched him pick up a handheld Dremel rotary tool-like saw with a five-inch-round blade. She took another step back as he flicked on the electric saw and slowly lowered it over Vollentius’ forehead just above the wound.

  Renee flinched at the sound of the whirling saw against the thick bone of the skull. The slight burning smell caused by the friction of the blade on Vollentius’ skull turned her stomach, but she knew that was minor compared to what was about to happen.

  As soon as he had circled the head once with the saw and worked the top of Vollentius’ head loose, exposing the brain pan and blood, Dr. Freund casually leaned over and vomited into the bucket at his feet. He was so practiced that he hardly stopped working.

  “This is a tough one, Inspector. Could be a simple fall, but it could be a little more force was used when his head hit the ground. Let’s see what else we find.”

  Renee watched as he worked down the body to the chest cavity, where he made an incision down the middle of Vollentius’ chest. As he used the rib spreader to expose the internal organs, he again leaned down to spit up in a well-placed bucket.

  Renee said, “How do you keep any weight on at all?”

  “My wife feeds me like a fatted calf.”

  “You never got over the sight of blood?”

  He stopped and looked at her. “Does it look like I did?” He paused. “I know, an ME who gets sick at the sight of blood is funny, but it’s been six years. You guys should be used to it by now.”

  She smiled. “I’m sorry, it’s just so . . .”

  “Interesting? Sexy? Macho?” He scrunched his eyes and used his forearm to push up his glasses.

  “I was thinking ‘weird.’ ”

  “That’s fair,” he said and went right back to work. Over the next hour he explained different aspects of the corpse to Renee, none of them particularly remarkable. He commented that the Aryan Knight had one of the smallest brains he had ever seen on a grown male. He vomited twice more and then finally, after rinsing his gloved hands in the nearby sink, stood erect, arched and stretched his back and looked at Renee.

  �
��I’ll check the cavities and take a few more samples and we’re done.”

  Renee, feeling a pain in her knees from standing on the cement for so long, smiled with relief.

  He checked the body’s ears with a small penlight, then his eyes. He used a small spacer to hold open the mouth and probed it with a metal rod as he shone the light inside.

  “What the hell?”

  Renee stepped closer as he reached for a pair of long tweezers from the table.

  “Lookie here,” he said as he extracted a white rolled-up piece of paper from Vollentius’ mouth. He examined it, then used the tweezers and his free hand to open the tiny scroll. “A note. That’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  Renee said, “I’ve seen it a couple of times.”

  Sam Norton nodded while he listened on his phone. He was starting to get frustrated because no one wanted to just get things done. Everyone wanted to bitch.

  Norton said, “I got things handled here. You gotta get things handled up there.”

  “How?” asked a male’s voice.

  “You know better than me. Having people nosing around is not good for any of us.”

  “It’s gone further than I thought it would.”

  “It hasn’t gone near far enough if it means we’re gonna miss out on a big payday. You just get ahold of who you need to and have us left alone again.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “As long as your best gets it done, that’s good enough.” Norton hung up, tired of talking to people who thought they were in charge but weren’t.

  Tasker sat in a booth at the Lone Wrangler, a steakhouse between Gladesville and Belle Glade where Renee had asked to meet for dinner. It was now seven-twenty, twenty minutes after she said she’d meet him and he was smelling a stand-up. It had happened enough to him that he’d thought he was immune, but it still hurt.

  He nursed his Budweiser, since his choices were Bud and Bud Light, and read the menu for the fifth time. What a day this had been. When he’d gone out to his car, he’d found two tires punctured. It had taken a couple of hours to have his car towed and new tires mounted. He had not finished any more reading of the disciplinary reports, and with Renee off the prison grounds for the day, no one had spoken to him.

  Now he contemplated his options. Leave and show her he wasn’t a pet, but then risk her not speaking to him again. Stay and risk his self-respect. Or call Billie Towers and see what she was doing. The last option wasn’t in his personality. He’d never been one to play with people’s emotions and never dated two women at once, if you could call this a date. He yanked his Nextel from its plastic clip and suddenly realized the phone was turned off. Oh shit! He hadn’t turned it on after he took a short nap before dinner.

  It felt like an eternity before the screen showed power and signal. Then a screen that said “message.” When he called to retrieve it, the voice said there were three messages.

  The first was from his daughters saying they’d be at his house Friday. Their voices in practiced unison made him smile.

  The second was from Renee saying she was running late from the autopsy. The last one was also Renee saying she was on her way. Before he could hear the end, she came through the door. He was almost speechless. Partly due to his own stupidity and the things he had just been thinking, but more because Renee was in a tight, short, stunning black dress with stiletto heels. This was definitely no business meal.

  He stood to greet her and was surprised by a kiss on his cheek. He didn’t care if the words “Manatee prison” ever came up tonight.

  Renee took a breath and said, “You get my messages?”

  “Yep, no problem. You see Dominick Freund?”

  “That’s why I had to take an extra-long shower.”

  “You mean the puking during autopsies?”

  “Four times and he never missed a beat.”

  “They have to make a musical out of him. The Medical Examiner Blues or I left My Lunch in San Francisco.”

  She laughed, showing her near-perfect teeth.

  “What, besides Freund, held you up at the ME’s office?”

  “A little wrinkle in the simple explanation for Vic Vollentius’ death.”

  “Like what?”

  “He had a note hidden in his mouth.”

  “Like a message to others?”

  “No, who he was meeting.”

  “You’re shitting me. Who does that?”

  She looked at him carefully and said, “Don’t use that phrase with me. My mama hated it and my brothers and me are conditioned to hate it, too.”

  “Sorry.”

  She smiled. “Just a family quirk. But the practice of hiding notes on your body in prison isn’t unusual. In case something happens, you can testify from the grave, so to speak.”

  “Sounds like something out of a Stephen Hunter novel.”

  “Who?”

  “A writer I like. So tell me ’bout the note.”

  “Hidden in his mouth. I’ve seen them in the crack of an inmate’s ass and the fold of his balls before, but this was the first mouth.”

  Tasker gritted his teeth in mock frustration and said, “What did the note say?”

  “ ‘If anything happens, I’m meeting Luther Williams.’ ”

  twenty-two

  Bill Tasker sat at the formica-finished dining table, which had been included in his free rent. He had a glass of tropical fruit Powerade next to him and the local weekly paper spread out, trying to understand the world into which he had found himself dropped by forces greater than himself.

  He was still in his shorts and sweat-drenched T-shirt from his morning run. He liked running off-road out here because in the mornings it wasn’t too hot and he always liked exploring new areas. This morning he’d gone fifty-five minutes and run the small trail behind the apartments that cut through the cane field all the way to US 27 heading toward Clewiston to the west.

  It was a little later than he was used to leaving for the prison, but he needed a break from that place. He wasn’t sure what he’d be working on today. Renee Chin was looking into the death of the Aryan Knight that didn’t look much like an accident anymore, and interviewing people working the lockdown area where Tasker had been attacked earlier in the week. He could justify working on either investigation because they were both in the prison. Who could argue that he should only look at the death of the son of a rich man? Just like who could argue about him trying to find out if someone was out to get him? He realized his bosses and their bosses could. He’d get back on his own homicide case, but now he had to admit he wanted to talk to the lockdown officers because he was still pissed off.

  As he was getting ready to drag his ass to the shower, the apartment phone made its noisy, clattering ring.

  “Hello?” The only one who had this number for him was . . .

  “Billy, you takin’ a nap?”

  He smiled at the FDLE Miami regional director’s voice. Tasker said, “Hey, boss.”

  “Things workin’ out all right out there? Is it peaceful enough?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it peaceful, but I’m adjusting.”

  “I hear you’re sliding into old habits, though.”

  “What habits?”

  “Working other people’s cases. Are you involved in some half-assed death investigation that occurred outside the prison?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “No, you don’t understand, Billy. I ask the questions and you answer. Now, are you harassing the local cops about a single-jurisdiction, single-victim homicide?”

  “I wouldn’t call it harassing.”

  “Look, Billy, just work on the fucking homicide of that Dewalt kid for Gann and the governor’s office.”

  “I am, boss. The victim in the other homicide was my neighbor. Just offering assistance.”

  “Remember who you’re talking to. I know once you’re locked onto something, someone’s in deep shit. This time I’m afraid it’s you.”
>
  “But—”

  “The only things you should concern yourself with are inside the walls of Manatee Correctional. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Billy.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “How tough is a prison named after a floating cow?”

  Captain Sam Norton smiled at the sight of his friend Janzig belly-laughing over what he had done to the so-called “investigators.”

  Janzig caught his breath and leaned on the outer fence of the Rock in their usual private business area. “You know, I feel like God sometimes, making them think what I want ’em to. First making Baxter a killer after he was already dead and then making Luther responsible for the Aryan Knight.” He spit, then added, “I’m here to tell you that college doesn’t do a goddamn thing for you. Them two both went to college, but neither could find their ass with both hands.”

  Norton said, “Now hold on there, Henry. Renee is sharp, you have to admit. That note you put in Vollentius’ mouth was more to get the other Knights worked up. I haven’t seen her bite on it yet.”

  “You think they don’t know about Baxter?”

  “They haven’t said nothin’.”

  “I’m telling you, that FDLE guy is stalling. He likes it here.”

  “Why would he like it here?”

  “’Cause his partner is tall, smart and ain’t got a dick.”

  Norton considered that, then said, “We may need to send that boy a stronger message.”

  “Stronger than having Linus Hardaway choke the livin’ shit out of him?”

  “Something off the prison grounds. Maybe if he doesn’t feel like he has a safe haven to go to, he’ll just leave.”

  “Maybe. Whatcha got in mind?”

  “We could use some ‘graduates’ of this fine institution.”

  “Like who? The Mule brothers? The hairy one can make some kick-ass explosives.”

  “What about some off-loaders’. Guys smart enough to know they may be back in here one day and want to stay on our good side.”

  Janzig nodded. “I know just who to call. Where should they make it happen?”