He knew he did. “When was you in my closet?”
“Last night. Playing hide-and-seek.”
He thought about his answer, knowing it would get back to his wife. “Those are old things. They was here when I moved in and I haven’t gotten around to throwing them out. Now you two don’t go poking around in my stuff. Understand?” He gave a father look, not a captain look.
The little girl just nodded her head.
He looked at his daughter and thought how nice it would be to have his wife back, but he wasn’t crazy about looking after kids. This might be their last visit until he got the whole family back.
Luther spent his Sunday afternoon sorting books in the library. The quiet admin building gave him some time to think and assess things. He had his new protégé, Robert Moambi, cleaning the offices used during the week. The two inmates worked virtually unnoticed by the small staff in the building on a Sunday afternoon.
It had been almost a week since he had taken care of Vollentius, and Luther didn’t think anyone in authority had any idea of his involvement. He had even heard two of the dorm correctional officers joke about the circumstances of Vollentius’ death. The joke was something to the effect that they knew some people weren’t good in water, but this was a new record for poor performance in a water environment. Luther had to admit that, on the face of it, drowning in a few inches of water was somewhat comical. All he worried about now was the prison inspector, Renee Chin, figuring something out. She was smart and she knew it. She might even take a death like that personally and work harder than the Aryan Knight was worth. Luther would make the right decision when the time came.
Luther stretched in the chair where he was looking through some newly donated books. Robert Moambi came into the library with a broom in his hand. There was a ring of sweat around the neck of his shirt.
Moambi said, “Nice to see someone has an easy job.”
Luther ignored him.
“I should have me a job like this. Sitting in a nice room all day reading books.”
“I earned this job.”
“And I didn’t?”
“Not yet.”
“What about keeping my mouth shut?”
“That got you from in there”—he pointed to the main secure prison—“to in here. You’re not washing dishes any longer. What’re you complaining about?”
“Not complaining. Just wonderin’. Wonderin’ if I should be in here reading?”
“Stop wondering. This is a one-man job. Be happy where you are.”
“One man that would be out of a job if I let something slip.”
“If you let something slip, you won’t be the man filling this job.” Luther gave him a good look and could tell he had gotten his message across.
Moambi remained silent, then changed the subject quickly. “Your lady friend coming in a couple of hours?”
“How’d you know I have a lady friend or that she’s coming in a couple of hours?”
“Everyone knows you got a big white woman that comes by Sundays and Wednesdays at four-thirty.”
“Everyone knows?”
The younger man shrugged. “Yeah, everyone.”
Luther smiled and said quietly, “Good.”
twenty-four
Tasker rolled into the parking lot before eight o’clock Monday morning. He felt fresh after a good, hard run through the cane and a surprisingly hot shower. After taking the girls home the night before, he had come straight back to the apartment and fallen asleep before ten. He’d awakened on his own near five in the morning and started his day right.
He had spent the weekend appreciating what he had instead of brooding about Donna. Although Renee had only come by Friday night, she seemed to like the girls and they were in awe of this tall, strong, beautiful black woman who told them about her days of playing basketball at the University of South Florida. Kelly connected with the smart role model and Emily with the athletic side of Renee.
Now Tasker felt ready to tackle the loose ends on his death investigation, then casually run across Luther Williams. Although he had been told to lay off the Gladesville investigation into Professor Kling’s death, no one had said not to help on prison-related cases. Not that Tasker intended to drop the Kling case. He just couldn’t say anything to Rufus Goodwin. He owed that much to the professor and to Billie Towers. Billie had been scarce the last week, but he knew she was still in town. She had left a note on his front door while he was driving the girls back to Donna’s, just something saying she was by and would be back. Now that he could clearly identify an interest in Renee Chin, he looked at Billie as a friend. A very attractive friend.
A couple of hours later, after ten, he took a break and stood and stretched. Renee Chin had popped in to say good morning earlier, but he needed to deal with Luther before he went on any pleasure calls.
It didn’t take Tasker long to find the dignified former fake lawyer in the library, two piles of books on the table before him.
“What are these,” asked Tasker, “fiction and nonfiction?”
Luther let out a snort. “Try shit and more shit.” He shoved one pile off the table into a large box with fifty more hardbacks in it. “We get the books Goodwill and the Veterans Administration don’t want. Thirty-five-year-old encyclopedias that still call Sri Lanka, Ceylon.”
“How do you decide what to keep?”
“I keep all the fiction—the boys love a good story—and any nonfiction that is reasonably current or doesn’t go out of date. Gardening, woodworking, that sort of stuff.”
“What fiction writers do they like?”
“What else, crime fiction. They love Elmore Leonard, John Sandford, Michael Connelly. And anything that mentions women.”
Tasker laughed and nodded at the obvious requirement. “Not as glamorous as your last job.” Tasker settled into the chair across from Luther.
“My last job was cleaning the toilets in lockdown. You must mean my last job on the outside.”
Tasker nodded.
“You take what you can get.”
“Good attitude.” Tasker waited and then added, “Could be worse.”
“How so?”
“You could’ve had an accident like that fella in the kitchen.”
“The Aryan Knight? He was no loss.”
“Still a tough way to go.”
“Agent Tasker, I really don’t know of a good way to go. Especially when you’ve done the things I’ve done. I’m not particularly looking forward to judgment from any higher authority.”
“You know the victim, Vollentius?”
“Sure, you get to know everyone in here.”
Tasker paused, formulating his next question.
“Save your breath, Special Agent Tasker. I’d never give you a hint about any crime committed by an inmate. Even if I knew something.”
“You once implicated some people in Miami. I was there.”
“That’s different.”
“How so?” repeating one of Luther’s phrases.
“They weren’t inmates.”
Renee Chin had lingered in her office hoping Bill Tasker would pop in before lunch just to give a glimmer of hope that he saw her as something other than the liaison to the prison. He had already told her that he got nowhere with Luther Williams. That meant she’d have to open a full-blown case and see what she could do to corroborate the note. She’d have Luther pulled from trustee status in a few days as she gathered her info. She didn’t want to spook him until she had facts to confront him with. At the very least, he would lose all his privileges, even if she never proved he killed the Aryan Knight. In the back of her mind, she was trying to figure out how to get Bill Tasker assigned to this death investigation, too. She needed more time with him.
If her mother had seen her in action Friday night, dressed in tight clothes and wearing too much makeup, she would have told her she was acting like a ho. Her mom viewed the world pretty much in terms of proper young ladies and hos. Her job here at Manatee f
ell somewhere in between, but her mama gave her the benefit of the doubt.
At least she hadn’t gone back and stalked him over the weekend. After meeting his ex-wife, Donna, she’d felt a little intimidated for the first time in her adult life. That was one good-looking woman, and she definitely had no confidence issues. Renee bet she had never had a man stolen away from her. What she couldn’t figure out was how a woman obviously as smart as Donna would let a guy like Bill slip away? Hadn’t she seen the other fish in the sea? There was a bunch of similar tuna, too many fat grouper, and only the rare sleek, good-looking snapper like Bill.
Now she had to concentrate on her report to the Secretary of Corrections. She called it her spy report. It detailed the efforts of FDLE Special Agent Bill Tasker in relation to his investigation of the Rick Dewalt death. She had been ordered by the secretary directly to write a report each week and send it only to him via e-mail. No other DOC employee was to see it. At first she’d been thrilled, seeing a possible ticket to ride in the fast lane of careers. Then, as she’d gotten to know Bill Tasker, she’d felt dirty sending it off. Now, she saw that no one could fault the hard, thoughtful work of the FDLE agent as he really tried to follow up the little information there was on the unexplained death.
A knock on her door frame made her heart skip until she looked up to see one of the tuna, Captain Sam Norton, in his dull, white-and-brown, short-sleeve uniform shirt. His brown hair was combed to the side exactly as it was every day and his small pot-belly hung slightly over his standard-issue belt. His small eyes were filled out with pleasant laugh lines as he smiled.
Norton stepped inside the corner office and said, “You look fine this morning, Renee.”
She couldn’t resist a smile. “Thanks, Sam. What brings you down the hall?”
“Just saying hello, wonderin’ how everything was going.”
“Good. What about you?”
“Monday, you know how that can be.” He sat down in the single chair in front of Renee’s desk. “I had my girls this weekend, so it went by too fast.”
“Anything new with your wife?”
“Naw. She seems happy in Lauderdale. The girls, too.”
Renee sighed. “What can you do?”
He shrugged. “One day I hope to have enough money that I’m not floating from one facility to the next begging for a promotion.”
“Well, I hope you hit the lottery, Sam.”
He smiled. “Hell, maybe we both will.”
Norton left the lovely inspector’s office and wandered through the hallways making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. He spent a lot of time inside the fence, the way he thought a captain should do his job, and as a result he felt like some of the administrative types didn’t always work as hard as they should.
After a few minutes, he came up on the tiny office the FDLE agent had been assigned and found him comparing trustee records and time sheets.
“Police work ain’t as exciting as it looks on TV,” said Norton.
Tasker smiled. “You never know what’s gonna happen or what you’ll end up working on.”
“You should be pretty near finished with the case, right?”
“Every time I think I’m making headway, I find something else I have to investigate. Some other things slowed me down, too.”
“You still upset about that Linus Hardaway thing? I thought you and Inspector Chin already looked into it.”
“But didn’t find any answers.”
“Sometimes there’s nothing to find.”
“Always something to find. Sometimes it’s the simple answer, sometimes not.”
“Your investigation sure seems to be taking a long time.”
“Got distracted for a while. The murder in my apartment complex threw me.”
“Old Rufus Goodwin will figure that one out. I wouldn’t worry ’bout it.”
Tasker looked up at Norton and said, “I worry about everything.”
Right then Norton knew everything he had heard was true. This guy didn’t let go of things. Maybe Norton could get things so he’d ask to be let go.
Luther Williams lingered over his dinner of canned ham and canned sweet potatoes. He knew the only reason they were feasting on something other than hamburger, Salisbury steak or meat loaf was that the purchasing agent had scored some deal on surplus, out-of-date hams. He had seen the hams stacked in the warehouse along with pureed sweet potatoes, industrial-size cans of yellow corn, carrots and beets. He hoped to miss the beets. As he sat alone, at the end of one of the long mess hall tables, sipping a plastic cup of orange Kool-Aid, Luther pondered his options. He knew the FDLE agent was trying to rattle him by mentioning the Aryan Knight’s untimely death. Somehow he and no doubt Inspector Chin had figured out the Knight’s “accident” had been enhanced. It could have been forensic evidence, something the Knight had said to someone before he came to the kitchen, or, more likely, a witness had come forward. Whatever the case, they didn’t have enough to pin it on him yet. If they did, he’d be in lockdown and his plans would be in disarray.
Luther was bumped out of his private world by the form of Robert Moambi plopping into the seat across from him. Unlike the other inmates, many of whom were afraid to approach the former attorney, Moambi assumed he had the right to, now that they worked together in the administration building.
Moambi had the identical meal to Luther’s slopped on his tray. “Long day of sweepin’ floors builds an appetite.”
Luther nodded.
“Least I get to look at some pussy once in a while over there.”
Another nod.
“What’s with you? Cat got your tongue?”
“Just going over some problems.”
“What problems you got in here? Room and board are free. You know what you’ll be doing tomorrow. Got fine company like me. Shit, I thought you just killed any problems you have.” He gave a short laugh at his own joke.
Luther looked up at the younger man. He was now pretty sure what he had to do. If he only had enough time.
On Tasker’s ride into the prison the next morning, his cell phone rang with a Glades number he didn’t recognize.
“Bill Tasker,” he said into the static and hiss of a low signal.
“Bill, it’s Billie Towers.”
“Hey, where’ve you been?”
“Just busy. Have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“The police arrested the professor’s killer.”
Tasker almost spun the car at the news.
“Where?”
“In Gladesville.”
“When?”
“Last night. He was a homeless guy. Guess he had a record of violence in Iowa or Ohio. Somewhere in the Midwest.”
“How’d you find out?”
“TV news this morning.”
“Rufus Goodwin or someone from the police department didn’t call you?”
“No.”
“Where can I reach you?”
“I live at the Sawgrass apartments on Barson Street by the Piggly Wiggly food store.”
He could hear her speaking to someone else off the phone.
She came back on the line and said, “I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
Tasker stored the phone number under “Billie” in his Nextel as he drove. He turned toward town and headed straight to the Gladesville PD.
twenty-five
Tasker cut the corner tight heading into the Gladesville Police Department, causing the wheels of his Monte Carlo to squeal. He hadn’t intended to display his frustration that way, but didn’t care either. He was out of his car and up the first three outdoor stairs in a matter of seconds. He paused as he opened the front door. The waiting room was crammed with people. He realized it was all media. Two West Palm network affiliates, the Palm Beach Post and the local weekly rag.
The media people turned toward him like they were waiting for someone to make a comment on what could arguably be the biggest arrest ever made by
the department.
The local ABC reporter out of West Palm Beach, Eliot something, recognized Tasker and said, “Is FDLE involved in this case?”
Tasker shook his head, although he wanted to say, “Not officially.” The reporter had always been a pretty good guy. Tasker specifically remembered him as not piling on when he was under investigation for the case that got him sent to Miami.
Before anyone else could ask him a question, the door to the interior police administration offices opened. It was the arrogant road patrolman from the professor’s murder scene. At least he knew Tasker. He turned and said to the uniformed cop, “Thanks, I was waiting to see Rufus.” Before the cop could protest, Tasker was through the door and headed toward Rufus’ little window-less rat hole.
He caught Gladesville’s lone detective behind his desk and on the phone, which he hung up as soon as he saw Tasker.
“What’re you doing here?” He sounded like a New York bookie.
“Why do ya think? I’m interested in your arrest.” He plopped into the chair in front of Rufus’ cluttered desk. The flickering overhead, full-length fluorescent light made the room feel like a cheap disco. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me.”
“I don’t work for the damn FDLE. Last I checked, the only man I had to tell things to was my chief and he knew all about it.”
“Dammit, you know how I felt.”
“And I did what you wanted, I made a fuckin’ arrest. What are you so worked up about? We got the guy who killed Warren Kling in custody. End of story. Or, better yet, case closed.”
Tasker caught his breath and tried to calm himself. After all the counseling he had undergone over the past few years for the various problems he had survived, he couldn’t believe that the only coping mechanism he had for relaxing and controlling his anger was counting to ten before he spoke. What fucking genius had come up with that one?
Finally, he asked, “Who’s the suspect?”
“Local guy. See, I was wrong and I admit it. I thought it was migrants. Turns out it was a homeless guy I see every day out by the old Woolworth’s.”
Escape Clause Page 17
