“Want another?” he asked.
“Man’s got to know his limit.”
“I respect that,” he said.
“Hey, what’s that guy’s name?” I asked.
“Same as mine,” he said and walked off with the empty glass and bottle.
Not far from me, two guys in their early twenties with FSU T-shirts and caps on began having a drinking contest. They were drinking shots of straight Tequila: salt, shot, lime. Salt, shot, lime. The people nearby cheered them on and as I remembered that taste on my tongue and its burn in my throat and stomach, I missed the quick camaraderie and the easy abandonment of tying one on with friends-and strangers.
I signaled for the bartender.
“I’ll have another,” I said. “Make it a double.… And whatever she’s having,” I added when I saw Alice walk into the bar.
He met her on the other end of the bar, pointed at me, and they both reached me at the same time.
“Sorry to have to meet here, Chaplain,” she said, “but-”
“Hey,” the bartender said, “this is a classy joint.” He then placed our drinks in front of us, and moved down the bar.
“Don’t be,” I said. “I feel right at home.”
“I’m not supposed to do this,” she said. “This is confidential information.”
“If you’d rather not,” I said, “I can get it some other way.”
“No, it’s not that,” she said. “I just wanted you to know why I couldn’t do it at work.”
Alice Taylor worked in the business office of PCI where she was in charge of inmate accounts. When she learned that I was trying to find out who killed Nicole, she got word to me that she had information that might be helpful.
“But I’m serious,” I said. “If you’re not comfortable, I really can-”
“You kiddin’? I’d love to be a part of catching that bastard,” she said.
“You mean whoever killed Nicole?” I asked. “Or did you have a particular bastard in mind?”
She smiled, but there was tension in her eyes, and as she pushed her silky black hair away from her face, her hand trembled. “Bobby Earl.”
One by one, the yuppie after-work crowd was being replaced by the less yuppie, more rowdy crowd, as if by an unspoken agreement each knew their allotted time. Mixed drinks were being replaced by bottles of beer as conversations about today’s headlines were replaced by small talk about fishing and football.
“Ever wonder why a televangelist with a weekly national broadcast would come into a humble little prison like PCI?”
“I just assumed he was trying not to forget the pit from which he was dug,” I said.
“Huh?”
“That he’s got a soft spot for inmates or feels a loyalty to Warden Stone.”
“That’s because you’re a good man,” she said. “But you’re giving Bobby Earl way too much credit.”
“Uh oh,” I said.
“What is it?”
“I’m thinking maybe Bobby Earl’s innocent,” I said.
“Why?”
“By admitting you think I’m a good man, you’ve just lost all credibility as a judge of character.”
She smiled and punched me playfully-maybe even flirtatiously. “You are,” she said. “Good-looking, good dresser, good chaplain-”
“Good God,” I said. “I had no idea you felt this way.”
She blushed, her creamy white skin turning a pale pink.
Simultaneously, we both reached for our drinks.
As she smiled up at me, I could see the gold flecks sprinkled throughout the green of her eyes even in the dim light of the bar.
“Do you want to know or not?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why does a national televangelist treasure like Bobby Earl come into PCI?”
“To pass the plate,” she said.
I shook my head. “We don’t have plates in the chapel,” I said. “And inmates don’t have money.”
“Oh, hell, yes, they do,” she said, her drink seeming to kick in.
“Well, you ought to know, managing their accounts and all, but there’s no money on the compound so-”
“They mail it to him,” she said.
“Even so,” I said, “they can have-what? — sixty-five bucks a week? How much could they send?”
As she slid a little closer to me, I became conscious of having Coke breath, and slid a piece of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum out of my pocket and into my mouth.
“Sixty-five dollars is what they can spend each week with their cashless card in the canteen,” she said. “There’s no limit to how much they can have in their accounts. Some of them have a quarter of a million dollars or more.”
It took me a minute to process that one, and as I thought about it, she went on to explain some things I already knew, which was fine because I wasn’t really listening anyway.
“There’s no cash on the compound,” she said. “They buy food and certain personal items from the canteen by swiping the magnetic strip on their ID badge. By limiting it to sixty-five dollars, we curtail the amount of bribing and bartering that goes on down there, but it doesn’t stop it. That has nothing to do with how much they can and do have in their accounts, just how much they can spend in the canteen each week.”
“So if one of them wanted to-ah, sow a seed into Bobby Earl’s ministry, how would he do it?”
“Simple,” she said. “Fill out a withdrawal form and submit it to me with a stamped envelope addressed to where he wants it sent.”
“And this happens often?” I asked.
She nodded. “This past year, PCI inmates donated nearly a hundred grand to something called Setting the Captives Free, a Bobby Earl Caldwell Ministry.”
“A hundred thousand American dollars?”
“Yes, American,” she said and punched me again.
“Does that amount come from just a few large contributions or several small ones?”
“Large ones primarily, but there’re more than just a few,” she said. “It’s funny though-” She paused long enough to take a sip of her drink, a Fuzzy Navel from the look and smell of it, and then continued. “-there are small ones, but they go to a different address than the big ones. The Captives ones go to a P.O. Box in New Orleans, the small ones to a street address that I know is his ministry headquarters address because I’ve seen it on his literature.”
“Is there any way you can get me a list of the inmates who’ve made contributions?” I asked.
“I don’t think I could do that,” she said with a smile as she withdrew a sheet of paper folded lengthways from her purse and slid it along the bar to me. “That would be wrong.”
“And being the good man I am,” I said, “I don’t want to encourage you to do anything wrong.”
She smiled, obviously enjoying herself.
“Who’s his single largest contributor?” I asked.
“Was a drug dealer from Miami named Brawer, but he’s no longer with us,” she said.
“Transferred?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “To hell. He OD’d last weekend.”
My eyebrows shot up. “That was him?”
She nodded.
“Sounds like a clue,” I said.
“The strange thing is, you’d think there would be a big increase in donations after one of his visits.”
“There’s not?”
“There’s a small increase,” she said, “but the majority of contributions are made before he comes.”
“Just before?”
“Yeah, why?”
“The clues just keep on coming,” I said.
She smiled. “So that helps?”
“More than you’ll ever know.”
“Good,” she said, and when I saw how pleased what I said made her, I was glad I had said it.
She had the same look on her face when she asked, “Are you going to stay for Karaoke?” Which is why an hour later I was wishing I were drunk as I listened to people who were singing songs that they
wouldn’t have if they weren’t.
CHAPTER 27
When I got home, Anna was waiting for me (I never lock my doors-I don’t know anyone in Pottersville who does), and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to come home to her every night.
Home for me is an old, dilapidated single-wide mobile home- the only thing I could find when I moved back to Pottersville about a year ago, the only thing I could afford after the divorce. After living a very different life for over thirty years, I had become trailer trash, hurricane bait, downwardly mobile. It was as embarrassing as it was liberating.
“Honey, I’m home,” I said as I walked through the door, and I realized that finding her here was the first time this little tin box ever felt like home.
She tried to smile, but couldn’t quite pull it off.
The new Jann Arden CD she had given me was playing softly in the background, and as I sat down on the couch beside her, I prayed for this moment to last as long as heaven would allow.
Within moments, I had lost myself in the heaven Jann was singing about finding in every breath, under every star, in everything. In the woman sitting next to me.
Anna’s softly sweet scent filled the small room, and I breathed through my nose so I could take it in with every inhalation.
“Good CD, isn’t it?” she said, nodding toward the CD player.
I nodded.
“You must really think so,” she said with a smile. “You have two.”
I smiled.
“How many copies of Dan’s new one do you have?”
“Two, too,” I said. “But I like yours the best.”
She laughed, and we listened to the rest of the song in silence.
The couch we sat on had been left in the trailer by the previous tenants. It was uneven and uncomfortable and had one of those covers that bunched and gathered and slid around every time you moved. There was very little furniture besides it in the room-a small folding table that held a TV and other components, an old leather recliner, its back permanently caught between upright and recline, its leather splitting and tearing, a couple of overcrowded bookshelves that leaned into each other for support. Scattered throughout the room, along the walls mainly, were stacks of books in every shape, size, subject, and genre.
When the song was over, she said, “What’s new in the investigation?”
I told her.
“I would think Bunny could get all the sex she wanted on the street,” she said. “Why run all the risks of having it with inmates inside?”
“Perhaps the risks are what it’s about,” I said. “But you’re right, it’s probably not her. As far as I know the only time she left my office was to sing in the sanctuary.”
“But then how do you explain the condoms and the tampon?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “The tampon could’ve belonged to a female volunteer from an earlier night. The condoms could’ve been brought in by a staff member or an officer.”
She didn’t say anything and I could tell she was thinking about it, the light of intelligence bright in her dark eyes.
Sitting so close to Anna, I found it hard to breathe. I so wanted to be a good man, to be God’s man, belonging fully and completely to her, but how could I when I felt the way I did about this woman? If my love for Anna wasn’t idolatry, it certainly bordered on obsession. And yet, paradoxically, I often experienced the passion I felt for her as a metaphor for how God loved me, and through Anna’s love, I couldn’t help but feel the desire of the God who is the allconsuming fire.
“It’s unbelievable Bobby Earl gets that kind of money from our institution,” she said. “It might explain the condoms.”
I nodded. “The clean ones especially,” I said. “If someone’s using them to mule drugs inside, the lab should be able to tell us.”
“Even so,” she said, “it’s hard to see what it would have to do with Nicole’s death.”
I nodded.
“And frontrunners for that?” she asked.
“Bobby Earl and Bunny are certainly still in the lead,” I said, “but Coel was in the best position to do something without being seen-and he’s the only witness we have who was able to see both doors.”
“He could’ve gone in or be covering for whoever did,” she said.
“Uh huh,” I said. “But I certainly can’t rule out Theo Malcolm. He’s working hard to cover up something, and then there’s Paul Register-his background alone’s enough to keep him near the front of the pack.”
Talked out, we sat in silence and listened to the music and each other breathe some more.
“I’ve had a lot of night classes lately,” she said. “And Chris’s had a lot of really big cases. Things haven’t been the same. It’s why what you said the other night did more than hurt me. It devastated me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve heard,” she said.
“Really.”
“I’m still mad at you.”
“You should be.”
“Sometimes I hate you,” she said, her words four staccato stabs of a serrated blade.
I couldn’t respond to that. All I could do was sit there and bleed.
She didn’t say anything else, and when I could, I said, “Sometimes I hate myself.”
We were quiet for a long moment, Jann’s melancholy music holding us hostage, her sultry voice piercing the emptiness around and in us like arrows, the sad lyrics bittersweet poison on their tips.
“Chris thinks we need counseling,” she said finally.
“You and me?” I asked.
She smiled. “Me and him.”
I nodded.
“What do you think we should do?”
I shook my head. “I’m the last person you should ask,” I said, and I wanted to tell her about Susan, but knew it wasn’t the time.
“Why?” she said. Her eyes looked big and sad, her face revealing her vulnerability.
“Because,” I said, reaching out and sweeping a strand of her thick brown hair from her face, “when it comes to you, I could never be objective.”
She smiled warmly. “Thanks,” she said. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.”
We sat there in the silence for a long while after Jann had finished her set, our breathing the only sound in the little trailer until the phone rang.
When after a few rings I had made no move to answer it, Anna said, “You gonna get that?”
I shook my head.
Her face lit up again. “That’s the second nicest thing anyone’s done for me lately.”
“I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you,” I said.
“You could try.”
“Every time I’ve wanted to talk about the investigation or share something about my day, I’d pick up the phone and start to punch in your number, or start walking down toward Classification before remembering and…”
“I’ve done the same things,” she said, adding with a wry smile, “except I punched in your number and started up to the chapel. I’ve wanted so badly to help you like I usually do-especially with this one.”
“I’ve needed your help,” I said.
“Well, I’m here now,” she said. “How can I help?”
“Just so we’re clear,” I said, “you are talking about the case-how can you help with the case?”
CHAPTER 28
When I arrived at the chapel the next morning, Dexter Freeman was waiting for me.
“My mom’s dead,” he said.
“I’m so sorry to hear that, Dexter,” I said.
I unlocked the chapel, and eyes red and tired, tears still streaming down his cheeks, he followed me into the spare office and fell heavily into one of the chairs where he sat staring blankly, his body trembling, his head down.
As I watched him, I felt a forceful reminder that before long I’d be experiencing the same thing, and I felt guilty for not spending more of my mom’s last days with her.
“They should’ve called me b
ack in last night,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He shook off my apology. “They didn’t know.”
“How’d you find out?” I asked.
“Called home,” he said, looking up. “I asked them why they didn’t call you… I guess they just forgot about me. She’s been dead three days. My wife would’ve told me, but they don’t talk to her, so she didn’t know either. The funeral’s this afternoon. I need your help getting a furlough.”
“Sure,” I said. “How’re you holding up?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want her to die while I was inside. You know?”
I nodded.
“She raised me by herself,” he said. “She always sacrificed for me. Worked two jobs where I could play sports and have a car and go to college. She was so proud of me. Broke her heart when I was arrested. Knowing I was set up didn’t make it any easier for her.”
I smiled in response to his smile as the warm thoughts of her flooded his memory. He was quiet for a moment, crying silently, wiping his nose with the back of his hand and the sleeve of his blue uniform.
I handed him some of the cheap, thin, prison-issue tissues I kept in all the offices of the chapel. “Thanks,” he said, then rolled up one of the tissues and dabbed at his eyes with the corner. “I’m okay. I appreciate your time.”
“You want to call your family?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “But the phones in the dorms-”
“You can call from here,” I said. “That’ll give you more privacy anyway. Then we can talk some more afterwards if you need to.”
“Thanks,” he said.
I plugged in a phone for him to use in the room designed for that purpose and closed the door to give him privacy. While he talked, I looked through his file and pulled some more of the information I needed. When he was finished, he came back into the office looking like a different person.
“That really helped,” he said. “Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. Just making contact. Not being so isolated… it helps.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m glad you were able to talk to them.”
He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Can I talk to you about something else while I’m here?”
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