Behind the Iron

by William W. Johnstone

  “It’s a line stick, ma’am.”

  “Yes. Of course.” She wrote that on a blank page. “Ten feet. Please. If Mr. Fallon does anything threatening, I’ll scream. It won’t be longer than ten or fifteen minutes, I promise.” She batted her eyes, and Ryan Getty slowly backed away.

  When Getty stopped, Julie Jernigan came closer.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Fallon?” she asked, with her pencil at the ready.

  “Four years,” Fallon said.

  “Off the record,” she said. She did not write down Fallon’s answer. “For my own edification. You arrived here with an operative for the American Detective Agency.”

  “What did MacGregor tell you?” Fallon asked.

  “Nothing. He didn’t even meet me, although he promised. But, well, that’s not the first time a member of law enforcement has failed to honor my request for an interview.”

  Actually, that surprised Fallon. He figured Dan MacGregor, young and handsome as he was, would have eagerly met with anyone who looked like Julie Jernigan.

  “Please, Mr. Fallon. Doctor Gripewater has told me a lot, but Mr. Getty, although he’s very sweet and I even think he’s honest, has not shown me much. I have several stories, uncorroborated, and I need some more background, some first-hand accounts, before I can take this and convince my editor that I have a great story.”

  “Why,” Fallon began, “would the Kansas City Enterprise—in Kansas—have any special interest in the Missouri State Penitentiary? Shouldn’t you be writing about Leavenworth? Or the state pen in Lansing?”

  “I am a reporter for the Enterprise. I also am a correspondent for the New-York Tribune.”

  Fallon straightened. “The paper Horace Greeley started?”

  “God rest his amazing soul,” Julie Jernigan said.

  “We’re a long way from New York state,” Fallon said.

  “But I’m real close to a newspaper article that would rock Jefferson City, Missouri, the entire West, and maybe even all of the United States. I am out to reform the way prisons are run.”

  “Muckraker?” Fallon asked.

  “Revealer of truth,” she said.

  Fallon sighed. “Your readers, and your editor, wouldn’t believe anything I had to say. A prisoner’s word doesn’t count for much, ma’am.”

  “But a detective’s word does . . .”

  His head shook. “I’m no detective.”

  “But you were once a deputy for Judge Parker over in Arkansas and the Indian Territory.”

  Fallon stepped back and reassessed the beautiful young woman next to him. She most certainly was a newspaper reporter.

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “It’s not that hard, you know. Once you have a man’s name, and a lot of time to dig through old newspapers or ask officials in state government or the U.S. marshal in town, things sometimes—though certainly not always—fall into place.”

  “Then you know . . .”

  She cut him off. “About what happened in the Nations? Yes. Joliet? Of course. And even your wife and daughter.” She began to write. Fallon realized he had just clenched both fists.

  He exhaled. “I’ve only been here a few days,” he said.

  “Is that how they treat you? A bruise a day?”

  Fallon shook his head. “I got a lot of bruises on the train ride coming into Jeff City, ma’am. You must remember that.”

  “I do.” She stopped writing. “But Doctor Gripewater told me about The Mole. The basement cells. And, again, he said you were not the average prisoner in Jefferson City. And Doctor Gripewater has been here for a long, long time.”

  He still was not one to trust newspaper scribblers, no matter how good looking they were. He also had just learned that Thaddeus Gripewater had a big mouth.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “if I’m here, then you know that the American Detective Agency has a reason for me being here. And I’d like to get out of here alive. Talking to you . . .” He let the sentence fade into the afternoon heat, and his heart stopped pounding when he saw the reaction on the young woman’s face.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she said, and dropped her pencil. “I didn’t think . . .”

  Fallon knelt to pick up the pencil. He frowned when he looked past the light gray skirt to see Warden Harold Underwood charging in this direction.

  “Getty!” the warden boomed.

  Julie Jernigan spun around, sending her skirt spreading like a balloon that slapped Fallon’s head. He rose, saw the pencil, felt its point, and slipped it into his pocket.

  Ryan Getty hurried toward the warden, about twenty yards away, but abruptly stopped when he remembered his job, and he looked back at Fallon and the Enterprise reporter.

  “I do not recall giving permission for Miss Jernigan to speak to any prisoner,” the warden said when he stopped. His face was red. So were his ears.

  “Doctor Gripewater . . .” the young guard said.

  “Is a drunken lout, a pathetic surgeon, and most certainly is not the man in charge of this prison!” The warden extended his hand toward the woman. “I’ll have your notes, Miss Jernigan.”

  Smiling, she showed him her page.

  The warden frowned.

  “Obviously,” Jernigan said, “Mr. Fallon was not the most cooperative interview.” She turned the pad around and read, “Makes fist.” Next, she flipped back a page and revealed other pages. “The rest came from Doctor Gripewater. Now, may I have the chance to talk to you, sir?” She did not try to bat her eyes.

  Pivoting so that he could glare intensely at Ryan Getty, Underwood said, “You were ordered to keep a close eye on her.”

  “I was, sir. I only wanted to give them some privacy.”

  “Privacy?” About fifteen seconds of foul oaths spat out of the warden’s mouth. “This is the Missouri State Penitentiary, Getty. Inmates get no privacy. Certainly not among reporters.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “About that interview?” Julie Jernigan said sweetly.

  “I have a full day,” Underwood said. “I am a very busy man. Prisons do not run themselves.”

  “That’s a shame,” the woman said. “I really hoped to talk to you before I met with the governor and the attorney general for the state.”

  Underwood stared at the woman for a long time. His chose his words carefully. “You are writing this for a Kansas newspaper?”

  She laughed a forced but sweet laugh. “We are neighbors, Mister Director, or is it superintendent? You see. I really need to talk to you, to get all my facts straight.”

  “Yes. And I remember, before you were born, Miss, just how neighborly we could be in the days of Old John Brown, William Quantrill, and Jesse James.”

  “Well . . .” the reporter tried.

  “Where are you staying?” the warden interrupted.

  “The Hotel Missouri on Jackson Street.”

  “What time are your meetings with the governor and General Waterston?”

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “Not until three-thirty tomorrow.”

  “All right.” Underwood wet his lips. “I will send word to your hotel. You’ll be back tomorrow, I’m sure. For your article. Am I correct?”

  “Of course.”

  “And, most likely, your night is filled.”

  “With supper and sleep.”

  The warden smiled.

  “I will make room on my schedule for us to meet tomorrow morning. How long do you need? An hour? Two?”

  “That would be most welcome, sir. Perhaps Mr. Fowlson and Captain Brandt can join us.”

  The smile vacated the warden’s face. “I shall ask them to be there.”

  “And how about The Mole?”

  The warden glared. “The Mole is just a myth, Miss Jernigan. We can talk about all the lies and far-fetched stories one hears from prisoners. Regular tales of blood and thunder more suitable for a dime novel than a solid newspaper like the Enterprise.”

  Miss Jernigan bowed. Fallon figured that she knew, as well as
he knew, that Harold Underwood had never even heard of the Kansas City Enterprise.

  “Mr. Getty,” the warden said. “Please escort Miss Jernigan to the gate.” Underwood bowed slightly. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning, ma’am.”

  As the young guard went to the young woman, warden Harold Underwood went straight to Fallon.

  “What did that prying little weasel ask you?” he said.

  Fallon shrugged. “Nothing much,” he said.

  “Maybe you’d like to go see The Mole again.”

  Fallon smiled. “Well, Warden, sir, seeing as how The Mole’s just a myth, some far-fetched story of blood and thunder that belongs in a dime novel, I doubt if that’s possible, sir.”

  “Anything’s possible in prison, Fallon. Remember Just ask Kemp Carver.”

  Fallon stared.

  “Did she ask about Carver?”

  Fallon’s head shook.

  “Well, that doesn’t matter. Gripewater signed the death certificate. I even sent statements to the Jefferson City Herald and the Evening Star, so word will be out about Carver’s misfortune and accidental death.”

  The warden snapped his fingers, and two big men stopped tapping their line sticks on their thighs and came over.

  “The prisoners have had enough exercise for the day,” Underwood told them. “Round them up and get them to the mess hall for supper. Then get them to their cells for the night. And if you see him talking to anyone who is not a guard, I expect you to tear his head off with your line sticks.” He turned away to return to his office, but stopped, and looked over his shoulder.

  His smile was like a serpent’s.

  “That would be an accident, too, Fallon. You might not believe this, but most deaths in prison are accidents.”

  Yeah, Fallon thought as the two guards came up to his side. Fallon did not believe that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Lights out. Back in the cell with Worsnop, Muldoon, and Frenchy, Fallon waited. His muscles ached, and he swore he could still smell broomcorn on his hands. His jacket stank of sorghum, too, and that smell was more pronounced since Fallon had rolled it up and stuck in under his head to serve as a pillow.

  Fallon put his ear against the wall and tried to hear inside Ford Wagner’s cell. Nothing. A man suffering from consumption, living in a dark, dank dungeon, would likely be hacking up his lungs, and that kind of noise Fallon could at least detect.

  He had been listening for what felt like an hour and heard nothing. That left him wondering if Ford Wagner was dead. Would Underwood leave the man in there to rot as he had left The Mole—Killer Coleman Cain—in the basement dungeon?

  “Fallon.”

  He tensed, and twisted his head, looking in the darkness.

  “Yeah?” Fallon whispered back.

  “What kind of key?”

  He grinned then. Worsnop was a scrounger, and unlike Charley Muldoon, he was willing to take risks. Then again, Worsnop, unlike the weak little arsonist, wasn’t due to be released from The Walls anytime soon. Fallon slid up, using the cold, hard wall like the back of the chair. He had given up on hearing anything next door. Ford Wagner was either a corpse or . . . where could the guards have taken him? And why? The hospital.

  “Not one to the front gate,” Fallon said, “if that eases your mind. But it’s one that could get you in trouble with the guards.” He quickly turned toward the bunk of the arsonist. “Charley.”

  Muldoon did not reply.

  “You’re not asleep, Charley.”

  “And I’m not hearing a thing,” the little man said.

  “You went to the hospital today.”

  “Yeah. The old sawbones said he had to make sure I wasn’t sick before they send me out. And I thought they’d let me out tomorrow, but, no, no, that hard case Fowlson said they won’t let me out till the weekend’s over. He told me that today, while I was at Doc Gripewater’s office. Laughed when he said it, too, just sucked the breath out of me. Ain’t right. No. That ain’t right. Sentence ends tomorrow, and those bastards are keeping me in here till Monday. Ain’t right. Ain’t right at all. But at least I’ll be out of here . . . providing you boys don’t get another six months tacked on to the sentence that fool judge give me.”

  “You’ll be back,” Worsnop said. “Your bed won’t even be cold.”

  “Like hell.”

  “Hey,” Fallon said. “Before you get into a fight, I just have one question for you, Charley. Was Ford Wagner in the hospital?”

  “Wagner?” Charley Muldoon scratched the beard stubble on his chin. “No. No, he wasn’t. He . . .”

  “Let it be, Charley,” Worsnop said. “If you really want to get out of here.”

  Fallon felt the tension settling over the dark, cramped cell. Frenchy rolled over on his bunk, mumbled something, and fell silent again. He might be asleep, Fallon thought, or he might be listening. Fallon guessed it to be the latter. No one slept that soundly in prison.

  All right, Fallon told himself. There was no need to bring up Ford Wagner. He wasn’t in the hospital. Most likely he wasn’t in the cell next door. The guards had taken him away in the dead of night for some reason, and the men in this cell knew that reason, but they were not about to tell a fresh fish. Especially a fresh fish who had been a federal lawman. Fallon had no reason to believe that little fact remained a secret. Secrets were as hard to keep in a prison like a good night’s sleep was hard to get.

  “About that key, Fallon.” Worsnop was changing the subject, and Fallon was fine with that.

  “To the basement cells,” Fallon said.

  “That’s a big key,” Worsnop said.

  “Your pal is a big cat.”

  Muldoon pulled up his blanket. “I had a calico cat once. Do you know that practically all calico cats are girlie cats? You hardly ever see a boy calico cat. I don’t know why. But it’s a fact. My calico cat was named Johnnie. But that was spelled with an ie on account she was a girl.”

  “Did you burn her, too?” Frenchy said. So he was awake.

  “No. Of course not. I never burned no animals. At least, not on purpose.”

  Fallon waited for the banter to cease. When it did, he listened again, but A-Hall remained quiet. His cellmates listened, too, and once Worsnop had convinced himself that no guard was lurking around the third tier of the building, he cleared his throat and whispered, “What do you need a key to the basement dungeons for?”

  “I think I left something in there,” Fallon answered.

  The room fell quiet again, until Frenchy broke out laughing. “You’re all right, Fallon,” he said and coughed a little laugh again. “Left something in there. That’s funny.”

  “Only thing anyone ever left in solitary,” Worsnop said, “is about ten years off his life.”

  “Can you get one?” Fallon asked.

  “That’s a tad harder than cigarettes . . . and smokes ain’t easy because all the guards think we’d burn the damned place down.”

  “Which we would,” Frenchy whispered.

  “Pills is what mostly I get. Snuff, tiny bottles of hair tonic, needles, soap that won’t take the skin off a man’s body. Seidlitz powders. Plug tobaccy. And, well, money.”

  “I don’t dip snuff,” Fallon said. “And hair tonic won’t get me inside the basement cells.”

  “But hair tonic will give you a little kick,” Muldoon said. “Closest thing to liquor a man can get here.”

  “A key,” Fallon said.

  “A key, like you said, would get me in trouble with the guards,” Worsnop said. “I’d have to bribe them good. And I mean real good.”

  “Which cell do you want?” Frenchy asked.

  “The locks are all the same,” Worsnop told him, or maybe he was just thinking out loud. “A key would unlock all the cells, I think, in this here prison. At least A-Hall.”

  “But not the front door,” Frenchy said. “I’ve been here long enough to see how those locks work. One key to the doors coming in or out this dungeon. A
nother one for the doors to the cells. But the ones down in the basement here. I think that’s a different key.”

  “I ain’t hearing none of this,” Charley Muldoon whined again.

  “I don’t want a key to the front door,” Fallon said. “Just one to the basement cells.”

  “It’ll cost you,” Worsnop said.

  “I figured. How much?”

  Worsnop started thinking. “Ain’t you going back to the doctor in the morning?”

  “Gripewater said I was to come back. That doesn’t mean Brandt, Fowlson, or Underwood will let me go back.”

  “Yeah. That’s a fact. But, well, the doc has a lot of gin. A bottle of his hooch. And ten dollars. The dollars need to be script money. One-dollar bills. Those are easier for Edmond Dantès to carry.”

  Fallon laughed out loud. In prison, that had to be the perfect name for the cat. Worsnop surprised Fallon. The prisoner was well-read, but then Harry Fallon had to guess that any convict, who knew his letters, would enjoy reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Fallon had read it at least three times while he was serving his sentence at the Illinois State Penitentiary in Joliet.

  “What about the gin?” Frenchy asked.

  “The bottle of hooch stays here,” Worsnop said. “I’ll share it with you boys, though, just a little. A buck a snort.”

  Another silence filled the dark cell. Fallon guessed that his cellmates were imagining savoring the swill Doc Gripewater called gin.

  “What about it Fallon?” Worsnop said.

  “You drive a hard bargain,” Fallon said, “but that’s a deal.”

  “I’ll need the money in advance,” Worsnop said.

  “I’ll pay you tomorrow night,” Fallon said. He had to guess that he could get some money from Doctor Gripewater, and if the sawbones wouldn’t come up with the cash, Fallon had heard that newspaper reporters sometimes, if desperate enough, would pay their sources a few bucks for a good story. And Julie Jernigan seemed desperate enough.

  * * *

  That morning, when the cell door was dragged open and the guards started their bellowing and cursing, Fallon braced himself for that line stick to crack his skull open. It didn’t happen, though, and he turned to stand next to the railing, head down, eyes on his boots, Muldoon in front of him and Worsnop and Frenchy behind him. He did manage to sneak a look at Ford Wagner’s cell. That door still remained closed and locked.