Power in the Blood jj-2

by Michael Lister

  “Can you get the sheriff to assign a deputy to me?” she asked, sounding impressed.

  “I think so,” I said confidently.

  “You are something else, Chaplain,” she said with a puzzled expression on her face.

  “No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m just related to him.”

  “Oh, I see. Chaplain,” she said, turning deathly serious, “will you please check on Tony for me? I need to know he’s all right.”

  “I will.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet,” I said.

  “But you will,” she said. “I know it.”

  Chapter 18

  “What exactly are we doing here?” Anna asked.

  We were sitting at the large conference table in the medical break room designed more for meetings than breaks. In fact, it was a conference room with a Coke machine in the back of the medical building. The corridor leading to it led past the steel doors of the suicide cells on one side and the glass walls of the infirmary on the other. I was drinking a can of “pure Florida orange juice,” she a Diet Pepsi, both produced by the vending machine.

  “We’re taking a break,” I said. She looked confused. “You know, a break. We’re state employees; we takes lots of them.”

  “Oh, we do?” she asked, raising her left eyebrow to a sharp point.

  I called her shortly after returning from my meeting with Molly Thomas. Just prior to calling Anna, I called Tom Daniels and asked him to quietly get the FDLE technicians to examine the chapel floor for trace evidence that might verify Molly’s story. I had no reason to doubt her, but in dealing with inmates and their families I had learned to verify everything. Besides it was an incredible story. I also called Dad and told him about the case and asked him to look out for Molly.

  “Okay, so we never do,” I said, “but today we are turning over a new leaf.”

  She sipped some more of her Diet Pepsi. Where she’d found a straw, I had no idea.

  “You know,” I continued, “I never once saw Susan drink out of a straw. She said it causes wrinkles around the mouth.”

  “What?” she asked, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. Anna had never liked Susan, which was difficult while we were married, but wonderful now.

  I shrugged. “She was always obsessing about something.”

  Anna sucked on the straw even harder; her cheeks drew and gulping noises surfaced from the bottom of the can. Like everything she did, this, too, had the unique blend of sensuality and innocence. I’m not saying she didn’t know she was sexy-she was far too confident in it. But just as those raised in wealth are unaware of their privilege, Anna never seemed conscious of her beauty.

  “What we’re really doing here,” I whispered, “is looking around for clues.”

  Her eyes widened. “Clues? Like real detectives? Am I playing Watson to your Holmes?”

  “Being my partner would make you either Curly or Moe, not Watson.”

  “I think I’ll be Moe and let Merrill be Curly.”

  “Fine by me,” I said. I then grabbed her nose between my first two fingers and brought my other hand down pretending to hit it and said, “Hey, Moe.”

  She smiled that smile. For just a moment, time paused. And the Stooges were the furthermost thing from my mind.

  “Actually,” she said, “I should be Nancy Drew or your Girl Friday, you sexist pig,” she said with a different smile.

  “You know, you’re right. I almost forgot that you are a woman. I’ll be James Bond, and you can be- “

  “I will not be a Bond bitch,” she said, cutting me off.

  “I think the term is Bond babe,” I said through a laugh.

  “Whatever.”

  I sat there preparing to talk to her about the letters. It was more difficult than I would have thought, primarily because of what I thought her reaction was going to be.

  “I need to talk with you,” I said finally.

  “We are talking.”

  “We need to have a serious talk. I want you to really listen to what I’m going to say. I’m not joking.”

  “Okay, what is it?” she said, tired of the buildup.

  “I’ve received a couple of letters threatening someone that I love. I think they’re about you.”

  “What did they say?”

  I told her.

  “It’s not necessarily about me.”

  “No, not necessarily, but I think it’s probably about you. I love you more than anyone within miles of this place, and the letters are coming from within the institution.”

  “You’re probably right,” she said soberly. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to listen to me. If anything happened to you …” The thought just lingered in the air. I regretted saying it.

  “Well, then, you’ll just have to stop anything from happening to me.”

  “I don’t trust me to do that.”

  “I do,” she said, her voice full of certainty. “This is not Atlanta. I’m not convinced that was your fault anyway, but even if it was, it’s time to move on. You’re very good at what you do-at all the different things that you do. I trust you to take care of me, to solve this case, and to continue to do the work of God, too.”

  “And on the weekends, I could bring about world peace,” I said.

  “It is a lot, but you can do it. I’m serious.”

  I could tell that she was. “Thank you,” I said. “I want to talk to you more about the whole Stone Cold Killer thing. Not now, but soon. I know you need to. For now, I want you to be very careful. Play it safe, okay? Don’t go anywhere or do anything alone inside here, okay?”

  “Okay. It’s going to be all right. I’m going to be fine. You’re going to figure all of this out. Once again, save the day.”

  We drank a little more. I knew that we needed to get on with our search, but I was content just to be in her company. She was refreshing. If being happy is being unable to think of another place you’d rather be than where you are, then I was happy.

  “I need to look in some of the rooms down here, and I need someone to cause a distraction, and, honey, you are distracting,” I said.

  “You asked me down here just to be a distraction? I’m insulted. I am more than just another pretty face.”

  “Without question. You’re a versatile woman who can do anything. And the anything that this situation calls for is distraction. Another time and in another place, you can use your other assets.”

  “As long as you don’t forget that I am woman, phenomenally,” she said, alluding to Maya Angelou’s poem, which I wouldn’t have known had it not been for her.

  “Phenomenal woman, that’s you,” I said completing the line of the poem. “Now, what I need is for you to talk to the officer in the infirmary. And be as distracting as you can.”

  She was.

  I decided to look in the caustic storage closets first since this was where the cleaning chemicals were stored. They were both locked. I reached in my back pocket and whipped out my Visa card, slid it down the side of the doorjamb, and the door opened-too easily. Someone had done this before-many times.

  I glanced at my Visa before I put it back. It had a tear in it that broke the magnetic strip. I smiled. It was maxed out anyway.

  The first closet had a single metal shelf that looked like it should have been in someone’s garage. It was filled with boxes of garbage bags, paper towels, toilet paper, and rubber gloves. The very bottom shelf was filled with white plastic bottles of PRIDE chemicals: wax, stripper, floor cleaner, and glass cleaner. There were also two cans of the cleaning spray that kills HIV and hepatitis on contact surfaces like toilet seats.

  I got down on my hands and knees to take a closer look. I resisted the urge to touch them, which made it tough to see well. I moved to the side of the shelf, and then I saw it. On the back side there was a bottle of cleaner leaking, the liquid standing around the base of the bottle, the shelf, and the floor. I had not done a lot of detecting late
ly, so I wasn’t sure, but I thought this looked a lot like a clue.

  Amazingly enough, I was right. It was another reason I had faith-anything’s possible. I was so thrilled about being right and finding an actual physical clue that I decided not to check the other closet.

  Daniels would do it with crime scene investigators who were equipped to process it.

  I walked back up towards the front. In the long corridor that led up to the infirmary, the elderly inmate orderly named Jones was mopping the floor. He was so quiet and his moves so understated that I probably wouldn’t have noticed him except that he was whistling. It was a very soft, airy whistle. I wasn’t sure, but the tune sounded like “As Time Goes By.” When I arrived at the infirmary control room, Anna was still beguiling the young officer, Ron Straub. He never had a chance.

  “How you doing?” I asked him when I walked in.

  “Fine. How are you, Chaplain?” he said, not bothering to mask his irritation at the intrusion-the second one in as many days.

  “Do you have an inmate in the infirmary named Anthony Thomas?”

  He looked away from me very quickly, but it was in the direction of the infirmary, so I couldn’t tell if he was just looking to see if Thomas was in the infirmary or if he was startled by the question.

  “Jones,” he yelled to the orderly, “wasn’t Thomas put in confinement Tuesday morning?”

  Through the windows of the control room, I could see the inmate slowly walking up the hallway toward us.

  “Yes, sir,” he said when he reached the door. And then he walked back.

  “He’s in confinement,” Straub said.

  “Thank you. I’ll see him there. Have a good day,” I said and began to walk away. When I began to leave, he smiled. When Anna joined me, he stopped.

  “What did you find?” Anna asked when we were seated in her office again.

  “I just may have found where the body was stored until the trash was taken out.”

  “Where?”

  “In one of the caustic storage rooms at the end of the hallway past the infirmary. It would make the perfect place. That hallway is almost always empty, and next to no one goes into that closet.”

  “What made you look in there in the first place?”

  I told her.

  “Why did you ask about Anthony Thomas? I mean, does it have something to do with this case?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Why?”

  She smiled that smile from ear to ear and shrugged as if to say, What canary? “Well,” she began, “some men, most men, will brag when given the opportunity to do so to an attentive female.”

  “I quite agree.”

  “So, I gave Ron my full attention and just a hint of thigh and he sang like a Pointer sister.”

  “A Pointer sister?”

  “They’re making a comeback.”

  “I wondered where they had gone. I figured they found a man with a slow hand and just couldn’t quite get back on the road anymore.”

  “I think he left them. Anyway, Ron told some tales, and one of them was about an inmate who was having an affair with one of the nurses.”

  “Thomas?” I asked

  “Thomas,” she said. “So I wondered how he figured into all this.”

  “I don’t know how or if he does really. Did he say which nurse it was?”

  “No. I don’t think he knows. He was just showing off and probably feeling me out as to whether or not I would go with an inmate.”

  “I see. Well, what now?” I asked. “You’re going to be extra careful. Lock your doors; don’t go anywhere alone. Play it safe.”

  “And you,” she said, “are going to continue your search-that is, if you are handling it as well as you seem to be.”

  I stood to leave. “It is no illusion. So far, I’m okay. But you go right on asking because it makes me feel looked after.”

  “I try,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “You succeed.”

  Chapter 19

  Back in my office, I sat entering all of the information I had about the murder into my computer when Merrill Monroe walked in.

  He didn’t knock, which meant he had asked Mr. Smith if anyone was with me. He would have knocked otherwise. He walked in and took a seat in the same way he did everything, with natural rhythm-like he was made to do it. I knew it to be over a hundred degrees outside, but not because Merrill showed any signs of it. He moved and looked as if he had just come in from an invigorating walk in the cool, crisp air of a fall morning.

  “’s up?” he said when he was seated in front of me.

  “Got me,” I said. “You’re looking at the man who knows the very least about the way things work around here.”

  “It is a different world, but you’s a quick study, boss.”

  “Yeah, I’ve certainly proven to be lightning quick so far.”

  “You doin’ okay. Got a lot of people talkin’. Something or somebody goin’ to snap. Just keep pourin’ on the heat, puttin’ on the pressure, and eventually the cooker gonna explode.”

  “The very fact that people know I am investigating lets you know how poorly I’m doing.”

  “Well, it can work to your advantage,” he said, instantly losing his dialect. “Have you rounded up the usual suspects yet?”

  “Yes, and the butler did it.”

  “He’s black, too, isn’t he?”

  “Of course. Come to think of it, there is really only one suspect of African descent.”

  “Everybody’s of African descent. We were the first people on Earth.”

  “I should have said that there is only one black suspect so far.”

  “The nigga’ got a name?”

  “Name and a number,” I said. “Allen Jones. Inmate who works in the infirmary. He’s not really a serious suspect. He has no motive that I can see, but he was there and in charge of handling the garbage. He also has access to a typewriter. Most inmates don’t. But Anderson says he didn’t take the trash out on Tuesday. Speaking of which, what can you tell me about Shutt?”

  “Not much,” he said. “He’s pretty new. Seems okay. For a white boy, I mean. He a suspect?”

  “Yeah. He picked up the trash, and he’s the one who actually did the deed.”

  “Shook him up like hell, too, though, didn’t it?” he asked.

  “Maybe. Did you ever see Fatal Attraction?” I asked.

  “Did Spike Lee make it, or was Denzel in it?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Then, no,” he said as if stating the obvious.

  “Well, anyway, it’s about this lady who goes crazy for this married man she had an affair with. Threatens his family-tries to kill them, even boils their pet rabbit. Anyway, for the longest time, I thought Glenn Close, the actress that played the crazy woman, was really crazy-scary, you know. But a few years later, I saw her in another role, and I was convinced that she was a saint. There are some good actors in this world, and they aren’t all in Hollywood.”

  “Who else?” he said, shaking his head at my Glenn Close analogy.

  “Jacobson, of course.”

  “Of course. But do you really think he’s the one?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. Not ready to rule him out yet. He’s very smart. And, then there’s Skipper.”

  “He’s probably involved somehow. He’s a mean bastard. Bad to the bone, and not in the good way either. Anybody else?” he asked.

  “Anybody who was in medical that night-Anderson, Strickland, even Skipper was there. Or anybody else, for all I know.”

  “You’ve really narrowed it down, haven’t you?” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Got a motive?”

  “Seems to be either sex, drugs, or rock ’n’ roll. Or something else maybe.”

  “You really good at this shit, Sherlock,” he said with a wide grin.

  “Aren’t I, though.”

  “What about racial? Victim was black and most of your suspects are white. Besides, Jacobson is a full-fledged Nazi.”
>
  “That’s true. See, I really am clueless. There’s something else, too, that I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “I all ears, boss,” he said with a big smile.

  “All teeth,” I said. “It’s about Anna. I think she might be in danger. I’ve been getting threatening letters and I think they’re about her.”

  “Have you told her?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but I could tell that she didn’t take it very seriously. Would you help me keep an eye on her?”

  He didn’t say anything, but his nod and the expression on his face told me he would.

  We were silent for a few minutes. Through the thin chapel walls I could hear a group of inmates having an argument. And, although I couldn’t hear what the argument was about, I could guess. Most of their arguments were about either religion or football. Then I told him about Molly Thomas and her experience with Captain Skipper.

  “What do you think of correctional officers?” Merrill asked when I finished my story.

  “I think most of them are good people doing a very difficult job with little resources for little pay.”

  “You don’t think they’re all like Patterson or Skipper?”

  “No, of course not. But, I don’t think they’re all like you either. I know there are very few Skippers or Pattersons in the department-maybe just the two. What concerns me even more is that there are very few Merrill Monroes in the department. The department’s in such a hurry to fill positions that they’re compromising standards.”

  “True enough. What’s the solution?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. That’s why I’m not very critical. It’s a complex problem that requires a complex solution that’s beyond me.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “It’s not? What is it?”

  “A complex solution that includes you.”

  “Be nice to think so, wouldn’t it,” I said.

  Shortly after Merrill left, Mr. Smith brought inmate Jesus Garcia in to see me.

  “Chaplain,” he began, “I been serving the Lord now for about six months. I don’t miss church. I really been gettin’ in the Word, you know. Jesus has changed my life. I’m a new creature in Christ. Since I been serving the Lord, I have been so blessed. I stopped having nightmares, and I been treating my wife a lot better. When we talk or write each other, we really get along. We stopped fighting and everything. I will never hit her again.”