I couldn’t answer that question.
She cried.
I was trying to be gentle and patient with her. I had to keep reminding myself that she was a murderer. “I think I know why you killed them, but I still don’t understand why you just didn’t turn them in. They would’ve been punished.”
“I didn’t want Anthony to be punished. I loved him. I just wanted to free him from that nigger inmate and that fat bastard banker’s grip. They turned Tony into a monster. He used to be so gentle and kind. They took that away from him. He never made love to me again,” she said and began to cry even more. After crying for about two minutes, her face turned hard and bitter. “He would only fuck me after they sunk their claws in him. They gave him AIDS.”
“What?” I asked in shock.
“Yeah, me too. It’s just a matter of time for me anyway. I’m dying. You’re not. They gave it to me, not you.”
“But you said …”
“I know, but I had just found out, and I was so angry, and I knew you were looking into what had happened. So …”
“So you lied to me.”
“Yes, I blamed you. I blame everybody at this fucking place.”
“You didn’t blame Skipper for what happened to Anthony?” I asked.
“Yeah, I blame him the most. He’s hard to get to though, but eventually I will.”
“No you won’t,” I said. “I’ve got to turn you in.”
She looked at me with pure rage. “Of course you do, you’re a man, aren’t you? All you pricks stick together, when you’re not sticking each other,” she said as the bitterness and guile spewed out of her mouth. “Sick pricks, everyone of you.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I loved him. He was different. You should understand that, you’re a preacher. I’d do it all over again for him. I loved him.”
“Then why did you kill him?” I asked, but what I was thinking was, I don’t have AIDS. I’m going to live-a little longer, anyway. Thank you. I’m sorry for being so angry with you. Please forgive me.
She looked confused. “I loved him,” she yelled. “I didn’t kill him. I killed those other buttfuckers to protect him. I didn’t kill him.”
“Well, the courts will have to decide that.”
“The hell they will. You won’t turn me in. I’ve got that bitch from classification that you’re in love with. I’ll kill her. I’ll slice her open, you prick,” she yelled.
She spun around on her stool to face the bed behind her, pulling off the sheet in one fluid motion.
On the bed behind her, Anna was bound and gagged. Her eyes, filled with tears, expressed the terror she was experiencing. For one brief moment, when our eyes met, there was a quick flash of relief. But that soon changed when Sandra Strickland pulled out a scalpel from her pocket and placed it at Anna’s throat.
“Pretty, isn’t she?” Strickland asked. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll let you have her when I’m finished. You know, a little souvenir. A forget-me-not. I won’t be around, but I bet you’ll think of me every time you see her. You think she’ll be as pretty in death as she is in life?
I want to cut her. I want to slice her open,” she said her voice becoming that of a sadistic child.
“No, Sandy. Don’t. I’ll do whatever you want. I won’t tell anybody. Just let her live. Take me. Cut me instead. I’m a man. I know you’d rather cut a man, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said excitedly, and as she did she pressed the knife too hard against Anna’s throat. As Anna began to scream, muffled by her gag, blood started pouring out of a small opening on the right side of her neck.
“Here I am, Sandra. Cut me. I have all the evidence. She knows nothing. If you kill me, then all of this will be over. Cut me, Sandy.”
“I will,” she said as she stood up. “I’ll cut you bad. I’ll cut you good. So good. But it won’t bring Tony back, will it? WILL IT?” she screamed.
“Miss. Sandy, you okay?” Allen Jones asked as he stepped into the infirmary.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said as he walked over towards her and stood between us. Her knight in shining armor. He quickly glanced at Anna, but made neither expression or comment.
She looked back at me. “I was on vacation, out of town, when my Tony was killed. I didn’t do it. I loved him. I couldn’t kill him. I want him back.”
I thought about what she said. She was right. She couldn’t have killed him. I glanced at Anna, the blood still oozing out of her precious neck.
God, help me save her. Don’t let her die.
I decided to go in a different direction to see what would happen. “That’s what killed him,” I said. “Your love for him got him killed by someone who loves you.”
“What? Who?” she asked, shocked that someone would kill her Tony because of her.
“Him,” I said and gestured with my head toward Allen Jones.
The moment of truth was upon us. It hung in the air like a bad smell. I saw the look of revelation and realization on her face. I pressed on.
“He was watching that night,” I said. “He can be seen just behind Skipper watching what they did to you on the video. So he decided to kill them, but you beat him to the punch on Johnson, so he waits for his chance to get Thomas. When you were away, his wife got him out of confinement by her accusations against me, and it got him killed. Her, too.”
Jones looked away from me and back toward her. She looked at him with pure contempt.
She said, “I loved him, not you. I loved him, and you killed him. You stole him from me.” She started toward him on the offensive. When she reached him, she slapped him hard across the face. He didn’t flinch. “You dumb nigger, you took him from me. I loved him. I didn’t love you. I DON’T LOVE YOU,” she yelled even louder.
Strickland swiped at Jones’s face with the scalpel, slicing his cheek open about three inches. As the blood began pouring out of his cut, it spilled onto the ground and mixed with Anna’s blood, his blood defiling hers.
And then it happened. Jones brought both of his arms up in one quick motion, wrapped his hands around her neck, and snapped it like a twig. Her body went limp, her head fell unnaturally to the side, and when he let go of her, she crumpled onto the floor as if all her bones had been removed. Jones spun around and ran straight for me.
Not so long ago, I had made a vow not to injure another person ever again as long as I lived. But, what I did, I did out of instinct and training, not pledges or promises. It was strictly action and reaction, nothing more. And it was more in hopes of saving Anna, who lay unconscious now, than defending me.
Just before he reached me, I snapped out a hard right jab square on his nose. It stunned him, and blood started to pour out of it, but he was not about to stop. He came again, this time ducking his head down and tackling me like a football player. I was still sore from my last beating and I felt it everywhere as I hit the floor. He sat back onto my chest now, brought his left hand down hard on my chin.
I brought my midsection up, rocked forward, then back, and brought my legs up and wrapped them around his neck. I jerked them back down again hard, and he went down with them.
I jumped to my feet and looked around. There was still no one in sight. Anna’s entire bed, once white, was now crimson. She was dying. I ran over to the door. It was closed, which meant it was locked-it locks from the outside. Normally, just inmates were in here.
I turned around to see Jones getting to his feet and reaching into his back pocket. In another moment he produced from his back pocket a surgical knife similar to the one he had used to kill Thomas.
“You get my letters, fucker?” he hissed at me.
“Yeah, but you just killed the woman those letters were meant to protect,” I said in a voice that said, You’re not only a psychopath; you’re an idiot, too.
“Well, think about this,” he said. “When I finish with you, she’s mine.” He slung his head toward Anna.
“You won’t touch her,” I said, rage pouring out throug
h my tone more than my words. “I won’t let you touch her. IT’S OVER!” I yelled.
He rushed me again. I braced myself for impact and crouched in a defensive stance with my knees bent slightly and my arms up. About halfway to me, his feet flew up into the air and he came crashing down to the floor in a hard thud. He had slipped on Anna’s blood. Her blood saved my life.
He got to his feet again, though, his face registering the stunned feeling he was experiencing. He rushed me again, only slower this time. Just before he reached me, he stopped, his eyes focusing on something behind me.
I spun around to see Merrill Monroe, my friend.
Merrill pushed open the door and stood with an officer’s baton ready to do battle against the forces of darkness.
“Come on, nigga’,” Merrill said in his don’t-fuck-with-me voice as he stepped in front of me. “Let’s get it on.”
Jones’s eyes widened, and just before he started his run towards Merrill, he looked like a rabid dog I had once seen. He ran towards Merrill with his knife in his right hand, extended up and pointing towards Merrill’s heart, unaware that Merrill didn’t have one when he was in these situations. Merrill seemed to wait until it was too late. Jones was right on him before he brought the baton down on his head furiously. Jones stopped, bent down, and dropped the knife. Blood continued to pour from his nose and cheek. He did not, however, fall to the ground. His mistake.
Merrill brought the baton back and down across the left side of Jones’s face. His whole head jerked back to the right, and blood and teeth spewed out in that same direction.
“Don’t fuck with my only white friend,” he yelled. And that was that.
“She cut Anna,” I said, gesturing toward Sandra Strickland as I ran over to Anna’s bed. “We’ve got to get her to a hospital, now.” Reaching down to apply pressure on her wound, I felt her long, elegant neck, her precious warm blood, which there was a lot of, and a faint pulse. I felt a pulse.
“We’re in a hospital. Let’s see if we can wake somebody up around here,” Merrill said as he dashed off to get some medical personnel to come and help save our friend’s life.
Which they did. Not, however, without laying me on a bed beside her and taking some of my blood and pumping it into her. My precious, powerful, virus-free, life-giving blood.
Chapter 47
Perception is reality.
Like the family member who breaks out of the dysfunctional cycle, Merrill and I were viewed as troublemakers at best and traitors at worst. We had delved into the sewer, and we wreaked of it. Those investigating the matter felt that the smell of the sewer on us pointed to our guilt. Like rape victims, we were being blamed for what had happened.
The next three days were filled with interviews, inquiries, and reports with both the DOC and the FDLE. They grilled us for hours-they smelled smoke and were diligently searching for fire. Merrill and I were treated with suspicion and sarcasm. It was as if we were inmates who were suspected of committing a crime. When they finally finished with us, they said that although they couldn’t prove that we had committed crimes, they did, however, hold us responsible for Sandra Strickland’s death.
I held me responsible, too. I just didn’t see it coming. Not once did they mention her crimes. Through it all, Tom Daniels avoided being in the same room with me, and when that failed, he avoided eye contact and interaction.
I did not, however, lose any sleep over Tom Daniels.
It was late Friday afternoon, and I was seated on the edge of Anna’s hospital bed. The sun, refusing to go quietly into the night, shone brightly through the open shades, striping the bed and warming the room with a natural heat that made me long for an afternoon nap in a hammock. The door was closed, and we were alone.
Anna was wearing an oversized cotton nightshirt with bouquets of violets against a soft yellow background. Her hair hung straight down to the smattering of dark freckles just above her breasts and had the fluffy look of having just been blown dry. The bandage on her neck was smaller than the one the day before, and when we had hugged, I had smelled the slightest hint of her perfume.
“Thank you,” she said when I had pulled back from our embrace. Her voice was soft and had a sleepy quality that matched her relaxed mood and heavy, slightly hazy eyes. She was seductive without trying to be, a rare combination of purity and sensuality.
I reached out and ran the back of my fingers across her face and down over her wound. When I reached the wound, I let my hand linger on it lightly while I prayed for her. When I finished praying and opened my eyes, I saw the faint outline of her breasts pressing against the soft cotton of her nightshirt. My hand wanted to continue its journey …
I pulled my hand back to safety, but before I had it on the bed beside me again, Anna grabbed it.
Pulling my hand up to her mouth and kissing it gently, she said, “You’re blood’s in my veins.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I can’t quit thinking about that.”
“Me neither.”
We were silent for a long time as we experienced a connection beyond words.
Later, after the moment had passed, an elderly man in a pale blue hospital outfit brought a food tray and set it on the table beside Anna’s bed. When she smiled at him, he blushed, and I could tell he did not want to leave her room. When he left, she asked me about the events that led up to my confrontation with Strickland in the infirmary on Tuesday night.
After I had given her a brief account of what had happened, she said, “You suspected Strickland over the other nurses, even before you saw the tape. Why?”
“There were several reasons,” I said. “She was the first one to appear on the scene that Tuesday morning in the sally port. At first I thought that the medical department had just responded quickly, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew there’s no way they could have gotten there that quickly.”
“Why was she there?”
“I think she was there to make sure that Johnson was dead. If he were just injured, she could finish the job. And that’s exactly what she did. She smashed his windpipe. She was the only one who could have. She climbed on the back of that truck not as a healer, but as a killer.”
Anna was silent as she pondered what I was saying. Then she said, “What else?”
“Julie Anderson could have only done it if she and Jones were connected somehow, and that didn’t seem likely. Also, she really just didn’t seem capable.”
“Exactly how did Strickland it?”
“She had Hardy take Jacobson to confinement so she could drug and dispose of Johnson. She put him in the caustic storage room, then locked it so that Jones couldn’t get in. Then she spilled a urine sample in the exam room and had Anderson supervise Jones cleaning it up. When Shutt pulled up and knocked on the door, she didn’t answer it. When he walked over to laundry she carried the bags out and put them in his truck.”
“My God,” Anna said. “She was so cold-blooded.”
“I kept remembering what Strickland said to Officer Shutt. She said, ‘I am so sorry-’ like it was her fault. And it was. She also came to us with her concerns about Skipper at a very convenient time. I just kept wondering why she did it when she did. She had so many other opportunities. And, she was genuinely concerned about Anthony Thomas. That’s what she was doing: asking me to protect him.”
As she nodded, she squinted slightly and I could tell that she was picturing everything I was saying.
“And also, I really had a feeling,” I said. “You know, an impression, that she was involved somehow.”
“That’s not fair. You cannot use divine intervention and expect the criminals to have a fighting chance.”
“Of course, when I saw the video, I knew it had to be her and then I also knew why. And it doesn’t mean as much as it once did, but poison is historically a woman’s method of murder. Both of her victims were poisoned or drugged. The violence was never direct, except, of course, for Anthony Thomas.”
“What about Thomas
?”
“Well, I suspected Jones of being involved, too. I knew he had typed the letters to me and Johnson’s request threatening suicide or escape-come to think of it, Strickland could’ve typed the request after she killed him-one of them did it to divert suspicion. Anyway, I knew Strickland hadn’t killed Anthony Thomas. Again, it was direct and brutal violence, the kind she really wasn’t capable of. That night when it all went down, I was just playing them against each other, which is what got Strickland killed.”
“I’d have to disagree with you about Strickland being incapable of direct violence, and so would my neck,” she said, rubbing her bandage gently.
I nodded. “I think she was degenerating fast. She certainly seemed to have had violence planned for Maddox, had the knives out and everything, but Skipper and Thomas banging on the front door scared her off.”
“And John, sin got Strickland killed. The wages of sin are death. She was reaping what she had sown. You didn’t kill her. She killed herself. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said, though it would be a while before I did. “You know, you just preached a powerful little sermon with one incredible object lesson.”
“I was just trying to talk in a language you’d listen to.”
“I always listen to you,” I said.
“Then listen to this,” she said gravely. “Take it slow with this thing with Laura Matthers.”
“I will,” I said and mused at her reason for saying it.
“Now, what about Molly Thomas? Who killed her?”
“That’s a good question,” I said. It’s Dad’s case. I personally think Skipper did it, but I can’t prove it.”
“So Skipper had a prostitution ring, sold drugs, had you beaten up, and has maybe murdered someone, and he gets away with it? Why don’t you show Stone and Daniels the tape?”
“I did,” I said. “They’re meeting with him on Monday morning-if he lasts that long. Word’s gotten out about his systematic abuse of power. But, physician, heal thyself. Have you already forgotten the little sermonette you just preached? He’s not getting away with anything. You reap what you sow. The wages of sin is death. There is a justice that is higher than any we can exact. Nobody gets away with anything. Some just get away with it for longer than others. Besides, think of the price he’s paying for his sin right now. He’s not enjoying anything he’s doing. He’s not living at this point; he’s just surviving. And, he probably won’t do that for long.”
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