The Body and the Blood

by Michael Lister

  “Good man. I’ve no tolerance for easy answers—or anything that explains everything.”

  I nodded. Milton White was a pleasant surprise.

  “Why’re some of the men locked in their cells and some are out in the quad?” I asked.

  “They’re letting a few out at a time. Rotating. Everyone gets a turn.”

  Milton White, sometime philosopher of the PM unit, had been a gentleman thief in his youth. His specialty was large heists without weapon or accomplice. He had taken over a million before he’d ever gotten caught—and that was back when a million was a lot of money.

  “I’m sure there’s a valuable life-lesson in old age,” he said. “But I doubt I’ll learn it.”

  “Maybe this won’t be your only chance.”

  “I don’t think it will be, but I’m sure you didn’t come down here to talk about the afterlife with me, did you?”

  I shook my head.

  “You want to know if I killed Justin Menge. I didn’t. I didn’t have any reason to. I liked him. He was a good kid. He and Chris mainly stuck to themselves. Always polite. Quiet. So rare in here.”

  “Any ideas about who might have?” I asked.

  He looked up at the wicker. “He and Potter had a lot of problems. Potter persecuted him ‘cause he was gay. The truth is, I think Potter’s got latent tendencies. It got pretty bad. I mean, Potter knew they were having sex, but he could never catch them. They were much too smart for him—which only made things worse. Finally, Justin wrote him up.”

  “And you think Potter retaliated?”

  He gave me an elaborate shrug. “Could of been anyone. Don’t take this for more than it is, because it’s probably nothing, but I think he and Chris had been having trouble. Chris was about to get out. That may have had something to do with it.”

  “Why do you think Chris ran?”

  He gave me another shrug. “The obvious implication is that he’s guilty—why else do it with so little time left?”

  “Did you know he was going to?”

  “Had no idea. I’m not saying I would’ve told if I did, but I honestly didn’t. And I’ll tell you something else. No one else knew either.”

  “Because they’d’ve said something now that he’s gone?” I asked.

  “Exactly. You understand the men down here.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Anybody ever ask you how to do it—get in or out of a cell?”

  He shook his head. “Well, I mean they ask me that stuff all the time—how did I do it, could I do it again, could I show them how. But I didn’t tell anybody anything. Not really. Certainly nothing they couldn’t’ve figured out on their own.”

  “Who’d you tell the most to?”

  “Mike,” he said. “But it was a long time ago and it was about escaping.”

  “Hawkins?”

  He nodded. “But it was about someone escaping from his dad’s jail, not—” He stopped abruptly.

  “But he could use the same secrets to break into Menge’s cell, couldn’t he?”

  His eyes grew wide in recognition as he nodded his head very slowly. “He has such a short sentence. I knew he wasn’t planning to escape.”

  “How was it done?” I asked. “How did the killer get in?”

  “There’s a hundred ways. Short-circuit the lock, pick it—but he’d have to be good and it’d take some time to do it.”

  “But you could do it?”

  “I could do it. In about thirty seconds, maybe less if my arthritis wasn’t acting up. It could’ve been done with an inmate ID badge—or staff ID for that matter, but they probably wouldn’t need to do it that way. It could be done with a fork.”

  “A fork?”

  “I could do it with a fork.” As he talked, he moved his hands about in various demonstrations of what he was saying. At the end of his crooked and swollen fingers, his long yellowing fingernails came to sharp points. “Or a wad of toilet paper stuffed into the locking mechanism. Or a piece of tape. Cover the bolt or the hole in the door jamb. The thing is, just an hour or two before, all the cells were unlocked—he could’ve disabled the lock then. So, when Menge gets back in his cell, the door’s unlocked. On the way to Mass, or on the way back to the cell from library or medical, pop in, pop him, and pop out.”

  I looked over at the cell that was in the same position as Menge’s in the other quad. The stairs were close to it. In fact, they partially hid it from us the night of the murder, but the door was still visible and couldn’t have completely hidden someone trying to disable the locking mechanism.

  “Or he could’ve even gotten Justin to do it,” he continued, shifting his weight from one hip to another, wincing in pain and whistling as he did. “Maybe Justin trusted him. Maybe they were going to meet for something—a transaction, a quickie, a discussion. So Menge disables the lock and lets him in. Then the guy double-crosses him.”

  I nodded as I thought about the implications of what he was saying. That seemed much more plausible than any other scenario we’d come up with so far.

  “But the most likely way was for the guy to disable the lock early in the day, then while Justin was at his visit, sneak into his cell and wait for him. When he comes back, the guy cuts him first thing, then sneaks out to Mass or back to his cell.”

  “If you’re right, all he’d have to do was call out his cell number for Mass—while he was still in Menge’s cell—then instead of coming out, he’d slip into it.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  When I walked up to Anna, she had a worried look on her face.

  “What is it?”

  “You seen Merrill?”

  I shook my head. “Why?”

  We were buzzed out of G-dorm, and, sharing an umbrella, walked up the sidewalk of the empty compound in the rain.

  “Officer Ling said he didn’t show up for work today.”

  When she saw my expression, she said, “What is it?”

  “He was going to do a little poking around in Pine County this past weekend.”

  “Oh,” she said, a look of concern crossing her face. “Well,” she added, forcing a smile, “if he’s still in Pine County he shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  “That’s true.”

  The chain-link of the center gate was wet and cold as I pushed it open. The officer in the state-issued clear plastic rain poncho who unlocked it for us was sitting inside the small wooden building in between the two gates in the holding area, his poncho dripping. The tiny building looked more like a bus stop than an officers’ station and he looked about as happy as a kid waiting to go to school on a rainy day.

  “Can you stop in my office for a minute?” Anna asked.

  We had just stepped through the second gate onto the upper compound. On either side of us, the food service and classification buildings were empty, their windows coated with raindrops outside and condensation inside, the weather having driven in the little clusters of inmates who usually congregated around them.

  “Sure. Everything okay?”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance, and she waited for it to end before she answered.

  “I’ve got some more information on the suspects.”

  We strolled through the empty halls, past Psychology and into Classification, our wet shoes squeaking loudly on the polished tile floor.

  As we rounded the last corner, her wet heels slipped on the slick tile, and her feet went out from under her. I reached for her at the same time she fell into me, and we both went down. As we did, I was able to turn us so I would be underneath her.

  Suddenly, we found ourselves in an intimate position gazing into each other’s eyes, faces a fraction apart.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine. You’re the one who’s gonna have to be hospitalized from having an Amazon woman fall on top of you.”

  I gave her an incredulous little laugh and rolled my eyes. Though not a small woman, Anna was as far from Amazon as Pottersville was from the Rainforest.

  Neither
of us made a move to get up.

  “God, I’m so glad no one saw that,” she said.

  “Don’t be so sure. Someone sees everything around here.”

  She looked around, her body rubbing against mine, but still made no attempt to get up.

  “You know we’re supposed to fill out an incident report in case we have to file for workman’s comp later.”

  “Got too much pride.”

  As I felt my body responding to hers, I thought not only of Susan, but of her news that she was pregnant and how nothing would ever be the same again. There was something about being a family instead of a couple that made my desire for Anna seem even more like betrayal.

  “I guess I should get off you,” she said, but didn’t move.

  “What’s your rush?” I asked. “Lay a while.”

  “I would, but you’re a married man.”

  “Well, you were a married woman first,” I said in my most childish voice and smiled.

  “Which is why I have no right to resent your being happily married the way I do,” she said, as she pushed herself off me and stood up.

  There it was. The as yet unspoken truth. I admired her for saying it.

  “You do?” I asked, joining her in an upright position.

  “You know I do,” she said.

  “Now you know how I’ve felt for so long.”

  “Felt?” she asked.

  “Feel.”

  “Let’s change the subject,” she said.

  Without another word, she started toward her office. I followed after her.

  As we walked down the hallway, I thought about what had just happened. In the past, most everything she said about us had been playful—honest, but partially hidden in humor. Now, without the lubrication of humor, there was a rawness to her honesty that I hadn’t seen before.

  When we reached her office, I used her phone to call Merrill. When he didn’t answer, I called his mom. When she told me she hadn’t seen him since Saturday, I called Dad and told him what was going on. He said he’d find him and let me know.

  After I hung up, we talked for a moment about Merrill and decided that a day was too soon to get worked up over.

  “Dad’ll find him,” I said. “He’ll be okay.”

  She nodded. “No doubt.”

  “So . . . what’d you turn up on the case?”

  “A prison hasn’t been built Milton White can’t escape from. They say he’s only inside now because he’s got no place to go. He says he stays for the health insurance.”

  “I just talked to him.”

  “And?”

  “It was helpful. He had some good ideas of how our guy might have gained access to the cell.”

  “This case,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, you think you’ll be able to make one?”

  I shrugged.

  “What happens if you figure out how and who and can’t prove it to a DA or a jury?”

  “Not my department. Have to ask Daniels.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe that creep is your father-in-law again.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I said, “This is the type of case that’ll be very difficult to make—even harder to prove.”

  “It struck me again this weekend just how much Sobel and Menge looked alike,” she said, pulling two prison photos from her desk and handing them to me.

  I looked at them. “There’s a little resemblance, but they’re not twins.”

  “Those were taken when they first came into the system, but look at these.” She handed me two other pictures. “They were taken just a few months ago.”

  Menge had lost weight. Sobel had beefed up. They had the same haircut and uniform and looked almost identical.

  “I just keep thinking this has something to do with it.”

  I nodded. “You’re probably right. “Usually are.”

  Through the window behind Anna, I could see that the rain had stopped and the yard had opened, but raindrops continued to drip off the loops of razor wire into the puddles on the pavement. Two inmates passing by stopped to carry on with one another. Their broad smiles, easy laughter, exaggerated gestures, and crotch-grabbing made them look like they were standing on a street corner somewhere enjoying the good life instead of a prison yard in the middle of nowhere enduring a hard life.

  “I found another connection between Martinez and Matos,” she said, flipping through her notes. “Not only are they in the same gang, but for about a year now they’ve been related by marriage. If either of them’s involved, my guess is they both are.”

  I thought about it.

  “And they’ve both killed before, though neither of them’re in on murder charges.”

  “What’re they in on?” I asked.

  “Martinez on rape and escape—somebody needs to castrate him.”

  “Daniels is working on it.”

  “Matos on drug and assault charges.”

  She studied her notes some more, flipping through several pages.

  “I’m convinced Menge wrote Potter up, though any evidence of it is long gone now. I think the colonel shredded it. And rumor has it that Sobel wasn’t the only man in PM Menge was doing or being done by.”

  “Who?”

  “Talk is Menge and Pitts were spending a lot of time together in the interview room. Maybe getting tune-ups of a different kind?”

  I shook my head. “Not Pitts. Maybe Potter. Milton White said he suspected Potter of having latent tendencies.”

  “You know how prison rumors are. By the time it made the rounds, it could have easily changed from Potter to Pitts.”

  I nodded.

  She didn’t say anything, and seemed ready for me to leave.

  “You uncovered a lot in two days,” I said.

  “You weren’t the only one gettin’ busy this weekend,” she said, without really looking at me. “You were just having more fun at it.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  After walking up to the control room and getting copies of all the logs from the night of the murder, I was back in my office poring over them, Gregorian Chant drifting out of the small boom box on my desk and filling the room.

  I had done some counseling earlier, but had been distracted and ineffective, anxious to go over the logs.

  It wasn’t true of all prisons, but at PCI every time an employee entered or exited the institution, they were logged in and out by an officer in the control room. The same was true of certain key places on the compound, including the dorms.

  I began to compare the “In” and “Out” times of G-dorm with those of the control room, but I didn’t get very far.

  The logs from G-dorm were sloppy, and I could tell that entries were missing—like when Daniels and I had entered together that night. Technically, the employees themselves were supposed to sign the logs, but many times the officer on duty would just do it for them.

  I had seen some poorly kept logs over the years, but those of Pitts and Potter were some of the worst. Still, they had what I needed.

  I picked up my phone, called Dr. DeLisa Lopez in Psychology, and asked to see her.

  “I’ve got several more inmates waiting for me,” she said with just the hint of an accent, “but if you come down right now, I’ll try to work you in.”

  When I walked into her office a few minutes later, she was making notes inside a file folder on top of the filing cabinet in the right corner behind her desk. I sat down, but didn’t say anything.

  DeLisa Lopez, the new psych specialist at PCI, made me think of heat—from her dark, sun-baked skin to her slow, sultry movements that reminded me of summer.

  She looked up and gave me a quick little smile. “I’ll be with you in just a moment. Let me just finish this up.”

  When she had scribbled the last of her notes, she closed the file folder, dropped it in the open drawer, slammed it shut, and sat down.

  “Everyone here makes inmates wait while they talk to staff, usually about nothing, and it’
s disrespectful. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t coddle inmates, but being here’s their punishment. I’m not here to punish them.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m glad you agree. I’ve got several more men to see after you who I don’t want to keep waiting any longer than I have to, so what can I do for you?”

  I decided to be as direct as she was.

  “What were you doing in the PM unit on the evening that Justin Menge was murdered?”

  “My job,” she said, her bearing and tone defiant.

  “It’s just a question. Not an accusation.”

  “It was just an answer. Not a defense.”

  “See anything that might be helpful?”

  “Helpful with what?”

  “Finding out who killed Justin.”

  She shook her head.”Sorry.”

  Though our exchange was direct, even abrupt, we were both still smiling and there was an underlying, if uneasy, playfulness to it.

  On a bookshelf to my left, amid textbooks, DC binders, and her collection of miniature Florida lighthouses, Latin-pop dance music twisted out of a boom box like a merengue on speed.

  “You seem defensive,” I said.

  “I’m not,” she said.

  We fell silent for a moment, the soft music in the background the only sound in the room. She held my gaze, and I really noticed her eyes for the first time. They were very deep, very dark, and rimmed with sparkling gold and copper flecks.

  “You’re always this abrupt?” I asked.

  “You know what kind of environment this is. Maybe I’m a little paranoid. If I come across defensive I’m sorry. I didn’t used to be like this. Just since I started working here.”

  “Why work here?”

  “I won’t for long,” she said. “I was in a situation in Miami where I had to move, so I took the first thing I could find.”

  I nodded.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  “Did you see anyone else while you were down there?”

  “Potter, when I went in. That’s about it.”

  “Which inmates did you see?”

  “Carlos Matos, Chris Sobel, Milton White.”

  “And were the cells still unlocked at that time?”

  She nodded. “I was in there early and got out early.”