“Really?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“The log shows you signed in, but never out.”
“I didn’t sign out. I’m still down there. Seriously, Potter’s an idiot. He wasn’t anywhere around when I left, and the doors were unlocked so I didn’t have to be buzzed out. Pathetic security. Everyone knows that’ll get inmates raped, assaulted, even killed. They just don’t care.”
“Why didn’t you come forward when you heard about Justin Menge’s death? You had to know we’d want to talk to you.”
“I figured you’d come and talk to me when you got around to it.”
I was pretty sure she was lying, but I didn’t know what to do about it, so I decided to leave her alone for now and see what developed.
“Besides,”she added, “I don’t have anything to contribute.”
“Well,” I said with a smile, “I can’t really argue with that.”
Chapter Thirty
When I left DeLisa Lopez’s office, I stopped by the PM unit while it was still empty to have another look around the crime scene. The PM inmates would be moved back the following day, and then any investigation of the physical site would be much more difficult—not to mention completely compromised.
Though the quad had been empty for a while now, the smells of sweat, sleep, stale smoke, and blood lingered like bad memories, and the humid, overcast day seemed to have moved inside, its slate clouds diffusing what little light was present. As I walked, my shoes tapped on the bare concrete, echoing through the emptiness.
Beneath the sagging crime-scene tape across his cell door, Menge’s blood on the floor seemed to cry out. It wasn’t a scream or an angry yell, but a sad and pitiful cry that grieved the interruption and incompleteness of a life too soon cut loose.
I heard footsteps and spun around to see Tom Daniels coming up behind me.
“It’s what we all come to in the end,” he said. “Little more than spilt blood.”
I nodded.
“Came down for one last look around.”
“Why’re you bringing them back in so soon?” I asked.
“Wanna see what happens. One of ‘em’s a murderer. Shake ‘em all up and see what comes out.”
“Maybe more of this,” I said, nodding toward the bloodstained floor.
He shrugged. “Maybe, but maybe it’ll just be an attempt and we can catch him. Or maybe someone’ll start braggin’ about it, ‘cause they all like to brag about what they do.”
I shrugged and shook my head doubtfully. “Any word on the shank?”
“It’s definitely got traces of blood on it,” he said. “FDLE’ll let us know if it matches Menge’s—and if there’re any prints on it.”
“Any word on Sobel?”
He shook his head. “Oh, but get this,” he said. “We found his prints in Menge’s cell.”
“I figured they’d be all over it,” I said.
“Just a partial on the door and on the light fixture.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Everything else had been wiped down. I remember thinking when I had to reconnect the light that the murderer must have disabled it for concealment. We’ve gotta find him.”
I thought about it some more. “So Sobel touched the door and the light after everything was wiped clean.”
“Or he missed those when he was wiping everything clean.”
We looked around some more.
I told him about DeLisa Lopez.
“Think she’s involved?”
“She’s lying about something.”
“Oh, yeah, we found a plastic spoon in Matos’s cell. It was still in the lock. He’s one of the one’s she visited. You gonna follow up with her?”
I nodded.
Neither of us said anything else, and eventually he wandered away.
I climbed the metal stairs to the catwalk and went into Matos’s cell. The place had obviously been thoroughly searched and with little regard for his property. I really didn’t expect to find anything, and I didn’t.
I realized what a waste of time this was and decided to go do something more useful—like look for Merrill or interview other suspects.
When I walked back out onto the catwalk, I saw four Hispanic inmates closing in on Daniels. They were all muscular and heavily-tattooed, one of them with a two-foot length piece of galvanized pipe in his hand.
“We got a little message for you, motherfucker,” the one in front said in heavily accented English. “Leave Juan Martinez the fuck alone.”
I crept down the steps as quietly as I could and came up behind them.
“You know he did not do what you say he did, so just find another little bitch for your punk ass plans. Understand?”
I recognized the inmate talking as Julio Fernandez, but I didn’t know any of the others.
“No,” Daniels said. “Could you say it again? Your accent’s real heavy and—”
“Oh, we got us a smartass, tough motherfucker here, don’t we, fellas?”
The men nodded and voiced their agreement. Tom Daniels was a tough motherfucker.
“Si,” one of them said. “Big hairy balls.”
“How ‘bout we break your fuckin’ skull and see if you understand then?” Julio said.
“Just the four of you?” he asked.
I smiled. I had never seen this side of my father-in-law before. Of course, I had never seen him sober in a situation like this before either. He actually seemed to want to fight them. Then it hit me—of course he does. He’s so angry about what happened to Sarah he’s gonna get himself hurt or killed.
“Four?” Julio asked. “It won’t take all four of us, old man. I can kick your ass all by myself.”
I glanced over my shoulder into the wicker. I couldn’t see any officers, but it was partially blocked by the stairs. Had someone buzzed them in or had the door been unlocked?
“I think you just like to hear yourself talk,” Daniels said. “Sounds to me like you’re just trying to impress your little bitches.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was a very different Daniels.
I was puzzled at the source of his confidence. Surely it wasn’t my presence. Maybe he thought he could back the guy down with his aggression, but the reverse seemed to be happening. Or maybe he thought he really could handle himself. But I wasn’t going to take that chance. Susan would never forgive me if I let anything happen to her dad.
When Julio drew the galvanized pipe back to strike Daniels, I grabbed it from behind, snatched it from his hand, and hit him on the side of the head with it.
He went down.
Blood poured out of his right ear, and he shrieked in pain as he raised his hand to it.
You didn’t have to hit him with it. You could’ve just taken it away.
His cry startled me, and I felt nauseous for the pain I had inflicted. I recalled telling Mike Hawkins how we were supposed to turn the other cheek just a few hours before. Maybe that wasn’t possible in my current situation, or maybe if I concentrated on just being a chaplain and didn’t get involved in investigations, or didn’t work in a prison, I could do it. I had to figure it out.
The nausea quickly subsided, the reflection abruptly halted, as the other three inmates surrounded me.
I swung the pipe and they backed up a step. When they did, Tom Daniels kidney-punched the one closest to him and he went down.
Two down. Two to go.
I swung the pipe again, catching one of them at the base of the neck. There was a loud crack like the snap of a branch, and I feared I had broken his neck, but the moment he hit the floor, he was scurrying to his feet again.
Within an instant, Daniels was beside me, and we were backing toward the door as the three still on their feet were moving in on us. They never rushed us, only walked steadily after us. And in another moment, I knew why.
As we continued to back our way out of the quad, I bumped into what seemed to be a new wall.
When I turned around, I co
uld see that the wall was actually a large Hispanic inmate. He smiled broadly, exposing gaping holes where his front teeth should be, and ripped the pipe from my hand.
The other inmates swarmed around us.
“Hello, Jésus,” the leader said. “Fellas, aren’t we glad to see Jésus?”
They all indicated they were glad to see Jésus.
“I really don’t want to be killed by someone named Jesus,” I said. “And I certainly can’t hit someone with that name.”
“Shit,” Julio said. “When you think about it, it fits—you will go from the hands of Jésus into the arms of Jesus.”
“You’re right,” I said to Daniels. “He does love to hear himself talk.”
The smile left his face as he drove an uppercut into my abdomen that doubled me over and left me gasping for air.
From that position, searching for the air that had suddenly rushed out of the room, I watched as Tom Daniels, in one fluid motion, kicked Jésus in the groin, snatched the pipe from his hand, and hit Julio in the mouth with it.
Blood, spit, and teeth sailed through the air and splattered on the bare cement floor.
Jésus and Julio both went down, though I’m not sure who hit the floor first, nor who was in the most pain, but neither of them made any attempt to get up.
Daniels shook his head. “They just got finished cleaning up this place.”
With the shepherd stricken, the sheep scattered. The two close to us were joined by the one who had remained on the floor back where all the fun began, and they rushed out of the quad.
“I just want you to know,” I said as Daniels walked over toward me, “that I will always take very good care of your daughter and won’t ever do anything to upset her or you.”
As he helped me up, I said, “You gonna have them locked up?”
He shook his head. “Let’s leave them out so they can fuck up some more.”
Though I was moving slowly, he matched my pace as we walked out of the quad. When we neared the door, I looked up through the glass to the wicker. There was still no sign of anyone.
“You think someone let them in?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Quad door was unlocked. It’s possible that the outside door was too. That’s the problem with using these dorms the way they do. It creates bad habits. Hell, the outside doors aren’t locked half the time.”
He was right. G-dorm had been designed for maximum control over close custody inmates—inmates who didn’t leave their cells except for showering and limited exercise—but it was being used like an open bay dorm on one side and PM on the other. On one side, the doors stayed unlocked most of the time, open population inmates coming and going all the time. On the other the cell doors stayed open, but the quad and dorm doors did not—or weren’t supposed to. It was easy for errors and accidents to happen, but like most things at PCI, it wouldn’t be corrected until a serious incident occurred—and only then if a staff member was involved or an inmate filed a lawsuit.
He added, “Maybe it was buzzed open for an inmate assigned to clean or something and he let the others in.”
“Be hard not to notice them in there with us.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But with the quad closed down right now, maybe they’re not looking in it at all.”
“So you’re not going to pursue it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Let’s just let everything play out. Keep everyone in the mix, see what happens—at least until we know for sure who our guy is.”
“I just hope no one gets hurt while we wait. Not everyone can take care of themselves like you.”
“I’m going over to have a little talk with Martinez before I go.”
“I would ask if you wanted me to go with you,” I said, “but you obviously don’t need backup.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Later that afternoon, Susan called from her car to tell me she was on her way to Tallahassee and wanted me to meet her there that evening to have dinner with her parents. I asked her if we were doing this because our last meal together had been so much fun.
She also said she had another surprise for me.
Dinner with her psychopathic parents and another surprise. My karmic condition was far worse than I realized.
Though dreading the evening and the potential drama it held, I looked forward to the drive over. I had been wanting some uninterrupted time to think about and process the case in light of the new information we had, and this provided the perfect opportunity.
I took Highway 71 to Blountstown, turned onto 20 to Bristol, then cut over on 212 through Greensboro to I-10, all the while letting thoughts of the case flow through my mind.
How had Menge’s body gotten from the floor to the bed? Who had moved it? It seemed a loving act—the careful placement and the partial covering with the blanket. Were the victim and the killer close? Had they been intimate? That would put Sobel in the lead—unless Menge and Potter really had something going on too.
Where was Sobel? How had he gotten out? Who had the juice to make that happen? I let that thought linger a moment, exploring it further.
Was it just a coincidence that Menge was killed the only night Paula came to visit him? Did she have something to do with it? She was certainly benefiting the most—financially anyway. There were other benefits and motives, as well, though. Did she kill Sobel after the memorial service? It was possible.
How had the killer gotten in the cell, killed him, drained the blood, moved the body onto the bed, covered it, and gotten out of the cell without being seen? Was Milton White’s theory right or did the killer have an accomplice?
Where was Merrill? I was beginning to get worried. I needed to be going to Pine County instead of Leon.
Thinking of where I was headed made me think of Susan. I loved her and felt genuine hope for us. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we could have a good marriage—a good family for our baby. Remembering that she was pregnant gave me that drowning sensation again, and I felt trapped, but it quickly passed, and was replaced by excitement. I wanted to be a dad. I was ready for that.
The case was moving so fast, information flying at us so rapidly, though how much of it was true was difficult to know, and there were so many suspects, so many leads, I couldn’t keep up. Did Menge really have enough on Martinez to be a credible threat? Had Martinez killed him because of it?
And what about the shank and the blood-covered CO uniform? Had an officer or staff member committed the crime with a shank to make it look like an inmate or had an inmate gotten hold of a CO shirt somehow to make it look like an officer?
Why hadn’t DeLisa Lopez signed out? What was she really doing down there? What was she hiding? Why was she lying?
Where was the video with the tune up on it? Did it really exist? If it did exist, I had to find it. I had an idea where it might be, but couldn’t look for it on my way to Tallahassee. I needed more time. I needed for things to slow down just a little so I could catch up.
It felt good to think about everything, but by the time I reached the Tallahassee-Thomasville exit, I continued to have far more questions than answers. Still, it helped to just ponder some of the questions, and I could feel some subconscious stirrings, so maybe it wouldn’t be long before something would bob to the surface as an insight of some sort.
When I arrived at Tom and Sarah Daniels’s house, I found the front door ajar.
I was early, and I knew Tom was still at the prison. Alarmed, I rushed in and found Sarah waving a small handgun at a young Hispanic guy in a dark brown uniform.
Though she had the obvious advantage, she was hysterical, her voice frenzied, her movements frantic, and I thought she was actually going to shoot him.
“John,” she yelled when she saw me. “Oh, thank God. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“He tried to rape me.”
I walked past the thin guy with straight shiny black hair and over to her. “You’re all right now. You’re
safe. Let me have the gun.”
She handed me the gun, and I turned toward him. He looked as surprised to see me as I was him.
“You’re a priest?” he asked.
“You’re with UPS?”
“Yeah. Are you her priest? Can you settle her down? She’s really crazy.”
“I’ll kill you, you bastard,” Sarah yelled.
Before this moment, I had never heard her raise her voice or use profanity. Not once in the nearly ten years I had known her. She had always been a meek, quiet little enabler for a husband who abused alcohol but had never abused her—at least not physically.
I stared at her in shock.
Like her daughter, Sarah Daniels had brown hair and eyes. However, unlike Susan, she was petite, a full six inches shorter. Her hair was cut much shorter than Susan’s, streaked with gray, and it had a brittle texture I had never noticed before.
“Well, I will,” she said defiantly. “The sick fucker tried to rape me.”
“I just tried to deliver a package. That’s all. I never tried to rape nobody. She pulled the gun on me before I had a chance to even give her the package, let alone try to rape her.” “Where’s the package, then, huh?” she screamed, her eyes narrowing as her face contorted into a mask of rage. “Where is it?”
“Right there,” he said, nodding toward a small cardboard box near the front door. “It’s right there where I dropped it when you pointed the gun at me.”
He backed over to the door, carefully picked up the package, and brought it to me.
As I watched the scared young delivery man retrieve the package, I noticed how messy Sarah’s house was. In stark contrast to its previous immaculate state, it looked as if a different family had taken up residence.
The package was addressed to Sarah Daniels, and all the information was correct. The return address was an Internet bookstore.
“Did you order a book off the Internet?” I asked.
Sarah was pacing behind me. She stopped abruptly when she heard my question.
“Yeah?”
“May I open it?”
She nodded.
I carefully opened the package while keeping the gun on the fearful delivery man, which wasn’t easy. Inside I found two books: Worse than Murder: Women’s Stories of Rape and Advanced Self-Defense Techniques for Women.
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