I didn’t say anything. I knew that the kind of man Merrill was wouldn’t let him not respond to what Hawkins had done to him. I also knew he knew how I felt about vengeance and the need for true justice and compassion, and I respected him too much to tell him again.
“You’re right. They won’t stop until they kill us.”
“I kill them first,” Merrill said, “they got no choice but to stop.” He looked over at me. “When they come after us—which make it self-defense.”
“You can’t be serious,” Susan said to Merrill, then turned to me. “He’s not serious, is he? I mean, you’re in the business of punishing murderers. You can’t just kill someone.”
“I’m in the business of keeping inmates captive against their will,” he said. “But that’s got nothing to do with this.”
She looked at me. “You can’t just let him kill someone.”
“I look like I could stop him?”
“You could try. You could talk to him.”
“Merrill knows how I feel, and I understand how he does.”
“What about right and wrong? What about the law?”
“Two different things,” Merrill said.
Susan studied Merrill for a long moment, then looked back over at me as if I were a stranger.
In the midst of everything, I made a mental note to call my sponsor.
“What would you do if it were you?” she asked me.
“Protect myself and my loved ones as best I could, but it’s not me, and it’s too easy for people to say what they’d do when they’ve never been put in a remotely similar situation. I don’t think you understand the kind of people we’re dealing with—that we deal with every day.”
“But you don’t have to be like them to deal with them, do you?”
Sharon looked at Susan with surprise. “These guys are nothing like Howard and Mike.”
She thought about it. “Look at what Dad’s doing. He’s working hard to keep Martinez in prison, and he’s not breaking the law or worse—take it into his own hands—to do it.”
A couple of tables away, a heated argument over a decision Bobby Bowden had made in the fourth quarter turned into a shouting match, and a pitcher of beer was turned over, splattering the jeans of those who sat nearby as it hit the floor.
“And what Dad or he would do,” Susan said, not even using Merrill’s name, “is not what I’d expect from you. I thought you were different.”
“He is,” Merrill said.
She didn’t say anything.
“You know he is. He the reason I’m not over in Pine County right now with a big stick. One thing you can count on, he in something, he’s gonna figure out the right way to be in it.”
“Like helping his friend,” Sharon said. “Protecting me—and you.”
“I don’t need you two to explain my husband to me.”
Sharon said, “If I just take off, who knows, maybe they’ll never find me.”
“You can go wherever you want to,” Merrill said, “soon as they not a threat to you.”
“Well, I’ve got to go,” Susan said. “Right now.”
She made a move to slide out of the booth. I got up and let her out.
“Later,” Merrill said.
“Stay with Merrill,” I said to Sharon. “Don’t run off. This won’t take much longer.”
Susan didn’t wait on me and when I reached the car, she was already inside.
“Why’d you get so upset?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Please tell me.”
“I don’t know . . . I just got so scared. And then I got so angry that he thinks he knows you better than I do.”
“I was just trying to be honest with you,” I said. “I do believe in compassion, but . . .”
“Are you becoming like the criminals you work with?”
“I’m trying not to, but . . . I don’t know. All I can do is try to figure it out as I go along. I don’t have a manual. I know there’s a time for mercy, there is, but there’s also a time for justice.”
“In this life?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why else would your dad and I do what we do? I still believe one day God will somehow make every crooked place straight, but for now, she’s left it up to us. I’ve always equated justice with fighting for the powerless, the disenfranchised, and though Merrill is anything but weak, there’s something about what the Hawkins did to him that reminds me of the white supremacy of the Old South, of lynchings, and the corruptness of absolute power.”
She nodded. “I can see why you would see it that way, but you have some blinders on when it comes to Merrill.”
I thought about it for a moment. “I’m sure I do.”
“Just tell me you’re not like him. Tell me you couldn’t murder someone. Tell me prison hasn’t changed you that much.”
“You know what I’m like.”
“I thought I did.”
“You’ve known me a long time, you think I could commit premeditated murder?”
She shook her head.
Susan’s car was cold, the breath coming from her rigid body forming small clouds as she talked.
“But you’re just going to let him kill those people—or get killed trying to?”
“I don’t let Merrill do anything.”
“I don’t hear you trying to talk him out of it.”
She was right. I hadn’t been.
“Do you not care if he kills them?”
I thought about it. I wasn’t sure I did—at least not in self-defense, but was that really what it was? Was it really all that different? What had happened to me? At one time I had been convinced that I was supposed to extend compassion to everyone regardless of their response. I believed it my duty to minister mercy—whether or not it was received. Now I seemed to be picking and choosing who was worthy. Were power-hungry sociopaths like Hawkins exempt?
“Think about what you preach,” she continued. “What you stand for. Your message is one of compassion.”
“And justice.”
“You can’t think if he kills them justice is served. “You can’t be this big a hypocrite.”
I let out a harsh, involuntary laugh. “Don’t be so sure.”
Chapter Forty-eight
I met my sponsor at a coffee shop in Panama City the next morning.
His name was Dennis, but everybody called him Den. He was a retired cop from New York with a lot of time in the program and a decade completely clean. He was tough, direct, and always available—though I seldom called him.
“Been so long I heard from you, I figured you for dead.”
I loved the way he talked, not only his accent and the speed his words shot out, but his speech patterns. Just hearing his voice made me feel better.
I told him some of what was going on, but more of how I was handling it, the thoughts and feelings I was having, and some of the things I had done.
“You drinking?” he asked.
I shook my head.
He studied me for a long moment.
“Going to meetings?”
“Not regularly.”
“You’ve never gone regularly. You goin’ at all?”
“Not lately, no.”
He nodded to himself as if I had confirmed his suspicions.
Meetings had never been a big part of my recovery process. I went sporadically at best, but it had never been a big issue between us. As long as I wasn’t drinking he was okay with it.
“Self-reliant bastard, aren’t you? Works for you, though.”
“Some of the time.”
“Most of the time. How close you to drinking?”
I shook my head. “Nowhere close.”
“Why I don’t press the meetings. Still, be better you go.”
I nodded.
Our coffee came, and we went through the ritual of preparing and drinking it. As a general rule no one drank more coffee or smoked more cigarettes than recovering alcoholics—yet another way in which I was a mis
fit.
“So you’re not drinking?”
“Acting out in other ways.”
“Rage and what not?”
I nodded.
Den was a large man with big fleshy paws and an enormous balding head. As if to make up for the hair missing on the top of his head, he wore the sides and back too long, and I loved that about him.
As usual, he had on a short-sleeved Hawaiian-style shirt unbuttoned and open, a wife beater visible beneath, gray chest hair bursting out of the top of it.
“This is not so much about sobriety as serenity,” I said. “I feel so hollow. My thinking’s all messed up.”
“And your spiritual life’s for shit.”
“Exactly,” I said, and I realized that just talking to him was helping.
“This case won’t go on forever.”
“There’ll always be another, and I wasn’t doing so good before it started.”
“It possible you expectin’ too much from yourself?”
I gave him a wry smile. “That’s usually not a problem.”
“I know better. You got a lot of shit on you right now and you’re still not drinking. Start there. That’s no small thing. Second, so what you smack around a rapist? So the fuck what?”
“It’s not just that. I’m slipping. I can feel myself sliding back into somewhere I don’t want to be.”
He nodded. “I understand that, and I realize you got to get your head right. I’m just sayin’ lighten up on yourself a little. So you ain’t a fuckin’ saint, so the fuck what? Who the fuck is? You’re a cop.”
“I’m a chaplain.”
“You’re both. So you’re actin’ more like a cop at the moment. You’ll be doin’ that other shit again soon enough. I’m not sayin’ you aren’t fuckin’ up. I’m sure you got shit you got to get straight—especially in your head. I’m just tryin’ to put all this shit in perspective for you.”
I nodded. “You have. Thank you.”
“How long it been you taken some time off?” he asked.
“I went to the FSU game this weekend.”
“I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout a Saturday. You’re supposed to take those off. When’s the last vacation you had?”
I shrugged.
“Maybe rage’s not the only thing you subbing for booze.”
I nodded. He was right. My approach to my work had become compulsive.
“I want you to go on retreat.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t sit there tell me okay, you don’t mean it,” he said.
I smiled again.
“I set it up, you’re goin’.”
“As soon as the case is over.”
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’ll set it up. Go ahead and pack a bag now. Soon as you clear the case you’re on your way.”
Chapter Forty-nine
DeLisa Lopez was scared.
Her face was pale, her eyes bloodshot, and it was obvious she had not been sleeping or eating. She had not missed work the last few days because she was sick. She wore loose clothes that hung off her and a big, open coat, in which she tried to hide.
When I had stopped by her apartment after work earlier in the afternoon, she cracked the door just as far as the chain would allow and peered out at me warily. After convincing her to let me in and seeing her condition, I talked her into letting me take her to Rudy’s for something to eat.
On the drive over, I had confronted her, and she had confessed.
She’d been having an affair with Matos and had been in his cell the night of the murder.
She’d done it before.
Ordinarily, the cell doors in the PM quad remained open, so it wasn’t much of a problem for her to sneak in and out, but with a lock-down in place, she had been trapped inside. When Matos left the cell, he disabled the lock, so all she had to do was find a time to sneak out, which she did in the early morning hours when there was only one crime scene tech left in Menge’s cell. Prepared to explain her presence if caught by saying she had been called in because the control room sergeant had mistakenly thought she was Menge’s psyche specialist, she slipped out of the quad, through the center gate, in the back door of the medical building, and into her office where she had spent the night.
Carla, Rudy’s teenage daughter, took her order at the booth in the back while I called Susan. Reaching her voicemail, I asked her to meet me at Rudy’s or call me as soon as she could.
When Carla came back behind the counter, she said, “She’s a mess.”
She said it with compassion and without judgment, as if commenting on her clothing, which I knew she’d get to sooner or later.
“And that outfit . . . You get her out of bed?”
I nodded.
“Still trying to save the world?” she asked, her tone more biting than playful, and I knew why.
“Man’s gotta have a goal.”
“What’s the new wife think about these goals of yours? She know that the world you seem to be saving is predominantly female?”
I didn’t think that was true, but I said, “Gotta start somewhere.”
Prior to patching things up with Susan, I had spent most nights at Rudy’s—reading in a booth in the back while Carla, who Rudy required to keep the place open all night, got some sleep. For the past few months I hadn’t been around much, and since Susan had moved to Tallahassee it had only gotten worse.
“Sorry I haven’t been around as much lately.”
Carla shrugged and made an expression that either said it didn’t matter or it was to be expected.
Back at the booth, I found Lisa huddled in the big coat she wore, staring out the window nervously as if expecting someone unpleasant to drive up.
When I sat down, she whipped her head around toward me.
“You okay?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not.”
I nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“I’m scared.”
“Of what? Is it related to work? To Menge’s death?”
“I can’t talk about it,” she said, shaking her head.
As usual, Rudy’s was cold, the condensation covering the plate glass windows looking like a frozen sheet of ice beginning to thaw. It was empty, which was also usual. Rudy’s was more a lunch place for the work force of Pottersville than a place you take the family for an evening meal.
“You need to,” I said. “With someone. Do you have anybody you can—”
She shook her head.
“Then why not me?”
She shrugged.
“You were close to Justin, weren’t you?”
She nodded. “I saw him on a regular basis—not that he needed therapy. He didn’t. He just was committed to becoming the best person he could be. He liked counseling.”
I nodded.
“I liked him, but I loved his art. He was so gifted. I was in awe.”
“He really was,” I agreed.
“Is this just between us? No matter what I say?”
“Unless you say you killed him.”
“I didn’t. But I used to break the rules sometimes. Sneak in pens or paints for him. Not often, but—one time all his materials were taken away and he crushed up M&M’s and used them for paint. It was amazing. It really was, but he didn’t need to waste time on M&M prints when he could be working on a masterpiece.”
“I agree.”
She started to say something else, but stopped as Carla arrived at our table with coffee, waffles, and bacon.
“Why do you keep it so cold in here?” Lisa asked.
“Keeps me awake,” Carla explained. “And makes me sleep lighter when I do sleep. I’m here alone a lot at night.”
I avoided her eyes. What could I say? I started to apologize again, but she walked off before I could. When she was gone, Lisa took small sips of her coffee with jittery hands, spilling some of it on her saucer as she did.
I waited to see if she was going to pray over our f
ood. When she didn’t, I said a quick one to myself without bowing my head or closing my eyes.
“Oh, that’s good coffee,” she said, then set it down and began to eat like a starving person just pulled off the streets and given her first real meal in weeks.
My waffle was sweet and sprinkled with pecans, the bacon lean and crisp. I saturated both in syrup and ate in a manner not dissimilar to Lisa’s—though I hadn’t missed any meals. I lifted my fork to Carla and nodded toward her when she looked over our way.
“Glad you like it.”
When I saw that Lisa was nearly finished, I asked Carla to throw on a little more for us, which she promptly did.
Though Rudy’s was a southern fried restaurant, it looked more like an Omelet House or Waffle Shoppe, which it had been at one time. The grill ran along the back wall and was visible over the counter in front of it, and I watched Carla as she worked. Her life was more difficult than any teenager’s should be, but you’d never know it to watch her.
“God, I feel so much better just from having eaten,” she said.
“You haven’t eaten lately?”
“I haven’t left the house. Not much of a cook, so I don’t keep a lot of food there.” “Who’re you so scared of?”
“Chris Sobel,” she said.
“Why?”
“Justin had decided not to testify against Martinez. He told me the day he was murdered.”
I nodded.
“It was all fabricated anyway. Martinez hadn’t told him anything. They’d never even spoken. He was doing it to get out early to be with Chris.”
“What does that have to do with you being afraid of Chris?”
The small bell above the door jingled and she spun around to see who it was. When she saw that it was a young couple, she turned back toward me. It was Michael and Shebrica Pitts. If Lisa recognized him, she gave no indication. When Pitts saw me, he grabbed his wife by the arm and ushered her back toward the door.
“I’ll be right back.”
I jumped up and ran over to them.
“You weren’t on the disc,” I said. “Potter was.”
“You gonna do this here?” he asked.
“Why would you say it was you?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Because that fat bastard paid him to,” Shebrica said.
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