Rivers to Blood

by Michael Lister

  “I think he hit me harder than he hit you, Chaplain,” he said.

  “More likely his head’s harder,” Tom McGlon said. “What happened?”

  “Kent and me was takin’ a inmate back to the work camp. He’d been at the main unit for medical. We didn’t have him cuffed or nothin’.”

  Like many of the people in Pottersville, Allen Pettis wasn’t nearly as ignorant or uneducated as he sounded. He simply had poor grammar—like so many of the teachers who taught him in school.

  “He never gave us any trouble before,” Pettis continued. “He was a good inmate. Hell, he can’t have much time left.”

  “I pulled his file before I came over,” Tom said. “He’s minimum custody and got less than three months left on his sentence. He’s in on a small non-violent drug charge.”

  “Well he’s picked up a few new tricks since he’s been inside,” Pettis said, rubbing his head.

  “I’ve got to get the dogs out here,” Tom said, looking around the woods at the COs and deputies searching the area.

  “Anyway,” Pettis continued, “they’s a section of plexiglass missin’ from the cage in the van. It’s right behind the driver’s seat. The metal mesh is there, but the plexiglass don’t reach all the way.” Looking up at Tom, he added, “I told maintenance about it just a few days ago.” He then paused long enough to shake his head before he continued. “We’s drivin’ down the highway, not payin’ attention to much of nothin’, when the inmate slipped a piece of wire through the cage and around Kent’s neck and began to choke him. He told him to pull off the road and for me to unlock the van and let him out or he’d kill him. Murphy lost control and we wound up out here. The wreck knocked Kent unconscious, but the inmate was still going to kill him if I didn’t let him out, so I unlocked the door, thinkin’ I could jump him when he come out, but he got the better of me. I’m sorry. I … I should’ve … but I couldn’t let Kent die. I done the best I could.”

  “Why the hell would an inmate with so little time left escape now?” Tom asked.

  “You just can’t never tell about no damn inmate,” Pettis said. “If they had any sense they wouldn’t be in prison in the first place.”

  “Could be any number of reasons,” I said, “but news he got at his medical appointment is probably a good place to start.”

  Tom snatched the radio off his belt and pressed the call button. When the control room responded, he said. “Where the hell’s my K-9 officer?”

  “We’re trying to locate him now, sir,” the control room sergeant said. “He’s not answering his cell phone or pages.”

  “He’s probably with search and rescue on the river,” Dad said. “That’s where Jake is.”

  That reminded me of what I saw right before I was knocked out. I had forgotten until now.

  “Did the plane go into the river?” I asked.

  “What plane?” Dad asked.

  “Just before I was knocked out,” I said. “There was a plane overhead. I thought it might be crashing.”

  “They’re doing training exercises. Think we’d’ve heard by now if there was a plane crash.”

  “I could have sworn it was going to crash,” I said.

  “You think you can get Jake on the radio?” Tom said to Dad.

  He nodded.

  “Come on,” Dad then said to me. “Let’s ride over to the landing and see if we can find ’em. I’ll radio Jake on the way.” He looked at Tom. “In the meantime, I’ll get some more men out here to help search. See if you can too.”

  Chapter Five

  Dad’s truck was immaculate inside and out, except for the fresh mud on the tires, fenders, and quarter panels, and I knew it was because inmates from the jail cleaned it daily. Perhaps because of the extra scrutiny that comes in an election year, there was nothing personal in the vehicle except for the stacks of campaign cards, brochures, and door hangers in the backseat.

  “How’s your mother?” he asked.

  Though they had been divorced longer than they were together, he still always asked me about her—especially since she had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver.

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t have much longer.”

  “You’ve been saying that a while now.”

  “She’s lasted a lot longer than any of us thought she would—including her doctor,” I said, “but …”

  Mom was hanging on for some reason. I just didn’t know what it was. I suspected it had to do with Jake not being ready or her holding out hope that she might be reconciled with my sister Nancy before she died.

  “Need to go by and see her,” he said.

  I loved my dad, respected him in a lot of ways, but I couldn’t help but wonder if part of the reason for his visit was to take her an absentee ballot. He knew she would sign it. She’d do anything for him—anything but the one thing he wanted her to. She wouldn’t stop drinking. Not even for him.

  “You got any sense how the prison will vote?”

  I shook my head.

  Of all the different things my dad was, I liked the politician the least.

  “Wish we could find out,” he said.

  The prison vote, like the black vote or the women’s vote, was not monolithic, had never been a solid block, but that didn’t keep many politicians from believing it was. No one candidate would get the entire prison vote—not even the correctional officer who was running.

  “The ones who say anything are going to act like they’re for you to my face,” I said, “but you can’t go on that.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “You really think it’s going to be that close?” I asked.

  “I think if it was today, I’d lose.”

  That surprise me––both that he thought it and that he said it. No one had ever come close to beating him before.

  “Really?”

  He nodded again.

  “Why?”

  “There’s just too many running,” he said. “We’re going to split up the vote so many ways it won’t take many to win. I’ve done some unpopular things over the years, made the wrong enemies. Hell, one of my own deputies is running against me.”

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything, and he tried to radio Jake again.

  Fred Goodwin, the deputy running for sheriff, was one of the most active members of the volunteer search and rescue, and I wondered if that was the reason Dad was driving over to the landing himself instead of sending one of his deputies.

  I thought he’d had a specific reason relating to the escape for asking me to join him, but now suspected it was just for company and to talk politics.

  I’d much rather be back in the woods helping search for the escaped inmate and getting my truck towed.

  “Wonder what really made him run?” Dad said.

  “Who?” I asked, wondering if he were talking about one of his political challengers.

  “The inmate.”

  I shrugged.

  “Had to be something big,” he said.

  “Probably, but not necessarily,” I said. “It may not be logical at all. I’ve known inmates with less time than him run because they said they couldn’t do even one more minute—much less several days.”

  He nodded. “True. But most have a better reason than that.”

  “If it’s something significant we should be able to find out what it is.”

  “When you find out will you let me know first?” he asked.

  He was assuming that I would look into it, which was not unreasonable, and he had asked me to keep him informed about investigations in the prison before, but he had never asked me to tell him something I discovered first. Of course, he had never been facing such a close election before either.

  I lied and said I would.

  Chapter Six

  Formed from the joining of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, the 106-mile-long Apalachicola River flows from the Jim Woodruff Dam near Chattahoochee to dump sixteen billion gallons of fresh water into the Apalachicola Bay every da
y. Mixing with the salt water of the Gulf, the fresh water of the river creates a rich estuarine system for many species of marine life, including the best-tasting oysters in the world.

  Continually a source of controversy, the Apalachicola River is constantly facing issues related to dredging, Navy SEALs training, and freshwater flow levels because of having upstream waters diverted to Atlanta or Alabama. But none of this can detract from the fact that its banks hold some of the most spectacular scenery in all of Florida—a state known for its natural beauty.

  Dad and I were standing at the river’s edge in silence, waiting for the Potter County Search and Rescue team to arrive. When we had finally gotten Jake on the radio, he said they would return to the landing as fast as they could, but that it wouldn’t be fast.

  Potter County Search and Rescue is a small not-for-profit group of specially trained volunteers who search for missing persons. The highly skilled agency specializes in dark water recovery of lost, abducted, or drowning victims, and is comprised mostly of local law enforcement, mainly off-duty deputies and correctional officers, a few citizen volunteers rounding out the tight-knit team. Since most of their time is spent searching for people who vanish while on the river, they spend a lot of time training here.

  Because it was a weekday and the weather was so rainy, the landing was empty, its parking lot devoid of the usual pickup trucks and SUVs and empty boat trailers, its playground missing the laughter and shrieks of children, its picnic pavilions not providing cover for birthday parties and family reunions, its built-in grills and cooking areas failing to fill the area with the aroma of hamburgers and hotdogs being chargrilled or fresh fish frying like it did on pretty weather weekends and holidays.

  By the time the search and rescue boat rounded the bend in the river just above us, the clouds had cleared and the late afternoon sun was far brighter than the early afternoon one had been. The search and rescue boat, like most of the group’s equipment, had been purchased with the proceeds of fundraisers like the annual fishing tournament it sponsored. It was large, holding not only the young paramilitary men in their various poses, but all their dive gear and rescue equipment as well.

  We walked down the aluminum gangplank to the floating wooden dock to meet them. Fred Goodwin, the silver-haired sixty-something-year-old detective from Dad’s department who was running against him, pulled the boat up beside the dock.

  “It must be a sure enough emergency to get the sheriff out of his office,” Goodwin said.

  The tension between Dad and Goodwin was palpable, and the search and rescue guys seemed nervous and uncomfortable, as if confused by conflicting loyalties and cross-purpose allegiances.

  Ignoring Goodwin, Jake said, “How’d he escape? John let ’im go?”

  Dad told them.

  The bottom of the wide boat was littered with duffle bags and dive gear, and Shane Bryant, Todd Sears, and Sandy Hartman, the three COs from the prison, busied themselves gathering up the equipment and cleaning up as they listened.

  As Dad spoke, I studied the small group of men. With the exception of Sandy, they all shared the Southern good ol’ bad boy traits of tough-guy posturing, folksy anti-intellectualism, covert racism, and general xenophobia.

  Shane and Todd, and to a little lesser extent, Jake, looked like they belonged on the SAR team––young, athletic, muscular. The others did not. Sandy was too soft, Fred too old, and Kenny Bateson too fat.

  When Dad finished, he said, “We need to get the dogs over there as soon as possible.”

  Todd continued gathering up his things. He was good with the dogs, great at tracking down inmates, but he didn’t like being told what to do and Dad had no direct authority over him. He was going to take his time gathering up his things and go when he got ready.

  I said, “You guys see a small plane? Sounded like it was having engine trouble.”

  Jake said, “What’s that got to do with the escape? You think he hopped a plane?”

  “Did it crash?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Kenny said, “and we’re over here shootin’ the shit with you.”

  He was a loud, obnoxious man with darkly tanned, sun-damaged skin, and an enormous belly that hung down over his faded and frayed cutoff blue jeans. He rarely wore a shirt or shoes, and he was the only non law enforcement member of the team present.

  “We didn’t get a good look at it,” Todd said, “but I think we’d a heard if it went down.”

  Kenny was the only member of the group who was excessively obese and looked out of place. A few of the others carried a little extra beer weight, but Todd and Shane were bodybuilders, spending several hours a day in the weight room at the prison or high school––and they wore too-small shirts that showed off all their work.

  As usual, Sandy had yet to say anything. Quiet, sensitive, and slightly effeminate, he was nearly the opposite of the other members of the team, and probably would not be tolerated if he weren’t by far the best diver in the area.

  “I could have sworn it was going to crash when I saw it,” I said.

  “When was that?” Goodwin asked.

  “Just before I was knocked out,” I said.

  “Knocked out?” Todd Sears said.

  “Convict sapped him with an oak limb,” Dad said.

  Jake laughed. “Bet crashing planes weren’t all you saw.”

  “Well,” Goodwin said, “I think we’d all know it if it went down, but if it’d make you feel better, we can take you back up the river to look for it—if it’s okay with the sheriff.”

  Dad sighed and nodded. “Look for the inmate while you’re at it. He may try to cross. Todd, you get the dogs and meet me back at the scene.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” Goodwin said.

  “Let me get my gear first,” Todd said.

  “It can’t wait?” Dad asked, his impatience obvious.

  “No,” Todd said, “it can’t.”

  “Well hurry. He’s got a big jump on us already.”

  “Oh, I’ll catch the convict,” Todd said. “Needn’t worry ’bout that. Never had one get away yet.”

  “You boys make some room for the chaplain,” Goodwin said.

  As Dad left and Todd finished what he was doing, the boys gathered up their duffle bags and dive gear, quickly shuffled it off the boat and into their jacked-up and bulldogged trucks.

  I shot them a quizzical look. “What if we need that?”

  “It’s just our empty tanks and some random dive gear,” Goodwin said. “There’s more on the boat.”

  The others rejoined us. Todd shoved us away from the dock and Goodwin gunned the engine. Within moments the bow of the boat was raised and we were racing down the river, the setting sun starting to streak the horizon with flamingo feathers.

  “Any idea where we should look?” Goodwin yelled over the wind and motor.

  I told him.

  For several hours, we searched the area the plane was most likely to have gone down—if it went down at all—while keeping an eye out for the escaped inmate.

  It was evening and the day had a cooling, gloaming, coming-to-rest quality. Subtle, desaturated, still.

  Long past the time when their strained patience became hostile impatience, the guys who had already spent most of their afternoon on the river running rescue drills in hard rain helped me look for what increasingly seemed to be something that wasn’t there.

  Eventually, we gave up—mostly because they insisted—and I caught a ride back over to the scene of the escape in full dark. Numerous deputies and COs, joined now by the K-9 unit, were still searching the area lit by the generator-powered light tower, but the escaped inmate was proving to be as elusive as my phantom plane.

  When Dad dropped me at my trailer well after midnight, I was wet, tired, and hungry. I had totaled my truck, failed to prevent an escape, and wasted a lot of time. As the fatigue and frustration set in, I felt angry and depressed, and, as usual, I was unable to find any solace in sleep.

  Chapter Seven
r />   “I think we’ve got a serial rapist here,” DeLisa Lopez said.

  “Actually,” I said, “we’ve got several.”

  It was the next morning and I was tired, on edge. We were sitting in my office in the chapel of Potter Correctional Institution, drinking coffee from paper cups.

  She frowned at me. “I mean one active now. And he’s not just raping other inmates.”

  Though most people on the outside seem to think that brutal rape is just a part of the prison experience, in actuality it doesn’t happen nearly as much as they think. There’s sex inside, and some of it is coercive, but very little of it is rape in the most violent sense of the word. Inmates are watched very closely. For two of them to have sex, it has to happen so quickly and so carefully, they both have to work together to find just the right place and time. The exception to this, of course, is when there is a lapse in security, when routine and complacency make an officer sloppy or careless, but for the most part sex in prison is in some sense consensual.

  That’s not to say that rape doesn’t still happen or that when it does it isn’t violent and brutal and horrible, just that it isn’t as much a part of prison as popular culture would have you believe.

  “You?” I asked, alarm in my voice.

  She shook her head. “Just men,” she said. “Inmates, officers, support staff, but just men.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I keep hearing the same story over and over,” she said.

  Nearly all day every day, Lisa sat and listened to and counseled with the inmates of PCI. Many would try to manipulate her for various reasons, but if she was hearing the same story over and over from different men, there may be something to it.

  DeLisa Lopez, the dark, nearly beautiful Hispanic woman from South Florida, was a relatively new psych specialist at PCI. As usual, she made me think of heat, her sensualness more suited for a sweltering South Beach club than a North Florida prison.

  A bad relationship had caused her to migrate to the Panhandle. I wasn’t sure what was making her stay.

  “They’re not reporting it because of how humiliating it is for them,” she said, “but many of them have confided in me.”