The Sienna Sand

by Jeff Siebold

  Kimmy nodded and stole a quick glance at Zeke, who said, “That’s understandable.”

  “Do you think he had feelings for you, too?” asked Zeke.

  “I know he had other women he’d talk to. But he’d tell me about it. He’d tell me things to humiliate me. And it just made me love James more. I couldn’t help myself.”

  “And when he lied to you…” said Zeke.

  She looked ashamed for a moment. Her face reddened. “That got me excited, too. He knew it. After a while he done it on purpose, to get me goin’.”

  “Miss Autry, did you talk with James Williams the day before he was killed?”

  “We talked on the phone,” she said.

  “Did he say anything about being threatened? Or anything about fearing for his life?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Was he in a gang before he went to prison?” Zeke asked.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “He never said.”

  “Would you share what you two talked about?”

  “Well, we mostly talked about sex,” she said. “He was always talking about sex. Just like a man. But I don’t think he knew that his life was in danger. That time, we was making plans for later, when he got outta Cumberland.”

  “What plans?” asked Kimmy.

  “Well, you know, plans for our future.”

  “Together?” asked Kimmy.

  “Yes. I told you we were in love.”

  “When was James Williams supposed to get out of prison?” Zeke asked.

  “He’d been in for almost two years,” she said. “But he was appealing his sentence. It was eight years. I looked it up on the Internet. He still had six years to go. But he thought he’d get out sooner. Said he wasn’t guilty, and that the verdict should be overturned.”

  “You were planning your future?” asked Zeke.

  “We were goin’ to move to California, or maybe Phoenix. Somewhere far away from here.”

  Zeke waited. “Anything else?”

  She stopped for a minute, then looked at Kimmy. “Sometimes it was like he had some sorta control over me. He’d say something, make me to do something, and I’m ashamed to say it, I’d get all horny like a school girl.”

  A blush crept up her neck and turned her face red. She looked away again.

  Zeke looked at Kimmy, then said to Caroline Autry, “We appreciate your time, ma’am. We’ll contact you if we have any other questions.”

  * * *

  “She was definitely under his influence,” said Kimmy as they left Caroline Autry’s house. “It’s creepy.”

  “It’s called hybristophilia,” said Zeke.

  “What’s that?” asked Kimmy. “Sounds like a terminal illness.”

  “It’s actually a paraphilic disorder.”

  “Oh, sure, that explains it. Not. What is hybristophilia?” Kimmy asked. She opened the car door and slid inside.

  Zeke waited until he was behind the wheel to say, “It’s about women who need to be with very bad boys in order to be satisfied. Women who crave sex with criminals or with men who they know are cheaters and liars. They’re women who need to be humiliated in order to enjoy sex.”

  “Wow,” said Kimmy. “That’s a real thing?”

  Zeke nodded. “Think about some of the serial killers and the women who pursue them, even marry them in prison. Those women are attracted to the evil, but it’s more than that. Some of them feel a need to be abused and humiliated at a very basic level. Often they can’t climax without those feelings.”

  “That’s hard to believe,” said Kimmy.

  “You just saw it, up close and personal. And I’ll bet there’s a lot more to it than what we just heard.”

  Chapter 20

  Dr. Hinken sat down hard in his chair and sighed. Detective Burrows of the Allegany County Sheriff’s Office followed him into the room and sat on the small couch across from the desk.

  “How’d your visit go with Caroline Autry?” Hinken asked.

  “Interesting woman,” said Zeke. “She has issues.”

  “I thought so, too,” said Hinken.

  “Did she tell you anything useful?” asked Burrows.

  Zeke shook his head. “No, not really.”

  “Who’s next?” asked the doctor.

  “Trevor Brown is next on our list,” said Zeke.

  Hinken nodded and opened a file on his desk. “Also killed by stabbing and a sliced throat. Found him in a bathroom stall, sitting on the toilet. He’d bled out, and that’s how they found him. Blood all over the floor.”

  “And footprints or fingerprints? Any sign of the killer?” asked Zeke.

  The doctor shook his head. “But he was drugged, also. Incapacitated, then cut.”

  “What did he have in common with the other two, Gleason and Williams?” asked Kimmy.

  Detective Burrows looked up. “Nothing, really. We’re not even sure they knew each other. It’s all very strange.”

  “What else about Brown?” asked Zeke.

  “File says he was a repeat offender. Says he’d been in State prison, and once before in Federal Prison, but not here,” said the doctor, looking at the file again.

  “Repeat offender,” Burrows repeated under his breath.

  “What was he in for?” asked Zeke.

  “Drugs, possession with intent to distribute,” read the doctor. “Third sentence for the same thing.”

  “Was he a user, too?” asked Zeke.

  “His body had a high level of hydrocodone,” read Hinken. “We found it when we tested his hair. The quantity implies that he was a routine user.”

  “Do you remember who identified the body?” asked Kimmy.

  “His wife did. Just from my observation, there’s a good chance she could be using, too.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” said Zeke. “Thanks. And while we’re all here,” he said, looking at Detective Burrows, “let’s talk about the fourth victim, too. That was Kadin Hart, right?”

  Burrows nodded, as Hinken shuffled the file folders and opened another one.

  “Hart was slashed across the face, twice. They cut the skin on his forehead first, at which point there was so much blood flow that he wouldn’t have been able to see,” the doctor said.

  “Where did the murder take place?” asked Kimmy.

  “The infirmary, actually,” said Hinken. “He was in for G.I. problems. We get a lot of that. They’re hard to prove and easy to fake. The inmates like to change things up, spend a day in the infirmary once in a while.”

  “Do you think he was faking?” Zeke asked the doctor.

  “Well, think about it. When you’re in the infirmary you get to skip work detail, and pretty much sleep all day. No one bothers you, and if you’re lucky, you get some free painkillers.”

  “Who discovered Hart’s body?”

  “Carter Hanson did. He’s our nurse. Said he’d stepped out to smoke a cigarette, and when he came back, the patient room looked like a war zone. Hart was already dead, and his throat was cut, but this time it was from the front. Knife was left at the scene.”

  “Who identified the body?” asked Zeke.

  “That was gruesome, even after we’d cleaned him up,” said Hinken. “Yeah, his brother did the ID. Hart wasn’t married or anything. His brother came up from Fredrick or somewhere in Maryland. Took a few days.”

  “OK, we’ll talk with Mrs. Brown, then catch up with Hart’s brother on our way back to D.C. tomorrow,” said Zeke. “I’ll let you know if we find anything.”

  “Good luck,” said Burrows.

  * * *

  Jen Brown was a short, thick woman with a fleshy round face that merged with her thick neck bypassing any visible chin. When she answered the door, a toddler of indeterminable sex, dressed in a blue onesie, was holding onto her leg.

  “Mrs. Brown?” Zeke asked.

  The woman nodded. “Are you the man who called me about Trevor’s death?” she asked, starting to choke up as she spoke.

&nb
sp; Zeke nodded. “I know this is hard,” he said. “And I apologize in advance. But we think it’ll help us find the killer.”

  Jen Brown turned her head away, then she nodded. A tear rolled down the side of her face.

  “Come in,” she said. She was a heavy woman with a body shaped like a small walrus.

  Kimmy and Zeke followed the woman and the toddler into the dining room and they arranged themselves around the table.

  “Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?” Jen asked.

  Zeke said, “If you have coffee…”

  The woman said, “We always have coffee. Trevor loved his coffee. You, ma’am?”

  Kimmy paused, then nodded, and the woman stood and went to the kitchen. As she walked away, Zeke noticed that the flesh on her huge calf lapped over the tattoo on her ankle.

  “Thank you,” he said as she left the room.

  Sometimes it’s better to give them something to do, to distract from the grief, Zeke thought. Coffee works.

  The toddler remained standing in the dining room, apparently fascinated with Kimmy. She said to Zeke, “I think he’s a boy.”

  She smiled at the child and said, “What’s your name?”

  Bashful, the boy hid his face in his hands, and then giggled to himself.

  Kimmy said, “I’ll bet I can guess!”

  The boy looked delighted and said, “Uh-uh,” shaking his head back and forth.

  “I’ll bet your name is…Trevor, Junior,” said Kimmy, with much emphasis on the name.

  The delighted boy giggled some more and turned and ran into the kitchen.

  Moments later, Jen Brown came back into the room with two cups of coffee on a small tray. Cream and sugar complimented the serving.

  Jen sat back as Zeke and Kimmy mixed coffee condiments into their cups.

  “Mrs. Brown, we’ve been hired to investigate your husband’s murder. There’s some concern that it could be related to other deaths in the prison.” He noticed that her eyes were red and puffy, but she’d quit crying.

  She nodded. “My husband was innocent. He’d done some things, sure, but he didn’t do the drug thing they accused him of. But that didn’t matter to anyone. He’s a black man and it was, like, his third strike, so…”

  “You moved here to be close to him?” Kimmy asked.

  “Yes, a year and a half ago, when we found out he was being transferred here. He was arrested for taking drugs over the state line. They called it ‘transporting drugs’. So when they put him in prison here, Trevor Junior- we call him TJ- he and I, we moved in this rental.”

  “He was killed a couple months ago?” Zeke asked. The file said two and a half months ago.

  “Yes. He was stabbed in the toilet. Then his throat was cut. Left on the floor to bleed out.”

  “Had he said anything about being threatened? Or about being afraid of someone inside?”

  “Not really,” said Jen. “He said there was a hierarchy in the prison, an order of things. He’d been in prison before…”

  “Federal prison?” asked Zeke.

  “Once. And state prison once.”

  “What state?” he asked.

  “Illinois. We lived in East Saint Louis before we moved here.”

  Zeke nodded. “The hierarchy?”

  She nodded. “He said that inside, this prison was well organized. That there was no question about who was in charge, and there was a high level of structure. Said he could tell because there wasn’t any infighting or competition, you know? And everyone knows who’s who.”

  “Have you heard the name O.Z.?” asked Kimmy.

  “Trevor said that name once or twice. I can’t remember who he is, though. Someone inside.”

  “What other names do you remember him talking about?”

  “I don’t know. None, really. It was like he’d talk about them, and what was happening, but he didn’t use many names.”

  “Why not?” asked Kimmy.

  “Too many people listening. Trevor was always paranoid of being overheard in the visitors room.”

  “Why was that?” asked Zeke.

  The woman looked away and scratched her nose lightly. “I dunno,” she said.

  But she does know, thought Zeke. She’s lying to us.

  Jen Brown scratched her arm, then she looked at Zeke.

  “Was Trevor involved with a gang before he went to prison?” Zeke asked.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “The file says that Trevor traded information for a reduced sentence,” said Zeke. “When he was in the state prison. Is that true?”

  Jen Brown suddenly looked crestfallen. Her eyes filled with tears and she sobbed. Then she nodded, unable to speak.

  “So he was a snitch?” asked Zeke, pushing her.

  Again she nodded, eyes closed and sobbing.

  When she regained some control, she said, “He was in for a long time. He wanted to get out, to see his family. I was pregnant at the time, and he couldn’t stand being locked up. They took three years off his sentence.”

  “What did he tell them?” asked Kimmy, her voice soft and compassionate.

  “About some inmates selling drugs inside,” she said. “He said they were hard core, and people were getting hurt. He overheard them talking to their suppliers.”

  “On the outside?” asked Zeke.

  She nodded. “He heard it in the visitors room. That’s why he was so paranoid about us talking in there, ‘cuz that’s where he heard it.”

  Zeke nodded.

  “And he traded the information for a reduced sentence. He said it was the right thing to do.”

  “Mrs. Brown, think hard. Did your husband mention anyone in Cumberland FCI that he recognized? Anyone he might have known from Illinois State Prison?”

  The woman shook her head immediately. “No, nothing like that,” she said. “He didn’t say anything like that.” The small boy crawled up into his mother’s lap.

  “I’ll leave you my phone number, in case you remember anything else,” said Zeke. “Do you have a pen?”

  The woman nodded. Zeke scribbled his name and number on a piece of paper and handed it to her.

  Then he said, “What about the prison guards? Did he say anything about any of the guards?”

  “Well, one time he said that some of the guards are bent. But that’s true in most prisons, I think.”

  “Some are bent? Breaking the law?” asked Zeke.

  “Mostly small stuff. Like smuggling things in for the prison gang leaders, that sort of thing,” Jen Brown said.

  “What are they smuggling?”

  “Mostly cell phones and cigarettes, he said.”

  “Did he mention any names?” asked Zeke.

  “One. He said a guard’s name. He said a guard named Dix had a lot to do with it.”

  * * *

  “My brother never hurt anyone. He didn’t deserve to die,” said Carroll Hart. The man was standing in his front doorway, angry, and talking through the screen with Zeke and Kimmy. They’d stopped by the fourth victim’s listed address, a small home in Frederick, Maryland on their way back to Washington, DC.

  “Damn guards said they didn’t see anything. That’s a lie. They’ve got cameras everywhere, in every cell. And in the infirmary. No way they didn’t see it. They may have done it themselves. Or they were paid off.”

  Hart emphasized the last two words as if they were stand-alone sentences. “Paid. Off.”

  “Your brother Kadin was stabbed in prison,” Zeke said. “We’ve been hired to find the killer. Or killers.”

  Hart looked at him. “After almost half a year,” the man said. “That trail’s pretty cold.” He looked at them again. “You some sorta cold case detectives?”

  “We think his death may be one of several related incidents. We’re trying to find out why the men were killed,” said Zeke.

  “How many?” asked Hart.

  “Four,” said Zeke. “In a little more than six months.”

  “Was they all
stabbed?” asked the man. “Like Kadin was?”

  Zeke nodded. “Stabbed and had their throats cut,” he said.

  The man considered this for a moment. Then he said, “Whatdaya want to know?”

  Zeke said, “Do you remember if your brother ever mentioned being afraid of anyone inside, or fearing for his life?”

  “He wasn’t a fighter. He was in for carjacking. Kadin got beat up pretty bad a couple times in there.”

  “Did he say who beat him?” asked Kimmy.

  “He said it was one of the gangs. They was holding him up for money or cigarettes or some damned thing.”

  “Did he say which gang?” asked Zeke.

  “He said it was those BMF thugs. Black Monkey Family. They’re a gang in the prison,” he said. He was starting to get angry again.

  Zeke nodded. “Did you move to Frederick after your brother was incarcerated?”

  “No, I lived here my whole life.” He looked over his shoulder and back at Zeke. “This was our Ma’s house. Had to take out another mortgage on it to pay for Kadin’s lawyers.”

  Zeke nodded and said, “Did he mention BMF specifically?”

  Carroll Hart nodded. “Couple a times he did. He said they told him to get his family to give them money, or they’d give him a beating every day. Like a ransom or something.”

  “Like protection money.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “So he reached out to you…” Zeke started.

  “He didn’t have a choice. He told me about the situation. I agreed to pay the bastards.”

  “How’d that work?” asked Zeke.

  “Nothing fancy,” said Carroll Hart. “They gave me a bank account number at a local bank, and I put some money in it every payday. Five hundred bucks.”

  “And they left your brother alone?” asked Kimmy.

  “Yeah, for a while they did. Every once in a while they’d rough Kadin up, just to remind me, I guess.”

  “Did he say anything about the guards being in on it?” Zeke asked.

  “He did. He said they musta been, because the guards were never around when he was getting beaten. Said it was too much of a coincidence,” said Hart.