Charley's Web (8 page)

“Charley?”

“Steve?”

“How are you?” he asked, as Charley pictured her son’s father standing proudly beside a swimming pool he’d just helped install, shirt off, a glass of lemonade in his hand, courtesy of the wanton woman from the house next door.

That was how she’d met him, after all, she thought with a smile. After several weeks spent watching his gorgeous, half-naked body dig and plaster and tile a neighbor’s new pool, she’d poked her head over her backyard fence and asked him if he’d like a glass of something cold. “What’ve you got?” he’d asked, following her inside her house.

Nine months later, James was born, the spitting image of his father, and while Steve had never been a permanent fixture in either of their lives, he made every effort to see his son several times a month. He was two years younger than Charley and still content to drift from job to job, yard to yard, lemonade to lemonade.

“I’m fine. You?” Charley wondered if something was wrong. It wasn’t like Steve to call her at work.

“Great. Except listen, I have a slight problem with this weekend.”

“What do you mean, a slight problem?”

“I can’t make it.”

“What do you mean, you can’t make it?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Yes, it’s a problem. I’ve made plans.”

“I’m really sorry, Charley. You know I wouldn’t do this unless it was really important.”

“More important than your son?” Charley asked, then immediately wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t like her to lay a guilt trip on either of her exes. The truth was that neither of them had asked for parenthood, and the bigger truth was that she was more than happy to be a single mother. She’d never wanted either man to be a staple in her life, and had never asked them for anything, including child support. Still, Franny’s father, Ray, had always insisted on being an active participant in his daughter’s life, giving Charley money every month without fail, and even Steve contributed a little something from time to time. Both men had proved to be far more responsible than she’d had any right or reason to expect.

“Come on, Charley. Don’t be like that.”

“I’m sorry. New job?”

“New girl,” he said, and Charley could actually feel the smile in his voice. “She wants me to meet her parents. They live in Sarasota.”

“Sounds serious.”

“Well, who knows?”

Charley felt a slight pang in her chest. She knew, even if he didn’t. She also knew that women had a way of complicating things. Certainly everything had gotten a lot more complicated after Ray had married Elise, she thought.

“Maybe James can go with Franny,” Steve suggested. “He’s done that before, hasn’t he?”

Steve was right. On at least two occasions, Franny had asked that her brother be included on weekend visits with her father, and Ray had generously agreed. So maybe he could be prevailed upon once again. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll think of something.”

“Tell James I’ll make it up to him real soon.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Thanks, Charley. You’re the best.”

“Yes, I am,” she agreed. “Have a nice weekend.”

“You, too.”

So much for driving out to Pembroke Pines, she thought, hanging up the phone. She couldn’t very well interview a child killer with her own child sitting on her lap. Still, the thought of having to postpone her interview…. She picked the phone back up, dialed Ray at home.

It was answered after five rings. “Hello?” a woman shouted over the sound of a baby crying.

Charley pictured the always frazzled woman with the dark curly hair, bouncing her crying infant over her shoulder. “Elise, hi. It’s Charley.”

“Ray’s not here.”

Franny’s father ran a small consulting business out of his home. Charley was never exactly sure what it was Ray consulted on, and truthfully, she didn’t care. They’d met just after she moved to Florida. At the time he was working for a store that sold computers, and she was in the market for a laptop. She’d come home with both a new computer and the man who’d sold it to her. “Will he be back soon?”

“I doubt it. He just left. Is there something I can help you with?”

Charley took a deep breath, then plunged right in. “I was wondering if it would be possible for James to tag along with his sister this weekend,” she began.

“You must be kidding.”

“I know it’s an imposition….”

“You think?”

“It’s just that James’s father had to cancel, and I have to go out of town on business…”

“And that’s somehow my problem?” Elise asked, as her baby continued to scream.

“No. Of course it’s not your problem. Look, maybe I should wait and speak to Ray.”

“Why? You think he’ll be easier to manipulate?”

Charley said nothing. What could she say…yes?

“Look, it was bad enough before we had a baby of our own,” Elise reminded Charley unnecessarily. Things had already been tense between the two women before Elise had given birth to Daniel. Now they were even worse. “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to find a new patsy,” Elise said before hanging up.

Charley quickly ran through her mental list of people she could call in a crisis. To her dismay, it was considerably shorter than the list Officer Ramirez had asked her to draw up, consisting only of her mother, who she knew had booked a weekend cruise to the Bahamas after Charley canceled their trip to the spa, and her brother, who’d basically canceled out of everything, period. There was no one else, she realized, reaching for the phone to call Alex Prescott and tell him she wouldn’t be able to keep Saturday’s appointment, when it rang. “Charley Webb,” she said, unable to disguise the dejection in her voice.

“Something wrong?” the caller inquired.

Charley recognized Glen McClaren’s voice instantly. “Just not my day.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

The question stopped Charley cold. Could she do it? she wondered, inching forward in her chair. Then, immediately: what was the matter with her? She barely knew the man, for God’s sake, and what she
did
know was unsavory, to say the least. A nightclub owner, a ladies’ man, a “gangster wannabe.” Hadn’t she all but accused him of having mob connections? Still, her instincts told her he was a good man at heart, and it wasn’t as if he’d be alone with her son. His own son would be there, along with the boy’s mother and stepfather. And James loved Lion Country Safari. Still, what did it say about her—about any of them—that she trusted a relative stranger more than her own flesh and blood?

“Charley? You still there?”

“Listen, Glen,” she began. “Is that offer still open?”

S
ee that?” Alex Prescott asked.

Charley gazed out the front window of Alex’s decade-old, mustard-colored Malibu convertible toward the flat, dull white structures in the distance. The bleak, armylike barracks stood in stark contrast to the rows of beautiful old pine trees that lined the approaching road. “That’s Pembroke Correctional?”

“That’s it.”

“It looks awful.”

“It looks even worse close up.”

Charley tucked the hair that was blowing into her eyes and mouth behind her ears and adjusted her sunglasses, although there was no real need. The sun had stopped shining at just before noon, roughly the same time that Glen had pulled up in his silver Mercedes. Beside him sat his son. In the backseat sat his former wife and her current husband.

“You must be Eliot,” Charley said to the round-faced, dark-haired boy clinging to his father’s leg as the two of them walked into Charley’s living room. “Happy birthday.”

“What do you say?” Glen asked his son.

“Where’s James?” Eliot shouted in reply, burying his face in his father’s black pants.

“I’m on the toilet,” James shouted back.

Charley laughed. “That’s my boy.”

“Nice house,” Glen remarked.

“And you’re all very nice for doing this. I owe you big time.”

“Yes, you do.”

Which was when James had come racing into the living room, almost crashing into Glen as he struggled to zip up the fly of his khaki shorts.

“Whoa, tiger,” Glen had exclaimed.

“I’m not a tiger.” James threw his arms into the air in exasperation. “I’m a boy, silly.”

“Yes, you certainly are.”

“Glen…. Eliot…this is my son, James,” Charley said, trying to keep him still long enough to make the necessary introductions. “Where’s the present for Eliot?”

James smacked his forehead with his open palm. “I forgot it.” “Then go get it.”

“That really isn’t necessary,” Glen protested, as James ran from the room.

“Of course it is. Isn’t it, Eliot?” Charley asked.

Eliot smiled, nodding his head emphatically.

“It’s a book,” James announced upon his return, dropping the brightly wrapped gift into Eliot’s waiting hands. “Come on, Eliot. Let’s go!”

“As you can see, he’s very shy with strangers.”

“Anything else I should know?” Glen asked as the two boys ran for the front door.

“Just don’t let him out of your sight for a minute.”

“I’ll guard him with my life.”

“You have to watch him constantly.”

“I won’t take my eyes off him.”

“Make sure he doesn’t get out of the car when he sees the lions.”

“I’ll sit on him if I have to.”

“I should be home by six.”

“See you then.”

Seconds after the extended family took off in Glen’s Mercedes, Alex had rounded the corner in his old Malibu convertible.

“You ready?” he’d called out, not bothering to get out of his car.

That had pretty much been the extent of their conversation until now. For almost the entire hour-and-a-half drive from West Palm Beach to the Pembroke Correctional Institution in Pembroke Pines, which was located south of Fort Lauderdale and due east of Hollywood, Alex had been listening, via headphones, to a tape recording of legal precedents, in preparation for a case he was working on. “I hope you don’t mind. This thing goes to trial on Monday, and I don’t want to leave anything to chance,” he’d explained unapologetically as she’d climbed into the front seat, which left Charley almost ninety minutes to look at the scenery and silently berate herself for having enlisted a virtual stranger and his family to look after her son.

Charley glanced over in Alex’s direction, pushing all such troubling thoughts from her mind, and hoping for a reassuring smile, but he was staring out the front window, lost in his tapes, and seemingly oblivious to the fact she was beside him.

She smoothed her short, brown peasant skirt across her thighs and absently checked the front of her green T-shirt for errant toothpaste stains, but everything seemed to be in order. It felt strange to be sitting so close to a man who clearly had no interest in her, she thought, unable to remember the last time that had happened. She’d long since grown accustomed to men falling all over themselves in an effort to impress her. That Alex Prescott was so impervious to her delicate features, blond hair, and bare legs was unsettling.

Was he married? She didn’t see a ring, but that didn’t mean anything. He could be living with someone. Or otherwise involved. Or gay.

At first she’d been grateful for not having to make small talk. It had been nice to simply lean back in the tan leather seat, close her eyes, and let the breeze blow through her hair. But as the trip progressed and the wind picked up, the silence had become almost oppressive. She’d thought of turning on the radio, but hadn’t wanted to interfere with Alex’s concentration. She’d put him out enough already. It was Alex, after all, who’d made the necessary phone calls to prison officials, Alex who’d acted as the liaison between Charley and Jill Rohmer, Alex who’d volunteered to drive her to Pembroke Pines. She doubted this was simple altruism on his part. Clearly he wanted to keep tabs on the proceedings, make sure his client’s interests were protected. If Charley ever found herself in need of a criminal attorney, she’d decided just seconds before he removed his headphones and pointed down the road toward the prison, he was the one she’d call.

“Sorry about that,” he apologized, tossing the headphones into the backseat. “It’s a tricky case.”

“Can you talk about it?”

“Well, without going into the particulars, it involves the disgruntled heirs to a rather sizable fortune. We have brother against sister, sister against auntie, everybody against mother.”

“Sounds familiar.”

He smiled knowingly. “I guess every family has its issues.”

“It’s probably not even about the money,” Charley said.

“Trust me,” Alex demurred. “It’s about the money.”

Charley laughed as they turned down the road that led directly to the prison, taking note of the sudden lack of trees, the dry ground and dying grass, the twisted coils of barbed wire atop the high fences surrounding the premises. She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head as they drew closer, able now to make out the bars on the windows, and register the high-powered rifles of the guards in their guardhouses, as well as the guns in the holsters of the officers on patrol. “They don’t look very friendly.”

“What do you know about our prison system?” Alex asked.

“Not much.” Charley had been meaning to do some research, but between making sure her column was ready for Sunday’s paper, getting Franny ready for her weekend with Ray, and worrying about James, she’d run out of both time and energy. Besides, she still hadn’t decided if she was going to write this book. Nothing had been negotiated or agreed to. Everything depended on this afternoon’s meeting.

“Well, according to Florida’s Department of Law Enforcement, which has been compiling crime statistics since 1930,” Alex began, unprompted, “the latest available figures show that over the past decade, the incidence of crime in this state has actually dropped by more than eighteen percent, and prison admissions have dropped nearly fifteen percent.”

“Really? So how come I keep reading our jails are so overcrowded?”

“Well, first,” Alex said, statistics spilling from his mouth as effortlessly as water from a glass, “under a 1995 law, inmates can’t be paroled until they’ve served at least eighty-five percent of their sentences. And second, Florida law allows their correctional facilities to operate at one hundred fifty percent of capacity.”

“What?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. Most prisons have auxiliary facilities, so there are a lot of inmates in vocational camps and work release programs, or in hospitals and drug treatment facilities.”

“How many people are in jail in Florida?” she asked.

“My guess is around seventy-five thousand.”

The price of a purse at Bottega Veneta, Charley thought.

“Five thousand of those are women,” Alex continued.

“What’s the ratio at Pembroke Correctional?”

“The maximum inmate capacity is five hundred forty. The number of actual inmates is over seven hundred.”

“I meant the ratio of men to women.”

“They’re all women.”

“They’re all women?” Charley repeated.

“You sound surprised.”

“I’m sure Jill said…. Just a second.” Charley pulled Jill’s letter out of her purse, flipped through the pages. “Yes. Here it is.
Pembroke Correctional doesn’t allow prison weddings. Not that there’s a whole lot of opportunity to meet suitable men in here. They keep the men and women segregated, although occasionally we manage to find ways of getting together. Hint: there’s way more than reading going on behind the bookshelves of the prison library. Lots more about that if you agree to do the book.”

Alex laughed. “Well, there you go.”

“Where exactly am I going?” Charley asked impatiently.

“Obviously she was trying to entice you.”

“I don’t like being lied to.”

“Well,
technically,
it’s not a lie. You could argue that since Pembroke Correctional is a women’s prison, it is, by definition, segregated. And there
are
men on the premises—prison officials, staff, guards, workers. I’m sure they occasionally find ways of getting together with the prisoners.”

“Maybe.” Charley stuffed the letter back into her purse, unconvinced. “I just don’t like to feel I’m being manipulated,” she continued. “For this project to work, I have to be able to trust Jill. She has to be
completely
honest with me, not just
technically.
”

“I understand. Look. It’s not too late to turn back.” Alex stopped the car about fifty yards short of the main gate. “If you’re having second thoughts about doing this project, I can take you home right now.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” Charley reminded him.

“Of course.”

“This is just a preliminary meeting.”

“Jill realizes that.”

“The first time I catch her in a lie, I’m out of there.”

“Perfectly understandable.”

“Okay,” Charley said, thinking he was right, that they should just turn the car around, head for home. She probably wasn’t the right person for this job. She didn’t have enough experience, with either books or psychopaths. But what the hell? They were already here. What sense did it make to have come all this way only to turn around at the last second? She might as well go inside, meet Jill Rohmer. She reached into her purse and pulled out her photo ID to show the guard. “Might as well get this show on the road.”

Alex parked the car in the large, outdoor parking lot at the rear of the prison.

“Maybe you should put the top up,” Charley advised. “In case it rains.”

“It’s not going to rain,” he told her confidently, leaving the top down and walking quickly past her. “Coming?” he called back.

Charley picked up her pace, although it was hard to keep up in the platform sandals she was wearing. Why hadn’t she just worn jeans and sneakers? she wondered. Whom had she been trying to impress by wearing an actual skirt and heels? Jill Rohmer? Or Jill’s lawyer? And why should she give any thought to impressing either?

The fact was that Jill was already impressed. It was also a fact that her lawyer clearly wasn’t, and probably never would be. He tolerates me, she thought, struggling to match his brisk stride as they rounded the corner of the building and headed toward the front entrance. He thinks I’m a lightweight.

Was he right? Charley wondered, reminded of her father’s scathing assessment of her talent. “Puerile and facile,” he’d opined dismissively of the columns she’d sent him just after she’d started work at the
Palm Beach Post.

“You didn’t like them,” she’d stated unnecessarily, grateful for the miles of telephone wire between them, so he couldn’t see the tears filling her eyes.

“You know I have a low tolerance for drivel,” came the final coup de grâce.

What had she expected? she wondered now, following Alex through the heavy glass revolving doors into the prison’s main foyer. What could you expect from a man for whom criticism came as naturally as breathing, who was as ungenerous as he was ill-tempered, as sharp-tongued as he was unforgiving? Once her father had discovered that Charley was in contact with her mother, he’d cut her from his life altogether, refusing to so much as speak to her again.

“Miss Webb,” Alex Prescott was saying now.

“What? Sorry. Did you say something?”

“I said, you might as well keep your ID handy. You’ll have to show it a few more times.”

“Oh. Okay. And please, you don’t have to keep calling me Miss Webb.”

“It’s kind of hard to think of you as a ‘Charley,’” he said, the only hint he’d realized she was female. Then, “Metal detector coming up.”

Charley gave her purse to the female guard, who rifled through it, then held out a large, callused hand for Charley’s ID. The guard was a big woman, with massive shoulders, long fingers, and an incongruous patch of girlish freckles splashed across her nose and cheeks. Dark brown eyes shifted back and forth between Charley and the picture on her driver’s license. “Empty your pockets,” she said, nodding toward the conveyor belt.

“Charming,” Charley muttered after they’d passed through the metal detector. Alex took her elbow and guided her down the hallway. She was surprised at the instant comfort his touch provided. She hadn’t realized how unnerved she was at being here, how vulnerable she felt, how exposed. As if she were guilty of something, and was only moments away from being found out and handcuffed. They turned a corner and proceeded down another corridor.

“Another ID check coming up,” he advised.

Charley opened her mouth to take a deep breath as they approached the next checkpoint, but the surrounding air tasted thick and pungent. “Eau de Disinfectant,” she said, hoping for a smile, but Alex was already several steps ahead of her, and not listening.

It wasn’t that the long hallways were particularly ugly, so much as they were aggressively institutional. Pale green and bare, the corridors were like a maze that wound ever inward, circling closer and closer to the abyss at its core, farther and farther from freedom. I wouldn’t last a week in here, Charley was thinking as gates clanged shut somewhere behind her, and once again, wary eyes waited to peruse her driver’s license.