“
But––”
“And
it was worth the
wait.”
“Just so
we’re
clear there,
Mr.
Jordan, you know I
love
you the same
way,
right? Just because I
didn’t
get to declare it to the warden or choose you
over
my job . . . I
love
you with every single cell of
me.”
I breathed that in, then kissed
her.
We
kissed for a while. The desultory noises of the river slowly floating
by
were the only ones I could hear beside the sweet, heavy sound of blood passion in my
ears.
And the wide
world
with all its constant cares and troubles waned
away.
“He does know
it’s
me,
doesn’t
he?” she said
eventually.
“Who? Knows
what’s
you?”
“The warden. He knows
it’s
me, right? Why
isn’t
my job in jeopardy?”
I smiled. “Double standard,
isn’t
it? I’m expected to
have
his religious and moral sensibilities whereas you are
not.”
“I
worked
so hard to
save
my marriage,” she said, her gaze drifting, her voice growing wistful.
“We
both
did,”
I said.
Her attention returned to me, her eyes finding mine.
“We
really did.”
We
did,
didn’t
we? It was easy to say––and it
was
what we both want to believe, but . . . I had no doubt she had done all she could, but had I? I
would
always
wonder.
It reminded me again I needed to call Susan.
“Let’s
get back to the
warden’s
expectations . .
.”
she said. “I’m . .
.”
“A
whore,
basically.”
She liked that, her face lighting
up,
her big brown eyes shimmering with delight.
“His
word?”
she said, taking me in her hand. “I
wouldn’t
want to fail to
live
up to expectations.”
We
began fumbling with each
other’s
clothes, unable to wait until they were all the
way
off for the devouring to begin.
“I’m
your
whore,”
she whispered
hoarsely,
her voice delicious with desire. “I’ve always been. Do whatever
you
want to
me.”
I did.
L
ater that night, after Anna went to bed, I walked out under the night sky and began to
pray.
The heavens
above
me were brilliant with a billion stars, the earth below me, dark and
damp,
and I could feel the beloved moving through me in the cool breeze.
I was grateful and so very glad to be
alive,
and I began there.
Thank
you.
Thank you for letting me be here. Thank you for letting me
be
a part of all this. Thank you for Anna, for love, for what we have
in each other, for the life we
share.
It came to
my
mind to pray for
Chris,
but I
wasn’t
ready to do that just yet. So I
saved
it, planning on coming back to him when I was a little further in and the better angels of my nature had had a chance to
have
more influence.
I then lifted up for several inmates I was counseling, sending health and healing and forgiveness and peace in their direction.
Next, I prayed for guidance and wisdom, for insight and patience, for help as a man, a chaplain, and an investigator.
I really had no idea what the hell I was doing and I needed help with everything every single step of the
way.
For
the next several minutes I practiced some mindful meditation and was just about to pray for Chris when
Jake
walked
up.
“Hey,”
he yelled as he lunged out of the darkness at
me.
I jumped and he got a good laugh out of it.
“You
out here listening to the colors of the wind or some shit like that?” he said.
I laughed.
“I came to make sure you
weren’t
drinkin’ again,” he said.
“We
got serious shit goin’ down and we need
you
sober.”
“If anything could drive me to drink,
it’s
you,”
I said, “but so far so good.”
We
were quiet a moment and his demeanor changed. “I wish to God I
hadn’t
stayed,” he said. “I
do.
And I probably shouldn’t’ve fucked Melanie, but
she’s
not underage. I
don’t
care what you
say,
and
that’s
all I did. I
didn’t have
anything to do with anything else. I never even saw the girl that got killed. Never took anything or did anything illegal.”
“I talked to Melanie about you this afternoon,” I said.
“What’d
she say?”
“That you
have
a little dick but
you’re
a decent enough
guy.”
“What’d
she really say?” I told him.
“I been thinkin’,” he said.
“Well,
first . . . do you suspect me?”
“Of some sort of mental deficiency?
Yes.”
“Seriously,”
he said. “Do you?” I shook my head.
“True story?” he asked. “True
story.”
“So I was thinking . .
.”
he said. “The killer had to leave to kill her and dump the
body.
That narrows it down to whoever left, right? So
it’s
got to be whoever left between the time Carla
Jean
let her in and when she
was
found at the prison. That was Don Stockton, Andrew Sullivan, Ronald
Potter,
and
Felix
Maxwell. I mean, everyone left the table throughout the night, but
they’re
the only ones that left the house. Sullivan was gone the longest. Then Stockton. But I think they were all gone long enough to do
it.”
“That’s
good thinking,” I said.
“We
need to
go
over
everybody’s exact
movements.
Can you––”
My phone vibrated and I answered it.
“Chaplain Jordan?” the deep voice with the thick Southern accent said.
“Yeah?”
“I was asked by the OIC to call you in to the institution. An inmate in A-dorm’s dead. Looks like he committed suicide.”
When I ended the call,
Jake
said,
“What’s
up?”
“Emergency at the
prison,”
I said. “I
have
to
go
in.
Will you write down everybody’s movements through the night as best you can remember?”
“Will
do.”
“Oh, and did I notice a cold-case deck on the poker table?”
“Dad asked me about that,” he said. “Got me thinkin’. There was a deck shuffled in
by
the end of the night but it
wasn’t
there when
we
started. I
have
no idea how it got in and who brought it. Is it important?”
A
-dorm at
Potter
Correctional Institution is an
open-bay,
military barrack–style inmate housing unit that serves as the orientation and honor dorm. In the shape of airplane wings, A-1 houses new inmates during their initial week of orientation, and A-2 houses inmates with the best adjustment to prison, the ones who act
honorably.
To
be selected for the sixty-four coveted positions in the honor dorm, an inmate can
have
no disciplinary reports, or
DRs,
and must
have
achieved
above
satisfactory on his gain time evaluations in his
work
and housing
areas.
Suicide did not seem likely for the honor dorm.
All the inmates from A-2 had been moved into other dorms, the yard was closed, and only a handful of officers and officials were near the crime scene. The still and quiet
dorm
with its rows and rows of empty bunks looked like an abandoned post-Cold
War
military base that had not survived down-sizing.
Buzzed into the
dorm
near the raised and enclosed officers’ station, I walked in between the row of double bunks against the wall to my right and the single bunks in the center of the
dorm
to my left, toward the back corner, which was the least visible in the dorm, especially at night.
When I arrived, a few of the officers milling around gestured toward me. Nearly all encouraged me to
“have
a look.”
I did.
On the back side of the last bunk—the point in the
dorm
that was furthermost from the officers’ station—an inmate was hanging on a small piece of rope, probably the kind used to crank the lawnmowers by the outside grounds crews. The small rope had been looped around the post at the top of the bed.
The body of the inmate fell forward against the rope, his pale face
puffy,
his
dry,
swollen tongue protruding. His head hung
loosely,
his
arms
dangling down toward the ground. The tops of his feet and bottoms of his shins lay against the cold tile
floor.
He was wearing a pair of white
boxers
and a white T-shirt, both of which had his name and DC number stamped on them. Danny
Jacobs.
One of the most faithful members of the inmate chapel
choir.
Beginning just beneath his thighs and culminating in plum-colored feet, his legs were a gradient of lighter to darker purple.
One of the officers standing nearby said, “They found him when they turned the lights on this
morning.”
I wondered if the
dorm
officers had made rounds after lights out last night.
“He leave a note?” I asked.
“No,”
he said. “Everything’s just like we found
it.”
“
Is someone assigned to the top bunk?”
“Yeah,”
he said. “Phillips.”
“Lance Phillips?”
“Uh
huh.”
“Jacobs has been sleeping in the top bunk since Phillips went to Medical,” another officer offered.
It was at that moment that I realized how close in size and build Danny
Jacobs
and Lance Phillips were.
If the officers knew that Phillips was in Medical for supposedly attempting the same thing, they
didn’t
say anything about it.
“Anybody
see anything?”
“Say they
didn’t,”
the first officer said. “But if they did, we’ll know soon enough. God knows inmates
can’t
keep a secret.”
“Chaplain, what the
hell’re
you doin’ down here?” Mark Lawson, the interim institutional inspector asked as he walked up behind
us.
“This is a friggin’ crime
scene.”
“I was called in by the
OIC,”
I said.
“
I’m
the one that told them to call you
in,”
he said. “Not to come pretend like
you’re
still a
cop,
but to act like a chaplain.
To
call this
boy’s
family and let them know
what’s
happened.”
Mark Lawson had been the inspector of
Potter
Correctional Institution for about
two
months. Here on special assignment, while
Pete
Fortner was on medical
leave,
he was an ex-offender who had received a full pardon from the governor, and the son of the
woman
who
was
dating the regional director.
He had the bulky build of an inmate and pea-green prison tattoos on his forearms, which according to the hype was supposed to make him more accepted and respected by the inmate population. So far I
hadn’t
seen any evidence that it was anything but
hype.
“Nothing’s
to say I
can’t
do
both,”
I said.
“Yes
there
is,”
he said, stepping up a little too close. “
Me
. Not to mention the
warden.”
He held his
arms
like someone who had
worked
out so much that his muscles were too tight to allow them to straighten.
“Listen,” he continued, “I know you used to be a
cop.
Pretty good one from what I
hear.
I know you used to help the other inspector ’cause . . . well,
let’s
face it, he needed
help,
but while
I’m
inspector, you’ll be a chaplain.
Just
a chaplain. I
don’t
need any
help.
I know what I’m
doing.
Understand?”
I
didn’t
say
anything.
I was
angry
and embarrassed. My ego had flared
up,
and I had to get it under control.