“No need to apologize. Just makin’ sure. Figure somebody should check on
you
occasionally.”
“Thanks. I’m good.”
“Well, have a good day,” he said.
“You too.”
I moved back over to the gate, held up my ID, and he buzzed me in. I had to wait a little longer than normal inside the sally port, because of a phone call that came into the control room, but eventually he buzzed me through the second gate and onto the compound.
“CHAPLAIN. CHAPLAIN.”
I was walking toward the chapel trying to appear as normal as possible, while wondering where and how Anna was, when I heard Sergeant Helm’s rough voice yelling for me.
When I turned, I saw that she was motioning me over to the mailroom window on the back of the visiting park.
“I just heard,” she said.
It was a very small town and news traveled fast––particularly bad news––but it surprised me that word of Chris Taunton’s death was already making the rounds.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“About Richie,” she said.
Oh. That.
“
And after what happened to Hahn . . .”
So much death. I’m surrounded by it. Death beside me. Death before me. Death behind me. Death on all sides.
“Are you okay?”
Carrie Helms was fifty-eight years old and looked it. Not in a bad way. She just looked her age. She wore too much makeup, and she misapplied it––an action that emphasized her wrinkles, but she had a vibrancy about her, a youthful gleam in the big blue eyes that twinkled beneath her short gray hair.
I nodded.
“You sure? You seem . . . distracted.”
“I’m just tired. Maybe a little drained.”
“Why wouldn’t you be? You singlehandedly stopped those––”
“I didn’t singlehandedly do anything. Merrill. Anna. My dad. Even Jake. Lots of people worked together to––”
“Everybody’s talkin’ about it,” she said. “How did you figure out what was going on in Medical?”
“I really need to get to the chapel. Can we talk about it a little later?”
“Oh, sure. Drop by later when you can. Is Anna coming in today?”
“She’s pretty sick,” I said. “Probably not.”
“Then bring your lunch down here and eat with me, and we can talk then.”
I was in my office, the desultory sounds of Gregorian chant drifting around the room, counseling an inmate named Kevin whose grandmother, the woman who raised him, had recently died, when Bat Matson, the warden, walked in without knocking.
When I first started at PCI, Edward Stone, a fastidious, aging African-American man, had been the warden. He had presented certain challenges for me, and I for him, but eventually we had settled into a relatively comfortable working relationship––something that had not happened with Bat Matson, and wasn’t likely to.
A fleshy man in his early sixties with prominent jowls and thick gray hair swooped to the side, Matson, a man as harsh and rigid in his work as his fundamentalist religion, was wearing what I had come to think of as his uniform––cheap black tie, white cotton shirt with button-down collar, black poly/cotton flat-front work pants, and black Polyurethane lace-up shoes. Never a coat. Never any color. Never any style or creativity. Never any variation or alteration.
He was accompanied by an athletic youngish woman with shoulder-length blondish-brown hair, cinnamon-tinged skin, and stunning grayish-green eyes.
“Inmate,” Matson said, “wait outside in the hallway until we’re done.”
Without hesitation, Kevin jumped up and headed toward the door, nodding deferentially toward Matson and the woman as he did.
“Wait,” I said, standing. “Kevin just lost his grandmother. We’re in the middle of a very––”
“It’s okay,” Kevin said. “I’m fine. I’ll be out here when you’re done, Chaplain.”
With that, he exited the room as quickly as possible, closing the door behind him.
“Most of what I do here is crisis counseling,” I said to Matson. “You can’t keep barging in when I’m in the middle of it.”
“My institution,” he said. “I can go anywhere in it anytime I like. Don’t like it, you can resign.”
“I appreciate you being reasonable about it,” I said.
The beautiful young woman with him smiled.
Matson sat down in one of the seats across from my desk. The young woman in the one beside him. After she did, I sat back down in mine.
“This is Rachel Peterson,” he said, tossing a thumb in her direction. “She’s the new IG of the department. She’s investigating the death of the psych specialist and the arrests of the medical personnel and your involvement. Give her your full cooperation.”
I smiled and nodded at her. “Nice to meet you.”
The previous Inspector General of the Department of Corrections had been my ex-father-in-law, Tom Daniels. I had worked with him some. Like my marriage to his daughter, it had not ended well. I hadn’t spoken with either of them for quite a while, though recently I had been trying unsuccessfully to get in touch with Susan. Maybe it was time to try Tom.
Merrill and even Anna asked why I felt the need to attempt to reconnect with Susan or Tom or Sarah, why I couldn’t just let it lie where it died. I had never been able to answer them to either their or my satisfaction. It was just something I felt I had to do, an intuition common and familiar to me––the ones I so often let guide me through my life. In addition to whatever else it was, part of my motivation was part of what made me who I am. I wanted peace if possible. Connection. An open channel of communication so that I might minister or help in some way one day.
“Nice to meet you,” Rachel said, extending her hand across the desk to shake mine.
There was something in her voice––plenty of Southern drawl, but something else besides, something just under the drawl.
“Where’d you grow up?” I asked.
“All over. Military brat.”
I nodded.
Her hands were strong, her shake firm without being aggressively so.
And it wasn’t just her hands. Her entire build and bearing were strong and solid––something her mind and spirit had to mirror for her to be the first woman to hold the position she did.
A
nna would like her. She would like Anna. Have to make sure they meet.
“
I’m gonna leave you two to it,” Matson said, sliding to the edge of his chair but not standing. “But before I do . . . I heard what happened last night . . . about your involvement with the conclusion of the Potter Farm incident. Seems there might not have been a conclusion if it weren’t for you.”
It was the closest thing to a compliment he had ever given me.
“I think you’re a better investigator than I realized,” he said. “I mean it. I’m saying this because if you’re cleared by Miss Peterson for what happened here, I want you two to talk about you becoming our institutional inspector.”
Without another word, he stood and left, the door banging loudly behind him as he did.
“I understand my predecessor was your father-in-law.”
I nodded.
“And that you’re the reason he’s my predecessor instead of still in this position.”
I shrugged.
“Are you interested in being the institutional inspector here?”
I shook my head.
“Anywhere?”
I shook my head again.
“You gonna cooperate with my investigation?”
I nodded.
“Are you going to attempt to do so without uttering a single word?”
I smiled. “No,” I said. “I’ll be downright chatty if you like.”
“Because you did nothing wrong? Have nothing to hide?”
“That’s for you to say.”
“What do you say?”
“I did plenty wrong,” I said, “but not in the sense you mean. Nothing illegal. Just meant mistakes. And I have nothing to hide.”
“Everybody has something to hide,” she said.
“Even the first female Inspector General of the Florida Department of Corrections?”
She smiled.
She had a dark complexion and bright white teeth, and her eyes and teeth shined brilliantly when she smiled.
“Even her.”
We were quiet a moment.
“I’m happy to answer all your questions,” I said, “but do you mind if I finish with Kevin first?”
“Not at all,” she said. “I’ll come back right after lunch. How’s that?”
“Thank you.”
“All my questions really come down to the same thing,” she said. “You can be thinking about it until we meet.”
“Okay.”
“Did your actions lead to the death of your coworker? Are you responsible for Hahn Ling’s death?”
After I finished with Kevin, I got an outside line from the control room and punched in the old number I had for Tom Daniels.
To my surprise he answered.
“You son of a bitch,” he said. “You know, don’t you? I knew it. I told them you––”
“Know what?”
“What’d you call for?” he asked, the tone of his voice changing.
I wondered what he meant, but knew with someone like him it could be anything.
Of all the cases I had worked over the years, only a handful still haunted me. Chief among them was the Atlanta Child Murders, but way up on the list was the case that involved Tom Daniels.
Not solving a case was one kind of agony, but solving it and being unable to bring about any kind of justice was a special kind of torture. Daniels was the latter, and that he could be a free man, free to inflict more harm, commit more crime, was particularly difficult for me to take––something that required much prayer, meditation, and letting go. And I had been doing okay with it, but hearing his voice, having him say he knew I would figure out something else––something no doubt duplicitous––he was up to, brought it all back, and made me feel the familiar old frustration that had too often eaten away at my insides over the years.
“What are you doing, Tom?” I asked.
“None of your business,
John
.”
“I called to see how you were doing,” I said. “To check on Susan. She’s not . . . She went from not answering to changing her number.”
“She wants nothing to do with you. None of us do. Don’t call. Don’t write. Don’t come by. Don’t even think about us. Haven’t you hurt us enough? Leave us the fuck alone.”
That was so typical of the criminal mentality. He was the one who had done all the damage, the one who had hurt so many people, yet he was blaming someone else for it. A victim until the end, his wounded, paranoid, defensive paradigm would always justify, always blame, and never take responsibility for any of his actions, not even murder.
“
Hurt you enough
?” I said.
“You’re toxic John. Far sicker than even you realize. I’m so glad my little girl got away from you. Probably the only reason she’s alive today.”
“I met your successor today,” I said.
“You know how many guys she had to fuck to get that job?” he said. “They call her Rug Burn Rachel. Have you fucked her yet? Y’all are perfect for each other. I’m sure she’ll do just fine for you if you don’t get––”
He stopped abruptly.
“If I don’t get what?”
“Good talk, John. Go fuck yourself. And don’t call back. Susan had the right idea. I’m changing my number too.”
With that, he hung up, leaving me to sit there with the receiver in my hand, seething.
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” I said.
I was in the chapel alone.
Lights off, votive candles lit, music playing softly.
Trying to let go.
Stop clinging. End your attachment to the outcome. Let go.
I centered myself, or attempted to, by concentrating on my breathing and repeating the Serenity Prayer over and over.
“Accept the things I can’t change.”
Accept. Release. Embrace. Let go.
“
Courage to change the things I can.”
Yourself. Your thinking. You are all you can change. Let go of all of this, of everything. Anna is all that matters.
Reminding myself of that helped more than anything else.
“Does that work?” Rachel asked.
She had walked into the chapel and up the side aisle and was standing a few feet away.
“If you work it,” I said without thinking about it.
“That’s an AA thing, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I said, “but it applies.”
“And how’s all that working for you?”
“See previous answer,” I said. “Works well when I work it. It’s all a practice. We get good at what we practice.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
I glanced at the clock on the back wall as I stood up.
I had intended to go up and have lunch with Carrie Helms, but without realizing it I had spent my entire lunch hour plus a few minutes of the state’s time in here.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “I knocked and called out in the hallway.”
“No problem,” I said. “Lost track of time.”
“With your practice.”
I couldn’t tell if she was mocking me, but decided if she was, it was only mildly.
“Yes.”
“Is part of what you’re processing Hahn Ling’s death?”
I sat down on the front pew and she joined me.
“Sure.”
“What else?”
“A delightful conversation I had with your predecessor not too long after you left last time.”
She smiled and nodded. “If anything could give you religion . . . What’d he say about me?”
“Nothin’.”
“You’re not supposed to lie.”
“Why?”
“It’s like a chaplain rule or something. Tell me. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
“I can’t remember.”
“Come on. Tell me.”
“He may have insinuated that you got your job by means other than merit.”
She smiled. “
May have insinuated
. You’re a gentleman, John Jordan. I’ll give you that. Let me guess . . . Rug Burn Rachel. I get that one a lot.”
I neither confirmed nor denied.
“Bet it gives his misogynist ass a special kind of heartburn that a woman has his old job,” she said.
“It’s called a nontaxable bonus,” I said.