Wild Blood (7 page)

As he stepped into the room, he thought someone had put red sheets on the bed. The smell of blood was so strong he had to breathe through his mouth to keep from gagging. There were leather thongs tied to the headboard and the lamp on the bedside table lay on its side, its bulb smashed. There were words scrawled in blood on the wall opposite the bed. They were stilted and uneven, as if written by a deranged child:
HEALTER SCELTER
,
PIGGIES
, and, most chilling of all,
HELP
.

Sykes scanned the room for some sign of the woman he'd seen the night before. Although there was blood—and plenty of it—there was no sign of a body. He checked the bathroom, expecting to find her mutilated corpse in the tub, but all that was there was a blood-caked towel. There was no trace of the woman in the red dress. It was like she'd been swallowed whole—hair, guts and all.

The cops were there in within five minutes. Forensics made the scene in under a half-hour. Sykes stood in the air-conditioned comfort of the front office and watched the police crawl in and around his motel like a battalion of army ants. Eventually one of the homicide detectives came in to question him and Juanita.

“Did this guy you saw with the woman register for the room?”

Sykes nodded and handed the detective the card. “Yeah, not that it'll do you any good. I didn't really look at the signature last night. It was late—besides, he paid cash, and cash customers around here usually don't use their real names. For what it's worth, he didn't check out, of course, so I get to keep the deposit on the key.”

The detective scanned the registration card and barked a humorless laugh. “‘Roman Polanski', huh? Cute.”

“Have you found her yet?” Sykes asked nervously.

“Not exactly. But the forensics team found something behind the TV set. We're not sure how it got there—not that it matters, come to think of it. It's a human eye.”

A week later Sykes sold the Bide-A-Wee to a Pakistani family and moved the hell to Idaho.

Chapter Seven

Skinner was numb throughout his bench hearing. While he was aware that he was before the judge on drunk and disorderly with vagrancy thrown in for good measure, since whoever it was who had kicked the shit out of him also lifted his wallet along with what little money he had left, and all his I.D. as well, he couldn't bring himself to respond to the charges.

Although he was thousands of miles away when it happened, Skinner felt responsible for his stepfather's suicide. Instead of helping Luke through the grieving process, he'd run off on a half-baked search for his natural parents the moment they threw the last shovel of dirt on his adopted mother's grave. He hadn't been there when the old farmer had needed him most. He'd thought only of himself—of the promise held at the core of this most personal of mysteries. He hadn't given his stepfather a single thought until he landed in trouble. But, as it turned out, good old big-hearted Luke couldn't stand being by himself in that empty house, widowed and lonelier than he'd ever been before.

Skinner barely registered the bang of the gavel and the judge's verdict of ninety days. While he was innocent of the charges leveled against him, he deserved to be punished.

However, after he was returned to the holding tank, he learned some disturbing news from his cellmate, who had finally sobered up enough to talk, that dispelled his self-pitying masochism. As it turned out, although Los Lobos County was so tiny its native population didn't generate that much in the way of trouble, it had a prison ten times the size it needed because they handled the overflow from nearby—and far more affluent—Pima County, which was fond of sending them their more troublesome inmates. And since Butter Junction didn't have a proper city jail, it automatically shunted any prisoner with more than thirty days on his ticket to Los Lobos Correctional.

Two hours later, Skinner was manacled hand and foot and driven in a van to what would be his home for the next three months. Upon arrival he was unloaded just inside the gate of the Los Lobos Correctional Facility, stuck out in the middle of serious nowhere, surrounded by fifteen-foot-high chain-link fences topped with spools of razor wire and with guard towers pinning down the corners. It was hardly the Big House, but then, Skinner had never been locked up before. It was designed to house three hundred prisoners in three double-tiered cellblock wings that jutted from the central hub that housed the mess hall, sickbay, and administrative offices.

There were men in the yard dressed in identical orange jumpsuits. Some were running laps on the track; others were pumping iron with a set of free weights. Most of them, however, simply ambled about in clumps of two or three, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and talking among themselves.

“C'mon! You'll have plenty of time to hang in the yard once you're processed!” the deputy snapped, prodding Skinner with his baton as if he was recalcitrant livestock.

They entered the central administration block and were routed through Receiving & Release by two men with the word “trustee” stenciled across the backs of their jumpsuits. Upon arriving he was brought before an inmate seated at a desktop computer who dutifully recorded his name, Social Security number, physical description, next of kin and medical history. Once that was done, he was once more fingerprinted and photographed. Upon being hustled past the Quartermaster's desk he was issued an orange jumpsuit, a pair of work boots, two pair of wool socks, two pair of underwear, a comb and a toothbrush, all courtesy of the taxpayers.

The deputy reappeared armed with a clipboard, and reconnected Skinner's leg chains. He then checked the cell-assignment sheet and escorted him to Cell Block A.

“Got you a new fish, Stanton,” the deputy yawned as he handed over the cell-assignment sheet.

The corrections officer grunted and scribbled his initials on the form. “Tate, get the prisoner situated.”

The younger guard stepped forward, fixing Skinner with a cold glare designed to make his guts knot. It succeeded.

Cradling what few possessions he had against his chest, Skinner stepped through the sally port that lead to the interior of the cell block, C.O. Tate literally breathing down his neck. The block was double-tiered with twenty-five units per level, each cell designed to hold two prisoners, with metal catwalks and stairs on each side. Since it was daytime, the doors were open and most of the cells empty, as the inmates were either at work or walking the yard. Those that were still in their cells barely looked up from their reading or letters home to note the new fish's arrival.

“Here you go, Cade. You get to bunk with Creighton! Lucky you!”

Before Skinner had a chance to figure out whether the C.O. was being sarcastic or not, he found himself standing in one of the cramped cells, staring at a man old enough to be his father squatting on a stainless-steel institutional toilet. The older man lowered his less-than-current National Enquirer to fix Skinner with a curious stare.

“Afternoon,” the inmate said flatly.

“Uh, I'm sorry—” Skinner looked at his boots, the ceiling and the wall in rapid succession. “I didn't mean to intrude.”

“If you ain't never seen someone take a crap before,” the older man said with a weary laugh, “you better get used to it, kid.” He folded his newspaper and stood up to wipe.

He was big—well over six feet—and his graying hair held in place with by a tube of Brylcreem. His face was heavily seamed about the eyes and the corners of his mouth, and his left eyelid drooped, but he otherwise seemed to be healthy. “The name's Creighton. What's your handle, kid?”

“Skinner Cade.”

He grunted again and lipped a cigarette. “What you in for, kid?”

Skinner tried to make his voice sound as tough and worldly as possible. “Drunk and disorderly.”

Creighton snorted, sending a cloud of smoke from his nostrils. “You've never been inside before, have you?”

Skinner fidgeted.

“You don't have t'say, kid. It might as well be tattooed on your forehead. How long they give you?”

“Ninety days.”

Creighton settled onto the lower bunk, folding his arms behind his head, peering thoughtfully at the cracks in the cell wall. “Ninety, huh? That ain't nothin'. I could do ninety standin' on my head blindfolded. But I remember what it was like when I was your age. Three months feels like three years when you're young and dumb. Man can get himself in a lot of trouble in ninety days, if he don't know the ropes. Come in for vagrancy, en up finding himself doing time for murder, if he ain't careful. Oh, by the way: you get the top bunk.”

Skinner nodded and began putting away his few meager personal possessions. He was acutely aware of Creighton's eyes on him the whole time.

“You got family, kid?” the con asked. “Anyone know you're here?”

Skinner shoulders tightened without his willing it. “My mom died a couple weeks ago. My dad was killed when I was twelve. There's no one else.”

Creighton nodded to himself, as if some unspoken question had been confirmed. “I like you, kid. I can tell you're a regular Joe, not like most of the trash that comes through here. Me? I been in an' outta the jug since I was fifteen. I'm fifty-seven now. Once you get yourself situated, I'll introduce you to some of my homeys. They're okay—they ain't fuckin' crack heads or gang bangers.”

A half-hour later Creighton took Skinner on a tour of the prison yard. It was late afternoon and the baked earth under their feet radiated heat like a griddle, but that didn't seem to deter the men at the weight bench. Skinner watched in awe as a tall, muscular white man unzipped his jumpsuit and rolled it down to his waist before doing bench presses. The inmate's skin was coated with sweat, making the jailhouse tattoos that swarmed his pecs, biceps and scapulars glisten and gleam. His body covered with skulls with daggers through their eyes, snarling panthers, eight balls, crossed knives, coiled snakes, grim reapers and other hard-luck iconography, and topping them off was a solitary India ink tear at the corner of his right eye.

Creighton followed Skinner's gaze and visibly blanched. Without breaking stride, he grabbed the younger man's arm and steered him away from the weight area, doing his best to position himself between Skinner and the tattooed inmate. It wasn't until then that Skinner was aware of just how tall and brawny the old-timer really was.

“There's a few things you need to know so's you can make it through your stay in this country club in one piece,” he explained with a restrained urgency. “First thing is, don't go lookin' a man in the eye while you're in here, unless you're in the mood for a fight or a fuck. I seen men get their guts handed to 'em on the end of a sharpened spoon just cause some cracker didn't like the way he was being eyeballed.

“And especially don't go borrowin' shit like cigs or gum, cause the first time you can't pay back you'll find yourself washin' socks an' pullin' trains to make up your debt. But the single most important thing you got to remember, kid, is to do your own time and hold your mud. If it gets out that you've snitched—you're good as dead.”

A slightly built prisoner with a state-issue upper plate sidled up alongside Creighton. “See you're schoolin' yourself a fish,” he grinned.

“Howdy, Top Gum,” Creighton replied. “This here's Skinner, my new bunkie.”

The old man nodded and smiled, careful not to send his ill-fitting dentures flying out into the yard. “How long?”

“Short-termer,” Creighton said, not giving Skinner a chance to answer for himself. “Green as goose shit.”

“You better make sure Mother and Rope don't get wind of him, then.” Top Gum's mouth was smiling, but there was no humor in his voice.

“Who are they?” Skinner asked.

“You already saw Mother,” Creighton grunted.

“You mean the guy with the muscles and tattoos?”

“That's him.”

“Why should I watch out for them?”

Top Gum shot Creighton a look out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the bigger man to take up the tale, but he remained silent. When he didn't, Top Gum sighed and pressed his plate back into place with the ball of his thumb. “There ain't a nastier set of bookends to be found in Los Lobos. Mother—that's short for Motherfucker, mind you—is trash that don't burn, as my sainted mama used to say. He's got more tattoos than Carter's got little liver pills. He's a tough hombre outta Texas, originally. Kilt him a few, if the brag's true, but they ain't been able to pin him for nothin' worse than attempted manslaughter. He likes to rape. When he's on the outside, he rapes women. When he's in here, he rapes boys. Don't seem to matter what kinda hole he sticks it in, long as whoever's attached ain't got no say in the matter.

“He travels with his homey, a big ol' buck called Rope. Normally the Blacks and Whites don't have much truck with one another in here, but Rope and Mother are tighter'n ticks at a nudist colony. I figger it's on account of nobody else bein' willin' to hang with 'em. Rope's as mean as Mother, but more subtle on account of him bein' mute.”

“You mean he's deaf?” Skinner asked.

“Nah, he can hear as good as you or me. Better, mebbe. He just can't talk on account of gettin' lynched awhile back. Got hisself accused of rapin' some white gal in Alabama. Mebbe he did, mebbe he didn't. Who knows? Anyway, he gets caught by some crackers and carried out to the piney woods, where they beat on him some, took a buck knife to his privates, and then strung him up. I reckon they thought they'd kilt him, so they drove off in their pick-ups and left him hangin' there. He weren't dead, though. Somehow he managed to get himself free.

“Rope's been in and outta jail ever since—mostly on assault charges and crimes against nature. Just because some Alabama crackers cut his pecker off don't slow him down none. He just uses coke bottles, broom handles, and whatever else is handy to get the job done. Like I said, him and Mother is a mean machine you want to stay the hell clear of.”