The Body and the Blood (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

After walking up to the control room and getting copies of all the logs from the night of the murder, I was back in my office poring over them, Gregorian Chant drifting out of the small boom box on my desk and filling the room.

I had done some counseling earlier, but had been distracted and ineffective, anxious to go over the logs.

It wasn’t true of all prisons, but at PCI every time an employee entered or exited the institution, they were logged in and out by an officer in the control room. The same was true of certain key places on the compound, including the dorms.

I began to compare the “In” and “Out” times of G-dorm with those of the control room, but I didn’t get very far.

The logs from G-dorm were sloppy, and I could tell that entries were missing—like when Daniels and I had entered together that night. Technically, the employees themselves were supposed to sign the logs, but many times the officer on duty would just do it for them.

I had seen some poorly kept logs over the years, but those of Pitts and Potter were some of the worst. Still, they had what I needed.

I picked up my phone, called Dr. DeLisa Lopez in Psychology, and asked to see her.

“I’ve got several more inmates waiting for me,” she said with just the hint of an accent, “but if you come down right now, I’ll try to work you in.”

When I walked into her office a few minutes later, she was making notes inside a file folder on top of the filing cabinet in the right corner behind her desk. I sat down, but didn’t say anything.

DeLisa Lopez, the new psych specialist at PCI, made me think of heat—from her dark, sun-baked skin to her slow, sultry movements that reminded me of summer.

She looked up and gave me a quick little smile. “I’ll be with you in just a moment. Let me just finish this up.”

When she had scribbled the last of her notes, she closed the file folder, dropped it in the open drawer, slammed it shut, and sat down.

“Everyone here makes inmates wait while they talk to staff, usually about nothing, and it’s disrespectful. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t coddle inmates, but being here’s their punishment. I’m not here to punish them.”

I nodded.

“I’m glad you agree. I’ve got several more men to see after you who I don’t want to keep waiting any longer than I have to, so what can I do for you?”

I decided to be as direct as she was.

“What were you doing in the PM unit on the evening that Justin Menge was murdered?”

“My job,” she said, her bearing and tone defiant.

“It’s just a question. Not an accusation.”

“It was just an answer. Not a defense.”

“See anything that might be helpful?”

“Helpful with what?”

“Finding out who killed Justin.”

She shook her head.”Sorry.”

Though our exchange was direct, even abrupt, we were both still smiling and there was an underlying, if uneasy, playfulness to it.

On a bookshelf to my left, amid textbooks, DC binders, and her collection of miniature Florida lighthouses, Latin-pop dance music twisted out of a boom box like a merengue on speed.

“You seem defensive,” I said.

“I’m not,” she said.

We fell silent for a moment, the soft music in the background the only sound in the room. She held my gaze, and I really noticed her eyes for the first time. They were very deep, very dark, and rimmed with sparkling gold and copper flecks.

“You’re always this abrupt?” I asked.

“You know what kind of environment this is. Maybe I’m a little paranoid. If I come across defensive I’m sorry. I didn’t used to be like this. Just since I started working here.”

“Why work here?”

“I won’t for long,” she said. “I was in a situation in Miami where I had to move, so I took the first thing I could find.”

I nodded.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“Did you see anyone else while you were down there?”

“Potter, when I went in. That’s about it.”

“Which inmates did you see?”

“Carlos Matos, Chris Sobel, Milton White.”

“And were the cells still unlocked at that time?”

She nodded. “I was in there early and got out early.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“The log shows you signed in, but never out.”

“I didn’t sign out. I’m still down there. Seriously, Potter’s an idiot. He wasn’t anywhere around when I left, and the doors were unlocked so I didn’t have to be buzzed out. Pathetic security. Everyone knows that’ll get inmates raped, assaulted, even killed. They just don’t care.”

“Why didn’t you come forward when you heard about Justin Menge’s death? You had to know we’d want to talk to you.”

“I figured you’d come and talk to me when you got around to it.”

I was pretty sure she was lying, but I didn’t know what to do about it, so I decided to leave her alone for now and see what developed.

“Besides,”she added, “I don’t have anything to contribute.”

“Well,” I said with a smile, “I can’t really argue with that.”

Chapter Thirty

When I left DeLisa Lopez’s office, I stopped by the PM unit while it was still empty to have another look around the crime scene. The PM inmates would be moved back the following day, and then any investigation of the physical site would be much more difficult—not to mention completely compromised.

Though the quad had been empty for a while now, the smells of sweat, sleep, stale smoke, and blood lingered like bad memories, and the humid, overcast day seemed to have moved inside, its slate clouds diffusing what little light was present. As I walked, my shoes tapped on the bare concrete, echoing through the emptiness.

Beneath the sagging crime-scene tape across his cell door, Menge’s blood on the floor seemed to cry out. It wasn’t a scream or an angry yell, but a sad and pitiful cry that grieved the interruption and incompleteness of a life too soon cut loose.

I heard footsteps and spun around to see Tom Daniels coming up behind me.

“It’s what we all come to in the end,” he said. “Little more than spilt blood.”

I nodded.

“Came down for one last look around.”

“Why’re you bringing them back in so soon?” I asked.

“Wanna see what happens. One of ‘em’s a murderer. Shake ‘em all up and see what comes out.”

“Maybe more of this,” I said, nodding toward the bloodstained floor.

He shrugged. “Maybe, but maybe it’ll just be an attempt and we can catch him. Or maybe someone’ll start braggin’ about it, ‘cause they all like to brag about what they do.”

I shrugged and shook my head doubtfully. “Any word on the shank?”

“It’s definitely got traces of blood on it,” he said. “FDLE’ll let us know if it matches Menge’s—and if there’re any prints on it.”

“Any word on Sobel?”

He shook his head. “Oh, but get this,” he said. “We found his prints in Menge’s cell.”

“I figured they’d be all over it,” I said.

“Just a partial on the door and on the light fixture.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Everything else had been wiped down. I remember thinking when I had to reconnect the light that the murderer must have disabled it for concealment. We’ve gotta find him.”

I thought about it some more. “So Sobel touched the door and the light after everything was wiped clean.”

“Or he missed those when he was wiping everything clean.”

We looked around some more.

I told him about DeLisa Lopez.

“Think she’s involved?”

“She’s lying about something.”

“Oh, yeah, we found a plastic spoon in Matos’s cell. It was still in the lock. He’s one of the one’s she visited. You gonna follow up with her?”

I nodded.

Neither of us said anything else, and eventually he wandered away.

I climbed the metal stairs to the catwalk and went into Matos’s cell. The place had obviously been thoroughly searched and with little regard for his property. I really didn’t expect to find anything, and I didn’t.

I realized what a waste of time this was and decided to go do something more useful—like look for Merrill or interview other suspects.

When I walked back out onto the catwalk, I saw four Hispanic inmates closing in on Daniels. They were all muscular and heavily-tattooed, one of them with a two-foot length piece of galvanized pipe in his hand.

“We got a little message for you, motherfucker,” the one in front said in heavily accented English. “Leave Juan Martinez the fuck alone.”

I crept down the steps as quietly as I could and came up behind them.

“You know he did not do what you say he did, so just find another little bitch for your punk ass plans. Understand?”

I recognized the inmate talking as Julio Fernandez, but I didn’t know any of the others.

“No,” Daniels said. “Could you say it again? Your accent’s real heavy and—”

“Oh, we got us a smartass, tough motherfucker here, don’t we, fellas?”

The men nodded and voiced their agreement. Tom Daniels was a tough motherfucker.

“
Si
,” one of them said. “Big hairy balls.”

“How ‘bout we break your fuckin’ skull and see if you understand then?” Julio said.

“Just the four of you?” he asked.

I smiled. I had never seen this side of my father-in-law before. Of course, I had never seen him sober in a situation like this before either. He actually seemed to want to fight them. Then it hit me—
of course he does
.
He’s so angry about what happened to Sarah he’s gonna get himself hurt or killed
.

“Four?” Julio asked. “It won’t take all four of us, old man. I can kick your ass all by myself.”

I glanced over my shoulder into the wicker. I couldn’t see any officers, but it was partially blocked by the stairs. Had someone buzzed them in or had the door been unlocked?

“I think you just like to hear yourself talk,” Daniels said. “Sounds to me like you’re just trying to impress your little bitches.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was a very different Daniels.

I was puzzled at the source of his confidence. Surely it wasn’t my presence. Maybe he thought he could back the guy down with his aggression, but the reverse seemed to be happening. Or maybe he thought he really could handle himself. But I wasn’t going to take that chance. Susan would never forgive me if I let anything happen to her dad.

When Julio drew the galvanized pipe back to strike Daniels, I grabbed it from behind, snatched it from his hand, and hit him on the side of the head with it.

He went down.

Blood poured out of his right ear, and he shrieked in pain as he raised his hand to it.

You didn’t have to hit him with it
.
You could’ve just taken it away.

His cry startled me, and I felt nauseous for the pain I had inflicted. I recalled telling Mike Hawkins how we were supposed to turn the other cheek just a few hours before. Maybe that wasn’t possible in my current situation, or maybe if I concentrated on just being a chaplain and didn’t get involved in investigations, or didn’t work in a prison, I could do it. I had to figure it out.

The nausea quickly subsided, the reflection abruptly halted, as the other three inmates surrounded me.

I swung the pipe and they backed up a step. When they did, Tom Daniels kidney-punched the one closest to him and he went down.

Two down. Two to go.

I swung the pipe again, catching one of them at the base of the neck. There was a loud crack like the snap of a branch, and I feared I had broken his neck, but the moment he hit the floor, he was scurrying to his feet again.

Within an instant, Daniels was beside me, and we were backing toward the door as the three still on their feet were moving in on us. They never rushed us, only walked steadily after us. And in another moment, I knew why.

As we continued to back our way out of the quad, I bumped into what seemed to be a new wall.

When I turned around, I could see that the wall was actually a large Hispanic inmate. He smiled broadly, exposing gaping holes where his front teeth should be, and ripped the pipe from my hand.

The other inmates swarmed around us.

“Hello,
Jésus
,” the leader said. “Fellas, aren’t we glad to see
Jésus
?”

They all indicated they were glad to see
Jésus
.

“I really don’t want to be killed by someone named Jesus,” I said. “And I certainly can’t
hit
someone with that name.”

“Shit,” Julio said. “When you think about it, it fits—you will go from the hands of
Jésus
into the arms of Jesus.”

“You’re right,” I said to Daniels. “He does love to hear himself talk.”

The smile left his face as he drove an uppercut into my abdomen that doubled me over and left me gasping for air.

From that position, searching for the air that had suddenly rushed out of the room, I watched as Tom Daniels, in one fluid motion, kicked
Jésus
in the groin, snatched the pipe from his hand, and hit Julio in the mouth with it.

Blood, spit, and teeth sailed through the air and splattered on the bare cement floor.

Jésus
and Julio both went down, though I’m not sure who hit the floor first, nor who was in the most pain, but neither of them made any attempt to get up.

Daniels shook his head. “They just got finished cleaning up this place.”

With the shepherd stricken, the sheep scattered. The two close to us were joined by the one who had remained on the floor back where all the fun began, and they rushed out of the quad.

“I just want you to know,” I said as Daniels walked over toward me, “that I will always take very good care of your daughter and won’t ever do anything to upset her
or
you.”

As he helped me up, I said, “You gonna have them locked up?”

He shook his head. “Let’s leave them out so they can fuck up some more.”

Though I was moving slowly, he matched my pace as we walked out of the quad. When we neared the door, I looked up through the glass to the wicker. There was still no sign of anyone.

“You think someone let them in?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Quad door was unlocked. It’s possible that the outside door was too. That’s the problem with using these dorms the way they do. It creates bad habits. Hell, the outside doors aren’t locked half the time.”

He was right. G-dorm had been designed for maximum control over close custody inmates—inmates who didn’t leave their cells except for showering and limited exercise—but it was being used like an open bay dorm on one side and PM on the other. On one side, the doors stayed unlocked most of the time, open population inmates coming and going all the time. On the other the cell doors stayed open, but the quad and dorm doors did not—or weren’t supposed to. It was easy for errors and accidents to happen, but like most things at PCI, it wouldn’t be corrected until a serious incident occurred—and only then if a staff member was involved or an inmate filed a lawsuit.

He added, “Maybe it was buzzed open for an inmate assigned to clean or something and he let the others in.”

“Be hard not to notice them in there with us.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But with the quad closed down right now, maybe they’re not looking in it at all.”

“So you’re not going to pursue it?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Let’s just let everything play out. Keep everyone in the mix, see what happens—at least until we know for sure who our guy is.”

“I just hope no one gets hurt while we wait. Not everyone can take care of themselves like you.”

“I’m going over to have a little talk with Martinez before I go.”

“I would ask if you wanted me to go with you,” I said, “but you obviously don’t need backup.”