Her voice had risen, and people in the adjoining cubicles were standing and peering over the partitions at her.
“Let me be useful! Grind me up! Listen to me, all of you!
Don’t you want to be ground up to feed the starving animals?”
The matron hurried over, her keys jangling against her blue serge thighs. “Is anything the matter, Miss Haywood?”
“Prison. I’m in prison and the animals are starving.”
“Hush, now. They’re not starving.”
“You don’t care about them!”
“I care more about you,” the matron said pleasantly. “Come along, I’ll take you back to your room.”
“Cell. I am a prisoner in a prison and I live in a cell, not a room.”
“Whatever it is, you’re going back to it and I don’t want any fussing and carrying-on. Now be a good girl, eh?”
“I am not a good girl,” Miss Haywood said distinctly. “I am a bad woman who lives in a cell in a prison.”
“Good grief.”
“And watch your language.”
The matron put a firm hand on Alberta Haywood’s elbow and guided her out. The conversations in the room began again but the voices were quieter, more guarded, and when Quinn got up to leave, the eyes that followed him seemed full of accusations: You didn’t answer her question, mister. Why are we all here?
Quinn returned to the administration building, and after another series of delays was given permission to see the psychiatric social worker who counseled the inmates due for parole hearings.
Mrs. Browning was young, earnest, baffled. “This is a period of great strain for all of them, naturally. Still, the report of Miss Haywood’s crack-up surprises me. I suppose it shouldn’t. I’ve had very little actual contact with her.” She adjusted her spectacles as if she hoped to bring Miss Haywood into clearer focus. “In an institution like this, where the psychology department is understaffed, it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, and heaven knows we have enough squeaky wheels without bothering about the quiet ones like Miss Haywood.”
“She’s never caused any trouble?”
“Oh no. She does her work well—in the prison library—and she teaches a couple of courses in bookkeeping.” To Quinn it was a nice piece of irony, but Mrs. Browning seemed unaware of it as she continued, “She has a natural talent for figures.”
“So I gathered.”
“I’ve frequently noticed that among women there is a correlation between mathematical ability and a lack of warmth and emotion. Miss Haywood is respected by the other inmates but she’s not well liked and she has no special friends or confidantes. This must have been true of her before she was sent here because only one person comes to visit her, a brother, and his visits are anything but satisfactory.”
“In what sense?”
“Oh, she seems to look forward to them, yet she’s upset for a long time afterwards. And by upset I don’t mean the way she acted today. Miss Haywood withdraws, becomes completely silent. It’s as if she has so very much to say, to get off her chest, that she can’t allow herself to begin.”
“She began today.”
“Yes, perhaps it’s a breakthrough.” But Mrs. Browning’s eyes were strained as if the silver lining they saw was very faint and far away. “There’s another odd thing about Miss Haywood, at least it’s odd to me when I consider her circumstances: she’s nearly forty, she has a prison record, she’s without a husband and family to return to, she can hardly get another job in the only field she’s trained in; in other words, her future appears pretty black, and she herself claims she’s only waiting to die. Yet she takes extraordinarily good care of herself. She diets, and to diet in a place like this which has to serve a lot of cheap starchy food requires a great deal of will power. She exercises in her cell, half an hour in the morning, half an hour at night, and the eighteen dollars she’s permitted to spend in the canteen every month—supplied by her brother—goes for vitamin pills instead of cigarettes and chewing gum. I can only presume that if she’s waiting to die she’s determined to die healthy...”
Twelve
Quinn spent the night in San Felice, and by noon the following day he was back in Chicote. The weather had not improved during the week and neither had Chicote. It lay parched and prosperous under the relentless sun, a city of oil that needed water.
He checked in at the same motel downtown.
Mr. Frisby, on duty in the office, looked a little surprised. “My goodness, it’s you again, Mr. Quinn.”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you’re not bearing a grudge about that little episode in your room a week ago. I’ve warned Grandpa to be more careful in the future, and it won’t happen a second time, I can assure you.”
“No, I don’t think it will.”
“Any luck yet with your story about O’Gorman?”
“Not much.”
Frisby leaned across the counter. “I wouldn’t want this to get around—the sheriff’s a friend of mine, sometimes he appoints me special deputy—but in my opinion the case was bungled.”
“Why?”
“Civic pride, that’s why. None of the authorities would admit we’ve got juvenile delinquency around here same as the big cities or, maybe even worse. Now according to my way of thinking, here’s what happened: O’Gorman was on his way back to his office at the oil field when an earful of young punks spotted him and decided to have a little fun and games. They forced him right off the road. They did the same thing to me last year, I ended up in a ditch with two broken ribs and a concussion. Just kids they were, too, and with no motive at all except they wanted to raise hell. Some of the kids around here, especially on the ranches, learn to drive when they’re ten, eleven years old. By the time they’re sixteen they know everything about a car except how to behave in it. Well, I was luckier than O’Gorman. I ended up in a ditch, not a river.”
“Was there any evidence that O’Gorman was forced off the road?”
“A big dent in the left side of the bumper.”
“Surely the sheriff must have noticed it.”
“You bet he did,” Frisby said. “I pointed it out to him myself. I was there when they pulled the car out of the river and the first thing I looked for were marks like were found on my car last year. That dent was in the very same spot and there was a faint trace of dark green paint in it. Maybe not enough to take any scrapings for scientific tests, but enough so you could see if you looked real close and knew exactly what to look for.”
Reliving the excitement had sent the blood rushing up into Frisby’s face. It seemed to be increasing in size and getting ready to explode like a bright pink balloon. But even as Quinn watched, the balloon began diminishing and its color began fading.
“Everything was there to support my theory,” Frisby said with a sudden deep sigh. “Except for one thing.”
“And that was?”
“Martha O’Gorman.”