“Steve, can you hold on a second?” If she didn’t pick up now, she’d lose the call.
“What? No-”
She put him on hold and picked up the other line. “Melanie Vargas.”
“You have a collect call from a correctional facility. Caller, state your name, please,” said the automated voice.
“Del-vis Di-az.”
“Accept the charges,” Melanie said eagerly. He was serious about this, whatever it was. “Hello, Delvis. Hold on for one minute, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She switched back to Steve. “Listen, Steve, I have to take this, but your idea about the counselor is a good one. We should definitely do that.”
“Uh, okay.”
“So arrange it, okay? I have to take this other call.”
“Melanie-”
“Bye!” She disconnected him. Amazing what leaving a couple of rings on the bedside table could do for the balance of power in a marriage. It felt good to be the boss for a change. And she felt a real glimmer of hope about Steve’s attitude.
“Delvis?” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“Look, I gotta talk to you, ma’am.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I kinda don’t wanna get into it over the phone, you know? It ain’t too private over here. Can you come see me?”
She sighed. Was this a game? She’d been through this before with other inmates. Visits from a prosecutor-especially a female one-relieved the boredom of long days on the inside. She could spend weeks trying to drag information out of Delvis, only to find he’d never had any to give. She leaned over, plucked the subpoena out of the printer, and began proofreading it. It looked good.
“No, I can’t visit you,” she said, tapping her foot impatiently. “Not without more of an explanation. If you have something to tell me, let’s hear it now.”
“I got some information about the hit. Word I do, ma’am. Like, who be involved and why it went down. You need to come back to see me again real fast.”
“Slice did the hit, am I right?”
“Not just him. Some other mu’fuckers, too.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“I can’t give you names over the phone, but they gonna surprise you.”
“It’s not news to me that Slice killed Jed Benson. If that’s all you have, I’ll add you to my to-do list and get up to see you when I can. But it’s a very long list.”
She pulled an empty Redweld folder out of her bottom desk drawer, put the subpoena in it, and placed it on her lap. She picked up her handbag and placed it on top of the Redweld, ready to head for the door.
“Please, ma’am,” he whispered. “I’d be jeopardizing myself here to say anything more.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Hablamos en español, entonces.”
“Nah, no good. I’m on the Spanish phone. All the mu’fuckers in line be, like, Colombian and Dominican and shit.”
That made sense, given what she knew about the extreme self-segregation of prison life. Between the Aryans, the Latin Kings, and the Five Percenters, inmates kept to their own kind just to steer clear of trouble.
“Look, Delvis, you know the game. Risks you take get factored in at the end of the day when the judge gives you credit for cooperation. That’s the best I can do.”
“It ain’t the credit I’m worried about. More peoples is gonna die if this shit don’t stop.”
Terrible images flooded her mind- Rosario ’s severed head, Jasmine’s bent body.
“More people already have, Delvis,” she said, furious. “So if you know something that can help me stop it, you better damn well spill it.”
“Benson was dirty.”
Melanie laid the Redweld and her handbag aside. “Dirty how?”
“That’s what I can’t be saying over the phone.”
“You mentioned something during the interview about Slice setting you up. Did Benson know about that?”
“Yeah, you real warm, but it even bigger than that. Look, I say this shit over the phone, I’ma end up dead. Maybe you, too.”
“Come on, Delvis, don’t get all dramatic on me.”
“Naw, I’m serious. That’s why I’m risking it to call and warn you. You treat me like a human being, so I’m returning the favor. Peoples around you is dirty, Miss Vargas.”
“Yeah, like who?”
“Like the ones you brang to see me.”
Dan and Randall?
“Delvis, I-”
“Shit. Gotta go.”
“What?”
“I’ll call you back.”
“No! Wait!”
He hung up.
HOW LONG COULD SHE SIT AROUND WAITING FOR a phone call? Twenty minutes had passed, and Delvis hadn’t called back. She couldn’t work, couldn’t think. Was it possible that Dan and Randall were mixed up in something dirty? Every fiber of her being screamed no. They were rock solid, people you could trust with your life. Then again, she trusted her husband, and look what he did. People could fool you. She needed to hear the rest of Delvis’s information to evaluate it properly. But you couldn’t call an inmate on the telephone. Either he called back or she’d have to drive all the way to Otisville to interview him.
Maurice Dawson, the custodian, knocked on her door, interrupting her chaotic thoughts.
“Hey, Melanie, you ask for a VCR? Guys in Audiovisual sent this up.”
He wheeled a videocassette player on a metal cart through her door.
“Yeah, thanks,” she replied. “Just put it there by the bookshelf.”
She made a deal with herself. She’d review the videotape. If Delvis hadn’t called back by the time she finished, she’d go to the hospital and find Dan. Maybe if she looked him in the eye, she’d know the truth. Feeling calmer, she took the tape from her bag and slid it into the VCR.
A black-and-white picture of Sarah’s bed appeared, neatly made this time and piled with cushions. A date-and-time stamp flashed on, then disappeared. The video had been shot in the middle of the afternoon on the day of Jed Benson’s murder. Interesting timing anyway. No people on screen yet, but Melanie heard voices in the background. She knelt down and adjusted the volume.
“…so much stress,” Sarah was saying.
“It’ll all work out, but that’s why I need a little fun. Did you get the ecstasy?”
The man’s voice sounded unfamiliar. Not Jed Benson. But they were still off-screen, so Melanie couldn’t be sure.
“Not so fast, dodo. You wanna fuck, I need some reassurance first, or I can’t relax.”
“I told you, I have a friend at the SEC. I slipped him some stuff I dug up on Jed. He’s looking into it.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“You don’t need to know. Shit, didn’t I say white panties under the skirt?”
Sarah walked into camera range and sat down on the bed. She had on a complete schoolgirl getup-short plaid kilt, white cotton blouse, buckle shoes over white ankle socks, hair up in pigtails. She leaned back against the pillows, letting her legs fall open provocatively.
“Give it a whirl with these slutty ones. Pretend I’m, like, the corrupt little vixen,” Sarah said.
A man came into view and walked over to the bed, his back to the camera. He was wearing a dress shirt and suit pants. He sat down and thrust his hand up Sarah’s skirt, his face visible in profile. It was not Jed Benson. He appeared to be in his mid-sixties, large, hulking, nearly bald, with heavy-rimmed eyeglasses. Sarah writhed under his touch, then pulled away, closing her legs.
“Come on, I can tell you want it,” the man said, lifting his fingers to his nose. “You’re all wet.”
“Would you just explain to me how your friend is gonna keep the spotlight off what we did on Securilex?”
“He already opened a file on Jed, okay? So if and when the shit hits the fan, which hopefully it won’t, Jed looks good for it. Satisfied?”