“Okay,” he said in an upbeat voice again, easily soothed like a child.
Rogers propped his feet up on the desk without the problems Rotund had had. “What happened to make him go off like that?” he asked. I was seated across the desk from him.
“I really couldn’t say. He was okay, and then all of a sudden he exploded. Does he do that often?”
“He does pretty much whatever he wants to around here,” he said, and I could tell he wanted me to ask him for more.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’s just that certain inmates are looked out for by certain officers, and if the officer happens to be a captain, well, then they do pretty much what they want to. At least on that captain’s shift anyway. And, if the captain is popular or powerful enough, the inmate does pretty much whatever he wants anytime.”
“Who gives that kind of preferential treatment to an inmate as unstable as he is?”
“He’s not unstable. He’s a damn thespian.”
“You’re saying that was a show for my benefit?” I asked.
“I’m saying that everything he does is for show. It has an angle. He is always on the make. Did you say anything about Johnson to him?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Why?”
“Well, his death really seemed to shake him up. Like maybe he wasn’t acting. I don’t know, but I think he’s scared for real about that.”
“Do you think he had anything to do with it?”
“He had everything to do with Johnson. They were both down here constantly. So either he had something to do with it or it scared him shitless, excuse my language, because he had nothing to do with it.”
“Like it may have been a message to him?” I asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” he said as if that caused a light to come on in his head. “Yeah, that could be it.”
Rotund yelled from down the hall, “Come on. What’s taking so long?”
“Just a minute,” Rogers yelled back.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost time for my meeting with Tom Daniels and Edward Stone.
“I’d better be going now. I’ve got a meeting up front. What will happen with Jacobson?”
“He’ll be taken to medical, checked out, and probably taken to the isolation cell and sedated and watched for twenty-four hours. That is, unless Captain Skipper cuts him out.”
“Then what will happen to him?” I asked.
“He’ll be sent back down here, I guess,” he said with a shrug that said, I just work here.
“What’s the difference in being confined in one cell as opposed to another?”
“Not much during the day, but I’ve heard at night all sorts of weird stuff happens in here.”
“Thanks for the info,” I said.
“Anytime, Father,” he said respectfully.
Before leaving, I glanced down the hallway at Jacobson. If he had moved even an inch, I couldn’t tell it. He appeared to be catatonic. I walked out of confinement with these words whirling around in my head: There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the lamb. There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the lamb.
Chapter 9
They looked like men sitting around a barber shop on Saturday morning or senior citizens on a park bench or mall-wanderers: they had time to kill. Inmates don’t have much, but what they have they possess a lot of-time. They sat around the chapel library under the watchful eye of the officer temporarily assigned to watch them until my new assistant, a Jewish chaplain, was hired next month. Mr. Smith and three other inmates were reading Decision magazine, the monthly magazine that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association faithfully sent us free of charge. Mr. Smith and one of the other inmates were wearing headphones-listening to gospel music no doubt. On my way to meet with Mr. Stone and Tom Daniels, I decided to stop by the chapel to check in and pick up something to take notes on, sure our meeting would prove to be noteworthy.
When Mr. Smith saw me, he jumped up and walked out into the hallway where I was unlocking my office door. “They’s two who want to see you, Brother Chaplain,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, “but it will have to be when I get back. I’ve got a meeting with the superintendent in about ten minutes.”
“Yesuh. I tell them to wait. It so hot out there, they won’t mind waitin’ in here where it nice ’n cool. ’Sides they got nothin’ else to do.”
“Thank you,” I said and walked into my office. As I closed the door, the phone began to ring.
“Chaplain Jordan,” I said into the receiver.
“Is this the chaplain?” a distressed female voice asked.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “How can I help you?”
“This is Veronica Simpson. My husband Charles Simpson is an inmate there.”
“Uh huh,” I said encouragingly.
“I need to talk to him,” she said, her voice breaking slightly. “I haven’t heard from him in four months, and I need to talk to him right now. I’m not playing with you, and I’m not crazy, but I’ve got a gun to my head, and I’m going to kill myself and his two-year-old son if I can’t talk to him right now.”
My heart started racing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Whatever it took, I was not going to let another person die. So help me God, I was not. I had no way of knowing whether or not she would do it, but that really wasn’t the point.
“Okay,” I said, “now listen to me. I will let you talk to your husband, so just put the gun down and relax.”
“I’m not crazy. I swear,” she added quickly, her voice seeming to gain strength. “If I can just talk to him, I will not kill myself.”
“The thing is, he is not here right now,” I said talking very slowly. “It will take a few minutes, but I will have him called up right away. So, why don’t we talk until he gets here. Would that be okay?”
“That would be okay,” she said softly. She was beginning to sound calmer.
“I have to ask you to hold on just a minute while I call down to his dorm and have him sent up here, okay?”
“Okay. I’m not going anywhere. I’m all right, Preacher. I just want to talk to my husband. I won’t do anything foolish,” she said as if we had switched rolls and now she was trying to reassure me.
As quickly as I could, I pressed the hold button, then the second-line button, and punched in the number to the control room. Without going into much detail, I told the sergeant in the control room to find Simpson and get him to my office ASAP.
I then punched line one again, praying that she was still there. She was. We talked for about five minutes, waiting for her husband to come to my office. Our conversation dealt primarily with all the pressures she faced being a single mom whose husband was incarcerated. I actually felt as if I did her some good, but chances were I’d never know.
When Simpson finally did arrive, after what seemed like days, I quickly put him on the phone and went into the other office where I called the Tampa Police and reported her threat of suicide. While talking to her, I had discovered where she lived, and I told them. I then jotted down a few notes about what had transpired and called the OIC and filled him in. He advised me to fill out an incident report, which I did. I then walked back into my office and sat down at my desk.
Noticing that Simpson was crying, I busied myself with opening the rest of my mail. My mail consisted of roughly fifteen requests from inmates for everything from Bibles and greeting cards to phone calls. There were also two letters from citizen volunteers who ministered at the prison saying what a blessing they themselves were, a memo from the chaplaincy administrator about upcoming religious holidays that were to be observed by the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian inmates, and a single piece of typing paper trifolded and taped together on the end with the word “Chaplain” typed on the outside.
I unfolded the typing paper, tearing it slightly while removing the tape. It read simply: “I’ve seen you talking to her. I watch over her. If you don’t stay away from her, I will kill you like I did that punk. She’s an angel, and I’m her guardian angel. She’s mine. Stay away from her.”