I reached into my desk and pulled out the request from Ike Johnson. I laid them both on the desk in front of me and began to compare them. Within seconds, I could tell they were typed on the same machine.
I thought of Anna as I reread the note a final time-when I realized that Simpson was talking to me. “I’m sorry, what’d you say?”
“Thank you, Chaplain. I thinks she going to be all right. I should have called her or written or something. It’s my fault, but this place is getting to me. I don’t know what to do.”
“Why don’t you start coming to see me every week for a while, and you might want to think about seeing our psychologist as well.”
“Okay,” he said. “I will.”
“And, stay in touch with your wife. It’s tough in here, but it’s tough for her out there, too.”
“I know. I will. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. I should have said more. I should have talked to him right then and there, but I couldn’t. All I could do was think about Anna. Was she in danger? I talked to her more than anyone. Johnson had been assigned to her. Was he killed because of her? It was probably because I had just been with her, but I thought of Sandra Strickland, too. I could think of no other female staff members I had talked to recently.
Those questions would have to wait for now. I glanced at my watch and realized that I was already fifteen minutes late for my meeting with the inspector and the superintendent.
Chapter 10
The superintendent’s office was neat, orderly, and as conservative as he was, with one exception. In the center of his wall of fame, amidst the diplomas, merit certificates, and department commendations, was a hand-drawn picture of a family: husband, wife, and child. The artist used crayons and showed great potential-potential he never got to live up to because of his untimely death at eight years old. Mr. Stone and his wife never tried to have children again after that, or so I’m told; I had been waiting for an opportunity to present itself for discussing it with him. However, since Edward Stone was involved, I realized it might not come in this lifetime.
When I arrived, Tom Daniels was already there. The two men grew silent when I walked into the room. Daniels looked as if a day’s work felt like a week’s. His shirt ballooned out just over his belt, the way you would expect it to if it had been worn all day without a retuck. His face was red. And large conspicuous drops of sweat trickled down the sides of his cheeks.
Stone looked as if he had just finished getting dressed-morning-fresh and military-crisp. His shoes, which were just visible underneath the desk, gleamed as the sunlight from the window, the only window in his office, spilled onto them.
“Good afternoon, Chaplain. You’re late,” the superintendent said as I was taking my seat beside Daniels, who neither looked at nor spoke to me.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Stone. I’m sorry I’m late. How are you doing?” I replied.
“Better now that something is being done about this situation we have on our hands,” he said, nodding his head toward Daniels.
“Let’s have a full report,” Mr. Stone continued. “But first, shut the door.”
He said this to no one in particular, but I quickly responded. Daniels never even flinched in that direction.
“Inspector, what do we have so far?” Stone asked.
“In some ways, a great deal of information,” he said sitting up and leaning forward slightly. “But in other ways, not very much at all. I am finding your people very uncooperative.”
“Surely the chaplain has been helpful with this,” Stone said.
Daniels began to speak, but I beat him to the draw. “Mr. Stone, as soon as you left us this morning, the inspector expressed his desire to work alone.” I could feel Daniels’s anger; it was palpable, but he never looked in my direction.
“Inspector?” Stone asked, raising an eyebrow, which caused his glasses to rise slightly.
“I’ve made it clear from the very beginning that I do not wish to work with him,” Daniels said, the sweat on his forehead increasing. “I am fully capable of conducting this investigation on my own. I certainly do not need someone who is not even an investigator helping me. He would only botch up the case.”
“If, as you say, you are fully capable of conducting this investigation on your own, how is it that you are having difficulty doing any investigating?” Stone asked.
“I’m not having difficulty investigating. I am having difficulty with these mother-loving rednecks around here. I have gathered a lot of information about the inmate who was killed, though.”
“But that is only one investigation or one part of a larger investigation,” Stone said.
Daniels withdrew a wrinkled, soiled handkerchief from his back left pants pocket and wiped his forehead. It merely smeared the sweat around. It also left some lint on his eyebrow.
“That’s true, but,”
“But, you will work together, or I will call the secretary. Understood?”
Daniels did not respond.
“Understood?” Mr. Stone asked again.
Daniels made a slight nod with his head.
“Understood?” Mr. Stone looked at me.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I understood it the first time.”
“Now, tell me what you have, Inspector,” Stone said.
“I can tell you that Johnson was murdered,” Daniels said with a swell of pride that changed his posture.
“Murdered? Being killed while trying to escape is justifiable homicide not murder,” Mr. Stone said.
“Yes, but,” Daniels said with obvious pleasure at the prospect of enlightening us, “it is murder when the inmate was unconscious before he was ever placed in the bag.”
“And he was?” Mr. Stone asked with great surprise.
“That’s what the ME says.” Daniels looked at me to gloat. His face registered surprise at my obvious lack of it. He turned away abruptly. “Says he was full of enough chloral hydrate to be dead soon anyway.”
“What is chloral hydrate?” Stone asked. It was obvious he was interested, but he was not excited. He didn’t get excited.
“Sleeping pills,” Daniels said with a small snort as if everyone should know it.
“Could he have taken them himself?” Stone asked. “Maybe to relax during his escape?”
“No, I don’t think so. It would seem that someone drugged him. Someone who knew that putting him in the trash bag would get him stabbed to death.”
“Did the ME say how the drug was administered?” I asked.
The superintendent said, “Why on earth would that matter?”
“Because,” I said, “medical personnel would probably use a syringe, an officer might put it in food, and an inmate might give it to him in pill form as if it were some other kind of drug.”
“I see,” Mr. Stone said. “Interesting. Well, Inspector, how was it administered?”
Daniels’s face registered his obvious embarrassment. “He was unable to say conclusively. We should know shortly.” After this, Daniels, acting nonchalantly, made a few notes to himself on his legal pad. I was able to see that one of them read, “Ask ME dickhead’s question.” I assumed he was referring to me.
“What else do you have?” the superintendent asked.
“He had an abnormal amount of lacerations, even for an inmate. A few abrasions that were not related to his death.”
Outside, a rather large female officer passed by the window. It looked like walking was difficult for her. She moved like she was on another planet with three times the gravity of Earth. I wondered how she would fair during a riot.
“Where did the fatal blow strike him?” Stone asked.
“Bottom part of his heart. The rod got stuck in his rib cage. Shutt broke several of them trying to get it free.” Daniels hesitated a minute for effect and then added, “But that’s not what killed him.”
“What?” Stone asked.