“If I hadn’t jacked my arm pitching high school ball, I hope you understand that I’d break you down right quick, Lampley,” the little asswipe had explained to her once when a group of them were having beers at the Squeaky Wheel.
“I don’t doubt it, Donnie,” she’d replied.
Ree’s big secret was probably bunk. And yet… Don Peters. There had been loads of complaints about him, the kind that maybe you did have to be a woman to truly relate to.
Van raised the cup of coffee that she’d forgotten she had. It was cold. Okay, she supposed she could walk Ree Dempster down to see the warden. Not because Vanessa Lampley was going soft, but because she needed a fresh cup. After all, as of now her shift was open-ended.
“All right, inmate. This once. I’m probably wrong to do it, but I will. I just hope you’ve thought this through.”
“I have, Officer, I have. I’ve thought and thought and thought.”
Lampley buzzed Tig Murphy to come down and spell her in the Booth. Said she needed to take ten.
Outside the soft cell, Peters was leaning against the wall and scrolling through his phone. His mouth curled into a perplexed frown.
“I hate to bother you, Don—” Clint chinned toward the cell door. “—but I need to talk to this one.”
“Oh, it’s no bother, Doc.” Peters clicked his phone off and summoned a pal-ole-pal-o’mine grin that they both knew was as real as the Tiffany lamps that got sold at the bi-weekly flea market in Maylock.
A couple of other things that they both knew to be true: 1) it was a violation of policy for an officer to be screwing around with his phone while on deck in the middle of the day; and 2) Clint had been trying to get Peters transferred or outright fired for months. Four different inmates had personally complained of sexual harassment to the doctor, but only in his office, under the seal of confidentiality. None of them were willing to go on record. They were afraid of payback. Most of these women had experienced a lot of payback, some inside the walls, even more outside them.
“So McDavid’s got this stuff, too, huh? From the news? Any reason I need to be personally concerned here? Everything I’m seeing says it’s ladies only, but you’re the doc.”
As he’d predicted to Coates, a half-dozen attempts to get through to the CDC had failed—nothing but a busy signal. “I don’t have any more particulars than you, Don, but yes, so far, to the best of my knowledge, there’s no indication that any man has contracted the virus—or whatever it is. I need to talk to the inmate.”
“Right, right,” Peters said.
The officer unlocked the upper and lower bolts, then buttoned his mic. “Officer Peters, letting the doc into A-10, over.” He swung the cell door wide.
Before stepping out of Clint’s way, Peters pointed at the inmate seated on the foam bunk against the back wall. “I’m going to be right here, so it would be unwise to try anything on the doc, all right? That clear? I don’t want to use force on you, but I will. We clear?”
Evie didn’t look at him. Her attention was fixed on her hair; she was dragging her fingers through it, picking at the tangles. “I understand. Thank you for being such a gentleman. Your mother must be very proud of you, Officer Peters.”
Peters hung in the doorway, trying to decide if he was being dicked with. Of course his mother was proud of him. Her son served on the frontlines of the war on crime.
Clint tapped him on the shoulder before he could figure it out. “Thanks, Don. I’ll take it from here.”
“Ms. Black? Evie? I’m Dr. Norcross, the psychiatric officer at this facility. Are you feeling calm enough to have a talk? It’s important that I get a sense of where your head is at, how you’re feeling, whether you understand what’s going on, what’s happening, if you have any questions or concerns.”
“Sure. Let’s chat. Roll the old conversational ball.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I feel pretty good. I don’t like the way this place smells, though. There’s a certain chemical aroma. I’m a fresh air person. A Nature Girl, you could say. I like a breeze. I like the sun. Earth under my feet. Cue the soaring violins.”
“I understand. Prison can feel very close. You understand that you’re in a prison, right? This is the Correctional Facility for Women in the town of Dooling. You haven’t been charged with any crime, let alone convicted, you’re just here for your own safety. Do you follow all that?”
“I do.” She lowered her chin to her chest and dropped her voice to a whisper. “But that guy, Officer Peters. You know about him, don’t you?”
“Know what about him?”
“He takes things that don’t belong to him.”
“What makes you say that? What sort of things?”
“I’m just rolling the conversational ball. I thought you wanted to do that, Dr. Norcross. Hey, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but aren’t you supposed to sit behind me, where I can’t see you?”
“No. That’s psychoanalysis. Let’s get back to—”
“The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’ ”
“Freud, yes. He pioneered psychoanalysis. You’ve read about him?”
“I think most women, if you asked them, if they were truly honest, what they would say is, they want a nap. And possibly earrings that go with everything, which is impossible, of course. Anyhow, big sales today, Doc. Fire sales. In fact, I know of a trailer, it’s a little banged up—there’s a little hole in one wall, have to patch that—but I bet you could have the place for free. Now that’s a deal.”
“Are you hearing voices, Evie?”
“Not exactly. More like—signals.”
“What do the signals sound like?”
“Like humming.”
“Like a tune?”
“Like moths. You need special ears to hear it.”
“And I don’t have the right ears to hear the moths humming?”
“No, I’m afraid you don’t.”
“Do you remember hurting yourself in the police car? You hit your face against the safety grill. Why did you do that?”
“Yes, I remember. I did it because I wanted to go to prison. This prison.”
“That’s interesting. Why?”
“To see you.”
“That’s flattering.”
“But it gets you nowhere, you know. Flattery, I mean.”
“The sheriff said you knew her name. Was that because you’ve been arrested before? Try and remember. Because it would really help if we could find out a little more about your background. If there’s an arrest record, that could lead us to a relative, a friend. You could use an advocate, don’t you think, Evie?”
“The sheriff is your wife.”
“How did you know that?”
“Did you kiss her goodbye?”
“Beg your pardon?”
The woman who called herself Eve Black leaned forward, looking at him earnestly. “Kiss: an osculation requiring—hard to believe, I know—a hundred and forty-seven different muscles. Goodbye: a word of parting. Do you need any further elucidation?”
Clint was thrown. She was really, really disturbed, going in and out of coherence, as if her brain were in the neurological equivalent of an ophthalmologist’s chair, seeing the world through a series of flicking lenses. “No need of elucidation. If I answer your question, will you tell me something?”
“Deal.”
“Yes. I kissed her goodbye.”
“Oh, that’s sweet. You’re getting old, you know, not quite The Man anymore, I get that. Probably having some doubts now and then. ‘Do I still have it? Am I still a powerful ape?’ But you haven’t lost your desire for your wife. Lovely. And there are pills. ‘Ask your doctor if it’s right for you.’ I sympathize. Really. I can relate! If you think getting old is tough for men, let me tell you, it’s no picnic for women. Once your tits fall, you become pretty much invisible to fifty percent of the population.”