He parked in the visitor lot, and walked down a cracked, sun-baked sidewalk to the entrance. It was overcast and hot, the gray sky looking like it was ready to rain, but the humidity seemed strangely absent. Tom was buzzed in after being directed via intercom to look up into the security camera, providing them with video footage of his face.
Inside, he was met by two more armed guards, who led him without fanfare down a harshly lit hallway to a waiting room, where he was told to have a seat. Tom parked his butt on a steel bench bolted to the floor, and watched the clock on the wall—a clock housed in wire mesh. It was much more humid in the prison than outside. In fact, Tom almost immediately began to perspire, and wished he’d had a handkerchief to blot his forehead.
When two minutes passed, a dour woman in a frumpy pantsuit entered and frowned at him. She was accompanied by a guard.
“I’m the assistant warden, Miss Potter. You couldn’t have come at a worse time.” Her southern lilt making the last word sound like tahm. “The prisoner is being readied for transport.”
“Where is he going?” Tom asked.
“Out of my hair. Prisoner transfers are common, and I’m not always told the particulars.”
“Do you know the reason?”
“I wasn’t informed.” The way her mouth pursed told Tom that this annoyed her. “What is it you want with the prisoner?”
“I have some questions to ask him. About Butler House.”
Potter snorted. She removed a handkerchief from her jacket pocket and blotted the sweat on her neck. “That house is a blight on the beautiful state of South Carolina. Needs to be razed flat, if you ask me.”
“What have you heard about the house, Ma’am?”
“You mean, is it haunted? I deal in the real world, Detective. I see enough hatred and evil in men’s souls without having to blame the supernatural for it. But I’ll tell you something. I’ve had several interactions with Mr. Augustus Torble. And if there was ever a man possessed by demons, it’s him. Just last week he had an altercation with another prisoner over the last bag of potato chips. Mr. Torble bit the other prisoner’s finger off. When questioned about the incident he had to be restrained, because…”
Her voice drifted off, and Tom could detect a bit of flush in her cheeks.
“Ma’am?” he asked.
She blew out a stiff breath. “Because Mr. Torble was noticeably aroused by the incident, and kept playing with himself while being questioned.”
Tom kept his face neutral, professional.
“Has Torble had a lot of incidents like that?”
“More than his share. The other prisoners are afraid of him. Are you armed?”
Tom had left his gun in his luggage. “No, Ma’am.”
“Regulations insist on a pat down, to prevent weapons or other contraband from being passed to the prisoner. Would you mind standing up and raising your arms, Detective?”
Tom did as instructed, and the guard did a thorough frisking, going so far as to check each of Tom’s pockets.
“I’m to understand you’ve dealt with murderers before,” Potter said. “Your boss, Lieutenant Daniels, spoke highly of you. She apparently knows some very important people. Normally a spur of the moment visitation request from an out of town police officer would be denied. Especially during the time-sensitive and delicate procedure of transfer.”
“I’ll be sure to let Lt. Daniels know how hospitable and accommodating you and you staff have been.”
He didn’t bother to tell her Jack was retired, and the assistant warden’s efforts to get a pat on the head were likely for nothing.
“You have ten minutes,” Potter said.
“Has anyone told him I’m coming?”
“No. Only that someone wants to speak to him. But Torble is used to that. People are always coming by to pick his brain about something. Cops, psychiatrists, reporters. He gets so many visitors he could use a secretary. Or a press agent.” She turned to leave. “Don’t touch the prisoner, don’t pass anything to the prisoner. Your entire visit will be monitored and recorded. And Detective…”
“Ma’am?”
“Watch yourself. This one is as bad as they come.”
Potter nodded a goodbye, and the guard led Tom down another corridor and into a room with a reinforced door. Inside, an older man was sitting at a steel table attached to the floor like the one Tom had recently used. He wore an orange prison jumpsuit, and leg shackles, locked to a steel U bolt in the floor. His hands were also shackled to a thin chain encircling his waist, preventing him from raising his arms.
His gray hair was wild, uncombed, his face sporting three days of stubble. He was thin to the point of gaunt, and though his records stated he was sixty-two years old, he didn’t look much older than fifty. The killer’s eyes were deep set, dark, and had a glint to them. Intelligence, insanity, mirth, or maybe a combination of all three.
“Mr. Torble, my name is Detective Mankowski. Thank you for your time.”
“Call me Gus,” he said. His voice was unusually deep, and decidedly less southern than Miss Potter’s. “What’s your name?”
“I prefer to go by Detective. Or Mr. Mankowksi.”
“Have a seat, Detective. We have lots to talk about.”
Tom sat across the steel table from him. The killer crouched down a little, like a coil ready to spring. It was just as humid as the waiting room, and Tom continued to sweat. Torble, on the other hand, appeared cool and comfortable.
“I’d like to talk about Butler House.”
Torble smiled. “Good times. It has a torture chamber, you know. I called it the Happy Room. I had a hooker down there once, tied to a rack. Used boiling lard on her. Poured it all over her body, inch by inch. Did it every day for weeks. Put an IV in her to keep her hydrated. You know the smell of breakfast sausage, frying up in the pan? That’s what she smelled like. I swear, as often as not I’d be drooling after a session with her.”
Tom had prepared himself for this. Sadists like Torble got off on their ability to manipulate, to shock. So Tom forced his facial muscles to remain lax, and made sure his breathing was slow and steady. Reacting to psychopaths only egged them on.
“Did you ever do anything like that before buying Butler House?” he asked.
“You mean, did I skin kitty cats when I was a toddler? Or rough up whores?”
“Anything of that nature,” Tom said blandly.
Torble’s lips pressed crookedly together, and he looked off to the right, a poker tell that someone is searching for a truthful memory. “Nope. Can’t say that I had.”
“Did you ever notice anything odd about the house while you lived there?”
Torble studied him. “This is about the house? Not about trying to pin some old, unsolved crime on me?”
“I’m curious about the house.”
“You mean you’re curious if it’s haunted.”
Tom stayed silent.
Torble leaned back as far as his shackles allowed him. Tom couldn’t understand how the man wasn’t sweating. Tom himself felt like he’d dressed quickly after a particularly hot shower.
“My lawyer pressed for the insanity defense. Said we might persuade the jury that Butler House drove me crazy, based on its notorious reputation. That the devil was perched on my shoulder, whispering things in my ear. Tell me, is it insane to give your wife boiling water enemas? That was one way I punished her if she didn’t help with the whores. Also, I have to tell you, as far as gaining spousal compliance goes, nothing beats a sturdy pair of pliers.”
Breathe in, breathe out. Remain calm.
“Did Butler House drive you crazy, Gus?”
“Do you know how certain places have an energy to them, Detective? A vibe? Take this shithole, for instance. I bet, when you were driving up to the prison, you could feel the despair. The hopelessness. The desperation. I bet, if you closed your eyes and tried to tune into your senses, you could tell you were in a prison, even if you didn’t know. Care to try it?”
Tom wasn’t going to close his eyes in front of this loon. “I’ll take your word for it.”