Power in the Blood (17 page)

“Yeah.” He sounded surprised to find himself agreeing with me.

“However, Inspector, continued and consistent reports of abuse by an officer should be treated quite differently from the rare or even the occasional one. How many charges of abuse has he received?” Edward Stone said.

“Twelve,” Daniels said.

“How many years has he been with the department?” I asked.

“Not quite two.”

“That seems like a lot of smoke for there not to be a fire somewhere under there,” I said.

“I agree.” Stone also sounded surprised to be agreeing with me. “Watch him very closely, Inspector. If he’s guilty, I want his ass,” Stone said without emotion. He turned slightly towards me. “Please excuse my language, Chaplain.”

I merely nodded.

Daniels started to say something, but I broke in. “Were any of the grievances filed by Johnson?” I asked.

He nodded.

Edward Stone’s eyebrows peeked several inches above his glasses.

“Maybe you could call the chaplain at his old institution and ask him about Shutt, Chaplain,” Stone added.

“Sure,” I said. I then stood to leave.

“I’ve got more,” Daniels said after he let me get almost to the door.

I sat back down.

“About the sleeping pills,” he said, “the doc said they were not given by syringe or with food. It seems as if Johnson just took the pills himself. Some of the capsules were not even fully dissolved yet.”

“Suicide?” Stone asked, his voice sounding hopeful.

“Who knows?” Daniels said. “But at least a possibility.”

“But that rules out the medical staff and the officer, though, right?” Stone said.

“No,” I said. “It’s just another piece of the puzzle that may or may not lead to a possible solution.”

Daniels frowned at me. Then to Stone he said, “It probably does remove the suspicion from the employees, yes, sir. Then again,” he continued, “who better to give a patient pills than a member of the medical staff or the officer who helps them.”

“But you’re the one who said,” Stone said.

“I know, and it may still hold up, but none of this is cut-anddry. It never is. Sometimes things look a certain way and they are not. Sometimes they are.”

“They are, however,” I said, “almost never what one expects.”

The air in confinement was ten degrees hotter than the air outside and lacked the breeze. The body odor hung in the air like a fog. It was so thick as to be almost visible. There was very little volume to the noise, only the occasional yell or scream, with a small but steady hum of voices sounding like bees at my ear. It was too hot to be loud—the heat had zapped the inmates’ energy, drawing out their poison.

The officer at the desk, a thirty-something-looking guy with wavy black hair and a slight Latino accent, said that Thomas was in cell 155. When I reached his cell, he was kneeling at the tray hole as if he had expected me, which he probably did. The inmates’ ability to communicate with each other, even in lock-down, was amazing.

“Anthony, how you doing?” I asked.

He shook his head slightly and stared up at me, trying to focus on me. His movements were slow and unsteady. When his eyes finally came within the vicinity of mine, he grinned with way too much familiarity.

“Hello, John,” he said. It was the first time an inmate had ever called me John.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Top of the world. Top of the fuckin’ world.”

“It appears you may have even left this world,” I said.

He didn’t respond.

“How is Molly?” I asked.

“Molly. Molly. Molly,” he said and zoned out again. Actually he was zoned out when he said it. “Molly is my wife, but you, you are my true love.”

“Me?”

“Sure you are. I really love you, man.”

“Do you have a girlfriend here at the institution?”

“I have lots of friends.”

“Like who?”

“Ike was my friend, but he’s not my friend anymore. He’s dead. He’s like way out there, man.”

“What can you tell me about Ike?” I asked.

“He was,” he said and then paused, “my friend.”

“I think we’ve established that. Anything you can add to the fact that he was your friend?”

“He was a good friend. He was a real sweetheart. I wish they didn’t kill him.”

“Who killed him?” I asked.

“That pigfucker Skipper. If he didn’t do it, he had it done. He’s . . .” he seemed to drift further out again.

“He’s what?” I asked.

“He’s . . .” he said in a near-whisper. “He runs this place. He’s the skipper of this ship.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“He does what he wants to, man. He uses . . . abuses . . . nooobody can stop him. Stoned’s scared of him, too . . . unless he’s working for him,” he said and then looked off into space as if to contemplate a deep thought. “My name should be Stoned, too.”

“How about Molly? Does Skipper use or abuse her?”

He began to cry. At first just small tears and then, gradually, bigger and bigger ones. “That fat bastard pigfucker son of a bitch,” he said and sobbed even louder. “I’m gonna kill him, the prick sucker.”

He leaned his head against the steel door and cried some more. In a few minutes, he was snoring.

I walked back down the hallway toward the desk to speak to the officer seated there. On my way by Jacobson’s cell, I looked in. He was completely naked standing in the center of the cell with a full erection.

When he saw me, he ran to the door and began to shout, “I’M THE DEVIL’S SON. I’M THE DEVIL’S SON.”

“No argument here,” I said and continued to walk.

“Got a question for you,” I said to the officer when I had reached his desk.

“Shoot,” he said.

“Is that inmate on any medication?”

“Jacobson, yeah. He takes sleeping pills. But, between you and me, he doesn’t take nearly enough of them. I wish he would sleep all the time. Maybe even sleep the big sleep. You seen that movie? Bogart’s in it.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it. Good flick,” I said. “But, I was talking about Anthony Thomas in one-fifty-five.”

“Thomas?” he shrugged, “beats the hell outa me, Padre. I don’t know about Thomas. Better ask the nurse.”

“Which one?” I said, finding it odd that he knew that Jacobson was on sleeping pills and didn’t know what was making Anthony Thomas float around his cell.

“Any of them can tell you, I’m sure, but he sees Nurse Strickland the most.”

“Thank you,” I said and walked out.

I was walking back toward the chapel when I saw her. Actually, I didn’t see her. What I saw was a one-ton white FedEx truck. She was headed toward the warehouse on the west side of the institution outside of the fence.

When I reached the warehouse the truck was still there. It was backed up to the loading dock with its flashers blinking. I walked up the ramp and entered the cargo bay. When I stepped inside, I could see her and the warehouse supervisor in his office. I walked over as nonchalantly as I could, which probably resembled running.

“Hello, Chaplain, what brings you out here?” Rick Spawn said when I stepped into the doorway of his office.

Before I could answer, I glanced in her direction.

“Hello, Chaplain JJ,” she said with a big smile.

“Hello,” I said, because it was all I could say at the moment.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said enthusiastically.

“You two know each other?” Rick asked.

“Yes,” Laura said, “I bought the chaplain a pizza the other night. It wasn’t a date or anything, but I think he’s smitten. He’s probably here to ask me out. Do you think I should go?” she asked Rick.

“No, you should go out with me,” he said.

“I don’t date married men,” she said.

“He’s married,” he said, nodding his head toward me. “To his God. Besides, you’re married too,” he said to her.

My heart sank to the depths of my stomach. “You’re married?” I asked, unable to conceal the disappointment in my voice.

“It’s just a joke, Preacher,” she said. “Don’t lose your religion or anything. You almost made him cry, Rick,” she said. “Be ashamed.”

“Listen, you two, I have almost a thousand inmates inside the fence who will harass me anytime. I don’t need two amateurs doing it,” I said.

“Sorry,” she said but didn’t mean it.

“Kind of touchy, isn’t he?” Rick asked.

“Yeah, but he’s cute,” Laura said, “in a discarded mutt sort of way.”

“Okay, that’s it. I’m out of here. I’m going to find some professional harassers.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Rick asked.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Didn’t you come out here for something?”

“I just stopped by to speak to you, you know, making the rounds.”

“He came out here to see me,” Laura said. “When he saw my truck, he nearly ran across the compound. It was embarrassing.”

“Well, let me just say,” I said as I turned to leave, “that if what you say is true, then it was worth it. For the abuse if nothing else.”

As I was walking away, I heard her say to Rick, “I better go and check on him. He seems pretty fragile. Probably doesn’t have a good woman looking out for him.”

“Wait up,” she said as she caught me on the exit ramp. “You’re not going to break your neck running over here and then not even ask me out, are you?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Well then, my mom would die if she heard this, but, I guess I’ll just have to ask you out.”

I didn’t respond.

“Well?” she asked impatiently. “Are you going to allow your wounded inner child to keep you from possibly finding your soul mate?”

“Okay.”

“Okay what, Caveman? Try to form a complete sentence.”

“Okay, we can go out. Saturday morning I have to go to Tallahassee. You can come along, and we’ll make a day of it.”

“Doing what?” she asked.

“Whatever. I’ll surprise you. It’ll be fun, I assure you.”

“Okay.”

“What was that, Cavewoman?”

“Okay, I’ll go. I mean how bad could it be. It’s just one day, right?”

“Where do I pick you up?”

“Are you going to the jamboree tonight? You were the jamboree king back in the olden days when you were in school, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m going. Yes, I was king. No, it was not the olden days.”

“Then find me at the game, and I’ll tell you where to pick me up. Besides, if you’ll wear something besides that little priest’s outfit, I might let you help me chaperone my little sister’s jamboree jam dance. And if you are really right with God, you might even get to dance with me. Does he allow you to dance?”

“God?” I asked.

She nodded her head.

“Since he, or she, as a friend of mine would say, is the Lord of the dance, I do not see how he or she could object to me doing it.”

“She, huh? I’ve got to meet this friend of yours. And, here’s to a dancing God,” she said and held her hand up in a mock toast.

And then she got into her one-ton truck and drove away. And I stood there and tried to catch my breath.

It is the chief paradox of Florida that the south part of the state resembles the north part of the country and the north part of the state resembles the south part of the country.

There are two Floridas actually—both of them like LA The first one, the one that most people are familiar with, is the
Miami Vice
Florida, filled with bikinis, billionaires, and bars. It’s like Los Angeles because of its beautiful beaches and beautiful people, all of whom live the jet-set lifestyle. It is a glamorous place where the women look like models and the men like movie stars.

The second Florida, the one most people drive through on their way to the first, is quite different. It is a Florida much like LA also, just a different LA—Lower Alabama. It is a Florida of pickup trucks with gun racks, house trailers with cars on blocks in the yard, and night spots named Bubba’s. It is a rural Florida where segregation still exists and the black people are relegated to live in a part of town called the Quarters. It is a Florida virtually unknown to tourists.

Pottersville was a part of Gloria Jahoda’s
Other Florida
, a rural town much like those of South Georgia and Alabama. Wealthy and well-educated people resided in Pottersville, just not very many. Many of its citizens were interested in having just enough money so they could buy beer and bait. They hunted, fished, and got drunk simply because it was Friday. In this town many people preferred not to wear shoes and usually didn’t. Some called black people niggers, and many survived on government checks, and, lest you forget, all of this took place on the verge of the twenty-first century.

Pottersville had other sorts as well; they were just not as colorful. They were hardworking people who were the salt of the earth.

They looked out for each other’s homes, farms, and kids. They went camping and to church and to family reunions—all on a regular basis. They ate fried chicken, homemade biscuits, and fresh vegetables— the latter from their own gardens or a neighbor’s. They called the women, including their own wives “Miss,” as in “Miss Julie.” They obeyed the laws of the land—the important ones anyway, and they believed in God and his son, Jesus Christ, both of whom were assumed to be Southern gentlemen.

In a place like Pottersville, where there was not a lot to do, a Friday night high school football game was a social event, and if it were the July jamboree game, it was the social event of the year. Why football in the summer? It was Pottersville. Every other game was played in the fall, but the July Jamboree was reserved for the early summer to correspond with the other celebrated annual event—the Pottersville Possum Festival.

People poured into the gate of the football field with excitement and enthusiasm. Pottersville was a town with a lot of energy. It was by no means a retirement community like the ones taking over South Florida. Who would come to Pottersville to retire? Not even the heat could take the energy out of the air. Walking up to the gate, I could hear the band playing a popular song. I recognized the tune but couldn’t think of the name.