Bad Moon On The Rise (21 page)

“
Tell her not to do it,”
one of them, a blonde, was whispering to her dark-haired
companion.

“
How can she not do it?”
the other answered. “She’s got no one waiting on the outside to
help her and how’s she going to pay the rent?”

“
If she starts, they’ll
never let her stop,” the blonde said angrily. “It’ll be like she’s
still in here. They’ll own her. She’ll never be free.”

“
She’ll never get out in
the first place if she doesn’t do what they say,” the brunette
argued back. “They can write anything they want on her reports.
Who’s going to believe her over a bunch of guards? She doesn’t have
a choice.”

The blonde shook her head. “They’re
bluffing. They can’t draw attention to themselves. If she says no,
they’ll just let her go and find someone else. Tonya was
right—we’re fools to believe their threats. They only have power
because we’re afraid.”

“
Of course we’re afraid,”
the brunette whispered angrily. “They can keep us in here forever.
And who cares what Tonya said? Have we heard from her? No. She
doesn’t give a crap. For all we know, she’s living with
them.”

The blonde rolled her eyes. “Like
they’d touch her. You know what Tonya said—black for their jack and
white for their night.”

“
Of course they’d touch
her. You think racists don’t sleep with black women? Please. If I
didn’t know you weren’t really a blonde, I’d say you were dumber
than dog shit.”

Well. As a bottled blonde myself, I
resented the insinuation. But I had no time to contemplate what
they might have been talking about as I had to get my ass to the
common room for my daily five-minute phone call and I was not about
to waste it. I waited for these five minutes every day and clung to
them like a lifeline. When my turn came, I called Shep, needing to
hear his voice. He answered like he’d been out jogging.

“
I’m busting out at
midnight,” I said when he answered. ”Have the car waiting by the
back gate.”

“
That’s not funny. These
calls are likely taped.”

“
Like they have time to
listen to any of them,” I said. “By the time they figure out I was
calling you from here, it’ll all be over anyway.”

“
What do you mean? Have
you found out anything?”

I was just about to tell him what I’d
learned when I heard the dead spot that indicated he was receiving
another call. He told me to hold on, then came back on my line a
few seconds later. “Gotta go,” he said. “I’ve got a call from the
Raleigh Police Department on the other line.  The guy’s been
calling all afternoon. Some guy named Butler. Know him?”

In a heartbeat, dread flooded every
cell in my body. I could barely breathe. It could not be good that
Bill Butler was calling Shep. I thought of my being at Tonya
Blackburn’s trailer and of the detectives in Perry County wanting
to question me and me blowing them off and I suddenly wished very
badly that I had not left that part of my story out when I
confessed all to Shep.

“
Casey?” he said. “You
know him? Bill Butler?”

“
I do,” I admitted. “And
listen, he may tell you this, but—“

I would get no further. I was shoved
from behind. I stumbled and fell, hitting my head on the wall. When
I turned around, a doughy white woman with splotchy skin, tiny eyes
and frizzy brown hair was glaring at me. “You’re a big talker,
aren’t you?” she said belligerently. “Seems like all I do is hear
you mouthing off and I got to tell you, I’m a little sick and tired
of it.”

I recognized the voice. I recognized
the tone. The elusive Martha Ray had surfaced at last after a
couple of days simmering over my big mouth. And she was no prize.
She was about the size of a refrigerator, her bad haircut went
perfectly with her bad mood and her mouthful of intermittent teeth
told me that she liked being in fights.

This was not good.

“
Look,” I said. “I’ve got
no beef with you. Whatever position you’re in, whatever power you
have, you are welcome to it.” She had the green shirt of a lifer
on. “I’m just passing through. I’m not here to make
trouble.”

“
Too late,” she announced.
I knew I was in deep shit then. She had no audience and she still
wanted to kick my ass. “You’ve already pissed me off.”

She took a step toward me—ready to
deck me—just as an unlikely angel in the form of the small black
woman guard who’d searched me my first day stepped into the
community room and pointed at me with her baton.

“
Little—you’re coming with
me,” the guard said. “Your lawyer’s here. You got fifteen minutes.
Make it quick.” She glanced at Martha Ray. “Is this your phone
time, Petunia? Because if it’s not, and you’re not out of this room
in five seconds, you’ll be seeing nothing but the back of a door
for a week.”

Martha Ray scurried from the room but
not without a backward glance to confirm that I was indeed laughing
at her.

Hey, I couldn’t help it. Her real name
was Petunia, for godsakes.  

I had never been so glad to see Bobby
D. in my entire life, even if he was channeling the ghost of
Clarence Darrow. He wore an immense three-piece suit the color of
vanilla ice cream and had a straw hat perched on the top of his
tomato-shaped head. I gawked as I entered the prison room reserved
for private meetings and took a seat across the table from him.
“Anyone ever tell you it’s tacky to wear white after Labor Day?” I
asked.

“
It’s winter white. This
is my card.” He slid a business card across the table at me. It had
more curlicues than a Geri-Curl commercial. His full legal name was
emblazoned across it in a typeface last seen on P.T. Barnum’s
gravestone. An underscored “Esquire” followed his name and, just in
case that wasn’t clear enough, the words Purveyor of Fine Law were
printed underneath that.

“
Purveyor? Bobby, you do
realize this is the 21st Century, right? We’ve landed a man on the
moon and invented computers.”

He ignored my comment. “The best
lawyers are those who practice law in the classic sense,” he said
grandly. I noticed his voice had grown deeper and he was
over-enunciating. Hoo, boy, was I in trouble. Did Bobby actually
think he was a lawyer on some level? I’d need a real one quick if
he kept this up.

“
Where did you buy that
suit?” I whispered. “They have a tall man’s shop in these
mountains?”

“
I had to drive down to
Winston-Salem for something. I stopped by Sears while I was there.
Sorry I’m late. They had to take out the waistband a
little.”

Sears? I stared at the suit dubiously.
Could this be leftover from the disco era? Had it been hanging in a
backroom for thirty-five years, just waiting for Bobby to stumble
in and buy it? I noticed Bobby’s gold jewelry nestled at the base
of his neck and began to giggle.

“
What?” he demanded
indignantly.

“
You look like a cross
between John Travolta and Marlon Brando right before he went belly
up.”

Bobby ignored me and looked at his
watch. “It took me two days to get permission to even see you and
we now have ten minutes left.”

I collected myself. “Okay, listen—I’ve
got bad news.”

“
What a coincidence,” he
said. “So do I. You go first.”

“
Shep got a call from Bill
Butler while I was on the phone with him. I’ve got a bad feeling
about it.”

“
You should have a bad
feeling about it. That was my bad news, too. You’re officially a
‘person of interest’ in Tonya Blackburn’s murder.”

“‘
A person of interest?’”
I asked. “As in, the police think you’re guilty as hell, but if
they say that, the department and any newspapers that report it
might get sued?”

“
Exactly. Someone saw your
car leaving her trailer and got your license plate and you, my
friend, are the Perry County Sheriff Department’s number one
suspect. Numero Uno. The Big Cheese. The Grande Fromage. At the
very top of Perry County’s Most Wanted List.”

“
She’d been dead for days
when I found her,” I said. “You smelled me. It’s ridiculous to
think I had anything to do with it.”

“
Not really,” Bobby
pointed. “That was one obscurely-located trailer, yet you knew how
to find it. You show up, you obviously go through the trailer—or
someone did—then you leave and don’t report the body? It looks like
someone returning to the scene of the crime to make sure they
didn’t leave any evidence behind, even to me, much less the
cops.”

Great, so now Bobby was going to act
like a lawyer, not simply look like one. Too bad he wasn’t acting
like a lawyer on my side. I wanted to brain him. “You know that I
did not have anything to do with her death. You saw me afterward. I
was green.”

He held up a hand and his gold ring
twinkled at me. I fought a sudden urge to kiss that ring—if Shep
started doubting me, he could keep me here. Bobby was my lifeline.
Bobby represented freedom. Bobby was my only ticket out.

“
I know you’re innocent,
babe. I was just presenting their side.” He looked at me carefully.
“You don’t look so good. You’re kind of pale. You okay?”

“
No,” I hissed. “I’m not
okay. If Bill Butler convinces Shep I was involved in the murder,
who knows what will happen? What if Shep says, ‘Say, buddy, what a
coincidence? She’s in prison already. Let’s just keep her there.’”
I broke out in a sweat just saying it. My lungs felt like a vise
had clamped down on them.

“
Whoa there, Nellie,”
Bobby said. “Bend over and breathe deeply. Stick your head between
your legs. That’s it. Breathe in. Breathe out. And listen up.” He
took deep breaths, encouraging me to keep going. I tried to get my
panic under control as he brought me up to speed. “First of all,
from what I know, Butler wasn’t calling your sheriff boyfriend to
rat on you. He was trying to find you, so he could tell you himself
that the Perry County cops were looking for you. He may not even
have told Shep about it at all.”

“
What if he did?” I asked
miserably.

“
Then I’d say, at least
for the next few days, until his johnson recovers from your little
tumble in the hay, Gaines is more likely to believe your side of
the story. So you’ve got a couple of days at a minimum. We’ll
figure something out.”

It was nonsense, but I needed to cling
to it. “I did find a few things out,” I told Bobby. “The guards are
definitely favoring short-termers, and there’s something that goes
on when they get out of here, when the women get released. They’re
working for the guards in some way.”

 “
Call girl ring!”
Bobby guessed with enthusiasm. “It’s genius. The guards bring in
extra cash, the girls make a living and everybody wins.”

“
No,” I said crossly.
“Good lord, Bobby. Not everybody wins in a call girl ring, okay?
And it’s not sex they’re selling when they get out, at least I
don’t think so. It’s something else. I need more time. But not too
much more time,” I hastened to add. “What does Shep have
planned?”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I mean, when is he
getting me out of here?”

“
He didn’t say,” Bobby
said apologetically.

“
What do you mean he
didn’t say? Aren’t you supposed to stay in touch with him at all
times?”

“
I can’t get him on the
phone. He’s been unavailable for days.”

“
He’s ducking your calls?”
I asked, panic washing over me again.

“
Not necessarily,” Bobby
assured me. “He is the sheriff of this county. He may be busy.” He
patted me on the back. “Keep breathing. And here. I brought you
something.” He handed me two pieces of paper – color Xeroxes. I
looked at them more closely. Tears welled up in my eyes.

Bobby was appalled. “Geeze, Casey. We
have to get you out of this place. I’ve never seen you cry
before.”

“
How did you know?” I
asked as I stared at copies of my two most precious possessions in
the world—a photograph of my long-dead parents standing in a
soybean field, the Florida sun setting behind them, and another of
my grandfather sitting on his front porch, tilted back in a rocking
chair, enjoying the sleep of the righteous after a hard day’s work.
He had a big smile on his face, as if he were dreaming of the very
best day of his life.

I remembered taking the photo like it
was yesterday. I was fourteen, and he was all I had in the world.
I’d been worrying for two years that taking care of me was a
burden, that I’d ruined his life by entering it so abruptly and
with so many needs. But when I’d seen him sleeping like that, with
a smile on his face, I’d known we were going to be okay, that even
with all the hard scrabble and the endless days of work, my
grandfather was happy.

“
You’re getting the copies
wet,” Bobby complained. “I had to drive all the way to
Winston-Salem to find a Kinko’s. I didn’t want to risk giving you
the originals, in case anything happened to them in
here.”

“
That’s why you drove to
Winston-Salem?” I asked as the tears came harder. “You’re too good
of a friend to me, Bobby,” I said. “I don’t deserve
you.”