JJ08 - Blood Money (11 page)

I took a deep breath.

“Understand?” he said, his eyes wide and
challenging.

“Yes,”
I said. “I’m sorry.
It’s
your crime scene. When they called I just assumed they wanted me to—”

“If we need any
help,
we’ll call
you.”

“What should I tell the family?” I asked. “Homicide or suicide?”

His eyes narrowed and his forehead seemed to
cave
in toward them in ridges like layers of a cavern. “
What
?” he asked.
“You
serious? Of course
it’s
a suicide.
It’s
obvious.”

A
s I was leaving the dorm, the FDLE crime scene team was entering.

“You’re
headin’ the wrong
way,”
Sally said.

She was a tall tech with big blond hair, big glasses, and big teeth, who had played basketball in college.
We
had
worked
together on a few of these before.

“New sheriff,” I said. “I’m being kicked
out.”

“
His
loss.
Anything I need to know?”

“Check his
pockets,
will you? Let me know if
you
find
anything.”

“Will
do.”

“M
y son
didn’t
kill
himself,”
Cheryl
Jacobs
said.

This after several minutes of sobbing uncontrollably.
Was
it normal reactionary denial or something else?

Was
she saying what most do in the face of such news
or,
shocked mother or
no,
was she right, her son not both victim and murderer?

I had started to call her last night shortly after being kicked out of A-dorm, but decided to wait until morning.

It was
early.
I was back in my office after only a few hours’ sleep. But I
didn’t
want to take the risk of her finding out from one of
Danny’s
friends once the
dorm
phones had been turned back on.

“I know my son . . .
He’s
been . . . doing good.

Finally getting a handle on everything and how it
works
in there.
He’s
been going to church, making a few friends. His letters
have
been so hopeful.”

I made a small noise to let her know I was listening. “I guess you just think I’m in denial, but I’m not. I know my son. I just spoke with him a few days
ago.”

She paused for a moment, but I could tell she
wasn’t
finished.

Outside
my
window,
inmates streamed
by
on their
way
to the property room in the early morning sun of what promised to be a bright, clear, warmish September
day.
“You
probably think I’m just trailer trash,” she said.
“No,
ma’am. I—”

“What kind of woman raises a criminal? Right?

Well,
let me tell you. I’m a school
teacher.
I
have
a
master’s
degree. Come from a good
family.
Danny just got mixed up in drugs and could never get
out.”

“I understand,” I said. “Happens to a lot of people.

I’m not unfamiliar with addiction
myself.”

There was complete silence on the line for a moment, and I thought she might
have
hung
up,
but eventually I heard her take a deep breath and let it out
slowly.

“I’m
sorry,”
she said, beginning to sniffle again. “I’m just upset. I . . . I’m . . . He
can’t
be dead. It must be some sort of horrible mistake. Please let it
be.”

“I wish I could.”

There was something about Cheryl
Jacobs’s
voice—a profound sadness that was there before I gave her the worst news a parent can ever be given. It was rich with loss and pain and raw-boned life—one that resonated with resignation and regret.

The intensity of her voice combined with the clear line created an intimacy between
us,
as if she were in the room, not a town or
two
away.

“I just
can’t
believe
he’s
. . . ” she continued.
“Are
you sure?”

“Yes,
ma’am.”

“My
God,”
she said
slowly,
sighing, and in her
words
I heard the echo of
My God, my God. Why have you
forsaken
me?

M
r.
Smith, my elderly African-American inmate clerk, had been at PCI since it opened and was one of the most well-regarded men on the compound—by officers and inmates
alike.
In my time as chaplain here, he had been one of the most honorable men I had met. It was fitting that he was assigned to the honor dorm. It was also helpful.

He shuffled into
my
office, head bowed, back bent, the round bald spot that crowned his large head
showing.
“You
lookin’ into Danny
Jacobs’s
death?” he asked as he eased into the seat across from
my
desk.

“Very
unofficially. New inspector and warden
don’t
welcome
my
involvement.”

“No,
suh.
Don’t
imagine they
do.
They not gonna last
long.
They’a screw up somethin’ important and get a promotion.”

“You
obviously know how the department
works.”

“
Whole
world,”
he said. “The whole
world.”

We
both sat in silence for a moment, thinking about, I assumed, the
way
of the world—I
was.
I was also admiring a man like
Mr.
Smith who could see so
clearly.

“You
know
he’s
sleepin’ in Lance Phillips bed last
night,”
he said.

I nodded.

“And
Phillips
try
the same thing in Confinement just a few nights
ago.”

“Coincidence?”

“Be a hell of
one.”

“
It
would.”

He leaned forward in the chair because of his bent back and winced in pain—something he did every time he had to
move.
Over his left shoulder on the wall was a picture Susan,
my
ex-wife, had bought me. It was a black-and-white photo of a giant cathedral whose pews were city buildings and aisles were busy streets. It reminded her of what I often said quoting
John
Wesley,
that the
world
was
my parish. It was one of the few pieces of evidence that she was ever in my life. Call
her.
Stop procrastinating. Do it as soon as Smith
leaves.
do
it.”

“They’s
pretty tight,” he said. “Danny and Lance?” I asked. He nodded.

“They seem suicidal to you?”

He shook his head. “But they both
try
it
before.”

“
They
have
?”

He nodded. “Neither the type to finish it though.”

“Why you think?”

“Not serious. That somethin’ you wants to
do,
you
I thought about what he was
saying.

“Like so many punks around here, they use it to check in to a private cell for a
weekend,”
he continued. “Or spends time with one of the hot psych specialists.”

Inmates
have
a limited number of ways to exert any control
over
their
lives.

“Problem with they
bunks,”
he said,
“can’t
see shit in that back corner,
’specially
at night. Calls it
lover’s
lane and up-the-back-alley . . . It where some of the mens
go
to hook up after lights
out.”

“Can you tell me who sleeps near there?”

He nodded. “I can
have
them come up here and see
you.”

“Even
better.
Thanks.”

The front door of the chapel opened and inmates noisily rushed inside.

When the inmates
didn’t
find
Mr.
Smith at his desk, they came to
my
door and stared through the narrow pane of glass.
Mr.
Smith
waved
them toward the chapel library and told them
he’d
be with them in a minute.

“Last night in A-dorm,” I said. “What went on?”

“
Ten
o’clock, lights went
out,”
he said. “TV in the day room turned off.
Weekends
and holidays lights still
go
out at ten, but the TV stay on to about
two.”

“How dark is it after lights out?”

“Pretty damn
dim,”
he said. “They gots a few lights with yellow bulbs in them they turn on, but
it’s
dim
—’specially
back in
lover’s
lane. Officers
can’t
see it from they station.”

“How quiet is it in A-dorm after lights out?”

“Very.
We
got mainly old cons, been around a while, know how to act,
don’t
be makin’ a bunch of racket like the jitterbugs. He was killed, had to be quiet.”

“Could’ve
drugged
him,”
I said. “Or put him in a choke hold to put him to
sleep—it’s
easier than most people think. Or they could’ve acted as if they were helping him stage a fake suicide and told him they
would
call for
security,
and then when he passed out they let him die.

Who was on duty?”

“Foster
and
Davis.”

“They obviously
didn’t
make
rounds,”
I said. “Or
they’d’ve
seen
him.”

He
shrugged.
“Don’t
know what they do after I
go
to sleep. Usually they make rounds at ten and then a little before eleven. Then the new shift come on at eleven and they make rounds sometime after that.
Few
times I
couldn’t
sleep, I
didn’t
see any officer out on the floor between,
say,
eleven-fifteen and maybe
four-thirty.”

“You
think
Jacobs
committed suicide?” I asked.

He
shrugged
again.
“Don’t
seem like the type. I
don’t
know.
My gut tellin’ me somethin’ might be
wrong.”

I smiled.
“Mine’s
telling me the same
thing.”

When
Mr.
Smith left, I reached for my
receiver.
With my hand on it, I paused for a moment, took a breath, said a prayer, then lifted it and punched in
Susan’s
number.

“Hello.”

“Susan?”

“Who?”

“Susan
Jordan,”
I said. “Daniels. Susan
Daniels.”

“
Must
have
the wrong
number,”
she said.

I repeated the
number.

“Right
number.
Wrong
person.”

“You
mind if I ask how long
you’ve
had this number?” I said.

“Few
months,”
she said. “Six
maybe.”

Makes sense. That was around the last time I had called
her.

“I
take it this
isn’t
a social call,” Hahn Ling said.

We
had dated briefly a few months back, so there was a time when a visit to her office was social.

She was an extremely petite young Asian-American woman of about five feet, with
olive
skin, shoulder-length straight, silky black hair, and big black
eyes.
She was one of three psych specialists at the institution, and so pretty she made her parents an argument for interracial relationships even the most strident racist
would have
to consider.

She closed the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of
Mental Disorders
and returned it to the corner of her desk.

Sitting across from her reminded me just how young she looked. I had no idea how old she really
was.
She
would
never tell me her age.

“You
here about the suicide last night?” she asked. I nodded.

“Well, don’t
ask me. I’m clueless about human
behavior.
Though . . . if
you’re
gonna commit suicide in prison,
that’s
the
way
to do it. They just threaten to commit suicide or act suicidal,
we’re
gonna place them in an SOS cell for observation.
It’s
why we
have
so few suicides at this prison—that and the great mental health care I provide them. But if a guy really wants to do it, all he has to do is act normal and when no
one’s
looking do the deed.”