JJ09 - Blood Moon (6 page)

“Tomorrow night. If I don’t call you by one, there’ll be a note in my trailer explaining why and what to do about it.”

“K.”

“Thanks. Thank you.”

“You said no questions asked, but . . . This not somethin’ I can be involved in before one?”

“Wish to God it were,” I said.

Rachel Peterson had been lingering by her car, evidently waiting for us to reach her.

“Workin’ on your story?” she asked.

“We’re caught in a trap,” Merrill said.

Her eyes widened.

I smiled.

“Can’t walk out,” I said.

“Why can’t you see what you’re doin’ to me?” Merrill asked.

I could see it dawn on her, followed by what was almost a smile twitching in her lips. “Cute,” she said. “But my mind is only suspicious of suspicious people.”

“Of course it is,” Merrill said in his most condescending you’re-full-of-shit voice.

“Were you told to stay out of the investigation into the apparent suicides here at the institution?” Rachel Peterson asked.

“I was.”

“By who?”

Whom
popped into my head but not out of my mouth. I wasn’t in the habit of correcting anyone’s grammar, and no matter how hostile this interview might become, I had no plans to resort to anything like that.

“The warden and the interim institutional investigator,” I said.

We were in my office at my insistence, an accommodation she seemed willing enough to make.

I wanted to be here in case the kidnapper called my office phone, but she probably thought it was so I could feel more comfortable and secure. That she was willing to conduct the interview here demonstrated her confidence in my guilt and in her ability to break me. I had told her it was because I was the only chaplain on duty and needed to be in the chapel to supervise the inmates and be available for emergencies.

She was sitting across the desk from me in one of the two chairs normally occupied by inmates, a small digital recorder between us, its red indicator light on. She wore dark well-fitting jeans, a white button-down, and round-toed Justin Gypsy Roper boots. Her longish brown hair was gathered into a ponytail, and she looked more like a modern cowgirl than the IG of the Florida DOC.

“Did you?” she asked.

“Did I what?” I asked.

“Did you still investigate?”

“Some, maybe, but not really,” I said. “I didn’t have access to the investigation so I was on the outside. Wasn’t much I could do.”

“But you still did some investigating on your own?” she said.

“A little, yes, but––”

“Even after you were told not to?”

“Yes.”

“What were you about to say?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“You said
but
like you were about to say something else.”

“Oh.”

“You seem distracted. Are you okay?”

She held nothing, never looked at a note, never wrote anything down, just kept her brilliant blue-green-gray eyes intently trained on me.

“I was going to say that at a certain point in the investigation the interim inspector asked for my help and began to involve me more.”

“He did?”

I nodded.

“Verbal responses for the recording, please,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “He did.”

“It’s your testimony that the institutional inspector asked the chaplain to help with his investigation?”

“He asked me. I’m the chaplain. So yes.”

“Why would he do that?” she asked. “Why would he and the warden tell you to stay out of the investigation and then ask you to join in? Why would a trained investigator ask a chaplain to assist in a possible homicide investigation?”

“Because of my background. I was an investigator before I became a chaplain. As to why he changed his mind and asked for my help after telling me he didn’t want it, you’d have to ask him. He told me it was because he needed help with the investigation, that he really wanted the job of institutional inspector and he thought clearing his first case would help him get it.”

“But he didn’t clear it. You did.”

I shrugged. “It was a group effort. His case. His clear.”

“I’ve interviewed Inspector Lawson,” she said. “He and the warden both say they told you to stay out of the investigation, but he never mentioned asking you later to join it.”

“Regardless,” I said, “it’s what happened.”

“According to you.”

“Yes,” I said. “According to me.”

“Okay, we’ll come back to that. What were you doing in the dorm when Hahn Ling was killed?”

“Trying to save her.”

“How’d you know she needed saving? Why didn’t you report it to the inspector?”

“When I regained consciousness, I––”

“You had been drugged, is that right?”

I nodded.

“Verbal,” she said.

“Yes. When I regained consciousness I was told where she was and with whom. I was also told that she had mentioned something in front of the killer that would let him know we were closing in on him. The inspector had made two arrests and was up in Admin waiting for FDLE. We were in Medical.”

“We?”

“Sergeant Monroe and myself. We rushed down to the dorm to try to save her.”

“You had been unconscious?”

“Yes.”

“So you were still woozy, not thinking clearly.”

“I was thinking just fine.”

“According to you. But you would think that, wouldn’t you? You acted in a manner you shouldn’t have even if you had had all your wits, but you were severely compromised because of the drugs you had been administered. Shouldn’t you have reported what you knew instead of rushing down to the dorm while you were still dazed and not able to think? Would Ms. Ling be alive if you had?”

Rachel Peterson was a professional. She never raised her voice, never took too strong a tone, mostly remained flat, with only the occasional hint of disbelief and eyebrow raised incredulously.

“I wasn’t dazed or unable to think. We had the situation under control, had talked the inmate into surrendering, into letting Hahn go, and then he was killed by the response team sniper and––”

“Who gave the order to fire?”

“I have no idea. Never heard one given. The shot was fired before the response team rushed into the quad. If they hadn’t come in, if the sniper hadn’t fired the shot, Hahn would still be alive. And we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“You keep referring to Ms. Ling as Hahn. You were intimate with her. Is that correct?”

“No, it’s not. She was a coworker, a friend. Someone I referred to by her first name––like most of the people I know.”

“But you had an intimate relationship with her. You dated her.”

“We weren’t intimate. We went on a few casual dates some six months or more before any of this happened.”

“You’re not a very typical chaplain, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t matter. Not relevant.”

Before I could press her to say more, my phone rang and I lunged for it.

“Chaplain Jordan.”

It was the warden’s secretary saying Rachel Peterson was needed in Admin.

“Tell her I’ll be up in a few,” she said.

I did.

“So––” Rachel began.

But the moment I placed the receiver on the cradle, the phone began to ring again, and again I snatched it up.

“Chaplain Jordan,” I said.

“Can you talk?” the kidnapper asked.

“Yes. Give me just a second.”

Rachel stood. “I’ll let you take that, go see what the warden wants. Be back in a few.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I noticed she had removed the recorder from my desk, but wasn’t holding it as she started to leave.

I stood and walked around the desk, never letting go of the receiver. She had left the recorder on and placed it on the floor at the base of my desk.

I reached down, snatched it up, and tossed it to her.

“It must have fallen when I tried to put it in my pocket,” she said.

“Must have,” I said, my voice revealing far more incredulity than hers had before. “Miraculously, hitting the floor didn’t disengage the recording mechanism.”

She gave me a wry smile and was out the door.

“I’m here,” I said to the caller.

“What am I interrupting?” he asked.

“Nothing. I’ve been waiting for your call.”

“No, I mean what were you doing when I called?”

“Being interviewed by the inspector about my involvement in the death of a staff member that happened here a few days ago,” I said.

“Is it a problem?”

“No.”

“Is he gone?”

“Yes,” I said, not correcting his assumption.

He knew how to reach me in the chapel at the prison but didn’t know the new IG was a woman. What else did he know and not know?

“Have you spoken to anyone about anything?”

“Absolutely not. I’ve done exactly what you’ve told me to. Nothing more. Nothing less. How is Anna?”

“She’s good. Resting. We’re taking better care of her than you did. I assure you. The only thing that can go wrong with any of this, the only way she gets mistreated or dead, is if you do something I’ve told you not to or fuck up something I’ve told you to do.”

“Not gonna happen,” I said. “Can I speak to her?”

“I told you, she’s sleeping. You’ll talk to her again soon. And if you do what I tell you, you’ll see her tomorrow night.”

“Okay. Who am I bringing you to trade for her?”

“Last name is Cardigan,” he said. “Like the sweater. First name Ronnie. DC number 745491. You have a little over a day. Make it count.”

I had a name.

Now I had to come up with a plan.

And I had a day to do it.

The first thing I did was call down to Classification and request Cardigan’s file.

While waiting for the inmate jacket to arrive, I called around to find out what job and dorm Ronnie was assigned to.

Previously, everything I was doing now was accomplished with a single phone call to Anna.

That thought made me even more sad and lonely, and for a moment I was overcome with such intense longing, I couldn’t catch my breath.

No time for that now. Put it away. No good to her if you don’t.

I took a moment, gathered myself, and once again returned to the place deep inside, distancing myself from all else.

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Wordsworth’s line came to mind, and I made myself concentrate on the verse, actually saying it out loud in my empty office.

“‘Thanks to the human heart by which we live. Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and its fears. To me the meanest flower that blows can give, Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.’”

That’s where I’ve got to be, to get back to, to stay until I get Anna back––in the place where my thoughts lie too deep for tears.

The file was delivered to my desk in a stringed state courier envelope by an inmate orderly from Classification before I had finished my calls. I flipped through it while I was on the phone, and by the time Ronnie reached my office, I knew a good bit about him.

Serving a ridiculous mandatory minimum on a nonviolent possession-with-intent-to-distribute charge, he had been failed by his public defender, and had a lot of time left on his sentence. A model inmate, he was housed in the honor dorm, and worked in the kitchen as a cook. A constant reader, he used the library as much as any inmate on the compound. A devout Catholic, he never missed Mass.

Cardigan looked like someone who would wear one.

As if a community college professor instead of a state of Florida inmate, Ronnie Cardigan blinked a lot behind his big glasses and wore his coarse light-brown-going-gray hair as long as the prison would allow, combing it back into a soft, full white man’s low afro. His body was a bit bulky—not fat, but broad and soft.

“You know why you’re here?” I asked.

“Oh, God, no. My mom? Please tell me she didn’t die.”

I shook my head. “No. Nothing like that. Sorry to alarm you.”

“Oh, thank God. I’m so . . . so relieved. Thank God. Thank you God.”

“I thought you would know.”

“Know what?”

“Why you’re here.”

“Why would I?” he asked.

“Have you spoken with your family lately?”

He shook his head. “Usually call once during the weekends. Missed ’em last weekend. Won’t call again until this one coming up. Do you know why I was denied a furlough? That somethin’ you could help me with? I’m in on a nonviolent charge. I’ve never gotten a single DR. They say the reason I can’t go is I’ve got too much time left on my sentence.”

I considered him carefully. He seemed genuine, and seemed to genuinely have no idea what was going on. But his big glasses, nearly constant blinking, and his avoidance of eye contact made him difficult to read.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

“Just want to see my mom before she . . . before it’s too late.”

I began to formulate a plan. Tomorrow night one of our volunteers would be in the chapel facilitating a Bible study group. If I could get Ronnie to join the other inmates in attendance . . .

“How badly do you want to see her?”

He looked confused. “Bad.”

If I could get approval for another volunteer to come in . . . One that resembled Ronnie . . .

“What would you do to get to see her?” I asked.

“Anything.”

“
Anything
?” I asked.

“I mean it. Anything.”

“Serve more time?”

He nodded. “In a heartbeat. I’m tellin’ you, anything. Sayin’ bye on the phone just isn’t. . . That’s not how I want to . . . say what all I want to say.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

“Chaplain, why am I here?”

“I know you’re Catholic, but I’d like you to attend the Protestant study group tomorrow night.”

He looked confused, but said, “Okay.”

“It’s very important. I really need you here.”

He nodded. “Okay. But I’m not going to convert.”

“Nothing like that,” I said. “And I want you to call your family before you come. Either tonight or tomorrow but before you come to the study. Okay? It’s important. Both are. Call your family and be here for the study.”