Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery (17 page)

“You and Vera were really stupid, you know?” Andres said.

My face turned red. “Why am I stupid?”

“The killer, whoever it is, could have still been there. He could have taken you and Vera out,” he said. “Thank God you’re safe.”

I leaned into his thick, muscular shoulder. But I didn’t feel safe. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?” I said. “And then beers. My treat.”

“You okay, Kate?” Tim asked. “You seem kind of distracted today.”

Andres and Victor were doing the last-minute adjustments on the lights, leaving Tim and me to the usual preinterview chat. Under normal circumstances these few minutes provide a crucial opportunity for the subject to relax in front of the camera and to feel comfortable with me. But I wasn’t really up for bonding with a convicted killer at the moment.

“I’m fine. Just tired,” I told him. “I was worried my car would be under ten feet of snow today.”

“Digging out a car. I remember that. I guess not having to do that
anymore is one of the perks of my situation.” He frowned. “It’s got to be hard to be a widow.”

“What makes you say I’m a widow?”

“Brick mentioned it.”

“Are you two friends?”

“No.”

“But you’ve been chatting about me.”

Just at the moment I didn’t want Andres to turn the camera on, he signaled to me that he was rolling. Now my being the subject of prison gossip would be on tape. In a few weeks, when the show was being put together, an editor and a postproduction supervisor would hear all about it. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself. I had bigger problems than exposing my private life to strangers.

Tim squinted a little, turned his head to the side, as if he were trying to figure me out. “That worry you? Brick and me talking about you? ’Cause we didn’t mean anything by it,” he said. “Brick and me were next to each other at the chow line last night for dinner. I mentioned how well the filming was going. He said you were a nice lady with a tough job. Said your husband had died. That’s it. Explained some stuff, though.”

“About me?”

“No. About Brick. He’s very protective of vulnerable women. We had a guard in here, a lady guard. She was a bitch.” He bit his lip. “Pardon me. She was a tough old bird. Got in the face of a Mexican crew on our cellblock. Took away a bunch of privileges. They were not pleased, let me just say that.” He laughed. “Anyway, one day Brick found out somehow that she had cancer. That was it. He never seemed to notice the lady before, but then he made it clear. She was off-limits. The Mexicans left her alone. Everyone left her alone.”

“Brick has that kind of power?”

He nodded slowly. “He’s respected. People do him favors. They pay him for stuff.”

“And you?”

He laughed. “You know how in high school there are the leaders, the nerds, the jocks, the druggies…and this whole group of kids, the
largest group, that isn’t really anythin’ in particular? They’re just sort of there. Ignored by all the other groups, just getting through high school, day by day.”

“I was one of those kids.”

“Well, it’s like that in prison too. We got all those same groups. Maybe organized a little differently, but it turns out the same. Brick’s a leader. I’m just one of the ignored.”

“What I remember from high school is that flying under the radar has its advantages,” I said. “You can sometimes get away with stuff because no one is looking.”

“I’d keep that in mind, but I’m not looking to get away with anything,” Tim said.

“You know most of the time I think you’re being straight with me, but when you say stuff like that, it makes me think you’re full of shit,” I blurted out.

His expression went from shock to amusement. “I guess I am full of shit.”

“So what do you try to get away with?”

He glanced over at Russell, who was once again the guard on duty for the interview. “I’ve smoked a little weed in my younger days.”

“You’re talking about in prison, I assume.”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you get it?”

“I know you don’t do weed,” he said, instead of answering my question. “But what about other things—fast cars, picking up sailors, dropping money on the ponies?”

I laughed. “Yeah, I’m heavy into gambling, Tim. Just the other day I went to the grocery store with expired coupons. I was betting the clerk wouldn’t notice, which he didn’t, so it was a big payday for me.”

“Don’t you do anything bad, Kate?”

I took a breath. “Not usually,” I said. I like giving my interview subjects carefully edited insights into my life because in general it makes them more open about their own, and that leads to better interviews, but today I was off my game. Tim had been asking more questions than he’d been answering, and that had to stop. “Back to you, Tim. Where did you get drugs in prison?”

Tim sat up straight, considered it for a moment, then said, “We have dealers, guys who find a way to get it in and then they sell it at a markup, same as the outside.”

“How do they get it in?”

“Girlfriends hiding it in their underthings, bribed guards, things like that.” He turned again to Russell. “I’m not shocking you with this, am I?”

“You want to give me some names, Tim?” Russell asked.

“What do I get if I do?” Tim laughed. The guard laughed.

“What else do you get away with, Tim?” I asked.

“I used to make some homemade hooch, once in a while, but I don’t bother with that no more. I’d prefer to make coffee. I even gave up cigarettes,” he said. “I sound kind of boring, don’t I?”

“Boring is good, Tim.”

He smiled, looking like he thought he’d won my approval.

T
im was led back to his cell, and Russell told me it would be twenty minutes before he could bring Brick to the interview room. Security had tightened due to some fights between prisoners, so it would take that long, he explained, to get a man secured for the walk. Even though Brick and Tim lived only about a hundred yards away from the room I was in, they had to be searched, handcuffed, and led through a security check.

I didn’t mind the wait. I was anxious to check my cell phone and see if there were any calls from Vera. I hadn’t been allowed to bring my phone with me into the prison, so I went back to my car, got my purse out of the trunk, and checked my messages.

Vera had called, but only to say that her dogs were fine, and it didn’t look like anyone had broken into her house in the middle of the night. Ellen had called, something about remembering my hair appointment tomorrow. And Detective Makina had called.

“Mrs. Conway,” he said on the voice mail. “I just wanted to follow up on the incident last night and get a formal statement. When you have the opportunity, if you could give me a call back and we’ll set up a time, I’d appreciate it.”

A normal, ordinary follow-up to last night’s incident. That’s what he’d called it, an incident. A man lying dead with half a dozen gaping wounds. I’d been so focused on keeping Vera out of trouble that I hadn’t fully taken in how awful it had been to see Erik like that. Not that I had the time for it now, or the inclination. Erik Price was an annoying, self-important prick. And I’d barely known him. His death didn’t need to bother me, I told myself. Except it did. No one, not even self-important pricks, deserved to finish life in a pool of blood.

I called Makina back, leaving a message that I was working and would be able to give my statement anytime tomorrow. I put my cell phone in my purse, put my purse in the trunk, and walked back toward
the prison door, relieved by Makina’s call and sickened by the images of Erik that were now floating in my mind.

Brick was getting his handcuffs removed when I returned. “Hey there,” he said. “I thought you were tired of me.”

I looked up at him and smiled a little. “No. Not yet, anyway.” I tried to sound light, happy. I sat in my chair and gestured for him to sit opposite me.

Brick looked at me, puzzled, but he said nothing. He sat and waited while Victor put his mic on. Then he smiled at me. “How’s that other shoot goin’? The one with all them rich people.”

I glanced up at Andres, then back at Brick. “Same old thing. They’re still talking about how amazing they are and how amazing their restaurant will be.”

“What’s the name of it? Chez somethin’? They all got names like that.”

“Club Car.”

He thought for a moment. “Isn’t that the place where a dude got offed last night?”

“How do you know that?”

“I watch the Channel Nine news first thing every day,” he said. “Shit, Kate, you mixed up in that?”

“Not mixed up, Brick. I happened to be doing a story there.”

“We all were,” Andres chimed in, ignoring the fact that the camera was rolling. “And from what I saw, a couple of them were pretty shady. Any one of them could have done it.”

“That sort of shit you want to stay clear of,” Brick said, with the gravity of a man who knew what he was talking about.

“I’ll do that,” I said. “But we’re here to talk about you.”

The rest of the interview was routine, with Brick going into surprising detail about the many ways an inmate can get into trouble in prison, from infractions that lead to solitary confinement to making the wrong friends.

“When there’s somethin’ that needs discussin’ everyone’s got their favorite place,” he said. “
Mine is the stairway at the north end of the block. It’s quiet and the camera in there keeps gettin’ broke.”

“What do you do when you’re discussing something?” I asked.

“I discuss. And that’s all I do, Kate. A man has to know his limitations.” He smiled.

Like Tim, Brick was sensing that I wasn’t completely focused, and he was playing with me. Losing control of an interview is bad. It’s not as if I can pretend to the client that I did everything I could to get the best answers. My best, and worst, work is preserved on videotape. Today wasn’t going to be my best day, no matter what questions I asked. I thought about faking it, but I didn’t have the energy even for that, so I just dropped my producer hat and asked what I was curious about.

“Why are you doing this interview, Brick? I mean, what do you get out of it?”

That confused him. “What you want me to say?” His voice was a little unsteady. “You want me to tell you I’m doing this for the kids out there who might be thinking of takin’ the wrong path?”

“But you’re not.”

He looked into my eyes. I wondered if he could see the fear, the stress, the tiredness. He smiled a little, a sad smile, and I realized he could. “I don’t get to talk to people from the outside much,” he said. “The guards, I guess, but they don’t count. I don’t get outside my cell except to eat or exercise. This is like a vacation for me.” He sat back. “And I got books out of it. Which was the first kind thing I’ve seen in a while.”

“But doesn’t it ever bother you that you’re going to die here?”

“You have to die somewhere,” he said. “Like that friend of yours, the one at the restaurant. He had everything, right? He had fancy clothes and a big car. All that shit.”

“He did.”

“And he’s dead on the floor.”

“He is.” It wasn’t just Erik’s body on my mind; it was the image of me lying to the police about Erik’s body that was suddenly front and center. I was hot and cold all at the same time. “I guess you’re right, Brick,” I said. “No
matter how careful you think you are, you make one bad choice and it can all go to hell.”

Brick stared at me, and looked for a minute like he was thinking of reaching out to me. But he folded his hands in his lap. “You got nothin’ to worry about, Kate. You got friends. You got your boys over there.” He nodded toward Victor and Andres. “And you got me.”

“We’re friends, Brick?”

“We ain’t enemies.”

I looked into his dark walnut eyes. There was a kindness there. “Then I guess we’re friends.”

He was the first new friend I’d made since Frank died. Except, of course, for Vera. And look how that was working out.

I
t was bumper-to-bumper on I-55 going back into the city. Normally this much traffic would drive me nuts, but I wasn’t anxious to go home. I just sat in my car, switching between NPR and the alternative-rock station, trying to untie the knot in my stomach that had formed the minute I’d seen Erik’s body.