Reckoning and Ruin (9 page)

Chapter Nineteen

On the outside, the Chatham County Detention Center reminded me of a dictator's headquarters on some small Caribbean island—sand-beige buildings crowned with looping coils of razor wire, minimal windows, and official men milling about in earth-toned uniforms. On the inside, it was bright and sunny, almost cheerful, the concrete block walls and metal folding chairs notwithstanding. My mood, however, was anything but.

I held my paperwork in hand. “What do you mean I can't see him?”

The female guard kept her face impassive. “The inmate in question is unavailable today.”

“But he's in Section A, High Risk Seg, and today is visitation for that unit. I looked it up on the website.”

“Yes, ma'am. But the inmate in question was moved to Medical this morning.”

“Why? What happened?”

The guard shook her head. “I'm not at liberty to discuss that. Come back tomorrow.”

“He'll be out then?”

“I don't know. But tomorrow is visiting day for Medical.”

“But what if he's back in the regular unit then?”

She gave me the slow patient blink. “Then you'll have to wait until Thursday.”

“But I'm here from out of town.”

“Then you'll get extra time to visit him, forty-five minutes. On Thursday.”

I started to argue, then gave up. I recognized a wall of bureaucratic regulation when I saw one. I clutched my single piece of paper, the fill-in-the-blank half-sheet required for an appointment. Name, inmate, relation to inmate. I'd put my real name, Teresa Ann, just in case Rico was right and Tai Randolph was listed on some “no way no how” list.

“Is there no other way?” I said.

The guard shook her head and returned to her computer screen. “Sorry.”

I gave up and headed back to the parking lot. I knew I couldn't kick up a fuss. I did not want Madame Olethea Jones of the Chatham County Prosecutor's Office putting me on her radar, especially if Jasper was off limits until Thursday. She'd be hard to evade for three more days, but if that was what I had to do…

I fished my car keys from my pocket, the only thing besides my license I'd been allowed to bring in, and followed the signs back to visitor's parking. I'd managed to grab a spot in the shade of a frothy white oleander, which had rained blossoms on my windshield in my absence. I started to brush them away when I heard someone clear his throat.

The voice was polite. “Be careful, ma'am, those are poisonous.”

I turned. A man stood near my trunk, his navy medical scrubs crisp, his dark hair military short. He had an earbud in one ear and an MP3 player blaring tinny death metal at a hearing-shattering level. I noticed a prison ID clipped to his collar, but I couldn't see his name. I angled my shoulders, moved onto the balls of my feet. I was getting as paranoid as Trey. But then, I was in a mostly deserted parking lot twenty feet from the largest collection of criminals in Chatham County.

“I know all about oleander,” I said. “Southern ladies with a disagreeable person to get rid of have made good use of it through the years.”

“Is that why you're here? You got somebody to poison?”

“Excuse me?”

He held up both hands, palms forward, and smiled. “Kidding. My sense of humor has gone super morbid since I started working here.”

He had a broad face that was an inch short of handsome and tanned skin that disguised a complexion roughened by acne scars. And he was friendly. Way too friendly.

“Can I help you?” I said.

He held the ID card in my direction. “My name's Shane. Shane Cook. I was on my way in, and I couldn't help overhearing you ask for Jasper.”

“Are you a guard?”

“No, I'm a physical therapist. I'm here a couple days a week.”

“Jasper one of your patients?”

“Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe we're not even talking about the same Jasper. But if we are, he'll be available tomorrow. He's going to be in Medical the rest of the week, at a minimum.” He twisted his mouth into a rueful smile. “Of course I'm not supposed to be talking to you. They made that clear at orientation.”

“That's okay. I'm not supposed to be talking to you either.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Then why are you?”

“Because I came here for information, and since I can't talk to Jasper, I guess you'll have to do.”

“What kind of information?”

I rummaged in my bag until I found the picture of John and me. I showed it to Shane. “Have you seen this man coming to visit Jasper in the past week or so?”

He examined the photo, then handed it back. “No.”

“What about this woman?” I showed him the photo of Hope. “She was an inmate herself until last week.”

“Haven't seen her either, not as a patient or inmate. But then, I stay in the medical unit.” He looked left and right, and the smile wavered the tiniest bit. “Look, I gotta ask. What's a woman like you doing wasting her time with a low class loser like…well, anybody in there?”

So that was what we had here, a clumsy attempt at a pick-up. A year out of the game, and I'd forgotten how things worked.

“The loser in question is suing me for three million dollars.” I smiled evenly. “That's why I'm here.”

Shane blinked at me. “You're his cousin Tai.”

That caught me off guard. “Jasper told you about me?”

“You're not the only one who's been visiting. His lawyer comes too. They talk. I overhear sometimes. What I'm saying is…uh oh. Act like I'm giving you directions.”

He pointed toward the road back to the parkway, still smiling. A pair of sheriff's deputies walked past us, headed for one of the patrol cars. They paid us little attention as they pulled out of the lot and drove off the complex.

Shane's smile vanished. “Jasper Boone was sent to High-Risk Seg because he provoked a fight with one of the resident skinheads. He puts on a good show, especially for the doctors, but I know his type. Sooner kill you as spit on you.”

A bus pulled up and delivered a family of three, the woman herding a toddler while trying to unfold an umbrella stroller. The air was thick with diesel fumes and the rising heat. Shane stepped closer, and every instinct I had went singing into overdrive. I didn't back away, but I clutched my keys tighter.

He dropped his voice. “So when the lawyers ask me about his wrist and ankle and knee, and if the damages done warrant a multi-million-dollar settlement, I plan to give them my expert medical opinion. Because that's what they'll need. They can look at charts and X-rays, listen to Jasper himself go on and on. But in the end, it's me that will have to make sense of it. And Jasper knows it.”

I examined his features. Open, friendly, salt of the earth. Except something glittered in the eyes.

“Has he tried to bribe you?” I said.

“Not yet. But he will. My time in the Sandbox gave me a real clear sense of good and evil. So you don't have to worry about me. I'll tell them everything they need to know about him.” He smiled with charming candor. “If you get my drift.”

I tried to keep my expression blank. Was he offering to slant his testimony? And if so, in return for what? If he was telling the truth about testifying in Jasper's civil suit, that same wholesome corn-fed expression could sway a judge or jury any way he wanted the verdict to go. And he knew it.

“The Sandbox. That's Iraq, right?”

“LSA Anaconda outside of Balad, also known as Mortar-itaville. 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. The Wardogs.” He grinned and pulled up his shirtsleeve, revealing a tattoo of a slavering black hound. “Lost my leftie in a mortar attack on a convoy back in oh-nine.”

“You lost your what?”

“My left foot, right below the ankle. Sheared that sucker right off. So when the days get rough here, I remind myself, sure as hell beats the Box.” He gave me a patronizing look. “Look, you seem real nice, so I'm gonna give you some words of wisdom. I'd be careful about talking to Jasper Boone if I were you. The man has friends and enemies in there and out here, and some of them might find you real interesting. And that isn't something you want. Take my advice—stay away.”

He smiled again, put in his other earbud, and disappeared into the employee parking area. His left foot moved as naturally as his right, not a hint in his gait of the injury he'd described. I waited until he disappeared into the employee parking area, then brushed the last of the oleander blossoms off my windshield.

I hadn't managed to see Jasper. But Shane the physical therapist was an interesting consolation prize. Yes, he was.

Chapter Twenty

I shielded my eyes from the Savannah sun, high now in the powdery blue sky. Despite the downtown crush, I lucked into a parking space on Bay and fed enough quarters into the meter to give me two hours. I took the old stone steps down, steep and narrow and treacherous, then hooked a left into the limestone alley running behind the buildings. A quick turn down another narrow dark passageway, and I stepped onto the cobblestones of River Street, the crazy quilt of shops to my left and right, the rolling Savannah River in front.

The sidewalks were more crowded than usual this Monday, both tourists and locals coming out for a lunchtime breath of spring. The wind off the brackish water smelled like mud and vegetation, and it mingled with cigarette smoke and fried shrimp and stale beer. A Russian freighter cruised by, looking like a condominium complex out for a stroll, the Talmadge Bridge gleaming behind it.

I couldn't help looking over my shoulder, couldn't help examining the faces of every person I passed on the sidewalk. The couple lifting up their trifocals to read a menu, the busker playing eighties sitcom themes on his trumpet, the SCAD students sketching the brick and ballast stone architecture. The usual tapestry. Not a stalker or sniper or no-good-nik among them.

Tai Randolph
, I told myself,
you're getting paranoid
. But it was with sweet relief that I finally pushed open the door to Soul Ink Tattoos.

“Hey, Train,” I called. “You here?”

I heard a familiar voice from the back. “Be with you in a second.”

For ten years, Soul Ink had resided in this same spot on the west end, the funkier section of the waterfront. Its decor was a cross between Episcopalian chapel and post-modern brothel, with dazzling stained glass windows, a golden stamped concrete floor, and squeaky red leather chairs.

Train stepped through the beaded curtain that separated his work space from the private back room. “Tai!”

He was a well-muscled guy, with chestnut hair and a penchant for tight sleeveless tee shirts, the better to show off his intricately inked forearms and biceps, a garden of roses and Celtic crosswork intertwined with Bible verses. He was older than me, but his face read young—full round cheeks above a goatee flecked with silver.

Train took the name of his shop literally. He saw creating body art as a sacred ministry and considered tattoos as prayerful as rosary beads. He was also one of the few people in town willing to provide a job—either at his shop or through his church—for those with tarnished reputations and/or rap sheets, the Lowcountry's second and third-chancers.

“You here to get a new tat?” he said.

“I wish. Unfortunately, I'm looking for John Wilde. Heard he was working here.”

“He was, but I haven't seen him since Friday.” Train gave me his pastor look. “Why? What's happened?”

“He's disappeared.”

“Uh oh. He's not in trouble with the law, is he?”

“I don't know what kind of trouble he's in, but I suspect it's bad.”

I sat on one of those red leather couches and filled him in, everything from the new lawyer to the lawsuit to Hope's visit. I left out the part about trying to see Jasper. Train wouldn't have approved of that either.

“What concerns me most,” I said, “is that John told Hope he was gonna take care of some things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Stalker things. Old debt things. All kinds of powder-keg things. He didn't try to see Jasper, did he?”

“Not that I know of. Steered clear of that whole business.” Train rubbed his chin. “He called me Friday morning, said he'd dropped his bike off at a friend's shop to have an oil leak fixed, asked for a ride back. I drove over to the Whitemarsh Walmart and got him.”

“What shop?”

Train held his hands up in a “dunno” gesture. “He worked the rest of the day, and I gave him a ride home. That's the last time I saw him. He was supposed to open Saturday morning, but he called in last minute and said he needed the day off. Personal business. I didn't ask why.”

I remembered the receipt for the ammunition. Saturday morning.

“Does he skip work a lot?”

“No.” Train leveled a look my way. “I know you two had history, and that he has sins aplenty on his tally. But he's trying. Ever since Hope went to jail, he's cleaned his life up. He said they'd both made bad mistakes—”

And Hope's still making them, I thought.

“—but I'll tell you, that mess back in the fall shook him up royally. He is on the straight and narrow now.”

“And Hope?”

He shrugged. “She has declined my visits. Has anybody told her he's missing?”

And then I realized—Train didn't know she wasn't in jail anymore.

“She's out. Early release contingent on her testimony in Jasper's upcoming trial.”

“Oh. John didn't mention that.”

“I think he was trying to keep it on the QT. But now she's disappeared too, and I suspect they've both gotten in over their heads, again.”

Train stroked his chin, thoughtful, his dark eyes filling with concern. Not panic. He'd witnessed many recently released cons return to problematic habits, hang with bad crowds, tumble off the wagon. This was familiar ground to him. As I was weighing my options, though, he delivered a question that was a bolt from the blue.

“You don't think he's playing vigilante, do you?”

“What?”

“I mean, you said he said he was going to take care of things. One of the things that bugged him most was Hope getting as much time as she did. He said it was a raw deal, said it was all the fault of your Uncle Boone and company.”

I felt the ground I'd been standing on shift a bit. I hadn't considered that John might be off on a solo revenge mission. What if that was what he'd been doing out Whitemarsh way? Not dropping off his bike. Dropping in on Boone, whose estate lay right off Highway 80, barely a mile from the Walmart.

I shook my head. “That doesn't make sense. He's not—”

“What, stubborn? Convinced he can handle things on his own?” Train's eyes were firm and gentle. “Don't even pretend you're not the same way. Isn't that why you're here, after all? Because the law isn't doing what you think needs to be done?”

I wasn't about to argue with him about my motives. But he'd certainly put a new wrinkle on things.

“Are you sure John's disappeared?” he said. “Has anybody actually checked the trailer to see if he's there?”

That startled me. It would be exactly like John to go to ground if necessary. Not without telling Hope—that was weird—but still…

“I don't think so.”

“Then here. Take his spare key.” Train pulled a cheap penny-colored house key from the register. “He left it with me in case something happened.”

“Something like what?”

“He didn't say. I thought he meant the usual things that sometimes happen. But now you've got me worried.” He handed it to me, then wrote an address on the back of a business card. “Number 207 in the Shady Grove Mobile Home Community. Let me know what you find.”

I slid it into my back pocket. “I will.”

“And if it's something suspicious—”

“Right to the authorities. I promise.”

“And Tai?”

“Yeah?”

His eyes were solemn, his face composed. “May I pray for you?”

I was hesitant—it had been a long time since anyone had interceded with the Man Upstairs on my behalf—but this was Train's MO, and it was as sincere an offering as any artwork he etched upon skin. I swallowed my discomfort and nodded. He took my hands in his and clasped them together.

He closed his eyes. “Dear Lord, watch over Your daughter, Tai. She's a handful, I know, but You have innumerable miracles in Your pocket. Keep her safe and on the path of righteousness, and bless her seeking, bless her thirst for truth and justice and use it for Your purposes. Amen.”

He opened his eyes, but didn't let go of my hands. I wasn't sure if I'd ever set one foot on the path of righteousness, and truth and I were barely speaking some days, but justice? That was as worthy a goal as any, even if chasing it was like chasing a rainbow.

I squeezed his fingers. “Amen.”