Redemption Road: A Novel (21 page)

I need one thing to tie this to Adrian Wall.

He needed Adrian to be the killer and felt the need in a way few could understand. But, there was nothing. They’d canvassed neighbors, coworkers, people who liked the same bars as Ramona, the same coffee shops and restaurants and parks. No one could put Adrian and the victim together.

Could I be wrong?

The thought was unpleasant. If Adrian didn’t kill Ramona Morgan, then maybe he didn’t kill Julia Strange, either. That meant his conviction was flawed and that every cop who’d hated him for so long and with such passion was full-on, absolutely wrong.

No.

Beckett shook off the doubt.

That was just not possible.

Beckett poured coffee and carried it to his desk, his thoughts already spinning away from the murder case and back to Liz and the girl. The distraction was a problem, but Channing mattered to Liz, and Liz mattered to him. So, he started at the beginning. Why was the girl taken? Not why, really. Why her? Why at that time and place? Abduction was rarely as random as most wanted to believe. It happened, yes—a pretty girl in the wrong place at the wrong time—but more often than not, abduction scenarios involved people known to the victim: a workman at the house, a friend of the family’s, a neighbor who always seemed so quiet and polite. He pictured Channing, her house, the case. He replayed his conversation with Channing’s father.

“Hmm.”

Beckett keyed up the sheets on Brendon Monroe and his brother, Titus. They were pretty standard. Weapons charges. Assault. Drugs. Some traffic offenses, two cases of resisting an officer. There were no sex convictions, though Titus had been charged twice with attempted rape. Beckett knew all that, so he keyed on the drug charges. Crack. Heroin. Meth. There was some pharmaceutical stuff, some weed. Beckett didn’t see what he wanted, so he rang down to narcotics. “Liam, it’s Charlie. Good morning.… Look, I see your name all over the Monroe jackets.… What?… No, no problem. Just a question. Was there ever any noise about them selling steroids?”

Liam Howe was a quiet cop. Solid. Dependable. Young. He worked undercover because he looked too fresh-faced to carry a badge. Dealers thought he was a college kid, a rich man’s son. “If there was money to be made, they’d sell it; but I don’t remember anything about steroids.”

“Is there much of that in town these days? Weight lifters? Jocks?”

“I don’t think so, but steroids have never been high priority. Why do you ask?”

Beckett pictured Channing’s father, sweat-soaked and massive. “Just a thought. Don’t worry about it.”

“You want me to ask around?”

Beckett’s first instinct was to say no, but Channing’s father had lied to him twice. “Alsace Shore looks like a juicer. Fifty-five, maybe. Built like a truck. I just wonder if he might have known the Monroe brothers.”

“Alsace Shore.” The drug cop whistled, low and deep. “I’d use a long stick to poke that bear, especially if you’re implying some kind of involvement with the Monroe brothers.”

“All I want is information, maybe enough to squeeze him.”

“About?”

His daughter,
Beckett thought.

The basement.

“Just ask around, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

“And, Liam?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe, keep it quiet.”

*   *   *

Liz left Channing a note and the keys to the Mustang.

Make yourself at home.

Car’s yours if you need it.

It felt strange sliding into the unmarked cruiser, as if some part of her was no longer a cop. The awkward sensation clung as the sun edged above the trees, and she drove past the old Victorians on her way to the outskirts of town. When she got to the prison, most of it was still shrouded in gloom, only the highest walls dappled pink, the high wires glinting. At the public entrance, a uniformed guard met her at the door. He was early forties, with washed-out eyes and a pale, wide body that had few hard corners. “Ms. Black?”

Not Detective or Officer.

Ms. Black …

“That’s me.”

“My name is William Preston. The warden asked me to bring you in. Do you have any weapons? Contraband?” Elizabeth’s personal weapon was in the car, but a rumpled pack of cigarettes rode in a jacket pocket. She pulled it, showed it to the guard. “That’s fine,” he said, then walked her to a visitor processing area. “I need you to sign in.” She signed, and he slid the paperwork to an officer behind the bulletproof divider. “This way.” She went through a magnetometer, and Preston stood close as a two-hundred-pound woman administered a thorough pat down.

“You realize I’m a police officer.”

Thick hands went up one leg, then the other.

“Procedure,” Preston said. “No exceptions.”

Elizabeth endured it: the feel of hands through fabric, the smell of latex and coffee and hair gel. When it was done, she followed Preston up a flight of stairs, then down a hallway to the east corner of the building. He walked with his shoulders down, and the round head tipped forward. His shoes made rubbery noises on the floor. “You can wait here.” He indicated a small room with a sofa and chair. Beyond the room was a secretary of some sort, and beyond her a set of double doors.

“Does the warden know I’m here?” Elizabeth asked.

“The warden knows everything that happens in this prison.”

The officer left, and Elizabeth sat. The warden didn’t keep her long. “Detective Black.” He swept past the secretary, a dark-haired man pushing sixty. Elizabeth’s first thought was
Charming
. The second was
Too charming
. He took her hand with both of his, smiled with teeth too white to be anything but bleached. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. Detective Beckett has spoken of you for so long and with such passion, I feel as if I’ve known you a lifetime.”

Elizabeth retrieved her hand, wondering at the line between charming and slick. “How do you know Beckett?”

“Corrections and law enforcement are not so dissimilar.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“Of course, it’s not. I apologize.” He blinded her again. “Charlie and I met once at a recidivism seminar in Raleigh. We were friends for a time—professional men with similar jobs—then life, as it so often does, took us in different directions, he more deeply into his career and I more deeply into mine. Still, I know a few in law enforcement, your Captain Dyer, for instance.”

“You know Francis?”

“Captain Dyer, a few others. A handful of people in your department have maintained an interest in Adrian Wall.”

“That doesn’t seem entirely appropriate.”

“Morbid curiosity, Detective. Hardly a crime.”

He gestured to the office beyond the double doors and did not wait for a response. Inside, they sat, he behind the desk, Elizabeth in front of it. The room was institutional, and trying to hide the fact: warm art and soft light, heavy rugs under custom furniture. “So,” he said, “Adrian Wall.”

“Yes.”

“I understand you knew him before.”

“Before prison,” she said.

“Have you known many on the other side? By that, of course, I mean men who’ve served lengthy sentences. Not misdemeanor recidivists, but hardened felons. Men like Adrian Wall.”

“I’m not sure what Beckett told you—”

“I ask because this is the great difference in our chosen professions. You see the actions that lead men to places like this. The things they do, the people they hurt. We see the change that prison inflicts: hard men made crueler, soft ones unmade entirely. Loved ones rarely get the same person back when the sentence is done.”

“Adrian is not a loved one.”

“Detective Beckett led me to believe you have certain feelings—”

“Look, this is simple. Charlie asked me to come, so I’m here. I assume there’s a purpose.”

“Very well.” A drawer opened, and a file came out. The warden placed it on the desk; spread his tapered fingers. “Much of this is confidential, which means I will deny ever showing it to you.”

“Beckett’s seen it?”

“He has.”

“And Dyer?”

“Your captain as well.”

Elizabeth frowned because it still felt unseemly: the easy smile and the office that tried to be what it was not, the heavy file that should not be so well thumbed. Of course people would have kept track. How could she have presumed otherwise? The deeper question was why she had not done the same.

“Pedophiles and police.” The warden opened the file. “Convicts hate both with an equal passion.” He handed over a sheaf of photographs. There were thirty maybe; all of them full color. “Take your time.”

If Elizabeth thought she was ready, she wasn’t.

“The miracle,” the warden said, “is that he survived at all.”

Taken in the prison hospital, the photographs were a testament to both the fragility and resilience of the human body. Elizabeth saw knife wounds, ripped skin, eyes swollen bloody.

“In the first three years, Mr. Wall endured seven hospitalizations. Four stabbings, some pretty horrific beatings. That one”—the warden waved a finger when she stopped on a photograph—“your Mr. Wall went headfirst down thirty concrete stairs.”

The skin was peeled off one side of Adrian’s face, his head shaved where staples held his scalp together. Six fingers were clearly broken, as was an arm, a leg. The sight made Elizabeth nauseous. “When you say he went headfirst down the stairs, you mean he was thrown.”

“A witness in prison…” The warden turned his palms up. “Few men have the courage to talk.”

“Adrian was a cop.”

“Yet a prisoner like everyone else, and not immune to the perils of institutional life.”

She tossed the photos on the desk, watched them slide, one across the other. “He could have been killed.”

“Could have been, but was not. These men, however, were.” A stack of files hit the desk. “Three different inmates. Three different incidents. All were suspected in one or more of the attacks on your friend. All died quietly and unseen, killed by a single stab wound, perfectly placed.” The warden touched the soft place at the back of his neck.

“How does one die, unseen, in prison?”

“Even in a place like this, there are dark corners.”

“Are you suggesting that Adrian killed these men?”

“Each death followed an attack on your friend. Two months later. Four months.”

“Hardly proof.”

“And yet, it speaks to a certain patience.”

Elizabeth studied the warden’s face. He had a reputation for being smart and effective. Beyond that, she knew nothing about him. As large as the prison stood in the life of the county, the warden kept to himself. He was rarely seen at restaurants or other gatherings. The prison was his life, and while she respected the professionalism, something about the man made her uncomfortable. The false smile? Something in his eyes? Maybe it was the way he spoke of dark corners.

“Why did Beckett want me to come here? It can’t be for this.”

“Only in part.” The warden used a remote control to turn on a wall-mounted television. The scene that flickered and firmed was of Adrian in a padded cell. He was pacing, muttering. The angle was down, as if the camera was mounted high in the corner. “Suicide watch. One of many.”

Elizabeth walked to the set for a better look. Adrian’s cheeks were sunken. Stubble covered his chin. He was agitated, one hand flicking out, then the other. It looked as if he was arguing. “Who’s he talking to?”

“God.” The warden joined her and shrugged. “The devil. Who can say? His condition worsened after the first year in isolation. He was often as you see him here.”

“You took him out of the general population?”

“Some months after the final assault.” The warden froze the image, looked vaguely apologetic. “It was time. Beyond time, perhaps.”

Elizabeth considered Adrian’s image on the screen. His face was tilted toward the camera, the eyes wide and fixed, the centers pixelated black. He looked angular, unbalanced. “Why is he out?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“He was released on early parole. That could not have happened without your approval. You say he killed three people. If that’s true, why did you let him out?”

“There is no proof he was involved.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “It’s not a matter of proof, though, is it? Parole is about good behavior. A subjective standard.”

“Perhaps I am more sympathetic than you imagine.”

“Sympathetic?” Elizabeth could hide neither the doubt nor the dislike.

The warden smiled thinly and selected a photograph from the desk. It showed Adrian’s face: the ripped skin and staples, the stitches in his lips. “You have your own problems, do you not? Perhaps, that’s why Detective Beckett suggested you come, to better understand the proper use of your time.” He handed her the photograph, and she studied it, unflinching. “Prison is a horrible place, Detective. You would do well to avoid it.”

*   *   *

When Officer Preston took the woman away, the warden moved to the window and waited for her to appear outside. After four minutes she did, stopping once to peer up at his window. She was pretty in the morning light, not that he cared. When she was in her car, he called Beckett. “Your lady friend is a liar.” The car pulled away as the warden watched. “I studied her face when she looked at the photographs. She has feelings for Adrian Wall, perhaps very strong ones.”

“Did you convince her to stay away?”

“Keeping Adrian Wall alone and isolated is in both our interests.”

“I don’t know anything about your interests,” Beckett said. “You wanted to talk to her. I made that happen.”

“And the rest of it?”

“I’ll do what I said.”

“He really is broken, our Mr. Wall.” The warden touched the television, the pixelated eyes. “Either that or he’s the hardest man I’ve ever seen. After thirteen years I’m still unsure.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I should explain myself, why? Because we were friends, once? Because I am so generous with my time?”

The warden stopped talking, and Beckett said nothing.

They weren’t friends at all.

They weren’t even close.