The Body and the Blood (26 page)

Chapter Fifty-five

I spent a lot of time over the next week wondering what I could have done differently, how I could have solved the case sooner and prevented more bloodshed.

At nearly every turn in this case I had gone for justice instead of mercy. I had achieved neither.

On Halloween, just a week after we had moved back in together, I received divorce papers from Susan—signed this time in bright red ink. It looked like blood from the wounds of our relationship—fatal wounds this time.

I had called her several times. She had not returned any of my messages, and the one time she actually answered the phone, she hung up on me. I had moved my stuff out of her house when she wasn’t home, so I hadn’t seen her since the morning her dad had killed Chris Sobel.

I’d picked up the divorce papers when I checked the mail during my lunch break, and when I returned to the prison that afternoon, I went down to Anna’s office to show them to her. We hadn’t spoken in a while, and I hoped divorce papers from Susan would provide the excuse I’d been looking for.

I tapped on the door and walked in as I normally did.

The only thing in the office was the state-issued furniture—a desk, matching bookcase, and three chairs.

Gone were the angels.

Gone was the angel.

The only thing of Anna that lingered was the faint hint of her perfume, which in time would fade and be gone, too.

I sat down at her desk and spread the divorce papers out in front of me and began to think about all that might have been.

I breathed deeply through my nose, trying to take in as much of her as I could, running my hands along the desktop where hers had rested so often. I sank back into the chair where she had sat day after day of our incarceration together. And I knew doin’ time would never be the same again.

I don’t know how long I had been there when DeLisa Lopez came in and sat down across from me.

“Not the same around here without her, is it?” she said.

“No, it isn’t.”

“I was looking forward to getting to know her.”

I nodded.

We sat in silence for a moment as time crawled past like prison time always does. Prison time is the slowest time there is, but when Anna was here it had always gone far too fast to suit me. Now I would be doin’ time like everyone else.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Been better.”

“Anything I can do?”

I shook my head.

Our voices seemed small and lost in the empty office, their sound bouncing off the bare walls and tile floor with nothing to absorb them. Nothing warm, nothing personal. Now there were only cold, hard surfaces.

“Carlos has been transferred to another institution,” she said, “and no one has come to reprimand me, to fire me.”

“And they won’t.”

“You had him moved rather than report me?”

I nodded.

“Thank you.”

“I know how easily people in helping professions can cross the line. Usually a result of compassion or neediness.”

“Or a combination of the two.”

“If it happens again, I’ll have to report you.”

“It won’t,” she said. “You won’t have to.”

“You’re a bright, beautiful woman, and there are a lot of free guys out there to choose from.”

She glanced down at the papers on the desk in front of me. “You one of them?”

I shook my head. “Haven’t been for a very long time. Probably won’t ever be.”

“Shame,” she said, stood up, and walked out of the room.

Chapter Fifty-six

As usual, when I stopped by Merrill’s hospital room I found Sharon Hawkins beside his bed. As far as I knew, she hadn’t left him much since he came out of surgery.

He was sleeping. She was flipping through the pages of a magazine. She turned the pages quickly and forcefully, scanning up and down, but not reading—the same thing over and over again: flip, scan, repeat. She seemed bored and restless.

“I’ll be here for a while if you want to get out,” I said.

“You won’t leave until I get back?”

“I won’t.”

She stood, stretched, and grabbed her purse. “I’m not with him because I’m rebelling against what I came from or he makes me feel secure or I don’t have anywhere else to go or anyone else to be with.”

“I think far more of you both to think that.”

She smiled. “Of course you get it. You know how amazing he is.”

When she left, my mind went back to the same dark place it always did.

A few minutes later, Merrill opened his eyes, looked at me, shook his head slightly and said, “It’s the gay divorcée.”

“I came hoping to meet a nurse.”

“Think most of them the other kind of gay.”

I nodded and we fell silent for a while.

When serious or reflective, Merrill was a man of few words. Often when we were alone, few words passed between us. We had been friends so long, so much went without saying, that just to be together did more for me than being with any other person in the world—with one exception. In fact, as I thought about it, Merrill and I shared something that words were inadequate to describe, and talking about it lessened it somehow.

“Daniels been indicted yet?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t look like he’s going to be. He set up Sobel pretty good. Escaping, shooting you and Daniels makes him look even more guilty. It looks as if Daniels shot him in self-defense. The DA doesn’t think he can make a case. So, ‘while Tom Daniels remains under a cloud of suspicion he is not being charged with any crimes at this time.’ They suspect Sobel every bit as much or more than Daniels.”

Merrill nodded. “He was right about the case. Crime’s too complicated for most juries.”

I nodded.

“Too many other criminals around to create reasonable doubt.”

“He’s no longer with the department. Resigned, citing his wife’s health problems.”

“You gonna do anything about it?”

“Did all I could.”

“Well, his ass didn’t get away with it. Karma a bitch.”

I shrugged.

“You tell the sister?”

I nodded.

“Think she might do anything?”

I shook my head.

“Susan still hangin’ up on you?”

I shook my head.

Creases formed on his forehead as his eyebrows shot up.

“I’ve stopped calling.”

He smiled, and we fell silent again.

In a little while, he said, “What about the baby?”

“Talked to an attorney. Said no court had ever ruled in favor of a man trying to prevent a woman from aborting his child.”

“Always a first time. Set a precedent and shit.”

I smiled.

We both fell silent again.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Not,” he said, and held up the little button that controlled his pain meds.

“I haven’t heard Sharon’s little futile laugh lately.”

“I’m good for her.”

“And vice versa?” I asked.

He nodded and smiled.

“You talk to Anna lately?”

I shook my head.

“I have.”

I raised my eyebrows, trying not to beg him for information.

“She loves her new job.”

I nodded, trying, but unable to catch my breath.

“Better hours, no commute, no criminals, big ass paycheck.”

“She deserves it. I’m happy for her.”

“You look it. Got that hit-in-the-gut happy look.”

“It’s genuine.”

“It’s the best career move she could’ve made. Plus, she’ll be able to finish her degree sooner.”

I nodded.

“Which is why everybody scratchin’ they heads over her puttin’ in for a transfer back to PCI. “

He laughed as my face lit up.

“It’s illogical, but most babes’ motives got more to do with they hearts than they heads.”

“Thank God for that,” I said, and tried to stop grinning. “Thank you, God, for that.”

About the Author

Michael Lister, an award-winning novelist, essayist, and playwright, is the author of the acclaimed “Blood” series featuring prison chaplain, John Jordan (
Power in the Blood, Blood of the Lamb, Flesh and Blood, The Body and the Blood, Blood Sacrifice, Blood Money
, and
Rivers to Blood
), and a second series featuring 1940s Panama City PI Jimmy “Soldier” Riley (
The Big Goodbye
). He is also the author of
Double Exposure
, a literary thriller set in the North Florida river swamps of the Apalachicola River Basin; and
Thunder Beach
, a mystery/thriller set during the annual biker rally on Panama City Beach;
Burnt Offerings, The Meaning of Life in Moives, Finding the Way Again, Living in the Hot Now
, and many other books. His website is
www.MichaelLister.com