And a Puzzle to Die On (4 page)

Ahead the road forked. Cora grunted, snatched her directions off the passenger seat, and squinted at them while trying to keep one eye on the road. Cora had been pleased as punch when she’d found the directions on MapQuest and printed them out all by herself, but it was a pain in the fanny trying to actually read the damn thing. There were a whole slew of directions, numbered one through nineteen, such as “12: Bear right through intersection ¾ mile,” which didn’t really do you much good because by the time you found number twelve and read all that, you’d probably
gone
three-quarters of a mile, if not farther, and Cora couldn’t see why the directions didn’t just say “Bear right at the Getty station,” like a normal person would.

Eventually, Cora reached the prison, a massive compound in a clearing on a plateau nestled between two mountains. Departure from the prison, Cora noted, was discouraged by a smooth, twenty-foot-high stone wall, topped with barbed wire. There were no gun turrets. Apparently, the wall was sufficient. Or, Cora thought cynically, casting an eye on the MapQuest directions, the prison authorities counted on the fact that convicts breaking out would have no hope of finding their way.

Cora drove up to the front gate, a wrought-iron affair some two stories high, fitted snugly in the stone wall. Up close, Cora could see the barbed wire on top was actually razor wire. Scaling the wall would be a painful prospect indeed.

Next to the front gate was a sentry box. The guard on duty looked like a prisoner himself. His crew cut was
as short as you could get without actually denuding your head. He had a scar on his cheek. He wore a gun on his belt. A rifle was propped up behind him in the box. The guard stepped out, but not to open the gate. Instead, he motioned for Cora to roll down her window.

“Park around the side,” he told her. It was an order, not an invitation. “If you don’t want people pawing through your purse, leave it in the car. Leave anything sharp in the car. If you’re wearing a hat pin, take it off.”

“I’m not wearing a hat,” Cora said.

The guard never cracked a smile. “Any brooch, safety pin, or whathaveyou. It can be your lucky pin, it won’t be so lucky when you have to surrender it.”

“You’re not exactly filling me with confidence,” Cora said.

“That’s not my job.” The guard pointed. “Park over there. Don’t leave your keys in your car. Roll up the windows, lock the doors.”

“Aren’t the prisoners inside?”

“Yes, they are, and that’s where we wanna keep ’em.”

Cora recognized that statement, though fundamentally true, to be blissfully illogical, and perhaps even a non sequitur. However, she didn’t prolong the conversation, merely followed the road around the side of the compound to where another forty or fifty cars were parked. Cora locked hers and went to go into the prison.

Only there wasn’t a door. A bare stone wall greeted her at the mouth of the parking lot. She was forced to retrace her path to the gate and the guard.

“Hmm. Didn’t believe me about the purse,” the guard observed.

“They’re really going to search my purse?” Cora said.

“No, they’ll just hold on to it. You got anything in it you want, you better get it out now.”

Cora flushed, as she realized she had a gun in her purse. She considered going back to her car. It was a long way. “Just these.” She pulled out her cigarettes and lighter. “They’ll hold my purse at the desk?”

“They’ll hold your cigarettes too. The visiting room is a no-smoke zone.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I wish I were.”

The guard jerked a ring of keys off his belt. Cora waited for him to unlock the gate. He didn’t, of course. The gate leading into the courtyard was for trucks. Instead he unlocked the normal-sized solid steel door to the left of it.

Cora went inside, found a bored-looking corrections officer sitting at a desk in what could have passed for a reception office. File cabinets lined the walls.

The corrections officer swung his feet down off the desk, and grunted, “Yeah?” He was a surly fellow, but compared to the guard, looked positively benign.

“I’m here to see Darryl Daigue.”

“You his mother?”

“You want a fat lip?”

“No offense, lady. Who are you?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

“Right. And I’m the Queen of Sheba.” He handed her a clipboard with a form attached. “Fill this out. You plan to surrender that purse?”

“May I keep it with me?”

“No, you may not.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“To see if I had a fight on my hands. I take it I don’t.”

“Can I keep my cigarettes?”

“You can’t smoke in there.”

“You’re smoking.”

“I’m not in there.”

“Can I smoke here?”

“You always this much trouble?”

“I’m a pussycat. One with a nicotine addiction. If I can’t have one there, how’s about I have one while I fill out your form?”

“And I won’t have to pry your purse away from you with the Jaws of Life?”

“Deal.”

Cora sat down, lit a cigarette, and started filling out the form. She had no trouble with NAME, ADDRESS, TELEPHONE #, and SEX, though for the last she was tempted to answer
Yes
.

The next blank was DATE OF BIRTH. Cora left that blank, moved on to NAME OF PRISONER, and filled in
Darryl Daigue
.

Next was RELATION TO PRISONER. Cora almost wrote
None
, but didn’t want to make waves. Instead, she put
Private Investigator
.

On the bottom of the form it asked the question, DO YOU HAVE A CAR IN THE PARKING LOT? Assuming yes, it then asked MAKE, MODEL, YEAR, and LICENSE PLATE #. It then asked for DRIVER’S LICENSE #. Cora blithely made these numbers up.

Cora filled in the form leisurely, giving herself time to finish her cigarette. When she was done, she handed the clipboard back to the corrections officer at the desk.

He looked it over. “You left out birth date.”

“Did I?” Cora smiled. “Well, it’s next week. November 1.”

“I’ll send you a gift,” the officer said dryly. “What year were you born?”

“Why?”

“I gotta fill out the form. When were you born?”

“That’s a very impolite thing to ask a lady.” When the officer said nothing, she added impatiently, “Oh, for goodness’ sake, give me the form!” She snatched the clipboard, filled in the date, handed it back.

The corrections officer looked at the form, blinked. “Nineteen
seventy
?”

Cora leaned in confidentially and winked. “Promise you won’t say anything. The girls think I’m twenty-five.”

Cora wasn’t sure, but she thought the corrections officer had a narrow escape from a smile. He picked up the phone, pressed the intercom button, and punched in a number. “I have a female visitor for one of the prisoners. Could you send the matron?”

“Matron?” Cora asked.

“She’ll be right down.”

The matron made Cora look like an anorexic fashion model. Weighing in at two hundred fifty pounds of solid muscle, and sporting a flat face and a broken nose, the woman might have gone a few rounds with George Foreman, or perhaps tried to steal his charcoal grill. She studied Cora as if sizing up a side of beef, then crooked a finger in her direction. “Come on, dearie.”

Cora could think of few things one could say on network television she preferred less to be called than
dearie
, but she wasn’t about to pick a fight. Instead, she managed her most proper “Harrumph!” and followed the woman down a corridor and into a small side room with a chair, a coatrack, and a bank of six metal gym lockers.

“Okay, dearie. Take off your shoes, jacket, and skirt.”

Cora raised her eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

“No one brings anything into the visiting room we don’t want brung. You got something for the prisoner, you give it to me. If they decide he should have it, they’ll see that he gets it.”

“I don’t have anything for the prisoner.”

“That makes it easier. Take your things off. You can use those coat hangers on the rack there.”

“Suppose I don’t want to?”

The matron shook her head. “That’s a problem. You were a prisoner and gave me lip, I’d take ’em off for you. But you’re just a visitor. You don’t wanna cooperate, that’s your call. I can’t touch you. But then you can’t see the prisoner. See how it works, dearie?”

“How extensive is this search?”

“I’m not gonna touch you. I’m gonna run a metal detector over you like they do at the airport. You got any reason why it should buzz, tell me now.”

The search completed, Cora was led down another corridor, where another bored-looking guard at a desk pushed a button releasing a rather formidable-looking steel door.

“There you go. Go on in, make yourself comfortable. The prisoner will be right in. You buzz the door when you want to come out.”

Cora walked in and the door slammed behind her. She shuddered at the clunking of the huge locks and bolts.

The visiting room was not much larger than your average phone booth. In New York City, Cora thought cynically, it would rent for fifteen hundred a month as a studio apartment.

A single chair sat facing a plate-glass window. The window might have been a mirror. On the other side was a bare room with a chair and a door.

A phone hung on the wall next to the window. There was no dial, no buttons, no numbers of any kind. The telephone receiver was connected only to the phone on the other side.

The wall and window were totally solid. There was no slot, no door, no drawer, no bars, no open space of any kind, through which fingertips could be touched or a cigarette could be passed. What, Cora wondered, was that search all about? It occurred to her the matron was probably so grouchy because she knew she was performing a useless task.

After what seemed forever, but was probably not more than thirty minutes, the door on the other side of the window opened, and a guard ushered in Darryl Daigue.

And one mystery was solved.

Darryl Daigue was a tall, thin man with stringy bald hair. Cora realized that wasn’t quite right. He would have been bald, but for a few wisps of hair on top and a fringe around the ears. He had a hawk nose and heavy tortoise-shell glasses. He had chains on his wrists and chains on his feet. He jingled as he shuffled along. At least Cora assumed he jingled. With the thick pane of glass, she couldn’t hear a thing.

The guard leading Darryl Daigue was the size of a small steam engine. He had a hand on Daigue’s shoulder, guiding him to the chair. The guard sat the prisoner down, looked through the window, saw Cora, and rolled his eyes. He retreated to the door and stood with his back to it, arms folded, face impassive, as if he weren’t there.

Before Darryl Daigue even opened his mouth Cora knew why the jury had found him guilty. Daigue
looked
guilty. His face seemed etched in a permanent sneer. It was a nasty face, the face of a man who could easily rape and kill an innocent girl. And it wasn’t just
the passage of twenty years’ time, and hard time at that, prison time, the type of time to desensitize a man, burn out his soul, leave him a bitter, angry wreck. No, what Cora sensed was something inherent in his nature, some vibration Daigue gave off, the feeling that everything wasn’t quite all right. Cora could sense it, and she realized the jury must have sensed it too. That was why he had been sentenced on such skimpy evidence, the admission of his marijuana stash notwithstanding.

There was something in his eyes, and not just the usual shifty eyes of a criminal. No, Darryl Daigue’s eyes were steel-gray, steady as a rock, unblinking.

Uncaring.

Unfeeling.

He sat watching her, not moving a muscle, just staring at her like a cobra about to strike.

Cora repressed a shudder, picked up the phone.

After several seconds, he did so too.

“Darryl Daigue? I’m Cora Felton.”

He didn’t answer, just stared at her as if she were a creature from another planet.

“Are you Darryl Daigue?” Cora persisted.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I just want to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

His guffaw was rude. Ugly.

Cora ignored it, said, “I’d like to get you out of here.”

That got his interest. His dead eyes narrowed. “What, are you nuts? I’m here for life.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Yeah, necessarily. No possibility of parole.”

“There is if I find new evidence.”

“Fat chance of that.”

“You mean there is no evidence?”

“After twenty years? You’re mental, lady. You’re a real head case.”

Cora muttered a pithy expletive and slammed down the phone.

That got Darryl’s attention. He waved his hands. She could see him mouthing the words, “Hey! Hey!”

Cora picked up the phone again. “Let’s start over. A lawyer asked me to look into your case, see if there’s any hope of you getting out. On the surface, your chances would appear slim. Since you happen to agree with that assessment, I see no reason to pursue this any further—”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. A lawyer asked you to look into me?”

“That’s right.”