Key Witness (48 page)

“Thanks. One more thing. Do you have a current roster of your higher-ranking deputies? Captains and lieutenants, people like yourself?”

“Sure,” Michaelson said. “For security reasons—which you can appreciate—we don’t release them, but if you’ll stop in my office before you leave you can look it over.”

T
HE MALE NURSE IN
charge of the infirmary was a geek, as Wyatt had imagined him. They sat off to the side where the nurse, Hopkins, had his desk. The facility was in a slack period; only a few inmates were awaiting treatment. Wyatt looked for Dwayne Thompson, but didn’t see him. He wondered if Thompson was still working the infirmary detail.

“You were here during my client’s stay?” Wyatt began. Hopkins had expressed no unwillingness to talk.

“During the day. I don’t work nights unless there’s an emergency, a lockdown, riot, whatever.”

“And Dwayne Thompson? Was he working here as an inmate nurse while my client was in your care?”

“Uh-huh.” The nurse worried a fever blister on the side of his mouth.

“Where is Thompson now? Did they transfer him out of here, once he became their witness?”

Hopkins shook his head. “He’s still working here, even though I told them he shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t let an inmate work this kind of job, it’s too tempting,” the man simpered.

“So why isn’t he here?” Wyatt asked. “I don’t see him.”

“They came down and took him out,” Hopkins said. “A few minutes before you showed up.”

That made sense, Wyatt thought. They weren’t going to allow him to have any contact with Thompson. Even under the discovery statutes he knew Thompson wouldn’t be cooperative.

“Thompson isn’t bunking here anymore,” Hopkins went on. “They moved him out a couple of days ago.”

Wyatt had always been disturbed that a prisoner had been allowed to sleep overnight in an unguarded-infirmary. “Wasn’t that highly irregular?” he asked. “Have they ever allowed a prisoner to sleep here before, since you’ve been working here? How long have you been working here, anyway?”

“Nine years,” Hopkins said. “Bunking in—never. But this place is too overcrowded. They bunk ’em everywhere now. They let guys go before they do their minimum sentence because it’s too overcrowded. And they treated Thompson with kid gloves.”

“Is the infirmary guarded at night?” Wyatt asked.

“Half-assed—at best. Inmates don’t hardly ever spend the night in here. If they’re bad enough off that they need that kind of attention they go to the jail wing at Memorial Hospital. Your guy White was an exception.”

“So Thompson would have been alone in here at night.”

“He’d be here. I don’t know if alone. Like I said, I don’t work nights. Generally.”

Dwayne Thompson had been given virtual free run of the county jail, so it seemed. What else were the authorities doing for him? He’d have to nose around, check that out.

“Who assigned Thompson to work in here?” he asked, the same question he’d put to Michaelson. Maybe this guy would be more forthcoming.

“I don’t know for sure.” Hopkins’s tone said that he had strong suspicions.

“Was it Lieutenant Doris Blake, by any chance?”

The nurse’s face flowered. “What do you know about Blake and Thompson?” he asked nervously.

“What do
you
know?”

He looked quickly over his shoulder, a reflex action, suspicious that he might be overheard. “They’re cozy, I know that much. Her being a corrections officer and him being a prisoner … pretty weird. That’s only speculation,” he added. “I’ve never seen them doing more than talking.”

“You’re afraid of Thompson, aren’t you?”

Hopkins’s mouth flopped open and shut like a guppy in a mudhole, gulping for air. “You would be, too, if you knew him.”

“He’s a prisoner. You aren’t. What could he do to you?”

“You’d be surprised what cons like Thompson can do. Inside or outside of jail.”

“Look.” Wyatt leaned in close to the man, who was starting to tremble. “Anything you tell me in confidence is between us. As long as I think you’re being straight with me. But if I think you’re bullshitting me, friend, I’ll subpoena you at trial as a hostile witness, and you’ll have to testify under oath, out in the open.” He gave the frightened man a reassuring smile. “Make it easy on both of us. Tell me what you know and I’ll carry the ball from there.”

Hopkins nodded. He understood, but he wasn’t happy.

“Are Thompson and Blake having a sexual relationship?” Wyatt asked.

“Yes,” the nurse answered in a whisper.

“Have you actually seen them having sex?”

The nurse shook his head vigorously. “No way. I wouldn’t watch something that putrid.”

“Then how do you know? Intuition doesn’t cut it, Mr. Hopkins.”

“I heard them.”

“When?”

Hopkins leaned forward. “I usually come in a few minutes before seven, that’s when we open for business. This one morning, I came in early, I was behind in my paperwork. The door to the infirmary wasn’t locked, which I didn’t like. I’m very careful about locking up at night.” He cracked his knuckles, another nervous tic.

“Go on,” Wyatt said impatiently.

“I opened it! It was dark, so I started to turn on the lights. Thompson would have been the only one in there at that time, and I didn’t care about waking him up. But before I could flick the switches, I heard them.”

“Blake and Thompson.”

Hopkins shook his head affirmatively. “They were …”

“Having sex,” Wyatt finished for him.

“She was wailing like an animal in heat. Really loud.”

“It was a woman’s voice. You’re positive.”

“I know the difference between a woman’s voice and a man’s,” Hopkins replied with petulance.

“No offense meant. I have to be certain, you can appreciate that. But you didn’t actually see Blake, you said that. It could have been another woman, maybe even a prostitute. The way the system here has been coddling Thompson, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I didn’t see them actually fucking, that’s true,” the nurse agreed. “But I did see Lieutenant Blake.”

He paused; Wyatt nodded for him to continue.

“They hadn’t heard me,” Hopkins went on. “The way she was moaning and shrieking, I could’ve shot off a cannon and they wouldn’t have heard me. So, quiet like a church mouse, I crept out of there.”

“So when did you actually see Blake?”

“I snuck around the corner,” Hopkins said, “where I could see whoever came out, but they couldn’t see me. And sure enough, about fifteen minutes later, out she came.”

Wyatt asked a few more perfunctory questions. He had what he needed.

“Thompson isn’t going to know what I told you, right?” the nurse asked nervously as Wyatt prepared to leave.

Wyatt shook his head. “Not about this or anything else.”

Hopkins couldn’t help being fretful. “Guys like Thompson, it’s amazing what they can find out. And what they can do, once they do find out.”

W
YATT HAD EXPECTED A
big woman, but not this big. This was a
grande mama suprema,
John Madden in a bra.

“Lieutenant Doris Blake?” he said, tentatively approaching her. He was almost six feet tall, and she hovered over him. He checked out her hands, her feet, her arms filling out the sleeves of her khaki uniform shirt. Everything about this woman was Bunyanesque. If they were outside in the sunshine, he thought, he could stand in her shadow and his would be invisible.

How difficult, on a daily basis, could life be for a woman who looked like this?

She turned to him. “Yes?” She didn’t know who he was.

“My name is Wyatt Matthews.” He handed her his card, not the one from his firm, which was embossed, but the one he’d been issued by the Public Defender’s office, which was on plain flat paper.

She glanced at it. “Yes?” she said again. It was a yes that implied “Who the fuck are you and why are you bothering me?”

“I’m defending an inmate presently incarcerated in this facility. I’ve been getting information from some of the deputies here. I spoke with Captain Michaelson earlier, and he gave me a roster that included your name, and suggested that I speak with you.” If she checked with Michaelson the captain would say that was a lie, but he didn’t think she would do that—it would open up a door, the one to her relationship with Dwayne Thompson, that she wanted to keep closed. Needed to keep closed.

She eyeballed him warily. “What’s the name of this prisoner?”

“Marvin White.”

It was like he’d poked her with a cattle prod. She flinched—her body language cried out as plain as day. “I don’t know why you would want to talk to me about him,” she managed to say. “I don’t know why Captain Michaelson would think I would know anything that you should know.”

They were in the officers’ lunchroom, adjacent to the kitchen. Wyatt had waited in the lunchroom for her to show up—the daily duty-roster had informed him of her schedule, and a clerk in Michaelson’s office had told him this was where she usually came on her breaks. He didn’t come forward until he could see that she was going to be sitting alone. She manifested a lonely, pugnacious expression on her face, as if saying to the world, “You’re going to reject me? No. I’ll reject you first, before you get the chance to hurt me.”

“If you’ll allow me to explain,” he told her calmly as he slid into a chair next to hers, “you’ll understand why.” He looked around. About twenty deputies were in the room, having coffee and snacks and gossiping with each other. “Perhaps there’s someplace we can go where we’ll have more privacy.”

“I’m busy,” she said, glancing around to see if anyone was watching or listening. “I don’t have time to talk now.”

“When would you have time?” he asked her, maintaining his pleasant demeanor.

“I wouldn’t,” she said brusquely. “I don’t have anything to do with your client, so I don’t have time to talk to you.”

He cocked his head and looked at her as if surprised. “You know Dwayne Thompson, don’t you?”

Her look turned to one of poorly disguised panic. “What does that have to do with Marvin White?”

“Thompson’s a witness for the state against Marvin White, and you know him. You knew him at Durban State Prison when you were a guard there and he was a prisoner, and you got reacquainted with him here. You’re not arguing that, are you?”

“No,” she answered belligerently. She glared at him.

I’m in good shape, he thought, and this woman could beat the shit out of me. Which is exactly what she’d like to do right now, I’ll bet.

She shook her massive head, like a Saint Bernard shaking off rain. “I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t have to. Now leave me alone, okay?” She turned her back on him.

“No, it’s not okay,” he said.

Her body stiffened.

“You do have to talk to me,” he informed her, “as part of the discovery process. If you don’t believe me, check with a lawyer, or your superiors. So if you don’t want to talk to me informally,” he went on, boring in on her, “I’ll go to court, get an order that will
force
you to talk, and we’ll go on the record.” He paused to let the seriousness of his intent filter down deep. “But if you make me do that, Lieutenant,” he continued, “I’ll play a harder brand of ball than I’m playing now.” He grabbed his briefcase off the table and stood up. “Screw this. I don’t have time to mess around. You’ll get your notice by registered mail.”

“Wait.” Blake turned back to him. She was scared, which had been his intent—her face was an open window to her emotions. She looked around again. A few people had glanced their way, but no one was paying them serious attention. “Not here,” she said quietly. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk in private.”

They sat across Blake’s desk from each other. She had locked the door. “What do you want?” she asked him bluntly. “I don’t know anything about Marvin White, except what I’ve read in the papers. I’m not sure I’ve even seen him. It’s a big jail, you know. We have hundreds of men coming and going every day. I don’t keep track of them.”

“But you do know Dwayne Thompson,” Wyatt said.

“Yes, but what does my knowing him have to do with anything?”

He ignored her question. He decided to sidestep the issue for a moment. “You’re a lieutenant?” he asked, benignly changing the subject. He wanted to find out about her, to put her at ease with him and help in this interrogation. “Is that what those bars signify?” he said, pointing to her shirt collar.

Her hand went unthinkingly to the bars, fingered them. “Yes,” she answered.

“That’s a high rank, isn’t it?”

“It’s okay,” she said modestly. “No big deal.”

“It seems like a big deal to me,” he said, “but I don’t know that much about jail hierarchy. Although I didn’t see any women’s names of your rank or above,” he added.

The flattery brought forth a smile. “I am the highest-ranking woman here,” she admitted, a touch of pride coming through.

“You must be well thought of.”

“I do my job. I haven’t had any complaints.”

“So your plan is to move up in the system? Do you want to be the warden here someday?” he asked.

She scowled. “No way. I’m already out the door here. I’m just biding my time.”

“For what?”

“I’m a lawyer,” she said proudly. She couldn’t resist adding, “Like you.”

He stared at her. “Really?”

She nodded vigorously. “I graduated from law school. Fairfax. Last winter’s semester.”

Fairfax was the local night law school. It was for people who already had careers and wanted new ones. What he envisioned for Josephine.

“That’s great,” he said, meaning it. “When do you take the bar exam?” he asked.

“I did,” she said. “This spring. And I passed,” she added proudly. “With a seventy-six.”

“That’s a good score. Do you have a job lined up?”

It was as if she were a balloon and he had stuck a pin in her. “No. Not yet.”

“Have you sent out résumés?”

She nodded.

Poor woman, he thought, scoping out her situation. Older and unattractive. A bad combination in an oversaturated market. “What about the public sector?” he asked.

She shook her head. “The district attorney’s office is full up, and there’s a waiting list. I already checked.”