Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery (32 page)

It sounded like I had a plan, but I was as much at a loss as Andres. When we got to Dugan the guys set up for the final interviews and I stayed outside and tried to reach Vera. She answered on the third try, whispered something about calling me back, and hung up. She didn’t need to say it. Makina was with her.

I
sat in the small drab prison room, waiting for Andres and Victor to set up the lights. It might seem like I’m pulling rank by not helping, but I’ve learned it’s faster if I just stay out of the way. And I get coffee for my guys, who begged for caffeine but would probably have been better off with water, because they were both already pretty jumpy. The guard brought us three Styrofoam cups of the thickest coffee I’d ever seen, a handful of nondairy creamers, and a dozen packets of sugar.

I grabbed my cup and walked over to the lone window in the room, dirty and covered by metal bars. Outside the sky was gray. More snow. I felt claustrophobic just being in this place, but the choking feeling in my throat wasn’t, I knew, coming from the prison.

When Brick arrived, he seemed angry. I looked to Russell, who circled his fingers around his own wrist, which I took as a question: Did I want Brick to stay cuffed for the interview? I shook my head, so Russell uncuffed him. But he stayed close.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Brick just stared at me.

“Brick, if you don’t want to do this—”

“Don’t you need the interview for your show?”

“Yes, but—”

“What we gonna talk about today?”

“Growing old here.”

He laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Don’t think I need to worry ’bout that.”

“Not yet, but someday. I mean, you will grow old here.”

“Not necessarily.” He shifted in his chair, seemed to relax a little. “How’s that other matter comin’ along?”

“Badly,” I admitted. “
But I have cameras rolling, so we’re not here to talk about me.”

“I’ll give you what you want; we can skip to the end of this shit.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t care about growing old, or dyin’. It’s all the same to me.” He looked at the camera, then at me. “That it? We done with this?”

I leaned toward him a little, trying to get him to focus only on me. It would be easier to get a better answer if he thought he was talking to a friend and not a TV audience. “That’s a bullshit answer. I want how you really feel about dying here.”

“Oh, how I really feel?” he said, imitating my inflection. Only he combined it with a mocking tone and undisguised hostility. “Shit, Kate. You really care that I’m going to die here?”

“I do,” I said. In the same moment that I realized that I was being sincere, I saw that Brick realized it too. I signaled for Andres to turn off the camera so I could talk freely. “You’ve been straight with me, Brick, so I’m being straight back. You’ve killed at least three people, and I don’t think there’s any excuse you could give me that would make me forget that, could make me forget there was a little girl named Tara Quinn who didn’t get to grow up because of you. You made a choice, and it’s ruined lives, yours included. But I also think you’re not the same man you were twenty years ago. And the man you are now has become a friend. I don’t give a damn what you say on tape; just give me something I can use. But between you and me, I do care that you’re going to die here. I’m sorry about that.” I signaled Andres, and he turned the camera back on.

Brick looked at me, shifted again, stared off into the distance, as if he was searching for the words outside himself. Then he looked back at me. His eyes changed half a dozen times in just seconds: angry, sad, tired, hopeful. I wasn’t sure if he was going to continue with the interview or just go back to his cell. I waited. We all waited for what seemed like quite a long time.

When he finally spoke, he seemed on the verge of tears. “I see the old guys, the ones in wheelchairs, or with, what you call ’em, walkers. They can’t even remember what it is they done that brought ’em here. They’re
frightened of the outside. You tell one of those guys, ‘You goin’ home today,’ and they start shakin’. This is their home. They don’t want freedom. They don’t want choices. They want to be told when to eat, when to piss. The whole idea of a world out there, that’s like Mars to them, it’s been so long. They don’t want nothin’ to do with it.” He hesitated. “One day, I’m gonna be one of those old guys. That’s my fate.”

We sat in silence for a moment. “Thanks,” I said. My voice cracked. I didn’t know what else to say.

“What about you, Kate? What’s gonna happen with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You gonna be old someday too.”

“Yes.”

“You gonna be alone?”

“I don’t know.”

He looked at me a long time. “We done now?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I have my sound bite.”

Behind me, Andres shut off the camera.

“So what’s goin’ on with your dead man and your friend?” Brick asked.

“It’s just getting worse and worse.”

“What can I do?”

I almost said, “Nothing.” It’s a reflexive response to an offer of help, but I knew Brick wouldn’t take it that way. He would take it as an indication that I saw him as powerless. But there really was nothing he could do. At least not about Erik’s murder and Vera’s and my imminent arrests.

“I want to ask you about Tim.”

I heard Andres grunt. Brick noticed it too, and smiled. “Tim botherin’ you?”

“No. He’s…” I didn’t know how much was appropriate to say, but I wanted an answer. “He’s reached out for help, legal help.”

“You’re no lawyer.”

“No, but I have access to them. He seems to feel there’s been an error in his case that the right lawyer can help him with. He didn’t have good legal counsel in his trial.”

“Who did? You
walk through this place and I promise you, you ain’t gonna meet a lot of rich folks. We all had shit lawyers, all had bad breaks. I’m not cryin’—why should he?”

“I think he’s just interested in the possibility. A lot of guys in here spend time going over their cases, don’t they?”

“Yeah, it’s a hobby for some, an obsession for others. What does he want?”

“What
I
want is to know his reputation in here.”

“He don’t have one.”

“You told me once that all you wanted from me was books, and you implied Tim wanted more.”

“He likes the ladies.”

“No, Brick. You like the ladies. Tim hasn’t shown the least bit of interest in me that way. What did you mean?”

“I like to look. I like to imagine.” He stretched out the last word. “Tim likes to play games.”

“What kind of games?”

“You sure he’s not playin’ one with you right now?”

V
ictor left Dugan and bought sandwiches at a nearby deli, and we ate sitting huddled around the camera. While he was out, he had called Vera. She was home, said everything was fine. Sounded normal, Victor reported. Though she had mentioned that Makina wanted to talk to Victor before the end of the day.

“Brick got one thing right,” Andres said. “There aren’t rich people in places like this. Vera’s rich; Victor’s not. We keep Victor the hell away from Makina.”

“Until tomorrow,” I reminded him. “What do we do then?”

“We’ll figure that out tomorrow,” Andres said.

I patted Victor’s arm, and he smiled. There we were, Mom and Dad making decisions to protect our only child, our tattooed, pierced, nearly homeless twentysomething musician-child.

“What are you going to say to Tim?” Victor asked. “Are you going to help him?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He’s either a sociopathic con artist or an innocent guy who’s gotten a little warped by twenty years in the system.”

“Can you walk away without knowing which one?” Andres asked.

I didn’t have an answer. At least not one that I liked.

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Assuming you have one. When Tim came in and sat down, I looked into his eyes, and they didn’t reveal a thing. Even the sadness from the other day was gone. He was the same friendly good ole boy he’d always been.

“Growin’ old in here?” Tim repeated my question. “A lot of the anger has left me from when I first got here. I’m used to this place. It was like movin’ to a foreign country when I first went to prison. I didn’t speak the language, didn’t know the customs. But now this is all I know.”
He took a long, deep breath. “I’d like to visit Jenny’s grave. I’d like to say I’m sorry. But if that don’t happen, if I’m here, I guess I’ll just grow old like I been doin’. Wait out my time on this earth, do what I have to do every day and then die. The outside has changed a lot. I can see that on TV, but I don’t suppose dyin’ is much different in here than it is on the outside. It’s still lookin’ into God’s eyes, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

He nodded. “Don’t think I believe in God, though.”

“I thought you were born again. It’s in your file.”

“It was a phase. A reaction to the death penalty bein’ lifted. I thought it meant I wasn’t supposed to die here. Some guys got depressed after the ban, you know. Felt like they’d been holdin’ their breath for years waitin’, and then when the death penalty was gone, they didn’t know what to do with themselves. Knowin’ you gonna die, well, everybody’s got to deal with that. But havin’ the date circled on the calendar? That’s a weird feelin’, is all. You get used to it. You get scared, you get ready, you get scared again. Then, all of a sudden, you might be here fifty years.”

“So you found Jesus.”

“Yeah. Then I let him go again. I didn’t feel anything, prayin’. I didn’t feel better,” he said. “My life has been wasted and no amount of Bible verses gonna change that.”

I sat quietly for a moment. I didn’t have another question. I didn’t want to ask anything else. I just wanted out of there. I wanted to lie on my couch and order takeout Chinese food for two, watch reruns, and forget that places like Dugan existed. And people like Brick and Tim. And Erik. All lives wasted. And no amount of anything was going to change that.

Instead, once the cameras were off, I promised Tim I would look into the matter. I told him Vera was willing to help as long as we could confirm the details of his story.

“How you gonna do that?”

“I’m going to talk to the police detective in charge of your case.”

“He’s gonna lie to you.”

“Probably, but I still need to talk to him,” I said. “I did find that
your lawyer was a drunk who was disbarred. Maybe there’s something in that. Vera has access to much better lawyers.” I didn’t mention she was currently using them herself. “They’ll look at your case, and see what motions can still be filed.”

He reached out and touched my shoulder. Russell stepped forward and Tim pulled his hand away. “Thanks, Kate. Thanks. Whatever happens, thanks.”

W
hile the guys loaded up the van, I said good-bye to Joanie Rheinbeck.

“You get what you need?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so. Maybe more than I need.”

“As long as it’s honest,” she said. “This is a sad place full of sad people.”

“I think that will be clear.”

She shook my hand. “Well, if that’s all…”

“Actually,” I said, “I do want one more thing. I’d like to look at your visitors log.”

“Kate Conway, you’re becoming like one of my inmates—I give you an inch and you take a mile.” She sighed. “But if this is it, then okay.”