Missing Pieces (31 page)

“You okay?” I asked my sister when she returned, looking slightly flushed.

“Oh sure.”

“You rushed out of here so fast, I was afraid something might be wrong.”

She waved away my concern with a sharp flick of her wrist. “I just had to get something.”

“Get something?”

She slid into one of the chairs and leaned both elbows on the stainless-steel top of the table, nodding toward the seat across from her for me to sit down. “I brought Colin a little present,” she said out of the side of her mouth, eyes on the guard at the doorway.

“A present?”

“Ssh! Lower your voice.”

“What kind of present?” Images of guns stuffed inside bras and knives secreted inside lush layer cakes danced before my eyes, although I knew this was absurd. We’d passed through two metal detectors, and there was nothing other than cheese and chicken salad sandwiches inside Jo Lynn’s cooler. Nor had I noticed any gifts when Tom went through her purse. “What kind of present?” I asked again.

She slipped her hand inside her straw bag and pulled something out, which she was careful to conceal from the guard. When she was confident no one was looking, she opened the palm of her hand, showing me a smooth oblong container filled with about six hand-rolled cigarettes.

“Marijuana?!”

“Ssh!” She immediately returned the container to her bag. “Do you have to yell everything?”

“Are you crazy?” I demanded. “Bringing that stuff in here.”

“Will you lower your voice and stop acting like some silly schoolgirl. Everybody does it.”

I looked anxiously around me, at the black woman crying on her husband’s shoulder, the girl with the lip rings and tattoos pacing nervously behind the next table. “But how did you sneak it past the guards? Tom went through our bags with a magnifying glass.”

“I stuffed it up my snatch,” she said, and giggled. “Close your mouth. Flies will get in.”

“Your vagina?”

“Vagina,” she echoed, her mouth twisting with disdain. “God, Kate, who but you uses words like vagina anymore?”

“I don’t believe this.”

“You’d be amazed to find out what goes on in places like these.”

“But how does Colin get them back to his cell?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“You can’t be sick now. Here they come. Remember to keep your eyes on the watercooler.”

I looked quickly from the door to the watercooler and back again to the door as several guards—tall, burly, vaguely menacing—escorted a coterie of about ten men into the room. All were dressed in the same blue prison garb, with one notable exception—Colin Friendly. Like me, he was wearing blue pants and an orange top.

Now I understood why Jo Lynn had laughed at my choice of clothes. Orange T-shirts were what distinguished the prisoners on death row from the other inmates.

My fingers went self-consciously to the neck of my orange blouse, as I watched my sister leap from her seat to embrace the convicted serial killer, his hands sliding down
to cup her rear end, his palms catching the hem of her short skirt, momentarily exposing the rounded bare flesh of her buttocks. I realized, in that instant, that when Jo Lynn had rid her body of its hidden contraband, she’d also removed her panties. “Oh God,” I moaned as they broke from their embrace and walked toward me.

Colin Friendly seemed taller than I remembered him from court, and while somewhat thinner, he was definitely more muscular. Probably he’d been working out, I thought as I rose unsteadily to my feet, my hands resolutely at my sides, trying to decide how I would react were he to offer his hand in greeting.

He didn’t.

“Colin,” Jo Lynn said, hanging on to his arm, “I’d like you to meet my sister, Kate. Kate, this is Colin, the love of my life.”

“Nice to meet you, Kate,” he said easily. “Your sister talks about you all the time.”

Or words to that effect. Truthfully, I’m not exactly sure what was said that morning, or during most of our time together in that so-called visiting park. The hours pass through my brain with the swiftness and cruelty of an ambush. I remember our conversation in fits and starts, a few choice words here, a chilling phrase there, most topics blending one into the other, one hour disappearing inside the next.

“You don’t look much like sisters,” Colin was saying as we took our seats, Colin beside Jo Lynn, their hands in each other’s laps, despite the rules against touching. Prisoners were permitted opening and closing embraces, nothing in between, but the three guards who were present often looked the other way, and a wide variety of indiscretions were taking place, all of which I tried hard not to notice.

“Different fathers,” I told him.

“So Jo Lynn tells me.”

“Isn’t he the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen?” Jo Lynn said, and giggled, like an adolescent. She leaned toward him, her bosom grazing the side of his arm, and wiped a dark curl away from his high forehead.

He laughed with her. “You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure,” he told her without a trace of self-consciousness, as if I weren’t privy to their conversation, as if they were the only two people in the room. “You have no idea how jealous everybody is of me back on the row. They know I have the most beautiful, sexy woman in the world waiting for me every Saturday.”

“I’m wearing your favorite underwear,” she told him, and I drew a huge intake of breath as I saw his hand sneak beneath her short skirt, and the laughter spread to his cold blue eyes.

“I hope you’re taking real good care of your baby sister,” he said without looking at me, “until I get out of here.”

I said nothing, tried to look elsewhere, saw similar gropings at other tables.

“You gotta make sure she’s eating right and getting plenty of exercise and sleep.”

“You shouldn’t be worrying about me,” Jo Lynn said. “You’ve got enough to worry about in here with all these perverts.”

He laughed. “Yeah, we got ‘em all in here. Sodomites, pederasts, necrophiliacs, faggots. We even have guys that drink their own urine and eat their own shit. One guy likes to smear the stuff all over his body. Disgusting son of a bitch if there ever was one. I stay away from him, I tell you.”

“Colin is in R Wing now,” Jo Lynn said, glancing briefly in my direction, “but when he first got here, they put him in Q Wing, which is where they house all the nut
cases. Colin’s lawyers got him out of there pretty damn quick.”

“It was a scary place,” Colin agreed, shaking his head, his hand disappearing farther under my sister’s skirt. “Here they pretty much leave me alone.”

“Colin lets them think he’s guilty,” my sister explained.

“Smart move,” I mumbled.

“One of the perks of being on death row is that we get our own cells.”

“You’re a lucky man,” I said.

Colin’s head slowly turned from my sister to me, his eyes piercing through mine like a pin through a butterfly. “Your sister told me you had kind of a sarcastic sense of humor. I see what she means.”

I said nothing, surprised and dismayed that my sister had discussed me in any kind of detail at all.

“You don’t approve of me, do you?” he asked some time later, and it took me a moment to realize he was serious.

“Does that surprise you?” I asked in return.

“Disappoints me,” he answered.

“You’re a convicted murderer,” I reminded him.

“He’s innocent,” Jo Lynn said.

“I’m innocent,” he repeated, eyes twinkling.

I nodded, fell silent.

“I brought you a present,” Jo Lynn said as we were eating our sandwiches, her voice a singsong. She indicated her purse with a nod of her head.

“Brought you something too,” Colin told her, reaching into the pocket of his blue pants.

Jo Lynn squealed with delight as he produced a handful of letters. “Oh good, fan mail,” she trilled, laughing as she opened the first letter. “‘Dear Colin,’” she read aloud, “‘you are the handsomest man I have ever seen.
Your eyes are like sapphires, your face the visage of a Greek god.’ Visage? That’s one of your words, Kate.” She laughed. “Don’t you just love this stuff?” She tore into the next one. “‘Dear Colin, do not despair. As long as you accept Jesus and take Him to your heart, God will forgive you your sins and evil deeds.’ Stupid woman,” Jo Lynn proclaimed. “Colin didn’t commit any evil deeds.” She opened another letter, read silently for several seconds. “Oh, this is the best one yet. Listen to this, Kate. I bet you can identify with this one. ‘Dear Colin, I am fifty years old with brown hair and hazel eyes, and friends tell me I still have a pretty good figure.’” She glanced knowingly in my direction. “‘I know I’m a married woman with a husband who loves me, but the truth is, the only man I want is you. I think about you night and day. I long to suckle you to my breast, to cradle you in my arms, to give you all the love your mother denied you.’ What do you think, Kate?”

“I think the woman wants a baby, not a man,” I answered, embarrassment staining my cheeks, like the blush I hadn’t bothered to apply.

Jo Lynn handed the letters back to Colin. “Thanks for showing them to me, sweet buns.”

“You know I don’t keep any secrets from you,” Colin said.

“Just don’t go writing any of these crazies back,” Jo Lynn cautioned.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing from me, babe,” he told her. “You know that.”

“I know I love you.”

“Not half as much as I love you.”

“Now!” Jo Lynn suddenly hissed across the table, motioning with her chin toward the watercooler in the far corner of the room. I watched as one of the inmates snuck in behind it with his wife, another inmate and his wife
positioned in front of it, perhaps blocking, perhaps guarding, perhaps simply waiting their turn. Seconds later, the cooler began shaking, the water inside it sloshing from side to side, like waves in a turbulent sea.

“What happens if they get caught?” I asked.

“You worry too much about consequences,” Jo Lynn said. “Besides, it’s the state’s fault for not allowing conjugal visits.”

“A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do,” Colin Friendly said, squeezing my sister’s thigh.

“You haven’t …” I started, then stopped, deciding I didn’t want to know.

“Gone for a drink of water?” Jo Lynn teased. “No, we haven’t. Not yet, anyway.”

“We’re saving ourselves for our wedding night,” Colin said, and they laughed.

I jumped to my feet, although I’m not sure what I was planning to do. One of the guards looked over, his eyes an inquisitive squint. I smiled, pretended to stretch, then sat back down. “Have you set the date?”

“Not yet. There’s still a lot of things that have to be arranged. Blood tests, shit like that. But it’ll be soon,” Jo Lynn assured me.

“A simple thing like getting married, and they make it so difficult.” Colin shook his head in dismay. “Have you asked your sister yet?”

“Asked me what?”

“To be my matron of honor,” Jo Lynn said hopefully.

I swallowed hard, looked away, tried not to burst into tears. She couldn’t be serious, I thought, knowing she was. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

“Why don’t you give yourself some time to think about it,” Colin advised, eyes boring into mine. “We’d sure appreciate your support.”

“I’d sure appreciate knowing what happened to Amy
Lokash,” I said, shocking not only my sister and her so-called fiance but myself as well. I’d been planning to ask about Rita Ketchum, not Amy. Obviously, my subconscious had other plans.

“Amy L-lokash?” Colin stuttered for the first time all day.

Jo Lynn rolled her eyes in disgust. “What are you trying to pull, Kate? Who the hell is Amy Lokash?”

“She’s a seventeen-year-old girl who disappeared about a year ago. I thought you might know something about it.”

“This is ridiculous,” my sister raged. “Colin, you don’t have to answer any of her stupid questions.” In the next instant, Jo Lynn was out of her seat and on her way to the rest room, adjusting her skirt across her bottom as she walked.

“Isn’t she the juiciest thing you ever saw?” Colin marveled, eyes trailing after Jo Lynn until she disappeared.

“Why don’t you just leave my sister alone.”

“Say ‘please,’” he said, casually, almost as if he hadn’t spoken.

“What?” Maybe I hadn’t heard him correctly.

He swiveled toward me. “You heard me. Say ‘please.’” A sneer tugged at the corner of his lips. “Make that ‘pretty please.’”

I said nothing.

“You want me to leave your sister alone, you gotta do something for me. Say ‘pretty please.’ Go on, say it.”

“Fuck you,” I said instead.

He laughed, ran his tongue across his upper lip. “Maybe in time.”

My body went instantly cold as I recalled my earlier nightmares. My heart beat wildly, its errant pulse reaching inside my brain, as noisy and relentless as a massive tractor-trailer, so loud against the inside of my ear that I could
barely hear the sound of my own voice. “This is all a sick game to you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t play games. I play for keeps.”

“Did you kill Amy Lokash?” I asked, struggling to regain control.

Colin Friendly leaned closer, rested his elbows on the table. “Cute kid, dimples, wore a little red plastic barrette in her hair?”

I grabbed the side of the table for support, felt it cold against the palms of my hands. “Oh God.” I thought of Donna Lokash, wondered if I’d have the courage to confide in her the certainty of her daughter’s fate. “She was just a baby, for God’s sake. How could you hurt her?”

“Well, you know what they say,” Colin said lazily. “Old enough to bleed, old enough to butcher.” He paused, allowing several seconds for this latest obscenity to sink in. “You familiar with John Prince Park?” he asked.

I shook my head, too numb to do anything else.

“Real pretty park. Just east of Congress between Lake Worth and Lantana roads. You should go there sometime. There’s barbecues and picnic benches, and a bicycle path, even a playground. Real pretty sight. Right on Lake Osborne. You know Lake Osborne?”

“No.”

“Too bad. It’s a pretty big lake, one of those long and winding numbers. A couple of little bridges. Real scenic. Lots of people fishing from the shore. Or you can rent boats. You should do that sometime, Kate. Rent a boat, take a little ride out to about the middle of the lake, where it’s deepest.”