true sense of what he had done, no deep contrition. Only selfish regret at having lost his easy life. And so he had to pay, like the rest had paid. And Vance had devised something good, something that would make him beg and cry before he died. That was a vow, Vance reflected as he eased another plank through the blade. One he’d take to the grave.
He gathered the remnants into a pile, the smell of raw, split pine like incense to him. He brought them over to the chipper. Not a big, fine machine, like what they had had at the plant, which could reduce a full-grown tree to pulp as fast as you could feed it. But it would do what he asked of it. Vance felt there was a beautiful magic to the job it did-the way it transformed something palpable and real one minute into the smallest of inalterable parts the next. It hummed as it chewed up the disparate pieces, raising a foul-smelling dust like vapor.
Purification in its truest, most elemental form.
A shout came from the locker in the back room. He almost didn’t hear it over the chipper’s noise.
“Keep quiet, child, if you know what’s good for you,” he called back, feeding the split pieces of wood into the chipper’s mouth. “You hear I’m busy.”
His own daughter was no better than a whore and deserved all that fate had levied on her. Still, life didn’t degrade its victims in a vacuum, Vance thought. Evil had to be drawn out of you, by an agent, a snake. And then let loose in the world. And then the only way to remedy it was for it to be purified. As well as all who had touched it. That was the only way to make it go away…
He fed the split wood into the machine, rendering it into its natural, purified state.
Pulp.
He had never fully appreciated the wonderful magic of it until now.
From the shed, the girl cried out again, only a muffled noise above the chipper’s grating whir. Truth was, he could hear it all night and it wouldn’t sway him now.
“Let me out. I’m begging you. Please. Let me call my father. He’ll give you whatever you want. Can’t you hear me in here?
She yelled and yelled again as he continued feeding the wood, returning it to its natural state. Eventually her voice became like daggers in his ears. Reminding him of things he didn’t want to hear. Things he had put away forever.
He paused the chipper with the foot pedal, got up, and went over to the locked shed door, and slammed on it with all his might.
“Shut the hell on up, Amanda!” he yelled.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Pulaski was a three-hour drive.
I’d called and left my name with the visitors’ center, identifying myself as Rick Holmes, an attorney from Jacksonville, and saying that I wanted to meet with Amanda Hofer. I stopped at a men’s haberdashery store and picked out a sport jacket straight off the rack along with a white dress shirt. I wore them out of the shop.
The prison came up out of nowhere, about twenty minutes south of Macon, a town I recalled from my Allman Brothers stage, and was ringed by a barbed-wire fence and a handful of guard towers. The only times I’d ever even been inside one was during med school, at Vandy, where I did some procedures on inmates, but not like this.
Of course, this wasn’t exactly San Quentin and we were in the middle of nowhere, and Amanda Hofer wasn’t exactly the Unabomber-not to mention that I was relying on the fact that no one ever assumes someone is trying to break into prison.
At just before 1 P.M. I left the car and headed toward the main entrance. Inside, on the left, was a sign marked VISITORS. My heart started to pound. At the counter, I waited behind an African-American family; the mother, in jeans and a tight halter top, seemed to know her way around, and her two talkative boys in NFL jerseys. I told myself to calm down. When they were done, I stepped up to the heavyset woman in a khaki guard’s uniform behind the counter.
“Richard Holmes. I’m here to see Amanda Hofer.”
The guard checked over the log. “Are you carrying any firearms or any other weapons? If so, you’ll have to check them here.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Any food, paraphernalia, or materials you’re planning to leave with the inmate?”
Again, I shook my head. “No. None.”
She began to fill out a visitor’s form. “May I see your ID?”
I pulled Carrie’s husband’s license from my wallet and passed it across the counter, along with his card, identifying me as an attorney, and waited, sure that the guard was able to hear the bass drum that was booming in my chest. If there’d been some kind of meter measuring heart rate or agitation aimed at me, the needle would be off the chart!
Instead, she just looked them over, glancing at me once, and slid them back. No request to see anything else. No alarms sounding-or guards rushing out with their guns drawn.
Just: “Up from Florida, huh? Warm down there as it is up here?”
“You got off easy,” I said with a grin, sure it was a trick question, and realizing I hadn’t checked the weather back there in days.
The guard laughed. “Wait till July and you won’t be sayin’ that…” Then she got on a mike. “Can you bring up 334596 to Booth Three?” she asked, then pushed across an admittance form for me to sign.
I was in!
“Go through the door on the right and down to Booth Three,” she instructed. “Remove anything metal from your pockets inside. Enjoy your visit.” She looked beyond me. “Next in line…”
I went through the door and then through a security station, with a metal detector and a long metal table, like I’d seen in courthouses. I emptied my pockets: just my three cell phones and my wallet. Another guard checked my paperwork and then pointed me through. “Down the hall. Booth Three is on the left.”
I took my things and proceeded down the hallway. I came upon a row of ten or twelve visiting booths-four- foot-wide compartments with microphones and a Plexiglas wall separating the inmate from the visitor.
I went over for about the tenth time how I was going to play it, hoping it would work. I had absolutely no idea how Amanda would react. But I was here. I’d gotten this far. And Hallie’s life depended on it.
A door on the back wall opened and a pale-looking girl in a purple jumpsuit stepped in. She looked across the glass and clearly didn’t know who I was or why I was here. For a split second I thought she might turn around.
But she didn’t. Two khaki-clad guards stood against the wall. Amanda Hofer shuffled over and sat across from me. She wasn’t bound, and her face was kind of gaunt and pale. Her light brown hair was straggly and held in place by a band. Her eyes were kind of dull gray and like a deer’s, fearful and mistrusting. She didn’t look a day older than Hallie and my first thought was that I couldn’t help but look at her as any father might, thinking,
“I know you?” she asked blankly.
“No.” I passed her Rick’s business card.
“I never been to Jacksonville.” She shrugged, looking back at me, and said in a deep drawl, “So why you here?”
I had practiced over and over on the long drive down how I would handle this, even though I knew from the outset that it had a slim chance of success.
“I’m a claims attorney,” I explained. “There’s been a settlement in a court case from years back. Involving your father.” I knew about the situation down there with the police. “Vance Hofer, correct?”
“That’s him,” Amanda said, kind of indifferently. “What’d he do, win the lottery or something…?” She curled an amused smile.
