formed in his eyes again and he tried unsuccessfully to blink them away. “She was so beautiful. So sweet.”
“Yes, she was,” I said. “Who do you think killed her?”
“Who else?”
“What might happen to you?”
“Just promise me,” he said, his voice filled with desperation and fear. “I’d hate to think he got away with killing us both.”
Many of the inmates filing into the dorm had their shirts off, their hard bodies glistening as the sun hit the sheen of sweat covering them, and they looked like oil-covered body builders in the focused beam of a spotlight on center stage.
“Who?” I asked again.
His eyes widened momentarily at something behind me, and he quickly looked away. I turned to see Roger Coel walking toward us.
“Bobby Earl,” Porter whispered, then nodding toward Coel, “and he’ll probably use one of them to do it, too.”
“Coel?” I asked.
“A correctional officer,” he said.
Roger Coel walked past us and said, “You need to get in the dorm, Porter. It’s almost count time.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
The compound had gone from playground to ghost town. The rowdy sounds of mean children in men’s bodies were replaced by the eerie sound of the nearly silent wind as it slithered through the structures.
“I was just tellin’ Dexter a coupla days ago to watch out for Bunny,” he whispered.
“Mrs. Caldwell?” I asked. “Why?”
“She bad news. Nothing but trouble. I’s a damn fool. I fell in love with her like no other woman in my life, but she didn’t love me. She don’t know how to. She’s just playin’ me.”
“You had a relationship with her?” I asked.
He nodded.
“When?”
“Before Bobby Earl,” he said. “She was a secretary in the chapel at Lake Butler. That’s where she met Bobby Earl. They hooked up while me and him was down the first time. Then when he started coming back in to preach, we’d get together. Usually in the back of the chapel. Sometimes in the bathroom or the kitchen.”
“After she was married to Bobby Earl?” I asked, thankful for something verifiable.
He nodded. “For a while. It was good while it lasted,” he said. “But when she’s finished with you…”
“So Nicole wasn’t adopted?” I asked in shock. “She’s your and Bunny, ah, Mrs. Caldwell’s child?”
“Bobby Earl adopted her, but she’s Bunny’s and mine’s daughter,” he said. “They told all they supporters they’s adopting some underprivileged little black girl who didn’t stand a chance in the world.”
“Bunny was with Bobby Earl when she had Nicole?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Fool thought he was havin’ a son, an heir to his empire, then a little black girl pops out. They say he beat Bunny black and blue, but she wouldn’t tell him who the father was.”
The compound was full of inmates who could spin a yarn, but as fantastic as his story sounded, I didn’t think that’s what this was. It was unbelievable, sure, but I was beginning to believe him, and not just because he was giving me information I could check, but because of his conviction and certainty. He was either telling the truth or genuinely believed he was.
“And you haven’t seen her since then?” I asked.
“I see her when they come in, but I ain’t messin’ with her if that’s what you mean.”
“And now you think she’s seeing Dexter Freeman?”
He shrugged. “She may’ve moved on from him by now,” he said. “Somebody say she with Walter Williams.”
“Who?”
“Oh,” he said with a contemptuous laugh. “His new Muslim name is Abdul Muhammin. Nigga’ say he all spiritual now, but I sure as hell can’t tell. Please just find out who killed her. And don’t let them get away with it. And if somethin’ happen to me, I guarantee Bobby Earl’ll be the one what done it.”
“Why would he want to kill you?” I asked.
He didn’t answer me, just looked around nervously.
“Tell me,” I said. “Why do you think he killed Nicole?”
“Because,” he said, putting his hand on the door of the dorm and looking away, as Coel walked back by again.
“I said get in that dorm, inmate,” Coel said. “Now.”
“Because?” I asked as Cedric opened the door and walked into the dorm.
“Because he finally found out I was Nicole’s father. He killed her and now he’s gonna kill me,” he added just before the solid metal door slammed shut, its loud clank reverberating through my body, the way the jolt he had just delivered echoed through my mind.
CHAPTER 15
After searching unsuccessfully for Anna, which it seemed I had been doing my whole life, I finally found her in the records vault in Classification.
Shoes off, long, elegant legs beneath the black sheer of her hose, perfectly painted nails, she had thrown herself into replacing the inmate files she had used over the last few days.
She went about her task with far more aggression than she normally did, violently cramming folders where there wasn’t sufficient space. When she noticed me, she stood upright, her body growing rigid. But that was the extent to which she acknowledged my presence.
“There are people paid to do this,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said without looking at me.
“I told you I’d do it,” Lisa, the file clerk, called from her desk just outside of the vault. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
I glanced out at Lisa, but it was the wall behind her desk that caught my attention. Beneath a wood-framed cork board filled with magazine cutouts of NASCAR drivers rather than the DC Memos it was designed to hold, a small black radio with a broken antenna emitted the grating sounds of slightly distorted country music. In front of her, Lisa’s desk was disorganized and cluttered, piled high with inmate files and requests, though I had never once seen her actually working.
I walked over and stood just behind Anna.
Lowering my voice, I said, “I’m sorry I was in no condition to receive you when you called on me last night.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“Last night?” Lisa asked. “What were the two of you doin’ together last night?”
“I just got confused when I saw you,” I said. “Or maybe it was the bourbon.”
“Bourbon?” Lisa asked in shock.
Anna didn’t say anything, just continued to file. Beneath her dark eyes were even darker circles, her hair needed brushing, her clothes were wrinkled, and she wore none of her usual jewelry, save the huge albatross of a wedding ring hung round her finger.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Why won’t you talk to me? I’m reasonably sober.”
“I don’t think I will, John,” she said. “And that’s nothing to tease about.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Last night, when I saw you like that,” she began, but then broke off.
“What?” I asked.
“You sure you don’t want me to file for you, Anna?” Lisa asked.
“I’ve got the damn files,” she said. “Go take another break.”
