“Everyone in the hallway and bathroom that night remembered seeing Porter. He stayed out of the service longer than anyone- almost the entire service. He was out there when I came in the first time and still out there after I returned from the control room.”
She nodded slowly, and I continued.
“Then there was the evidence inside the office itself,” I said. “A greeting card, a wad of cash, and a piece of hard candy. At first I thought the greeting card just fell off my desk during the struggle, but all the cards on my desk had envelopes. Since there wasn’t an extra envelope, I knew it had to have been brought in. Only an inmate would bring in one of the cards I give out-he wouldn’t have access to any others. But he didn’t sign it. That was smart. That way he could give it to Nicole, but Bobby Earl wouldn’t know it was from him. Or if she lost it, he wouldn’t be implicated.”
“He’s bringing it as a gift for his daughter,” she said.
“Exactly,” I said. “And that’s not all. He brought candy, too-a fire ball from the canteen. He was trying to endear himself in the only ways he knew. He was trying to be her father, buy her love. He didn’t know what else to do, and didn’t have anything else to give.”
“What about the money?”
“DeAndré brought that in to pay off Whitfield,” I said. “It couldn’t’ve been for an inmate-and Porter didn’t take it-because it wouldn’t do him any good in the cashless canteen system on the compound. If a staff member or either one of the Caldwells had done it, I think they would have picked it up.”
“Porter also stole Nicole’s crayons and coloring book,” I said. “He’s in the same dorm as Register, so he planted the crayons on him, but he held onto the pictures. He showed me one he kept in his pocket, but according to the mail room he’s never received anything from her-or from anyone-not a single letter. The picture was obviously from the same book mine was. He could’ve only gotten it from her the night she was here, but he said he didn’t see her. Then later, he returned to the crime scene and slid another picture she had colored under the door between the sanctuary and my office. As a memorial I guess. He’s the only one who could have.”
She shook her head. “Not a single letter-from anyone. No wonder he’s so angry.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The woman he loves and their child won’t have anything to do with him. They’re living indulged lives and he has no life at all.”
She nodded. “Well, I’m convinced.”
“But would a jury be?” I asked.
She frowned, pursing her lips tightly together. “Hard to say, but I doubt it.”
“Exactly,” I said.
“So what’re you gonna do?”
I shrugged. “Depends how much time he has left,” I said.
She looked down at her monitor again. “Mandatory twenty on a third offense drug charge,” she said. “He’ll be with us quite a while.”
CHAPTER 53
It was June now, nearly three weeks since Nicole had died, and the full heat of the day bore down on Cedric Porter as he picked up trash along the fence near the front gate. The road leading away from the institution, toward freedom and opportunity, shimmered like a mirage, waves of heat rising from the sizzling asphalt.
Walking toward Porter, I noticed how often he paused from picking up the trash to gaze down the road, as if continually making sure it was still there.
“I heard you had my gate pass pulled,” he said, when I reached him.
I shuddered inside as I recalled how close he had worked to the children at the elementary school, and though, like most parents, he probably wouldn’t hurt any child but his own, we couldn’t take the chance.
I nodded.
“Why?” he asked.
“You know why,” I said.
As he stooped to pick up another piece of trash, I noticed his futile attempt to endue his menial task with dignity.
“I want to know why you did it,” I said.
“What?” he asked, standing and facing me haughtily.
“Don’t,” I said.
He started to say something, but I continued.
“I could let it be known on the compound that you’re a child killer and you wouldn’t last much more than a day,” I said, “so don’t play games with me.”
Joining the thick sheen of sweat, a tear rolled out of his eye and down the shiny black skin of his cheek.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said, his body slumping and more tears coming as the dam of denial broke within him. “I… ” he began, but broke off. “That son of a bitch was using her,” he began again in a trembling voice. “My daughter. To get some bunch of convicts to think he not the most racist motherfucker on the planet. My daughter. Her mother’s a whore. They not better than me.”
He paused and I waited in silence, standing firm as a witness against his evil act, allowing him to face his accuser.
“They usin’ her,” he said again, his voice cracking. He swallowed hard before adding, “And she think they all she got. She say I not her daddy. Say Bobby Earl her daddy. Look at me like I’s not worthy to be in the same room with her. Like I a nigga. Like the thought of my blood runnin’ through her veins make her wanna slit her little wrists.”
When he paused again, this time to wipe tears from his eyes and sweat from his face, I noticed how much smaller he seemed, as if he were imploding from the emptiness the absence of his denial was causing.
“’Cause she think she white,” he said. “They straighten her hair and keep her away from little black children and got her convinced she white. That she his daughter. I loved her. I not gonna let her be used by that bastard. He not gonna take what mine. I told her to say she was mine,” he said, his voice gaining strength. “To say it with pride. ’Cause Cedric Porter somebody to be proud of.” The defiance was back in his eyes, joined by hardness and madness. “She wouldn’t say it. She say she gonna tell her daddy. I say, ‘I’m your daddy,’ and I said to say it. But she won’t.”
All around us the world had faded for me and unaware of anything else, I entered his world and relived with him the last moments of Nicole’s life.
“She say she not gonna say it no matter what I do,” he said. “So I spank her. ’Cause my daughter gonna do what I say, but she don’t. So I spank her again. Hard this time. And I spank her again. But she still won’t say it.” Now tears were flowing as fast as his words. “She never would say she mine. Never would say, ‘Cedric Porter my daddy.’”
When he finished, I still didn’t say anything, just remained a silent witness to things I could only see in my mind.
“I didn’t mean to kill her,” he said. “I loved her. I just wanted her to say she mine. That I her daddy and she love me, too, but she wouldn’t.”
Inept and aberrant as it was, what Cedric Porter was trying to do was be a daddy to his daughter, to love her in his twisted way and get from her the love he so needed.
For a long time after he finished his story, neither of us said a word.
I though about Nicole, about what he had done to her. The compassion I had for him felt like a betrayal of her, but there was nothing I could do for her now. I had failed her. I had failed Dexter. I would try not to do the same with Cedric.
Finally he asked, “What’s gonna happen to me?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“You gonna tell the compound?”
I shook my head.
“I am going to turn everything I have over to the inspector and DA,” I said. “But I doubt what I have is
