“Thanks, fella.” Nick half-grabbed, half-patted Will on the shoulder before leaving.
Will gave far too much attention to the shoulder grab-pat. It was somewhere between a Vulcan death grip and rustling the fur on a dog’s butt.
Faith waited until the door clicked closed. “Was that uncomfortable?”
“Depends on which half of the horse you’re asking.” Will put his hand on the doorknob but didn’t open it. “What’s our play here? I’m not sure these guys are going to feel comfortable being questioned by a woman.”
“You’re probably right.” She slid a jacket out of the pile. “Maduro.”
Will opened the door. The CO was waiting outside. Will kept his voice low. “Get those men off that wall before I make you piss out your lungs.”
The man cut his eyes at Will, but like most bullies, he was a coward. He turned toward his prisoners, bellowing, “Inmates! On the floor!”
There were collective groans of relief. The men had to peel themselves off the cinder block walls. They all had bright red blotches on their foreheads and glassy looks in their eyes. Some struggled to sit. Some of them simply collapsed onto the floor in relief.
Will called, “Maduro, you’re up.”
A short fireplug of a man stopped mid-squat. He turned on one foot, his ankles catching on the short chain. Twelve inches wasn’t much, approximately the length of two one-dollar bills placed end-to-end. Maduro’s walk was stiff and labored. He held up his belly chain to keep it from digging into his hipbones. There were pinpricks of blood where the cinder block had eaten into his forehead. He edged through the door and waited in front of the table.
Georgia’s prisons ran on a para-military platform. Unless they were chained, inmates had to walk with their hands clasped behind their backs. They were expected to stand up straight. Keep their cells spotless and their bunk sheets tight. Most importantly, they were required to address the COs with respect—yes sir, no sir, can I scratch my balls, sir.
Maduro was looking at Will, waiting to be told what to do.
Will crossed his arms over his chest and let Faith take the lead because these guys were murder suspects. They didn’t get to choose who questioned them.
“Sit,” Faith ordered. She checked the inmate’s ID card and photograph against the jacket. “Hector Louis Maduro. Serving four years on a string of B&Es. Looking at another eighteen months for participating in the riot. Have you been advised of your rights?”
“Español.” The man leaned back heavily in the chair. “Tengo derecho legal a un traductor. O te podrías sacar la camisa y te chupo esas tetas grandes.”
Emma’s father was second-generation Mexican-American. Faith had learned Spanish so she could piss him off in two languages. “Yo puedo traducir por ti, y puedes hacerte la paja con esa verguita de nada cuando vuelves a tu celda, pendejo de mierda.”
Maduro’s eyebrows arched. “Damn, pasty, they didn’t teach you that filthy shit in white girl school.”
Faith cut to the chase. “You were a known associate of Jesus Vasquez.”
“Look.” Maduro leaned forward, hands wrapped around the edge of the table. “There’s a lot of inmates in here who’ll tell you they’re innocent, but I’m not innocent, okay? I committed those burglaries for which I was convicted, but I’ll tell you what, I’ve seen a lot of injustices in this institution—staff on inmates, inmates on inmates—and I should let you know that I’m a Christian man, and right is right and wrong is wrong, so when I saw that inmates were joining together for a common purpose, to instill and ensure the human rights of—”
“Let me interrupt your TED talk,” Faith said. “You knew Jesus Vasquez?”
Maduro’s gaze nervously darted toward Will.
Will kept a neutral expression. He had learned in interrogations that silence served as a very effective conversation starter.
Faith told the inmate, “You’ve been caught with cell phones in the past. You’ve got two shots in your file for arguing with—”
Suddenly, Nick jolted into the room like a Pop-Tart. He’d clearly been running. Sweat dripped from his sideburns. A crumpled sheet of paper was in his fist. He told Maduro, “Outside, inmate.”
Faith gave Will a questioning glance. Will shrugged. Nick had been an agent for twenty years. He’d seen everything from the heinous to the stupid. If something had rattled him, then they should all be rattled.
“Move.” Nick pushed Maduro toward the CO in the hall. “Put them back in their cells.”
The door was shut. Nick didn’t speak. He smoothed out the note on the table. Sweat dropped onto the paper. He was breathing hard.
Faith shot Will another questioning look.
He gave her the same shrug from five seconds ago.
Faith opened her mouth to pry out the information, but Nick started talking.
“An inmate named Daryl Nesbitt passed me this note. Wants to make a deal. He says he knows who killed Vasquez and how they’re getting the phones inside.”
This time, it was Will looking at Faith with a question. This was an extremely positive development. So why did Nick look so freaked out?
Faith had the presence of mind to ask, “What else did the note say?”
Nick didn’t tell her, which was even more strange. Instead, he turned the note around and slid it toward Faith.
She scanned the words, calling out the important parts. “Wants to trade. He knows where the phones are being stashed …”
Nick said, “Third paragraph.”
Faith read, “‘I am the victim of a conspiracy by small-town law enforcement to put me in prison for the rest of my life for a crime I did not commit.’”
Will didn’t look over her shoulder at the letter. He watched Nick’s face. The man was a study in conflict. The only thing Nick seemed sure about was that he was not going to look in Will’s direction.
Faith continued, “‘That shithole county was a pressure cooker. A white college student was attacked. The campus was on high alert. No women felt safe. The Chief had to arrest somebody. Anybody. Or he would lose his job. He fabricated a reason to come after me.”
Faith
