“Yes. It’s always been in danger.”
I leaned forward and my breath fogged the glass. “The private entity? The one who sent me the card.”
She was gray and vague behind the circle of breath, but I think she nodded.
“Who Phyllis? Who?”
She looked at the guards. Looked at the security camera. Looked at the only other inmate two stations away.
Then she gritted her teeth. “You didn’t tell me my daughter was dead. Your own sister.”
“I didn’t know we were related. You know that, Phyllis.”
“But she knew. She came to see you for help. About your own father. And you didn’t tell me. You sat on the other side of that glass and you hid that from me. So why should I try to help you now?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You tried to kill me, Phyllis. Matt Mettle, too. Did you forget that part?”
Phyllis put the receiver so close to her mouth that her teeth scraped the holes. “I already told you. I thought you were an intruder.”
“Don’t give me that crap. You drugged me and put me in a cage.”
Phyllis gripped the concrete ledge in front of her hard enough to make her knuckles turn white. The chain between her wrists was taut.
“It’s true.”
I shrugged.
Behind Phyllis, the guard raised a hand. I could hear his voice through the phone. “Two more minutes, inmate.”
My eyebrows narrowed. “Did you have an affair with Peter before, after, or during his relationship with my mother?”
Phyllis narrowed her eyes. Her pupils were on fire. “All three.”
“You good for nothing piece of…”
Phyllis’s face blazed red and she yanked her hands apart. Her chains tightened so fast I could hear the clang through the receiver.
“You don’t know anything, Dear. We tried to help you.”
“You’re insane,” I said. “I’m done with you.”
Phyllis was overcome with rage. She stood abruptly and gnashed her teeth and jerked her chains.
“You don’t know anything!”
“Siddown, inmate!” the guard said.
In one violent motion, Phyllis yanked her arms apart as if she were trying to break her chains enough to choke me.
And then, then, right before my eyes, she erupted in a ball of fire.
7
“Holy, Mother of the Devil!”
A great wave of heat blasted the glass and burned my face. I pushed back from the eruption so hard that I fell over on my stool and landed on my back on the floor, the jolt sending a ripple through my spine and giving me an instant headache.
I scrambled backward and crawled toward the farthest wall, the whole room lit up in orange. The guard in the corner on my side of the glass grabbed me under my armpits and pulled me to my feet.
“You ain’t goin nowhere, ma’am,” he said, “so don’t even bother.”
I didn’t fight him. Why would I? I was powerless in awe of the fire.
What the hell had happened?
From the corner of the visitation room, the guard and I watched in shock as Phyllis flailed and screamed on the other side of the glass. Her entire body was on fire, her arms waving streaks of flames, that crazy haircut a crown of orange like a scarecrow had been struck by lightning.
On the other side of the glass, two more guards rushed into the room and sprayed her with a fire extinguisher. There was a bright blast of white foam and she collapsed.
No one could have survived that.
In astonishment, the guard whispered in my ear. “What in God’s name did you do to her?”
“Me? I—I didn’t do anything,” I stuttered. “How could I have done anything?”
“We’ll see about that,” the guard said.
When the foam settled, Phyllis Martin was lying on the floor. She was perfectly still, her body covered in a cocoon of foam. What little parts I could see of her jumpsuit were black and charred.
My mouth was as dry as if I had been sucking on charcoal. My lips stuck together and I had to work my tongue to build up enough moisture to speak.
“Is she—?”
“Crispy,” the guard confirmed. “It’s too bad. I really liked her chowder.” He turned to me. “She wrote a special recipe for the cooks in the chow hall.”
On the other side of the glass, a team with a stretcher entered the room and loaded Phyllis’s charred body onto it and carried her out the door.
I watched them go, completely paralyzed, my feet stuck to the floor as if my soles had melted.
The guard pinched my arm and pulled me toward the door. “Let’s go, lady. You got some serious questions to answer.”
An hour later, I was sitting on a cold chair in a cold interrogation room at the cold barracks. But it wasn’t the cold that was making me shiver.
A breeze was coming from nowhere, enough to ruffle my hair. I could have sworn the State Police were running the air conditioning, taxpayer’s treat, in early anticipation of summer.
The cinder block walls were painted white, the table was metal, but covered in white splotches as if they had either forgotten to cover it with a drop cloth when painting, or they had left it outside for the gulls to use as target practice. The chair was metal, shiny enough that the reflection on the seat doubled the size of my thighs, and a giant mirror occupied the lefthand wall.
Every time I closed my eyes, there was a flash of bright light and Phyllis exploded into flames. It was as if the ball of fire had seared the underside of my eyelids.
Usually, consolation was knowing one hadn’t suffered. But Phyllis’s screams, as high pitched as a lobster’s in a boiling pot, would never leave me.
Nothing about that moment computed. Phyllis hadn’t pulled out a match, she hadn’t doused herself with gasoline, she hadn’t done anything to warn of what was coming. Her hands had been empty and the nearest guard had been ten feet away.
She had gotten angry, that’s all, and in a flash, she had burst into flames. It was purely spontaneous combustion.
The door opened behind me and State Trooper
