Джойс Оутс - Prison Noir

Friday afternoon, Bridgway went to meet with Martin again. Martin had nearly convinced him to agree in principle to the verbal arrangement he’d hammered out with the prosecutors, but Bridgway left the visit without actually agreeing. Martin could tell he was close, but there was still no deal.

When Bridgway got back to his cell, the guards had already delivered store. He asked about his, but they informed him nothing had come for him. Bridgway was pissed, and the moment he got back to his cell, he wrote an angry kite to the store officer. An hour later, when it was time to pass out chow, Mike couldn’t believe his good fortune when he saw the kite sticking out of Bridgway’s door. When he came out to help distribute the trays, Mike crouched as he passed Bridgway’s window, snatched the kite, and then continued on to the food cart. Soon, another four hundred bucks was in the mail to Molly.

The following Tuesday, as expected, Bridgway put his store order in the crack of his door. This time he ordered large quantities of everything. Having experienced difficulty with the processing of his previous order, he was preparing for any similar episodes in the future. His order was so large that it took two forms. Mike was ecstatic when he got back to his cell and discovered he’d scored two autographs instead of just one. Molly would be very happy about this, and Mike couldn’t help but smile as he put Bridgway’s order forms in with his letter to Molly and sealed the envelope.

That Friday, Bridgway stood with his face in the window of his door as soon as he heard the store cart rolling onto the tier. He waited in patient anticipation as the store officer opened the door of the first cell and handed its occupant his purchases. The process repeated three more times before she got to Bridgway’s neighbor. The door next to him clicked shut, and Bridgway’s face registered an expression of shock mixed with anger as he watched the cart roll past his cell. Before the store officer even reached the next cell, Bridgway called out, “Hey! Where’s mine?”

Officer Finkel tried her best to just ignore him. Everyone knew who Bridgway was. Some of the officers gave him grief any way they could, but most just tried to treat him the same as every other prisoner. None of them, however, had any desire to get close to Bridgway. They dealt with him as quickly and professionally as they could.

When Bridgway began hollering and banging on his door, nobody was anxious to be the one to have that conversation. Even though he was locked in a cell, this man had dozens of murders to his credit. Now he was having a psychotic episode. Officer Finkel passed out the remaining three bags on her cart and got out of there as quickly as possible. The moment the door shut behind her, Bridgway began pounding harder and yelling louder. “I want my store, you assholes! Give me my shit!”

The jail staff believed Bridgway was a psychopath, the likes of which no one had ever seen. Whatever his problem was, he could put it in a kite like everyone else. All his screaming and carrying on did nothing but further instill in the staff the desire to keep their distance. The less they saw of Bridgway, the better.

Eventually, he calmed down. Every time an officer would walk past his cell, Bridgway tried to engage him or her in a conversation about his store problem. Each time, he got the same response: “Put in a kite.”

For lack of any other recourse, Bridgway sat down and wrote kites to everyone from the mail commander all the way down to the store officer. There were eight in all. He meticulously described his problem, signed his name, and put them in the crack in his door.

When Mike saw the thick stack of paper in Bridgway’s door, his delight was hard to hide. He bit his lower lip to keep from laughing out loud as he pushed the dust mop down the tier. Each time he passed the cell, he’d sneak a glance through the window, only to see Bridgway sitting on the edge of his bunk facing the door. For fifteen minutes, Mike continued sweeping and mopping the tier, waiting for the opportunity to make his move. It was starting to look like that opportunity would not come, but Mike couldn’t let a whole stack of kites get away.

When he finished cleaning the tier for a third time, Mike rinsed out the mop, hung it up, and headed back toward his cell. As he neared Bridgway’s cell, he heard a toilet flush. A quick peek through the window allowed him to see Bridgway moving to his bunk with his back to the door. Mike ripped the kites from the door crack, stuffed them down the front of his coveralls, and hurried back to his cell without so much as a glance in the direction of the cops. If they saw the move, so be it. It was his last chance, and he wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. Either they didn’t see or they just didn’t care. Whatever the case, Mike made it back to his cell with no reaction from the cops.

On Monday, Martin arrived at the jail right before lunch. The prosecutor’s office was ready to officially offer Bridgway a way out of the death penalty if he would agree to lead them to the unrecovered bodies of his victims. The papers had been drafted. It was time to meet with Bridgway, and Martin was confident he’d locked in the deal. Now all he needed was for Bridgway to sign on — and how could he refuse?

When he and Bridgway were alone in the attorney-visiting booth, Martin proudly laid the papers on the table and grinned as he extended a pen to the inmate. “We did it!” Martin exclaimed. “They’re ready to make a deal. It’s now or never.”

Much to Martin’s dismay, not only did Bridgway not take the pen and sign the papers, but he also ranted on for the next thirty minutes about his store and about how “those people” could not be trusted. Try as he might, Martin was unable to steer the conversation back in the direction of signing the papers. Bridgway seemed obsessed with his store and some problem he was having with the jail staff. The visit ended with Martin assuring Bridgway he’d see what he could do to resolve the problem.

The next day, Bridgway filled out another store order and put it in his door crack. Shortly thereafter, Mike collected it, and that evening it was sealed in an envelope and sent on its way to Molly.

On Wednesday, a memo was circulated to all jail staff. The commander explained that they were now required to go to Bridgway’s cell and ask him for his store order form; they were also to ask Bridgway each evening if he had any mail or communication he wished to submit. These instructions generated a considerable amount of resentment among jail staff, but they came from the top, so everyone reluctantly complied. Actually, the jail commander wasn’t any more pleased about this situation than they were, but the King County prosecuting attorney himself had personally made this request for cooperation, so what could they do?

When the officer approached Bridgway’s cell that evening and asked him if he wanted to submit a store order, the serial killer was more than a little surprised. At first he told the officer he’d already submitted his order, but when he was informed that if he wanted store he was to give them an order now, Bridgway sat down and hastily filled out another form.

That Friday, the store cart stopped at Bridgway’s cell. In fact, it stopped there every Friday from then on. Much to his dismay, Mike no longer found any four-hundred-dollar bills sticking out of Bridgway’s door, and Molly’s popularity on eBay waned. Shortly thereafter, Bridgway signed the deal, and Martin did become known as the legal mastermind who saved Gary Bridgway from certain execution. But for a time, Mike, Molly, and eBay nearly got Bridgway killed.