Michael Lister - Power in the Blood

Strickland was not in any of the exam rooms, nor the nurses’ station, nor the infirmary, but standing outside of the infirmary, I heard her. She was seated in the break room at the end of the hall talking with someone I couldn’t see. As I approached, she glanced my way and then quietly said something to the person she was with. I couldn’t hear what she said, but then that was the point. When I reached the door, inmate Jones walked through it. He didn’t speak, but his body language was loud enough.

“Hello, Chaplain,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“Fine. How are you doing?”

“Right as rain, thanks,” she said and started to get up.

“Before you go, I wonder if I might ask you a few more questions?”

She looked at her watch, “I can give you a couple of minutes. I’m sorry. We’re just very busy today.”

“Then I’ll talk fast. I’m still trying to find out what happened the night and morning before Johnson was killed. Can you tell me anything else about that night in the infirmary?”

“I heard that you were conducting the investigation, but I didn’t believe it. You’re the chaplain, not the inspector.”

“That’s true. The inspectors are in charge of this case. I’m primarily a gopher for them,” I said, wondering how many people knew what I was doing and how they knew.

“Well, anyway, there’s not a lot more to tell. It was an unusually quiet night in the infirmary. I forget why Johnson was there. Something related to his AIDS case, but it was in no way critical. Like I said, it was just quiet.”

“Too bad they can’t all be like that,” I said.

“That’s true,” she said.

“I’m still not clear on when Thomas came to the infirmary that night,” I said, “and how long he stayed.”

She sighed impatiently. “I told you Thomas wasn’t there,” she said. “Not on my shift. On my shift Johnson and Jacobson were the only inmates down here, and it’s a good thing because, like I said, I was alone.”

“Where was Nurse Anderson?” I asked.

“Where she always is,” she said angrily. “Waddling around, flirting with inmates and avoiding work.”

“Is there anything else you can think of?” I asked.

“No. It was quiet,” she said, sliding her chair back and standing up. “Well, I’ve got to run. You have a good day, Chaplain, and when you finish playing Sherlock Holmes, we have some inmates down here that need you to talk and pray with them.”

“Thank you. I’ll see them today. You have a good day, too,” I said to her back as she walked down the hallway. Not nearly as helpful as she once had been. She seemed scared, though. I had an urge to rush to her and offer to protect her. I do not, however, give in to all of my urges.

“Oh, one more thing,” I said to her as she reached the door. “Is there a typewriter down here that you all use?”

“We have a typewriter, but we all use the computer.”

“Does your inmate orderly use it?”

“Jones? I don’t think he knows how to type very well, but I’ve seen him pecking away on it before.”

“Does he have access to it at all times?” I asked.

“Yes, I guess so,” she said.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“It’s in the first office on the left when you enter the medical department. Just before the nurses’ station.”

“Is it locked?”

“Oh, no. We just keep some extra furniture and a few office supplies in there. It stays unlocked all the time.”

“I see. Thanks again. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time.”

“No, it’s not that. I’m just so far behind in preparing for our ACA inspection, but you’re no bother at all. In fact, I enjoy seeing you. You are like a breath of fresh air around this place.”

“Thank you. I think the same of you.”

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his soul? After typing these sentences on the typewriter I found in the empty medical office, I pulled out one of the letters I had received and compared them. They looked identical-the t’s were missing the right side of the crossbar. The o’s were missing a small place in the bottom center. And, the a’s, as in angel or Anna, were darker than all of the other print.

The letters I had been receiving were typed on this machine, but that didn’t tell me who’d been typing them. I suspected it was an inmate, however. Any other medical staff member would have typed the letters on some other machine-or at home maybe. But, an inmate wouldn’t have access to any other machine.

I walked out of the office and down the hallway to the nurses’ station. There I found an elderly white nurse who seemed to be dozing.

“Hi,” I said.

She jumped slightly. “Hello,” she responded after recovering.

“How are you today?” I asked.

“Just fine, thanks. How are you, Chaplain?”

“I’m okay. I was wondering if I might ask you a question.”

“Sure, sweetie. What is it?”

“Have you ever seen anybody use that old typewriter in the front office up there?”

“No, I sure haven’t. I don’t think it works.”

“Nobody? Not even an inmate?”

“No, I don’t think so. Sorry,” she said, sensing my disappointment.

“Oh, that’s okay. It’s no problem. I appreciate your time.”

“Anytime, sweetie. Anytime.”

Whether it was the presence of a spiritual entity or the collective soul of its inhabitants, confinement felt oppressed by the dark forces of slothfulness and depression. The thick, pungent air seemed to me to be a natural manifestation of the spiritual condition. I signed in at the sergeant’s desk, told the officer that I had received a note from the first shift sergeant asking me to check on an inmate named Larkins, and began walking down the long hallway toward Larkins’s cell. Halfway down the corridor, about a hundred feet from where I was, I saw a small group of inmates. Something was wrong. If these were confinement inmates, they should have been in their cells. If they weren’t, they shouldn’t have been here at all. As I looked at the inmates, I thought about what Hunter had said about the hit out on me. Ordinarily, I walked among the biggest baddest inmates in this place without giving it a single thought; now I was getting paranoid.

I didn’t like what I was thinking. I wasn’t going to give in to fear; I continued to walk. I was also not going to be stupid; I glanced back at the sergeant’s desk. He was gone. When I looked forward, the group of inmates was walking towards me, seven of them-all black, all big.

A loud, familiar voice in my head screamed for me to run, but I couldn’t, and I don’t know exactly why. I began to pray. The line “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” crossed my mind. So did “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” I was not particularly comforted by either of them.

They were closing in on me, which means they must have picked up their pace, because I hadn’t sped up. As they walked toward me, I could see the white shirt of an officer just behind them. As they got closer, I could see that it was Matthew Skipper.

At first, I was relieved to see him, but almost immediately thought better of it. For all I knew, he was the one who put out the hit on me. For all I knew, he was about to do it himself and save the money. In another five seconds, we came face to face. The inmates surrounded the two of us, putting Skipper and me in a circle of black and blue-most likely the color I was about to be.

The inmates, none of whom I recognized, were panting with excitement. They smelled blood. They also smelled.