Michael Lister - Power in the Blood

“I didn’t,” he said. “I was in confinement until a few minutes before seven. When I walked back up to medical, Officer Straub was about to go in to begin his shift. I gave him a report of the night’s events. He went in. I walked up front.”

“Who else was in the medical building that night?” I asked.

“Nurse Anderson, and the orderly, Jones . . . and another inmate was there for a while.” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes to concentrate on recalling the nearly forgotten name. “Thomas. Anthony Thomas was there for a while, and that’s it.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate your help and the way in which you do your job.”

“You’re welcome, sir,” he said. “And thank you, sir.”

I felt as though I should salute. I did, however, suppress the urge.

When I entered Anna’s office, I told her about all the things that were twirling around in the whirlpool, or perhaps cesspool, of my head-all the things related to the case. I didn’t mention that I was dying.

“Even before you realized that Skipper didn’t have the opportunity to commit the murders, you thought he was innocent,” she said. “Why?”

“I never said he was innocent, just that he didn’t commit those particular murders. The reason had to do with motive. I couldn’t see how killing Johnson or Maddox could have benefited Skipper in any way. Maddox was his best customer, and Johnson was his best product. He was making his own kind of killing on the little arrangement, so there was no reason for him to do any killing. He would have been putting an end to a serious paycheck, so why do it?”

“Maybe they were going to tell.”

“I don’t think so. Maddox wouldn’t because it was his secret, too. A secret that he more than anyone wanted to keep quiet. Not to mention that it was a crime and he would have lost everything. And Johnson’s an inmate. Nobody would believe him, and he didn’t seem to mind it too much. He was being treated like a king: drugs, alcohol, no work, and no trouble.”

“There’s always the possibility of a motive that we can’t see.”

“There’s always that, but I don’t think so. It feels wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it were just motive, that would be one thing, but it’s means, as well. I mean, if someone like Skipper wanted to kill an inmate, he wouldn’t do it in the garbage truck. He would do it by having him killed on the rec field or shot during an escape attempt or beaten to death in confinement.”

“Like he tried with you.”

“Exactly,” I said. “But, there’s more. All but one of the murders were particularly bloody, and the third would’ve been. I think Skipper interrupted that one. They were all stabbed and disfigured. It’s personal, not business. A business kill is a dispassionate single gunshot wound to the back of the head, but personal is more like beatings, knives, and pain. This is a nice cold dish of revenge. It reminds me of love,” I said. Anna looked puzzled. “What is the opposite of love?” I asked.

“Hate,” she said.

“No. Disinterest is the opposite of love. Hate is closely related to love. Both are passionate; both burn white-hot. Those we hate most are often those we’ve loved most at some point.”

“Like a parent that betrayed us or a spouse,” she said.

“Right. Divorce, when amicable, is because there is no passion, but when it is heated, it means at least one still cares or is hurt so deeply precisely because he or she cared so deeply.”

“Damn, you are good. I can see why your dad wants you to be a cop. You have the mind for it. And, yet, you’re far too sensitive and caring to be a cop. Besides, you’re such a good minister. Maybe you really are meant to be a modern-day Father Brown.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just be lucky to get out of this one alive and should go back to just ministering.”

“There is a distinct contradiction in the two things,” she said, “but you are both of them. You, like most of us, are not just one person. I think you must do both or you will be miserable.”

“There’s always that,” I said.

“So who do you think did it?” she asked.

“Someone who has a very personal stake in all of this,” I said. “This is about love and hate, not money or cover-up. Unless, of course, it was made to look like something it wasn’t.”

Anna’s eyebrows shot up into twin peaks. “Do you think all the brutality could be a cover?”

That same bolt of enlightenment surged through my head. That was it. “I don’t think so,” I said. “But it could be. I still think it’s twisted love, passionate revenge. Because even when something is made to look like something it’s not, it usually still feels like what it really is. I said something to Molly Thomas the other day that reminds me of this. When she was explaining why she had made the accusation against me, I told her that Anthony was lucky to have someone who loved him so much, and I had the same feeling I’m having now. Like that’s the key.”

“You don’t think Molly had it done, do you?” she asked.

“No, but she wasn’t the only one who loved him. I need to find out who else did.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“This is prison. People know things, and people can be persuaded to talk about things.”

“In other words, you don’t know,” she said.

“In other words, I don’t know,” I said.

After leaving Anna’s office, I walked out into the waiting room where a dozen inmates stared at the blank wall in front of them in silence. A couple of them nodded to me. I nodded back. A few of the inmates were engrossed in paperbacks. I recognized Zane Gray, Robert B. Parker, and Stephen King. I started to walk out when I heard the faint tappings of an electric typewriter coming from behind the door to medical. I pulled out my keys and opened the door.

Standing next to the storage room where the typewriter was, Nurse Anderson jumped when I opened the door. The door to the storage room was parted slightly, and she moved in front of it.

“Chaplain,” she said as the typing stopped. “How are you today?” she asked, her tone returning to its normal loud volume.

“Who’s in there?” I asked.

She looked puzzled. “Wh-”

I pushed past her and opened the door. Inside, Allen Jones was stuffing a sheet of typing paper into his pants pocket. I reached out and ripped it from his grip, tearing the corner of the paper as I did.

One glance let me know it was another letter warning and threatening me. I looked at Jones.

He was looking down at the floor, his weary shoulders slumped forward, his head downcast. “I’s just trying to protect her,” he mumbled.

Nurse Anderson appeared behind me. “What’s this all about? What is that?”

“Another piece of the puzzle,” I said and walked out of the room.

“Chaplain, wait,” she called after me. “You don’t understand. I was only-”

Her voice stopped abruptly when the door to medical closed behind me.

I now knew or thought I knew who was responsible for the murders. I also thought I knew why. But why kill all of them, and why now? I pondered these and other questions that plagued my mind as I paced up and down the length of my trailer. I was just getting used to walking well again, and the more I walked, the more the muscles in my legs and even in my upper body began to loosen and relax. I knew that I needed to go jogging again soon, but I wasn’t quite up to it yet.

There was something else bothering me, something my subconscious picked up on that hung onto the edge of my memory like a name once known, but now forgotten.

Before finally giving in to pacing and thinking, I had tried to do many things when I had come home after work, among them, watching the local news, which had yet to clear my name; reading Crossan’s book, The Essential Jesus ; and cooking a real meal, which I later abandoned in favor of a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich.