J. Jance - Kiss the Bees

Sitting up on the mountain, watching Brandon Walker labor over his wood, Mitch wished it would be possible to burn it up, to turn all that carefully stacked wood into a spectacularly blazing inferno. But even as the thought passed through his mind, Mitch dismissed it. Doing that would be too much like firing a warning shot across a ship's bow.

Brandon Walker deserved no such advance notice from Mitch Johnson, and Diana Ladd wouldn't be getting one from Andy, either. One day their lives would be going along swimmingly, and the next day everything would turn to shit. That was one of the basic realities of life-something that happened to everyone sooner or later.

The last time Mitch saw Andrew Carlisle had been some eight months earlier. The man was too weak to walk by then, so the guard had brought him back to the cell in a wheelchair.

"Here's some company for you, Johnson," the guard said, opening the barred door and shoving the chair into the cell. "We've got so many cases of flu in the infirmary right now, the doc thought he might be better off here than there. Can you handle it?"

"It's not exactly news," Mitch told the guard. "Of course I can handle it."

The guard had left the wheelchair just inside the door. Mitch had pushed it over next to the bunk and lifted Carlisle out of the chair and onto the narrow bed. Illness had ravaged his body so there was very little left of him. He couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds.

"I hear you're getting out," Carlisle croaked. "Congratulations."

Mitch shook his head. It was difficult for him to speak. He hadn't expected that he and Andy would become friends, but over the years they had. Now he felt a sudden sense of grief at the prospect of losing that friend not just to Mitch's own release, but also to death. Andrew Carlisle was clearly a dying man.

"When do you leave?" Andy asked.

"Tomorrow," Mitch said. "I'm sorry," he added. "Sorry to leave you alone after all this time."

"Oh, no," Andy told him. "Don't be sorry about leaving. I'll be out, too, before very long. They gave me two consecutive life sentences, but I'm going to fool the bastards. I'm only going to serve one."

Mitch laughed at that. One of the things he had always enjoyed was Andy's black humor.

"As for leaving me alone," Andy added cheerfully, "I spend so much time in the infirmary anymore that it hardly matters. Besides, the sooner I go, the sooner you'll be able to get our little job done and get on with your own life."

They were both quiet for a long time after that. Mitch was thinking about Andy's veiled reference to his trust fund monies. Maybe Andy was, too. Andrew Carlisle was the one who broke the silence.

"You will keep your end of the bargain, won't you, Mitch?" The voice was soft and pleading. The two men had lived side by side, sharing the same cell, for seven and a half years. In all that time, through years of terrible illness and unremitting pain, Mitch Johnson had never heard the man beg.

"Yes, Andy," Mitch answered quietly. "I gave you my word, and I intend to keep it."

"Thank you," Andrew Carlisle said. "So will I."

Mitch Johnson had known from the beginning that Andrew Carlisle was HIV positive, since that day in 1988 when Warden Clint Howell had called him into his office, sat him down in a chair, and offered him a cup of coffee. Inmates didn't usually merit that kind of hospitality, but Johnson had brains enough not to question it aloud.

"We've got a little problem here," Howell said, leaning back in his chair.

More than one, Mitch thought, but again he said nothing. "It's one I think maybe you can help us with," Howell continued.

The indiscriminate use of the words "we" and "us" reminded Mitch of his first grade teacher, Mrs. Wiggins, back home in El Paso, Texas.

"What's that?" Mitch asked, keeping his tone interested but properly deferential.

"One of our inmates has just been diagnosed HIV positive," Howell told him. "He wants you to be his cellmate."

"Like hell he does!" Mitch returned. "I'm not going anywhere near him."

"Please, Johnson," Howell pleaded. "Hear me out. He's specifically asked for you, but only if you're willing."

"Well, I'm not. Can I go now?"

"No, you can't. We're too overcrowded here for him to be left in a cell by himself, and if I put more than one HIV-positive prisoner in the same cell, then those damned bleeding-heart lawyers will be all over me like flies on shit. Cruel and unusual punishment and all that crap."

"What about cruel and unusual punishment for me?" Johnson asked.

"Do me a favor," Howell said. "Talk to him here in my office. I'll have him brought in, and the two of you can discuss the situation. After that, you decide. Wait right here."

Moments later, a guard led Andrew Carlisle into the room. Johnson had never met him before, but as soon as he saw the blind man with his one bad arm in a permanent sling, he knew who it was. Andrew Carlisle was legendary in Florence for being the best jailhouse lawyer in the joint. Other people had to look up the points of law and read them to him aloud, but when it came to writing up paperwork, no one could top him.

"Hello, Mr. Johnson," Carlisle said, as the door closed behind the departing guard.

"I won't do it," Mitch said. "Go fuck yourself."

"We're not here to discuss sexual gratification, Mr. Johnson. I asked for you specifically because I have a business proposition which I believe will be of some interest to you. I believe I can offer you something that you want."

"What's that?" Mitch Johnson asked.

"An education, for one thing," Andrew Carlisle answered calmly. "And revenge, for another."

"Revenge?"

"Against Sheriff Brandon Walker and his wife, Diana."

A brief silence followed that statement. Mitch was taken aback. He hadn't made a secret of his long-simmering hatred of Brandon Walker. The case against Mitch Johnson had been built by Walker while he was still an ambitious homicide detective in the Pima County Sheriff's Department. Sending Mitch Johnson to prison had made Walker's reputation in the local Hispanic community.

For twenty-some years Sheriff Jack DuShane's political machine had called the shots. Anglos killed Mexicans and Indians with relative impunity. The way cases were investigated dictated how they were prosecuted as well. More often than not, Anglos-especially ones who could afford to pay the freight-got off or were charged with reduced offenses. Non-Anglos usually couldn't afford the bribes.

The tide had started to turn with Andrew Carlisle's second trial. Everybody knew by then that the former professor had gotten away with murdering the drunk Indian girl, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Except maybe use him as an example. A year later, when DuShane tried to intervene on Mitch Johnson's behalf, Walker had blown the whistle on all of it. In the process of shipping Mitch Johnson off to prison for fifteen years to life, Walker had won himself a reputation as a crusading and even-handed lawman. When the next election came around, he won office in a landslide, collecting an astonishing eighty percent of the county's non-Anglo vote in the process.

"Who told you about that?" Mitch asked finally.

Carlisle smiled. "I make it my business to know what goes on in this place. I've been keeping track of you for years, for as long as you've been here. From everything I've been able to learn about you, I'd say you're a very smart man-smart enough to know a good deal when you see one."

"What kind of a deal?"

"I may be a prisoner here," Carlisle said, "but I'm also relatively well off. I inherited my father's entire estate, you see. And since I'm not using any of the money-interest or principal-it's accruing at an amazing rate. I can show you the figures if you want. When I die, I can either leave the whole thing to charity or I can leave it to you."