Joel Goldman - No way out

“That’s not happening,” Nardelli said. “I don’t want you helping him get his story straight.”

“Fine,” Kate said. “Do it yourself. You’ve done a great job with him so far.”

“Detective, you can watch and listen from our security center,” the superintendent said, confirming my suspicion that our meeting with Jimmy had been monitored.

“Tell you what, Detective,” Bonner said. “Give Kate first crack at him. We’ll watch from the security center. You don’t like the way it goes, you can have the second crack.”

“You’re pretty confident,” Nardelli said.

“I like my team.”

A corrections officer took Kate to meet with Jimmy, and the superintendent took the rest of us to the security center where three officers were monitoring a dozen screens displaying every part of the Farm.

“Gene, Mike, and Cheryl,” the superintendent said to the officers. “Sorry to barge in on you. Do me a favor and pull up the Women’s Recreation Area.”

We watched the center screen on the top row, a black-and-white monitor feeding us video of Kate and Jimmy. The camera angle was distant and wide, better suited to capturing inmates dealing drugs. Facial expressions were blurred, and the audio was scratchy. Jimmy’s wrists and ankles were shackled when an officer led him into the room with Kate.

Bonner turned to the superintendent. “Annette, what’s with the restraints? Jimmy’s not dangerous.”

“He’s suspected of kidnapping and killing his children. He’s not our typical nonviolent, homeless resident. I’m not leaving him alone with a woman,” she said.

Kate said something to the officer we couldn’t make out and pointed to the restraints, the officer shaking his head, Kate pressing him, pointing to the two-way radio on his hip. The officer picked up his radio, his voice coming through a speaker on the security console.

“She wants me to take off the restraints,” the officer said.

“Absolutely not,” the superintendent said.

Kate grabbed the radio from the officer. “Keep him shackled and I’m wasting my time. Leave the officer outside. Leave the door open if that will make you feel better, but take off the restraints or I’m walking.”

The superintendent looked at Nardelli and Bonner, both of whom nodded, though I didn’t like it, remembering too well that I’d nearly gotten Kate killed a couple of years ago when I let her talk me into taking a chance that made more sense than this one did.

“Kate,” I said, “go out in the hall where Jimmy can’t hear us.”

She disappeared from the monitor, popping up on another one displaying the hallway.

“Okay. I know what you’re thinking, Jack, but this is different. I’ve had time to study Jimmy. His fight is with his wife, not me. I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be even better if he stays shackled.”

“Stop worrying. I know what I’m doing.”

“Kate, this is a bad idea.”

“Good or bad, it’s not your decision. It’s mine, and I’ve made it.”

I looked at the superintendent. “You heard her.”

“Okay,” the superintendent said, letting out a long sigh. “Let me talk to my officer.”

We watched while he removed Jimmy’s handcuffs and motioned him to sit down so he could remove his ankle shackles. Jimmy smiled at Kate, and when the officer knelt at his feet and freed his legs, he clasped his hands together, raining double-fisted, rapid-fire hammerhead blows on the officer’s neck. The officer collapsed, and Jimmy jumped to his feet, kicking him in the face. Kate started to run, but he grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her, pulling a shiv from his waistband, jamming it against her cheek, and, using her as a human shield, pushed her out into the hall.

I bolted for the door, Lucy and Nardelli racing behind me. It was full dark and cold, stadium lights burning the walkway from the administration building to the women’s dormitory, the Farm silent. There was no siren sounding an alarm, no flight of corrections officers toward the dorm, no hint of trouble until I yanked on the front entrance to the dorm and nearly wrenched my shoulder fighting a locked door.

“Great,” Nardelli said, flipping her cell phone open, telling whoever was listening to send a SWAT team and a hostage negotiator.

She snapped her phone shut and tried the door again as the superintendent and Bonner caught up to us.

“Door’s locked,” Lucy said.

“Of course it’s locked,” the superintendent said. “That’s called security.” She clicked on her radio. “It’s Superintendent Fibuch. Open up if you’re secure.”

An officer swung the door open, and we stepped into a hall that ran the length of the dorm, the Women’s Recreation Area near the opposite end. There was an open sleeping area to our right where two dozen women in jail-issued jumpsuits sat on steel cots, an officer keeping them well away from the hall, the women silent, their faces lit, waiting for something to happen, not certain whom to root for. We joined another officer who was standing ten feet farther down the hall past the sleeping area, not taking his eyes off of Jimmy and Kate.

“What’s your procedure?” Nardelli asked the superintendent, her voice quiet enough that Jimmy couldn’t hear.

“There are officers at every exit. The building is secure. There’s no place for him to go, so we’ll wait him out.”

“Who’s your hostage negotiator?”

“We don’t have one. My officers and I are trained in verbal judo, how to defuse tense situations, but none of us qualify for hostage situations.”

“I’ve got a SWAT team and a hostage negotiator on the way,” Nardelli said. “They’ll be here in less than thirty minutes. What weapons do your officers carry?” she asked.

“Just pepper spray. Our residents are nonviolent.”

“Except for Jimmy Martin.”

“He doesn’t belong here. I was forced to take him because the county jail was full.” The superintendent glanced at the gun on Nardelli’s hip. “Firearms aren’t allowed in here. I’ll have one of my officers take your gun back to the administrative building. You can pick it up when this is over.”

Nardelli covered the butt of her gun with her hand. “You’ve got a man holding a shiv against a woman’s neck sixty feet from where we are standing. What’s the range on your pepper spray?”

The superintendent reddened. “I run this jail, Detective, and guns are not allowed.”

“And this is a crime scene, and I’m running it. You don’t like it, take it up with the chief of police tomorrow morning,” she said, turning to the officer who’d let us in. “What’s he doing?”

“Not much. He yelled at us to back off or he’d kill the woman. We’re giving him plenty of space. I can’t tell for certain, but it looks like her neck’s bleeding.”

The hallway was lit with ceiling fixtures that gave a dull yellow cast to the brown walls and checkerboard linoleum floor. Jimmy was holding Kate in a shadowy area between two fixtures, making it hard to tell if the officer was right. The poor lighting worked to Jimmy’s advantage, disguising his actions, making it more likely he could stab Kate or slit her throat before we knew he’d done it.

“Did Jimmy know we were coming?” I asked the superintendent.

“Ethan called me, and I told him.”

“How’d he react?”

“Indifferent. Same as always.”

“Has he been in any trouble since he got here? Any reason he’d have to carry a shiv?”

“No. Most of our residents are drug and alcohol abusers, and they’re pretty passive. If they have a history of violence or they appear likely to be violent when we do our intake evaluation, we send them somewhere else. They survive in here the same way they do on the streets, by being invisible and not threatening anyone.”