Robert Bidinotto - Hunter

“Hello again, Susanne.” He removed his sunglasses and smiled. “Dylan Hunter.”

“Oh!” Susie said. “You were at the funeral home. And you wrote that article in the Inquirer yesterday.”

“I did. I hope it didn’t upset you in any way. That’s the last thing I would want.”

“No, not at all,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m grateful for what you said. I just can’t tell you how grateful, Dylan.”

“I’m relieved to hear that.” He turned toward Annie.

“You remember my friend, Annie Woods.”

The eyes-in the sun, an even-more-intense hazel green.

“I certainly do. We meet again-is it Mrs. Woods?”

“Not Mrs. And it’s Annie.” She offered her hand. His-warm, strong, just as she remembered. She felt rattled again. “That article of yours-I read it, too. I was surprised to see your name on it.” Wrong thing to say. “I mean, surprised to see your name so soon after we met. What you wrote-it was infuriating.”

“That’s for sure,” Susie said. “I had no idea those two had juvenile records that horrible. That’s not what the prosecutor told me. He said they had no prior convictions.”

“‘Convictions’ don’t tell the whole story,” he said, still holding Annie’s eyes. And hand. He seemed to realize it at the same time she did. He released it and turned to Susie.

“I never would have agreed to those plea deals if I’d known any of that,” she continued. She nodded toward the doors. “I only wish I could find out more about him. ”

“Me too,” he said. “I heard about your meeting him here today and thought I might tag along. Maybe interview him. But it appears that the Department of Corrections isn’t as pleased with my article as you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was just in there,” he said, hooking his thumb toward the door. “They won’t let me back inside. The Corrections Commissioner sent out an email last night to all his state prison wardens, telling them to refuse any of my future interview requests.”

“That’s outrageous!”

“I agree, Susanne. So, I gave them fair warning.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I don’t deal well with rejection.”

They laughed. Annie liked his crooked little smile. His stomach looked tight and flat beneath the dark gray shirt, and his shoulders filled the jacket. A few strands of gray caught the sun at his temples.

“Anyway, some DOC muckamucks are waiting for you. Because of the bad press, they seem anxious to make you happy.”

“You mean because of your article. Well, if that’s the case, then maybe I can change their minds about keeping you out.” Susie turned and marched through the automatic doors.

He looked at Annie, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “After you,” he said, sweeping his open palm toward the entrance.

She smiled and went in ahead of him.

Felt his eyes on her as she walked.

*

For the next ten minutes, they argued it out in the lobby with the warden, his deputy superintendent, and the security staff’s shift supervisor. It took an ultimatum from Susie-a threat to leave and go to the news media-before the warden relented and a compromise was reached. Hunter would not be allowed to interview Adrian Wulfe or to remain in the same room with Annie and Susie during their meeting; however, he would be permitted to watch the proceedings from behind the glass wall of a side observation room, take notes, and then write about their meeting, if he wished.

After being signed in and issued badges, they passed through the metal detector, underwent a pat-down from corrections officers, then were led through a maze of security checkpoints. Every time they reached a door, their escort signaled a guard who buzzed them into a waiting chamber; the door behind them locked shut; then another door was unlocked in front of them, allowing them to proceed.

Hunter had been through this drill two months ago, at a prison in another state, while researching a story about frivolous inmate lawsuits. “Nothing cheap here,” his young guide had boasted then, eager to show off the lavish array of inmate amenities. Well-stocked law libraries. A modern gym loaded with expensive workout machines. Infirmaries providing free medical and dental care. A building housing inmate organizations, including a drama club that toured local colleges. A music room crammed with electric guitars, keyboards, drums, and amplifiers. In-cell TVs with access to premium cable channels, for inmates willing to pay for them. Classrooms where thugs could take college courses from teachers moonlighting from local campuses.

“What does this prison offer by way of punishment?” he had asked the guide.

The kid frowned and replied: “People are sent here as punishment. They’re not sent here for punishment.”

So, some predator rapes a woman. His taxpaying victim then pays to house him where he can build his body to be even stronger and more intimidating. Where he can fuel his fantasies with cable-TV porn. Where he learns how to file lawsuits against the very system that’s pampering him…

Today’s escort stopped outside a final door. As they were waiting to be buzzed through, Hunter noticed a memo on a nearby bulletin board. It was signed by Claibourne’s policy coordinator:

A third softball field will be made in the West Field in order to allow more inmates to play softball. The horseshoe pits will be temporarily relocated near the miniature golf course. The bocce area will be relocated at the site of the new gym. And the soccer field will be relocated to the East Field behind the softball field.

The escort directed Hunter into a narrow, sterile cinderblock room. It was painted cold white and lit by fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. A row of blue plastic chairs lined one wall. They faced a tinted observation window that ran the full length of the room, made of one-way shatterproof glass. It allowed him to see into the next room without being seen.

The adjoining room was divided into two facing cubicles by a waist-high cinderblock wall, topped by its own thick window. It was the kind of window you see at the teller counters in banks-laminated glass, embedded with a circular speaking grill. On either side of the window, stainless-steel surfaces served as desktops; beneath them twin metal chairs were bolted to the floor. This allowed pairs of seated people to converse through the window grill.

For his part, Hunter could roam the full length of his observation room to watch the occupants in either of the two cubicles. Though soundproof, their ceilings were miked; a speaker in his room let him listen in on the conversations.

After a moment, the door opened at the far end of the cubicle to his left. Annie Woods entered first, leading a nervous-looking Susanne Copeland by the arm. They each took a chair, Annie the one nearest to his window.

He stood there, unseen, looking down at her.

Only once before, in his teens, had a female affected him at first sight like this. That girl had a vaguely similar look. He wondered why each of us, in our youth, seem to fixate on certain physical and stylistic traits that become our “type.” He’d never known what his own type was, until he had seen that girl long ago.

Well, you’re seeing it again.

Her eyes were what first riveted him. Smoky gray, set wide, crowned by brows that arced up and outward. The subtly feline look accentuated by her mouth-wide, full-lipped, turning up at the corners when she smiled. Short, tousled chestnut hair framing a pale oval face. Her neck, like the rest of her, gracefully long-lined and slender, suggesting an incongruous delicacy.

She wore a short brown suede jacket over a white cotton blouse and jeans. She would have looked just as sensational wearing a canvas sack. If it weren’t for the window, he could have reached down and touched her hair.