Jonathon King - A Visible Darkness

"Harlan P. Moticker, prisoner ID #3568649. The Haverford State Correctional Facility in Moultrie," Billy read.

I suppose I'd felt for the guy. When we were writing up the case the older guys in the squad kept forwarding the calls from his young wife to me. He pleaded guilty to avoid a trial and when his attorney asked to have him swapped to a Georgia prison near his family for a Philadelphia mob flunky who wanted to come home, I was the one who gave the department's blessing. Nobody else cared.

Now I suppose I felt lucky.

By noon the next day I was driving a rental down a secondary highway in south Georgia. Billy had found me an early flight out of West Palm Beach and he'd also made a call to his prosecutor friend in Atlanta. The lawyer balked at first, but because he owed Billy, he made the request for a visit.

The warden at Haverford said he could not figure why a private investigator from Florida would want to talk with Moticker. The inmate was one of the better behaved and more trustworthy of his 612 convicts. But in the spirit of cooperation, he didn't object.

Well out of the city, the road I was on split an open forest of scrub pines and occasional patches of hardwood, and there were leaves on the forest floor. Here it was true fall. Colors not natural to South Florida dripped and fluttered in orange and red in the trees. Both the temperature and the humidity were under sixty. I rolled the windows down and inhaled the odor of sun-dried clay and slow- rotting leaves. It was almost idyllic-until I saw the flat sign for the prison and turned off onto a slowly curving blacktop road.

There were no buildings visible from the highway. It was just a well-maintained country road until I hit the guard gate to the parking area. I gave the man my name and while he checked I watched the sun glitter off a high, razor-wired fence in the distance. I had been inside prisons before and never liked the feeling.

The guard handed me a pass and pointed the way to administration. I parked, and as I followed the sidewalk I could see down the fence line to a guard tower where the silhouette of a marksman showed in the open window. Inside the offices I stood in a waiting area with uncomfortable cushioned chairs and a portrait of the new governor.

The warden's name was Emanuel T. Bowe and he greeted me with a firm handshake across a state-issue desk. He was a tall black man with gray hair cut in a flat top and a beard that was carefully trimmed to follow the edges of his jaw line. He looked more like a college professor than a southern prison warden.

"So, Mr. Freeman. You were a detective in Philadelphia when our Mr. Moticker was convicted, do I have that right?"

"Yes sir."

"And you are now working as a private detective on a case in South Florida?"

"Yes, sir. It's in the very preliminary stages, sir," I said, the lying coming easily since it was marginal.

"Well, I will be up-front with you, Mr. Freeman. I asked Mr. Moticker if he had any objections to speaking with you and although he said he remembered you and was willing, he seemed, as I am, perplexed as to what information he might have to help you."

I only nodded.

"Frankly, I have only been the warden here for eighteen months, but Mr. Moticker has been here quite some time and has earned a certain respect from both sides out there on the pound. I would not like to see anything change that."

"And neither would I, sir. I'm not sure he can help, but if he's willing, I'd like to give it a try," I said, giving nothing up, and hoping it was enough.

The warden stood up.

"Let's go, then."

An open walkway led out to the first gate, chain-link, with a guard dressed in brown with a radio clipped to his belt. No gun. No nightstick.

He greeted the warden, looked at me, and the first snap of dry metal let us through to a cinder-block control room. Inside a fishbowl of two-inch shatterproof glass another guard said hello to Bowe, and I was quickly run over with a security wand and had to hand over my keys. When we were ready, the guard hit the electronic lock on the second metal door and we were back outside.

"Warden on the pound," a loudspeaker announced.

The compound was a low-slung collection of dull yellow buildings with wide grassy areas between. Spokes of sidewalks led from one to the other. No bushes, trees or other vegetation. Nowhere to hide. There were a few men moving about, obviously inmates because they were dressed in faded blue instead of the guard's brown. They were not being escorted. One might think of a poor man's college campus until you lifted your eyes to the towers and the sight of long-barreled rifles reminded you.

"We're headed to the machine shop," Bowe said, moving swiftly, but not hurrying. "Mr. Moticker has been the senior mechanic for some time."

The warden's long legs made it difficult to keep up without looking like you were trying.

"One never runs across the pound," he said over his shoulder. "The sharpshooters are trained to sight in on anyone running and the guards are taught to run toward the towers if they are in danger so the shooters can take out any assailants."

I knew the philosophy, but the feeling of gunsights on my neck still made the muscles in my back tingle.

"Besides, it makes the inmates uneasy to have to wonder where you are running to and for what reason," he said with a smile that did not indicate anything funny. "Information is a valued thing inside."

It sounded like a warning, and I took it as such.

The machine shop was made up of three open bays and part of a second floor with glass-fronted classrooms. There was a yellow fire engine parked in the far bay and a handful of men were clustered around a rear bumper intently watching an inmate with a welding torch.

The guard who came to meet us was in a brown uniform but his sleeves were rolled up and there were black grease marks on his forearms and hands. He and Bowe spoke for a minute, too low for me to hear. The guard nodded and walked back toward the group.

"Thirty minutes is all I can give you, Mr. Freeman," Bowe said. "There's an inmate count at two o'clock and we keep a very tight schedule. I will collect you when you're through."

I thanked him and watched the guard tap the man with the torch on the shoulder. The inmate raised his face shield and turned to look our way. He handed his tools to another inmate, gave some instruction, and walked across the shop. He was a thin, jangly man. The points of his joints stuck out at his shoulders, elbows and knees. When he got close I could see the gray in his hair and a jagged white scar that crawled through one eyebrow and then over the bridge of his nose. I knew that he was thirty-seven years old. He looked fifty.

"Warden, sir," Moticker said, addressing the superintendent first and then turning to me. "Mr. Freeman, sir." We shook hands and his grip seemed purposely weak.

"Can we do this outside, sir?" Moticker said to the guard, who nodded his head. Only then did the inmate lead me out to a concrete slab just outside the raised, garage-style door. We sat on our heels in the sun but also in full view of the bay.

"How you doin', Harlan," I started.

"I'm okay, sir," he said, taking a single cigarette from his shirt pocket and lighting it with an old-style book of cardboard matches. He took a drag and cut his eyes into the bay.

"How's the family?"

"I see my son on occasion. He's got hisself close to graduatin'," he answered, letting the smoke out slowly. "My wife, well, we got divorced a few years back."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I never did get to thank you for helpin' with the transfer, though," he said, looking me in the eye for the first time.

We were both silent, having run out of manners.

"I'll just get to it," I finally said. "I'm not a cop anymore, but I'm working a case out of Florida that has to do with an insurance investigator named Frank McCane."