Michael Koryta - The Prophet

“How is your back?” she said.

He was silent for a moment. His jaw worked, but he didn’t speak, and this time he was able to meet her eyes.

“Fine,” he said.

“I’m glad.”

“Sure.”

She smiled at him, rich and genuine, a smile you were never supposed to see in a place where faces were so often dark and threatening or unbalanced and psychotic.

“I’m so glad. I always worry, you know. I worry that it pains you.”

“Yes,” he said. “I know.”

This was the game. This was the perfected exchange, performed each month as if they were rehearsing for some stage show and needed to keep sharp. Why did he drive up here? Why in the hell did he make these visits?

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” she said, and he wondered how many times he’d heard those five words now. First in a handwritten letter to him in the hospital, then in interview rooms, then at the trial and every visit that had been made since. She was always sorry that she didn’t remember.

“You’ve told me, Jacqueline,” he said, his voice stretched. “Let’s not worry about that.”

“You know how badly I wish I could, though. For you.”

“I know.”

She smiled again, this time uncertainly. “I appreciate you making the trip. I always do.”

“It’s nothing.”

“You’ve been so good to me. The one person above all others who shouldn’t be, and you’re the one person above all others who is .”

“You don’t belong in here,” he said.

She sat up straighter then, sat up with excitement, and said, “Didn’t they tell you I get to leave?”

He cocked his head and frowned. “Leave?”

“I thought for sure they’d tell you,” she said. “I mean, I’m always sure they talk to you about me. Don’t they?”

If there was one date Kimble knew absolutely, knew surer than Christmas or his own birthday, it was the scheduled parole hearing of Jacqueline Mathis. She was not leaving this prison. Not yet.

“Jacqueline, where are—”

“I’ve been approved for work release. It might not seem like much to you, but still… you can imagine how exciting it is for me. There’s not much change around here.”

“What? Where?” He was embarrassed by the evident concern — check that, evident fear— in his voice. He liked to know where she was. He needed to know.

“It’s a thrift shop,” she said. “Some little store just down the road. I don’t care where or what, though — it’s not in this place! I’ve made the petition three times. They finally approved it.”

“Why did they now?”

“Because I’m so charming,” she said, and laughed. He waited, and she said, “Oh, take off the cop eyes, Kevin.”

She sat up straight now, dropped her voice into a low, formal tone.

“They approved me, officer, because I’ve shown myself to be nonthreatening and of sound mind and character.”

He stared at her, rubbing one hand over his jaw. It wasn’t an abnormal decision, not at this stage of her incarceration. They’d be readying her for release, assuming she made parole. She would make parole — there had been no problems and many were sympathetic to her — but that was still a year away. He had thought he had another year to get used to the idea of her being free. Why hadn’t he thought of work release?

“So you’re happy,” he said finally, just to say something.

She laughed. “Of course I’m happy. You think I’d prefer to stay in here?”

“Probably not.”

“Probably not. Master of the understatement.” She shook her head, then said, “I’ll be working the mornings, though. That will change my visitation hours. I hope that wouldn’t stop you, if you had to visit later in the day? I’ve always wondered if you’re ashamed of me after the sun comes up.”

“No, Jacqueline. It’s just… well, you know, it’s a long drive. If I come early, I beat the traffic.”

“The Sawyer County traffic,” she said. “Yes, that area around the courthouse gets pretty gridlocked for about two minutes each morning. Particularly now, with the students home for the holidays? Why, you might have to sit through one entire red light.”

He didn’t answer.

“You don’t like the idea,” she said. “Do you? Me being out of here, even for a few hours.”

“That’s not true,” he said, and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he liked the idea an awful lot.

“Well, I like it,” she said. “Out of these walls, out of these clothes. Do you know how long it’s been since I wore something other than this?”

She grasped her orange shirt between her thumb and index finger and tugged it away from her body. He got a glimpse of her collarbone and below it smooth, flawless skin.

“You could drop by there sometime,” she said. “You know — see me on the outside. ” She shifted her tone to a theatrical whisper and capped it off with a wink. He could feel his dick begin to stiffen, performing against his will, his own body laughing at him. He got to his feet abruptly, making his arousal evident.

“Kevin?”

“I’ve got to get started back,” he said. “It’s a long drive. Too long.”

“Why are you leaving so early? Did I say something —”

“Be safe,” he said, the same thing he always said, and walked to the door, using his hand to adjust himself within his pants, not wanting the attendant CO to see that development.

“I thought you would be happy for me. I thought if there was one person in the world who’d be happy for me, it would be you.”

“I am happy for you, Jacqueline. Goodbye.”

By the time the guards opened the door, he had his police eyes back.

It had been a long drive for a short visit. That was how it went with her. He could never stay too long.

Be careful with her, Wyatt French had told him.

Yeah, buddy. Listen to the old drunk. Watch your ass, Kimble.

Be very careful with her.

Preview of

A Welcome Grave

Michael Koryta is "one of the best of the best" (Michael Connelly) and his A Welcome Grave is "addictively readable" ( Chicago Tribune ). Following is an excerpt from the novel's opening pages.

Chapter One

Sometime after midnight, on a moonless October night turned harsh by a fine, windswept rain, one of the men I liked least in the world was murdered in a field near Bedford, just south of the city. Originally, they assumed the body had only been dumped there. That Alex Jefferson had been killed somewhere else, dead maybe before the mutilation began.

They were wrong.

It was past noon the next day when the body was discovered. A dozen vehicles were soon assembled in the field—police cars, evidence vans, an ambulance that could serve no purpose but was dispatched anyhow. I wasn’t there, but I could imagine the scene—I’d certainly been to enough like it.

But maybe not. Maybe not. The things they saw that day, things I heard about secondhand, from cops who recited the news in the distanced way that only hardened professionals can manage… they weren’t things I dealt with often.

Jefferson was brought from the city with his hands and feet bound with rope, duct tape over his mouth. A half mile down a dirt track leading into an empty field, he was removed from a vehicle—tire tracks suggested a van—and subjected to a systematic torture killing that was apparently quite slow in reaching the second stage. Autopsy results and scenarios created by the forensic team and the medical experts suggested Jefferson remained breathing, and probably conscious, for fifteen minutes.