Unknown - The_Growing_589064

A thump of boot soles on concrete and the jingle of manacles announces McCallum’s progress down the hall. Maggie clears the table of all save one notepad and pen, tilting the lampshade so that her face is half in shadow. The door opens to admit McCallum, Major Boudreaux and an MP who promptly takes his station by the door jamb. His name tag identifies him as Corporal Esparza, George. Maggie says, “Sit down, Major. And Mr.”—she makes a show of checking the printouts in front of her “Eric McCallum, is it?”

McCallum sets his elbows on the table, clasping his hands in front of him. A skull and crossbones earring dangles from one ear; a tattooed crown, impaled by a cross, adorns his left forearm. The words “DIE MOTHERFUCKER” march across his knuckles, an amateur prison job done by incising the skin and rubbing ball point ink into the cuts. “Let’s ut to the chase here, why don’t we? You want something I’ve got; I want something you can do for me. How about it?”

Maggie ignores him. Instead she addresses Boudreaux. “Major, your client has been advised of his rights, has he not? He is aware that this interview is being recorded and that anything he volunteers can and will be used against him in a court of law?”

Boudreaux’s thin face acquires a resigned look, dark eyebrows reaching up his forehead to chase his long-departed hairline. “He knows, Colonel. He knows he cannot be compelled to give testimony against himself. He is pursuing his present line of inquiry against counsel.”

“Is that true, Mr. McCallum? Major Boudreaux has advised you that you have the right to remain silent? That you have the right not to answer any questions except upon the advice of your legal representative?”

“Lady,” McCallum says, “I have heard that bullshit so many times I could say it in my sleep. Let’s deal.”

Maggie ignores his second offer. “And Major Boudreaux has informed you that under military law you face a possible death sentence if you are convicted of the crime of rape, or of aiding the enemy, or both?”

The muscles around the man’s mouth tighten., accentuating the rawboned line of his jaw. His eyes, already narrow with the light directed into his face, become mere slits. “Why do you think I want to cooperate? You get me off, I give you information about the droids. Everybody’s happy.”

“And what information do you have that would be worth sparing your life, Mr. McCallum?”

“Excuse me,” Boudreaux interrupts. “Look,” he says, addressing McCallum, “I already warned you about saying anything at all. You didn’t listen. But any answer at all to that question will almost certainly make you guilty of the conspiracy charge and aiding the enemy.”

“Big fucking deal,” McCallum snorts. “And how many of them bitches is gonna testify I screwed ‘em against their will? By the time they get through with that, the rest won’t fucking matter.”

Q: Please state your name for the record.

A: Inez C* * *.

Q: What is your profession, Ms. C* * *?

A: I’m a nurse—an LVN.

Q: Ms. C* * *, were you one of the women imprisoned in the Corrections Corporation of America facility in Rapid City?

A: I was.

Q: And how did you come to be there?

A: The droids took several women there from the hospital.

Q: Can you describe conditions there?

A: We were kept two to a cell. They fed us twice a day—rice, potatoes, starchy stuff.

Q: Did you have any medical care?

A: They asked us when we’d had our last periods. They took our temps every day.

Q: Do you know why they did that?

A: They never said, but it was obvious that they were trying to keep track of ovulation cycles.

“Mr McCallum,” Maggie says, “I think you had better understand something. I’m not your prosecutor. I’m setting up the tribunal to try you and your co-defendants and am gathering preliminary information. Whether or not to grant clemency will be entirely up to the jury and the judges.” She straightens the already perfectly neat arrangement of papers and pens in front of her. “What I can do is make a recommendation. You won’t get any promises, not at this level.”

“Listen, bitch.” McCallum surges to his feet, pushing his chair back so hard it rocks on its legs. The MP darts forward to catch it, grabbing the prisoner by the arm. Boudreax half rises, then subsides when it is clear that the officer has him. McCallum glances toward the door, and Maggie can almost see him computing the odds of getting to it and out. Then he, too, settles back into his seat. His face has not lost its snarl, nor has Maggie taken her hand off her sidearm.

“Listen, Colonel,” he repeats. “You got no right to try me at all. The Constitution says I got a right to a speedy trial by my peers. My peers ain’t no goddam military kangaroo court .”

“True,” she answers drily. “The problem, Mr. McCallum, is that your only available ‘peers’ are facing charges similar to your own. The fact is, we’re the only law in town, and if you want to deal with the law, you’re going to have to deal with us.” She gives him a small, tight smile. “ Make your argument, though. If you persuade us we can’t hold you, we might just have to turn you loose. Right into the waiting hands of your victims.”

“You can’t do that!”

Maggie says nothing. She opens a manila folder prominently labeled with McCallum’s name, makes a notation, closes it again.

“She can’t do that!” McCallum turns to Boudreaux. “She can’t! It violates my right to due process!”

Boudreaux develops a sudden interest in the toes of his shoes. “Actually, Mr. McCallum, the Base authorities can hold you, or they can release you. There really aren’t any facilities for long- or even medium-term incarceration here. If you satisfy the Acting Judge Advocate’s office that there is no grounds on which to hold you—” he shrugs—“they will doubtless release you. What happens after that is your own responsibility.”

“And before you start telling us again what we can’t do,” Maggie adds, “I suggest you start spelling out what you can do for us. Because that is your best, probably your only, chance of saving your lousy life.”

McCallum glances at Boudreaux. “I wanna talk to my counsel here. Privately.”

Boudreaux glances at Maggie in his turn, his eyes wide as his hornrims will allow. She says, “Officer, shackle Mr. McCallum here to the table leg. Counsel, if I were you, I’d get out of arms’ reach.”

When the MP has the prisoner secured to the table, which is itself firmly bolted to the floor, Maggie slips quietly into the hall, taking her files with her. The MP follows and takes up station by the door.

“Esparza, if you hear even a whisper that sounds wrong to you, you give a yell and get back in there. I’ll be right behind you. Meantime, I’m going to get me a breath of real air.”

“Yes’m. It was close in there.”

“It was nasty in there, Corporal. The bastard’s a psychopath.”

*

Maggie lets herself out of the building into a day just on the cusp of spring. Melting ice makes runnels of brown water in the gutter that runs along the street that separates the brig from the old parade ground; by the steps of the building, a few blades of dessicated, grey-brown grass push up through the receding snow. The sun rides higher in the sky, veiled from time to time by cumulus clouds blowing northward on a warming breeze. If she were poetical, Maggie thinks, she would draw a metaphor out of that. Life returning. Springtime renewal. The beginning of a new cycle.

But the past months are too much with her. Too much is unexplained, too much beyond repair. To her the widening circles of snow melt over the lawn look like wounds, the transparent edges the dissolving margins of necrosis.