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Chapter 12

12

The kinds of places I stay when I’m working don’t have much to offer in the way of luxury, but they do have the panacea of hot water. The next morning, I showered until the steam billowed from the bathroom when I opened the door. Then I wiped the mirror with a hand towel, reveling in the streaks.

Once I’d dressed (light blue shirt with khakis this time—it was too hot for jeans) I walked next door to Denny’s, my notes tucked under my arm. I had some OJ and an English muffin while I tried to gather my thoughts. This is also typical road routine, which explains the jelly smears on many of my note pads.

Noel had talked about her old babysitter and neighbor, Miss Johnson, but she hadn’t even known her first name. Last night before turning in, I’d channeled my insomnia and unruly thoughts of married men into completing my initial review of the trial attorney file. I’d jotted down everything I could find on Miss Johnson and was hoping the police reports had given enough identifying information to track her down. Or rather, for me to have Mike at the PD’s office track her down. He struck me as the efficient type, so I should have just enough time to get an address on her before heading out to Ida’s place in Lazarus in the evening.

My first stop of the morning was Latham C.I. to check on Isaac’s medical records. I got nothing there but dirty looks. Well, almost nothing. The records administrator was a stern woman in a plain navy ankle-length dress and cardigan. From her demeanor, I suspected she valued economy in thought as highly as economy in dress. She remained standing behind her desk, but I pretended not to get the hint. I sank down in a metal folding chair as if it were plushly upholstered and began removing items from my bag, including a notebook and pen.

“You won’t need that,” she told me.

I ignored her words and waited expectantly like an eager pupil. She pushed on.

“Isaac Thomas was processed and spent exactly one day here at Latham Correctional Institute. He was returned the same day he arrived, and he was not treated or tested, nor did he in any way receive attention from our staff. If he had, we would have a record of it. Further, regardless of what you may have been told by ill-informed individuals at other institutions, any records that come in with an inmate leave with him, and Mr. Thomas would have been no exception. At Latham, we keep records of those actions actually initiated at our institution, but if we maintained full medical records on everyone who passes through here we’d have no room for the inmates. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

I didn’t have a chance to speak, even if I could have thought of something to say. She left her office before I’d even gathered my belongings. Honesty compels me to admit that when I have all my paraphernalia (official-looking bag, pads, pens) I’m often the last person to leave a room. It started as a natural behavior, taking time to put everything in its place, but then I began cultivating it. I’ve heard and seen a lot of things I otherwise wouldn’t have without my apparently abstracted tardiness. This was to be no exception.

As I closed the flap on my bag, I noticed an inmate in blues loitering in the hallway by the door. He was a youngish black man—that is, about my age. Still young by outside standards, but old enough in the prison population to start knowing better, start settling down and maybe even start feeling old. I remembered nodding to him when I walked in. He’d been mopping the hall, and it looked like he was still cleaning the same spot.

“That Miss Hinckley knows everything there is to know about records,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s what she told me. In fact, I think those may have been her exact words.”

He smiled and leaned on his mop. “’Course, that don’t mean she knows everything there is to know about prisons.”

“No, I wouldn’t think she would.”

I noticed he also pulled a big garbage bin behind him, so I picked up Miss Hinckley’s wastepaper basket and took it to him. He dumped the basket, giving an extra shake for those particularly sticky documents.

“You don’t work for the State, do you?” he asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“Didn’t think so, and I can usually tell.” He walked slowly into the office to return the empty basket. “Sometimes we get some mighty healthy-looking people in here. Seems to me like not everybody that comes here on a medical is really here because they’re sick.”

He replaced the can and stood in the doorway. I finally picked up my bag and moved to join him.

“What else would bring someone to this fine institution?”

He looked slowly up and down the hallway before speaking. “Personally, I don’t know. But I hear things. Like maybe if somebody wants to have a private chat with you, the kind you don’t want nobody to know about, they suddenly decide you don’t look so well and get you a medical transfer. Just long enough to talk to you. Then you have a miracle recovery and get sent back home. You follow me?”

Fortunately I did, because I figured that was all he was saying. “Yeah. Thanks, man.”

He nodded and loaded up his cleaning supplies. “It ain’t gospel, but that’s what I hear.” He moved down the hall away from me, then turned with a grin and did a half-skip backwards. He cupped a hand around each ear, both of which stood out straight without any help. “And like the ladies always say, I got me some damn fine ears.”

His words occupied my thoughts as I drove to WFC. Without an autopsy, there was no way of knowing if Isaac’s organs were eaten up by cancer or some other terminal illness. Of course, even with an autopsy the M.E. may not notice ill health in a suicide, much less the suicide of an inmate. But if Isaac hadn’t been sick at all… Nothing in Isaac’s visitation records indicated a visit from a cop, but that didn’t mean anything. Someone could have looked the other way on the sign-in, or the medical transfer could have been their first meeting. But why? After twenty years of incarceration, what information could Isaac possibly have that was important enough to justify the charade?

The most obvious answer was information about another inmate, something he’d overheard or something someone had confessed to him. It was obvious, but it didn’t feel right. First of all, common sense says snitching is more common in jail than in a prison. Elaborate systems develop in some jails, pipelines of information to satisfy the law enforcement wish list, with that information occasionally coming directly from the officers. Inmates find out who’s ripe for snitching, what needs to be said, and jump on board for reduced sentences. It’s pretty simple, and everybody knows about it. Everybody, that is, except the jurors who convict people based on snitch testimony.

It gets more complicated in prison. The guys there have already been convicted and sentenced, so no one in a position of power cares about their cases anymore. Plus chances are good that you’re looking at multiple jurisdictions with the snitcher, the snitchee, and the place they’re incarcerated. Like I said, complicated. I suspected that in prison, you’d have to hold some pretty compelling information to get noticed and make it worth the effort of following up.

Aside from the practical considerations, Isaac just didn’t strike me as the snitching type. He hadn’t made a statement of any kind in his own case. Richard told me he’d refused to either confirm or deny his guilt, to the court or to his own attorneys, even when it could have helped him get a more lenient sentence. Often when a defendant pleads guilty as part of a plea agreement, he’s required to make a statement to the court, setting out the circumstances of his case and his part in the crime. Isaac had avoided that by pleading nolo contendere (no contest) to the charges against him, not admitting responsibility but agreeing to not contest the charges.

The State had been unable to produce any jailhouse snitches against Isaac, or at least none worth using. Isaac apparently was not a chatty guy, so it seemed unlikely that he’d encourage others to unburden themselves to him. And he had no known history of snitching over decades of incarceration. It didn’t make sense. In order to get my head around it, I needed to have a better understanding of what kind of inmate, and what kind of person, Isaac had been.