Back to Lazarus

Chapter 13

13

Tanya was unavailable when I got to WFC. I had a funny feeling that from now on, no matter when I dropped by or why, Tanya would always be unavailable. Ms. Ricker, the woman standing in for her, was older than Tanya, probably in her late forties, and not nearly as pleasant. I had a sneaking suspicion she was related to the records woman at Latham.

“I’m familiar with your requests,” she said. The way she said it, you’d think I’d asked her to hitch up and be my lead dog for a little dogsled race in Alaska. Nude. “We’ve given you all of Mr. Thomas’s records.”

“Yes, ma’am. You’ve all been very helpful, and I do appreciate it, but I’m sure there are additional records. I still haven’t seen any medical records for—”

“Ms. Brennan, I assure you, we have given you all of Mr. Thomas’s records. I can’t tell you where your hypothetical records might be, should they exist, but they are not here. Now, I have other obligations.”

Although she looked ready to spit on me, or more likely run me down on her way out the door, I managed to maintain my own pleasant façade. When I told her that Tanya had promised me access to the guards who’d interacted most with Isaac, I could swear I heard Ms. Ricker’s teeth grinding. So maybe I was stretching the truth a little, but I’m sure Tanya would have done if I’d thought to ask. The woman pretended to consider my request.

“I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible. Excuse me.”

“I’ll only take a few moments of their time. I’m just trying to find something—anything—to tell his daughter. She was the victim of such tragedy. Can you imagine? For her father to kill her mother, and then take his own life… anything that could give her insight into his last days may help her find some peace.”

Perhaps I was laying it on a bit thick, but there were other administrators milling about. Ricker would look like some kind of b***h if she challenged me now.

“I understand, but it’s just not possible. We’re short-handed, and they’re about to do a count.”

I’ve never been to Los Angeles, but I’ve often thought of counts as the prison equivalent of the infamous L.A. traffic. Inmates in prisons are individually counted at regular intervals, and during those counts you cannot have an inmate visit. In addition, if you’ve passed through at least some portion of prison security, you’re often trapped at that location until the count is finished. However long that is. I generally figure on half an hour, more or less. That’s not so bad. It’s like rush hour in its predictability. You can plan around a scheduled count.

However, there are random counts as well. Perhaps they’re not truly random, but they seem so if you don’t know the reason for them, and as an outsider you rarely do. Weather is sometimes a culprit. I’ve learned not to schedule visits before 10 a.m. at certain times of year because of the fog. Even in good weather, the count can be “off,” and they have to start over. I once waited two hours for a scheduled visit when a count turned into a recount for a reason that was never divulged. It reminds me of rubber-necking slowdowns, where you get past the snail’s pace traffic only to find that either there was never an accident or anything else to gawk at, or it’s now long gone but people are still looking, just in case.

I wasn’t about to be thwarted by a count. “I’ll wait,” I told her.

She looked at her watch. “Officers start breaking for lunch in half an hour. You’re welcome to wait in the cafeteria and question them there.”

She left before I could thank her. Good. My smile was wearing thin around the edges.

The cafeteria had long tables with bench seats rather than individual tables, perhaps to avoid the feeling of high school cliquishness that seems as inherent to large eating spaces as bad food and plastic trays. I got a soda from a machine in the corner and settled down to wait. There was no guarantee employees would eat here instead of going out for lunch, so I was hoping Ricker hadn’t lied about the officers being short-handed. If they were short, they’d be less likely to have the time or freedom to leave the facility to eat.

I saw the occasional inmates in blues and a group of geeky, stocky men in short sleeve dress shirts and ties that must be contractors from outside, but the brown-uniformed corrections officers didn’t begin trickling in until about noon. The first few I approached either hadn’t worked there long enough or didn’t work in the right areas of the prison to have had contact with Isaac. Then a sandy-haired young man I recognized sat down at the end of a row.

“It’s Charley, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” When he blushed at the attention, I decided I could forgive him for calling me ma’am.

“We haven’t met, but I saw you at the Handi-Way around the corner a few days ago, talking to Annie.”

He smiled. “Oh, yes, ma’am. I remember now.” Then he must have remembered the way his superior had tried to humiliate him because he blushed again. The poor kid blushed so much he reminded me of an exotic lizard or octopus, some sort of creature gifted (or in his case cursed) with an excess of appearance-altering pigment.

“I’m Sydney.” I sat across from him and explained that I was looking for people who knew Isaac Thomas. I was trying to get information for his daughter.

“Did you know why he was sent to prison?” I asked him.

“Yes, ma’am, I did, not that he ever talked about it. To tell the truth, I found it all kinda hard to believe, but then you never know what somebody can do.”

“His daughter was very young when he was sent to prison, and she never saw him again. She didn’t even know he was dead until recently.” As I suspected, his sense of southern chivalry helped bring Charley out of his shell.

“That is a shame. I was pretty new to the job when I worked on Isaac’s wing. He seemed like a real nice man. I never knew him to cause anybody a bit of trouble. He was good with the new guys, helping them to settle down, to understand how things work and what’ll get them in trouble.” He smiled. “Not just the inmates either. He told me a few things too, about how to deal with the inmates, how to deal with the other guards. And he always did it private-like, so’s nobody would hear.”

“Would you say Isaac was a leader?”

He considered this for a moment. “Well, not really. At least, not the way most people mean leader. Isaac looked out for people, and he got things done, but he never took credit for it. He was sort of quiet. I mean, he’d have conversations, but he wasn’t one of those guys who talks just to hear the sound of his own voice. Mostly he just listened. He had a way of getting you to do the right thing, without ever telling you what it was.”

“Do you remember him having any visitors? Family or anyone?”

“No, no I don’t. I guess I just figured he didn’t have any family left. I didn’t know about his daughter.”

Charley looked down at the remaining spaghetti on his plate and played his fork around it. “Now you know, somebody who might be able to tell you something more is Sue Ellen. Seems to me like she spent a lot of time around Isaac. I know she was real upset when he died.”

“Were you around then?”

“When he died? No, I wasn’t. They were moving us around a lot about that time, and I think I was at some sort of training when it happened. I hadn’t seen much of Isaac for at least a few weeks, maybe a couple of months.”

“Were you surprised when he killed himself?”

“Well, I was and I wasn’t. Any time somebody dies it’s a surprise, and Isaac never struck me as the type. But like I said, one thing I’ve learned here is you just never know what somebody will do. And I can’t say I ever saw him depressed, but there always was something sad about him. You ever meet somebody like that? It’s like they’ve seen something or done something that no matter how hard they laugh or how big their smile is, the sad in their eyes won’t go away. I just thought that’s the way he was.”

We sat without speaking for a while, me sipping my soda and Charley finishing his spaghetti. He suddenly rose, putting his napkin over his mouth and chewing vigorously so he could speak without choking or spitting food.

“Sue Ellen!” he called, and beckoned a petite young woman to join us with her food.

She exchanged blushes with Charley as she sat next to him. Once she had her tray down she turned her shy gaze on me, tucking her short dark hair behind her ears.

“Sue Ellen, this is Sydney.” Charley went on to explain why I was there. As he did, Sue Ellen’s face grew expressionless. She locked her eyes on her salad, cutting an unripe cherry tomato with surgical precision.

“So I thought maybe you could tell her about Isaac,” Charley concluded. Sue Ellen still didn’t meet my eyes, but she glanced at Charley. Her mouth hung open, as if she were about to speak but couldn’t remember how.

“Charley! Goddammit, boy, do I have to stand over you all the time? You know we’re short. Quit jawing and get back to your post.” It was the officer who’d made fun of Charley in the convenience store.

Charley rose without a word and left, tray in hand. I watched him leave, then turned back to face Sue Ellen. Her lips were colorless, and her voice came through them at a whisper.

“I have to go too.”

She stumbled getting up and left her tray on the table. Then she exited the cafeteria, opposite the direction Charley had gone. I followed her on a hunch. As I suspected, she’d gone to the ladies’ restroom. I went through a lounge area with vinyl furniture and a mirror, through another door and into the “business part” of the arrangement. Sue Ellen was leaning over one of the two sinks, looking sick. She didn’t even seem to realize I’d entered.

“Sue Ellen?” When she turned to look at me I saw that the blood had left the rest of her face too. “Are you all right?”

She didn’t answer so I went to the neighboring sink and wet a couple of paper towels in cold water. Then I took Sue Ellen by the arm, led her back out to the lounge and set her on a vinyl chair. The cushion squeaked in response to her meager weight. I folded the cold paper towels and pressed one to her forehead. Her brown eyes were dilated and seemed too large for her thin face. She had the look of someone who’d been gradually wasting away.

“Here,” I said, handing her another towel. “Put this on the back of your neck.”

She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. “Better?” I asked. She nodded.

“I’m sorry. Something I ate this morning must have disagreed with me. Thank you.”

“No problem. I have to admit, the sight of the food in there was almost enough to make me sick too.” She tried to smile. We sat for another minute before Sue Ellen looked at me.

“Thanks again, but I really do have to go.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

She didn’t answer, but got up, smoothing her hair and the front of her cargo-type uniform pants.

“Look, Charley was wrong. I don’t know anything. I knew who Isaac was, but I don’t talk much to the inmates, or anybody else.”

She stopped, facing the door with her hand ready to pull it open.

“I feel bad for Noel, I really do, but I can’t help you.”

I waited long enough to ensure I wouldn’t run into Sue Ellen in the hallway. I didn’t want to push her. Not yet. She would talk to me in time, just as I knew she had talked to Isaac.

I hadn’t told anyone at the prison that Isaac’s daughter was named Noel.