She started to stand, but he raised two palms, as though he could keep her in her seat through some invisible force. “Please, don’t get up. How nice to see you. Is something wrong with Paul?”
“Why would you ask that?” Charlotte asked, her voice tinged with suspicion.
“I just—” He cut himself off, looked at Hailey.
“I told Walter you were heading up in the elevator,” Hailey said, “and all we could think was that Paul was in some sort of trouble. Has he been back to see the neurologist? Is that what this is about?”
“He hasn’t,” Charlotte said. “It’s a different issue than that. I came here because, I think you need to know that Paul is going through a very difficult time, and I don’t know that I can handle it all alone.”
Hailey shrugged hopelessly. “Tell me about these voices he’s hearing.”
“Jesus, hearing voices?” Walter said.
“I never said voices,” Charlotte said. “More like sounds, in the night, sounds I don’t hear.”
“It’s a good thing you’re telling us this,” Walter said. “Thank you.”
Charlotte shot him a look. “Thank you?”
“Well, it’s good to know,” he said. “Because of Josh.” Walter glanced at his wife. “Right? If there’s something wrong with Paul, we need to know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlotte asked.
Hailey looked apologetically at Charlotte. “It’s just, well, if Paul is unstable, I mean, that’s something we’d have to take into account when it’s your turn to have Josh.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Charlotte said. “And I’m not suggesting Paul’s dangerous.”
“Of course not,” Hailey said earnestly. “But I can’t help but be concerned about the environment Josh is in. It could be very troubling to him, to be there if his father is having... episodes. He was very upset after his last visit to your house.”
Charlotte slowly shook her head.
Walter was nodding, as though he’d seen this coming all along. “We know that what’s happened with Paul isn’t his fault. He didn’t ask that man to attack him. It’s a terrible tragedy, all the way around. But we have to deal with the fallout from that, whether it’s fair or not.”
“I don’t believe this,” Charlotte said.
“Well, if he’s delusional,” Walter said, “it’s simply out of the question that Josh can be spending any unsupervised time with him.”
“I have to agree with Walter,” Hailey said.
Charlotte pushed her chair back and stood.
“Nice to know you’re all so very concerned,” she said.
“No, Charlotte, please,” Hailey protested, placing a hand on Charlotte’s arm. Charlotte shook it off.
“I came here looking for some help, or failing that, some sympathy, maybe even a shred of insight,” she said. “But look what you’re doing. Seizing on Paul’s misfortune as an opportunity to keep sole custody of Josh.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Hailey said.
“How dare you,” Walter chimed in.
“That’s what you’d like, isn’t it? Full custody. Force Paul right out of his son’s life. In his current state, he needs the love of his son more than ever. He needs to know people love him.”
“That’s absurd,” Hailey said. “I would never do that to Josh, or to his father.”
“Seems to be exactly what you’re proposing. Maybe it’d make your whole life easier if Paul just did go ahead and kill himself.”
Hailey gasped and recoiled. “Where did that come from? How could you say such a thing? Is Paul suicidal?”
Charlotte burst into tears. “I don’t know! I hardly know anything anymore.” She quickly pulled herself together. “All I’m saying is, it would make it simpler for you.” She fixed her eyes on Walter. “Then you could stop bitching and moaning about getting stuck on the FDR while coming out to Milford.”
“I think it’s time for you to leave, Charlotte,” Walter said.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
As Charlotte moved for the door to the conference room, she stopped, as if she’d forgotten something.
She looked at Hailey.
“How did you let yourself in the other day?” she said.
“What?”
“Into our house. You had the door open before anyone could get down there to open it for you. Do you have a key? Did you make a copy of Josh’s?”
“What on earth are you implying?” Hailey asked.
Charlotte left without saying another word to either of them.
Thirty-Nine
Paul and Anna were not allowed to take much of anything into the main prison area. Car keys, purse, wallet, even spare change, all had to be checked. The guard asked what was in Paul’s envelope and he said “papers.” The guard flipped open the end of the envelope and peered inside long enough to see it did, in fact, contain papers and nothing else — Paul wondered if he was expecting to find a couple of joints in there — but did not pull them out far enough to see what was typed on them. Paul was allowed to keep them.
“You got lucky,” Anna whispered to him as they were led through two sets of gates.
It had been arranged for them to meet with Kenneth Hoffman in a room separate from the common visiting area. Paul had never set foot in a prison before — Anna said she’d been on a couple of “field trips” to correctional institutions during her training — and he found himself trying to take in everything along the way to their appointment. The cinder block walls painted pale green, the clang of gates closing, the smell of desperate men. It felt, in some strange way, like a high school, except instead of windows, there were bars, and instead of young kids bouncing off the walls, there were people without hope.
Plus, there was the feeling that at any moment, someone would stick a shiv in your side.
Paul had a dozen questions for the guard — the man was built like an armoire — leading them through the prison. Had there ever been a riot? Had anyone escaped? Did people really try to hide metal files inside cakes? But not wanting to look like an idiot, he kept all the questions to himself.
“Here we go,” the guard said as they reached a metal door with a small, foot-square window at eye level. He unlocked it and showed them into a drab, gray space about ten by ten feet. The only things in there, aside from a camera mounted up by the ceiling in one corner, were a table and three chairs — two on one side, one on the other. Paul noted the metal ring bolted to the top of the table, and brackets that attached the table legs to the floor with bolts.
“Have a seat,” the guard said, motioning to the two chairs that were side by side. “I’ll be back.” He left, closing the door behind him.
They sat.
After three minutes, Paul looked at Anna and said, “I hope they don’t forget we’re here.”
Eight minutes after that, the door reopened. The guard stepped in, followed by Kenneth Hoffman.
Paul stood and took in his one-time friend, stunned by what he saw. Dressed in a short-sleeved, one-piece orange coverall, Hoffman would probably have been six feet tall, but he had become round-shouldered, as though an invisible boulder were perched at the back of his neck. And a man who had once come in at around 180 pounds didn’t look much more than 150. His arms were thin and ropy, and beneath his scrawny gray beard — Paul had always known Hoffman to be clean-shaven — his cheeks were hollow. He’d lost much of his hair, his pink scalp visible through wisps of gray.
All this in eight months.
But what struck Paul most were Hoffman’s eyes. There was no sparkle, no depth to them. It was as though they were layered with wax paper.
Dead eyes.
“Paul,” Hoffman said, his voice low and leaden.