Knox said, “All right, but I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, so let’s not pretend anything otherwise.”
“Fair enough,” Will agreed, following him through the door, finding himself in a smaller hallway with yet another door. A bench was on one side with a row of gun lockers. Every jail Will had ever visited had the same setup. Rather wisely, weapons were not allowed back with the prisoners.
Knox indicated the lockers. “Be sure to take out your clip and eject the round.”
“I don’t have my gun on me.”
From the look Knox gave him, Will might as well have said he’d left his penis at home.
The man’s lip curled in disgust. He turned around, walking toward the next door.
Will asked, “You said you were here when Dr. Linton made her phone call. Were you just coming on shift?”
Knox turned. “I wasn’t here when the boy killed himself, if that’s what you mean.”
“Were you on shift?” Will repeated.
He hesitated again, as if it wasn’t already clear that he didn’t want to cooperate.
Will said, “I’m assuming you’re not the regular booking officer. You’re patrol, right?”
Knox didn’t answer.
“Who was the booking officer this afternoon?”
He took his time answering. “Carl Phillips.”
“I’ll need to talk to him.”
He smiled. “Carl’s on vacation. Left this afternoon. Camping with his wife and kids. No phones.”
“When will he be back?”
“You’ll have to ask Frank about that.”
Knox took out his keys and opened the door. To Will’s relief, they were finally at the jail. Beside another large door was a viewing window showing another hallway, but this one had the familiar metal doors of jail cells. Just outside the cells was a sort of office for the officer in charge. To one side was a large filing cabinet. To the other was a built-in desk with six flat-screen monitors showing the inside of five of the cells. The sixth monitor had a game of solitaire going. Knox’s supper, a homemade sandwich with chips, was laid out in front of a computer keyboard.
Knox said, “Only got three people in here tonight,” by way of explanation.
Will checked the screens. One man was pacing his cell, the other two were curled up on their bunks. “Where’s the tape for the cameras?”
The cop rested his hand on the computer. “Stopped recording yesterday. We’ve got a call in to get it fixed.”
“That’s really strange that it stopped working right when you needed it.”
Knox shrugged. “Like I said, I wasn’t here.”
“Were any of the prisoners released after Braham was found?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t in on that.”
Will took the answer as a tacit yes. “Do you have the visitors’ log?”
He opened up one of the filing cabinets and pulled out a sheet of paper, which he handed to Will. The form was lined with columns for names and times, the usual sort of paperwork you found in any jail in America. At the top of the page, someone had written in the date. The rest of the form was blank.
Knox said, “Guess Sara didn’t sign in.”
“Have you known her long?”
“She looked after my kids until she left town. How long have you known her?”
Will noticed a subtle change in the man’s anger. “Not long.”
“Looked like you knew her plenty well, sitting in the car with her for an hour like that in front of the hospital.”
Will hoped he didn’t look as surprised as he felt. He had forgotten how insular and incestuous small towns could be. He pressed his luck. “She’s a lovely woman.”
Knox puffed out his chest. He was at least six inches shorter than Will, obviously trying to make up for it with bravado. “Jeffrey Tolliver was the finest man I ever worked with.”
“His reputation is well known in Atlanta. It was out of respect for him that my boss sent me down here to look after his people.”
Knox narrowed his eyes, and Will realized the patrolman could take his words in many different ways, not least of all as a sign that Will planned to go light on the investigation out of respect for Jeffrey Tolliver. This seemed to relax Knox, so Will did not correct him.
Knox said, “Sara just gets a little hot under the collar sometimes. Real emotional.”
Will would hardly describe Sara as someone ruled by her emotions. He didn’t trust his ability to pull off a cliché like “Women!” He simply nodded and shrugged at the same time, as if to say, “What are you gonna do?”
Knox kept staring at him, trying to make up his mind. “All right, then,” he finally said. He used a plastic card to open the last door. His keys were still in his hand, and he jangled them as he walked. “This’n’s a drunk sleeping it off. Came in about an hour ago.” He indicated the next cell. “Meth head. He’s coming down hard. Last time we tried to wake him, he near about knocked somebody’s teeth out.”
“What about door number three?” Will asked.
“Wife beater.”
“I am not!” came a muffled shout from behind the door.
Knox silently nodded to Will. “Third time he’s been locked up for it. She won’t testify-”
“Goddamn right!” the man screamed.
“He’s covered in his own puke, so I’m gonna have to hose him down if you wanna talk to him.”
“I hate to ask…” Will shrugged. “It might help expedite this so we can all get back to our lives. My wife’s gonna kill me if I’m not home for the holiday.”
“Know whatcha mean.” Knox motioned Will to the next cell. The door was open. “This is it.”
Tommy Braham’s blood had been cleaned up, but the red stain on the concrete floor told the story. His feet would have been toward the door, head back. Maybe he was lying on his side, arm out in front of him. Will guessed from the circumference of the stain that Tommy had not just stopped at one wrist. He had cut open both to make sure the job was done right.
Will stepped into the cell, feeling a slight sense of claustrophobia. He took in the cinder-block-lined walls, the metal bed frame with its thin mattress. The toilet and sink were built as one stainless steel unit. The bowl looked clean, but the smell of sewage was pungent. Beside the sink was a toothbrush, a metal cup, and a small tube of toothpaste like the kind you’d get at a hotel. Will wasn’t superstitious, but he was keenly aware that Tommy Braham had, in his misery, taken his life here less than eight hours ago. The feel of his death still lingered.
“‘Not me,’” Knox said.
Will turned around, wondering what he meant.
Knox nodded toward the faded wall. “That’s what he wrote. ‘Not me.’” He took on a knowing tone. “If it wasn’t you, buddy, then why’d you kill yourself?”
Will had never found it useful to ask dead men to explain their motivations, so he threw the question back to Knox. “Why do you think he kept insisting he didn’t kill Allison Spooner?”
“Told you.” Knox touched the side of his head. “Not right up here.”
“Crazy?”
“Nah, just stupider than shit.”
“Too stupid to know how to kill somebody?”
“Hell, I wish there was such a thing. Wouldn’t have to keep such a close eye on the wife during that time of month.” He gave a loud laugh, and Will forced himself to join in, pushing away thoughts of Tommy lying on the floor of this cell, slicing and slicing the ink cartridge across his wrist, trying to draw blood. How long would it take before the flesh opened? Would the skin get hot from the friction? Would the metal ink cartridge start to get warm? How long would it take for enough blood to leave his body so that his heart stopped?
Will turned back to the faded letters on the wall. He didn’t want to break this new, if false, camaraderie with Knox. “Did you know Allison Spooner?”