“Not your problem.”
“Like hell it’s not.”
“Suppose this happened to you,” I say.
“What?”
“Suppose you were in my place. Suppose the murdered boy was Adam. What would you do to find him?”
Philip Mackenzie shakes his head and collapses back into his chair. He puts both hands on his face and rubs vigorously. Then he hits the intercom and calls for a guard.
“Goodbye, David.”
“Please, Philip.”
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
Philip Mackenzie diverted his gaze so he wouldn’t see his correctional officer enter and escort David out. He didn’t say goodbye to his godson. After he left, Philip sat in his office alone. The air felt heavy around him. He had hoped that David’s request to see him — the first one David had made in the nearly five years he’d been incarcerated here — would be some sort of positive sign. Perhaps David finally wanted to get help from a mental health professional. Perhaps David wanted to take a deeper dive into what he’d done that awful night or at the very least, try to scratch out some kind of productive life, even here, even after what he’d done.
Philip opened his desk drawer and took out a photograph from 1973 of two men — correction: dumb kids — decked out in military fatigues in Khe San. Philip Mackenzie and Lenny Burroughs, David’s father. They’d both gone to Revere High School before being drafted. Philip grew up on the top floor of a three-family row house on Centennial Avenue. Lenny lived a block away on Dehon Street. Best friends. War buddies. Cops patrolling Revere Beach. Philip had stood as David’s godfather. Lenny had been Philip’s son Adam’s. Adam and David had gone to school together. The two had been best friends at Revere High School. The cycle had started anew.
Philip stared at the image of his old friend. Lenny was lying on his deathbed now. There was nothing anyone could do to help him. It was just a matter of time. The Lenny in the old photo was smiling that Lenny Burroughs smile, the one that made hearts melt, but his eyes seemed to bore right now into Philip’s.
“Nothing I can do, Lenny,” he said out loud.
The photo Lenny just smiled and stared.
Philip took a few deep breaths. It was getting late. His office would be closing soon. He reached out and hit the intercom button on his desk again.
His receptionist said, “Yes, Warden?”
“Get me on the first flight to Boston in the morning.”
Chapter 4
There is never silence in a prison.
My “experimental” wing is circular with eighteen individual cells on the perimeter. The entrance still has old-school see-through bars. In one of the oddest moves, the stainless-steel toilet and sink — yes, they are combined into one — are right by the bars. Our cells, unlike general pop, each have a small private shower in the back corner. The guards have shutoff valves if you take too long. There is a poured-concrete bed with a mattress so thin it’s almost transparent. Handles are built into the bed’s corners for attaching four-point restraints. So far, that has not been necessary for me. There is also a poured-concrete desk and poured-concrete stool. I have a television and a radio that only broadcast religious or educational programming. A single narrow window slot is angled up, so I can only teasingly see the sky.
I lay on said concrete bed and stare up at the ceiling. I know this ceiling intimately. I close my eyes and try to sort through the facts. I go through the day again — that horrible day — and search for something I may have missed. I had taken Matthew out, first to the local playground by a duck pond and then to the supermarket on Oak Street. Had I noticed anybody suspicious at either? I hadn’t, of course, but I reach back now and comb my memory for new details. None are forthcoming. You’d think I would remember this day better, that every moment would still be vivid in my mind, but it all grows fuzzier day by day.
I had sat on a playground bench next to a young mother with an aggressively progressive baby stroller. The young mother had a daughter Matthew’s age. Had she told me her child’s name? Probably, but I don’t remember. She wore yoga clothing. What had we talked about? I don’t remember. What exactly am I searching for here? I don’t know that either. The owner of that hand, I guess — the adult man’s hand holding Matthew’s in Rachel’s photograph. Had he been watching us at the playground? Had he followed us?
I have no idea.
I go through the rest of it. Coming home. Putting Matthew to bed. Grabbing a drink. Flipping channels on the television. When had I fallen asleep? I don’t know that either. I only remember waking up to the smell of blood. I remember heading down the hallway...
The prison lights come on with a loud snap. I shoot up in bed, my face coated with sweat. It is morning. My heart thumps in my chest. I swallow down some breaths, trying to calm myself.
What I saw in those Marvel-themed pajamas, that awful misshapen bloody form... it was not Matthew. That was the key here. It was not my son.
Was it?
Doubt starts to worm its way into my brain. How could it not? But for now, I won’t let the doubt in. There is nothing to gain from doubting. If I’m wrong, I will eventually find out and then I’ll be back to where I am now. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So for now: No doubts. Just questions about how this could possibly be. Perhaps, I surmise, the brutality had been to cover up the victim’s — yes, good, think of him as a victim, not Matthew — identity. The victim was male, of course. He was Matthew’s size and general shape and skin tone. But they hadn’t run a DNA test or anything like that. Why would they? No one doubted the victim’s identity, right?
Right?
My fellow inmates began their daily rituals. We don’t have roommates in our twelve-feet-by-seven-feet cells, but we can look in on almost every other inmate. This is supposed to be “healthier” than the older ones where there was no social interaction and too much isolation. I wish they hadn’t bothered, because the less interaction the better. Earl Clemmons, a serial rapist, starts his day by offering the rest of us a play-by-play of his morning constitutional. He includes sound effects like cheering crowds and full sportscasting, mimicking one voice for the straight play-by-play and another offering color commentary. Ricky Krause, a serial killer who cut off his victims’ thumbs with pruning shears, likes to begin his day with a song parody of sorts. He twists lyrics, taking old classics and giving them his own perverse spin. Right now, Ricky is repeatedly belting out, “Someone’s in the kitchen, getting vagina,” and cracking up harder and harder as those around him shout for him to shut up.
We get in line for breakfast. In the past, those of us housed in this wing had our meals delivered, which makes it sound like we used DoorDash or something. No more. One of our fellow inmates protested that forcing a man to eat by himself in his cell was unconstitutional. He sued. Inmates love lawsuits. In this case, however, the prison system happily exploited the opening. Serving prisoners in their cells was expensive and labor-intensive.
The small cafeteria has four tables, each with metal stools, all bolted to the ground. I like to meander and wait until everyone else is seated, so that I can find the stool that will put me as far away from the more animated of my fellow inmates as possible. Not that the conversations aren’t stimulating. The other day, several inmates got into a heated one-upmanship over who had raped the oldest woman. Earl “bettered” his opponents with his claim of sodomizing an eighty-seven-year-old after he broke into her apartment via the fire escape. Other inmates questioned the veracity of Earl’s claim — they thought that he might be exaggerating just to impress them — but the next day Earl came back with saved newspaper clippings.