Nat comes down to see me every Sunday, bringing a basket of books, which the staff inspects, and the fourteen dollars I am allowed each week in the commissary. I spend the entire sum on candy, since no matter how much I exercise, the food rarely seems to be worth eating. Nat and I sit at a little whitewashed version of a picnic table. Because it is minimum security, I am allowed to reach over and touch his hand for a second and to hug him when he arrives and departs. We get only an hour. He cried the first two times he saw me here, but we have started to enjoy our visits, where he does most of the talking, generally bringing me news of the world, of work, and of the family, as well as the week's best offering of Internet jokes. We spend much of the hour laughing, although there is always a moment of anguish when we discuss the Trappers, mired in yet another hopeless season.
Thus far, Nat has been my only visitor. It would be imprudent for Anna to join him for many reasons, and she keeps the same distance she has for most of the last two years. Besides, I am not really eager for anybody else to see me in here. On Sundays, when Nat arrives, I am walked through the nesting gatehouses by a CO named Gregg, literally progressing toward daylight.
I am therefore completely startled when the door to my cell swings wide open and Torrez, one of the COs who helps me with my Spanish, says, "Su amigo." He stands aside and Tommy Molto ducks his head to come through the door. I have been lying on my bunk, reading a novel. I sit up suddenly, but I have no idea what to say. Nor does Tom, who stands inside the door, seeming to wonder only now why he is here.
"Rusty." Tommy offers his hand, which I take. "Like the whiskers," he says.
I have grown a beard here, largely because the light in my cell makes shaving hazardous and because the safety razors that we are allowed are famously dull.
"How you doing here?" Molto asks.
I open my hands. "I don't care much for the health club, but at least there's room service."
He smiles. I use the line all the time in my letters.
"I didn't come to gloat, if that's what you're afraid of," says Molto. "There was a meeting here of state prison officials and PAs from around the state."
"Strange place for a get-together."
"No reporters."
"Ah."
"The Corrections Department wants the prosecutors to okay a plan to release some inmates over sixty-five."
"Because they're no longer risks?"
"To save money. The state can't really afford to pay for their health care."
I smile. What a world. No one in the criminal justice system ever talks about the cost of punishment. Everybody there thinks there's no price to morality.
"Maybe Harnason made a better deal than he thought," I tell Tommy.
Tommy likes that but shrugs. "I thought he told the truth."
"So did I. Pretty much."
Tommy nods. The cell door is still open, and Torrez is right outside. To make himself comfy, Tommy in his suit has leaned back against the wall. I have decided not to tell him that moisture often collects there.
"Anyway," says Tommy, "there are some people who think you also ought to be a candidate for early release."
"Me? Anyone outside my family?"
"There seems to be a theory in my office that you pled guilty to a crime you didn't commit."
"That's about as good as the other theories you guys had about me. They were all wrong, and so is this one."
"Well, as long as I was around, I thought I'd look in on you and see what you had to say. Kind of a coincidence, but maybe that means I'm supposed to be here."
Tommy always was a little bit of a Catholic mystic. I ponder what he's said. I don't know whether to be heartened or infuriated when it strikes me that Tommy still seems willing to trust my word. It's hard to imagine what he thinks of me. Probably nothing consistent. That's his problem.
"You've heard it now, Tom. Where'd this theory in your office come from, anyway?"
"I ran into Milo Gorvetich yesterday, and he repeated something people had been saying. I didn't quite understand at first, but it came to me in the middle of the night and it bothered me."
Tommy looks about, then sticks his head outside the door to ask Torrez for a chair. It takes a minute, and the best they can come up with is a plastic crate. I was thinking of offering Molto the seatless stainless-steel commode, but Tommy is too proper to find that amusing. Nor is it much for comfort.
"You were bothered in the middle of the night," I remind him when he is situated.
"What bothers me is that I have a son. In fact, I'm about six months from having another one."
I offer my good wishes. "You give me hope, Tommy."
"How's that?"
"Starting again at a late age? Seems to be working for you. Maybe something good will happen to me once I get out of here."
"I hope so, Rusty. Everything is possible with faith, if you don't mind me saying so."
I'm not sure that's the solution for me, but I take the advice as well-intended, and I tell Tommy as much. There is silence then.
"Anyway," Molto says eventually, "if someone told me I needed to spend two years in the hole to save my boys' lives, I'd do it in a heartbeat."
"Good for you."
"So if I was convinced that somebody I loved had monkeyed with that computer, even with no say-so from me, I might have fallen on my sword and pled guilty, just to end the whole thing."
"Right. But I'd be innocent that way, and I've said to you that I'm guilty."
"So you claim."
"Don't you find this a little ironic? I've told you for more than twenty years I'm not a murderer, and you won't believe me. You finally find a crime I actually committed, and when I say I did that, you won't accept that, either."
Molto smiles. "I'll tell you what. Since you're such a truthful guy. You explain to me exactly how you managed to mess around with that computer. Just me and you. You have my word that no one else will ever be prosecuted. In fact, whatever you say will never leave this cell. Just let me hear it."
"Sorry, Tom. We already made a deal. I said I wasn't going to answer questions, if you accepted the plea. And I'm sticking to it."
"You want me to put it in writing? You have a pen? I'll write it down now. Tear a blank page out of one of your books." He points to the stack on my single slender shelf. 'I, Tommy Molto, Prosecuting Attorney for Kindle County, promise no further prosecutions of any kind related in any way to Rusty Sabich's PC and to keep any information relayed strictly confidential.' You think that's a promise I can't keep?"
"Probably not, to be honest. But that's not the point, anyway."
"Just you and me, Rusty. Tell me what happened. And I can let this whole thing go."
"And you think you'd believe me, Tom?"
"God knows why, but yes. I don't know if you're a sociopath or not, but I wouldn't be surprised, Rusty, if you haven't lied yet. At least as you understand the truth."
"You've got that part right. Okay," I say, "here's the truth. Once and for all. You and me." I get up off the bed so I can look straight at him. "I obstructed justice. Now leave it be."
"That's what you want?"
"That's what I want."
Molto shakes his head again and in the process notices the wet spot on the shoulder of his suit. He rubs at it a few times, and when he looks up I can't quite banish a smile. His eyes harden. I have touched the old nerve between us, Rusty up, Tommy down. I've made him Mr. Truth-and-Justice in town, but when it comes to the two of us, I can still push his buttons.