This Jefferson seemed like an all right dude. It was worth a shot to probe for a little information. "MacDonald tells me Moses killed a state trooper tonight."
"MacDonald talks too much."
"He thinks I know where Moses was headed."
"Like I said: he talks too much."
So much for loose lips.
Another guard looked on with mild amusement as Jefferson and his battered prisoner passed in the hallway. They walked another thirty feet and stopped at the iron bars. The buzzer sounded, the door slid open, and they entered the next wing. Theo's legs were killing him, but thankfully it only took another two minutes to reach the infirmary. The door was made of chain link rather than iron bars. Jefferson unlocked it with his key and escorted Theo inside.
The medical staff had gone home for the night, so Jefferson signed Theo's name into the log book at the registration desk and took him inside. The infirmary was a dormitory-style facility with a dozen beds on either side of the rectangular-shaped room and a wide aisle down the center. A crash cart and a gurney were in the corner, next to a row of IV poles. Only one other inmate was a patient, and he was asleep at the other end of the room, snoring loudly. It was lights-out for the entire jail, but the barred windows had no shades, and the nighttime security lighting allowed them to see what they were doing. Jefferson put Theo in the near bed.
Theo let out another groan as he settled onto the mattress. It was more comfortable than the bunk in his cell, but not even a heated waterbed could have soothed these bruises. That his hands were still cuffed behind his back only made it worse. Jefferson helped him roll onto his side and slid a pillow under his head. Theo asked for water, and the guard brought him a cup to rinse the blood from his mouth. Fortunately, the bleeding had stopped.
Jefferson said, "I'll find MacDonald and see if I can get the keys to these cuffs."
"That would help."
"You okay for now?"
"I think so."
Jefferson left him there. Theo heard his footsteps fade, heard the door open and then close. The noise was loud enough to disturb the other inmate. He snorted twice, smacked like a toddler eating peanut butter, and mercifully his snoring stopped. Theo lay with his back to him, however, so he couldn't tell if the man was actually awake or simply sleeping in a position that wasn't conducive to snoring. Either way, Theo appreciated the silence.
Theo closed his eyes, but they soon opened. Oddly, the silence was almost too complete, at least for a jail. Snoring, farting, puking, grunting, cursing, pissing, howling, sucking, fucking – those were the normal sounds of prison in the dead of night. It felt strange to hear none of it. Beyond strange.
Theo lay motionless in the bed. His left arm was falling asleep from lying on it, but the rest of his body was wide awake. He stayed in that position for five solid minutes. Ten minutes. Almost half an hour. Either Jefferson had forgotten about him or he was having trouble finding MacDonald. He wasn't coming back with the keys to the handcuffs anytime soon. Theo would just have to make the best of it.
He shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable. Then he heard a noise. "Jefferson?" he said.
There was no answer.
He was sure he'd heard something. He remained perfectly still, completely silent.
There it was again – a kind of scuffing noise, but it was so faint that Theo couldn't determine where it was coming from.
"Jefferson, that you?" he said.
The room was silent.
Theo's pulse quickened. Lying alone on death row for four years had taught him to differentiate sounds. He could tell the difference between mechanical sounds and the sounds of the building. The sounds of falling rain and a leaky faucet. The sounds of his cell and another cell. The sounds of an inmate and a guard. The sounds that meant nothing and those that meant trouble.
He heard the noise again – louder, closer, a stealthy attacker's misplaced footfall. Theo sprang into action, but with his hands cuffed behind his back, he couldn't react fast enough. The man quickly overpowered him, burying a knee in Theo's back and pinning him facedown on the mattress. Before Theo could even get a word out, the cord was around his neck. He heard himself groan. His vision blurred. His groaning turned to wheezing. The man pulled tighter, his grip tightening.
Theo kicked and squirmed, but he felt himself weakening. Arterial flow continued in the head and neck, bringing more blood from the heart. The veins, however, were completely compressed, leaving the blood no escape, building pressure on the brain. His head pounded with congestion, like the worst sinus headache imaginable. His eyes bulged, and his face flushed red. He could taste blood, not just from the earlier wounds Officer MacDonald had inflicted, but as additional small bleeding sites erupted in the moist, soft mucosa of his lips and mouth.
Theo felt the man's weight shift. He was leaning forward, and Theo suddenly felt his breath on the back of his neck.
"This is for-"
Before the man could finish, Theo arched his spine and threw his head back like a wild bull, effecting a reverse head butt. It was a direct hit, and the man cried out in pain. Theo seized the opportunity, drawing up his knees, pushing up with all his strength, and sending his attacker flying to the floor. The cord was off his neck. Theo coughed as he sucked in air, but he didn't miss a beat. He rolled off the bed – falling, more than pouncing on his attacker. His arms were useless, but Theo had legs like an Olympic wrestler, and he immediately recognized his serious height and weight advantage over this punk. They were both on the floor. Theo had the guy in a scissors lock, nearly crushing his attacker's skinny neck between his massive thighs.
"Now it's your turn to choke," said Theo. He knew he could have killed him if he'd wanted to. But dead men don't talk. He squeezed tightly, but not too tightly.
"Jefferson!" he shouted into the darkness.
Chapter 33
Just after 2:00 A.M. Jack and Uncle Cy were in the infirmary with Theo, waiting for the on-call physician to arrive. Theo downplayed his injuries, but the evidence of his beating was obvious. Jack got a full recitation of the evening's events while Andie Henning did a physical inspection of the infirmary and then the two of them went to the warden's office for an emergency meeting. Cy remained in the infirmary with his nephew.
Warden Beth Johnson was the only person at TGK who knew about Theo's undercover assignment. At least she was supposed to have been the only one. The abuse Theo had taken at the hands of Officer MacDonald and the fellow inmate's attack in the infirmary raised serious questions. Jack had no intention of leaving TGK without the answers.
Johnson was seated in a squeaky office chair behind a typical government-issue gray metal desk. Jack and Andie sat on opposite ends of an old couch, trying way too hard – as only people trying to deny the attraction do – to put distance between their bodies.
"You two have some kind of contagious disease or something?" said Johnson.
Their responses tumbled out together- "Me? Huh? No." But they quickly took her meaning and relaxed a little.
Johnson was known around TGK as the hard-ass with the great ass, which was basically a handy way of saying that half the inmates wanted to kill her, and the other half wanted to bed her. She was definitely attractive, though the conservative Laura Ashley attire toned things down. Some said that being the mother of three children was the only qualification she needed to become a jail warden, but she was also smart, tough, and savvy, with framed diplomas from Duke, the University of Virginia, and Emory University hanging on the wall behind her desk. Had she taken her law degree and entered private practice, Johnson would have been a formidable opponent for Jack or anyone else on the opposite side of the table.
"Whatever," said Johnson. "To put it in bottom-line terms, I can't tell you how this happened tonight. I'm still trying to figure it out for myself."