I could tell he didn’t want to talk to me, but he swaggered toward the break room nonetheless.
“This won’t take long,” I said when we were finally seated at the table in the break room. “I’m sorry I couldn’t let you use the phone this morning.”
He shrugged as if he didn’t care, but didn’t say anything. I continued.
“I just want to know how you normally gather and take out the trash down here and if you did it any differently on Monday night or Tuesday morning.”
Without facial or verbal expression he said, “I gather it all up before I leaves every night and puts it near the back door were you’s just standing. Then, in the morning I picks up any new trash and sets them outside the door. The officer and inmate who pick up the trash then come around and pick it up.”
“Is that how it happened Tuesday morning?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly. “I already told the inspector. I gathered it all up and put the bag in the back hall, then Miss Anderson come say she need me to clean up a spill in the exam room. When I come back to load it on the truck, the bag was gone. Miss Anderson was with me. She can tell you. The trash wasn’t outside the door neither, and the truck was gone.”
“Did you see the inmates in the infirmary that morning?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” he said nodding his head. Each time his head went down I wondered if it would come up again. In addition to seeming old, Allen Jones seemed weary, as if every year he had lived was a hard one.
When he didn’t elaborate, I added, “Anything unusual about them?”
“No, sir. All three were lying there in they beds sleepin’.”
“All three?” I asked, the surprise in my voice obvious. “Who else was there?”
He wondered if he had said something wrong. Then after a long pause, he said, “Johnson, Jacobson, and Thomas.”
“You saw Thomas in an infirmary bed that morning?”
“Yes, sir. Well, I thought I did. I could’ve been . . . maybe I didn’t see him. I don’t know,” he said.
“What time were you in there?”
“Can’t say, sir. Don’t wear a watch. But I come in at four. It wasn’t too long after that,” he said.
“Did you see Jacobson and Johnson fighting around five?” I asked.
“No, sir. I’s still gathering up the trash and cleaning up. I’s all over the building.”
I walked back to the nurses’ station and called the trash officer, Officer Shutt, whose acquaintance I had briefly made the day before.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Better,” he said. “Thanks. And thanks for your help yesterday. I just freaked.”
“I understand,” I said. “It was an awful thing you had to experience. I’m surprised you’re back at work so soon.”
His voice became slightly defensive as if I had made an accusation. “Whata you mean? I’m just trying to do my job, to stay busy so I don’t have to think about it. That’s all. It wasn’t my fault, just an awful accident I was involved in.”
“Of course,” I said. “How do you think Johnson got into that trash bag to begin with?”
“Johnson? Who’s Johnson?” he asked, but it was unconvincing. He knew who Johnson was.
“The inmate who was killed,” I said. “The one in the trash bag.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, that’s a good question. You see, usually I pick up the trash from every department early in the morning. They set it outside their back door, and me and an inmate pick it up. But yesterday, there was no trash outside of medical.”
“So what did you do?” I asked.
“I had already parked the truck between medical and laundry. So I walked over with the inmate, and we picked up the bags from laundry. When we got back to the truck, medical had already put theirs in.”
“Have they ever done that before?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “But not very often. And usually we see that old black inmate ’cause he’s so slow, but we didn’t see anybody put it in the truck. Why all the questions?”
“I’m just trying to figure out exactly what happened.”
“I can tell you what happened. A dumb inmate tried to escape and became a dark meat shish kebab. Everybody’s saying what a great job I did. Hell, I’ll probably get Officer of the Month. And, if anybody has anything else to say about it, they can say it to my lawyer.”
“You have a lawyer?” I asked. It was the most surprising thing I had heard all day.
“Hell, yes,” he said. “I been grieved and sued so many damn times by these dumb nigger sons a bitches I had to get one. What kind of world do we live in? A bunch of stinkin’ inmates can make me need a lawyer.”
“So you think Johnson was trying to escape,” I said. “How do you think he got into the bag and into the back of the truck?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t. All I know is that I didn’t put him back there.”
If they were telling the truth, neither Shutt nor Jones had put medical’s bags in the truck. But, somebody had, and there was a good reason why that somebody had, and I intended to find out who that somebody was. But, first, there was something more pressing on my mind.
Chapter 7
Every eleven minutes, someone in the U.S. died of AIDS.
In Florida state prisons, those with HIV outnumbered those in Florida’s free population two to one. In fact, HIV and AIDS was spreading throughout both federal and state prisons at extraordinary rates. Many inmates came to prison already infected with HIV-the result of illicit drug use and unprotected sex. And in prison, it spread. Tattooing, drug use, and especially unprotected sex caused HIV to spread inside prison nearly as quickly as the latest rumor-and only six prison systems in the U.S. distributed condoms. Florida’s was not one of them.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked Nurse Strickland when I had found her again. This time, she was in exam room two looking through some supplies.
“Sure,” she said as she turned around to face me, her blue eyes sparkling even under the dull fluorescent lights. She was really beautiful, and so delicate. Laura and Anna were beautiful, but they seemed to be as strong as they were pretty, but this woman was pretty in a fragile, vulnerable way, like a ceramic figurine. “Come in,” she continued.
I did. And, when I had closed the door, she looked a little surprised.
“What is it? Are you okay?” she asked, and I sensed her genuine concern. She was a good nurse, I could tell. I had come to the right place.
“I need some help,” I said, “and I really don’t know where to turn.”
“Sure. Anything. What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t really quite know how to say this.”
“Take your time. It’s okay. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. Okay?”
“Okay, here it goes. I found out today that the inmate that was killed yesterday had AIDS.”
She nodded her head slowly. “Yes, I know,” she said.
“His blood got all over me. I can’t quit thinking about it. I can’t concentrate on anything else because I think I might have gotten AIDS through his infected blood.”
“Oh, you poor man,” she said, sounding like the kind mother I never had. She was a mother-a caretaker, which I was glad of because I needed taking care of just then. “I know how you feel. Blood is such a scary thing these days. I come in contact with bad blood all the time. It scares the hell out of me, too.”
“Should I be scared?” I asked.
“Well, he did have AIDS. That’s true enough, but unless it penetrated your skin or splashed into your eyes or mouth, you probably have nothing to worry about. And even then you’d have to have an open sore or wound. It’s not likely.”
“Officer Shutt splashed it everywhere. It could’ve gotten into my eyes or mouth. I just don’t know. I haven’t found any cuts or sores, but eyes and mouth I’m just not sure about. What should I do?”
“To be certain, I can give you an AIDS test. That’ll clear it up for you and let you know one way or another. But I wouldn’t worry. Chances are, you didn’t get it, okay?”