She turned to Officer Curtis. “Where are his possessions? His personal items? Correspondence?”
“In the superintendent’s office. We’ll go there next.”
“Right after you called this morning, I had the prisoner’s belongings brought up here for your inspection,” said Superintendent Oxton, gesturing to a large cardboard box on his desk. “We’ve already gone through it all. We found absolutely no contraband.” He emphasized this last point as though it absolved him of all responsibility for what had gone wrong. Oxton struck Rizzoli as a man who did not tolerate infractions, who’d be ruthless at enforcing rules and regulations. He would certainly ferret out all contraband, isolate all troublemakers, demand that lights-out was on the dot every night. Just a glance around his office, with photos showing a fierce-looking young Oxton in an army uniform, told her this was the domain of someone who needed to be in control. Yet for all his efforts, a prisoner had escaped, and Oxton was now on the defensive. He had greeted them with a stiff handshake and barely a smile in his remote blue eyes.
He opened the box and removed a large Ziploc bag, which he handed to Rizzoli. “The prisoner’s toiletries,” he said. “The usual personal care items.”
Rizzoli saw a toothbrush, comb, washcloth, and soap. Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion. She quickly set the bag down, repulsed by the thought that Hoyt had used these items every day to groom himself. She could see light-brown hairs still clinging to the comb’s teeth.
Oxton continued removing items from the box. Underwear. A stack of National Geographic magazines and several issues of the Boston Globe. Two Snickers bars, a pad of yellow legal paper, white envelopes, and three plastic rollerball pens. “And his correspondence,” said Oxton as he removed another Ziploc bag, this one containing a bundle of letters.
“We’ve gone through every piece of his mail,” Oxton said. “The State Police have the names and addresses of all these correspondents.” He handed the bundle to Dean. “Of course, this is only the mail he kept. There was probably a certain amount he threw out.”
Dean opened the Ziploc bag and removed the contents. There were about a dozen letters, still in their envelopes.
“Does MCI censor prisoner mail?” Dean asked. “Do you screen it before you give it to them?”
“We have the authority to do so. Depending on the type of mail.”
“Type?”
“If it’s classified privileged, the guards are only allowed to glance inside for contraband. But they’re not allowed to read it. The correspondence is private, between sender and prisoner.”
“So you’d have no idea what was written to him.”
“If it’s privileged mail.”
“What’s the difference between privileged and unprivileged mail?” asked Rizzoli.
Oxton responded to her interruption with a glint of annoyance in his eyes. “Nonprivileged mail is from friends and family or the general public. For instance, a number of our inmates have picked up pen pals from the outside who think they’re performing a charitable service.”
“By corresponding with murderers? Are they crazy?”
“Many of them are naive and lonely women. Susceptible to being used by a con artist. Those types of letters are nonprivileged and the guards have the authority to read and censor them. But we don’t always have time to read them all. We deal with a large volume of mail here. In Prisoner Hoyt’s case, there was a lot of mail to inspect.”
“From whom? I’m not aware he had much family,” said Dean.
“He got a lot of publicity last year. It caught the interest of the public. They all wanted to write to him.”
Rizzoli was appalled. “Are you saying he got fan mail?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus. People are nuts.”
“The public gets a thrill from talking to a killer. Something about being in touch with fame. Manson and Dahmer and Gacy, they all got fan mail. Our prisoners get marriage proposals. Women send them cash, or photos of themselves in bikinis. Men write wanting to know what it feels like to commit murder. The world is full of sick fucks, pardon my French, who get a charge out of knowing a real live killer.”
But one of them had gone beyond just writing to Hoyt. One had actually joined Hoyt’s exclusive club. She stared at the bundle of mail, enraged by this tangible evidence of the Surgeon’s fame. Killer as rock star. She thought of the scars he had carved in her hands, and each of the fan letters was like another stab of his scalpel.
“What about privileged mail?” said Dean. “You said it’s not read or censored. What classifies a letter as privileged?”
“It’s confidential mail that comes from certain state or federal officials. An officer of the court, for instance, or the attorney general. Mail from the president, the governor, or law enforcement agencies.”
“Did Hoyt receive such mail?”
“He may have. We don’t keep records of every item of mail that comes in.”
“How do you know when a letter’s really privileged?” said Rizzoli.
Oxton looked at her with impatience. “I just told you. If it’s from a federal or state official-”
“No. I mean, how do you know it’s not fake or stolen stationery? I could write escape plans to one of your prisoners and mail it in an envelope from, say, Senator Conway’s office.” The example she’d chosen had not been random. She watched Dean and saw his chin snap up at the mention of Conway’s name.
Oxton hesitated. “It’s not impossible. But there are penalties-”
“So it’s happened before.”
Reluctantly, Oxton nodded. “There’ve been several cases. Criminal information’s been sent under the guise of official business. We try to stay alert to it, but occasionally, something slips through.”
“And what about outgoing mail? The letters Hoyt sent? Did you screen those?”
“No.”
“None of it?”
“We had no reason to. He was never considered a problem inmate. He was always cooperative. Very quiet and polite.”
“A model prisoner,” said Rizzoli. “Right.”
Oxton fixed her with an icy glare. “We have men in here who’d rip your arms off and laugh about it, Detective. Men who’d snap a guard’s neck just because a meal didn’t suit them. A prisoner like Hoyt was not high on our list of concerns.”
Dean calmly redirected the conversation back to the issue at hand. “So we don’t know who he may have written to?”
That matter-of-fact question seemed to douse the warden’s rising irritation. Oxton turned from Rizzoli and focused instead on Dean, one man to another. “No, we don’t,” he said. “Prisoner Hoyt could have written to anyone.”
In a conference room down the hall from Oxton’s office, Rizzoli and Dean pulled on latex gloves and spread the envelopes addressed to Warren Hoyt on the table. She saw a variety of stationery, a few pastels and florals, and one imprinted with Jesus saves. Most absurd of all was the stationery decorated with images of frolicking kittens. Yes, just the thing to send to the Surgeon. How amused he must have been to receive that.
She opened the envelope with the kittens and found a photo inside, of a smiling woman with hopeful eyes. Also enclosed was a letter, written in a girlish hand, the is dotted with cheery little circles:
To: Mr. Warren Hoyt,
Prisoner Massachusetts Correctional Institute
Dear Mr. Hoyt,
I saw you on TV today, as they were walking you to the courthouse. I believe I am an excellent judge of character, and when I looked at your face, I could see so much sadness and pain. Oh, such a great deal of pain! There is goodness in you; I know there is. If only you had someone to help you find it within yourself…