They finally released him from his restraints, a process that heaped pain upon pain, then stood back as he collapsed in a heap.
“Get yourself together. We’ll be back.”
Bostich left a neat pile of folded clothes on the table and left Danny to recover, this time with the light on. It took him an hour to get to his feet, work out enough of the aches in his joints to dress, and compose himself.
“I’d like to see the warden,” he said when they returned.
“Well, you’re in luck, ’cause he wants to see you too.”
Several minutes later, Danny sat in the same chair he’d first used outside the warden’s office, waiting for an audience. The clock on the wall read 7:26. Saturday evening, if he guessed correctly. He’d been at Basal for a mere six days that overshadowed his entire three years at Ironwood.
And yet he wasn’t disheartened. His resolve had not been compromised. He was only glad that he and not Peter had endured deep meditation.
As for his own reward, he expected to be presented with an opportunity to determine what the warden might or might not know about Renee. If his suspicions were confirmed, Danny would set his mind on discovering a way to warn her. Confined as he was by both prison and his resolution never to resort to violence, his options would be limited, but there were always options.
There had to be; Renee was all that mattered to him now. Renee and, to a lesser extent, Peter, the boy who was as innocent as she herself once had been—Renee and Peter and those trampled underfoot by society’s failures.
And yet his determination to defend the weak had proven pointless once before. No man had the right to exercise ultimate judgment over another man, certainly not the way Danny had.
He could not save Peter by killing Pape.
Nor could he sit by while Peter suffered.
Two compulsions in conflict. The disparity threatened to fracture his mind. Something was askew in his worldview.
The warden’s door swung open and Pape’s familiar form emerged, smiling. “There you are. All cleaned up and ready to join a more reasonable world, I trust.”
Danny got to his feet slowly. The pain in his joints had already begun to fade, but he knew it would return with a vengeance after a night’s sleep.
“Need some help?”
“No thank you. I’ll manage.”
The notion that he was more pathetic than noble whispered through his mind. What kind of weakness would prompt a man to say “No, thank you” to a man like Pape in a moment like this?
“Please come in.”
Danny entered the office and sat. The warden picked up a black pen and tapped it on a form before him. For a few long moments he watched Danny, expressionless.
“You’re a strong man, I’ll give you that. Unfortunately, it only means I have to work harder to get through to you. It’s only my job, you must realize that.”
Danny was here for Renee’s sake, not his own, so he kept his mouth shut.
“I’m sure you feel that my methods are extreme. That’s understandable. But as I pointed out in the dining hall, they are no more extreme than other methods condoned by your God.”
After another moment of silence the warden continued.
“Although I admire your mental strength, I need you to respond so that I can determine your progress. Is that fair?”
The man seemed more gentle somehow. Amenable even.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Good. Then you do understand that harsher methods than mine were at one time condoned, even embraced, by good people.”
“I can see how you draw that conclusion, yes.”
“But you disagree with them…”
“It’s not my place to judge your treatment of me. I accept that I’m your prisoner.”
“I’m not referring to my treatment of you. I was thinking more of the others.”
“Meaning whom?”
“Meaning Peter, for example.”
“We both know that Peter’s innocent.”
“Must we really go through this again? Innocent of what? Rape? And is rape more or less deviant than other expressions of deviant behavior? Everyone is guilty of some infraction of the law, Danny. Everyone breaks the law. It’s my job to correct those deviants, once and for all. Murderers, for example.”
The warden studied him with knowing eyes.
“You know about murder, don’t you?” He tapped his pen on the surface of the desk. “Why did you kill them, Danny?”
“Kill who?”
“Please, I know you killed more than the two men you confessed to as a part of your plea bargain. The question is, why? There’s no clear motivation cited.”
“I was foolish enough to think I could change the world.”
“By what? Setting a few of the wayward straight?”
“As I said—”
“Then we’re the same, aren’t we? You see people in need and you rush to their defense. I see society in need and I rush to its defense. In a way I admire you for attempting to do outside the law what society has failed to do within that law. Isn’t that why you killed?”
“A few years ago, I would have agreed.”
“But not now?”
“No.”
The man watched him for a long moment, then stood and approached the family portraits on the wall, hands behind his back.
“Maybe it would help if you understood my own motivation.” He nodded at the picture of himself with his wife, his daughter, and his son. The daughter was perhaps fifteen, a younger reflection of her mother apart from her hair, which was straighter than the wife’s fluffy curls. Both had bright blue eyes, the same sharp nose, rosy cheeks, and small mouths. Both were beautiful and wore red dresses.
The son looked more like his mother than the warden as well. He wore a crew cut and was perhaps two years younger than his sister.
Pape pointed to his daughter. “This is Emily. She was fourteen when this picture was taken. Nate, my son, was eleven. Everyone says they both look like my wife, Betty. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Very similar, yes.”
The warden glowed with pride. Nothing about his pleasure seemed remotely disingenuous. Reconciling Marshall Pape the warden with Marshall Pape the loving father might prove difficult for many, but Danny had seen a thousand hardened soldiers in Bosnia who fought out of love of their families, he being chief among them.
Marshall Pape was first of all a human being, in the same way that the inmates under his thumb were. Really, none of them was a monster. They were all just trying to make sense of their world in this subculture called prison.
“They’re now six years older,” Pape said. “Emily’s studying medicine at UCLA, Nate’s the starting quarterback on his high school football team, quite a player at only seventeen.” He faced Danny, still smiling. “Perhaps one day you’ll father a child, Danny. I can assure you, there’s nothing more rewarding than watching a child grow through the years. Nothing.”
There was a heaviness in the warden’s voice that forecasted the frown that slowly overtook his face. He looked at the photograph again.
“But who am I kidding? Those are only my dreams. Unfortunately, I’ll never see Nate or Emily grow up. In truth, this is the last picture taken of them before they were killed. Ten days after we sat for this photograph, actually.”
Danny recoiled at the revelation.
Marshall Pape faced him. “They were both at a convenience store in Santa Monica when a paroled felon named Jake Williams came in with only drugs and money on his mind. The store owner had a gun, and in the ensuing face-off, Nate was killed by the felon. Emily was accidently hit in the head by a bullet from the storekeeper’s handgun. They both died at the scene.”
The warden had suddenly and dramatically become a victim along with his children. Danny could not ignore his empathy for the man.