Part 18 (1/2)

Could I just leave Josh? I wanted to go. I wanted to walk straight across the yard and out the front gate. Get the h.e.l.l out of Dodge.

”How can I believe you?” I asked.

Another shrug.

”If you want me to make this happen, you have to tell me what's going on.”

”How am I supposed to tell you what I don't understand?”

”Josh, you know more than you're saying. We both know that.”

”Okay,” he said. ”Here's what I know. Roy isn't Roy.”

I took a moment to answer.

”What do you mean by that?”

”You think Roy is this fat old man with one leg who smells bad and tells stupid jokes, but he's in on everything. He arranges deals. He makes things happen. I think Crowley did drawings for him as a way of pa.s.sing messages.”

”About what?”

”Money.”

For the first time, I got a vibe of truth in my bones. Not Brother Mike's bulls.h.i.+t about a prophet in a prison, but that other profit.

”Money how?”

”I don't know.”

”Christ,” I said, weary again, wondering how to get more out of him in the time we had left. ”Do you think you could draw a little bit of it from memory, show me how it worked?”

Josh looked up. ”I gave it to you,” he hissed. ”If you'd believed me then, none of this would have happened.”

All kinds of accusation in those eyes, and a little s.h.i.+ne of fear. He was begging me. I thought of a shoe dangling from a barred window, the beggar's grate. I thought of hands outstretched and people in finery trying to avoid the touch. I had an insight then, a flash of understanding. The neediness for compa.s.sion was thicker than any need for money.

Something in me giving up, softening ever so slightly.

”Why do you want to transfer into B-three? That's Fenton's range. You really think he's going to look after you?”

Josh just peeled the gauze off his forehead and balled it up in his hand.

”Said he would.”

”Who gave you the drugs, Josh? You have to give me a name.”

”I can't,” Josh said. ”I can't rat on him.”

”Was it Fenton?”

Nothing more than an eyeblink, but I knew I was right, except I couldn't do that to Fenton; my own complicity made it impossible.

”I understand,” I said. ”You're afraid. We'll say it was Roy Duckett. You've had lots of contact with him. It's plausible.”

”Okay,” Josh said. He winced, as if the reality of the compromise was painful to him. ”That will work,” he continued. ”I'll make that work.”

”You don't need to do anything,” I warned him. ”You need to keep yourself alive and out of trouble.”

”I need to get into population,” Josh said.

”I'll do what I can do.”

”Soon,” he said, and added, ”Please.”

33.

Melinda poured us tall coffees and added the kind of cream that doesn't go bad even if it never sees the inside of a refrigerator. She swiveled back and forth on her chair, eager for information.

I was bone tired the moment I got out of the room with Josh. It wasn't healthy feeling this way, a plodding heaviness in my step, the ribs in my chest all sunken from the weight of lousy posture. My hearing wasn't right, as though my ears had popped without my noticing and had failed to recover.

”I'm not sure I understood everything he was trying to tell me.” I stopped as though confused. ”Can you even rely on an inmate informant?” I was trying to figure out what to say and how to blame Roy, and I needed some way to explain my reluctance. ”They're born liars. They'll tell you whatever you want to hear.”

”Sure, they will,” Melinda said. ”But how does the old saying go? Crimes committed in h.e.l.l don't have angels as witnesses. The great big magical secret to all successful detective work is finding someone who will tell you what actually happened. Then you corroborate with evidence. But n.o.body trades information for free. They want leniency or special favors, and sometimes they want you to turn a blind eye to their own illegal activities. There's always a risk you can get played. But I get my best leads from inmates, or from people around the inmate with an ax to grind.”

”What kind of ax?”

Melinda grinned. ”Had a good example last week. I got a call from a woman telling me a s.h.i.+pment of drugs will be coming into Ditmarsh through a visit to a particular inmate. Sure enough, the inmate she mentioned has a PFV scheduled with a different woman that very afternoon. After it was over, we put the inmate in detention and waited, and retrieved a tube of pills once he dispelled.”

I tried not to think about the condom of drugs in my pocket, wrapped in tissue like the dirty aftermath of illicit s.e.x. Practically the same contents, as though it were a missed delivery rescheduled. ”But what was the motive of the person who called the information in? Does that ever factor into how you handle it?”

Melinda hesitated, parsing her thoughts.

”You're asking me if I was doing someone's bidding, maybe hurting the compet.i.tion on behalf of some rival distributor for example? Of course I question everyone's motivation. In the case I just mentioned, the motive was pretty clear. The caller was the inmate's wife. She ratted out her husband because of the girlfriend. But it comes down to basic principles. How can it be bad to stop a s.h.i.+pment of drugs, regardless of who is behind the information?”

Case closed. So black-and-white when viewed from Melinda's perspective. Such a tangled mess when viewed from Ruddik's.

”So what did Josh tell you?” Melinda asked. ”Anything worth acting on?”

”He told me the drugs came from Roy Duckett.” I was stuttering, hesitant, trying out my line in real time, obviously lying. But she kept listening.

”He said Roy's been forcing a number of vulnerable inmates to bring stuff in, and he has people outside putting pressure on family members, too. Josh was an easy target.”