Part 22 (2/2)
Alone, I didn't know what to say. How do you speak to the boss you're trying to get indicted? But my sensitivity to personal injustice provided the push I needed.
”This is a bad idea. I'm scheduled in the bubble. Not a walk-around.”
I needed to be in the bubble. I wanted to be there when Ruddik made the drop. I wanted to watch from a safe distance and know the deal had been closed.
”And you can't ask me to play tour guide with a reporter who has written lies about me.”
Wallace nodded as though in full agreement, and I realized, to my astonishment, that I was listening to an apology. ”I know, I know. This is way beyond the pale. I tried to cancel tonight because of the weather, but I couldn't reach Stone. Frankly, I think he ignored my call because he wanted to get inside so badly. Droune was going to show him around, but he's stuck in snow.”
”But my s.h.i.+ft is in the bubble.”
”You'll take Droune's s.h.i.+ft. Cutler can handle the bubble by himself until Droune arrives.”
I laughed. ”So you never intended me to be the tour guide? I'm just second-string.”
The dour face was back. I'd provoked its return.
”I wish you could understand something, Kali. You are not second-string. You are excellent at your job in almost every aspect. If I had a CO staff that included ten Kali Williamses, I'd have a lot less to worry about.”
”I don't believe you actually feel that way,” I said. ”You've kept me back, and you let me dangle for a month with this Hadley bulls.h.i.+t when I did nothing wrong.”
The bitterness was all frothy in me now, and I could not help but spill.
Wallace spoke slowly. ”When I've kept you back, it was with your best interests in mind. When I let you dangle, it was because we needed to.”
”Explain it to me so I get it. I mean really get it.” I had never spoken to Wallace more disrespectfully.
”You were accused of brutalizing an inmate. I was fifty feet away and saw nothing, and I knew it was unlikely. And I also know you. But what if I got this inst.i.tution behind you one hundred percent and we turned out to be wrong? An old friend of mine in Arizona was a chief in a city police service. One of his officers shot and killed a fleeing suspect who had a gun. The family of the victim claimed the gun was planted. It seemed absurd. The victim was a seventeen-year-old gang member with several weapons charges and time served in juvenile facilities. So my friend got behind his officer and backed him to the hilt. Well, six months and a nasty state-run investigation later, it turns out that the gun was planted, that the victim was dealing for the officer, that the officer had a network of young dealers he coerced through imprisonment in the juvenile facility where his brother, also indicted, was a counselor. There will never be trust between the community and that department again. Not for generations. I think we can afford to suffer a little ambiguity and stress to avoid that kind of thing happening here, even if our community of inmates is very different from a community of citizens. In fact, I think it's part of the job of being a corrections officer. We don't get patted on the back all the time, and we learn to accept that.”
I chose not to speak. Somewhere, I remembered seeing and talking to this Keeper Wallace and thinking that his moral view of the world was correct and that I would like to make it mine, too.
”I also believe, and hope,” Wallace continued, ”that we can turn this encounter with Stone into an opportunity. You have a career worth accelerating, Kali. Some good press for you, some admiring public words will be viewed extremely favorably by the warden's team. You wouldn't believe how much they scrutinize PR. I'm not sure what kind of leader you can be. I've seen a lot recently to make me wonder if I misjudged that capacity in you. But I also suspect that you are feeling disgruntled and stressed by the recent events here, and I'm willing to give you another chance. I'm wondering if you're willing to give me another chance in exchange?”
I didn't say anything. I couldn't speak Wallace sagged a little. ”Maybe I'm being selfish. At heart, I'm tired of us not getting the appreciation we deserve. There's something fundamentally wrong when every time COs get a mention in the media, it's because of some scandal or wrong done to an inmate rather than the hard, dangerous work we do. But I think we have a small opportunity here to put out a more positive story line on our own terms, using Stone. And when I think about that, I think about you. What have you got to lose?”
What did I have to lose? I didn't know whether to laugh or confess.
”I'd be happy to,” I said.
We even shook hands.
I sat with Stone in the CO room, drinking coffee and killing time until key-up. We were not alone. There were other COs, and I announced loudly and with enthusiasm that our local reporter was doing an embed, following me around for the night, hoping to see the real Ditmarsh. I felt reckless and self-destructive, a little drunk on some suicidal release. Somehow that vibe hit my fellow COs just right. They were my comrades in arms before our watchful guest, in a groove together, amped up. They wanted to impress the s.h.i.+t out of him with their machismo and brutal knowledge. If Stone wanted to write a tell-all, he needed only to turn on his recorder and wait. f.a.gan gave Stone a demonstration on how to use zip cuffs, how to wedge a baton under a chin, where to rinse your eyes after a c.o.c.ktail splash. Cutler went into detail about what ingredients actually comprised the average c.o.c.ktail. Baumard called us all girls, in our eagerness to win over a reporter. This seemed to inspire Stone to ask me some provocative questions in front of the men. How did the inmates treat me as a woman? What was my first priority in the event of an emergency? Why did the COs not carry any weapons other than their batons? I gave short, sarcastic answers, and my colleagues appreciated the bemused b.i.t.c.hiness with which I delivered them. They were proud of me for once. I was a hard jack, too.
Then Ruddik entered the room. He was still wearing his dark-hooded parka and heavy boots, and he looked more tense than I had ever seen him. f.a.gan, still festive with hospitality, told him heartily to stop hanging on the doorframe and join the crowd. But no one else seconded the invitation. Ruddik put his parka and boots into his locker and got his equipment on while we watched. Even me, someone who'd lain naked with him the night before.
When Ruddik left the room, I told Stone I'd be back in a minute and followed after. As innocently as I tried to play my exit, I knew it would not go over well.
It took only a moment to communicate with Ruddik in the hallway. We spoke quickly, as colleagues might. He mentioned the weather and the difficulty of getting in. I told him that I'd been a.s.signed a visitor tour with a reporter. ”The a.s.shole who wrote about me and Shawn Hadley.” Discreetly, I touched the back of his hand, hooked my finger into his palm. He nodded, told me to have a good s.h.i.+ft, and headed out for his own.
When I returned to the CO room, I recognized in the silence and the glances that my timing with Ruddik had spiked their suspicions of me. The festive mood was gone. Sour, I pulled Stone away from his new friends.
”Come on. Some of us do more than drink coffee. You might as well see what.”
We walked into the main hub, and I explained the way the branches worked and how the other buildings connected. I pointed out the education wing, and the blocks. I waved my hand to the tunnel that went to the infimary and the dissociation unit, as well as the exit to the yard. I put my hand on the bubble, smacked its side, and elaborated on its benefits as a control center and a defense position in the event of a catastrophic breakdown of security. Then I stopped.
”Explain to me how this works,” I said.
He asked me what I was talking about.
”If I say the magic words off the record, that means you can't report anything we discuss, am I right?”
Stone smiled at me like a man in a bar. ”Just say the magic words.”
”Okay, then, this is off the record.”
He shrugged. ”Go ahead. You make the rules. But whatever I see when we're walking around, that's straight-up dirt.”
”Just now. What I'm going to say here to clear the air. That's the part I want off the record.”
”Sure thing,” he agreed, without humor or anxiety.
”You wrote about my so-called encounter with Hadley. Who told you about it?”
”Reporters go to prison to avoid revealing their sources, right?”
”You're in prison already,” I pointed out.
He laughed. ”Hadley's lawyer hooked me up. He gave me a letter from Hadley.”
”A well-rounded version,” I said. ”Aren't you supposed to do any fact-checking?”
He stood tall, and I sensed his narcissistic side, a wannabe tough guy, a jock sniffer. He couldn't have been less interested in my concerns.
”I had another source.”
A f.u.c.king CO.
”You know someone in here?” I asked. ”Got a brother or a cousin or a golf buddy working inside?”
”I don't play golf.”
”What you wrote was weak. You have no idea what really happened, so you painted a dramatic version based on a lying inmate's personal gripe.”
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