The sight of Eastern Correctional still sent a sick feeling into Beck’s gut, but as he watched Walter walk out to the parking lot it seemed as if the prison had hit Walter even harder.
Walter slipped into the passenger seat with a sigh, leaned back, silent for a moment.
“How’d it go?”
“Very much as you suspected. They pretty much stonewalled me.”
“Was it the usual closing of ranks, or do you think there was something else behind it?”
“I don’t want to think that, but my gut tells me there is. Which makes it all the worse.”
“I’ll go with your gut, Walter.”
“Fortunately, we don’t have to.”
“Why?”
“I got lucky. They gave me a desk in the social services office to conduct my interviews. One of the women working nearby heard me and came forward. She told me she knew someone who might help.”
“Who?”
“A high-ranking correction officer. A female captain. She gave me her cell number.”
“Did you call her?”
“Yes, but she refused to talk to me. Especially on the phone. She also refused to let the social services lady act as a go-between. She didn’t want to have contact with anyone connected to Eastern.”
“Is there any way we can convince her to talk to you?”
“No need. I offered you.”
Beck shot Walter a surprised look. “And she agreed?”
“She figured there would be zero chance you’d talk to anybody in the department.”
“That’s for sure.”
“She agreed to meet you at the Mobil station in Ellenville at five-fifteen. Said her name was Rita, but I have no idea if it’s her real name.”
Beck looked at his watch. 4:05.
“Perfect. Just enough time to get my truck.”
Walter leaned back in his seat and said, “If you don’t mind, James, I’m going to rest my eyes.”
“Go right ahead.”
Beck drove in silence toward M & T Auto Sales thinking about Walter’s polite euphemism. Resting his eyes. As if he’d been in there reading all day. Within a minute, Walter had fallen asleep.
Beck left Walter napping in the Mercury while he paid the balance he owed on the truck, signed the rest of the paperwork, and collected the Ranger. When he returned, truck keys in hand, Walter was sitting behind the wheel, awake and waiting. Beck leaned into the open driver’s-side window and said, “Hey, Walter, you know if you want to head back to Brooklyn now, it’s fine with me.”
“No. I want to hear what the lady CO says to you.”
“All right. I’ll meet with her, then we’ll have some dinner, and you can head back.”
“Fine.”
“As we enter town, you’ll see a church on the right. You park there. I’ll go to the Mobil station and hear what she has to say.”
“All right.”
“How will I know who she is?”
“Her friend says she’s a blonde.”
Beck gave a short nod. “I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.”
Beck kept an eye on his rearview mirror until Walter pulled in to the church parking lot. He continued on to the Mobil station at the edge of town, pulling in at 5:15 P.M. exactly. There was a single row of two pumps with nozzles for cars on each side. A typical convenience store anchored the station.
A bleached blonde stood at one of the pumps filling up a Subaru Forester that hadn’t been washed in a long time. Beck figured her for about two hundred pounds packed into a pair of slacks and the white shirt worn by high-ranking correction officers. Everything about her seemed round, especially her head and face.
Beck didn’t know the location of the gas cap on the Ranger. He pulled up to the other side of the pump the woman was using and saw he’d guessed correctly. He knew the truck had a full tank, but he still went through the motions of putting the fuel nozzle into the filler neck.
Beck decided she had set this up pretty well. Even if someone saw them talking, it would look like two people filling up their gas tanks shooting the shit.
Rita watched the man on the other side of the pump carefully. He almost looked like a local. Sturdy. Ordinary clothes. Maybe hands that were too clean for a workingman, but at least he didn’t pull up in an expensive car wearing clothes with a bunch of logos.
Beck turned to face the woman laid back against the truck, and said, “Is your name Rita?”
“Is yours Beck?”
She had a voice that sounded like she had been chain-smoking and shouting for decades.
Beck nodded and waited.
“I hear you want to know about Paco Johnson.”
“Yes. Did you know he was murdered?”
She said, “As of a few hours ago.”
“Do you have any idea why?”
“You served time with him?”
Beck nodded. “At Clinton and Eastern.”
“You’re the one who got his conviction overturned.”
“Because I didn’t commit a crime.”
Rita smirked. “I never met a con who did.”
Beck said, “You have now.”
The woman looked at the digital readout of her pump. She seemed to be looking to turn it off at some dollar number, but then decided to keep going until her tank filled.
“Answer me one question. If I tell you what I know, what are you going to do with the information?”
He gave Rita the same answer he’d given Walter. “I’m going to do the right thing.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to do the right thing.”
Beck watched her hover between leaving and talking to him.
“This is crazy, talking to an ex-con about this.”
“About what? You haven’t told me anything.”
The gas pump shut off as Rita’s tank reached full. She hesitated. Looked up, looked at Beck. He didn’t want a full tank to be the thing that tipped her into leaving.
“Leaving now won’t accomplish anything.”
Rita had her hand on the fuel nozzle, but didn’t pull it out.
Beck said, “I’m guessing there’s something going on in that prison you can’t tell the bosses about. Maybe you don’t have enough information, or enough proof, or if you try to do something about it, you’re going to get jammed up. Even with your rank I’m betting it won’t be easy going up against the men’s club that runs the place.’
“And you think you can do something about it?”
Beck thought of Walter’s answer. “I can try.”
Rita continued to struggle.
Beck said, “Sorry you don’t have a better choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“You want to do something about the people who caused the death of an innocent man. But you don’t want to talk to an ex-con you don’t know who might do something outside the law.”
Rita looked at Beck. “Well, at least you’re not stupid.”
“What if I told you I’ve never committed a criminal act? Never even got a parking ticket. Bounced a check. Stolen a dime. The only thing I have to do with crime was being a victim of it.”
“Is all that true?”
In Beck’s moral universe every word was true. “Absolutely.”
Beck crossed his arms, rested his foot against his truck, and waited.
Rita took out the nozzle and placed it in the pump receptacle.
Finally, she spoke. “I don’t know the details. But I do know there’s nasty, disgusting shit going down with a group of the guards in there.”
Beck nodded, taking note of the word disgusting. Beck waited to hear more.
“It’s bad,” she said.
“How did you find out?”
“You hear things. In passing. It involves a small bunch of guards who think they can do whatever the hell they want.”
“Who are they?”
She paused. Beck waited. Either she was going to tell him, or she was going to get into her car and leave. She screwed her gas cap on and closed the cover. Finally, she said, “I’m going to give you one name. One name, and it better not come back on me.”
“It won’t.”
She looked at Beck. For a moment, she looked like she had decided to leave. And then she said, “Oswald Remsen.”
Beck nodded. He knew the man. Remsen had been a senior guard when Beck was at Eastern.
The woman continued, “He’s an old-time CO who’s been around Eastern forever. He has three sons who are guards. Two of them work at Eastern. They are the worst of the worst. I swear I don’t know how they ever got through the academy. Somebody up at Albany must have been dumb, blind, and asleep to let them through. I doubt the third son is any better.”
“Two of his sons work at Eastern?”
“Yeah. Remsen is high up in the union. Got his sons in there with him, which anybody with a brain should have prevented.”
“Where’s the third one?”
“Down at Sing Sing.”
Beck asked, “So how can I find Remsen without going through a lot of trouble?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out if Oswald Remsen is involved in Johnson’s murder.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She looked at Beck, still conflicted. He saw her struggling. Beck spoke softly. “Rita, we both know you’ve already decided to help me. You’ve come this far. You’ve given me the name. I’m not going to let it drop. But it would help if you gave me something more. You don’t have to say anything. Just nod yes, or shake your head no.”
“I’m not playing twenty questions.”
“How about two? Is he a drinker?”
She nodded yes.
“I hear a lot of the COs drink at a tavern over on Fifty-three.”
Rita nodded again. “You hear right. That’s two questions. That’s all I can do.”
“I understand.”
Beck turned away and pulled the gas nozzle out of his truck. He didn’t look at the tough, angry woman again. He heard her car door slam shut, her engine start, and a Subaru with a bad muffler drive off.
He replaced the fuel hose and walked into the Mobil station store. He bought two cups of coffee, a pack of generic cigarettes, three scratch-off lottery tickets, and a tin of Skoal Wintergreen smokeless tobacco. He paid cash for everything and left.
He emptied both coffees into the trash receptacle near the pumps, making sure the coffee stained the cardboard cups. He opened the pack of cigarettes, dumped out a few and crumpled the pack a bit.
He climbed into his truck. There weren’t any cup holders in the Ranger, so he tossed the empty cups on the passenger-side floor. He opened the Skoal, left the wrapper on the floor, then dropped the cigarettes and dip on the dashboard. He quickly scratched off the lottery cards, not bothering to see if he’d won anything, and dropped them on the dash, too.
He pulled out to rendezvous with Walter Ferguson, wishing Rita had wanted to tell him more, but thankful there wasn’t any information that would compromise Walter.
He checked his watch. Not even six o’clock. Enough time to send off Walter, get back to his motel, and decide which weapons to bring with him to the tavern on Route 53.