“Mr. Corbeil, my name is Amos Walker. I’m a private detective. Your sister hired me to investigate your case.”
In the beginning I always call them by their last names, and never neglect the “Mr.” Cops use first names, to establish intimacy, or what passes for it in the criminal justice system. Turnkeys who have watched too many old prison flicks snarl their last names only, or some bestial substitute to render them down to something less than human. It takes only a few extra syllables to create the illusion they’re still part of civilized society; if only for the time it takes to pressure them.
The skinhead guard’s stomach growled; that’s how quiet the room got after I’d spoken. The inmate’s eyes were empty. I gave up trying to meet them. When he parted his lips to respond, they made a noise like someone opening a Ziploc bag.
“My sister.” It was a voice that had gone unused inside that airtight container for a week, dry and raspy. If he’d made friends inside, they were deaf-mutes.
“Young, blonde, about yea tall. Your parents named her after a posy.”
That amused him—the way a breeze tickles a chain-link fence. “I know who she is. I can’t get her to stop coming here.”
“You can refuse to see her.”
He shifted his weight in his chair. Said nothing.
“She’s told me your version of what happened, or didn’t. I’d like to hear it from you.”
“Is that what she’s paying you for? To get the same story over and over? Do you work for the government, Mr.—?”
I let that bait dangle. “It’s like the telephone game; the more people pass on a piece of information, the more it gets twisted until it bears no resemblance to how it started out.”
“Read the papers.”
“I did. They practically invented the telephone game.”
A spark glimmered in his eyes. It didn’t stick long enough for the length of time it takes to describe it, but it hadn’t shown before, even when he’d accused me of jacking up his sister for more money. That was supposed to be an expression of outrage, but it had come out stale, like telling someone to have a nice day.
But here was a foothold; a shallow one, not much more than a dimple. Compared to what he’d given me so far it was a grand staircase. Anyway I stuck my toe in it and tested it with my weight.
I said, “Just tell it like you’re telling it for the first time. It’s been long enough you might remember details you forgot when everything was still raw. I won’t interrupt. The cops make a practice of that, just to trip you up.”
He braced his hands on the table, started to push himself to his feet.
The sound I heard was my toehold crumbling. I couldn’t even be sure if that spark had been genuine or I’d just wanted it to be there.
I got a little desperate. Every minute I kept him was another step closer to a goal that was so far away I might have been looking at it from the nosebleed section. “Okay, let’s talk about something else. What do you like to read? Chrys says you studied architecture. I could bring you some books on that.”
He smiled then; bitter and tight-lipped, as if he’d resealed the bag; but it was a change. “Anything you can find on this building, especially the drainage system.”
“I didn’t think the warden would okay showing Shawshank here.”
“Guard.”
Dennis Rodman had been hovering outside, watching through the window. Now he buzzed himself back in. Corbeil finished getting up. “You asked what I wanted. You can’t deliver on that, how do you plan to get me out of here?”
I watched him leave with the turnkey.
I felt fine. It was an encouraging interview after all. If he could joke about escape, he hadn’t given up entirely. Or even if it wasn’t a joke. It didn’t mean he was innocent—contrary to the popular view, very few convicts in this country are wrongfully accused, and most of their stories are plausible enough to raise doubts—but maybe it gave me room to maneuver. On the way home I stopped at the bank where everything had begun and cashed Chrys Corbeil’s check. The cashier I got didn’t know me from Barney Rubble. I’d had my fifteen minutes.