Seven

Marianne struggled with a niggling sense of guilt for agreeing to let Luke accompany her to the DC Jail. Her father had suggested it would be best if she didn’t see Luke again, but he hadn’t actually forbidden it. She and Luke would visit the prison, take some photographs, then go their separate ways. She would forever remember him fondly. Someday this friendly interlude might even serve as a stepping-stone to lowering tensions between their families.

She arrived at the streetcar stop and leaned her tripod against the bench. The lighting inside the jail would be poor, requiring a longer exposure time and the use of a tripod. She adjusted the sit of her hat, wishing the weather would have let her wear something prettier than this plain knitted cap for warmth.

The streetcar was headed her way, and Luke still wasn’t there. She bit her lip. Should she proceed to the jail without him? Perhaps he had reconsidered the risk in seeing her and decided not to come. The streetcar began to slow and she stood, glancing down the avenue in hope of seeing Luke madly running this way, but she couldn’t afford to wait another twenty minutes for the next streetcar. She gathered up her camera case and tripod, ready to board.

The streetcar door opened, and Luke was standing in the entrance. “Hello, Marianne.”

She smiled in relief, kicking herself for doubting him. “Good afternoon, Luke,” she said as she boarded.

She liked saying his name. She liked the gentlemanly way he carried her tripod and found them both a seat near the rear of the streetcar. She especially liked the smile he sent her the moment they were seated. The streetcar set off toward the next stop while she gazed into his eyes. He looked vibrant and lively even though he was three days into the poison experiment.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

He didn’t need any clarification as to what she was driving at. “Okay,” he said without much conviction. “I still don’t know if I’m in the control group or not.”

“Good,” she said, because it seemed the polite thing to say. Both groups would surely be fine, but she didn’t want to argue about chemical preservatives. “Thank you for taking time away from your work to accompany me today.”

“The good thing about my job is that I get to set my own hours,” he said, and she realized she had no idea what he did for a living. “I’m a journalist,” he explained in response to her question. “I’m in the process of creating a Washington bureau for Modern Century magazine.”

She wrinkled her nose. “My father hates that magazine.” She immediately bit her tongue, regretting bringing Clyde into the conversation, but Luke merely laughed.

“That does not surprise me,” he said good-naturedly.

“What kind of magazine is it? Modern Century is forbidden reading in our house.”

He described the magazine, and she could understand why her father disapproved. It sounded like the kind of rabble-rousing Clyde hated, but she liked the way Luke spoke about Cornelius Newman, the magazine’s editor. It almost sounded like he had a hero-worship for the elderly man who had been tackling unpopular causes for decades.

“Cornelius and I both think we need someone in Washington to keep an eye on legislation. That’s why I’m opening a Washington bureau.” Luke paused, then turned a hesitant glance to her. “Maybe you could take some photographs of the office. We could publish them in the magazine to announce the new bureau.”

She shouldn’t. Only thirty minutes ago she had vowed that today would be their last meeting, and already she was losing her resolve.

“My father would be annoyed if he found out,” she said. “There isn’t a lot of forgiveness in the Magruder household. When we were growing up, if my brother or I ran amok, my mother warned us about what happened to poor Aunt Stella.”

“And what happened to poor Aunt Stella?”

“She fell in love with the wrong sort of man. It happened before I was born, so I never met her, but she was my father’s sister. After she eloped, her name was stricken from the family Bible and she was disinherited.”

She told Luke what little she knew from family lore, which claimed Stella moved out west with her unsuitable husband. However, Stella’s mother had kept up a secret correspondence with her banished daughter. Marianne only learned of it when she was visiting her grandparents for a week and saw a letter from Stella arrive before her grandmother panicked and hid it away. It had been an ordinary envelope, but it was addressed with purple ink. That purple ink made Marianne’s secret admiration for her daring aunt shoot even higher.

“After my grandmother died, no one kept in touch with Stella. I always wondered what happened to her. I know I shouldn’t, but a part of me admires her. Leaving everything behind couldn’t have been easy, but she was brave. A risk-taker.”

The streetcar rounded the bend into a blighted neighborhood and finally to the grounds of the District of Columbia Jail, built in 1872 and suffering from a bad reputation ever since.

A large, bleak building of red brick sat isolated in a muddy field. During epidemics the field was filled with temporary wooden shanties to house the sick who were too destitute to afford a hospital, but for now it was empty. The entire area seemed like a vast wasteland of despair.

“Here we are,” she said in an artificially bright voice.

“So we are,” Luke said, holding her hand to help her descend from the streetcar. He carried the tripod as they walked through the slushy field still covered with patches of melting snow. There was nothing pleasant about the assignment before her, and despite her earlier bravado, she was glad for his company.

“Why were you so determined to come with me?” she asked him.

“It could be dangerous,” he instantly said.

“All the really dangerous people will be locked up behind bars.”

He looked at her with a hint of amusement. “They might get out. Or say something rude to you. I feel compelled to defend your honor.”

“And yet you poke fun at your older brother for being overprotective,” she answered. “Maybe you take after him.”

He briefly considered the statement. “While it would be a compliment, I’m afraid Gray and I are complete opposites. He’s the good brother, I’m the bad. It’s the roles we were cast in from our first moments on earth.”

She didn’t know anything good about Gray Delacroix and shouldn’t have brought him up. Any discussion of their families was simply too volatile.

Luke held the door for her at the jailhouse entrance. She had no idea what to expect, but the front lobby seemed perfectly normal. There was a sitting area with benches, some potted plants in the corner, and a desk with a male clerk filing some cards. She approached the clerk.

“I’m Marianne Magruder from the Department of the Interior,” she said. “I was told to meet Superintendent Castor to take some photographs.”

“Yes, we’ve been expecting you.” The clerk disappeared into an office.

Superintendent Castor soon emerged, a small, balding man with thick glasses and a dapper suit. He shook her hand with vigor. “For the past ten years we’ve had a growing prisoner population and a shrinking budget. The roof is leaking, and the building is falling into disrepair. I’ve been trying to sound the alarm for years, so maybe some photographs will be more persuasive. This jail is a perfectly horrible place. I would appreciate it if you could document the mold blooms, the leaking roof, and the overcrowded conditions.”

He gestured for her to follow him down a hallway. The first sign she was in a jail was when the superintendent needed to unlock the door leading to a hallway. His keys jangled as he twisted the lock open. She and Luke followed the superintendent, and the door clanged shut behind them.

Echoes of male voices bounced off concrete block walls. The dank air in the hallway smelled of wet metal and unwashed bodies. She covered her nose. She’d been prepared for some ugly sights but foolishly hadn’t braced herself for the smells or noise.

“One moment while I lock the door to the lobby,” Mr. Castor said, turning to secure the door. “This hallway leads to the prisoners on the first floor. The other hall leads to the laundry, the kitchens, and the detention hall, where prisoners are allowed an hour of exercise each day. Follow me, please.”

Marianne followed the small man who moved at a startlingly brisk pace. The concrete hallway was painted pale blue. The superintendent told her it was to imitate the sky, but it still looked bleak and unnatural to her.

“There will be prisoners in here taking a walk,” Mr. Castor told her as he arrived at the door, preparing to unlock it. “You may photograph the prisoners if you wish, but the most important thing to capture is the corrosion running down the east wall. This is where the damage from the leaking roof is the worst.”

She nodded and glanced around for Luke, surprised that he hung several yards back, an unsettled look on his face.

“You go on ahead,” Luke said. “I’ll wait here.”

“Are you okay?” The way he had a hand braced on the wall and was bent over a little made him look sick.

“I’m fine, but I’d rather wait here.”

“I’d prefer you come with us,” the superintendent said. “I can’t have unattended visitors in the building, and I don’t have the staff to escort you.”

Luke nodded and adjusted his coat as he joined them, but he didn’t look happy.

Mr. Castor unlocked the door and waited for them to step inside the cavernous detention hall, where the noise was even worse. Loud and echoey. She jumped a little as the door clanged shut behind her and the bolt shot into place.

These prisoners weren’t behind bars. She was actually locked in with them as they walked in circles around the perimeter of the otherwise empty room. Two guards stood in the corner of the room, and they had both batons and pistols on their belts, so she shouldn’t be frightened. She glanced at Luke for reassurance, but he looked unnerved too.

“You can see the damaged wall I mentioned,” Mr. Castor said, gesturing to the far side of the room. It had a high ceiling, which probably accounted for all the echoey noise. There were no windows on the ground level, but a few near the ceiling let in enough light to take pictures. Barely. The superintendent steered the prisoners to one side of the room so she could have a clear shot of the corrosion.

Everything looked and smelled awful in here. She took shallow breaths while setting up her tripod and screwing the camera into place. She centered the viewfinder on the blooms of white scale and the rust stains trailing down the wall. What a horrible room, and this was where the men came for recreation? Even if she wanted to obey her supervisor’s instructions to make the jail look good, it would be impossible. This place was an abomination.

“I keep painting, but it doesn’t do much good,” the superintendent said. He continued talking about how he wanted a decent security fence so he could let the prisoners outdoors for an hour each day, but the funding never materialized.

She took half a dozen photographs and was about to move the tripod to get a different angle when Luke grabbed her arm.

“Marianne, I’ve got to get out of here.” It was cold, but his face was covered with perspiration. He looked like he was about to throw up.

“Yes, let’s go,” she said immediately.

She picked up the camera and tripod in one swoop. There would be time to take the photographs later, but something was wrong with Luke, and she urged the superintendent to unlock the door quickly.

As soon as they were out, Luke strode into the hallway, sucking in great gulps of air.

“Is there a washroom he can use?” she asked the superintendent.

Luke shook his head. “I just need to get outside into the fresh air. Please hurry,” he urged Superintendent Castor as the older man unlocked the final door to the lobby.

The moment the door was open, Luke bounded through and headed outside. She sent an apologetic look to the superintendent and followed Luke.

He paced in a tight little square on the prison’s front stoop, still breathing heavily. Every time she’d seen Luke before, he had been charming and irreverent, but now he looked nervous and sick.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said on a shaky breath. “I’m not a big fan of jails.”

“Any particular reason?” It was a terribly intrusive question, but he was so agitated, and she desperately wanted to know why.

“Your father didn’t tell you?”

“No, he hasn’t told me anything about you.”

Luke wiped the perspiration from his face and kept pacing—three steps forward, half-pivot, then three steps that way. He did the same pattern several times before speaking.

“I did a stint in jail,” he said. “Most of it was in a Cuban jail, but some of it was the American military prison in Havana. I’m surprised your father didn’t tell you that I was a traitor and a spy for the Cuban rebels.”

It took a while to find her breath, she was so appalled. “Were you?”

He shook his head. “I was spying for the Americans, not the Cubans. The mission took a bad turn, and I ended up in jail, accused of treason.”

He pulled her down to sit beside him on the top step and recounted the whole story. He had been sent down to infiltrate a group of Cuban rebels who were being helped by a traitor inside the American military. Luke pretended to be sympathetic to the rebels in order to learn the identity of the turncoat. When he was imprisoned, he couldn’t confess the truth without endangering the entire mission. He was put in jail alongside a dozen of the Cuban rebels and eventually managed to win their trust and learn the name of the American traitor.

“How long were you in jail?”

“Fifteen months, in a six-by-ten-foot cell. I got out in September. This is the first time I’ve been back in any sort of locked facility, and it caught me off guard. The looks and smells are different, but the clang of the locks slamming shut is the same. It was unsettling. I wasn’t prepared for it.”

His hands shook as he spoke. The fact that he had been willing to accompany her into a jail made him even more impressive in her eyes. It was easy to be fearless when a person was ignorant of the danger, but Luke walked back into his personal nightmare to be at her side.

“Look, can you forget everything you just saw?” he asked. “Having an attack of the vapors over a few jarring noises isn’t something I’m proud of. Pretend it never happened. I’ll be myself again shortly. I’m not a coward.”

“I knew that the moment you stepped onto the ice to save Bandit,” she said. “Why do you keep pushing yourself into reckless things? The ice. The Poison Squad. Now walking back into a jail.”

Luke gazed into the bleak landscape while considering his answer. “I don’t know. I’ve got this churning desire to venture out and conquer. I need to accomplish things. It’s what a man does.”

I need to accomplish things. His words resonated, because she felt the same way. Her hands tightened around her camera, and she glanced back toward the jail. She found it unpleasant but not truly frightening, and she needed to get those photographs.

Luke must have noticed her glance toward the door. “You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll wait for you out here.”

“Are you sure?”

He sent her a semi-scolding look. “Please don’t emasculate me any more than I already have been. Go do your job. I’ll be fine.”

He managed a smile, so she went, but what had just happened lingered the entire time she moved throughout the jail. The superintendent brought her to see the cells, where men were caged like animals and had an exhausted, hopeless look in their eyes. She asked two men permission to take their photographs, and both agreed. Throughout the afternoon she wondered about Luke’s time in jail. Had he looked like these men? Used the same foul facilities and suffered the same sense of helplessness?

Marianne breathed a sigh of relief as she concluded the assignment. Her supervisor wasn’t going to be pleased with these pictures, but there was no way she could sugarcoat what she’d just seen. Not after knowing that Luke had been locked up in a similar situation.

He was in a better frame of mind when she rejoined him to ride the streetcar back into the center of town.

“You’ll still come to photograph my office?” he asked, a hint of unease back in his face. Maybe he feared she would think less of him for his fit of nerves in the jail, when nothing could be further from the truth.

“Of course,” she said lightly, but inside was the growing fear she was stepping into dangerous territory.