A Garden of Vipers

CHAPTER 8

I arrived at the department at eight the next morning. It was quiet, a couple of dicks on the phones, digging. Most of the gray cubicles were empty. Pace Logan was sitting at his desk and staring into the air. I didn’t see Shuttles and figured he was out doing something Logan didn’t understand, detective work maybe. After grabbing a cup of coffee from the urn and tossing a buck in the kitty for a pair of powdered doughnuts, I headed to the cubicled, double-desk combo forming Harry’s and my office.

I walked into our space, saw Harry on his hands and knees on the floor, looking under his desk.

“That’s right. Crawl, you miserable worm,” I snarled.

He looked up and rolled his eyes.

“There’s a couple photos missing from the murder book. I figured they dropped down here.”

The murder books-binders holding the investigational records of cases-had sections with plastic sleeves to hold crime-scene and relevant photos, trouble being the sleeves didn’t hold very well.

“What’s in the pix?” I asked.

Harry stood, brushed the knees of his lemon-yellow pants, and cast a baleful eye at the wastebasket beside the desk. It wouldn’t be the first time something disappeared over the side, got dumped by the janitorial crew.

“I dunno. I got the file numbers. I’ll call over and get some reprints.”

I looked at the pile of materials on his desk. Harry had been checking records and information removed from Taneesha Franklin’s office, adding potentially useful pieces to the book.

“Finding anything interesting, bro?” I asked.

“Funny you should ask. I was going over Ms. Franklin’s long-distance records. Here’s a couple calls caught my eye.”

He tapped the paper with a thick digit. I looked at the name.

“The state pen at Holman?” I said. “What’s that about?”

“Eight calls in two days. Seven are under a minute. The final one lasts for eleven minutes.”

I nodded. “Like she finally got through to someone.”

Harry jammed the phone under his ear, tapped in the numbers. “I’ll call the warden, see when we can come up and hang out. You want a king or two doubles in your cell?”

The warden was a pro, not a bureaucrat, and said we’d be welcome anytime. We pointed the Crown Vic north. Two hours later, we were checking into prison.

Warden Malone was a big, fiftyish guy with rolled-up white sleeves and a tie adorning his desk instead of his neck. His hair was gray and buzz-cut. Loop a whistle around his neck and he’d have been Hollywood’s idea of a high school football coach. We sat in his spartan office overlooking the main yard.

“I had the visitor logs checked,” Malone said, patting a sheaf of copies. “T. Franklin was here on Wednesday before last, nine a.m. She designated herself as Media, representing WTSJ. Ms. Franklin spent twenty-one minutes with Leland Harwood. It appears to have been her sole visit to the prison.”

“What’s Leland Harwood’s story?” Harry asked.

Malone leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Low-level enforcer type, leg breaker. A couple thefts in his package, assaults. He bought his ticket here last spring, when he shot a guy dead in an alley behind a bar. A fight.”

“The guy he killed was in Mobile?” Harry asked.

“Harwood and some other moke got into a tussle in a Mobile bar. Went outside. Bar patrons heard a shot, found the other guy dead. Come court day, everyone in the bar swore the other guy started the fight. The prosecution let Harwood plea to man two, light time.”

“Maybe that’s how it went down,” Harry said.

“My boy’s an attorney in Daphne,” Malone said. “Prosecutor, naturally. He knows a lot of folks at the Mobile Prosecutor’s Office, including the lady who handled Harwood’s case. She says the patrons weren’t so in tune with Harwood’s story on the night of the action. Only when they hit the stand did they sing his innocence. Note for note, too. Like they’d had some choral training, you know what I mean.”

“Paid performances,” I said.

“Sure sounded like it,” Malone said, tossing the file back on his desk and looking between Harry and me.

“Harwood’s a white guy. Thirty-three years old. Probably establish a better bond with Detective Ryder. I’d suggest the visitor room, not the interrogation facility. He’ll clam in an interrogation room. But Leland’s a talkative sort in a visitor-room environment. Probably yap your ear off.”

“Outside of chatty,” I asked, “what’s Harwood like?”

“An eel,” Malone said. “Or maybe a chameleon.”

“Whatever he needs to be,” Harry said. It was a common trait in the con community.