Dead Man Talking

18

I’m not exactly a fan of prison movies, but I’ve seen my share. When I visited Dale Morgan at Northern Ohio Correctional, I saw that those movies were pretty accurate. Just like in the movies, I sat on one side of a glass wall, he sat on the other, and we talked to each other on telephones.

Or more accurately, I talked on the phone, and he sat there pretty much not saying much of anything. Then again, he was too busy looking me over and salivating.

“You do remember Warden Lamar, don’t you?” When I entered the room, I was told not to touch the glass, but I looked over my shoulder to make sure the guard who stood near the door wasn’t watching and took my chances. I tapped on the glass to get Morgan’s attention. “You were at Central State when he was in charge.”

“He was a good man.” It was the most I’d gotten out of him since the gruff, “What’ya want?” he’d shot my way when he walked in.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t allowed to bring my purse into the visitors’ room (and the guards who’d taken it from me and put it in a locker better be handling it with kid gloves since it was a Juicy Couture), but I’d tucked the silver dollar from Lamar’s grave in the pocket of my khakis. I pulled it out so Morgan could see it. “You buried this at the warden’s grave.”

Dale Morgan was an I-don’t-know-how-old chunky, short man with eyes as dull as the gray linoleum at our feet. He had hair that was thin and too long, a tiger tattoo on his left arm, and the kind of desperate, hungry look I imagined most of the men in prison wore like a second skin, as if he were starving for anything even remotely related to the outside world. It was the only reason he’d agreed to see me in the first place, and I knew it. I was shameless enough not to care.

He squinted to get a better look at the silver dollar. “How would you know that about me burying that coin at Lamar’s grave?” he asked me. “I did that ten years ago or more. Between being at Central State and coming here. And what difference does it make, anyhow?”

“It makes a difference to you.” I didn’t know this for a fact, but if nothing else, I was getting good at throwing a line. “You could have taken him a bunch of flowers. You didn’t. You buried this coin because you were part of the warden’s coin group at Central State. And it’s a Morgan silver dollar, after all. That was your way of letting him know who left it there for him. The coin was significant to you, and it is to him, too. Or at least”-I added this before he could ask any questions-“it would be significant to him if he were alive to know about it. I think you did it to thank him for trying to help you turn your life around.”

Morgan’s smile was as lean and as sleek as the rest of him wasn’t. “Doesn’t look like it stuck, does it?”

I couldn’t argue with him there, and agreeing seemed tacky. Instead, I stuck with the plan I’d made in the hour-and-a-half drive from Cleveland. “You can still show him how much you appreciate all he tried to do for you,” I said. “You might still be able to help Warden Lamar.”

Morgan darted a look around the room. It was a Thursday, and there weren’t many visitors around. The closest prisoner to him was three chairs away, and that man was so engrossed with talking to a woman with bad hair, a way-too-tight miniskirt, and a blouse with a plunging neckline, he wasn’t paying any attention to our conversation. Morgan lowered his voice, anyway.

“How?”

For the first time since I walked into the prison, I felt some of the tension inside me uncurl.

I scooted forward in my chair. “I don’t think Warden Lamar killed Vera Blaine,” I said. “And maybe you don’t think so, either. Is that why you buried that coin at his grave? Did you feel you owed him something? If you’d spoken up sooner-”

His look was as fierce as the tiger on his arm. “You trying to pin something on me?”

“No. Not at all.” I tried for a smile, but let’s face it, it’s hard to smile in a place that frisks you when you walk in. “I don’t think you did it. In fact, I’m sure you didn’t. If you did, you never would have left that coin for Lamar. But…”

This was the moment I’d gone to the prison for, and now that it had come, I felt butterflies flutter through my stomach. I reminded myself that all Morgan could do was get mad at me for what I was about to say. In comparison with someone trying to kill me and someone murdering Sammi, it was small potatoes.

“I was hoping that maybe you would know something about the murder,” I told him. “Like maybe who did it.”

Except for his gaze, which darted left and right, he went as still as a statue. “Who told you?”

“Then it’s true? You do know about what happened?”

“Didn’t say it was true. I asked who told you.”

“Nobody.” It was the truth, and somehow, I think he appreciated me admitting it. Or maybe I was just hoping. “But I know you respected the warden, and you’d want to see justice done. I might be able to prove he was innocent. If I could, it would give his widow peace, and it would put a murderer where he belongs. If you know anything-”

I saw him signal for the guard who would take him back to his cell, and yeah, I panicked. I was too close to the truth. Maybe. I’d never know if Morgan wasn’t willing to talk.

“You can’t just walk away,” I blurted out.

He laughed. “You’re right. I can’t walk away. Not from this place. But I’ll tell you what, it sure gets lonely in here. I hardly ever get any visitors, you know what I mean?”

I did. I gulped and nodded. “You want me to come back.”

“Tomorrow.” Morgan stood. “And you could dress a little nicer, you know?” He glanced at the woman who sat nearby. “Like that lady over there,” he said, and he hung up the phone.

Maybe it was just as well, because I was just about to tell him to stick it.

Then again, like I said, I was shameless, and too close to the truth to walk away now.

I wondered if there was a Frederick’s of Hollywood nearby.

I may have been desperate, but I am not completely without pride. I skipped Frederick’s of Hollywood and opted for Kmart. Which, of course, is just as embarrassing in its own special way. When I walked into the prison the next day, my outfit lacked style-not to mention class-but if the head-turning looks I got from the guards meant anything, it did its job.

I had Sammi to thank for teaching me to dress like this.

Short, short red skirt. White tee with a V-neck that plunged way more than anything should on a woman with a 38C chest. It was sleeveless and had one of those crisscross backs that meant it was impossible for me to wear a bra. But then, that was the whole point. Shoes with skinny heels and chunky soles added another couple inches to my height.

I had stopped just short of being the girl-on-the-street-corner. But not by much.

Dale Morgan was not disappointed. When he walked into the visitors’ room, I stayed on my feet long enough for him to look me over. When he picked up the phone on his side of the glass, his smile was oily. “If I ask you to come back tomorrow, what will you wear then? Because I’ll tell you what, honey, I could spend the rest of my time in here just dreaming about what you were going to show up in every day.”

I might have looked like a bimbo, but I didn’t have to act like one. I dropped into the chair on the other side of the glass from his and glared at him in a way that said there was no negotiating room in what I was about to say. “There will be no tomorrow. You’ve got this one chance and this one chance only to look long and hard and enjoy this tacky little outfit that I put together in the tacky little town where I stayed last night. So, you talk now, and if you do, I’ll stick around until visiting hours are over. You clam up or beat around the bush and I’m out of here, right now. Am I clear?”

I was. He didn’t have to tell me. He looked over as much of me as he could see from where he was sitting. “You went out yesterday when you left here and you bought that outfit?”

“Yes.”

“Just for me?”

“I certainly wouldn’t have bought it for myself. Clear reds do not look good on natural redheads, but this was the shortest skirt I could find, so I made the sacrifice. And the shirt is two sizes too small.”

His eyes went dreamy. “The shirt is perfect!”

I pinned him with a look. “Talk.”

Morgan leaned back in his chair. “What do you want to know?”

I didn’t let him see how relieved I was. “You were in Central State at the time Vera Blaine was killed. I want to know what the other prisoners were saying, how they felt about what happened. Did anybody have any theories… you know, about Lamar’s arrest and conviction?”

“Theories?” He laughed like maybe I was a bimbo after all. “Nobody’s got any theories in a place like this. They only got secrets.”

“What’s your secret, Mr. Morgan?”

“Mine?” He grinned. “Word is going to spread through gen pop that you visited me two days in a row, and everybody but everybody’s going to be talking about what a fine-looking woman you are. They’re going to be all over it, wondering how Dale Morgan got a babe as gorgeous as you, speculating about who you are and what we’re saying to each other and when you’re coming back. My secret is that I’m never going to say one thing about why you’re really here. That will make them keep wondering, and that will make me look like a big man, you know?”

“And what was Warden Lamar’s secret?” I asked, and at the same time, I hoped he didn’t know the secret that I hoped only I knew. I wasn’t there to gossip, and it would serve no purpose for anyone to know about Lamar’s affair with Vera.

He pursed his lips. “I don’t think the warden was a secrets sort of man. He was up-front. Regulated, you know. He had high expectations for all of us. And he kept them, even when we were released and came back, again and again. The warden was noble, and I let him down.”

“You don’t mean by just ending up back in here. You knew something about Vera Blaine’s murder.”

He hesitated. “Knowing something he shouldn’t know can get a man killed in a place like this.”

I had no doubt of it. I didn’t press the point.

“If Lamar didn’t have any secrets, then who had secrets about him? Reno Bob Oates? Or Bad Dog Raphael?”

Morgan’s eyes widened. We were the only ones in the visitors’ room that afternoon, but he still took a careful look around before he spoke. “Why those two?”

“Why not? They both hated Lamar. Either one could have-”

“They didn’t both have those kinds of connections, if you know what I mean. A man inside, he needs connections on the outside to make something big like that go down.”

“Something big like a murder and then framing the warden for it?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

I thought about Reno Bob and Bad Dog. “You’re saying Reno Bob didn’t have the chops. He always worked alone. Mack Raphael was the one with the gang connections. You’re saying it had to have been Bad Dog.”

“Didn’t say that. Wouldn’t.” He looked around again. “A man like Bad Dog has friends in lots of places. I know this for a fact, see. I was his cellmate at Central State.”

This was something I didn’t know. I tried not to look too interested. “And you may have heard something. Or overheard something. Is that what you’re saying?”

He shook his head. “I ain’t saying anything of the sort. Like I said, I couldn’t. I value my life too much. Makes me wonder why you aren’t so smart.”

It was a logical assumption. But then, Morgan didn’t know that Helen Lamar had been her husband’s staunchest supporter all these years, and he certainly didn’t know that Lamar had done her wrong and that she deserved something for her misplaced trust in him. He didn’t know that someone was out to get me. He didn’t know about Sammi, either, and I told him about her and about how we’d started out on the opposite sides of a lot of issues (like taste and fashion, not to mention the law), but how Sammi and I had ended up understanding each other. If we had had more time, we might have been friends.

“You can see why I’ve got a sort of personal stake in this,” I said when I was done. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I had the feeling he understood where I was coming from.

He shifted the phone from his left ear to his right. “I may have overheard something once. A certain cellmate of mine bragging that he’d given the warden a taste of his own medicine. He never mentioned details, but he said he had proof of what he’d done. Said that Bad Dog was sitting on the evidence and laughing his ass off.”

“What does that mean?”

Morgan made a face. “Like I know? I’m just telling you what he said, ‘Bad Dog is sitting on the evidence and laughing his ass off.’ Made no sense to me then, makes no sense to me now. Maybe doesn’t even mean anything.”

“But maybe it does, and maybe you were feeling guilty for never reporting what you’d heard to the cops. Is that what you were trying to tell Lamar by burying that coin at his grave?”

“If that was true, you’d be assuming I had a conscience. You think that’s true?”

“I think Warden Lamar wouldn’t have believed in you if it wasn’t.”

“Yeah. Well. Whatever.” He looked away.

I didn’t want to lose him, or the thread of our conversation. I shifted a little in my chair to attract his attention. “So it’s true? Bad Dog Raphael arranged Vera’s murder?”

“Never said that.” Dale Morgan looked at the clock that hung on the wall behind me. “What I will say is what I said before. Bad Dog, he’s got connections. All kinds of people are on his payroll. You should know that so you can be careful.”

His comment made me think about something that had been bugging me since the night of the ruined art show and our bachelor auction. “How about reporters?” I asked. “Does Bad Dog have some of them on his payroll?”

He sucked his teeth. “Couldn’t say. But I wouldn’t be surprised. You thinking about anyone in particular?”

I was, of course. Mike Kowalski. I wasn’t about to say it. If I was wrong, and if Morgan was somehow allied with Bad Dog, I could be getting Kowalski in a whole bunch of trouble he didn’t deserve. If I was right, and if Morgan was a snitch, I could be signing my own death warrant.

“I’m just asking, that’s all. I appreciate all your help.”

“I haven’t helped you.” Morgan sat back, his right arm thrown casually over the back of his chair. “And if you tell anybody I have, I’ll deny it. If you send any cops here to confirm what I’ve said-”

“I won’t. I swear.” I crossed my heart.

And that little movement of my finger across my chest got him back to thinking about what he’d been thinking about since I walked in the room. “Forty-five more minutes until visiting hours are over,” he growled. “Since you’re going to be staying around, how about you hitch that skirt of yours a little higher and-”

I silenced him with a look that was cold enough to shatter the glass between us, and Morgan got the message.

“So,” he grumbled, “what do you want to talk about?”

What Dale Morgan and I talked about for the next forty-five minutes isn’t the least bit important. Neither is the fact that as soon as I got back to my hotel, I changed into the real clothes I’d worn to northern Ohio the day before. My purchased-just-for-the-occasion outfit went in the trash, and I hightailed it back to Cleveland as fast as I could.

I had plenty to do. The last episode of Cemetery Survivor was scheduled to start shooting, and we had to put the finishing touches on our section before the judges made their final sweep. Once that was done, and we handed our money over to the volunteers who would be continuing our work, the winners of the show would be announced.

A couple weeks ago, I cared. A lot. The Monday after I met with Dale Morgan, I drummed my fingers on the table of the McDonald’s where I was sitting. Yes, it was the one across the street from Bad Dog’s Big Car Nation, and no, I didn’t feel guilty sitting there when there was so much to do back at Monroe Street. I’d left Absalom in charge, and besides, I had to figure out what I was going to do next.

It was five minutes later, and I was no closer to a solution, when Absalom and Reggie slid into the booth across from me. Delmar and Crazy Jake were there, too. They sat in the next booth over.

“You were supposed to keep these guys working back at the cemetery,” I told Absalom.

He grinned and grabbed a handful of my fries. He pointed toward me with one of them. “You’re up to something. Except to keep an eye on Bad Dog, why else would you be hanging out here? You got your voodoo doll?”

I did, and to prove it, I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to him, and he nodded, satisfied.

I wished things were that easy. “Keeping an eye on Bad Dog isn’t getting me anywhere,” I grumbled. The food on my tray was cold. That didn’t stop Absalom from polishing off the fries, or Reggie from grabbing the double cheeseburger. Jake had his own chocolate shake, so Delmar took mine. Since the food was all just a decoy to make me look like I belonged there, and I had no intention of eating that many empty calories, anyway, I didn’t mind. “I haven’t seen anything unusual or suspicious.”

“Like you thought you would?” Reggie chuckled. “You don’t think the guy’s actually going to come right out and admit he killed Sammi when he was trying to kill you, do you?”

I hadn’t told them why I was there. In fact, I hadn’t told them where I was going when I left the cemetery at lunchtime.

“She’s not the only one he killed,” I said, sure to keep my voice down. “I think he’s responsible for another murder, too, and for Warden Lamar’s death, since he died of embarrassment his first night in prison.”

Absalom didn’t look surprised. “So what are we going to do about it?”

“Well, for one thing, we can figure out the weird thing Bad Dog told somebody in prison. He said he had proof of who committed that murder twenty-five years ago. He said Bad Dog was sitting on the proof and laughing his ass off. What do you suppose that means?”

Not one of them had an answer.

I drummed my fingers some more, staring at the car lot while I thought about everything Dale Morgan told me. I watched the office and saw a couple people walk back and forth, including Bad Dog himself. I paid attention to the skillful way the salesman, Bud, ambushed a couple strolling by and dragged them around to the side of the lot to show them a car. I glanced up at the mechanical dog atop that pole.

And that’s when it hit me.

“Bad Dog’s sitting on the evidence and laughing his ass off,” I mumbled. Right before I popped out of my seat and headed for the door.

“Hey! What are you doing? Where are you going?” Absalom and the others scrambled to catch up.

“Back to Monroe Street,” I told them. “We’ve got work to do.” I would have gone right on sounding upbeat and confident if another thought hadn’t struck.

I craned my neck and looked up at that smiling, mechanical dog.

It was a long way to the top of that pole.