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21

In 1988, Rahway State prison officially changed its name to East Jersey State Prison at the request of the residents of Rahway. This request was more than understandable. The residents felt as though being identified by the notorious prison unfairly stigmatized their city and, worse, lowered property values. It probably did. Still, absolutely nobody other than the residents of Rahway called it East Jersey State Prison. It was a little like the state of New Jersey itself. It might be officially known as the Garden State, but come on-who called it that?

Heading up Route 1–9, Broome could see the prison’s huge dome, a sight that never failed to remind him of some great basilica in Italy. The maximum-security prison (by whatever name) kept around two thousand inmates locked up, all male. The prison had housed boxers James Scott and, notably, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter-the man featured in the Bob Dylan song and Denzel Washington movie. The Scared Straight! documentaries, in which juvenile delinquents were purportedly rehabilitated by being berated by Rahway lifers, were also shot here.

After going through the usual security rigmarole, Broome found himself seated across from Ricky Mannion. They say prison shrinks a man. If that were the case here, Broome would hate to have seen Mannion before his arrest. Mannion had to be six-six and weigh over three hundred pounds. He was black with a cleanly shaven head and arms that could double as oak trees.

Broome expected the standard prison machismo, but Mannion was giving him pretty much just the opposite. Mannion’s eyes flooded with tears when he looked at the badge.

“Are you here to help me?” Mannion asked Broome.

“I’m here to ask some questions.”

“But this is about my case, right?”

Mannion wasn’t behind a glass partition-they sat across a table from each other, his arms and feet cuffed-but he still looked like the proverbial kid pushing his nose against the glass.

“It’s about the murder of Ross Gunther,” Broome said.

“What did you find? Please tell me.”

“Mr. Mannion-”

“I was thirty-one when they arrested me. I’m almost fifty now. Can you imagine that? In here all that time for a crime I didn’t commit. And you know I’m innocent, right?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Mannion smiled then. “Think about losing all those years, Detective. Your thirties, your forties, all rotting in this sewer, trying to tell anybody, everybody, that you didn’t do it.”

“Must be tough,” Broome said. Mr. Understatement.

“That’s what I do. Every day. Talk about my innocence. Still. But people stopped listening a long time ago. Nobody believed me then. Not even my own mother. And nobody believes me now. I scream and I protest and I always see that same look on every face. Even if they ain’t rolling their eyes, they’re rolling their eyes, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean. I still don’t see the point.”

Mannion lowered his voice to a whisper. “You’re not rolling your eyes, Detective.”

Broome said nothing.

“For the first time in twenty years, I have someone sitting across from me who knows I’m telling the truth. You can’t hide that from me.”

“Wow.” Broome sat back and frowned. “How many times have you given someone that line of bull?”

But Mannion just smiled at him. “You want to play it that way? Fine. Ask me whatever you want. I’ll tell you the truth.”

Broome dived in. “When you were first questioned by the police, you said that you’d never met Ross Gunther. Was that true?”

“No.”

“So you opened with a lie?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You’re joking, right? I didn’t want to give them a motive.”

“So you told a lie?”

“Yes.”

“You told the police you didn’t know Gunther, even though at least five people saw you attack him at a bar three days before his murder?”

The chains rattled as Mannion shrugged his massive shoulders. “I was young. And stupid. But I didn’t kill him. You have to believe that.”

“Mr. Mannion, this will go faster-and better for you-if you dispense with the protestations of innocence and just answer my questions, okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. Just a reflex, you know?”

“You’ve had a lot of time to think about this crime, right? Let’s say I believe you. How did the victim’s blood get into your house and car?”

“Simple. It was planted.”

“So someone broke into your car?”

“I don’t lock my car in my own driveway.”

“And the house?”

“The blood wasn’t found in the house. It was found by the washing machine in the garage. I left the garage door open. Lots of folks do.”

“Do you have any proof that the blood was planted?”

Mannion smiled again. “I didn’t at trial.”

“But you do now?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell everyone. That I had proof. But they said it was too late. They said it wasn’t enough.”

“What proof, Mr. Mannion?”

“My pants.”

“What about them?”

“The police found Gunther’s blood in my car, right?”

“Yes.”

“And they found a ton of blood on my shirt. I’ve seen the crime scene pics. They showed them at the trial. The killer practically sawed Gunther’s head off. There was a lot of blood.”

“Right, so?”

Mannion spread his hands. “So how come they didn’t find any blood anywhere on my pants?”

Broome considered that for a moment. “Maybe you hid them.”

“So, just so I got this straight, I somehow hid my pants-and underpants and socks and, hell, since it was cold out that night, my parka-but I left my shirt behind for the police to find? Oh, and since it was about thirty degrees out that night, why would I have just been wearing a short-sleeve T-shirt anyway? Why would the blood be on that and not on a coat or a sweater or a sweatshirt?”

Good points. Certainly not enough to overturn a conviction, but for Broome’s purposes, it made a lot of sense. Mannion looked at him now with such hope. Broome, cruel as it might seem, gave him nothing back. “What else?”

Mannion blinked. “What do you mean, what else?”

“That’s all the new proof you have?”

The big man blinked harder. He looked like a little boy about to cry. “I thought you were innocent until proven guilty.”

“But you were already proven guilty.”

“I didn’t do it. I’ll take a lie detector test, whatever.”

“Again let’s say you’re telling the truth. Who would have it in for you like that?”

“What?”

“You’re claiming you were framed, right? So who would want to see you behind bars?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about Stacy Paris?”

“Stacy?” Mannion made a face. “She loved me. She was my girlfriend.”

“And she was stepping out on you with Ross Gunther.”

“So he said.” He folded his arms. “It wasn’t true.”

Broome sighed and started to rise.

“Wait. Okay, it wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like?”

“Me and Stacy. We had an understanding.”

“What kind of understanding?”

“It was that world, you know?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Mannion. Why don’t you tell me?”

Mannion tried to raise his hands, but the shackles stopped him. “We were exclusive in our personal lives. But professionally, well, that was okay, if you know what I mean.”

“Are you saying Stacy Paris was a prostitute and you were her pimp?”

“It wasn’t like that. I cared about her. A lot.”

“But you pimped her out.”

“Not me. It was just, you know, what she did sometimes. To make ends meet. I mean, it was part of what she did.”

“What was the other part?”

“She danced.”

“Danced,” Broome repeated. “Like what, ballet at Lincoln Center?”

Mannion frowned again. “On a pole.”

“Where?”

“Place called Homewreckers.”

Broome remembered the place. The sign out front read: “Homewreckers Strip Joint-This Ain’t No Gentlemen’s Lounge.” They also advertised a “You-Ain’t-Here-for-the-Food Buffet.” The club closed down ten, fifteen years ago. “Did she dance anywhere else?”

“No.”

“How about La Creme?”

“No.”

Dead end. Or not. “It must have pissed you off.”

“What?”

“The way she, uh, made ends meet?”

He shrugged. “It did, it didn’t. Wasn’t like I wasn’t playing the field too.”

“You didn’t have a problem with it?”

“Not really.”

“So Ross Gunther was just one of the ways she, uh, made ends meet.”

“Right. Exactly.”

“And you didn’t care about what she did. You weren’t a jealous boyfriend.”

“You got it.”

Broome spread his hands. “So why did you get into an altercation with him?”

“Because,” Mannion said, “Gunther roughed Stacy up.”

Broome felt his pulse starting to race. He thought about what Cassie said, about Stewart Green abusing her. He thought about what Tawny said, about Carlton Flynn abusing her. And now he had Stacy Paris and Ross Gunther.

A pattern.

Except that Ross Gunther was dead. Of course, Stewart Green and Carlton Flynn could be dead, probably were. And then there were all the other men who’d gone missing. Where the hell had they gone?

“How about you, Mannion? You ever rough her up?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you ever hit Stacy? And if you lie to me even once, I’m gone.”

Mannion looked away, made a face. “Once in a while. No big thing.”

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t.” Another prince, Broome thought. “After your trial, what happened to Stacy Paris?”

“How would I know?” Mannion said. “You think, what, she writes me or something?”

“Is that her real name? Stacy Paris?”

“Doubt it. Why?”

“I need to find her. Do you have any clue at all where she might be?”

“No. She was from Georgia. Not Atlanta. That other city. Begins with an S. More south, she said, but she had the sexiest accent.”

“Savannah?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Okay, thanks for your help.”

Broome started to rise. Mannion looked at him with the eyes of a dog about to be put down in the pound. Broome stopped. This man had been locked up for eighteen years for a crime he probably didn’t commit. True, Mannion had been no saint. He had a fairly long rap sheet, including domestic abuse, and chances were, if he hadn’t been caught up in this mess, he’d probably be in prison on some other charge. Mannion wouldn’t be out doing good, working for the poor or making the world a better place for his fellow man.

“Mr. Mannion?”

Mannion waited.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re innocent. I don’t have enough to prove it yet. I probably don’t have enough yet to get you a new trial. But I’m going to keep working on it, okay?”

Tears ran freely down Mannion’s face. He didn’t try to wipe them away. He didn’t make a sound.

“I’ll be back,” Broome said, heading for the door.

The walk out seemed longer than the walk in, the corridor longer and more narrow. The guard who accompanied him said, “Did he give you a hard time?”

“No, not at all. He was very cooperative.”

At the security checkpoint, Broome collected his keys and cell phone. When he turned the phone back on, the thing started buzzing like crazy. Broome could see that there were at least a dozen phone messages, including one from Erin.

Oh, this couldn’t be good.

He called Erin first. She picked up on the first ring. “Broome?”

“How bad?” he asked.

“Very.”