Free Tainted Pictures by Sarah Robinson Page A

heading to room one to see for himself.  Snow took the warden’s arm and followed McCraig, forcing the warden to continue explaining the situation to them.  
               “We don’t know what happened.  We have footage of him coming and going, but his face is turned away from the camera every time.  The front desk clerk saw him and is giving a description to the officer’s in this district who are working the case but there doesn’t seem to be anything that would make him easy to pick out of a lineup.  It was just your average white guy.”  The warden continued as he and the detectives walked into room one.  
               The room was full of Maryland police officers, guards, and crime scene technicians surrounding a large figure on the floor covered in a black plastic sheet.   McCraig had no hesitations and just walked right up and lifted the sheet, looking underneath.  He nodded a few times then turned to look at Snow, holding the sheet up so she could look.  The man on the ground looked like a gray version of the photograph they had in their file of Tracy Glen. There were purple splotches around his neck and his eyes were still open with a startled look to them.  It was haunting and unsettling to Snow but McCraig was unfazed.   
               Snow wrinkled her nose in disgust, she never could get used to seeing a dead body even after this many years on the job.  She looked back at the warden who looked apathetic and was just standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips, his best attempt at making himself look bigger than he actually was.  
               “Strangled?”  Snow asked him.
               “Seems like it.  Like I said, you gotta wait for the report if you want the full story.  All I know is what you know, you know?”  Phil Williams said to her, shrugging.  She felt the same disgust curling up in her stomach again as she thought about punching the warden just to knock the cockiness out of him.  She took a deep breath to calm herself instead, a much less satisfying alternative.
               McCraig shifted his gaze to the warden and looked him up and down slowly.  He was trying to decide if it would be worth it to call this warden out and bring him to his knees, McCraig could smell a dirty cover-up easily and this stunk of lies.  He knew the warden had screwed up big time with letting Glen be killed and was now doing anything he could to cover his ass.  McCraig stood up and walked over to the warden, looking down at him and squaring his stature in front of him.  The size disparity between the two was laughable and Phil attempted to stand up straighter to make himself bigger.
               “Listen up, Peter.”  McCraig started in a low, ominous tone.
               “Uh, it’s Phil.”  The warden popped up a finger in objection and took a step backwards but McCraig stepped forward to close the distance between them again.
               “I don’t give a fuck what your name is.  This is your fuck up.  You will get a report to me on everything there is to know about Tracy Glen.  Within the next day.  Everything there ever was to know about him, you will turn it over.  Do you understand me?”  McCraig said.  The warden just nodded quickly and gulped.  McCraig slid a business card out of his pocket and wedged it into the wardens shirt pocket on his chest.  
               “Alright, Snow, let’s go.” McCraig told her, walking out the door. She quickly followed him, pressing her papers under her arm to hold them.  
               “I want that report on Glen the moment it’s typed up. ON MY DESK.” McCraig shouted back to the warden who just nodded and waved at them, glad to see them go.  He didn’t need other jurisdictions sniffing around this embarrassing breach of security.  
     
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               “I told you we shouldn’t have