Free Corrosion by Jon Bassoff

know what I’m talkin’ about. Your buddy. Nick McClellan. He was shot dead while he slept. Three bullets. Through a down pillow.
    I was caught off guard, rusty nails jammed in my gut. I kept it together, shook my head. Said: I don’t know a thing about it.
    He was found yesterday evening by his wife. You remember his wife don’t you? Sexy little number? Sometimes a redhead, sometimes not?
    I didn’t kill that man, I said. How could I have? I was locked in here.
    They placed the time of death a full 48 hours before you got into your little philosophical fight. Sometime after midnight the night before last. You weren’t in jail that night. Wanna try again?
    Sure, I said. I was in the Paisano that night. You can ask the owner. She saw me. I didn’t leave my room all night.
    That’s the best you can do?
    It’s the truth.
    We’ve got a witness. Saw you leaving your room early in the morning. Face like yours, kinda hard to miss.
    I didn’t kill that man, I said again.
    No. Sure you didn’t. Let me ask you a question, though. How long you been screwing his wife?
    Fuck you.
    Damn it, Downs. We had a little talk with Lilith. She told us a few things. How you bloodied up Nick after he’d gotten rough with her. How she followed you to the Paisano. How she showed you her gratitude. How she kept coming back.
    Doesn’t mean anything, I said.
    She told us how you fell hard for her. How you started talking crazy. Talking about offing the old man. Talking about life insurance money and a new start in the hills. She didn’t take you seriously. But when she found her husband’s body, she changed her mind a bit.
    Something like rage spread through my body. Not at being accused of murder. Rage at knowing I’d been betrayed. Rage at knowing she’d been unfaithful. Rage at knowing she was just like all the others…
    I rose to my feet and walked to the steel door. I gripped the bars tightly and hung my head. I pictured Lilith’s face and my hands around her throat…
    Over the next hour, Baker asked the same questions, over and over again. Only they were phrased in different ways. He played nice: You were just trying to protect her, he said. You gave him what he deserved. He played mean: Gotta talk, Joseph, or the state will kill you for sure!
    I knew his games. I knew his motivations. I didn’t break. I asked for a lawyer. He pretended not to hear. I was at the precipice of sanity…

 
     
     
    CHAPTER 12
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    He finally ceased the interrogations, allowed me to sleep. Still, it was no good. The world was filled with moaning and laughing and metal doors slamming. Walls and pipes ringing in a secret code. I covered my ears with my hands. I squeezed my eyes tight. A tooth in my mouth was aching, rotting by the minute. I yanked at it with my fingers.
    I thought about Lilith, about the tattoo on her breast. I thought about what I might do to her if I ever got out of this place.
    I must have slept a little bit because I was jarred awake by a guard pounding on my cage with his billy club, shouting out my last name. I opened my eyes. It took a moment for them to adjust. The guard was a big man with a bald white head and a belly bulging over his belt. They all had murderers’ eyes, these guards.
    Rise and shine, he said. The judge is ready for you.
    He entered my cell and snapped on leg irons and handcuffs, then led me out of the cell into the corridor where the caged felons shouted and whistled and shook the bars. And along the way we picked up another half-dozen prisoners, their eyes beady and mean. But nobody gave me any lip, nobody at all, because my face was grotesque and even the devil can be frightened.
    We were led outside and loaded onto a black-and-white bus with the words Huerfano County Prison on the side. There was a guard behind us and a guard in front of us and they both carried rifles and were ready to use them. We sat down in the bus and were told to keep our goddamn mouths shut, and it was