Free Blood of the Lamb by Michael Lister Page A

understood but appreciated what he had done.
    As if just making a casual observation, I said, “I saw a lot of people last night I don’t normally see—especially in those type services.”
    “Lotsa men here to see Bunny,” he said. “But a few of the sick pricks were here to see that little girl. Did you see the way that little Chester was hanging around outside your door? Hell, he’s pressing his nose against the glass like it’s the fuckin’ candy store.”
    “Paul Register?”
    “You shoulda seen the bulge in his pants when she was singing on stage,” he said. “He looked like he was goin’ to whip it out any minute and lay hands on it. Hell, if the door wasn’t locked, I’d say he did it. You know how those nasty bastards can’t resist little chicken tenders. Break in there, Chuck and Buck her, then ice her ass so she can’t tell.”
    I could tell he was disappointed that I didn’t react to his callous comments or ask what Chuck and Buck meant, but long before I heard the term on the compound, I’d seen the low-budget independent film it had come from. Even if I hadn’t been familiar with it, I wouldn’t have asked. I wasn’t about to give him the perverse pleasure of saying anything else so crude about Nicole.
    “I ain’t tellin’ you how to do your job—or whatever it is you’re doin’, Chap,” he said, “but you see a little Chester motherfucker dry humpin’ the door a little girl’s on the other side of, and a few minutes later she dead, you start with him.”

C HAPTER 13
     
    Paul Register was the kind of inmate for whom prison was most difficult. He was small, resembling a teenage boy more than a twenty-three year old man, and, like his hands, his voice was soft. His pale skin, curly light blond hair, and weak gray eyes made him look colorless, which is what he might as well have been, for he remained nearly invisible among the colorful inmates at PCI, as nondescript as the pale gray walls of the institution.
    But he preferred it that way. When unable to blend into the nothing gray of uniformity, he stuck out like a small buck in an open field during hunting season, which at PCI was year-round.
    He was easy prey.
    Paul Register was a sex offender, not a vicious rapist of women who demanded jailhouse respect, but a molester of the little boys he so closely resembled.
    “Hey, Chaplain,” he said, the tone of his voice matching his welcoming smile. “What are you doin’ here?”
    “I need to talk to you,” I said.
    I had talked to Paul on several occasions, though never in his cell, but more than talking, I had listened to him; listened for hours as he recounted his abuse and how he became an abuser. Tearfully, with what seemed to be a genuinely contrite heart, he had made his confession—telling the truth and finding what I had hoped was at least a spiritual freedom, but now I wasn’t so sure.
    Suddenly his face clouded over, distress replacing happiness. “Oh, no,” he exclaimed. “Is it my mother? It’s my mother, isn’t it? Oh, God. I thought I’d be ready, but I’m not.”
    “No,” I said. “It’s not your mom. Nothing to do with any of your family. I just wanted to ask you some questions about what happened last night.”
    The relief rose over his face like the sun reappearing after a storm. “Oh, thank God. I’m sorry. It’s just I’m so worried about her, and I know it won’t be long until I get that call to your office.”
    That call , I thought. What would my job be like without that call? And then I realized again as if for the first time: I spend my days dealing with other people’s crises. And I wondered if it was just an elaborate way of avoiding my own.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I get that reaction a lot.”
    “It’s okay,” he said. “I know one day you’ll be calling me up there. I’m obviously not ready. But ready or not, I’m glad you’ll be the one.”
    “Thank you,” I said. “How have you been?”
    “Okay,” he said.