Free The Monolith Murders by Lorne L. Bentley Page B

into the I-10 west interstate which would shortly take him into the heart of the panhandle.  
    Less than an hour later he pulled up at the guard’s station at the prison. He showed his police ID, and the guard directed him to a large parking area next to the prison. After parking his car, he proceeded to a second guard location in front of a large thick steel door. Displaying his ID again, the guard waved him in. Another guard was seated on the other side of the door. When Fred again showed his identification, the guard directed him to a battleship gray door with a stainless steel plaque positioned at eye level. It was embossed with the word “Warden.”
    As Fred entered, the receptionist looked up from her half completed crossword puzzle. “You must be Lieutenant Harris?”  
    Fred nodded yes; the receptionist said, “Warden Corn is expecting you, go right in.”
    A slim, petite woman with pale pink fingernail polish, who in Fred’s mind was much too attractive to be a warden, issued a welcoming smile as he entered. Fred noticed that her eyes were bloodshot red, and noticeable dark circles had formed under them. He also noticed that one of her fingernails looked as if it had been bitten off. He suspected she had been unsuccessfully trying to deal with the ramifications of Donna’s prison escape.
    Fred introduced himself, and shook her hand lightly. Fred said, “Warden, as I mentioned on the phone I’m interested in background information on Donna Lang. I’m curious as to what she was like during her imprisonment and what ingenious method she used to escape.”
    “Donna was an interesting prisoner; she didn’t cause any trouble; but it was obvious that her attitude had deteriorated over the time that she had been in.”  
    ”In what respect, Warden?”
    “Well she didn’t cause our officers any problems, she was much too smart for that. However, our informants told us she had a deep hatred toward men; actually men in general, but recently she had developed equally bad vibes towards authority in any form.”
    “But she didn’t display that characteristic to your officers?”  
    “No, not overtly, in fact she was busy taking courses in our educational room most of her free time and she rarely communicated with my officers. But whenever she did, her communication took on an almost submissive tone. My officers knew that was artificial; but since she didn’t give them any trouble and was responsive to all their commands, it didn’t matter. To us, a forced cooperation from a prisoner is pragmatically as good as the real thing.”
    “I thought your institution was short on funds, so how can you afford to provide courses to your inmates?”
      “First of all, we have to prepare our prisoners, many who will be released someday, with some type of training which will make them ready to deal with the outside world; otherwise they will return to their criminal ways shortly after their release. Also, we have volunteer instructors from the high schools and local colleges. The cost to our institution is minimal.”
    “But Donna was never to be paroled; those were the terms of her confinement. Why allow her to take any courses at all?”  
    “Because the courses seemed to agree with her; she was highly intelligent and she could easily get bored. The courses stimulated her. In my judgment, bored prisoners are much more dangerous than those we keep busy. It was purely a mutual thing. She was a model prisoner; and while she took those courses she was never combative. And, of course, she did not have to be confined to our most expensive maximum security area as a troublemaker.”
    Corn continued, “Unfortunately for us, if she had been kept in our higher security area she would not have found it so easy to escape.”
    “But she was a killer who seemed without remorse,” Fred argued. “Wouldn’t that element alone justify putting her into a more secure area?”  
    “Lieutenant, all of our women have committed