Free JJ08 - Blood Money by Michael Lister Page B

psych specialists.”
    Inmates have a limited number of ways to exert any control over their lives.
    “Problem with they bunks,” he said, “can’t see shit in that back corner, ’specially at night. Calls it lover’s lane and up-the-back-alley . . . It where some of the mens go to hook up after lights out.”
    “Can you tell me who sleeps near there?”
    He nodded. “I can have them come up here and see you.”
    “Even better. Thanks.”
    The front door of the chapel opened and inmates noisily rushed inside.
    When the inmates didn’t find Mr. Smith at his desk, they came to my door and stared through the narrow pane of glass. Mr. Smith waved them toward the chapel library and told them he’d be with them in a minute.
    “Last night in A-dorm,” I said. “What went on?”
    “ Ten o’clock, lights went out,” he said. “TV in the day room turned off. Weekends and holidays lights still go out at ten, but the TV stay on to about two.”
    “How dark is it after lights out?”
    “Pretty damn dim,” he said. “They gots a few lights with yellow bulbs in them they turn on, but it’s dim —’specially back in lover’s lane. Officers can’t see it from they station.”
    “How quiet is it in A-dorm after lights out?”
    “Very. We got mainly old cons, been around a while, know how to act, don’t be makin’ a bunch of racket like the jitterbugs. He was killed, had to be quiet.”
    “Could’ve drugged him,” I said. “Or put him in a choke hold to put him to sleep—it’s easier than most people think. Or they could’ve acted as if they were helping him stage a fake suicide and told him they would call for security, and then when he passed out they let him die.
    Who was on duty?”
    “Foster and Davis.”
    “They obviously didn’t make rounds,” I said. “Or they’d’ve seen him.”
    He shrugged. “Don’t know what they do after I go to sleep. Usually they make rounds at ten and then a little before eleven. Then the new shift come on at eleven and they make rounds sometime after that. Few times I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t see any officer out on the floor between, say, eleven-fifteen and maybe four-thirty.”
    “You think Jacobs committed suicide?” I asked.
    He shrugged again. “Don’t seem like the type. I don’t know. My gut tellin’ me somethin’ might be wrong.”
    I smiled. “Mine’s telling me the same thing.”
    When Mr. Smith left, I reached for my receiver. With my hand on it, I paused for a moment, took a breath, said a prayer, then lifted it and punched in Susan’s number.
    “Hello.”
    “Susan?”
    “Who?”
    “Susan Jordan,” I said. “Daniels. Susan Daniels.”
    “ Must have the wrong number,” she said.
    I repeated the number.
    “Right number. Wrong person.”
    “You mind if I ask how long you’ve had this number?” I said.
    “Few months,” she said. “Six maybe.”
    Makes sense. That was around the last time I had called her.

Chapter Seventeen
    “I take it this isn’t a social call,” Hahn Ling said.
    We had dated briefly a few months back, so there was a time when a visit to her office was social.
    She was an extremely petite young Asian-American woman of about five feet, with olive skin, shoulder-length straight, silky black hair, and big black eyes. She was one of three psych specialists at the institution, and so pretty she made her parents an argument for interracial relationships even the most strident racist would have to consider.
    She closed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and returned it to the corner of her desk.
    Sitting across from her reminded me just how young she looked. I had no idea how old she really was. She would never tell me her age.
    “You here about the suicide last night?” she asked. I nodded.
    “Well, don’t ask me. I’m clueless about human behavior. Though . . . if you’re gonna commit suicide in prison, that’s the way to do it. They just threaten to commit suicide or act suicidal,