The Innocent Read online

  I was their warden.

  I was their keeper, their mother and their father.

  Which is why, for me, the matter of Eduard Vasquez’s escape was such a serious offense. I had signed the release form allowing him to visit a dentist on the outside. As the keeper of Green Haven, I was directly responsible. It was my decision and my decision only. What I mean is, I could have said no. But then, I couldn’t just deny a prisoner his right to proper dental care if that’s what he wanted. That was the rule in New York State. As the keeper, my job was not rehabilitation. My job was to see that society was protected from its prisoners. But get this: It was also my job to see that a man who’d shot a New York City cop at point-blank range maintained a pearly-white smile.

  I was well aware that Vasquez knew his rights. All the sharp inmates did. Fact is, they knew their rights better than did the men and women who incarcerated them. It was simply a matter of the prisoners knowing more about their civil liberties than did the guards who locked them down every night. At Green Haven Prison in the spring of 1997 ignorance ruled, and ignorance was never bliss.

  And when it came to making an executive decision based on an inmate’s civil liberties, there was never any right or wrong. There was only wrong and more wrong. But then, Vasquez had been a good prisoner. That is, he didn’t go around stabbing or raping anybody. And I’d had no reason to believe he would escape. Anyway, I didn’t make the rules in the first place, I only competed with them.

  ***

  The hot sun poured into my office through the old double-hung windows. Even though Wash Pelton, the Commissioner of Corrections, had declared it a general cost-saving rule to leave the air conditioners dormant until June, I turned mine on and breathed in the cool, stale air.

  I turned back to Val, watched her push up the sleeves of her cream-colored cashmere V-neck sweater.

  “Okay, give it to me straight. You think Logan’s statement is legit?”

  Val straightened her legs and spread her arms to catch the cool breeze from the air conditioner. She stood up from the leather chair and stretched her short solid body by reaching for the stars. A habit of hers I never got tired of admiring. “In my opinion,” she said, “Logan is one lying son of a bitch…if you’ll excuse my French.”

  I slid off the desk, stuffed my hands into my pockets. “My thoughts exactly,” I said. I was relying on my gut. I’d never had an escape before. I’d never had any choice but to accept the word of my officers as gospel, no matter what I suspected otherwise. Besides the missing file, I thought, the only thing to go on was Logan’s unmarked face.

  “You notice any marks on Logan’s mug?”

  “For a man who got smacked over the head with a gun,” Val said, stuffing her notepad under her left arm, “he seemed in pretty good shape.”

  “Perfect shape. Other than that small bruise on his forehead.”

  We said nothing for a second or two while the cold air filled the room like the invisible vapors in a gas chamber.

  The phone rang.

  Val took it at my desk. “Superintendent’s office,” she said, looking directly at me with the wide eyes that told me someone I didn’t want to talk to was on the line. “Pelton,” she said cupping her hand over the mouthpiece.

  “Crap,” I whispered. “He wanted two more men cut from the staff by Friday. Two more men when I don’t have enough officers now.” I removed my charcoal suit jacket from off the hanger in the closet, held it by the lapel.

  “What do I tell him?”

  “Tell him I’m not here. Something is definitely not right. I’ve got a missing prisoner, a missing file, and a possibly phony statement. I might even have a quack for a dentist. What I definitely have is a real problem when Pelton gets word I signed the release for Vasquez to walk.”

  “What’ll I tell Pelton about the escape?” Val begged, her palm pressed flat over the mouthpiece. “He’s gonna want something. An explanation at least.”

  I slipped on my jacket, pulling the cuffs to make the shirtsleeves taut. I looked into the small mirror on the back of the closet door, ran my hands through my black hair, pressed my fingers down over my mustache and goatee. “Tell him I had a dentist’s appointment,” I said, looking into my own brown eyes but quickly looking away. “Then try to find Vasquez’s file, even if you have to get it off the microfilm.”

  “I can’t tell him you went to the dentist.”

  “Why not? I have teeth.”

  “He’ll know it’s a lie. You know I hate it when I have to lie for you.”

  “Okay, then tell him the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “That I don’t want to talk with him right now because I don’t feel like firing anyone.”

  Val pressed her lips together, stared me down. She knew she had to lie for me whether she liked it or not. She took a quick breath, composed herself, and took her hand off the mouthpiece. She brought the phone to her face, spoke slowly, barely moving her thick, red lips. “Mr. Marconi just left for the dentist, Mr. Pelton. Is there a message?”

  As I opened the door to the office, she stuck her tongue out at me.

  “You mad at me?” I whispered.

  She raised her middle finger high, as if the tongue hadn’t been enough.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LIKE ALL MAXIMUM SECURITY penitentiaries in New York State, the bowels of Green Haven are gray, dark, and completely devoid of life. The narrow tunnels and corridors that connect the nine cell blocks are lit only with caged light bulbs mounted high on the concrete walls. The concrete-paneled ceiling is flat and featureless, like a bunker. Looking around, you have the distinct, claustrophobic sensation of moving toward a dungeon or torture chamber rather than the “Home-Sweet-Home” of a few thousand inmates. Other than the thick, bright-yellow line that runs along the center of the concrete floor, all is gray, cold, and lifeless.

  Here’s what I used to think, but never spoke up about: gray is not the color of rehabilitation; gray is the color of incarceration, pure and simple. Incarceration was my job, and Green Haven provided the perfect working environment.

  Then there was the odor, the worm smell that coated the interiors like a vapor so thick you tasted it on your lips and tongue as much as you inhaled it, and when you first came to the prison you might have gagged on the foul air. It was an odor that began in the cells, from toilets that could not flush and from the waste-throwers who refused to flush the toilets that could. The smells came from the mess-hall galleys where nutritious meals of yellow potato salad, rice pilaf, beans, chicken patties, and Kool-Aid for twenty-five hundred inmates were being prepped for supper and served on Styrofoam trays with plastic spoons. The smells came from inmates who showered only twice a week, even after spending entire afternoons at the weight-lifting platforms or the basketball courts.

  Coming to the end of the first corridor into A-Block, I walked past the square window embedded inside the steel door that accessed A-Yard. The window was thick and reinforced with heavy gauge chicken wire. There was a crack in the upper right-hand corner of the glass where an inmate had punched it. Outside, the weight-lifting platforms were now empty. So were the basketball and handball courts, while the COs took the late afternoon head count. Even with the bright sun shining down on the flat, hard-packed earth, all was colorless, lifeless.

  All was burning hot.

  Once past A-Block, I crossed through another tunnel that brought me to F- and G-Blocks. The guards at the gate, dressed in their prison grays, perked up when they saw me. The gatekeeper signed me in, asked me what I knew about Vasquez’s escape. “It’s why I’m Johnny-on-the-spot,” I told him. The short, bald-headed man turned away expressionless, like he should have known better than to pry at a time like this. And he should have. I wasn’t one to hold back information from my men, but he knew that nobody’s job in this prison was secure anymore, and I think he sensed the tension in my voice.

  I climbed the wrought-iron stairway to F- and G-Blocks, the blocks designated “New
York City” by inmates and guards alike, with F-Block being the East Side and G-Block the West Side. All around came the sounds of two hundred fifty locked-down prisoners talking, shouting, laughing. “Yo, Warden, I want my lawyer, Warden! Yo, Warden.” These were the voices I heard, voices that rose above the sounds of metal gates crashing into more metal gates, guards screaming out orders, bullhorns blasting over a nonstop rumbling that seemed to emanate from some deformed beast that lived far underneath the thick floor, like a stillbirth suddenly come alive.

  Sound shocking?

  Listen: Prison is not rehabilitation. Prison is incarceration. We admit that now.

  I approached Dan Sloat inside Vasquez’s now empty cell. “You talked to Stormville PD yourself, little brother?”

  During my three-year tenure as warden, I’d gotten used to calling Dan little brother because of our age difference, he being five years younger. Also, he was thinner, happier, better dressed-all those things I might have been if I had tried hard enough, or if I were still young enough to care.

  Dan tugged on the loose-fitting waist of his brown slacks and ran a hand through thick, dirty-blond hair. “Marty Schillinger should be here anytime,” he said.

  Martin Schillinger was a cop I’d gotten to know as well as any man can know an undercover cop. A big, slow-moving, middle-aged man, he rarely tackled much of anything in the small town of Stormville. An escape was a big deal for him and his department.

  Vasquez’s cell was immaculate.

  The bedsheet and blanket were army-barracks tight. Posters of Latino women were Scotch-taped to the walls. One of the posters depicted a woman dressed only in a skimpy G-string and black cowboy boots. She sported a ten-gallon Stetson and straddled the back of a live tiger instead of a horse. Her naked breasts were plump and taut and slick-looking. The index finger of her right hand touched the tip of her tongue. With the other hand she held a chunk of the tiger’s fleshy back like a rein.

  In one corner of the ten-by-twelve-foot cell, opposite the exposed toilet and sink, Vasquez had set up a small shrine with a wooden crucifix and a little plastic statue of the Virgin Mary. A white plastic rosary was wrapped around the Virgin’s shoulders. The objects had been laid out on a fragile white doily that looked out of place in the cell. Behind the Virgin, leaning against the wall, was a reproduction of a painting that showed the agonized face of Christ, His forehead covered with a crown of thorns. Blood trickled down onto His mouth. His eyes were raised to the heavens. His suffering seemed to complement the cell. As for me, I hadn’t been to my Catholic church since Fran had been killed in a hit-and-run accident almost one year ago to the day.

  I hadn’t prayed either.

  Dan looked at me. “What now?”

  “Take the bed apart.”

  A shoe box had been laid out on one side of the small table holding the religious shrine. I opened it and found a shoeshine rag, a bottle of shoe leather cleaner, and some black shoe polish. Contraband technically. But stuff I normally ignored unless the prisoner was difficult to deal with. But even a cop-killer like Vasquez could be a peach of an inmate, so long as he had an agenda. And apparently he had.

  I opened the can of polish, brought it to my nose, sniffed the oddly pleasant odor of ink and alcohol that immediately reminded me of my father shining his black Florsheims on Sunday mornings before mass. Nothing funny about it. Just shoe polish. I closed the lid on the little tin can, dropped it back into the box, picked up the plastic statue of the Virgin Mary and shook it.

  The Virgin Mary was clean.

  I picked up the photograph of Jesus, studied it, back and front. I shook it once and then laid it back down on the table.

  Jesus was clean, too.

  I turned and watched Dan strip down the bunk.

  He found nothing when he pulled the sheet off the mattress. He found nothing when he pulled the pillowcase away from the pillow. But when he pulled the mattress off the metal springboard, a manila envelope slid out.

  “Red flag,” I said.

  Dan picked up the envelope. He bent back the clasps, opened it, and slid out four eight-by-ten photographs. “Not bad,” he smirked. He handed the envelope to me and sat down on the edge of the stainless-steel toilet like it was a chair.

  I looked at the first photo. Blurry but clear enough. A picture of a naked woman’s backside. She knelt on the floor, her face buried between a set of pale legs that belonged to a man sitting on the edge of a bed. Her head was turned to the left just slightly, but enough for me to make out a heart-shaped tattoo on her neck, below the left earlobe. Another photo showed the same tattooed woman riding the man in bed. I still couldn’t see any faces, but I could make out a kind of jagged scar on the man’s neck between his chest and Adam’s apple. It looked almost like a birthmark or a burn. The last picture showed the woman lying on her back, legs spread. This time the man’s face was buried in her crotch.

  Three very bad shots.

  One scar.

  One heart-shaped tattoo.

  If I had to guess, the pictures were stills from a porn flick. No explanations, no faces, no names. Just a heart-shaped tattoo. Maybe just a meaningless pleasure tool for Vasquez. Maybe not.

  I slid the photos back into the envelope, handed the package to Dan. “Hold on to these until I figure out what to do with them.”

  Dan got up from the toilet, the envelope in hand. Just then, Detective Martin Schillinger of the Stormville PD showed up outside the bars of the cell, escorted by one of my COs.

  “Big Marty,” I said.

  “Keeper, Dan,’ he said, pulling out a small notepad from the right-hand pocket of his Burberry trench coat. “Anything good?”

  Schillinger wore a trench coat because he thought it enhanced his image as a crime stopper.

  “Some choice photos,” I said, nodding at the envelope in Dan’s hand. “Kinky stuff. Other than that, nothing.”

  Dan handed the manila envelope to Marty. He took a look inside. “I’ll take these with me,” he said. He seemed to brighten up all of a sudden. “Mind if I take a second look around, Keeper, case there’s something you missed?”

  I looked at Dan’s narrow, clean-shaven face. He made a rolling motion with his brown eyes. “By all means, Detective,” I said. “Dan’ll set you up with anything you need-a copy of Vasquez’s file once we come up with it, photo IDs, the whole kit and caboodle.”

  “Any distinctive marks on Vasquez’s body I should know about, in case he should turn up dead?”

  “If I remember right, he had his serial number tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand,” Dan said, making a fist with his own right hand and holding it to Marty’s face as if to demonstrate.

  “He should also be minus one freshly pulled tooth,” I added. “Dan will help you with the rest.”

  “Serial numbers,” Schillinger mumbled as he wrote in his little notebook. “Pulled tooth.”

  I took a couple of steps to the front of the cramped cell, held on to the bars, the same way Vasquez must have held them ten thousand times before in his eight years as an inmate. I had to wonder what he thought about, how he felt, how he must have run the scenario for springing these walls over and over again until he was too exhausted to think anymore. I imagined him collapsing onto the bunk and maybe falling into a deep sleep. But then all he’d have to wake up to was this cold gray room and these steel bars.

  Vasquez was doing life.

  But he also knew that since the death penalty had been reinstated by the governor, it was only a matter of time until he was executed by a three-stage, mechanically operated lethal injection. He had murdered a cop after all. And everybody knows New York cops take care of their own.

  I felt Marty’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Ask you something, Keeper?”

  “I got a choice, Marty?” Shrugging his meaty hand away.

  He pulled down on the belt of his trench coat to better accommodate his gut.

  “Why’d you let a yo-yo like Vasquez outside the prison?”
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  I felt like the concrete had been pulled out from under me. Nerves maybe. A man had escaped from my prison. I was responsible. Schillinger was reminding me of that. I’d signed the fieldtrip release. I might have had the word “liable” tattooed to my forehead. Just a big letter L branded right between the eyes.

  I took my hands away from the bars.

  “Listen, Marty,” I said, not looking at him, but at Dan, “you know as well as I do that an inmate has his rights, which include proper dental care. I can’t just take away a prisoner’s rights even if he did shoot a cop in the back of the head execution style. Even if that cop had a young wife who was pregnant with their first child. Even if that wife can’t afford her own dentist now.”

  Marty’s cheeks turned red. I wasn’t sure if the sob story had gotten to him or if his pressure was simply up.

  “I’m just asking,” he said.

  “My hands are tied, Marty,” I added. “And you know it.” Which wasn’t exactly the truth. We both knew that if I had thought real hard about it, I could have said no to Vasquez’s dental visits. I might have taken a few lumps from some civil-libertarian lawyer, but there were worse things in life. Now, if I was considered negligent by the commission up in Albany, I could easily face criminal charges, possibly jail time. It was too late to reverse the past. Now I had to figure out a way to clear myself as quickly and as cleanly as possible. Once I did that, I would get my head back together, get back to the business of running a tight prison.

  I took one last look around before I left the cell. It was then, when I looked at the floor, that I found it. Just a crumpled-up envelope. Garbage really. Something that might go unnoticed to Schillinger, but not to me. You see, Vasquez’s cell was immaculate. Too immaculate, too clean to be believable to anyone except an outsider like Schillinger. I took another step inside, picked up the crumpled number-ten-size business envelope. At the same time, Schillinger had his back to me as he studied the Virgin Mary, picking her up and putting her down again. Dan stood beside him, supervising.