Audio:

 

Text:

The interior of the visitor center was painted an uninspired beige with chocolate brown accenting the doors and trim. Earth tones of the most boring kind. The room was wide and rectangular. In the middle sat a circular desk covered in wood laminate, within which sat a female receptionist and armed male guard. Both of them were attending to the boisterous complaints of the only visitor in the building.

Sanders.

“Sir, you know the protocol,” the guard said. “You must schedule your appointment with a prisoner at least two weeks in advance through your local law enforcement liaison. If the prisoner accepts your request, then a time and date will be agreed upon by all parties.”

“I’m not asking the dickwad out on a date,” Sanders said. “And it’s not like his social calendar is full. Kent’s confined to his cell twenty-three hours out of twenty-four. So, stop wasting my time, pick up the phone or chat into your walkie, and make this happen. Lives are at stake. I’m not going to let another girl die over your fucking red tape.”

“Sir,” the guard said. “You’re not even an active police officer.”

“But I am,” Damien said, stepping forward. “Officer Damien Hill, Hayeston Police Department.” He slapped Sanders on the back. “I told you to let me do the talking. You’ve got the charm of a rabid dog.”

Damien flashed his badge, quickly enough for them to see the bling, short enough to ignore Cadet written at its base.

“I know this is outside of your normal protocols,” Damien continued, “but the clock is ticking. We’ve got two dead girls and another one at risk. Mark Kent is either this killer’s mentor or hero. Either way we have to talk to him now. Please don’t make me go home and tell the next victim’s parents that we could have saved her life if we’d filled out your paperwork. I don’t want to make that death notification. Do you?”

The receptionist and guard shared a look.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the guard said. He turned his back to them and his walkie chirped.

Damien pulled Sanders from the desk and out of earshot from the others.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Damien asked. “You can’t bully your way through life.”

“Worked for me so far,” Sanders said.

“Well, the neanderthal period ended a long time ago.

Time for you to join the rest of civilized society.”

“Fuck that. Hugs and lollipops don’t catch killers. But, I do.” Sanders sucked his saliva through his teeth. “What’re you doing here? Decker tell you I needed a babysitter?”

“I’m here for the same reason you are. To stop the next murder.”

Sanders leaned back and eyed Damien.

“Your files,” Damien continued. “You thought Mark had murdered more than Cindy and Daisy. If you’re right, and I believe you are, then the killing isn’t over.”

“Damn. And all this time I thought you were a scrotum sack with a badge.”
Damien sighed.

“Do you talk like this around your son?” Damien asked.

“I am who I am. He knows that.”

“What the hell does he see in you that the rest of us don’t?”

“He’s my boy. He can’t help but love me, warts and all.”

Damien nodded, feeling more sorry for Tobin than he had before.

“Why don’t you try being nicer, especially to him,” Damien said. “It takes the same effort to be kind as it does to be an ass.”

“Yeah, but some things come more easily than others, don’t they?”

“And rarely is the easy choice the right one.”

“Don’t get all self-help-book with me, son. My ship has sailed. Ain’t no turning that barge around. I’m headed where I’m headed. You can either stay for the ride or jump ship, but don’t ask me to fight the wind.”

Sanders’ barren walls and empty house made more sense. The man had a gun turret where a welcome mat should be.

The guard at the desk motioned them over.

“You’ve got friends in high places,” the guard said. “Your special access has been granted. Follow me. Death row is restricted to visitors. The best we can do is a holding cell on the same wing.”

Damien and Sanders followed him out of a side entrance and into a waiting white shuttle van.

“Where are we going?” Damien asked.

“Death row’s not in the main prison,” Sanders said. “It’s back down the road at the Union Correctional Institution.”

“I passed that on the way here. There aren’t any fences around it.”

“No need. The only open space is a courtyard in the center of the building, which they can only access one hour a day, if they’re lucky.

As the shuttle van drove around a small roundabout and back onto State Road sixteen, Damien wondered who had pulled the strings to give them immediate access to Mark Kent. Lang, the city manager was sleeping with the governor’s daughter. Maybe he was the one who pulled the lever.

Less than a mile later, they pulled into the crowded parking lot on either side of the square building.

No visitor center here.

The guard led Sanders and Damien into the main entrance, which led into a small room. The walls were cinderblock painted the same uninspired beige. Four security cameras hung from each corner of the room and another guard sat behind bullet proof glass. After a quick exchange, Damien and Sanders relinquished their firearms and were buzzed in.

Every door was painted the same plain chocolate brown, each with a window, giving the guards visibility to every room or hall they entered. Surprises in a prison never ended in the guards’ favor.

“I’m Officer Nichols,” a thick tree of a man said. “Follow me.” He was dressed in a tan polo shirt with a brown collar and matching pants and his keys clanged as he walked.
Next to him was his silent partner, another officer, short and stocky, like a bowling ball. He didn’t introduce himself nor seemed to care.

Sanders and Damien followed them to another brown metal door with a square window at eye level. Nichols looked up to the security camera, asked for permission to go through the door. He placed his key in the lock, turned it open, then waited for the buzz of the electronic lock to release.

Twenty feet later he repeated the process. Then again through another door. Then another.

The deeper Damien walked into the bowels of death row, the farther away he was from freedom. Each door was another barrier between the prisoners’ six by nine cells and the real world.

By the time they reached the cell block, entering through a door labeled 5R, they may as well have been in the middle of Gitmo in Cuba. The life Damien knew was thirty guards, seven keys and seven doors away.

They paused at one final door. Death Row.

From this holding room, four monitors hung on either side of the door, cameras pointed at each cell, others scan- ning the halls like rotating lawn sprinklers.

Behind each thick cell door lived one murderer after another. A killer of children. A husband who murdered his wife and her lover. An arsonist who watched as twenty people in a low income apartment complex die at the hands of the fire he lit.

On and on, one horrible person after another, guilty of unspeakable acts, claiming innocence without expressing remorse.

Sociopaths. The Cains in a world of Abels, unrepentant, spending their days counting the minutes until a lethal cocktail was injected into their vein. They were the worst of the worst. Vile creatures to be feared.

And one of them was once Damien’s friend.

From the monitor they could see Mark being escorted from his cell, hands and feet cuffed, and he shuffled down the hall holding a thick book in his hands.

“This way,” Nichols said, moving back through the previous door and down a short hall to a waiting area separated by black steel bars and more guards in each corner.

Mark stepped into the room, pausing for a moment at the sight of Sanders and Damien.

Damien fought to meet his stare.

A nudge from the guard pushed him through the doorway.

Mark held his thick hardcover book with a tan cover and red binding. The gold lettering on the spine read Florida Criminal Law.

“You interrupted my reading,” Mark said, tossing his book on a round table next to him.

“You’ve got visitors,” Nichols said.

“I can see that.” Mark tilted his head slightly. “Damien Hill. It’s been a long time.”