Page 52 of Go Home
“He did a lot of sketches,” said Kovacs, whose flattened nose, wall-to-wall tattoos, and ham-sized biceps contrasted with a gentle, almost peaceful manner.“They were quite good.Portraits, mainly.Somehow, it got out on the web, and we had every kind of whack job offering us money for them.One person – I can’t tell you his name because you’ll know him – offered six million.”
“What happened to them?”Kate asked, warily.She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see Denton’s artwork.
“Some forensic psychology profiler guy at Penn State got them for zilch.Don’t ask me why.The governor’s big on ‘understanding the criminal mind’ and all that that jazz.”
He made a face, such a comic one that Kate laughed involuntarily.“You’re not so interested yourself, I take it.”
“Three hots and a cot.Stop ‘em from killing themselves or each other.In some cases, so we can kill them ourselves, but let’s not get into that one.”
Kate had a feeling she’d just received all or part of the death row induction speech.And it finished just as they came to a stop by a door.Kovacs reached for one of his many loops of keys.“Ready to go in?”
“All right.”
“Sure?”
“I am,” she said.“Thanks.”
The front face of each cell was made of toughened glass, meaning that the death row prisoners spent their final months effectively living in separate goldfish bowls.A low wall around the toilet afforded each man some rudimentary dignity.
Once the door was open, she found herself hesitating.
“You won’t shut the door, will you?”
She went inside and realized that she was shaking a little.She’d made Denton into something in her mind.A phantom.A distillation of evil.A monster.In reality, he’d slept in a bed, in this little transparent shoebox of a room.Sat on a toilet.Brushed his teeth.Tried to decorate his spartan surroundings with drawings.Done a host of simple, trivial, everyday things that every other person did.She remembered something Gabe had said.He’d interviewed over fifty serial killers and what frightened him the most was not their coldness, not the depths of their depravity nor the savagery of their crimes.It was their mundanity.
They wrote letters to local newspapers.They took the trash out.Preferred vinaigrette to mayonnaise.They were just like everyone else.
She didn’t feel better for having stood in Denton’s pitiful cell.But she could imagine feeling better.She could picture a time when his grip upon her had loosened.She just had to keep it all together.And integral to that would be solving this case.
“You wanted to see who visited him,” said Kovacs, looking at his watch.
They went over to the prison’s admin block, where the doors, gates, and bars were less prevalent.The main office could have been just about any office, anywhere; a half-dozen staff in smart-casual garb sat at desks in swivel chairs, answered calls, shredded paper.A solitary prisoner, white-haired and stooped in an orange jumpsuit, was watering the plants.While Kate’s escort talked to a lady at a desk piled high with buff-colored folders, she took in a row of black and white photographs along the adjacent wall.Kate spotted some familiar faces, touring various parts of the prison – politicians, actors, a couple of sporting legends.
“Is that Willie Nelson?”she asked.
“Could be,” Kovacs said, squinting over.“Governor’s big on rehabilitation.A lot of celebrities like to get involved.Or look as if they’re getting involved.”
She spotted another face she recognized.It startled her.
“When did Professor Whitman visit?”
“Several times last year and this.Interviewing cons for his book.Links between violence and religious fundamentalism.”
“Did he interview Denton?”
“Few times.Him and half a dozen others.”
“Did his visits coincide with when Father Thomas was here?”
Kovacs held up a finger, asking her to wait, and then typed something onto the laptop on the desk.
“Same time period, but never same days.We try to make sure the Spur doesn’t get too busy.It upsets the fellas.” He typed some more.“Father Thomas wasn’t the prison Chaplain.He worked with some kind of national outreach program – counseling men and women on death row.”
“So who’s the Chaplain?”
“Reverend Elijah Cox took on the job – I’d have to look up the date.But I’ll tell you something.When he and Father Tom crossed paths, it was ugly.”
“Ugly?”
