Page 6 of Love Bank
“I was panning for gold, which we’re still allowed to do here in the great state of California. Sheriff came up and arrested me for stealing. That hunk of gold didn’t have anybody’s name on it, so in my thinkin’ it’s all mine.”
“Boss, he stole the damn nugget on the Welcome to Auburn Hill sign.”
With that extra information, my lips quirked up and there was nothing I could do to stop it. You see a lot of things as a correctional officer, and while most of it is scary and depressing, this one was a breath of fresh air.
I dropped my head to collect my smirk and then looked back at the detainee with a straight face. “You know that rock on the welcome sign isn’t real gold, right?”
He squinted at me like the wheels in his head were finally turning. Slowly.
“You didn’t happen to spray-paint over the town name too, did you?”
Figured I might get him owning up to everything while I was at it. Pretty much every month that damn welcome sign got spray-painted by mystery vandals. They crossed out Auburn Hill and wrote HELL in capital letters. The sheriff had told me just the other day they’d installed cameras and human surveillance, but never caught the guy. Some thought it was the kids at the high school having some fun. Others didn’t even care because they’d all adopted the name Hell for the town anyway. Might as well make it official. Mayor Bennett, on the other hand, was none too pleased with the spray-painting vandal or anyone using the name Hell when referring to his fine town. Guess it’s a hard sell to get businesses to move their enterprises to Hell, California.
The guy shook his head and ran his free hand—the one not currently commandeered by Bobby who used his preoccupation to continue fingerprinting—through his receding hairline.
“Damn. You mean to tell me that ain’t real? Well, shoot. There go my big plans. But I didn’t paint no sign. That thing was already painted when I came by. Didn’t see who did it, but it wasn’t me. You gotta believe me.”
I nodded. “Oh, I do. I’m sure it would have been spelled wrong.”
His eyes scrunched together again and I knew those squeaky wheels wouldn’t be able to figure that one out.
“Finish your fingerprinting and then we’ll see about you getting in front of a judge as soon as possible. But don’t add resisting arrest to your record, huh?”
He shook his head vigorously, making Bobby grunt with the effort of keeping him still enough to get quality fingerprints. “Well, no, sir.”
I nodded, satisfied the situation was under control. I walked out of the booking room and into the hall where one of the senior guards I’d hired from San Jose looked on in amusement. He must have seen the whole thing happen.
“What the hell kind of town is this?” He chuckled and walked with me, hands on his utility belt.
I shook my head. “Not too sure just yet. But I do know one thing. I gotta make an official Wall of Shame in the break room. Keep all our most interesting guests up there for us to remember fondly. Too bad I didn’t get a picture of that little scuffle.”
He snorted. “I got a new idea for a tattoo…”
He peeled off to go down another hallway as I went up the stairs, laughing in earnest now. His receding laughter bounced off the concrete walls. Damn. It had been quite a day and it wasn’t even lunchtime.
Once in my office, I sat down in my chair and spun to the window. From my second-floor office, I had a nice view of Brinestone Way. I could just make out the bustling downtown area with, you guessed it, Main Street going right through the middle. What Auburn Hill lacked in creativity of street names, they’d made up for with their preoccupation with new businesses. The private prison had just opened, but I’d heard the fertility clinic and Cat Society had been open for six months or so. I could see new development sights in different stages of building. According to the mayor, Auburn Hill would be a bustling city within the next few years.
I hoped he was wrong.
I’d had enough of the big city having grown up in the Bay Area my whole life. I took the warden job because it was a promotion, but also because it offered a new rural life for me. I was done sitting in traffic jams for hours just to get home every day. Never knowing my neighbor’s name because we hadn’t actually talked. I wanted a community. A place to grow roots and crack open a beer while I sat on my porch and counted the fireflies. A pretty lady every so often and my life would be set.
Movement out of the corner of my eye halted my thoughts. I leaned forward to see a woman, possibly a nun, sitting in the patio area in back of the fertility clinic. She wasn’t the front desk girl I’d seen first thing this morning as I deposited my sample. That girl would be a beauty one day when she was older. This lady, the one covered from neck to knee and sporting a severe bun, wasn’t what I’d call beautiful. She appeared wound up tighter than an asshole in the group prison showers.
She shooed off a couple seagulls perched on the retaining wall in the very back. Then she sat in one of the two deck chairs and opened a lunch bag like she was back in elementary school with the meal Mommy had prepared for her.
She pulled out a thermos, spooning out what looked to be soup.
“Oh, dear God,” I muttered.
She had a napkin. Same color as her thermos.
I rolled my eyes and spun away from the window before I died of boredom. This town, man. It had all the small-town elements I wanted, but I was still undecided about the citizens. I’d only met a few in the two weeks I’d been here, but damn, I was hoping the night life might spice things up enough to be tolerable.
Back to my inbox, back to getting this prison set up properly for full function.
* * *
I stepped out of the shower, letting the steam billow around me as I ran a towel through my hair and then wrapped it around my waist. My hand swiped through the fog on my mirror enough I could see my reflection. I may be thirty now, a far cry from my fraternity days, but I still had it. Six-pack abs and a chest of steel. The ladies seemed to like my arms, so I’d be sure to wear a shirt tonight that hugged the biceps nice and tight. You know. As a favor to any of the women at the bar tonight. Little eye candy for the locals.
