The Monolith Murders (9 page)

Fred couldn’t believe the size of the vet bill. Maybe we need a Medicaid program for stray dogs, he thought. But knowing Maureen, when I tell her about it I’m sure she will champion the cause, regardless of the expense.

Fred spent a few minutes in his yard playing with Molly and Who Cares and then took them inside. After a lot of sniffing and exploring on both their parts, they reached an armed truce, each settling peacefully down on the living room floor and falling asleep. Who Cares’ aluminum cast made a noisy tapping sound on the bare wood floor whenever he got up to walk around. Maureen will not be happy with that constant noise, he thought. I just hope Who Cares is housebroken, or I’ll be the one who cares.
 

* * *

Fred touched base on the phone with the warden of the Woman’s Corrective Institution. The institution was located in the outskirts of Tallahassee, a four to five hour drive from Sarasota. It was now eight a.m. Fred set the meeting time for 1 p.m., giving him fortunately no time to finish his coffee, but unfortunately also no time to think about having breakfast before he left.

As he started to leave his house, Sue Granton knocked on the front door. Fred had not made up his mind relative to Sue, but Maureen had kindled a rapid and strong friendship with her. As long as Maureen liked her, that was good enough for Fred; and Maureen did have an ability to quickly evaluate people, recognizing their faults as well as their strengths.
 

Fred asked, “How’s your tooth?”

“What tooth?”

“The tooth that’s causing you pain.”

“Oh, yeah. Oh, I took some pain medication and for the moment it’s all right.”

At that moment Maureen walked into the living room. It was obvious to Fred, based on the glow on her face that an enduring friendship had already developed between the two.
 

* * *

Fred hopped in his car and within an hour he was zipping on his way up I-75 north, passing the Tampa I-4 exit which would have taken him in the direction of Disney World and the metropolis of Orlando. In a couple more hours he was approaching Lake City near the southern Georgia border. His stomach was pleading for nourishment and his bladder was about to detonate—he pulled off at a McDonald’s just off the interstate. He ordered a couple of their dollar specials with the addition of a large orange juice. He ate and drank his meal in the car while he drove, something that Maureen continuously cautioned him about. “One of these days you’ll wreck that car trying to eat and drive,” she had told him many times. As was usually the case, he ignored her warning. He had turned west merging into the I-10 west interstate which would shortly take him into the heart of the panhandle.
 

Less than an hour later he pulled up at the guard’s station at the prison. He showed his police ID, and the guard directed him to a large parking area next to the prison. After parking his car, he proceeded to a second guard location in front of a large thick steel door. Displaying his ID again, the guard waved him in. Another guard was seated on the other side of the door. When Fred again showed his identification, the guard directed him to a battleship gray door with a stainless steel plaque positioned at eye level. It was embossed with the word “Warden.”

As Fred entered, the receptionist looked up from her half completed crossword puzzle. “You must be Lieutenant Harris?”
 

Fred nodded yes; the receptionist said, “Warden Corn is expecting you, go right in.”

A slim, petite woman with pale pink fingernail polish, who in Fred’s mind was much too attractive to be a warden, issued a welcoming smile as he entered. Fred noticed that her eyes were bloodshot red, and noticeable dark circles had formed under them. He also noticed that one of her fingernails looked as if it had been bitten off. He suspected she had been unsuccessfully trying to deal with the ramifications of Donna’s prison escape.

Fred introduced himself, and shook her hand lightly. Fred said, “Warden, as I mentioned on the phone I’m interested in background information on Donna Lang. I’m curious as to what she was like during her imprisonment and what ingenious method she used to escape.”

“Donna was an interesting prisoner; she didn’t cause any trouble; but it was obvious that her attitude had deteriorated over the time that she had been in.”
 

”In what respect, Warden?”

“Well she didn’t cause our officers any problems, she was much too smart for that. However, our informants told us she had a deep hatred toward men; actually men in general, but recently she had developed equally bad vibes towards authority in any form.”

“But she didn’t display that characteristic to your officers?”
 

“No, not overtly, in fact she was busy taking courses in our educational room most of her free time and she rarely communicated with my officers. But whenever she did, her communication took on an almost submissive tone. My officers knew that was artificial; but since she didn’t give them any trouble and was responsive to all their commands, it didn’t matter. To us, a forced cooperation from a prisoner is pragmatically as good as the real thing.”

“I thought your institution was short on funds, so how can you afford to provide courses to your inmates?”

 
“First of all, we have to prepare our prisoners, many who will be released someday, with some type of training which will make them ready to deal with the outside world; otherwise they will return to their criminal ways shortly after their release. Also, we have volunteer instructors from the high schools and local colleges. The cost to our institution is minimal.”

“But Donna was never to be paroled; those were the terms of her confinement. Why allow her to take any courses at all?”
 

“Because the courses seemed to agree with her; she was highly intelligent and she could easily get bored. The courses stimulated her. In my judgment, bored prisoners are much more dangerous than those we keep busy. It was purely a mutual thing. She was a model prisoner; and while she took those courses she was never combative. And, of course, she did not have to be confined to our most expensive maximum security area as a troublemaker.”

Corn continued, “Unfortunately for us, if she had been kept in our higher security area she would not have found it so easy to escape.”

“But she was a killer who seemed without remorse,” Fred argued. “Wouldn’t that element alone justify putting her into a more secure area?”
 

“Lieutenant, all of our women have committed major crimes; but we just don’t have the money to provide full security for each and every one of them. This is a state institution and it’s wholly dependent on the generosity of our legislators and governor for state funding. Cutting the prison budget has always been low lying fruit to our state’s politicians, especially now.”
 

Fred nodded.

“With limited resources, we have to be selective as to who we put into our most secure areas, and generally it’s those women who have been violent with either our guards or other prisoners. It’s a zero sum game, because if we increase the security for one, we have to decrease it for another. Donna never made that threshold.”

The warden continued, “Please remember that overall this
is
a secure prison; and if you took a look at our exterior safeguards, you would know that it is virtually impossible for any of our prisoners to break out.”

“But one did,” Fred corrected.

“Yes, of course, you’re correct. I wish I could unring the bell but . . . well, it’s actually worse than what you know. Donna broke out with another person. Her name is, believe it or not, Jane Doe. I suspect Donna was the brains behind the breakout because Jane’s just not that intelligent. Besides, Jane worshiped Donna and would do anything for her.”

“How did they break out?”

“Somehow Donna had gotten hold of a weapon.”
 

“You mean the type fashioned out of soap?” Fred asked.

“The guards thought so, until Donna killed two of our guards to prove that it was real and deadly. She got through our series of steel doors and that was it—she was gone.”

She interrupted her story, remembering she had not been very polite—“I’m sorry, Lieutenant, would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, tea would be much preferred.”

The warden used her multi-buttoned intercom and said, “Nancy, please bring me two cups of tea.”

In not more than a couple of minutes an over-weight, middle aged woman badly in need of a dentist, dressed in a bright pink jumpsuit, entered the office with a steaming cup in each hand.

After she left, Fred asked, “This is a maximum security institution, but that woman seems to have a lot of freedom...?”

“Oh, no worry, she’s a trustee. Even though all of our prisoners have all been convicted of major crimes, at some point in time for many of them, their sentence will be over. Our prisoners only become trustees when they have six months or less remaining in their sentence and have consistently demonstrated good behavior during their term of incarceration. If they unsuccessfully tried to escape during their trustee status, they would face a significant increase in their jail time. With that consideration, very few would want to jeopardize their freedom for a few fewer months in jail. They know the tradeoff wouldn’t be worth it. So, Lieutenant, to answer what you might have been thinking, Donna could never have been a trustee.”

“Tell me about the gun that Donna obtained; where did it come from?”

“We wish we knew. We’re having a hard time answering that. We tried to check all of the visitors that she had over the past three months. But we—ah, we had a problem.”

“And that was?”

“See these red eyes, Lieutenant, that’s what I’ve been wrestling with. All of our prisoner records are put into our main frame computer system; but somehow, the sector that had the visitor information in it has been somehow erased. I had a computer expert here all last night; about an hour before you arrived he told me he couldn’t retrieve the information that we wanted. So I’ve been trying to get whatever information I can out of the guard’s memories that had processed visitors. It’s early yet, but so far I can’t identify who recently visited Donna or Jane. One guard thought he remembered that a man visited Donna about two weeks ago. But he has been unable to provide a good description and he can’t remember his name. He admits he may have confused the visitation with that of another prisoner.

“Another guard recalled that Donna had a female visitor about six months ago. Again he could not provide any type of description of her.”

“What happened after Donna and Jane escaped? Did they have a getaway car?”

“We think so, and in that respect we’re working with the local police. Once a prisoner escapes, the responsibility for that prisoner shifts to the local police who have complete jurisdiction in the area outside the prison. But since we knew about the escape almost immediately, we informed the local police within a short time of what happened. If you noticed the terrain around here, you would realize it would be difficult to get away on foot.”
 

“So if they used a car they must have had an accomplice on the outside. It’s likely that same person also provided the weapon to Donna.”

“That’s what I believe, since no one near here has reported a stolen car.”

“I assume you hit a dead end when you checked into Jane’s visitors as well?”

“Yes, its same problem we had in Donna’s case except Jane did have a boyfriend who, strangely enough, was serving in the male section of the prison much of the same time that Donna and Jane were here.”

“Is he still there?”

“No, his term was up three weeks ago.”

“So was he by any chance a trustee?”

“I believe he was.”
 

“As a trustee, wouldn’t he have more access around the prison than either Donna or Jane? I checked into this institution before I came down this morning; both the men’s and the women’s prisons share much of the same grounds, correct?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, it’s another major savings effort by our state government. Of course, the male prison has a different warden and they have their own set of rules.”

“Is there a common recreation area for both the women and male prisoners?”

“Yes, in a way. The two are in the same general area but there’s a fifteen foot chain link fence separating them with razor sharp wire on its top.”
 

“So it’s possible that Jane’s boyfriend got the weapon from a visitor and then gave it to Jane or Donna through or over that fence?”

“Well, yes, I guess that’s a possibility.”

“It’s just a thought.”

“A good one, Lieutenant, I’ll check it out as best I can.”

“By the way, have the police interviewed Jane’s boyfriend?”
 

“They tried, but he’s no longer at his address. Who knows, he might even be with Donna and Jane.”

“Can you give me a picture of Jane, her boyfriend and a recent picture of Donna? And by the way, do you have a fax that can transmit them to my station? We’ll include that information on our all points.”

“Sure, can do—anything else?”

“Yes, you mentioned that Donna took some classes; do you recall what they were?”